UNIVcR -: T Y OF 
 CAL' . IA 
 
 SAN ^GO
 
 THE KNOCKERS' 
 CLUB 
 
 BY 
 
 NATHANIEL C. FOWLER, JR. 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 SULLY AND KLEINTEICH 
 
 1913
 
 CoPTBIQHT, 1913, BT 
 
 SULLY AND KLEINTEICH 
 All rights reserred
 
 TO 
 
 THE PUDDINGSTONE CLUB 
 OF BOSTON 
 
 this book is affectionately dedicated.
 
 THE KNOCKERS' CLUB
 
 The Knockers' Club 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 IF you haven't much to do, and don't care whether 
 you do or don't, you may have noticed the con 
 spicuous absence of a preface. 
 
 What's the use of it? If there's anything in this 
 book, anything worth reading or skipping, you'll 
 find it, or pass it, without an introduction. 
 
 I don't propose to show my full hand by starting 
 in to describe my goods before you see them. Nor 
 shall I begin with an apologetic foreword. That 
 sort of thing has become conventionally chronic. 
 
 Why not for once have a book without a shame- 
 felt preface to it? 
 
 Queer, isn't it, that so many folks knock the 
 " know " out of what they know by discounting what 
 they have to say before they say it? 
 
 Take them as they run. They begin with a seem 
 ingly bold, solar-plexus word-strike, fairly hurl it at 
 the unprepared victim, then apologize for it, then 
 shoot it off again, then take it back, then brace to 
 it, and let it thrash itself about, forward, backward, 
 
 and sideways, until the amazed and terrified reader 
 
 1
 
 2 THE KNOCKERS' CLUB 
 
 is prostrated. Whereupon the wordy warrior lifts 
 him up with gentle hand, rests his head upon a downy 
 pillow, feeds him with syrup and softness, only to 
 knock him over again when he thinks he's safe, 
 wonderfully intermingling blows and bandages, 
 bruises and arnica. 
 
 If you've got something to say, or haven't, say it 
 at the top of the page, italicize it or capitalize it, 
 and let it stand, propped with the security of as 
 surance. 
 
 Don't build a printed house and knock it down. 
 The reader very willingly assumes that job. 
 
 For the foregoing expressed reasons, and for sev 
 eral more equally good, but not given, this book will 
 be born without a preface, and die without an ap 
 pendix. If I am ashamed of it, or do not know 
 enough to be, why shout it from the book-tops? 
 
 Here's what is, good, bad, or considerably worse ; 
 really worth while, somewhat so, or no good. 
 
 And you don't have to read it.
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 WHY did I write this book? 
 I was uninfected with the bacteria of a 
 literary culture, and was more familiar with the 
 pen that keeps books than with the pen that writes 
 them. 
 
 The indisposition of my prosaic calling was not 
 sufficiently chronic to suggest that I change from 
 the mart of trading to the marketing of manuscripts. 
 
 Then, why did I ascend or descend to the plane 
 of story writing, when I was a business man of dol 
 lars and sense, with a record of reasonable honesty 
 and a reputation acceptable to both bank and trade? 
 
 Environment did it. 
 
 The desire to write came in a night. I didn't seek 
 it or encourage it. 
 
 Free and clear, with a normally balanced mind, 
 and with some sanity about me, I accepted the in 
 vitation of a friend, a scrap-book compiler, to be 
 his guest at the semi-monthly social gathering of 
 tiie Boston Branch of the Anglo-American Society 
 for the Propulsion of Literary Progress. 
 
 I accepted the invitation, and drank the pale, 
 anaemic, faded, pink tea, ball-and-hand soused into 
 cups of the vintage of prehistoric pottery.
 
 4 THE KNOCKERS' CLUB 
 
 I listened to the twilight twitterings of pen-fed 
 writers, whose grindings and rhymings refused to 
 grow unless fertilized with printers' ink and pro 
 tected by covers. 
 
 I was permitted to finger-tip with the authors of 
 this and with the authoresses of that. 
 
 I mingled with the hewers of story and with the 
 drawers of verse. 
 
 I heard the clatter of harvesting, but no sugges 
 tion of hoeing, or digging, or planting reached my 
 optimistic ears. 
 
 The flowers of story and the perfume of verse 
 saturated the air. 
 
 The room was lighted with cloudless sunshine and 
 self-satisfaction awoke with incubator prolificness. 
 
 It was my first visit to the nest of authorship, 
 where were laid the eggs which hatch into hard- 
 shelled books and into soft-shelled magazines. 
 
 Between the draped windows, I met authors 
 covered with Prince Alberts, because their everyday 
 suits were shabby, and hat-wearing authoresses 
 adorned in misfits of fancy. 
 
 I was impressed. 
 
 Around me were men and women, seemingly care 
 free, of good digestion, who appeared to be on ex 
 cellent terms with themselves. 
 
 In the innocence of my ignorance, I said unto my 
 self, " Why can't I, plain, common, unlettered I,
 
 THE KNOCKERS' CLUB 5 
 
 juggle words and toss sentences as well as do those 
 about me, who, and I say it with malice toward none, 
 didn't look, and didn't talk, as though they knew 
 where what they said came from or where it was 
 going to." 
 
 I had been, and was, an everyday sort of a fel 
 low, known principally for the brand of my com 
 pany cigars and for my ability to serve a luncheon 
 or dinner appetizingly satisfactory to the innumer 
 able friends who appreciated gratuitous hospital 
 ity, and who lived up to the twisted policy that it 
 is far better to take what they can get than to 
 give what they can keep. 
 
 I had inherited and developed a sense of business 
 and of proportion, and didn't propose to run the 
 literary gauntlet, with axes to right of me and axes 
 to left of me, and the pit of unacceptance ahead of 
 me. 
 
 I would apply business to literature, and handle 
 the product of my mind as though it were a market 
 able commodity. 
 
 I wouldn't negotiate with publishers, as other au 
 thors do, who cast their manuscripts upon the liter 
 ary sea, where the tide of luck ebbs as often as it 
 flows. 
 
 I wouldn't leave it there, buoyed so that it 
 wouldn't sink, and as fast as it was cast upon the 
 beach of return, gather it up, row it out into the
 
 6 THE KNOCKERS' CLUB 
 
 open water again, throw it overboard, and let the 
 erratic currents, the unreliable wind, and the some 
 what dependable tide steer it at will. 
 
 I wouldn't allow it to call at strange harbors, to 
 clear itself, and to float on and anon, until it 
 reached the port of acceptance. 
 
 I wish to pause to give the reader plenty of time 
 to become impressed with my marvelous manipula 
 tion of watery similes and salty metaphors. At 
 every opportunity I propose to dive into the depths 
 of the ocean and to spread typographical seaweed 
 upon my pages. There's a go, and a roar, and an 
 uncontrollability about the sea that appeals to me, 
 and I shall never cease to encourage the billows to 
 break the news of my story. 
 
 Instead of going to the publisher, I would force 
 him to come to me. 
 
 My experience in handling the commodities of 
 life, assured me that it was good business to let 
 the other fellow take the initiative. 
 
 I would apply the sense of commercialism to the 
 marketing of manuscripts. I would be a salesman 
 of my own work; and, like the good seller, I would, 
 by indirection, bring the buyer to me instead of 
 going to him. 
 
 A while ago I was one of the " and other guests " 
 at a banquet. The toastmaster in introducing me, at 
 my own suggestion, for I never took chances when
 
 THE KNOCKERS' CLUB 7 
 
 I could control the situation, said: "Gentlemen, it 
 gives me pleasure to introduce to you a man of 
 whom it is said that Heaven help him when he ap 
 proaches anybody and Heaven help those who ap 
 proach him." 
 
 I would be the approachee and not the ap- 
 proacher. 
 
 I would create a demand for my goods, that the 
 customer would ask for them and call for them by 
 name. 
 
 I had a social acquaintance with several publish 
 ers, and incidentally had contributed smoking privi 
 leges to those supposedly necessary individuals, who 
 are professionally known as publisher's editors, 
 literary advisors, and diagnosers of the stuff that 
 books are made of. 
 
 With a sensitiveness not born of literature, and 
 by judicious manipulation, I had the extreme grati 
 fication of receiving a call from one of these gentle 
 men, who will not know, until he reads this manu 
 script, that he didn't come of his own volition.
 
 CHAPTER in 
 
 T AM in the presence of the editor of my desired 
 * publisher; but not in his dusty, book-walled 
 sanctum, where the saints and sinners of kiln-dried 
 literature and moldy verse are sleeping peacefully 
 between their yellowing paper sheets amid the stale 
 air of Boston's petrifying exclusiveness. 
 
 He is in my office. I have him where I want him, 
 where I, not he, is master of environment. 
 
 With an assurance, born of practice, he coolly 
 selects a cigar from the bottom of my moistener 
 box, I was never able to get a full box together, 
 strikes one of my matches upon the bottom of my 
 shoe, puts as much of his feet upon the top of my 
 desk as there is room for, smokes in silence; and, 
 after a while, takes another cigar, lights it, and 
 remarks, with that familiarity which throws you 
 off your balance : " Say, Joe, why don't you write 
 a book of alleged humor?" 
 
 "Why 'alleged'?" I ask. 
 
 " Is there any other kind?" he questions. 
 
 I remain silent. 
 
 With a look of condescension, which there is 
 
 no serum strong enough to dissipate, he resumes, 
 
 8
 
 THE KNOCKERS' CLUB 9 
 
 " Joe, the market is short on humor. We're glutted 
 with essays, plotless fiction, studies of what-not and 
 nothing, of the likely-to-be and the impossible, but 
 there isn't sufficient funny stuff to stifle the cry for 
 it." 
 
 I say nothing. 
 
 " Now, what we want is a series of live-wire shocks, 
 something that sputters because it's off its trolley. 
 You're a sort of irresponsible genius, a three- 
 quarter fool. Your mind is sprung, and your skull 
 is leaky. But honestly, Joe, I believe that you can 
 give us the kind of stuff that will sell." 
 
 " But I can't write," I reply, partly because I 
 really have some misgivings, but largely that I may 
 put up a show of modesty. 
 
 " Neither can the rest of 'em," he replies em 
 phatically. " You don't have to say anything. 
 Just collect a bucketful of words that are floating 
 about, stir 'em up, spread 'em out, stick 'em to 
 gether, any way but the right way, and there you 
 are." 
 
 "Is that the prescription for compounding a 
 book?" I query innocently. 
 
 " Not exactly a prescription, for a prescription 
 is likely to be consistent, and consistency of all 
 things must be avoided. Say, Joe," he continues, 
 " why can't you do it ? " 
 
 "But I never did it."
 
 10 THE KNOCKERS 5 CLUB 
 
 " So much the better. Your folly is all the more 
 likely to be original. Because you don't know how 
 to do it, you'll do it. Just hustle round, collect the 
 debris of your mind, and of others who, like you, 
 spill over, especially the sayings that are senseless, 
 and the situations that even a miracle would hesi 
 tate to tackle. Write 'em out, hit or miss. Follow 
 no rule. Copy nobody. Don't think, and maybe 
 you'll make a ten strike." 
 
 All of a sudden he jumps to his feet. 
 
 "Joe!" he shouts, "I have it! Write up the 
 Knockers' Club ! Don't use all of the members, but 
 pick out a fellow here and there, and run 'em to 
 gether, say six in all. The members of that dis 
 organization could get life-jobs in the cabinet of the 
 Commander-in-Chief of Folly, if he needed help. A 
 bigger bunch of self-idolizing idiots cannot be found 
 in the combined asylums of incurables. Each and 
 every member is an expert at something there isn't 
 a market for. They're the crowning, capping 
 climaxes of self-inflation and consummate conceited- 
 ness. You know Caxton? " 
 
 I nod. 
 
 " Well, he went to one of their meetings, wore his 
 waving hair, his soup-absorbing mustache, his sheet- 
 wide necktie, and his egg-etched vest. He took a 
 long, lingering look at the crowd. Silently he with 
 drew, had a clean shave and a hair-cut, took his
 
 THE KNOCKERS' CLUB 11 
 
 clothes to the laundry, slit his necktie into seven 
 pieces, and looked like other men." 
 
 "Why did he do it?" I inquire. 
 
 " I asked him," replies the editor, with a look that 
 would have drawn sympathy from a Back Bay min 
 ister, " and he answered, 'What's the use? ' " 
 
 "As I understand the situation," I say, "you 
 want me to pick out five or six Knockers, dress and 
 clean 'em up, set 'em on edge, attach strings and 
 springs to 'em, and make 'em dance for the amuse 
 ment of the public." 
 
 "No, that isn't just it. I suggest that you use 
 some of the members as the basis for your char 
 acters, and that you take 'em as they are, without 
 attempting to burlesque 'em. In the calm uncon 
 sciousness of their nakedness, they're funny enough. 
 They don't need clothes, paint, or powder. It's an 
 easy job I'm giving you to do. You won't have to 
 create, build, alter, or repair. Just describe and 
 repeat, that's all." 
 
 " But why don't you ask a professional writer to 
 tackle the job. There's Maxwell, for example. 
 He's a sort of perpetual Sapolio, so bright, so bril 
 liant, that folks say he uses a metal-cleaner for 
 polishing his face. Even brass looks like gold if 
 you take care of it." 
 
 " No good," the editor replies decidedly. " Max 
 well shines by brass alone. He has more conceit to
 
 12 THE KNOCKERS' CLUB 
 
 the cubic inch than the mystery-story writer carries 
 to the cubic foot. He would interject into it some 
 of the stuff he calls wit. He'd put his own jumble 
 of words into their mouths. Just because a fool 
 publisher offered to shove his manuscripts into day 
 light, if he'd put up a guarantee against loss, he 
 thinks he's the biggest brilliant on the ring of fame. 
 No Maxwell for me." 
 
 " How would Charlie Parr do?" I suggest. 
 
 " Jumping Jacks ! " he exclaims. " Did you ever 
 hear Charlie try to set off a joke some one had given 
 him? It's painful. Even the joke weeps. He 
 hasn't as much sense of humor as remains in a left 
 over scare-crow waving above a cornless field." 
 
 " There's Newton Cone. He has a reputation." 
 
 "For what, pray?" 
 
 " For manufacturing fun by the quart, pint, or 
 glass, two-thirds foam." 
 
 " I told you, Joe," he replies, " I don't want to be 
 the receptacle for the jokes that have been in can 
 for twenty years. I want a man, not an author." 
 
 "You mean me? " 
 
 " Yes, you ! You have no style of your own, 
 haven't enough originality to be seen under a 
 microscope, but you've a sort of unworked spontane 
 ity that will allow you to show up a thing as it 
 is, and not try to exhibit it as a monstrosity of your 
 brain."
 
 THE KNOCKERS' CLUB 13 
 
 " Thanks ! " I remark. 
 
 " I want something different, and you're differ 
 ent. You've nothing in common with authors. 
 Your academic education is below par, you haven't 
 been school-trained enough to have any prejudice 
 or to be on friendly terms with the traditions. 
 You're just an ordinary chump, nothing distinc 
 tive about you, a plain, mighty plain, man, with 
 sufficient sense to do any kind of a job that you're 
 told to do." 
 
 "Anything more I'm not?" I inquire, with due 
 humility. 
 
 "This is business," he replies. " Business doesn't 
 play favorities, nor lubricate the bearings with the 
 oil of flattery. It speaks the truth when it's talk 
 ing to itself. Come now, will you do it? " 
 
 "What's in it for me?" 
 
 "There you go, always thinking of financial 
 gain! * What's in it for you?' Fame, my boy, 
 fame! Alongside of your superiors you will rest in 
 our catalogue. Do you comprehend what that 
 means? Of course not. But wait! You'll be 
 alphabetically arranged in * Who's It,' alongside of 
 authors with publishers, statesmen with jobs, 
 philanthropists on salary, and other notorious per 
 sonages. Your name will appear all over the coun 
 try. Photographers will snap-shot you, and copy 
 right your pictures, and when you want to give a
 
 14 THE KNOCKERS' CLUB 
 
 reference, you won't have to write it out, but just 
 sign your name, and say, * See page 109 of " Who's 
 It." ' You'll be a man of mark." 
 
 "You mean, a marked man." 
 
 "Don't interrupt, please. I offer you Fame, 
 FAME! Opportunity may not pass through your 
 street again. Better grab it while it's there." 
 
 I grab it. 
 
 The genuine beginning of my story occurs on the 
 next page, under the caption of Chapter IV.
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 HERE were six of us the inner coterie of that 
 * circle of " differents " which composed what is 
 known as the Knockers' Club of Boston, the only 
 organization of its grade and kind of the past, of 
 the present, and probably of the future. 
 
 The Knockers' Club is unique. Outsiders may 
 describe it in a more strenuous way. It is made up 
 of a conglomeration of men with as many minds, each 
 conspicuously known as the farthest removed from 
 his fellows. Yet this very difference of intellects, 
 viewpoints, and characters binds the Knockers to 
 gether with a fraternal cement which makes Masonic 
 affiliation as unadliesive as is the gum on the flap of 
 a twice-used envelope. 
 
 The Knockers' Club has no by-laws, no president, 
 no code of rules, regulations, or principles. It is 
 devoid of policy, and of all those attributes which 
 seem to be necessary for the building up and hold 
 ing together of the framework of organization, save 
 an irresistible, unconquerable, ever-persistent desire 
 to cast a melting pot which would stand the strain 
 of any kind of combustible contents. 
 
 Its members, absolutely no two alike and un- 
 15
 
 16 THE KNOCKERS' CLUB 
 
 dupeciable, represent men who do things, not al 
 ways the right thing, men who can't or won't get out 
 of the lime-light, most of them geared-up cranks, 
 each with a different speed. 
 
 But bless the cranks! If it were not for them, 
 there would be nobody to turn the world around. 
 
 An unwritten, yet always lived-up-to, rule of the 
 Club, its only discipline, if it has any, punishes a 
 member, who, while at Club, treats his fellows with 
 any apparent consideration, or speaks of another 
 with even the suspicion of respect or admiration. 
 Each member is a knocker, each wields a sword with 
 a handle at both ends, which never maims nor 
 wounds him who holds it nor him who is struck at. 
 
 It is obvious that this latitude gives each 
 Knocker the untrammeled right to say what he 
 pleases to his fellows, and to tell the unclothed truth 
 about them, to the fullness of total nudity. 
 
 If anybody gets mad, he knows enough to keep 
 still about it. The knocks are impersonal, though 
 personally directed. 
 
 The Club holds monthly dinners or meetings, with 
 a new presiding officer each time, who never sits at 
 the head table, because there isn't any head table. 
 
 The season winds up with an outing, held at the 
 country residence of some member, away from the 
 criticising world, where, under the trees, are done
 
 THE KNOCKERS 5 CLUB 17 
 
 things and said things which never appear even in 
 the appendix of the catalogue of convention. 
 
 Men with national reputations, tailed with a long 
 line of degrees, vie with each other in getting down 
 to the rock-bottom sub-soil of dissension. Burlesque 
 circuses are held in sawdust rings, with a big banker 
 for ring-master, and a minister and a lawyer for 
 clowns. Representative pedagogues leave their 
 pedagogy at home, and literally gambol on the 
 green. Editors, who never smile elsewhere, here 
 wear a perpetual grin. Sad, serious, and sedate 
 judges slide off of the bench into the soft sand of 
 the playground. 
 
 Such is the Knockers' Club, which gives opportun 
 ity for men of mind to give their heads a vacation, 
 to let down the bars, and to run amuck once a 
 month in the Club dining-room, and once a year in 
 the open fields.
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 WITH the Knockers' Club as a whole I shall 
 not deal. I shall select five of my special fel 
 low members, a club within a club, and add the 
 reader to their membership, that we may for a time 
 travel together the paths of chance. 
 
 It would be discourteous not to introduce you to 
 the other members of the cast, so I will give you 
 a sort of condensed " Who's Who " of each of them. 
 But let me say right here, that none of the minia 
 ture biographies has been revised by its principal. 
 The truth of what I shall say about them is not 
 guaranteed; but, honestly, it may be nearer to it 
 than would be likely to occur if my biographies were 
 their autobiographies. 
 
 Professor Archibald Rollins wouldn't like it if I 
 didn't bill him at the head of the cast. Filled with 
 a full self-appreciation of his wonderful powers of 
 analysis, he sticks his head into the sand of his con 
 ceit, and vigorously wiggles his legs. 
 
 He's a psychological finder of reasons, one of 
 those over-crammed freighters of pedagogical in 
 formation, who refuse to say anything, or to do any 
 thing, or to think anything, until it is card-indexed 
 
 18
 
 THE KNOCKERS' CLUB 19 
 
 in the cells of their spongy brains, and has come un- 
 scorched from out the crucibles in their laborious 
 laboratories. 
 
 Arch demands a reason for even reason itself. He 
 reasons with reason until the reasonableness of rea 
 son becomes unreason. He has no patience with 
 anything which will not bare itself to his analysis. 
 He would turn his back on the sunset, if he were 
 unable to fathom the stream of its lights and shad 
 ows, and trace it to it source. His nerveless 
 glasses see no outside to anything, except as the out 
 side mirrors the inside. The world, both material 
 and immaterial, consists wholly of interiors and 
 sources, created solely to give him opportunity to 
 discover what each initial or subsequent impulse was 
 at its inception, is now, if it still lives, and will 
 be, if it doesn't die. 
 
 Arch would relegate everything without a pedigree 
 to the junk-heap. 
 
 He deals in arrivals and departures, mainly, and 
 has presents in stock only because the money-getting 
 president of his college ordered his associates and 
 assistants to carry the goods which the commerical 
 contributors desired to have on sale in the class 
 rooms, where their notoriety was stamped upon the 
 Chairs they paid for. 
 
 If Arch had green-apple stomach-ache, he 
 wouldn't administer capsicum, or Jamaica ginger, or
 
 20 THE KNOCKERS' CLUB 
 
 bicarbonate of soda, or bismuth, or pepsin. He 
 would attempt to locate the reason for the special 
 wiggle of the particular brain cell which suggested 
 green-apple stomach-ache in preference to any other 
 kind; and when he had found it, he would run it 
 backwards, that he might place his finger upon that 
 pre-stomach-ache, controlling atom of the sub-con 
 scious mind which seems to prefer that peculiar 
 brand of physical pain that refuses to manifest it 
 self except when encouraged into action by the in 
 ternal application of green apples. 
 
 If you laughed at one of his jokes, he would take 
 you and his joke to his laboratory, dissect you and 
 the joke, and discover the reason why that particu 
 lar joke affected you in a particular way at that 
 particular time. He would reason it out that, if he 
 had sprung that joke upon you an hour earlier or 
 later, your reaction would have been just so many 
 grams less or more pronounced. 
 
 Ask him about anything or anybody, from the 
 fellow who discovered ether to the chap who wore 
 the heavy-weight belt, and he'll tell you why the doc 
 tor wasn't a pugilist, and why the prize fighter 
 wasn't a medicine-mixer. Psychology, to him, ex 
 plained why the Sphinx won't talk, and why the suf 
 fragette does. 
 
 He has on tap a psychological solvent or reason
 
 THE KNOCKERS' CLUB 21 
 
 for every mystery, for why this is, and for why that 
 is not. 
 
 One day, when we were rowing, or, rather, I 
 was, for Arch's psychology furnished a reason to 
 him why I should row and why he shouldn't, on a 
 mountain-guarded lake, where the lights and shad 
 ows multiplied the primary colors, and threw a 
 glowing atmosphere over land and water, I casually 
 called his attention to the scene, and naturally used 
 outdoor language in expressing myself. Like a 
 flash he pounced upon me. 
 
 " Joe," he said, in that twice measured voice of 
 his, which drives chips onto both of your shoulders, 
 " you do not present the theme with any degree of 
 scientific correctness. You speak of a * medley of 
 color.' * Medley' is not the word to be used. I 
 see around me a gathering together of the purples, 
 the basic hue which predisposes to assert itself when 
 sky, earth, and water meet in a conglomeration of 
 prismatic intimacy." 
 
 I rocked the boat. 
 
 At another time, while he was parading a freshly 
 dug-up reason for the reasonableness of rationality, 
 I awoke long enough to ask him to give me a defini 
 tion of psychology. 
 
 " Psychology," he said, " is the science or art of 
 locating the locatable in any locality."
 
 22 THE KNOCKERS' CLUB 
 
 " I see," I replied, out of courtesy. " But what's 
 the use of it? " 
 
 Areh lifted his foot to kick me, thought better 
 of his foot, and replied, " Psychology enables even 
 a chump like you to discover why you make an ass 
 of yourself." 
 
 I brayed. 
 
 Arch immediately separated that bray into its 
 component parts, worked it back into the dim past, 
 and actually called its forebears by name.
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 TOM appears next on the program. "Tom" is 
 the only name he has. Whistle " Tom," and he 
 comes to you. The directory prints him as simple 
 " Tom." He signs his checks " Tom." Everybody 
 calls him " Tom." Address him by the other end of 
 his name, and he stares at you. 
 
 By number of years, Tom could have played old- 
 man parts, but the world cast him as its leading 
 juvenile. He looked the original Santa Glaus, a 
 snow-capped mountain, with avalanches of white 
 around the sides, his ears sticking out like red lights 
 of conviviality. 
 
 Tom is an overgrown cabbage of good nature. 
 (You know a cabbage is all heart.) He's a run 
 ning stream of good-will for everybody, notwith 
 standing he's the champion, all-around kicker of the 
 universe. He never agrees with anybody, including 
 himself. 
 
 Tom's too contrary to have his own way. If he 
 happens to decide upon a thing, he immediately whit 
 tles it into a chip, puts it upon his shoulder, and 
 knocks it off. He will argue nothing into something, 
 and reverse the process. And yet he lives on good 
 terms with himself and with everybody else. 
 
 23
 
 34 THE KNOCKERS' CLUB 
 
 Tom's sunflower smile glows through the thin 
 cloud of his anger. You can't get mad at him, for 
 you don't want to; but, rather, have an irrepressi 
 ble desire to stir him up. For Tom is positively 
 beautiful when on the rampage. 
 
 In repose Tom reminds you of a jellyfish, bask 
 ing in the wet sand, motionless, thoughtless, and 
 useless. But when he's kicking, he's the personi 
 fication of cheerfulness, and actually reels with the 
 intoxication of beneficence. 
 
 I have known Tom for thirty years. I first met 
 him on his sixty-fourth birthday, and he celebrated 
 his twenty-first birthday yesterday. 
 
 Tom was the only one of us who had swum the 
 sad sea of sentiment. The rest of us were not only 
 free and clear in the open present, but wore no scars 
 of past disaster. 
 
 I do not mean to say that we were wholly girl- 
 free, for none of us had any sustained prejudice 
 against the sex that folks unfairly call fair, when 
 it averages up to more than fair. 
 
 We have been seen in the company of women. 
 Three times, one of us, well-chaperoned, accom 
 panied a girl to a picnic held under the auspices of 
 the Association for the Propagation of Prismatic 
 Reflections, one of Boston's quadruple gross of or 
 ganizations, which offer excuses for going out. and 
 which have society seats for sale or to let.
 
 THE KNOCKERS' CLUB 25 
 
 Another of us rides every morning on the same 
 train with a girl he can't avoid without being an 
 hour late at his office. Still another of us belongs 
 to a men's club largely attended by women. And 
 another of us actually, premeditatedly, and with full 
 realization of what he is doing, gives his sister an 
 antiseptic kiss every other Sunday. 
 
 But none of us, save Tom, has had any working 
 experience with women. Tom, forty-five years ago, 
 was the skirt-binder of his town. He stood in the 
 center of a ring of girls. 
 
 Who said that there is safety in numbers? Non 
 sense ! Tom, at one and the same time, had on 
 hand the options of sixteen girls of assorted sizes, 
 classes, complexion, disposition, and financial em 
 barrassments. 
 
 Tom has the distinction of being the inventor of 
 the Lovers' Mailing Can. It consists of a syrup- 
 proof receptacle of sufficient loading capacity to 
 carry twenty-four quires of rose-colored and sachet- 
 scented paper through the mails, without danger of 
 leakage. 
 
 Years ago Tom had a dozen of them constantly 
 in transit. He hasn't destroyed them, but keeps 
 them still in a fireproof vault, directly under a net 
 of sprinkling pipes, in fear of spontaneous combus 
 tion. 
 
 But Tom is cured. To-day he is a confirmed
 
 26 THE KNOCKERS' CLUB 
 
 bachelor; and yet, dare I say it? he may not be 
 so securely man-locked that sometime some woman 
 may not be able to pick him. 
 
 At this stage of the very pleasant game of play 
 ing the men I live with, I am undecided as to whether 
 or not I will close my narrative with the plunging 
 of Tom into the rock-filled torrent of love, and sub 
 ject him to matrimonial punishment. Tom is a 
 pliable chap, and would generously sail up and down 
 the stream of sentiment, as a favor to me; but it 
 may be wiser to let him remain where he is, and as 
 he is, than to take chances with what might happen 
 if I put even a silken halter around his neck, and 
 drew in the slack. 
 
 I love Tom, and Tom loves me. Everybody loves 
 Tom, and Tom loves everybody. When he kicks off 
 his mortal legs, there will not be a church, nor a 
 hall, big enough to hold half the people, who, for 
 the first time, will see Tom in repose.
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 ALLOW me the signal honor of introducing to 
 you Walter Watson, editor-in-chief of the 
 "Boston Morning and Evening Talkophone," a 
 paper of much past and of considerable present. 
 
 The World couldn't help knowing Walt, or see 
 ing him either. He's between six and seven feet in 
 the perpendicular, with a corresponding circumfer 
 ence, and a great depth of diameter. His head is 
 long, and as thick as it is long. His shoes are 
 made on contract at the Fore River Ship Yards. 
 His face resembles a full moon, caused by the full 
 ness of his good nature. 
 
 He walks with an artificial dignity, which he must 
 wear or lose his job; for dignity, real or assumed, is 
 a Boston journalistic commodity, and he who is un 
 clothed with it is unfit to appear in the allied society 
 of book-writing litterateurs, who would be nothing, 
 if not particular to adjust themselves to the code of 
 behavior which owes its stiffness to the straight- 
 laced stays of confined refinement. 
 
 Walt is one of the few newspaper men who know 
 more than how to write. Back of his flying pen is 
 
 knowledge enough, and experience enough, and abil- 
 
 27
 
 28 THE KNOCKERS' CLUB 
 
 ity enough, to outweigh a gross of college-ground 
 journalists, who write the words that soar, while 
 their readers snore, and which are too light to tip 
 a hair-trigged scale, and too fireless to burn a hole 
 in phosphorescent lint. 
 
 In heart and mind, he is as simple as a man who is 
 big enough to be simple. He is a wonder at word- 
 fitting. Give him the least to write about, and he 
 will make a page of it. All good stuff, too, for he 
 can fit something into nothing, and make much out 
 of little. 
 
 I've seen Walt build a city out of a cord of wood, 
 and burn up a whole town with a broken match and 
 nothing to strike it on. 
 
 Walt has the sweetest, simplest style. Words 
 fairly pour off his fountain pen. (Walt uses a type 
 writer, but why substitute for the hand-felt pen the 
 hand-hit keyboard, which has a spring for a heart, 
 just for the sake of writing the truth?) 
 
 Walt's versatility allows him to jump from dinner 
 talk into convention, to elect his man before a roll 
 call. He can clip for the " Only Woman's Page," 
 as easily as he can dip into the prehistoric, and he 
 can typographically prove that what seems to be is 
 not, because it never was in the first place. 
 
 Walt has ascended to the mastery of every depart 
 ment of newspaperdom, one round at a time, get 
 ting there by the slow and never back-stepping
 
 THE KNOCKERS' CLUB 29 
 
 walk of that experience which has no patience with 
 the man who jumps and spurts and falls exhausted 
 on the road. 
 
 Modest as Walt is, retiring as he tries to be, he 
 has one superlative boast, one thing above all his 
 other accomplishments which he hangs a red light 
 upon, that all the world may honor him for the great 
 thing he has not done, and for the tremendous 
 sacrifice he has made: Walt stands on the pillar of 
 undying and unreachable journalistic fame as the 
 only newspaper man, the only wielder of a pen, who 
 never wrote a rhyme and called it poetry.
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 , there is Professor Benjamin Knowlton, 
 manipulator of mechanics, direct descendant of 
 a fatherhood of screws, belts, cogs, and Wheels 
 of everything that turns around. 
 
 But the Professor is a scientist, not an engineer, 
 one of those fellows who pour their lubricating oil 
 on paper and wonder at the hot boxes. 
 
 Give the Professor a table of speeds and slow 
 downs, and he will run a locomotive off of the track. 
 In his laboratory he has built shafts which will not 
 move outside of a vacuum, and cranks that dead- 
 center at the half-turn. His wonderful discoveries 
 march on paper, and few of them do more than 
 mark time on the road. 
 
 The Professor is long on theory, and short on 
 practice; great in thought, and little in action. 
 
 Because the Professor knows so much, and ac 
 complishes so little, he holds the chair of applied 
 mechanics in one of our largest vocational shops, 
 under the protective guidance of a coterie of egoistic 
 educators, men who excavate curious curriculums 
 from out of the depths of ancient earth, that they 
 may raise the yeasty youngster of to-day with the 
 
 left-over leaven of yesterday. 
 
 20
 
 THE KNOCKERS' CLUB 31 
 
 Nevertheless, Professor Knowlton's great lumber 
 ing load of theory isn't without a use. He's not a 
 failure. What he doesn't know how to use, he gen 
 erously gives to others, and many a holder of a 
 throttle saves oil and fuel because of what the Pro 
 fessor has told him. 
 
 The real man, all-man, super-man of the crowd, 
 however, is Donald Bennett, thin of scholastic edu 
 cation, but thick with sense. He isn't a professor 
 of anything and not a degree tags his name. He 
 never received a wireless from the world of applied 
 or unapplied science. He doesn't even know that 
 Latin is the vernacular of Boston boarding-house 
 keepers, and he hasn't discovered why the classic 
 management of the Boston Elevated road requires 
 its conductors to belch forth the call that " Pas 
 sengers must leave by the nearer" and not by the 
 nearest, " door." 
 
 Don has heard of Tyndale, Voltaire, Galileo, and 
 others of their strain, but can't tell you what nine 
 they pitched for. He never inhabited a university 
 of misapplied football. He can't distinguished a 
 frater from a flatter. He knows that Milton wrote 
 rhymes, but isn't sure whether Browning was a 
 poet or a polluter of English. He is the only Bos- 
 tonian extant who hasn't a desire to straddle the 
 fourth dimension. 
 
 Don is a plain, simple business man, a worker
 
 83 THE KNOCKERS' CLUB 
 
 not a shirker, a member of that grand army of labor 
 ers in the ever-growing field of industry, a constant 
 and persistent harvester of the seeds of science, who 
 plants them, waters them, grows them, and sells 
 them, without a thought of their origin. 
 
 Yet Don is a man of education, of practical learn 
 ing. The little he knows of books, he knows how to 
 use. He is a brilliant conversationalist, witty, and 
 has the keenest sense of humor. But his pre-eminent 
 characteristic is his abundance of solid, pressed- 
 down common sense, the kind that is never out of 
 work. 
 
 I'm number six, the poor, deluded chap on the 
 job of recording the sayings and doings of this 
 bunch of good fellows, each in his own boat, but all 
 sailing on the same sea; each guiding his own craft, 
 but never failing to get together at night, to tie up 
 at a common anchorage, and there exchange calls 
 and rations, while the gentle water rocks them in 
 its cradle of fraternal restfulness.
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 WE were seated at the Round Table at our 
 common club. I was the unelected chairman 
 of the group. I carried an axe instead of a mace. 
 
 " Boys," I said, " let's pool our available funds, 
 take a grip apiece, get together, and together do 
 time at simple summering. We'll have no program. 
 We'll start for nowhere, and when wet get there, we'.U 
 go somewhere else." 
 
 " Those in favor of Bennett for treasurer will say 
 'Aye,' " said Don. 
 
 " No ! " yelled the crowd. 
 
 " The Ayes have it," declared Don, in that per 
 emptory tone of voice which welcomes no opposition. 
 
 "I move, Mr. Chairman," said the Professor, 
 "that the rest of us act as managers-in-chief." 
 
 " Those opposed say * Yes,' " I called, with the 
 dignity of a presiding officer. 
 
 " No ! " was the unanimous vote. 
 
 " Carried," I announced. 
 
 " I move that Walt dictate a program," said Don. 
 
 Walt never wrote, he dictated. He furnished the 
 nouns, and his nerve-strained stenographer filled in 
 the other parts of speech. 
 
 " Not much! " ejaculated Tom. " We're to go as 
 33
 
 34 THE KNOCKERS' CLUB 
 
 we please. No plan, no expectations, no disappoint 
 ments, just start and go." 
 
 "That's all right," Don interrupted, "after 
 we're under way. But if we start for nowhere and 
 get there, we'll still be at nowhere. I agree to a go- 
 as-you-please itinerary, but whether you will or not, 
 somebody must pick out a place to begin to get at." 
 
 "Well, let's go somewhere," conceded Tom. 
 
 "What railroad is it on?" queried Arch seri 
 ously. 
 
 " How do you get there? " asked Walt. 
 
 " Is there anything to eat there ? " interrupted 
 Don. 
 
 "Always thinking of your stomach!" interjected 
 Tom. "Why can't you locate your senses above 
 your belt once in a while?" 
 
 "And be different from the rest of you?" asked 
 Don quietly. 
 
 " Say, boys," broke in Tom, " I'll tell you how to 
 fix it. Send the waiter for the railroad guide, and 
 we'll cut for it." 
 
 " Great ! " exclaimed Walt. 
 
 " Nonsense ! " ej aculated Arch. " There's no 
 psychology to hit or miss. What we're about to do 
 is a serious matter, and all matter must be weighed 
 and analyzed, that we may know how to take it and 
 use it, and safeguard ourselves against telescoping 
 with it."
 
 THE KNOCKERS' CLUB 35 
 
 "Pshaw!" said Walt. "We don't want reason. 
 If we had it, we wouldn't know what to do with it. 
 I'm sick of plans and premeditation. I don't pro 
 pose to abide by schedules or time tables." 
 
 "You'll get left," interjected Don. 
 
 " 'Spose we do?" replied Walt. "As we haven't 
 anything to do, we can have lots of fun doing 
 nothing, and the most restful place in all the world 
 is the depot waiting-room. Your idea of cutting 
 for it," he continued, turning to Tom, " hits me, 
 for then we can feel that we are led, not leading, 
 and the led doesn't need to have any mind, sense, 
 reason, discrimination, or discretion." 
 
 " Walt," remarked Arch, with apparent sincerity, 
 " you have less sense than a heartless eel. If you 
 had a cold in your head, I'd prescribe a vacuum 
 cleaner for its cure." 
 
 " After you, Arch," retorted Walt. " The cleaner 
 wouldn't have to work overtime attending to your 
 needs." 
 
 Arch didn't reply. As there is no psychology to 
 a vacuum cleaner, it was beyond him, and he had 
 nothing to say. 
 
 The waiter brought in one of those stuck-to- 
 gether sheets of unguaranteed departures and ar 
 rivals, which are as mysterious to the fellow who 
 threw them together as to the unfortunate chap who 
 fools himself in believing that they were intended to
 
 36 THE KNOCKERS' CLUB 
 
 aid one in ascertaining when to start, how to get 
 there, and at what approximate time he is likely to 
 arrive at his destination. 
 
 Tom ran a table knife into it. 
 
 "We'll take the left-hand page," he said. He 
 opened the book. 
 
 " Promiston wins," he announced. " The boat 
 leaves at nine o'clock to-morrow morning." 
 
 There was no help for it. The knife of fate had 
 carved out our destination.
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 met at the wharf some minutes ahead of 
 time, all except Arch. He reached it just as 
 the gang-plank had been pulled in, made a leap, 
 struck the deck hands down, picked himself up, 
 glared at the grinning passengers, looked at his 
 watch, and turned with scorn upon the purser, ex 
 claiming, " You started ahead of schedule, sir ! " 
 
 "You're mistaken, my friend," replied the gilt- 
 bespangled official politely. " We pulled out five 
 minutes late." 
 
 " I do not retract," snarled Arch. " Look at my 
 watch, sir. It lacks five minutes of nine o'clock. I 
 had five minutes' leeway. What have you to say 
 about that, sir ? " 
 
 The officer glanced at Arch's watch. " I beg your 
 pardon, sir," he said softly, but decidedly, "but 
 may I not call your attention to the fact that your 
 watch went to sleep last evening, sir? It has 
 stopped, sir." 
 
 Arch was face to face with the time and truth. 
 
 " I apologize," he stammered, as he offered his 
 hand to the purser. 
 
 *' That's all right, my dear sir," replied that of- 
 37
 
 38 THE KNOCKERS* CLUB 
 
 ficial. " I'm used to it. You're the twelfth man to 
 day with a run-down timepiece." 
 
 Arch detached himself from us for a while. He 
 went below, leased a stateroom, took off his coat, 
 stretched out upon the lower berth, placed a stetho 
 scope on his shell-like skull, and for an hour at 
 tempted to locate the particular brain throb that 
 was responsible for forgetfulness, not general ab 
 sent-mindedness, but that special brand of brain 
 paralysis that manifests itself by producing that 
 preoccupation of cerebral activity which prevents 
 the fifteenth nerve from carrying the watch-winding 
 impulse from the time-controlling cell to the hand 
 which makes time move by keeping a timepiece go 
 ing. 
 
 Having discovered it, Arch tied a string around 
 it, lighted a pipe, which was stronger than the 
 bravest tobacco, and joined his fellows. 
 
 Don, with his power of corralling opportunity and 
 making it offer him a seat, had buttonholed the 
 captain. He gave him an appreciative salute. He 
 uttered a few words, so carefully guarded that the 
 blue-coated official didn't discover that Don's knowl 
 edge of things marine was limited to ferry voyages, 
 and really felt that he may have been a retired co- 
 plower of excursion water. A real salter has an ex 
 aggerated respect for the fellow who has sense 
 enough to turn from salt water to watered stocks,
 
 THE KNOCKERS' CLUB 39 
 
 and any ex-sailor, who has hit the land sucessfully, 
 is a hero in the eyes of the seafaring chaps, who 
 would rather, many times over, brave the fighting 
 elements offshore than take their chances with an 
 inland breeze. 
 
 In five minutes he and Don were chums. Don in 
 troduced us. The captain invited us into his cabin, 
 which looked like the reception room of one of these 
 suburban flats, so constructed that one couldn't 
 squeeze into it, nor get out of it, unless he was 
 girdled with shoe horns smirched with vaseline. 
 Sardinelike we stored ourselves within. 
 
 The captain appeared to be one of the brightest 
 ornaments in that great galaxy of water-polished 
 stars, which would have shone on land, if somebody 
 had, at their formative age, placed them in a solid 
 setting. He wasn't a product of a marine school 
 upon paper. He had learned to steer by steering, 
 not by pricking out a course for a paper ship upon 
 a paper chart. He was before the mast before he 
 stood aft of it. He had kept many a wind-jammer 
 afloat before he was introduced to a craft big enough 
 to have a pilot house. He had sailed before and 
 after the wind and storm. He knew the eccentrici 
 ties of water and wave, and had won many a battle 
 against the elements when they were lashing the 
 vessel he commanded. 
 
 A manly man was this captain, unless appearances
 
 40 THE KNOCKERS' CLUB 
 
 were contradictory, a representative of that kind of 
 courage and heroic hardiness which sometimes may 
 be permitted to compete successfully with the money- 
 making land lubbers who walk dry-shod upon 
 financial shores. 
 
 Here was a man trained to conquer Nature in all 
 her moods, a commander of a little sailing world, 
 floating 'twixt sea and sky; and yet his financial 
 competence was exceeded by the pay drawn by a mil 
 lion players upon the roulette of business. Why? 
 Because convention's inspector of weights and meas 
 ures isn't onto his job. 
 
 But enough of this sort of thing. The publisher's 
 editor looms large over my horizon, and I see his 
 financial finger pointing to the literary policy that 
 pays. 
 
 Sometime I'm going to write a book to please the 
 writer of it. I'm going to dip my pen in the foun 
 tain of my own brain, and let it trace out upon paper 
 what's in me, without a single reservation, if if I 
 ever get money enough together to be my own pub- 
 fisher's editor and publisher in one. 
 
 " Come into the pilot house, gentlemen," said the 
 Captain. " We're in sight of the monument, and 
 you'll get a good off-shore view of it as we near the 
 land." 
 
 We followed him, all but Arch. During the 
 animated conversation, both fresh and salt, but
 
 THE KNOCKERS' CLUB 41 
 
 mostly brackish, he kept within the cracked shell of 
 himself, quietly reason-hunting for something which 
 probably had its reason sticking out all over it. 
 When he entered the pilot house, I saw at once that 
 he was straining over some problem or other. 
 
 "What is it?" I asked, for I knew that Arch 
 loved the man who asked. 
 
 " Joe," he said, " I am much perplexed. As a 
 scientist I could not bring myself to pass through 
 the door leading from the Captain's cabin to the 
 pilot house until I had obtained an inside view 
 into the composition of the ship carpenter's mind, 
 which suggested that he hang that door so that 
 it would swing cabinward instead of the other 
 way." 
 
 " Did you find it? " inquired Walt, while the Cap 
 tain looked at Arch and said nothing, though the 
 look fairly beamed interrogation points. 
 
 " He's all right," explained Don. " Just mentally 
 twisted, that's all." 
 
 "Isn't that enough?" inquired the Captain in 
 nocently. 
 
 " You don't understand, Captain," replied Don, 
 with a good imitation of the voice he used when he 
 had to convince an ambitious clerk that the salary 
 he was giving him corresponded with the convenient 
 depression in business. " Rollins is a psychologist, 
 Captain."
 
 42 THE KNOCKERS' CLUB 
 
 " What's that? " inquired the Captain, with re 
 newed interest. 
 
 " A psychologist, my dear Captain," resumed Don, 
 " is a a a well, he's something new. They 
 got the germ of him at the Carvard laboratories 
 a few years ago, and introduced it into the 
 public schools; and, well, that's what he is a 
 psychologist." 
 
 " Is he dangerous ? " asked the Captain. 
 
 "Oh, dear, no!" Don assured him. "He's safe, 
 if he isn't sane. He has his lucid moments, particu 
 larly when he's eating. No psychology about his 
 appetite. I fed him once a la carte. But only once. 
 It's cheaper to table d'hote him." 
 
 The Captain smiled, and maybe he understood; 
 for no popular and successful commander of an ex 
 cursion steamer refuses to give a reciprocating grin 
 when something which the sayer thinks is bright is 
 thrown at him. 
 
 " Boys," said Tom, with a visible twinkle in his 
 eye, " Arch may be on the brink of a discovery which 
 will regulate the swinging doors of posterity. At 
 last, he's got down to wood. I, for one, request that 
 he give us a resume of his conclusions. Why did the 
 hanger of that door give the cabin the preference by 
 swinging it that way, when to all intents and pur 
 poses, if viewed from a broad, unprejudiced stand 
 point, there would appear to be no adequate reason
 
 THE KNOCKERS' CLUB 43 
 
 why it shouldn't have opened into the pilot house, 
 instead of taking up room in the cabin. 
 
 " In the answer to this awful problem may lurk the 
 solution of all that goes into a door and surrounds 
 a door, may cover not only the casing, but the whole 
 room it swings into and the abutting room it 
 neglects, and from these rooms spread itself over 
 the house, and from the house run about outdoors, 
 and tackle the neighbors' houses, and their yards, 
 and even get into the street, and run amuck, and 
 then on and on and anon. Here's an opportunity to 
 check its ravages, to prevent the dire disaster. The 
 time has come when we must pretect ourselves 
 against the raging door and its anarchistic swing. 
 Give us your conclusions, Arch. You may have ar 
 rived at something. Out with it." 
 
 " Go ahead," interposed Walt. *' Maybe you've 
 butted against something worth while. Your rea 
 soning may have got alongside of the original rea 
 son. Let 'er go." 
 
 Arch unhinged himself. He ran fact backward 
 until he swept into its very source. He swam into a 
 scientific analysis of the subservient forces that 
 spend themselves in door-swinging. He wiped the 
 grit off the hinges, collated the influences which ac 
 celerate and retard the atmospheric pressures, 
 spread them out before us, and was about to match 
 them into result, when the captain broke in:
 
 44 THE KNOCKERS' CLUB 
 
 " Say, you chump of a psychologist, don't you 
 know that that door swings both ways?" 
 
 But Arch kept on. A pile-driver, working hori 
 zontally, hadn't force enough to knock him down 
 when he is braced and stimulated with the spirit of 
 psychology. 
 
 We left him, glued to that door, mumbling to 
 himself, and heard him mutter, "I will locate the 
 reason why it swing more readily one way than it 
 does the other, if I spend the rest of my life on ship 
 board!" 
 
 With the whole town on the dock to meet us, we 
 tied up to it, and in a few minutes we were in the 
 vortex of a swarm of hotel runners, each represent 
 ing the only hostelry where real food was served 
 in sufficient quantities to combat an acquired ap 
 petite. 
 
 " Dine at the Relay House ! " bellowed a white- 
 capped runner. " Get more than you can eat for 
 fifty cents ! " 
 
 " Let's go there," said the Professor. 
 
 "Why have more than you can eat?" queried 
 Arch seriously. 
 
 " Free 'bus to Hotel Fish ! " yelled a coatless in 
 dividual, shod in both black and tan. "A dollar 
 dinner for thirty-five cents ! " 
 
 A man next to him shouted through a megaphone, 
 " Clams, clams, clams, at the New York Restaurant !
 
 THE KNOCKERS' CLUB 45 
 
 Steamed clams, fried clams, clam chowder. All 
 for forty cents ! " 
 
 " Pies that mother can't make at the Hotel De 
 Liver ! " burst from out the never-meeting lips of a 
 tall, gaunt, lank, bean-pole sort of man. " Turn to 
 the left! Forty-fifth door! Look for the greed 
 sign. A full stomach for seventy-five cents ! " 
 
 We paused. With all of them the best, who should 
 decide? 
 
 There's a legend about town, that many years ago 
 a man starved to death on the wharf, because he 
 couldn't make up his mind which of the only dining 
 places to go to. 
 
 "Let's toss for it," suggested Walt, and he did. 
 The green one won. 
 
 We turned to the left and entered a typical Cape 
 Cod feedery, with living room in front, kitchen at 
 the back, and dining room wedged in between. The 
 typewritten bill of fare didn't belie what it stood for. 
 
 Clams were ripe at the Green House. There was 
 clam chowder made of clams, and real potatoes in 
 it, more than a suggestion of an onion, and a chunk 
 of salt pork for flavoring, with every plate. Then 
 came the clams in their original shells, not the 
 clams you see at some places, where the clammer 
 gets them in can, and sets them into a set of shells, 
 which he uses over and over again. 
 
 And there was beef, cooked both in frying-pan
 
 46 THE KNOCKERS' CLUB 
 
 and oven, and mutton, and two or three salads, four 
 kinds of pie, one kind of pudding, ice cream and 
 coffee. 
 
 Perhaps the landlord procures his food for 
 nothing, and forgets to pay his help. He either 
 does, or else his Knocker guests are not in the ma 
 jority. We ate, and ate again, and re-ate. When 
 the waiter asked us what we would have, Don, with 
 out a smile on his face, or the twitch of an eyebrow, 
 handed one of the bills of fare to her, and calmly 
 remarked, "Bring us that, and repeat." And she 
 did.
 
 D 
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 ID you ever visit Promiston ? If not, do. The 
 very air is salty, and the unbridled breezes 
 sweep across the town in a continuous flow of cool 
 ness, so dissipating the heat that it gets no chance 
 to hit you, save in spots. 
 
 Promiston is the beckoning finger-tip of Cape 
 Cod's cordiality. Along its half-circle of shore 
 stand the dwelling places of more than four thou 
 sand regulars, and rooms to let for as- many more. 
 Its two long and parallel streets are irregularly 
 crossed by lanes and footpaths, unlined with side 
 walks, but abutted with front and back yards, or 
 more frequently by no yards at all. 
 
 Harbor Street, the main artery of the town, runs 
 from east to west for two miles in fact, but for fifty 
 per cent, more if you believe the horsed-vehicle and 
 the springless auto-truck drivers, who carry you 
 from where you get on to where you get off for a 
 nickel, and give you the circuit ride for a dime. 
 
 To the sky eye, Promiston looks like irregular 
 billows of sand swept by the erratic wind, here and 
 there kalsomined with patches of struggling grass 
 and Lilliputian trees. In its beginning some unsys- 
 
 47
 
 48 THE KNOCKERS' CLUB 
 
 tematic builder had apparently shaken up a colan- 
 derful of houses, and sifted them upon the sand. 
 
 In the center of the village, on its only real hill, a 
 tall monument looks staringly down upon you, with 
 a scowl of solid granite. Long, lank, and underfed 
 piers stick out from the land into the harbor, and 
 fishing smacks, and samples of all the craft that 
 float, rest upon the bosom of the tranquil water. 
 
 (For key to the foregoing description, see 
 " Ready-Made Scenes and How to Write About 
 Them," written by one who worked in a gazetteer 
 factory, made up indexes, lengthened out popula 
 tions, and cast descriptive words into interchange 
 able lines.) 
 
 That evening we got together upon the back 
 piazza, overlooking the vessel-dotted harbor, to see 
 the evening fall, and to watch the lights on sea and 
 shore. The scene, the very softness of the twilight, 
 made the world seem like the major half of a 
 cyclorama painted by the Master, Nature, defying 
 the brush of artist, save the crayons of the mobs 
 of girls in kimonas, and men in kakhi, who, under 
 the baiting of a money-making leader, easelized the 
 quaint nooks and corners of the town, and, with the 
 presumption of ignorance, caricatured the splendors 
 of the sea, and its bordering sand, upon placques 
 and friezes, condensing the limitless ocean and its 
 shores into foot squares of spattered paint.
 
 THE KNOCKERS' CLUB 49 
 
 We had hardly begun our usual evening dispute 
 when there shambled upon us one of those genuine 
 net-casters of the fishing banks, dressed in the com 
 fortable and loose-fitting trousers which are never 
 seen hanging upon the frames of the fish-catchers of 
 canvas or story. There was not a pinch of salt 
 connected with him, so far as appearance indicated. 
 He looked like anybody, and might have been taken 
 for an ex-teamster, or a digger of the soil, for, in 
 fact, there was more earth than water attached to 
 his person. 
 
 " Howdy," he drawled. 
 
 " Good evening, Captain," said Don politely, 
 "won't you join us?" 
 
 Here again Don displayed his diplomacy, his 
 natural and acquired ability to strike twelve every 
 time he spoke. There wasn't an eighth of a chance 
 in eight million that the man had ever been a cap 
 tain, or had occupied any position beyond that of 
 untangling nets, casting them, and pulling them in. 
 But nobody objects to a title which doesn't belong 
 to him, if it is above him, and if there is even the 
 slightest suspicion that the fellow who hands it to 
 him may have thought it appropriate. 
 
 "I hain't got no 'jection," the fisherman replied. 
 "Be yer calkerlatin' to anchor here fer long?" 
 
 " Can't say," replied Don, " but we'll be here for 
 a spell anyway."
 
 50 THE KNOCKERS' CLUB 
 
 "Come up from Boston-way?" interrogated the 
 sailor. 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 "Thought so. I can ginerally tell a Boston crab 
 by the look o' him." 
 
 " There ! " interjected Arch, " didn't I tell you so ! 
 Here is a man, a stranger to all of us, and yet he 
 has the intuition to locate our home environment at 
 a glance. I have always contended that dwellers of 
 any distinct locality reflect an effluence which the 
 discerning eye of even those entirely removed from 
 any familiarity with the application of recondite 
 reasoning could not fail to recognize. My friend," 
 he said, turning to the fisherman, " by what process 
 of reasoning, by what assembling of initial impulses, 
 did you discover the place of our residence? " 
 
 " Watcher gettin' at? " ruminated the native. 
 
 " I simply intended to ask you," resumed Arch, 
 " to give me a single reason, or a combination of 
 reasons, one or many, which started in motion the 
 cerebral impulses which enabled you to locate in 
 stantaneously our abiding place in contradistinc 
 tion to placing us as inhabitants of some locality 
 which does not possess, except in general, the lights 
 and shades of our local coloring, and the peculiar 
 and somewhat exclusive characteristics of those who 
 have been fed and nourished upon the nutriment, 
 which, although it resembles the common food of
 
 THE KNOCKERS' CLUB 51 
 
 mankind, is distinctly seasoned with that special and 
 somewhat exclusive condiment which has a distinc- 
 tiveness essentially its own " 
 
 "Beans!" interjected Walt, with journalistic ir 
 reverence. 
 
 Arch was about to reply forcibly to ^VValt, when 
 Don came to the rescue. 
 
 " Cap'n," he said, " what Dr. Rollins wants to 
 know is why in thunder you took us for Boston- 
 ians." 
 
 " Oh, that's an easy one," returned the Captain. 
 "I doesn't hit it wrong, 'cept when I'm sleepy. 
 Yer see, I bumps up alongside of lots of peoples, 
 and gets to a sort o' sortin' 'em, same as we picks 
 out fish. Each one of 'em is different from the rest 
 of 'em. Can't tell just how I does it, but I knowed 
 you fellers was from Boston soon as I sets eyes on 
 yer. 'Cause why? Yer talk too all-fired like 'em 
 Boston school marms we git here when we can't do 
 better. Yer look as though yer knowed a blamed 
 sight more about what's knowed than what it's good 
 fer." 
 
 I kicked the Professor, and he reciprocated. 
 
 "I doesn't go to mean no hard feelings to yer," 
 continued the Captain apologetically, " 'cause 
 yer're all right, such as yer be. But any feller 
 that's knocked round as I has can't steer crooked 
 when he sights things like yer be. Why, let loose
 
 52 THE KNOCKERS' CLUB 
 
 my tow-line, jer talk gives yer away. It hain't 
 natural-like. Yer don't say what's what, as though 
 yer knowed what yer were talkin' 'bout. Yer jist 
 spill out a lot o' stuff that hain't no good fer bait, 
 nowhere. Now, I hain't goin' to say yer hain't no 
 good in yer place, 'cause most likely yer be, but yer 
 Boston folks sure thing." 
 
 "In the language of acute frankness, then," said 
 Tom, " we are plain damn fools net." 
 
 " Well, seein' yer say it, I hain't agoin' to 'spute 
 yer," replied the Captain. "But doncher care. 
 Yer hain't goin' ter be lonesome a bit. There'll be 
 shoals like yer here all summer. Sometime it seems 
 to me, it do, that this here town be overrun with 
 what yer call idecaters; but I can't seem to get 
 used to yer ways, 'cause I come from folks that 
 don't go to put on the lugs yer city peoples have 
 got. I beg yer pardon, gents, fer maybe I was too 
 outspoken-like. But, says I, what am the good of 
 bein' whatcher hain't, when yer've got to be what- 
 cher be? Then, says I, if yer be whatcher be, 
 yer've got to speak right out in meetin' what's in 
 side of yer." 
 
 " Captain ! " exclaimed Walt, giving him a hearty 
 slap on the back, "you're the sort of fellow I like 
 to cuddle to. Always lived here? " 
 
 " Yes, ever since I was born," replied the Captain, 
 " 'cept when I was afishin'."
 
 THE KNOCKERS' CLUB 53 
 
 "Then you know all about Promiston? " 
 
 " Reckon I does." 
 
 " Can you locate the spot where the Pilgrims 
 landed? " 
 
 "Maybe I can, an' maybe I can't," replied the 
 Captain, as he crammed a quarter of a pound of 
 black tobacco into a pipe large enough to be used 
 for a drinking cup. 
 
 " Yer see it be this way. Ole Cap'n Bill, he say 
 they pulled up on his land. And Deacon John, who 
 got a hotel half a mile to the eastard, he say they 
 got out o' their boats within twenty foot of his 
 dining room. Now, it don't seem nateral that they 
 could 'ave made two fust landings, an' if they did, 
 it's likely they got out pretty nigh to the same 
 spot. There's Cap'n Bill's place down there," and 
 he pointed to a yellow shed some distance away, 
 with " Fish For Sale " painted upon its roof. 
 " And there's Deacon John's boarding-house right 
 up there, not more'n a cable's length from where 
 we air." 
 
 " But, Cap'n," asked Tom, " if, as you say, they 
 couldn't very well have made two first landings, 
 which of the places do you think they landed at?" 
 
 "Well," drawled the Captain, "I kind er lean 
 Cap'n Bill's way. Yer see, he hain't more'n half as 
 big a liar as Deacon John be, and the Deacon, con- 
 sarn 'im, tried to sell me a horse which wasn't no
 
 54 THE KNOCKERS' CLUB 
 
 clipper, you bet, and heeled like hell when he wasn't 
 propped up." 
 
 " Have a cigar, Captain," said I, offering him 
 my cigar case. 
 
 " No, thank ye," the Captain replied, " not 
 meanin' I don't thank ye for yer kindness, but 
 somehow I never could get any real smokin' out of 
 the tobac they put into them cigars. Don't appear 
 like I was asmokin'." 
 
 So saying the Captain ambled off. 
 
 "Let's take a walk," suggested Walt. "The 
 town's a quaint old place, and worth seeing." 
 
 We started in columns of twos, Walt and Tom in 
 the van. 
 
 But what of it? We were but treading the much 
 traveled paths which by accident received the sore 
 feet of those who made history, largely uninten 
 tionally, and mostly because they happened to be 
 on the firing line at the time when the discipline of 
 gun and sword commanded sea and shore, and men 
 fired first and thought about it afterward. 
 
 Promiston is overstocked with historical fact and 
 mysterious legend. If the rain hadn't soaked the 
 sand, and the wind hadn't swept it into irregular 
 piles, since the gun-carriers passed away, we could 
 have seen the countless footpaths, marking the by 
 ways of historical lore, and the localities of the
 
 THE KNOCKERS' CLUB 55 
 
 forgotten exploits of the men we reverence because 
 they happened to be on earth ahead of us. 
 
 In building their necessary shacks to live in, they 
 couldn't avoid creating the history they didn't care 
 whether they made or didn't. Truly, the gore of 
 the past turns to glory when sifted through the 
 filtering ages.
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 ^ * T ET'S take a sail," suggested Tom, as we in- 
 1 ^ advertently found ourselves upon one of the 
 mile-long wharves, upon which, half a century ago, 
 a hundred wives welcomed their husbands at the 
 home-coming of those ships and barks which battled 
 with wind, wave, and whale. 
 
 Tied up to one of the piles was a trim little motor 
 boat, named " To Let." But no skipper was in 
 sight. 
 
 "Where's the fellow who runs it?" inquired 
 Walt, of seventeen do-nothings, who sat upon as 
 many idle barrels, smoking away the hours they 
 didn't have any use for. 
 
 " Guess you'll find him at Baxter's shop," re 
 plied one of the loafers. " If he hain't there, he 
 may be, likely as not, standin' up agin a telegraph 
 pole in front of the fish market; and if you don't 
 catch him there, shouldn't wonder if you'd find him 
 watchin* them street fixers somewhere between 
 Smith's grocery store and the sail loft that used to 
 be where it was before it burned down. And if you 
 don't run afoul of him at any of them places, you're 
 likely to hit him at his house, which is half way be 
 tween the white church and t'other church." 
 
 56
 
 THE KNOCKERS' CLUB 57 
 
 We started to find him, when Arch, with great 
 presence of mind, and with a display of intelligence 
 which was not his usual wont, asked, " What's his 
 name? " 
 
 " Harker," drawled the loafer, " and be sure you 
 ask for Hank Harker," he added, " because them 
 Harkers is as thick as sand flies round here, and 
 not one of 'em '11 tell you nothin' about t'others, 
 'cause them Harkers don't hitch." 
 
 "Arch," said Tom, grasping his hand in a firm 
 grip, " accept my sincere, unfettered, and unlimited 
 congratulations. At last, and for the first time, 
 you've helped out. You, of all of us, rose magnifi 
 cently to the occasion, and of your own volition, 
 and without any other than motor suggestion, asked 
 a pertinent question, which, if it had remained unan 
 swered, would have kept us skipper-hunting for a 
 week. In the name of your fellows, I thank you." 
 
 " Say, Arch," said Don, " you're getting down 
 to bed-rock. I didn't think you had it in you. 
 Shake, old boy," and we all solemnly shook hands 
 with him. 
 
 At last we found Hank, but in none of the locali 
 ties so minutely described by our informant. He 
 was leisurely leaning against a post in front of an 
 empty freight car, patiently waiting for a truck, 
 which hadn't started, to arrive with a load which 
 was to be shipped by rail.
 
 58 THE KNOCKERS' CLUB 
 
 "Captain Hank Harker?" inquired Don. 
 
 We always allowed Don to take the initiative, for 
 somehow he seemed to carry a stock of available 
 discrimination and diplomacy, and was less likely 
 than the rest to put his foot into it when he opened 
 his mouth. 
 
 "I'm him," said Hank. "Whatcher want?" 
 
 " Are you the proprietor, engineer, and navigator 
 of yonder craft of gasoline?" 
 
 " I'm the fellow that runs her, if that's what yer 
 want. Want to go out? " 
 
 " We want to hire her for a few hours. What are 
 your terms ? " 
 
 " Five dollars for a spell," said Hank. " But I 
 can't go out with yer to-day. Doc Hallock's got 
 a load of furniture going to Sandville, and I've got 
 to see the stuff's put onto this here car so it won't 
 break up agittin' there." 
 
 We looked our disappointment. 
 
 " Boys," said the Professor, " let's charter the 
 boat. I'll run the motor, and Joe'll navigate her." 
 
 We put the proposition up to Hank, but he didn't 
 respond with alacrity. He took a long, scrutinizing 
 look at us, twirled his fingers, and looked again, 
 and, after sizing us up several times, he shook his 
 head. 
 
 " Hain't goin' to risk her," he snapped decidedly. 
 " You'd run into somethin'."
 
 THE KNOCKERS' CLUB 59 
 
 " Captain Harker," said Don, with that quiet 
 dignity that would make a paying teller cash his 
 check without identification, "we're responsible 
 men of Boston. Mr. Gregory here" (he came near 
 to saying Tom) " is one of our most substantial 
 citizens, and would have been elected the president 
 of four banks if others hadn't received the votes. 
 Mr. Watson is the leading journalist of the universe, 
 a writer of words which have to be written upon 
 asbestos paper. Mr. Conrad here" (I'm he) "is 
 a licensed pilot." (And I was, for years ago I had 
 to take out a license if I would run my twenty-foot 
 dory with an engine in her, and for the fun of it 
 I had renewed the license every year, for it gave me 
 opportunity to impress the sea-faring ability I 
 didn't own upon those who knew more about the 
 sea than I did, but didn't know that I didn't know 
 as much about it as they did.) 
 
 " Professor Knowlton," Don continued, " is the 
 head-in-chief of the engineering department of our 
 largest institute of applied mechanics, the inventor 
 of the famous Knowlton carburetor, which returns 
 to the tank ten per cent, more gasoline than it takes 
 out. And that squint-eyed, long-distance gazer is 
 the occupant of the Chair of Vacancy, at the Col 
 lege of Premature Psychology." 
 
 Hank stared at us. Giving his trousers a double 
 hitch, and pulling himself and them together in one
 
 60 THE KNOCKERS' CLUB 
 
 mighty struggle, he exclaimed, " Well, if yer be all 
 that, reckon I won't be runnin' no big risks to let 
 yer have her. Go ahead." 
 
 We started for the wharf. 
 
 " Hold on ! " yelled Hank. " I hain't agin' to be 
 scared, but if yer've got the coin about yer, would 
 yer mind handing me a couple of dollars, 'cause I 
 could use 'em, maybe, afore yer get back." 
 
 Don gave him two bright, new, silver dollars. 
 
 We boarded the " Sarah S," for that was the 
 name of the craft. I took my place in the bow, as 
 commander of the expedition. 
 
 " Cast her off ! " I called, with the dignity of a 
 past master. Nobody stirred. 
 
 " Let go that line ! " I yelled to Tom. 
 
 " Not much ! " he returned lazily. " I'm a pas 
 senger." 
 
 I threw a wet sponge at him, so big that it 
 couldn't miss its mark. While he was wiping the 
 mud and water off his neck, I turned to Walt. 
 
 " Can't do it," replied Walt, pleasantly, for I'm 
 Tom's guest, and guests don't work." 
 
 I made a remark. 
 
 " Get a move on, Don !" I shouted. 
 
 " Sorry," he replied, " but the manager cannot 
 consistently assist in the navigation. His province 
 is confined to the manipulation of the finances." 
 
 I made another remark.
 
 THE KNOCKERS' CLUB 61 
 
 "Arch," I said humbly, in desperation, "may I 
 trouble you to so forget yourself as to let go that 
 line at your earliest convenience?" 
 
 Arch started for the line. Instead of unfastening 
 it from the wharf end, so that we could take it with 
 us, he drew out his knife, and deliberately cut the 
 rope where it was spliced into the cleat. I didn't 
 stop to express my opinion of his stupidity. 
 The boat was clear. That was enough for the 
 present. 
 
 I turned to the Professor. Then I said calmly, 
 for by this time I realized that my crew had little 
 respect for its commander, " It gives me great pleas 
 ure to inform you that all is in readiness for the 
 start; and that I would be pleased to have you let 
 her go at your earliest convenience." 
 
 " Aye, aye, sir," replied the Professor ; exhaust 
 ing his marine vocabularly as he spoke. " Want to 
 go ahead, or shall I back her? " 
 
 " Suit yourself," I replied. 
 
 The Professor opened all the valves near him, 
 made a remark, jerked the switch at "on," then 
 gave the fly wheel a twitch, and repeated the opera 
 tion several times. Fortunately she was set for go 
 ing ahead. 
 
 We started at full speed. I missed a couple of 
 sailing craft by an eighth of an inch, when she 
 stopped.
 
 62 THE KNOCKERS' CLUB 
 
 "What did you do that for?" I yelled at the 
 Professor. 
 
 " None of your business ! " he snapped. Who's 
 running this machine, you or I ? " 
 
 "Neither," I replied. 
 
 The Professor grabbed an oil can with one of 
 those giraffe necks to it, aimed it at me, and let 
 me have a gallon more or less of the lubricant 
 right on the starboard cheek. For the sake of 
 getting it started, I reserved my substantial re 
 sponse. 
 
 The Professor sat for ten minutes (it seemed an 
 hour) staring at the motor, but not a cock nor any 
 thing else did he touch. He was no longer with us, 
 but away off, somewhere far distant, in the realm of 
 thought and theory. The engine had stopped. His 
 scientific mind realized only too well that nothing 
 going will stop moving unless there is a more power 
 ful force favoring the discontinuance of its motion 
 than the propelling energy predisposed to its con 
 tinuance. His academically trained mind, which 
 had over-worked in the sweat-shops of mechanics, 
 refused to allow him to permit the boat to start, 
 even if it would of its own volition, until he had 
 scientifically unraveled the mystery of the stoppage. 
 It would be unscientific and unethical to make a 
 material investigation, or to do anything else of a 
 practical nature, until he had pricked out on the
 
 THE KNOCKERS' CLUB 63 
 
 chart of his learning that chain of circumstances 
 which was responsible for the delay. 
 
 Arch was studying the Professor's face. The 
 stopping of the motor didn't disturb him, for the 
 Professor's perplexity offered an opportune oppor 
 tunity for the keenest study of mental moods and 
 reactions. 
 
 " Professor," remarked Tom, " why don't you give 
 her more oil? Maybe she's thirsty." 
 
 Not a word from the Professor. 
 
 "Say, Professor," interjected Walt, "perhaps 
 she'd go if you turned your face the other way." 
 
 Still the Professor remained silent. 
 
 "Think you quite understand your job?" asked 
 Don, innocently. 
 
 The Professor leaped out of lethargy. He arose 
 to his feet. " Shut up ! you grinning apologies for 
 men ! " he shouted. " Don't know how to run a 
 measly little machine like this ! I, who have in 
 vented a dozen appliances which have revolutionized 
 the motor world ! " 
 
 " Ever had anything to do with getting up a 
 start?" inquired Tom quietly. 
 
 Tom dodged in time. 
 
 For thirty long minutes the Professor stared at 
 that motor, assisted by the remarks of all of us, 
 even Arch warming up at him. The sun burned our 
 faces and inflamed our dispositions. Science was
 
 64 THE KNOCKERS' CLUB 
 
 all right when there wasn't any need of going any 
 where; but sitting still in an open boat, with only 
 our hats 'twixt us and the sun, was not conducive to 
 the highest state of contentment, and contributed 
 nothing to bodily comfort. 
 
 Just then a fisherman, in his unpainted dory, was 
 about to cross our wobbling bow. 
 
 Don hailed him. " Boat ahoy ! " he shouted. 
 
 " Busted ? " inquired the navigator, fisherman, 
 and engineer all in one. 
 
 "Yes," yelled Don. "Come aboard, won't you? " 
 
 The fisherman jerked his tiller to port, kicked off 
 his sparking connection, and was with us in a mo 
 ment. 
 
 " What's holding yer? " he inquired. 
 
 " Don't know," answered Tom, " but somehow the 
 blamed engine seems to be suffering from an acute 
 attack of indisposition." 
 
 The doryman looked at Tom and took in the 
 boat at the same time, gave the fly wheel a yank, 
 looked at the valves, then began to unscrew the 
 carburetor. 
 
 " Hell ! " he exclaimed, as he saw its emptiness. 
 "Do yer damn fools expect to keep agoin* without 
 nary a drop of ile in her? " 
 
 "What's that?" interrupted the Professor. "I 
 assure you that the tank is two-thirds full. I never
 
 THE KNOCKERS' CLUB 65 
 
 allow a boat to leave the dock until I am sure that 
 the tank contains a sufficient volume of gasoline." 
 
 " That beats me," replied the fisherman. " You 
 city folks hain't got enough sense to get 'round on 
 land, much less water. What in thunder's the use 
 of ile in the tank if yer don't open the forward 
 cock?" and he reached down and turned a little 
 valve close to the tank. 
 
 " But what made us start in the first place ? " 
 asked Arch. "If, as you say, gasoline is primarily 
 necessary to furnish the base of the energy which is 
 essential to propel her, and that agent of progress 
 was shut off, how was it possible for the professor 
 to start her at all ? " 
 
 "Jumping dogfish!" ejaculated the doryman, 
 " where was yer brought up not to know that them 
 carburetors hold enough ile to run her for a minute 
 or two, then she runs dry. See?" 
 
 " Not yet," remarked Arch. 
 
 " Shut up ! " said Don. " What we want is gaso 
 line, not any other kind of gas. Let's get a move 
 on." 
 
 The Professor connected up again and we were 
 on our way.
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 * * T) OYS," said Walt, after we were a mile or 
 *-' two from shore, the Professor at the en 
 gine, I at the wheel, and the rest balancing the boat, 
 " did any of you read Morton's speech on * Selecting 
 Vocations for Boys'?" 
 
 " I did," replied Tom, " and he's way off, so far 
 off that he can't get back. Morton's a bag of wind 
 without even a valve to shut it off. He proposes to 
 shove youngsters into a colander, stir them up, and 
 let them run through a lot of keyed holes, like the 
 magazine chutes in the linotype, each slotted to cor 
 respond with a specified vocation. It can't be done." 
 
 " Why not? " interposed Arch. '* I see no reason 
 why the laboratory should not produce a scientifi 
 cally constructed separator, which would skillfully 
 differentiate, if the several appertures, which you 
 designate as holes, had their discharging points 
 slotted with the result of careful research." 
 
 " Rot ! " exclaimed Tom. " You can't make an 
 automatic hopper which will discriminate or sepa 
 rate mechanically the grades or kinds of intelli 
 gences." 
 
 " Why not ? " questioned Arch. 
 66
 
 THE KNOCKERS' CLUB 67 
 
 " Arch," retorted Tom, and there was a suspicion 
 of pity in his voice, " you can't handle brains, brains, 
 I said, something you never had enough of to make 
 you head ache, as you would a lot of pig iron. 
 Brains, Arch," he continued, " may not come into 
 your psychology, but some folks have 'em, and when 
 you come to take a boy, or anybody else, and un 
 dertake to tell him that his unseen and unknown 
 brain is good for this particular this or that par 
 ticular that, you're attempting to do the impossible, 
 the utterly impossible." 
 
 " Be quiet, Tom," said Arch deliberately. " You 
 are making a statement offhand that you cannot 
 substantiate. Scientists do not admit the existence 
 of what you call the impossible. In my laboratory 
 I have, from deduction, reached results which would 
 startle you. Practically everything, even the 
 fundamental and basic source of every impulse, can 
 be analyzed and measured with a degree of nicety 
 which forestalls the liability of more than in 
 finitesimal error." 
 
 "You'd have a tough time trying to measure 
 yours," retorted Tom. 
 
 " Hold your tongue ! " exclaimed Arch. " Don't 
 be flippant!" 
 
 " Then stow your idiocy ! " snapped Tom. 
 
 But Arch continued : " Many of the so-called 
 mysteries of life yield easily to applied psychology.
 
 68 THE KNOCKERS' CLUB 
 
 They become but a part of a hard-to-not-understand 
 whole. The very speed of thought, many times 
 more rapid than that of the lightning flash, can be 
 recorded with absolute accuracy." 
 
 " What are you getting at? " queried Tom. 
 
 " At you, principally," replied Arch. " By the 
 way," seeing that Tom was about to re-explode, 
 "we all are governed by immutable laws, which, 
 while they may not remove what you laymen call 
 the free agency of man, were present at the forma 
 tion of our intelligence, or rather at the time of 
 our realization of it. They, as well as we, are re 
 sponsible for the innate and inner impulses, which, 
 working co-ordinately, give to each one of us certain 
 somewhat exclusive, though apparently common, 
 characteristic tendencies and personalities, and 
 they, in the very nature of their inherent qualities, 
 cannot avoid unmistakably determining what 
 peculiar environment we would most readily respond 
 to, or, to put it so that an ignoramus like you can 
 get up to it, each of us has in him a series of dis 
 tinct impulses, which react for him alone, though 
 they may be possessed in general by others, and 
 which furnish a culture upon which feed and de 
 velop those unnamable somethings which are at 
 least coresponsible for that which, and I am speak 
 ing unscientifically, determines the measure or 
 volume of the attributes, which, although of a com-
 
 THE KNOCKERS' CLUB 69 
 
 mon genesis, manifest themselves in a sort of ex- 
 clusiveness of personality, which makes it not dif 
 ficult for men of ordinary caliber to distinguish ones 
 individual from another. Do you follow me?" 
 
 " 'Do I follow you? ' " repeated Tom. "Some 
 day I will, and you'll stay where I put you. Of all 
 the book-crammed dummies that ever got out alive 
 from academic asylums, you are the most irresponsi 
 ble, the wildest specimen of hypodermically injected 
 learning permitted to travel without a keeper ! But 
 go on. The sooner you get it out of your system, 
 the quicker you'll be better." 
 
 Arch did not deign to answer, but continued: 
 
 "Now that you have admitted the truth of what 
 I have presented " 
 
 " But I haven't ! " burst in Tom. 
 
 " Immaterial," interpolated Arch, and proceeded : 
 "With the data scientifically brought within the 
 scope of our understanding, we have only to tabulate 
 it, and there you are." 
 
 " Where ? " asked Tom irrelevantly. 
 
 " Why, you are in a position to frame certain 
 reliable rules, which the investigator can apply to 
 the average boy, and determine, with no small de 
 gree of accuracy, what he is good for, and what he 
 is not likely to be a success at." 
 
 " Say, Arch," replied Tom, " your logic is no 
 better than a porous plaster, which, slapped on
 
 70 THE KNOCKERS' CLUB 
 
 one man's stomach for cramps, may cure the rheu 
 matism in the opposite side of another fellow." 
 
 Just then the keel touched bottom. Tom, too 
 large and too stiff to get out of his own way, pitched 
 five feet in advance of himself, the rest on top of 
 him, and the discussion ended abruptly. 
 
 We hadn't hit hard, and the sand was soft. By 
 shifting Tom and Walt, we were able to slide into 
 deep water. 
 
 "Bless that bar! It barred Arch out," I re 
 marked, and I laughed. 
 
 "What's the joke, Joe?" asked Walt. 
 
 "Didn't you see it? " I asked. 
 
 "See what?" 
 
 "The point, the pun on the word 'bar.' ' 
 
 " Joe," interrupted Don, " you're evidently labor 
 ing under a delusion. You didn't perpetrate any 
 joke, nor sling a pun. The discussion we were hav 
 ing was not barred out, so far as I know." 
 
 "Jumping jimmies!" I exclaimed. "Haven't 
 you fellows any sense of humor?" 
 
 "Yes, for humor," said Tom pleasantly. 
 
 " Don't you see we hit a sand bar. When we hit 
 the bar, the bar barred the progress of our boat 
 and barred the subject Arch and Tom were quar 
 reling about. Now do you see ? " 
 
 " See what ? " inquired Arch. 
 
 " The point," I replied.
 
 THE KNOCKERS' CLUB 71 
 
 "Was there a point to the sand bar?" asked the 
 Professor. 
 
 " You idiots," I yelled, " you couldn't see a point 
 even if it were sticking into you ! " 
 
 " Hold ! " exclaimed Don. " Joe may have a real 
 joke up his sleeve. Perhaps he didn't properly 
 present it. Give him a chance." 
 
 " I won't say another word," I snapped, " and 
 the next time I frame up a joke, a first-class, origi 
 nal one, like that I have just sprung, I'll work it 
 off on the mummies, before I'll sling it at such a 
 bunch of ninnies as you are ! " 
 
 " Good boy ! " replied Walt. " Do it. The mum 
 mies will recognize it. They were there when it 
 was born." 
 
 I subsided. What's the use? I don't propose to 
 sow my seed on a desert so barren that the wind 
 that blows over it would kill the crops of a 
 western valley daily irrigated by the rivers of fer 
 tilization. 
 
 The Professor stuck to his engine, I stood by the 
 wheel, the others rested at their pipes, as we glided 
 over the slightly rolling water, meeting here and 
 there a yachting party of summerers, men decked 
 out in duck, and women in skirts so long in the per 
 pendicular and so narrow in the circumference that 
 they would drown without a kick if the boat tipped 
 over.
 
 72 THE KNOCKERS' CLUB 
 
 I am going to put a hobble skirt on Tom, and 
 watch him struggle to kick in it. 
 
 A pogy steamer rocked us in her wake, and every 
 little while a fisherman crossed our bows in one of 
 those dingy power dories, which are not afraid of 
 the elements, go everywhere, and get back, in 
 weather which would frighten the gold-bespangled 
 gentleman who plays bridge below, while his under 
 paid pilots pace the bridge above. 
 
 Our engine stopped every time the Professor tink 
 ered with it, but when he let it alone, it raced along 
 in the freedom of its independence.
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 
 WE returned to the hotel in time for the regu 
 lar boarders' dinner, which is served an hour 
 in advance of the landing of the excursionists, who 
 arrive at one o'clock, leave at two-thirty, and eat 
 what they can between. They are rushers, for they 
 must go up the monument, and down to the beach, 
 take a two-mile ride, and dine, all in an hour and 
 a half, less the twenty minutes reserved for walking 
 the long wharf which connects the town with the 
 steamer. 
 
 Our landlord was the only individual of his kind 
 and sort in the whole clan of hotel keepers, a modest 
 man, who looked more like a school master than a 
 roper-in of roomers and feeders. He ran his hotel 
 way ahead of what he charged you, and nobody 
 kicked at bed or board, except the ever-present 
 fault-finder, who, because he is used to little at home, 
 expects much when away. 
 
 The hotel was located but a short distance from 
 where the wharf connected with the land, the front 
 abutting the street, and the rear reaching out over 
 the water. As the excursionists had but two ways 
 to go after leaving the pier, half of them came our 
 way. 
 
 73
 
 74 THE KNOCKERS' CLUB 
 
 Our landlord stood in the middle of the road, and, 
 in an apologetic voice, gave out the impression that 
 seventy-five cents deposited with him would return 
 to the depositor its face value in the kind of food 
 that's filling. But somehow he didn't do it as though 
 he himself dined at his own hostelry. There wasn't 
 any pull or push to his remarks. Consequently most 
 of the people walked by him, to line up at a restau 
 rant, where you could get all you wanted of what 
 there was for four dimes and a nickel, with two pic 
 ture post-cards as premiums. 
 
 Don seemed much interested in watching the 
 operation. He didn't sell stocks the way the land 
 lord sold dinners. At last he stepped to his side, 
 and whispered, "Let me bark for you. I'll fetch 
 'em in." 
 
 The landlord was willing, really rejoiced. 
 
 Don took a position where nobody could help see 
 ing him, struck an attitude, and began. 
 
 " The one and only place where you can't eat all 
 they give you," he yelled. 
 
 "Come off!" shouted Walt, "you're driving 
 folks away. Let me get onto the job." 
 
 Walt swept Don aside, swung his whiplike arms, 
 and, keying his voice up to the seventh C, cried: 
 " Here's where you get real food, more than a keg- 
 ful to every customer; fresh fish with the hook still 
 sticking into him; clams that were basking in the-
 
 THE KNOCKERS' CLUB 75 
 
 sun half an hour ago ; a whole pie to each and every 
 eater; a bowlful of ice cream with icicles for whisk 
 ers ! Get in line there ! Tumble up, ladies, and the 
 fellows who're putting up the dough! Just a few 
 seats left! Who's next?" 
 
 The crowd stampeded for the house, and a hun 
 dred and fifty were turned away. 
 
 There were twenty-five-cents-per-head fishing and 
 sailing yachts, which twice a day went out into the 
 bay loaded with an assortment of men and women 
 of every age and condition, some of them amateur 
 sailors, who squeal and squeak when a ripple strikes 
 the bowsprit and the boat heels a quarter of an inch. 
 Their captains were clothed in sea-salted hides as 
 thick as the sweaters folks wear when it's hot. They 
 knew the water roads so well that they could scent 
 their way in a fog as thick as the density of a Ph. 
 D.-getting thesis on " The Simplicity of Spoken 
 Speech." They steered by instinct, and tacked by 
 intuition. They had a name for every bar and rock, 
 every point and channel. Pitch them overboard in 
 the blackness of an inky night, and they would swim 
 their way to the nearest foothold. If their boat 
 turned over, they would straddle the keel, rig a sail- 
 out of the slack of their trousers, and steer with 
 the flat of their soles. 
 
 Captain Salter was the dean of them all. He was 
 seventy or more, as burned as the ribs of the dingey
 
 76 THE KNOCKERS' CLUB 
 
 he towed, and had a roll to his walk that would put 
 a northeaster wave to shame. 
 
 We were members of one of his fishing parties. 
 Unassisted he manned the wheel and sail, and be 
 tween tacks he let out a flow of anecdote, which, if 
 taken at its flood, would have washed a hole in the 
 strongest breakwater. 
 
 His mind was stored with stories, and he told 
 them as though each delivery was as fresh as his 
 counter-jumping passengers, who, clothed in the 
 starched linen of their extravagance, wobbled about 
 the cock-pit in vain endeavors to keep their equili 
 brium, when real sailors of the deep knew enough to 
 sit down. 
 
 The passenger list was made up of the usual 
 amount of city folks, who wouldn't know a boat 
 from an automobile, if both were wintering in a 
 garage ; and who can't tell a compass from a cyclom 
 eter. They baited their hooks in the interest of 
 the fish, and held the slender lines with grips strong 
 enough to keep a towline taut. 
 
 There were twenty of them aboard, half and half, 
 old and young, all dressed for dinner, women in 
 stays, and men with high collars and creased panta 
 loons. 
 
 They looked more like a stranded theater party, 
 than care-free summerers. 
 
 After a while we reached a spot where a lonesome
 
 THE KNOCKERS' CLUB 77 
 
 fish occasionally rose to the surface and dared you 
 to catch him. The captain heaved the anchor, to 
 the music of some sympathetic heaving by those re 
 sponsive souls who never fail to give up what is in 
 them when there's a call for contributions. 
 
 But it was rough. We rose and fell at the rise 
 and fall of the rolling billows, which have no respect 
 for those who dare to ride them. The sun poured 
 its red-hot rays upon us, the boat rocked like a 
 cradle on a pivot to the lullabies of a vernacular 
 which unassisted tongue could never utter. 
 
 On bended knee, and in various indescribable posi 
 tions, we besought the captain to take us ashore, to 
 land us on the parched sands of Short Point, to 
 carry us to any place where the sky was steady and 
 the earth was at rest. 
 
 Poor Don ! He was a sight that would start the 
 tears out of the closed, chiseled eyes of a marble 
 statue in cold storage. Upon the floor of the cock 
 pit he didn't move in harmony with the motion of 
 the boat, for he had a roll his exclusive own. Now 
 and then he tried to pull himself together, only to 
 fall prostrate upon the hard floor. As a sailor he 
 was a failure, but as a contortionist he would have 
 outgeneraled the squirming human eel of the great 
 est show on earth. 
 
 Arch alone sat in the majestic dignity of his well- 
 balanced interior, which ignored the roll and the
 
 78 THE KNOCKERS' CLUB 
 
 rock. Until he could formulate a psychological 
 reason for internal disturbance, he would not, he 
 could not, respond to any influence which didn't ap 
 pear in the lexicon of his science. For once psychol 
 ogy found a place which even Tom couldn't criti 
 cise. 
 
 But why not change the slide and let another pic 
 ture cover the sheet of my story? 
 
 We were out fishing. What about the fish? If 
 the sea had been solid with fish, so closely packed to 
 gether that they covered the surface of the water 
 with a carpet as firm as macadam, I wouldn't have 
 dropped a naked hook into their open jaws; but 
 rather I would have run along upon their backs un 
 til I reached a place with no rollicking, playful, 
 mirthful water under it. 
 
 Fish? Hereafter I'll cast my line from off a 
 stone-arched bridge, and close my eyes at the tiniest 
 ripple of the well-behaved water. 
 
 I don't report any of the discussions held on 
 board, for several good and sufficient reasons, among 
 which I will mention the compulsory absence of any 
 contention which may be expressed jn printable 
 words. Each of us was busy attending to matters 
 which couldn't be postponed, and while none of us 
 would have refused to share his inner feelings with 
 the rest, there was an absence of that fraternity, 
 which, although it did not affect our spontaneity,
 
 THE KNOCKERS' CLUB 79 
 
 was not conducive to any appearance of other than 
 material outpourings. 
 
 It's a pretty rough sea, however, that doesn't wash 
 up good to somebody. There was at least one com 
 pensating incident. The crease was soaked out of 
 Don's white trousers, and as he stood upon the 
 wharf, with his tailor-made suit of white flannel 
 clinging to him, my heart filled with thanksgiving to 
 Neptune, who had, for a time, reduced the dude 
 population to one less than would have descrated 
 the earth, if Don had remained ashore.
 
 CHAPTER XV 
 
 RIGHT here originally appeared the best (even 
 if it were original) salt sea snapper of a joke 
 that ever grew out of Cape Cod sand. It came to 
 me while I was opening an envelope containing an 
 unexpected check, which drove my good nature to 
 the surface, and made me feel on the best of terms 
 with even the acquaintances I despise. 
 
 I grabbed my pen and wrote it out. It was too 
 good to be tampered with or revised. Without 
 adornment I wrote it into this page, and even I, its 
 author, laughed at it. 
 
 It went to the publisher, and escaped the eye of 
 the automatic, cog-wheel-working proof-reader, who 
 mechanically works without thinking, hunting for 
 errors as the dumb magnet draws the bits of help 
 less steel unto itself. 
 
 But my friend, the editor, having nothing im 
 portant to do, read every other page of the proof. 
 He had informed me, incidentally, in his sweet, 
 quiet way that the omission of the intervening 
 pages did not detract from the quality of the book. 
 
 As luck would have it, his roving eye struck this 
 
 joke. He telephoned me. 
 
 80
 
 THE KNOCKERS' CLUB 81 
 
 "Say, old man," he said, "I have just read page 
 
 " Great, isn't it?" I exclaimed, and even the tele 
 phone receiver blushed at my enthusiasm. " That's 
 my banner joke. I can hear it strike twelve. What 
 a wonderful control you have over yourself, my 
 dear boy, in subduing your peals of hilarity! Do 
 you know, I laughed at it myself, and every time I 
 think of it, a breakfast-food smile smashes the calm 
 of my placidity." 
 
 "Your what?" 
 
 "My p 1 a c i d i t y." 
 
 " Joe," he replied, and the wire aided and abetted 
 the metallic severity of his words, " Joe, I deeply 
 regret to be obliged officially to inform you that 
 page must be omitted." 
 
 "Why?" I yelled. 
 
 I could feel the bracing up of Frank, the editor. 
 There was a pause. He was concentrating all of 
 his reserve strength into his mouth. 
 
 " Joe," the wire groaned and snapped, " Joe," 
 he repeated, "is it possible that you, or any other 
 man of miscroscopic sense, with even the minutest 
 molecule of atomized discrimination, could have con 
 sidered for the one-millionth part of a split second 
 that what you wrote during a moment of temporary 
 insanity possesses the reflected semblance of the 
 faintest shadow of even inexcusable humor? "
 
 82 THE KNOCKERS' CLUB 
 
 "Frank!" 
 
 " Shut up. This is my call. Wait, Joe," he con 
 tinued in that gray, dismal, distant tone, " Joe " 
 
 The strain was more than mortal tongue could 
 stand. 
 
 "Frank!" I shouted, "Frank! For the love of 
 the seven original gods of humor, come off, come 
 down! You can't fool me with your acting. The 
 joke hit you so hard that you can't see straight. I 
 can hardly keep the lines of my face intact, or 
 wiggle my tongue at regulation time, when I think of 
 that alliteration, so wonderful, so grand, so superb, 
 penetrating the density of modern humor in one 
 fell swoop of excruciating wit. * Salt sea sauce ' 
 and * bounding billows billing ! ' Howl, you numb 
 skull, howl!" 
 
 " I am," broke in Frank, " and the dog is ac 
 companying me." 
 
 I paused. What did he mean? 
 
 "Frank," I called, "don't you think that joke 
 had better be printed in larger type, so that the 
 reviewers won't miss it? " 
 
 " If we set it in circus-poster type as big as the 
 blanket on the elephant," replied Frank, " and the 
 whole world wore spy glasses, nobody would see the 
 point." 
 
 Then a ripple of intelligence began to trickle down 
 my mental vertebras. He was in earnest! The
 
 THE KNOCKERS' CLUB 83 
 
 sharp joke end of my humor had not even pricked 
 through the sole-leather covering of his cast-iron 
 ribs. 
 
 "Frank!" 
 
 No answer. 
 
 "Frank! Frank!" 
 
 "Well?" 
 
 " Frank," I said, and I was measuring my words, 
 " are you serious? Is the upper strata of your con- 
 ceivability too thick to be penetrated by anything 
 that isn't injected into it? Explain, if you have suf 
 ficient grasp upon our common vernacular to ex 
 press yourself with as much as cloudy clearness." 
 
 " Don't hump yourself," came over the wire. " I 
 didn't say I wouldn't use the stuff. I merely in 
 formed you that I wouldn't print it." 
 
 " Whatcher going to do with it?" I asked, with 
 a calmness born of amazement. 
 
 " Joe," he replied, and he knew that I knew that 
 he was too far away for me to hit him, " I'm going 
 to hang that page in my yard on washdays." 
 
 I fell into the hole. 
 
 " What for? " I asked, fool that I was. 
 
 " So that the clothes may dry even when it rains." 
 
 Simultaneously we dropped the instruments. I 
 opened the window that what I said might not dam 
 age the furniture. 
 
 That joke, my best joke, the finest piece of super-
 
 84 THE KNOCKERS' CLUB 
 
 refined humor ever built by man, is working but 
 not in this book. It is the pride of Rainy Monday. 
 It would do a blind man good to see the smile of 
 the wet wash as it casts its dampness upon it and 
 waves its appreciation. 
 
 What is a joke? I have searched the diction 
 aries, and waylaid the encyclopedias. I have read the 
 pictures in " Life," " Puck," and " Judge." I have 
 slept with the " Old Farmer's Almanack " under my 
 pillow. But the answer cometh not. 
 
 The reader laughs at what he thinks is funny, and 
 asks no questions. By and by, perhaps, somebody, 
 not here, but elsewhere, may, in his laboratory, 
 analyze a joke, if he can find one, and write out the 
 formula of it.
 
 CHAPTER XVI 
 
 WE were back in Boston again, at the Round 
 Table, eating cold rice and drinking iced 
 tea. 
 
 Why did I abruptly close up Promiston, and neg 
 lect to describe the incidents that marked our home 
 ward trip? 
 
 That's my business. When my mind grows weary, 
 and my pen needs a rest, I shall announce an inter 
 mission, retire to my dressing-room, smoke up, and 
 wait for my shifting brain to set another scene. 
 
 85
 
 CHAPTER XVII 
 
 IT was hot ! The bacteria of Boston's culture were 
 too heated to spread the germs of intellectual 
 ity, which are epidemic and riotous during the days 
 of the Symphony, and when the New Art Museum is 
 free to the public. 
 
 The oil on the Fenway roads looked like blisters 
 on an auto shoe. The blue ink on the editorial pages 
 of the " Sanskrit " was losing color, and becoming 
 pale enough to mingle its exclusiveness with the 
 abutting columns of sterlized news and pasteurized 
 comment. 
 
 The Back Bay wind was sleeping, and the side 
 walks of stone and brick seemed just out of super 
 heated ovens, and radiated a warmth known to Bos 
 ton only when Nature is free to do as she pleases. 
 
 It was so hot that the members of the Chaucer 
 Club, in meeting assembled, sat in their shirt-sleeves, 
 while eye-glassed waiters sprinkled the sizzling 
 tables with the melting metaphors of chilled refine 
 ment. 
 
 "Let's get out of here," moaned Arch, "and be 
 quick about it." 
 
 "Where?" asked the Professor. 
 86
 
 THE KNOCKERS' CLUB 87 
 
 " Anywhere," murmured Walt, for it was too hot 
 to exercise his full voice. 
 
 "I'll tell you what we'll do," interjected Don. 
 "We'll take the Banfield boat. Maybe it's cool 
 somewhere. We'll go to Banfield, then to the lake 
 region, camp out, fish the lakes, and bask in the 
 shade of the primeval forests, and " 
 
 "You can't 'bask in the shade,' " drawled Arch, 
 and he would have said more, had not the streams 
 of perspiration filled his mouth. 
 
 Don didn't even look at him. 
 
 " Yes, boys," he continued, " we'll take a grip 
 apiece, no trunks, and have the delightfulest of 
 don't-care-a-continental times." 
 
 " Shut up," whispered Tom, " it makes me pers 
 pire to listen." 
 
 " We'll meet at the wharf at a quarter to five," 
 said Don. "I'll see to the tickets and staterooms." 
 
 We were there, all but Arch. He missed the boat 
 by a quarter of an inch. 
 
 " Take the train," yelled Tom, as the boat swung 
 clear of the dock. 
 
 Did you ever go Down East in a Down-East 
 steamer? Better do it. She's a great big craft, 
 with a dozen decks, more or less, a feeding place in 
 the stern, and many tiers of box spaces, called by 
 courtesy " staterooms." 
 
 If as much of the boat were under water as looms
 
 88 THE KNOCKERS' CLUB 
 
 up above it, the keel would bump along the bottom 
 of the ocean, like a Mississippi steamboat running 
 over sand bars. 
 
 We sailed along steadily until we passed the 
 lower light, and then the water ran into the smoke 
 stack, the waves soused the windows, the decks were 
 under water, and everything and everybody rolled, 
 rolled, rolled. 
 
 Twice we turned a complete somersault, but her 
 propellers didn't stop. They were as used to beat 
 ing fog as to churning water. 
 
 It was so wet and sticky that I didn't lash my 
 self to the fence which encircled the decks. Securely 
 I stuck to what I sat on. 
 
 " Captain," I remarked, as that officer, shod in 
 pneumatic boots, which enabled him to walk on 
 deck as a fly parades the ceiling, happened to pass 
 near me, " is it always as rough as this ? " 
 
 " Rough ! " he exclaimed. " Rough ! This rough? 
 Say, you oughT to have been with us last week. We 
 were under water most of the time, and when we 
 docked, the ship was bottomside up." 
 
 " How did you manage ? " I inquired meekly, as 
 I fell into the trap he had opened for me. 
 
 " Easily," replied the Captain. " We put rollers 
 on the top of the smokestacks and masts, and 
 skated over the bottom." 
 
 Some day I'll meet that officer on solid land.
 
 THE KNOCKERS' CLUB 89 
 
 Then I'll wallop him until he can't tell whether he's 
 walking on mud or treading on air. There are times 
 when language is as insufficient to handle a proposi 
 tion as is a human stomach to digest the leather 
 and bullets fired into it from out the magazine of a 
 buffet-car pantry. 
 
 It was so thick that I couldn't distinguish myself 
 from the other passengers. Having nothing to do, 
 I passed the time by cutting the fog into blocks, 
 and playing dominoes with them. 
 
 In the morning we were in the river, at least so 
 one of those gilt-girdled semi-sphinxes condescended 
 to inform me. I had asked him four times to ex 
 plain the absence of the motion which all night had 
 systematically dropped me from berth to floor and 
 jerked me back again. 
 
 I had read about the grandeur and verdure of the 
 stately hills, those forest-topped sentinels, which 
 guard the shores of the river. But I didn't see 
 them. 
 
 To never be disappointed, I recommended the con 
 tinuous accompaniment of a bundle of that wonder 
 fully constructed railroad and steamboat literature, 
 which, with the connivance of the docile camera, 
 pictures only icicled nooks in summer, and limits its 
 descriptions to the lore that lures the languid tourist 
 from the cool of his home veranda, and his ever- 
 present bathroom, into Saharas of sun-smacked
 
 90 THE KNOCKERS' CLUB 
 
 sand, and to the lands where the trees absorb the 
 heat of the breezes and blow it at you in torrid 
 humidity. 
 
 By following the biased maps, and far more de 
 ceiving descriptions, I was able to realize that I was 
 sailing between solid phalanxes of commercially 
 selected scenery, plentifully intermixed with some 
 history and much legend. On either side of me, so 
 said the guide book, were untold millions of prehis 
 toric Lover's Leaps, open-air theaters, upon whose 
 rocky and grassy stages the Indians played their 
 war dramas, while the early settlers cast the first 
 dice of graft. 
 
 Every now and then I hailed a blue-coated officer, 
 and asked him the questions he had fought against 
 for years. A grunted reply, usually indistinguish 
 able, occasionally gave me the information that we 
 were passing a spot of historic interest. I traced 
 it upon the map, read what a writer who had never 
 been there had intimately described, and enjoyed the 
 scenery I didn't see. 
 
 When I get back, I shall join a correspondence 
 school of imagination. I recall a graduate of this 
 absent-treatment institution of learning, which for 
 wards its canned curriculums by mail. Her brain 
 was ninety-nine per cent, imagination. She stayed 
 at home, and took her vacation alongside the guide 
 book. Without effort, and without expense, she
 
 THE KNOCKERS' CLUB 91 
 
 toured the world on paper. Seated in her shady 
 bower, she sailed her imagination upon paper seas, 
 traveled the continents upon paper trains, and 
 climbed paper monuments upon paper stairs. 
 
 How happy and serene she looked, taking her 
 costless vacation ! No fares to pay, no waits, no 
 annoyances! Her ships met with no delays. Her 
 trains were on time. No rain spoiled her hat or 
 soaked her shoes. The baking sun of the tropics 
 scorched her not. The ocean's roll didn't affect her 
 appetite, and there was no food so mysterious as to 
 disturb her digestion. 
 
 After a camel ride over the burning Egyptian 
 sands, she would lay aside her book, and rest in the 
 coolness of an electric fan, while the foolish folks, 
 who leave their homes, swelter in the still air of a 
 foreign atmosphere. 
 
 With all the comforts of home surrounding her, 
 the whole world was at her elbow. 
 
 We bumped against something. I jumped at the 
 recoil of the boat. The deck hand near me grinned. 
 
 " What did we hit? " I asked. 
 
 " Don't know, but reckon it's Banfield." 
 
 "Often strike it that hard? " I queried. 
 
 " Generally worse," was all he said. 
 
 We got out. If there was any Banfield in sight, 
 we didn't see it. The naked eye could discern 
 nothing save a few looming-up shadows, which may
 
 92 THE KNOCKERS' CLUB 
 
 have been the outriggers of Banfield's marine im 
 portance. 
 
 From out the fog came screams of rivalry, bespeak 
 ing the attractions of the competing hostelries, which 
 guaranteed to give you a bed with board for a fee 
 consistent with the advanced cost of the viands they 
 didn't serve. 
 
 " All aboard for the Banfield House ! " yelled a 
 voice whose owner we couldn't see. " Only hotel in 
 the city with a piazza overlooking the water." 
 
 For foggy reasons that didn't appeal to us. 
 
 "Free 'bus to Hotel Holder," shouted an indi 
 vidual who later loomed up in the mist as he 
 grabbed Tom's bag. " Finest table east of New 
 York." 
 
 He said this without a blush and we from Bos 
 ton! 
 
 "Anything on it? " asked Tom, with that child 
 like placidity which would have wrung a contribu 
 tion out of a trust philanthropist. 
 
 The runner looked at him, but as he hadn't 
 memorized a suitable reply, he said nothing. 
 
 We got into the 'bus, and there, on the front 
 seat, were the outlines of a somebody who we after 
 wards discovered was Arch. His train, although 
 several hours late, if it had been on time the con 
 ductor would have lost his job, had arrived just 
 before our boat struck the dock, and Arch, working 
 under an unnatural flash of intelligence, had actually
 
 THE KNOCKERS' CLUB 93 
 
 navigated the space between the hotel and the 
 wharf. 
 
 " This rather reminds me of your last speech," 
 remarked Walt, after we were assured of Arch's 
 identity. 
 
 " Thanks," replied Arch quietly, " I always 
 thought they were dry." 
 
 Nobody laughed, although the joke, or pun, or 
 whatever else it may have been, was several leagues 
 ahead of Arch's usual display of alleged humor. 
 
 " Where's the town? " asked the Professor of the 
 driver. 
 
 " Right here," was the reply, and then there was 
 silence, the kind that you can't dissipate with knife, 
 fork, or gun; quiet so still that you could hear it 
 resting. 
 
 Shaking the fog from off our clothing, we entered 
 the hotel. 
 
 "All alone?" asked the greased and ironed czar, 
 who filled the office with his sublime importance, of 
 each of us, after we had separately and collectively 
 told him that we wanted six communicating rooms 
 with three baths. 
 
 " You mean with a door between 'em," he re 
 marked, after the full significance of our request 
 had soaked into his hair-grown skull. 
 
 " That's the idea," said Arch, coming to the 
 rescue. " We desire to occupy six regular spaces, 
 each, with the exception of the outer two, abutting
 
 94 THE KNOCKERS' CLUB 
 
 on either side with others of their kind, with open 
 ings, commonly known as doors, in their partitions, 
 which otherwise would be impervious to intercom 
 munication. And, further, we request that between 
 these selected spaces there be walled off smaller ones, 
 which, in most parts of our country, are designated 
 in the common vernacular as bathrooms." 
 
 The hotel keeper gasped. 
 
 " We hain't got 'em," was all he said. 
 
 " Let me handle this affair," said Don, as he waved 
 us aside. 
 
 After a series of vocal marches and counter 
 marches, Don got close enough to the clerk to pro 
 cure three sets of rooms with half a bathroom per 
 room, and, notwithstanding that it was midafternoon, 
 we unanimously went to bed. 
 
 (There's something wrong with that last expres 
 sion, but let it stand. For the first time there was 
 complete unanimity, one solitary thought that con 
 sumed us. We were tired. A bumpful night aboard 
 a virtual carousal on the deep demanded sleep, and 
 plenty of it.) 
 
 We met at the dinner table, ourselves again, save 
 Arch, whose troubled brain refused to permit him to 
 close his eyes or to close up his mind. Upon his 
 felt-painted mattress of straw he had stretched him 
 self, while his stubborn intellect hunted in vain for 
 the reason why he didn't involuntarily go to sleep.
 
 CHAPTER XVIII 
 
 WE were now on our way to that expensive 
 body of cold, deep, fresh water named in 
 honor of the last surviving quadruped, who, in his 
 lonesomeness, overdrank at its shores, and died in 
 the absence of his kind. 
 
 Before entering the now-tracked wilderness, we 
 stopped for two days at one of those huge con 
 glomerations of stone, lumber, rocks, and plaster, 
 which rise out of the devastated forest, and is ad 
 vertised to ooze with the perfume of the balsam, 
 which was sprinkled upon its timbers with the aid of 
 a huge atomizer charged with the manufactured odor 
 of the smells of all out-doors. 
 
 In the pictures of those architectural monstrosi 
 ties, we had seen men sitting in the calm, cool com 
 fort of deshabille, while diamondless women frol- 
 licked upon the mossy slopes separating the two- 
 mile piazza and the smiling water, which never of its 
 own accord scowled at anybody. 
 
 If, however, there were any of these care-free, 
 sensible, and comfortably dressed individuals there 
 abouts, they must have been in their rooms, for all 
 
 in evidence were decked out in the costumes which 
 
 95
 
 96 THE KNOCKERS' CLUB 
 
 are prescribed upon the commandment slabs of fash 
 ion, before which society is never brave enough to 
 raise a whisper of dissension. 
 
 Sometime somebody somewhere (kindly note the 
 alliterative sibillation) will gather about him a suf 
 ficient number of men and women of sense to nip the 
 summer bloom of style in its bud, and then folks 
 will not be mere forms upon which to hang the 
 vagaries of a fashion born of mental weakness and 
 fostered by commercialism. 
 
 Only two of the men guests, so far as we could 
 see, were dressed to meet the weather, and none of 
 the women wore clothes which a self-respecting dog 
 could have been forced into unless you muzzled him. 
 On every hand glittered the gilt of gold plate and 
 the stones of extravagance. 
 
 The hotel was so big that elevating railroads car 
 ried you from floor to floor, and trolleys ran at min 
 ute headway, through corridors so long that you 
 had to look twice to see the end of them. 
 
 The lower floor was one immense hall. In the 
 middle of it, and from out of it, radiated innumerable 
 apartments, each decorated in recognition of the 
 renaissance of some mildewed art, which even the in- 
 sanest wild man wouldn't have dared to assemble un 
 supported by what fools call style. 
 
 We were trying to seat ourselves upon half a 
 dozen chairs, which were built in a vain attempt to
 
 THE KNOCKERS' CLUB 97 
 
 restore to modern use the hard-tack furniture of a 
 vintage which soured prehistoric ages ago. 
 
 Around us sat a hundred or less specimens of what 
 are profanely called " summer girls," pollened 
 blossoms on society's stalks, which would mate with 
 their kind, and populate the earth with a grade of 
 two-legged animals, spavined and deformed, too lean 
 and lank for canning. Their wagging tongues beat 
 the odoriferous air in disharmony to the leader's 
 baton, as he forced his perspiring orchestra to grind 
 out notes which wouldn't be negotiable in any bank 
 or bucket shop of discord. 
 
 For room and board, this handful of string 
 sawers and horn tooters filed or blew out holes in 
 the scores of the great masters, while meaningless 
 and petty gossip saturated the air, and golden 
 thimbles pushed the needles into fabrics fore 
 ordained to blush as they spread themselves upon 
 the powdered shoulders of peek-a-boo nudity. 
 
 After we had sat awhile, trying to separate a few 
 of the musical strains from out the gossipy chorus, 
 which rose and fell as disconnected tongues beat their 
 everlasting tattoo upon the stifling air, we adjourned 
 to one of the tiers of piazzas, which in parallel lines 
 encircled the hotel. Here the men congregated, 
 some of them owners, but most of them drivers, of 
 autos and chattel mortgages, a mixed crowd of am 
 bitious individuals, each vying with his neighbor in
 
 98 THE KNOCKERS' CLUB 
 
 a perpetual struggle to receive recognition for those 
 things which only money can give and which have 
 no market except among financial climbers. 
 
 Here were bankers and bankers' clerks, soap 
 makers and their customers, with a plentiful sprink 
 ling of would-bes and soon-to-be-has-beens, a com 
 peting assortment of all the kinds that make up 
 that unanalyzable conglomeration which the world 
 calls society, with here and there an educated as.s, 
 who wags his tail at pretension and brays at the 
 torturing toot of the horn of money. 
 
 Next to us sat two of those self-inflated specimens 
 of that growing clan of men who are full of cash 
 to-day and empty to-morrow. We couldn't help 
 hearing all that they said, because, while apparently 
 talking to each other, they were casting their 
 words out into the wide, wide world. Money 
 fairly rolled from their mouths. They talked high 
 finance, and each in his turn went his neighbor 
 one better in presenting his claim for financial 
 immensity. 
 
 Don thought he recognized one of them. 
 
 "Is this Mr. Walton?" he inquired politely. 
 
 The addressed barely turned his head when he an 
 swered with a snappy "Yes." 
 
 " I think I met you at the Knockers' Club," said 
 Don. 
 
 "Maybe," returned the gentleman, hardly look-
 
 THE KNOCKERS' CLUB 99 
 
 ing at Don. " I think that I was there once, for a 
 day never passes unaccompanied by a dozen invita 
 tions to attend as guest our leading business and 
 social functions, and there are times when I find it 
 advisable to be somewhat democratic, and to be 
 present at meetings which are not attended by those 
 of my class." 
 
 We said nothing. 
 
 " Queer sort of a crowd, those Knockers," he con 
 tinued. " Saw nobody there that was much of any 
 body. Awful bore." 
 
 " Guess you're right," replied Don seriously. 
 " Most of the fellows who go there are certainly not 
 of your kind. Money isn't the long suit with the 
 Knockers." 
 
 "I should say not," the gentleman condescended 
 to reply. " Common sort of folks, poor professors 
 and unknown authors. One wastes his time to talk 
 with 'em." 
 
 " But I'm one of 'em," said Don smilingly. 
 
 The gentleman turned to Don, scrutinized him 
 closely, and remarked, " Well, I suppose there are a 
 few gentlemen among them." 
 
 " Yes, a few," replied Don, with quiet dignity. 
 " But, by the way, my friend, are you not connected 
 with the cotton industry? " 
 
 " I would hardly say ' connected,' " he replied. 
 " I sometimes feel that I am the industry." And he
 
 100 THE KNOCKERS' CLUB 
 
 said it without the semblance of a smile upon his 
 face. 
 
 Don was plainly irritated. 
 
 "You are Mr. Walton?" 
 
 " Yes," he replied, with a voice full of pride, while 
 the same passion illuminated his red and mottled 
 face. " I am Charles B. Walton, the president and 
 majority stock-holder in the great Walton Cotton 
 Company, which, of course, you have heard of." 
 
 " Yes," drawled Don, with unmistakable indiffer 
 ence. " I know your house pretty well." 
 
 "What's your business? " 
 
 " Well," replied Don slowly, " it's pretty hard to 
 say just what it is. I've sold goods, and was a 
 book-keeper for a spell. Lately I've worked in one of 
 the banks, but don't like my job, and maybe I'll 
 make a change, if I get a chance." 
 
 " Then, of course, you know my bank, the Metro 
 politan? " said the gentleman pompously. 
 
 "Your bank?" interrogated Don simply. 
 
 " Well," replied the gentleman with a flourish, 
 " not exactly my bank, but I suppose I could call it 
 that, if I had a mind to. Our house is its biggest 
 depositor, and the bank knuckles down to us. I 
 could be president of it, if I said the word." 
 
 " The Metropolitan Bank? " inquired Don gently. 
 
 "The same." 
 
 "I dislike to contradict a gentleman," said Don
 
 THE KNOCKERS' CLUB 101 
 
 politely, " but I fear that you are laboring under 
 a slight delusion. Your house is not the heaviest 
 depositor by a thundering big majority." 
 
 The gentleman rose to his feet, casting an angry 
 eye upon Don, which didn't seem to damage him, 
 and shouted, " I don't know who you are, sir, and I 
 care less, but you're a liar, sir, a liar, and I demand 
 an apology." 
 
 " What ! For telling the truth? " questioned Don, 
 without any indication that he felt the fear the 
 speaker believed he had generated in him. 
 
 "How dare you dispute me, sir?" retorted Mr. 
 Walton. "Do you, a mere employee of some insig 
 nificant banking house, assume to take exception to 
 my statements? Who are you, pray?" 
 
 " Nobody in particular," drawled Don. " Not 
 much of anybody. Only a mere employee, as you put 
 it. Just the unfortunate president of the Metro 
 politan Bank, and one of the starving owners of the 
 building you are in. But," and Don raised his voice, 
 " you won't be there long, unless you pony up with 
 your rent." 
 
 If ever a man was astonished, amazed, frustrated, 
 and flabbergasted, it was President Walton of the 
 great Walton Cotton Company. He sank into his 
 chair, remained there for a while, then tried to 
 speak. 
 
 " Don't say it," said Don gently, " let it go by
 
 103 THE KNOCKERS' CLUB 
 
 default. But hark you, my friend, to a little advice, 
 which I'll lend you without discount. When you 
 want to brag, and to draw the long bow to its break 
 ing point, tackle fellows you know don't know how 
 you're fixed. Good-morning."
 
 CHAPTER XIX 
 
 OME, boys," said Don, "let's go down to the 
 tennis grounds. I used to play a pretty 
 good sort of a game years ago, and maybe I haven't 
 forgotten how to hit a ball." 
 
 The tennis court was located back of the hotel, 
 and already was well filled with men and women, 
 dressed, not for the game, but for the lookers on, 
 and who used a racket as a dude carries a cane, to 
 strut round with, and the ball as an excuse for the 
 aggravating display of silk-covered ankles. 
 
 Among the tennisers was a young man who looked 
 older than he probably was, every other time that 
 your eye fell upon him, clad in white below and 
 stripes above. Taking him as a whole, he resembled 
 one of those fill-in members of an outdoor chorus, in 
 a play where inappropriately dressed supernumer 
 aries seem necessary to throw the leading lady into 
 the lime light. A fraternity button plugged a but 
 tonhole, and upon his fob swung the insignia of an 
 other of the numerous fraternities which spread fra 
 ternity by refusing to fraternize with the fellows 
 whose Alma Mater is the great world of accomplish 
 ment. 
 
 103
 
 104. THE KNOCKERS' CLUB 
 
 He had the grace of a master of ceremonies at a 
 second-class beach house, and seemed to move in an 
 atmosphere distinctively of his own generating. His 
 self-esteem enveloped him in a shroud impervious to 
 the dust of common earth. He was a puppet of 
 politeness, one of those deliciously dear, sweet, per 
 fumed gentlemen, who would rather starve to death 
 in evening dress than eat off of a bare board or drink 
 out of a tin dipper. 
 
 His words, each selected and society-ized, slipped 
 gently between his carmined lips, and fell upon his 
 hearers like soap bubbles, which bounce and play 
 gleefully before they evaporate into nothing. He 
 was so nice, so very nice, so overnice, so infernally 
 nice, that when a real man looked at him, he, the 
 man, felt an irresistible and uncontrollable desire 
 to take him by the nape of his rose-colored neck, lift 
 him aloft, and squeeze him till he sputtered. 
 
 He danced lightly upon the ground, for he was 
 abnormally light upon his feet. All eyes were upon 
 him, and his eyes wandered from ball to lookers on. 
 He seldom missed either ball or audience, for he was 
 a really good player at this fashionable game, which 
 is engaged in more often by those who don't care for 
 it, than by those who love it for the healthful exer 
 cise it gives. Whoever he was, he was a masterful 
 success of his kind, one of those refined and pol 
 ished gentlemen, who are gentlemen always and some-
 
 THE KNOCKERS' CLUB 105 
 
 times something better, the kind some kinds of women 
 run after, adulate, and adore. But to nobody else 
 does this counterfeit of manliness appeal in any 
 other way than in the creation of a terrible thirst 
 for the real thing. 
 
 " Who is he? " I asked of a slender slip of a girl 
 who stood near me. Evidently she didn't resent my 
 intrusion. 
 
 " He," she replied, with admiration fairly bubbling 
 from her lips, " is Professor Sweet." 
 
 " What's he professor of?" I inquired. 
 
 "Didn't you ever hear of Professor Sweet?" ex 
 claimed the girl in wonderment. 
 
 " No." 
 
 " How funny ! " she lisped. " He's head of the 
 department of physics at Cadlift, and isn't he sweet? 
 All the girls just love him, he's such a gentleman. 
 And he's so learned ! Why, at Hale," she continued, 
 "he was valedictorian, and my Cousin Jennie, who 
 lives there, says that when he was through speak 
 ing more than seventy-five bouquets were thrown at 
 him. After he graduated from Hale, he went to 
 Hopper and took his Ph.D., and but isn't he too 
 nice for anything? " 
 
 " Well," I said, not wishing to displease her, " he 
 is certainly different from any other professor I 
 have seen." 
 
 My informant, however, had not finished with him.
 
 106 THE KNOCKERS' CLUB 
 
 "He has written a book," she rattled on, after her 
 breath had caught up with her. "It's on the 
 ' Ethical Inertia of Kinetic Energy.' I just dote on 
 it. I read a chapter of it every day. Do you know," 
 she ran on, " he's going to write another book, which 
 hasn't anything to do with his profession, for, you 
 see, he's awfully talented." 
 
 " What's the subj ect of this marvelous literary 
 creation ? " I asked, because I felt that I ought to 
 say something. 
 
 " I don't exactly know," she replied, " but it's 
 about the sources of the sensations of sentiment. I 
 just can't wait for it to be published." 
 
 "Has he done anything else?" I inquired, with 
 apparent interest. 
 
 The girl looked at me, then feeling assured that I 
 was in earnest, she replied, " Oh, yes, sir. You ought 
 to see him in his laboratory, experimenting on the 
 reactions of molecular motion. And he says, the 
 professor does, that he's about to discover how to 
 separate the indistinguishable into its component, or 
 resultant, or some other kind of, parts, and he's go 
 ing to prepare a monograph about them, which will 
 make it ever so easy for us to recognize them." 
 
 " I perceive," I broke in, " that you are a college 
 girl." 
 
 "Oh, yes," she replied, with animation. "Pa 
 wanted me to learn stenography, so that I could
 
 THE KNOCKERS' CLUB 107 
 
 help him at the office, but Ma made him send me to 
 college. I'm a junior," and her face expressed her 
 pride, " and next year I'm going to go into his class. 
 Do you know," and she blushed slightly, "I can 
 hardly wait for college to open." 
 
 Here, indeed, in the professor, was a curiosity, a 
 product of our academic factories, which can fill 
 a hollow head with the essence of bottled learning, 
 and make an educational excuse out of the thinnest 
 brain. Here was a man too effeminate to be a 
 woman, with enough real stuff in him to learn about 
 the goods the colleges deal in, and to come out of 
 an academic tread-mill professionally adapted to dis 
 tribute the blossoms of the tree of science, without 
 even having cut into the solid trunk that grew them. 
 
 Professor Sweet was a success, a dancing dandy of 
 a success. He had dug just deep enough into educa 
 tional earth to harvest recognition, and fashion's 
 universities were competing to annex him to their 
 faculties. He was a teacher of women, no, I have 
 too much respect for women to connect them with 
 only the semblance of a man, a teacher, rather, of 
 that peculiar sex which neither sex wants to be re 
 sponsible for. He was a modern comber of the sur 
 face of science, a painter of the upper crust of learn 
 ing, which the upper crust of society is sometimes 
 crusted with. 
 
 Professor Sweet supplied an ever-increasing de-
 
 108 THE KNOCKERS' CLUB 
 
 mand. He had the goods the people wanted; and 
 dealers in science, and art, and education, bowed 
 before his popularity, while commercially tainted 
 faculties forgot their learned calling, and, like men 
 of money, grabbed for anything that would increase 
 the quantity of their enrollment, even if it reduced 
 the quality of their reputations. 
 
 Many of our large institutions of learning, nowa 
 days, are little more than commercial enterprises, 
 with society athletes in the ring, who dance, and 
 hop, and skip at the snapping of the whip of wealth, 
 wielded by a master hand, sometimes called a presi 
 dent, who knows how to pack his dormitories. 
 
 The professor won every game he played. Walt 
 watched him with increasing interest. At the close 
 of the eighth round of success, he stepped up to him 
 and remarked, " You play a fine game, Professor." 
 
 " Yes," drawled the insipid recipient of Walt's at 
 tention. "It is my favorite pastime. I hardly 
 know what I would do without tennis. My close con 
 finement to the laboratory makes it pre-eminently es 
 sential that I relax at times." 
 
 " I used to swing a racket myself," said Walt. 
 " Will you try a game with me ? " 
 
 "I would be delighted to," replied the professor 
 cordially. 
 
 They started in. 
 
 The reader expects me to relate how Walt figura-
 
 THE KNOCKERS' CLUB 109 
 
 tively swept the ground with his opponent, how he 
 walloped him at every play. But he didn't. The 
 professor won with so much ease that most of us 
 forgot that he had any one playing against him. I 
 am sorry, indeed, that I can't make a different 
 record, but my imagination, pliable as it is, couldn't 
 stand the pressure which would have to be put upon 
 it, if I had challenged it to conceive of Walt, with 
 his disconnected joints and out-of-plumb body, win 
 ning anything in the way of an athletic contest.
 
 CHAPTER XX 
 
 WE returned to the house, found a secluded 
 nook on the upper piazza, and began our 
 usual game of conversation, which had lagged some 
 what on account of the counteracting influences 
 which had beset us. 
 
 " Arch," said Walt, after six freshly filled pipes, 
 like six lively chimneys, were screening us from the 
 outer world, " have you read the article on ' The 
 Cause and Effect of Humor,' which appeared in the 
 current issue of the 'Optimistic Magazine'?" 
 
 " I have," replied Arch, with interest. 
 
 "What do you think of it? " 
 
 "I differ somewhat from what the writer says. 
 He is rather superficial, and does not approach with 
 any closeness to the source of his subject. Humor 
 is not, as he says, a material substance, but is rather 
 a reflex action, springing primarily from what I may 
 unscientifically call the existence of attack. The 
 punster and joker, often without knowing it, liter 
 ally create a surprise, which is a sort of attack upon 
 their hearers or readers." 
 
 "Hold!" interrupted Don. "You say that he 
 
 springs a surprise, takes you off your hinges. Is 
 
 110
 
 THE KNOCKERS' CLUB 111 
 
 that what Joe does when he slings his second-hand 
 stuff at us? " 
 
 " No," replied Arch soberly. " Joe's remarks are 
 not jokes. They are simple, far-fetched attempts at 
 farther-away humor. We unavoidably anticipate 
 what he is going to say." 
 
 I kept still; and Arch looked surprised, for keep 
 ing still on my part was never comprehended by Arch 
 in his philosophy. 
 
 " Let me continue," said Arch. " Humor is the 
 collation of gathered incidents, sometimes true, but 
 usually exaggerated, which, when presented at the 
 opportune time, so attack the hearer that he can't 
 avoid a retaliating action or reaction, which usually 
 manifests itself in what you laymen call a smile, or 
 may be extended into one of those unpreventable out 
 bursts commonly known as laughter." 
 
 "That is, a joke isn't a joke if nobody laughs at 
 it?" interrogated Tom. 
 
 " Tom," replied Arch, " you have unintentionally 
 propounded a sensible question, and I welcome it. 
 The reaction or proper resentment at the receipt of 
 a joke produces a response which is discernible only 
 when the receiver manifests the impulse given him 
 by some sign which is commonly known as a smile or 
 laughter. But this outward appearance of reaction 
 may not be considered as scientific proof that the 
 cause of it is allied with humor. I have often laughed
 
 THE KNOCKERS' CLUB 
 
 at your attempt at punning. Yet I am convinced 
 that my reaction was not because of any humor con 
 tained in what you said." 
 
 Tom opened his mouth. 
 
 "We will postpone any comment, for the pres 
 ent," said Arch decidedly, as he looked at Tom. 
 
 Tom reloaded his corncob, and smoked in 
 silence. 
 
 " Conversely," continued Arch, " a remark may 
 be freighted with real humor, and yet its hearers 
 may, for obvious reasons, refuse to react; or it is 
 supposable that they may, for equally good rea 
 sons, suppress any outward manifestation of having 
 recognized or received the attack." 
 
 " That accounts for it," said Tom drily. 
 
 " For what? " inquired Arch. 
 
 " For the reason that we don't respond to some 
 of the things you say." 
 
 " You are irrelevant," growled Arch. " Can't you 
 keep still once a year, and try to learn something? 
 If I should begin now to fill you up, and should keep 
 at it for six months, and you took in all I said, 
 there would still remain an emptiness inside your 
 skull." 
 
 " Guess you're right," replied Tom, with a twinkle 
 in his eye, which fortunately Arch didn't see. 
 
 " Humor, then," Arch resumed, " is something 
 seen or heard, or both, which takes you unawares."
 
 THE KNOCKERS' CLUB 113 
 
 "You bet it would," snapped Tom. "If you'd 
 ever say anything funny, you'd take us unawares." 
 
 " Tom," burst out Arch, " can't you keep shut 
 up for ten minutes? You needn't listen, if you don't 
 want to; "you haven't any right to interfere with 
 the pleasures of others." 
 
 "Do you mean me?" asked Walt soberly. 
 
 " Or me? " queried the Professor. 
 
 " Or me? " interjected Don. 
 
 " Or me ? " I inquired. 
 
 " No ! " snapped Arch, as he folded up his mouth. 
 
 " Come, Arch," said Tom, " don't be so confound 
 edly sensitive. Maybe there's something to what you 
 say, because once in a while you manage to let go 
 a word or two, which most likely isn't yours, and 
 so, maybe, is worth listening to. As I understand 
 your philosophy, Arch, a joke isn't a joke, and 
 humor isn't humor, unless it produces an attack; 
 and if there's nobody attacked, that is, if there's no 
 body to attack, then the humor that might have 
 been, isn't." 
 
 " Go on with your fool talk," interrupted Arch. 
 " It isn't impossible for you to say something, if you 
 keep on long enugh." 
 
 " Supper is served in two hours," I remarked. 
 
 " Hardly time enough for me to say anything," 
 said Tom soberly. " But I just wanted to bring out 
 this point. If, as Arch says, this particular some-
 
 114 THE KNOCKERS' CLUB 
 
 thing called humor isn't humor unless it gets at 
 something, then I see light through a problem which 
 has always puzzled me. An old instructor I had, 
 when I was at a mixed school in Danbury, used to 
 claim that there wasn't any such thing as sound, 
 unless there was somebody to hear it when it was 
 working. He said that thunder, in the uninhabited 
 desert, wasn't thunder by a thundering sight, unless 
 its aerial waves, or some other kind of waves, struck 
 the membranes of the drums in somebody's or some 
 thing's ear, and if there didn't happen to be about 
 any eardrums with membranes, or any membranes 
 which were up to the scratch, then the noise of the 
 thunder didn't make any noise, and as thunder is all 
 noise, it didn't thunder when it thundered. So if 
 this old fellow was right, Arch hits it in the neck 
 when he says that there isn't any humor unless there's 
 some fool hanging round who gets hold of enough of 
 that humor to imagine that it's humorous." 
 
 Arch collapsed. If it hadn't been for the strength 
 of one of Tom's cigars, which he handed him, the 
 poor fellow couldn't have walked to his room.
 
 CHAPTER XXI 
 
 "1 \ 7E were on our way to the forests, which were 
 trackless until their tracklessness was cata 
 logued in railroad time tables, illustrated in guide 
 books, and blazoned upon the dead walls, which the 
 inartistic American gladly contributes to the com 
 mercial desecrator of Nature, who would sell the walls 
 of his soul to breakfast-food bakers and soap makers, 
 if they were big enough for the plasters of advertis 
 ing to stick upon them. 
 
 We had sufficient sense to engage a guide with a 
 license bigger than he was. He looked the part he 
 was to play, tall and lank, yet with a physical de 
 velopment and a hardiness which appear upon the 
 paper pages of the prospectuses of our physical cul 
 ture schools, that guarantee to make giants out of 
 pigmies, and to grow athletes from stalks too with 
 ered to fill out a custom-made undershirt. 
 
 (For further description of this navigator of hill, 
 mountain, forest, lake, and river, the reader is re 
 spectfully referred to the doctored pictures of him, 
 and the long-distance descriptions of him, never 
 absent from the sportive novel, or from the wonder 
 fully and fearfully made handbooks, created out of 
 
 115
 
 116 THE KNOCKERS' CLUB 
 
 journalistic minds, which write fully and volumiously 
 of things unseen by them and usually unkenned al 
 together.) 
 
 Each of us carried a pack instead of a traveling 
 bag, because the latter would have been easier to lug. 
 But were we not to be trampers of the woods, dis 
 turbers of the underbrush, and avoiders of the foot- 
 easy paths, which paralleled the ways we had to 
 tramp out for ourselves for the sake of sentiment. 
 
 Far be it from us to outrage sacred sediment, to 
 depart from convention's custom, to assume the right 
 to do as we pleased, when it pleased us to do the 
 things which wouldn't be pleasing to any other than 
 an idiotic summerer. The unwritten law of scheduled 
 recreation had placed its stamp upon the pack, and 
 we would carry these laundry-like bundles if every 
 foot of the way was to be watered by the sweat of 
 our foolhardiness. 
 
 I said that all of us carried packs. I forgot 
 Arch and the Professor. They were packless. 
 Arch wore two sets of underwear, that he might be 
 instantaneously prepared for a ready change, and 
 upon his back were strapped adjustable shelves, 
 curved to fit into a sort of jacket, and filled with 
 more than a dozen books with weighty contents. 
 
 The Professor was shingled with a coat of many 
 pockets, each numbered to correspond with an in 
 dex, which, that it might be an every-ready refer-
 
 THE KNOCKERS' CLUB 117 
 
 ence, was the sole occupant of his watch pocket, and 
 the flap of this pocket was stamped with a double 
 " X," that he might recognize it by eye as well as by 
 feeling, and not have to search from No. 1 to No. 
 99 when he wanted to find something. 
 
 The other pockets were tagged with numerals, a 
 third of them in red, which contained his personal 
 effects, and the others marked in black, and filled 
 with books, chemicals, tools of the laboratory, well- 
 packed crucibles, and other paraphernalia, which 
 it would be utterly impossible for him to use in the 
 woods. 
 
 He was a portable library and laboratory on legs. 
 Something hung from every projecting part of him. 
 An antiseptic toothbrush rested on one ear, and a 
 safety razor dangled as a pendant from the lobe 
 of the other. 
 
 We left the steamer at a wood-landing situated 
 in a tree-shaded cove. A natty little motor boat 
 was in waiting, announced to churn through the 
 distance separating us from the real, genuine wild 
 erness in an hour and a half. 
 
 Did we take it? Certainly not. Would any 
 self-respecting tramper sit on leather cushions, and 
 allow civilized gasoline to convey him into the midst 
 of unraked Nature? No, ten thousand times no! 
 We were temporarily done with any thing or in 
 strument that could, by the exercise of a superlative
 
 118 THE KNOCKERS' CLUB 
 
 imagination, be conceived to represent the slightest 
 semblance of comfort. 
 
 Our guide procured four canoes, one for each 
 couple of us, he to occupy the fourth with our packs, 
 and to tow Arch's and the Professor's overloads in 
 waterproof bags. Half of us, who had had canoe 
 experience on the raging Charles River, because of 
 this competency, were to become canoe captains, 
 the other fellow to acts as crew or ballast. I took 
 Tom in mine. 
 
 " Sit there," I commanded, " and don't you dare 
 stir until I give you permission." 
 
 Tom squatted in the forward end, while I, in the 
 other, which may have been the bow and may have 
 been the stern, paddled and steered. 
 
 Once, in a moment of temporary aberration, 
 I suggested to Tom that he assist in the propul 
 sion. 
 
 " All right," he replied cheerily. " Give me one 
 of your butter pats, and I'll send you flying." 
 
 I pushed a paddle toward him. He made a grab 
 for it, and would have pitched both of us into the 
 stream, if I hadn't kicked his outrigging foot into 
 center. 
 
 I wish I had had a moving picture camera with 
 me. I could have made a fortune with the film. 
 Tom handled that paddle as he would a spoon. He 
 dipped it into the water, edges always pointing
 
 THE KNOCKERS' CLUB 119 
 
 fore and aft, and pulled at it with all his strength 
 when it was in the air. 
 
 After he had splashed a barrel or two of water 
 over us, I remarked, " Let up, Tom. You're as use 
 less as a wheel to a sleigh. I'd rather do all the 
 work than watch your antics." 
 
 Tom didn't even smile. He dropped his paddle, 
 stretched out lazily, closed his eyes, and entered 
 the land where water does not flow, and where there 
 are no shores to paddle to. 
 
 Somehow I seemed to fall behind the others. My 
 renewed exertions didn't seem to help much. J 
 looked for the cause and found it. I rapped Tom 
 on the foot with my paddle. He awoke with a start. 
 
 " Take in your feet, you fool," I called out. 
 "Do you suppose I can push this blamed craft 
 through the water with the broadness of your soles 
 set up against the wind?" 
 
 Tom obeyed sleepily. I paddled along, and soon 
 was abreast of my companions. Walt had given 
 Arch his first lesson in canoeing, and he was whack 
 ing the paddle against the water without materially 
 retarding the speed of the canoe. 
 
 " Dip a little deeper," I heard Walt say. 
 
 " Into what ? " inquired Arch innocently. 
 
 "Into the water," yelled Walt. "Do you take 
 this for a flying machine?" 
 
 Don was in command of the Professor. With his
 
 120 THE KNOCKERS' CLUB 
 
 umbrella up, the Professor was totally oblivious of 
 his surroundings. His eyes were riveted to the 
 pages of one of those scientific treatises, which one 
 has to look at seven times before he can understand 
 the obtuse meaning of the first line upon the first 
 page. I could see that Don's serenity was under 
 strain. It was hard paddling at best, and the Pro 
 fessor's umbrella made matters worse. 
 
 Don's canoe was passing close to the shore. The 
 trees lined the banks, and one in particular almost 
 swept the water with its lower branches. Don 
 dexterously gave his canoe a turn, increased its 
 speed, and the Professor's umbrella was hanging to 
 the branches. 
 
 The Professor didn't make a grab for it, he 
 didn't even miss it. He was way off, in bookland, 
 where umbrellas do not grow.
 
 CHAPTER XXII 
 
 A CCOMPANIED by seventeen million flies and 
 ** their relatives, divided into working squads of 
 sufficient number to give personal attention to each 
 of us, we arrived at one of those camps which in 
 habit the inlets of the lake. Here, bolstered up by 
 huge trees, was a log cabin, which may have re 
 sembled the dwelling places of my ancestors, but as 
 my ancestors and I weren't on visiting terms, I'm 
 not able to give you comparative data. 
 
 The cabin consisted of one room, with a floor 
 made up of alternate inlays of aged boards and 
 hardened earth; a table in the middle, half a dozen 
 ready-to-descend shelves on one side, and several 
 stretchers huddled together and covered up by 
 boughs of evergreens, which held their greeness with 
 a tenacity not outgeneraled by an advertised paint. 
 A few cracked dishes, and some leaky saucepans, 
 kettles, and dippers, decorated the walls, or hung in 
 front of a stoned-up fire escape, called fireplace by 
 courtesy. 
 
 We dumped our packs upon the floor, Arch and 
 the Professor unloaded, and as true economists and 
 
 devotees of modern efficiency, we took turns con- 
 
 121
 
 122 THE KNOCKERS' CLUB 
 
 vincing the flies and their subordinates that the less 
 they lived upon us the longer some of them would 
 live. 
 
 George, the guide, at once set about collecting 
 underbrush and larger wood, and shortly had a fire 
 roaring under a kettle of water and a tin can of 
 coffee. He opened the packs, and from out of them 
 he pulled the city-canned food that woodmen eat, 
 beans from Pittsburgh, which double-discount the 
 Boston product, because Pittsburgh is at a sufficient 
 distance from the Bureau of Beans to keep the flavor 
 of counterfeit culture out of the can; condensed 
 milk, fresh from the vacuum pans; and green peas, 
 greened in the tin; and crackers a little wilted, but 
 still in the ring; and butter, which ran merrily over 
 our bread ; and coffee of a strength sufficient to stop 
 the leaks in the can it was made in. 
 
 Upon the rough table, clothless and dusted with 
 the end of a burlap bag, he dumped, not set, enough 
 to feed a caravan. We waited not upon the order 
 of our beginning, but fairly swooped down upon the 
 eatables, and swallowed them as though each bean 
 was a piece of terrapin, and each cracker the breast 
 of a club partridge. We forgot our manners, and 
 sometimes our forks. Each hand fought with its 
 neighbor, as we grabbed for everything that mouth 
 could close upon or teeth cut asunder. 
 
 Don pushed the food into himself at lunch-counter
 
 THE KNOCKERS' CLUB 123 
 
 speed. His hands worked like the buckets of a grain 
 elevator, and his mouth opened and shut with the 
 rapidity of the piston of a racing motor. 
 
 " Don," said Tom, between his swallowings, 
 " doesn't it occur to you that the rest of us have 
 some ownership in the grub? You've got outside of 
 a can of beans, two boxes of sardines, a loaf of bread, 
 a pound of crackers, and a gallon of coffee. I move, 
 boys," and he turned to the crowd, " that hereafter 
 we weigh out what we give Don, and limit him to 
 five pounds of solids, and a half gallon of liquid." 
 
 There were reasons why Don didn't reply. Walt 
 was equally busy. The Professor gave science a 
 respite, and was but a pound and a half below the 
 average; while Arch, but let me draw the curtain. 
 He had arranged his food in a sort of train, and let 
 it run into his mouth without a stop save for tak 
 ing water. 
 
 We and the food fortunately gave out together. 
 Like overfed cattle (I would use a more appropriate 
 term if it were not for that murderer of effective 
 English, the publisher's editor, of hair-trigger 
 nicety, who prematurely goes off at the pressure of 
 a forcible word), we leaned back against the wall, 
 and slowly filled our pipes. 
 
 " See here," said the guide, and there was some 
 thing in the rear of his voice that made us start, 
 " it's time yer got to business. Do you fellows think
 
 124 THE KNOCKERS' CLUB 
 
 that I'm goin' to cook yer, feed yer, and clean up 
 after yer? Some of yer fall to, and get the mighty 
 little that's left off the table, and souse the plates 
 in the tub outside. Do yer hear?" 
 
 "Boys," said the Professor, "I concur with the 
 words spoken by our guiding friend. But I do not 
 favor a conglomerate endeavor to obey his reason 
 able demands. Let us here, as elsewhere, practice 
 the efficiency methods, so successfully worked out by 
 Smaller and others, who have made one hand oc- 
 complish a net result which would hardly seem to 
 be within the capacity of both hands working in 
 unison." 
 
 " What are yer gettin' at ? " interrupted Tom, 
 while the guide stood at attention, with a look upon 
 his face, which, with a little more provocation, 
 would have manifested itself in more than vocal ex 
 pression. 
 
 " Wait," continued the Professor. " While we 
 are temporarily without the boundary lines of what 
 is generally called civilization, and while we are, for 
 the time being, not necessarily subservient to the 
 peremptory dictates of science, and while it is not 
 obligatory on our part to subordinate ourselves to 
 the rules and regulations laid down by society, we 
 should not so far remove ourselves from our former 
 environment, or rather from the reminiscence of our 
 quite recent past, as to proceed in a manner wholly
 
 THE KNOCKERS' CLUB 125 
 
 inconsistent with a proper respect for systematic 
 and labor-saving action, and " 
 
 Just then a chunk of bread, thrown with unerring 
 aim by Walt, collided with the Professor's open 
 mouth, and dammed the outflow. 
 
 We fell upon the dishes. 
 
 " Say, be careful," yelled the guide, " if yer break 
 them plates, yer'll have to eat off o' boards ! " 
 
 We realized the full significance of the danger. 
 Don carefully grabbed a plate and held it in his vise- 
 like grip, while Tom wiped it with the end of a 
 rag. Arch grappled with the kettles and pans, 
 and was careful not to scour through their rusty 
 bottoms. 
 
 " Now," said the guide, " after some of yer have 
 got in a cord or two of wood, yer can do as yer 
 please." 
 
 Arch was beginning to show indignation. 
 
 " Shut up ! " said Walt, with emphasis. " We're 
 in for it. One guide, even if he is too cussed dom 
 ineering, is worth a cageful of psychologists. He's 
 boss, and what he says goes." 
 
 After the wood-hauling, we spread ourselves like 
 tired dogs upon the pine-needled lawn in front of 
 the cabin, and watched the smoke sift itself among 
 the trees. 
 
 "Come here, Tom," shouted Arch, "and blow 
 some of your germ-destroying tobacco into this
 
 126 THE KNOCKERS' CLUB 
 
 bunch of mosquitoes. They seem to like the stuff 
 I'm smoking." 
 
 "Arch," replied Tom quietly, "if you'd use real 
 tobacco, maybe the insects would know you were 
 smoking." 
 
 Even Tom's wit was not bright enough to start 
 a fire of conversation. We sat there, each too logy 
 to be dissatisfied with himself, puffing away at our 
 pipes, making no effort to interfere with each other, 
 or to try to light up the falling shadows with the 
 brilliancy of talk.
 
 CHAPTER XXIII 
 
 UPON beds of evergreens, which, had we been 
 at home, would have felt like gridirons, we 
 slept without a dream or snore. 
 
 At six o'clock the guide pulled us out upon the 
 floor. 
 
 " Time to get a move on," he said, " if yer want 
 any breakfast. This 'ere boarding house don't keep 
 table waitin'. This ain't no hotel with meals when 
 yer get ready to eat 'em." 
 
 Half-asleep, we plunged into the water, and awoke 
 when its iciness surrounded us. 
 
 "What do yer do that for?" growled the guide, 
 for our morning bath delayed us a quarter of an 
 hour. 
 
 " Why, my friend," replied Arch seriously, " we 
 never breakfast until we have taken our morning 
 ablutions." 
 
 "Take yer what?" exclaimed the guide. "I 
 didn't see yer do anything 'cept flop into the water." 
 
 " George," interrupted Walt soberly, " ablution 
 is a term vouchsafed by educated ignoramuses who 
 delight to indulge in high-faluting expressions. 
 
 Freely translated ' ablution ' means a bath, a cleans- 
 
 127
 
 128 THE KNOCKERS' CLUB 
 
 ing of the body from the impurities which are ex 
 haled through the cuticle, and which gather upon it 
 from the dust-laden air." 
 
 " Yer don't say ! " remarked the guide, and stood 
 staring curiously at him, until, as Walt turned away, 
 he nudged Don and, jerking his thumb in Arch's 
 direction, asked, " Is that man an * educated ignor 
 amus '? " 
 
 " He is," replied Don. 
 
 " Well, he looks it," replied the guide sententiously. 
 *' Does it hurt him to be that way ? " 
 
 ' No," said Don, " his idiosyncrasies don't cause 
 any suffering on his part. But," he added, " they 
 are liable to be painful to those about him." 
 
 "Catchin'?" 
 
 " No, George," answered Don, " not if you don't 
 get too close to him." 
 
 " Can't yer do nothin' for him? " 
 
 " We've tried about everything," replied Don, and 
 nothing seems to be effective except an application of 
 what is known as wooden massage." 
 
 "What's that?" 
 
 "A club," remarked Don, as he walked away.
 
 CHAPTER XXIV 
 
 THE guide was the only one of us with a gun. 
 We were vegetarian sportsmen, not shooters 
 of meat or drawers of blood. We would hunt with 
 eye and camera, not waste powder and shot upon 
 the empty air, with a chance, if accident sighted our 
 rifles, of maiming the denizens of the forest, who, 
 by priority of residence, had a better title to the 
 land than we had. 
 
 We were not warriors of the woods, members of 
 that band of braves, who, at the safe end of a rifle, 
 wage a one-sided battle against the aborigines of the 
 forests. 
 
 I know that I am dense, that my comprehension 
 has a limited horizon; but somehow I cannot see 
 what is sportsmanlike, what is heroic, what can pos 
 sibly appeal to other than the lower impulses, in 
 killing for the sake of the excitement of it, in maim 
 ing and crippling, which many times more often 
 occur than the quick death of the creatures shot 
 at. Neither can I see that the " for food " excuse 
 has many rights which a decent man should respect. 
 If the amateur would kill for food alone, and if he 
 carried into the woods the humanity of his home, 
 
 129
 
 130 THE KNOCKERS' CLUB 
 
 would he not let the guide do the killing, for the 
 guide, most likely, is a good marksman? 
 
 In my house hang no pictures of accidentally hit 
 deer and other animals. Instead, are the photo 
 graphs caught in my camera trap, which does not 
 hurt. I carry to my library pictured counterparts 
 of birds and game as they live, not views of sus 
 pended carcasses, which look like interiors of slaugh 
 ter houses. 
 
 We came into the woods to rest, not to play a 
 game of recreation more strenuous than the work 
 of our livelihood-making. We would get close to 
 Nature's center, sleep upon it, and from out of the 
 ground absorb the tonic of the woods. There was 
 just enough to do to keep us in good form, and give 
 us appetites which wouldn't shy at dirt or bugs. 
 
 We ate, and slept, and thought, and cut out 
 thinking half of the time. We tramped up to the 
 very heart of Nature, and beside her closed our eyes 
 at the symphony of the rustling trees, which play 
 a music more pleasing to the natural ear than the 
 toot of orchestra horn or the trained screech of 
 prima donna. 
 
 Except during the twilight hour, when we talked, 
 and fought, and settled the vexed questions of the 
 day, each, however, in a different way, we com 
 pletely relaxed. Don forgot his money, Tom was 
 too lazy to put a chip on his own shoulder, Walt
 
 THE KNOCKERS' CLUB 131 
 
 didn't even try to be funny (and consequently was), 
 the Professor looked at the covers of his portable li 
 brary and was content, while Arch actually stopped 
 reasoning with himself and would swat a social fly 
 without thinking why he did it. 
 
 When evening began to fall, however, and we had 
 washed the dishes and pitch-forked the beds into 
 shape, we shook off our lethargy, allowed ourselves 
 to wrangle and quarrel, that we might not become so 
 impregnated with the essence of Nature as to be un 
 able to re-adjust ourselves when we returned to the 
 scramble of society and science. 
 
 Think of it! Six Bostonians, partly recovered 
 from the attacks of culture, actually getting down 
 to a common earth, eating off a common table, drink 
 ing out of a common dipper, sleeping side by side 
 without exchanging nightmares, boys again, real 
 boys! 
 
 We were irregularly spread out in front of the 
 cabin, silently and placidly smoking our pipes, each 
 one of us waiting for some other one to accumulate 
 animation enough to start something. 
 
 I said, all were smoking our pipes. Let me re 
 tract one-seventh of my statement. Arch's mouth 
 was free and clear. Lazily I gazed at him in un 
 spoken amazement. Arch, the long-distance smoker 
 of us all, with only his breath coming out of his 
 mouth! What was the matter? Half unconsciously
 
 132 THE KNOCKERS' CLUB 
 
 I tried to unravel the riddle, then gave it up, and 
 waited for time to act as its solver. 
 
 Inanimate Arch began to become animated. To 
 the naked eye it looked as though he was doing some 
 thing or about to do something. His actions cer 
 tainly were suspicious. Evidently he was desirous 
 of absenting himself. He got up, then sat down 
 again, and repeated the process nine times. He be 
 gan to fumble in his pockets. He withdrew his hand 
 empty, looked around, then put his hand back into 
 a pocket, thought better of it and withdrew it, and 
 tried it again. Then, screwing his courage up to the 
 sticking point, he withdrew his hand. Alas! this 
 time it wasn't empty. His fingers firmly grasped, 
 but let me pause and ponder. 
 
 Shall I place the mark of un-live-out-able dis 
 grace upon his brow, and brand him forever with 
 the insignia of inexcusable folly? No, I will be 
 merciful. Sometime Arch may double up, and a 
 family spring about him. Is it fair, I ask, is it gen 
 erous, is it humane, is it charitable, to dash a pre 
 natal blot upon a possible posterity? It is not! 
 
 But wait. What of duty? Am I not bound to 
 fire the facts, let them strike where they will? With 
 beseeching charity before me, and drastic duty be 
 hind me, I will obey the dictates of my higher self, 
 and tell the truth, the whole, dreadful truth, though 
 it forever relegates Arch to a plane where only a
 
 THE KNOCKERS' CLUB 133 
 
 special miracle could hope to boost him up to the 
 level of legal decency. 
 
 In Arch's hand was a package of cigarettes. 
 
 Aghast I sat as one in a dream, while the symp 
 toms of paralysis coated my tongue. I couldn't pull 
 the cords that work the hinges of my vocal ma 
 chinery. 
 
 Arch, shamefaced, and with guilt fairly oozing 
 from him, yet with a determined look, which, trans 
 lated, stood for a desire to dare the world, placed 
 one of the little white rolls between his blushing lips, 
 struck a match on the sand of his conscience, and 
 began to blow out rings of insipidness. 
 
 Unable to utter a word, I kicked my companions, 
 and silently pointed to Arch. As one man, they cast 
 long, dwelling looks upon him; then Don, who al 
 ways grasped emergency by the neck, reached him 
 with a stride. With one hand holding his handker 
 chief to his nose, that he might not inhale the deadly 
 gas, he grabbed him by the throat and shook the 
 sense-destroyer from his mouth. Then Don silently 
 returned to his place among us, while Tom gently 
 led Arch to the edge of the water, to assist him in 
 laving away the discolor and odor of his disgrace. 
 
 For a while we sat in silent contempt, then the 
 Professor aroused himself sufficiently to remark, " I 
 see that Professor Jettie, of Hardhead College, is 
 investigating the textile industry, with a view to es-
 
 1S4 THE KNOCKERS' CLUB 
 
 tablishing a more economical basis of inspection, 
 which will result, he avers, in considerably reducing 
 the waste." 
 
 " Yes," I broke in, " Je.ttie has been in to see me." 
 
 "Did he outline his scheme to you? " asked Walt. 
 
 " Oh, yes," I replied, " he outlined several schemes. 
 Jettie makes a specialty of outlining." 
 
 "What's he up to now?" interrogated Tom. 
 
 " He's going to tell the weavers how to apply the 
 new efficiency ideas to making cotton. He says that 
 the cotton manufacturers employ one inspector, or 
 a sort of foreman, to twelve operatives, and that no 
 one man, however proficient, can thoroughly inspect 
 or superintend so many looms without a large loss 
 in the waste of imperfect goods." 
 
 " How is he going to eliminate this waste? " asked 
 Arch with interest. 
 
 " You tell," I suggested, turning to the Professor. 
 
 " Well," answered the Professor, " Jettie pro 
 poses to apply scientific efficiency to ignorant or 
 automatic labor." 
 
 " But the manufacturers are not ignorant," in 
 terrupted Tom. " They are in business for money, 
 and they won't stand for avoidable waste. Didn't 
 it ever enter your book-crammed head that men born 
 and trained in business ought to know how to do their 
 business better than theoretical economists like 
 Jettie, who can't drive a tack through a carpet and
 
 THE KNOCKERS' CLUB 135 
 
 hit the floor, and who never rolled a string into a 
 ball, except in their minds? " 
 
 " Tom," returned the Professor, " you are one of 
 those self-inflated idiots who can't see beyond the 
 chalk line of convention. You are one of those 
 fools, who, if left alone, would put a rock in one 
 saddlebag to balance the grist in the other." 
 
 " Why not," replied Tom, " if you've a use for 
 the rock?" 
 
 The Professor glared at him, but resumed. 
 
 " That's about what the cotton maker will con 
 tinue to do until some scientific economist, like Jet- 
 tie, sets him straight. I tell you, boys, the aver 
 age business man sticks to the past, automatically 
 performs his duty, and because his great grand 
 father did a thing, considers it a good reason why he 
 should continue to do it in the same old-fashioned 
 way, and he refuses to allow enlightened science to 
 interfere for his benefit." 
 
 "Let's get somewhere," I suggested. "I favor 
 efficiency in the doing of all things, but not fool ef 
 ficiency. Let me take hypothetical figures. The in 
 spector gets, say, two dollars a day, and the opera 
 tor one dollar a day. Do you follow me? " 
 
 " No," replied the Professor. " But go on. We 
 may understand you after a while." 
 
 I resumed. "If twelve operatives receive a dol 
 lar a day each, and one inspector receives two dol-
 
 136 THE KNOCKERS' CLUB 
 
 lars a day, then the operating expense is fourteen 
 dollars a day." 
 
 The Professor nodded. 
 
 " Now, if you have, say, six inspectors, you raise 
 the expense to twenty-four dollars a day." 
 
 The Professor was thinking. 
 
 " You have then added ten dollars a day to the 
 cost of weaving a specific number of yards of cloth." 
 
 "But what about the saving in waste?" inter 
 jected the Professor. "Six skillful inspectors, in 
 stead of one, would probably eliminate a very large 
 proportion of the poor work which now results from 
 lack of proper superintendence." 
 
 " Granted," I replied, " but we have to deal with 
 commercial economy, not purely scientific saving, 
 and the amount gained would be the difference be 
 tween the waste under present inspection and the 
 less waste with increased inspection. Under Pro 
 fessor Jettie's system, the waste would probably 
 be somewhat less, yet it would be accomplished with 
 a very heavy increase of cost. Where does your 
 economy come in? " 
 
 The Professor strove to discover an answer, but 
 didn't find it. After a long pause he remarked, 
 " But you save the waste, make perfect goods." 
 
 " Shucks ! " exclaimed Tom. " You and Jettie 
 have got about as much of an idea of economy as 
 had the amateur yachtsman, who rubber-coated the
 
 THE KNOCKERS' CLUB 137 
 
 bottom of his boat, at a cost of a hundred dollars a 
 year to maintain, to keep out the bilge water, which 
 he could pump out for a dollar and half a year." 
 
 61 Bright boy ! " exclaimed Walt, as he slapped 
 Tom on the back. " There are times when your un 
 trained sense is sharp enough to bore a hole in the 
 armor of science." 
 
 "I'm not against any new doctrine that will do 
 something," said Tom, "but before I adopt it, I 
 want to try it out on the road. You scientific-ef 
 ficiency fellows have got theory on the brain, and 
 expect business men to swallow it before anybody 
 knows what it's good for. For plain, unadulterated, 
 unskimmed, sheer folly, give me a professor with an 
 efficiency bug in his ear. Because he hears its buz 
 zing, he thinks all the rest of the world has the same 
 bug tickling it." 
 
 " But I don't see any reason to jump on Jettie," 
 said Arch. " He's our leading exponent of the new 
 science of efficiency. Have you read his book on 
 the 'Elimination of the Illimitable '? It's a master 
 piece of scientific research." 
 
 " Yes," replied Tom, " I've read it. He starts in 
 at nowhere, and when he gets there, he establishes 
 a gaseous base in the midst of chaos, and with that 
 as a source of supplies, he branches out into the 
 limitless unknown. He assumes that the incoming 
 tide would have run the other way, if the laboratory
 
 138 THE KNOCKERS' CLUB 
 
 had taught it to change its mind before it began to 
 flow. On this hypothesis he calculates that the 
 drainage of the land would naturally disappear for 
 keeps, because there would be no inflowing tide to 
 bring it back. But unfortunately for him, the tides 
 of water and of business refuse to run at his bidding, 
 and he gets swamped."
 
 CHAPTER XXV 
 
 , the guide, while as independent as 
 the captain of a yacht-club-registered catboat, 
 and as cranky as a hen on eggs, was a genius of 
 his kind, rough in exterior yet smooth inside. We 
 soon became very fond of him. He attended to his 
 duty with doglike faithfulness, made us do our part 
 with systematic regularity, and all the time was do 
 ing those little things which added much to our 
 material comfort. 
 
 He knew the woods as a sailor knows the winds 
 and currents. His intuition was his compass, and 
 his nose the needle. He guided us into hundreds of 
 nooks and corners, where Nature hid her choicest 
 charms, and which but for him we would have never 
 discovered. 
 
 He had guided many people, and could read and 
 describe them in a language more picturesque by far 
 than the scorched rhetoric of literary word-painters, 
 who slap artificial colors on their pages until 
 Nature's rainbows weep as they fade away. 
 
 He had guided governors and grafters, congress 
 men and candidates, mayors and ministers, physi 
 cians and professors, captains of commerce, and 
 
 130
 
 140 THE KNOCKERS' CLUB 
 
 ladies of literature. Every class, every condition, of 
 men and women, had followed him into the forest. 
 He had seen them in all their moods, was familiar 
 by contact with the idiosyncrasies of every breed 
 which populates the earth. His head was a store 
 house, filled to the top with experiences, which, if he 
 could have written them out, would have outdis 
 tanced our marvelous magazine literature in variety 
 of character-drawing. 
 
 George was ninety-nine per cent, man, an uncon- 
 taminated product of Nature. The open air had 
 given him a hardy finish, which doesn't always thrive 
 on the campus of athletic colleges, and the rains and 
 streams had washed him into a freshness that the 
 porcelain tubs of wealth don't seem to impart. 
 
 He wasn't altogether unfamiliar with the insides 
 of books. He had enjoyed a high-school education, 
 and didn't always use the language of the forest, 
 or rather the woody words which are found more 
 often upon the page of the novel than in the life 
 of the great out-doors. He was the guide in reality, 
 not the overdrawn caricature of story. 
 
 Pity, indeed a pity, that men of Nature, like him, 
 are not trained to harvest the fruits which grow so 
 abundantly on both sides of the path that they 
 traverse. If the class he represents could but use 
 experience as readily as they get it, there would 
 grow up a race which would meet the rest of the
 
 THE KNOCKERS' CLUB 141 
 
 world in any contest, and with bared arms and 
 naked ideas knock the conceit out of the heads of 
 injected intelligence, and pry the inhumanity out 
 of the closed fists of avaricious commercialism. 
 
 " Yer fellows are all right," George said to us one 
 day, after the table had been wiped off and the dishes 
 scraped. " You're not like some folks I go out 
 with." 
 
 "In what way do we differ from them? " inquired 
 Walt. 
 
 " In about every way there is," he replied. " Yer 
 hain't cranky, and yer not stuck up. Yer may be 
 a little off, when yer thrash out the stuff none of ye, 
 and most likely nobody else, knows about. But take 
 yer as a whole, you're a pretty decent bunch, and I 
 likes most of yer most of the time." 
 
 "Well said!" interjected Arch. "You don't 
 propose to compromise yourself by a sweeping state 
 ment. And really, my friend, your commendation 
 of us, while not complete, is a blame-sight better 
 than we get at home. I suppose," he continued, 
 "that you meet many types of people in the prac 
 tice of your vocation." 
 
 " Guess I do ! " replied the guide emphatically. 
 " Had a crowd with me last month. Say, but they 
 did beat the limit ! Every one of 'em was dressed up 
 to scare jack rabbits, even those that are half-tame 
 and have got used to 'most anything. The men, they
 
 142 THE KNOCKERS' CLUB 
 
 wore those white pants nobody used to trampin' 
 ever puts on ; and not one of 'em would go in his 
 shirt sleeves, when it was so all-fired hot yer could 
 fry eggs in the sun. Gee ! but didn't they sweat like 
 drippin' moss. I asked one of 'em why he didn't peel 
 off, and he just looked at me with a pityin' stare, and 
 said, ' 'Cause we are following the proper precedent, 
 given in a series of articles on the " Art and Science 
 of Living in the Open Air," which appeared in the 
 " Magazine of Propriety," and were written by Pro 
 fessor Somebody of the Society for Social Sodality, 
 and illustrated by Herr Anything, the great land 
 scape artist.' And would you believe me, those fel 
 lows wore nighties with blue trimmin' on 'em! I've 
 eaten spoiled beans, and all kinds of canned stuff, 
 and I've got a stomach tough enough to digest barbed 
 wire, but, honest, those fellows made me sick. 
 
 " Now, yer folks 've got sense," continued he. 
 " Yer don't put on any lugs. Yer take it easy, and 
 don't kick at the grub, or raise a muss 'cause there's 
 flies in the condensed milk, and pine needles in the 
 butter. Yer jest set to, and get outside of what I 
 give yer to eat, same ez us fellows do who've got used 
 to livin' on it." 
 
 " We're deeply sensitive to your commendation," 
 remarked Arch. " Before we part, I am going to ask 
 you to write out the good things you have said about 
 us, have the statement sworn to by a justice of the
 
 THE KNOCKERS' CLUB 143 
 
 peace, and we'll hand it out at the Round Table, 
 when the gang we go with are pitching onto us." 
 
 " Say," said Tom, " tell us about some of the par 
 ties you have conducted." 
 
 " Well," replied George, after he had slowly and 
 systematically shaved off enough tobacco to fill his 
 pipe, from a chunk half the size of a brick, " I've 
 had so many of 'em, I don't know where to begin." 
 
 " Tell us about the folks with nighties," suggested 
 Walt. 
 
 " Can't do it," returned the guide emphatically, 
 " it upsets my stomach to think of 'em. But I'll 
 tell yer of a bunch of female women, and the dudes 
 they brought with 'em, if yer don't mind. Of all 
 the skirts I ever saw, they was the worst. 'Cept two 
 of 'em, who were girls, they were old enough and 
 scraggy enough to be grandmother hens, long-nosed 
 and lank, the kind your wife wouldn't kick at if yer 
 went round the world with 'ern. Had a fellow with 
 me once, who used to call that sort of female ' safe 
 ties,' 'cause they didn't need no chaperone, or any 
 body to shoo the men off. They wore glasses that 
 didn't tumble off unless you unsprung 'em, 'cause 
 they had too much holdin' ground." 
 
 "How about the men? " I interrogated. 
 
 " Oh, they were cut off the same stump," replied 
 the guide. " They were spindle-legged, and acted as 
 though they were spavined. There wasn't any get-
 
 144 THE KNOCKERS' CLUB 
 
 up or even get-out to 'em. When they weren't 
 sleepin' or eatin', they sat and thought, and most 
 of the time only sat. They were so all-fired polite, 
 yer had to say * please ' when yer told 'em grub was 
 ready. 
 
 " But let me get back at the women," continued he. 
 "Every one of 'em had a book which she lugged 
 round with her, and, most likely, went to bed with, 
 and they jest read and read, or made a bluff at it. 
 They huddled together and talked about what they'd 
 been readin'. I heard one of 'em say to the next 
 one, * Marguerite, isn't Brownin' jes too sweet for 
 anything? I've been readin' his ' I don't re 
 member what, and she went on gushin' about what 
 I'll bet a huntin' dog 'gainst a singed cat she hadn't 
 the slightest idea of. Same as those psychologists 
 do, when they hain't got anything to say." 
 
 I kicked Arch. He reciprocated. 
 
 " Go on," I said. 
 
 " And the girl hard by her," resumed the guide, 
 " she simpered, and replied, * Yes, dearie, he's so 
 delightfully delicious. Yer know, he jest seems like 
 Kuyler's chocolates,' and then those women cuddled 
 and nudged each other, and went at the book again. 
 
 " * Say,' said I to 'em, * what yer readin'? ' 
 
 "And the one who had the most length to her, 
 she turned her watery-lookin* eyes on me, and lisped, 
 * Brownin', the immortal.'
 
 THE KNOCKERS' CLUB 145 
 
 " 'Is he alive now?' I asked innocently. I'm not 
 an educated man, but I've been to school, and for a 
 spell we had what she herself called a bachelor 
 woman, who carried her learnin' on both shoulders 
 till it bent her. And she was always rammin' poetry 
 and such into us, when we ought to have been loadin' 
 up with the stuff we might use some time. But I 
 did the ignorant act. You ought to have seen the 
 girl," he resumed, after a meditative pause. " She 
 just looked at me as though I was a toad too small 
 to step on. 
 
 " * Why, my good man,' she murmured con 
 descendingly. * Brownin' died years ago.' 
 
 " * Did any of his rhymes get printed in the Green 
 County Clarion? ' I asked, * 'cause the editor of that 
 paper was a great feller for shovin' in verses.' 
 
 " Speechless she stared at me, too astonished to 
 reply. 
 
 " * Marguerite,' she whispered, when her amaze 
 ment had subsided enough to let her tongue loose, 
 4 Did you ever ! ' and Marguerite replied, * No, I 
 never ! ' and the two Brownin' eaters got up and went 
 into their cabin."
 
 CHAPTER XXVI 
 
 IVE us another," said Tom. 
 
 "Let's see," replied the guide. "Did I 
 tell yer about that big shoe manufacturer and his 
 wife, who hired me summer before last?" 
 
 " No." 
 
 " Well, he was a corker, big and fat, weighed 
 about a quarter of a ton with his boots off. He was 
 up at Horsehead Landin,' stoppin' at the hotel. 
 'Twan't my regular stampin' ground, but I was up 
 there 'cause it was kind o' dull where I ginerally 
 hangs out. One mornin', the clerk, who knew me, 
 introduced me to Mr. Hyde. 
 
 " ' My man,' he said, from somewhere down his 
 throat, ' are yer engaged f er next month ? ' 
 
 " * No,' said I. 
 
 " Well, after askin' a few questions, he seemed ter 
 sort o' feel I'd do. So we got together. The clerk, 
 he told me that Hyde had a few million sweatin' in 
 terest. 
 
 " As he didn't say anything , about gettin' sup 
 plies, I told him that I would attend to 'em. 
 
 " * I'll look out fer 'em,' says he. And he did ; and 
 
 he didn't. 
 
 146
 
 THE KNOCKERS' CLUB 147 
 
 "I've seen mean folks, chaps so close that they'd 
 suck air instead of buyin' a drink. But he was the 
 champion of 'em all; worse, by ginger! than the 
 feller up north, who was so mean that he used to 
 bottle his butter, and let the children rub the bottle 
 onto their bread. 
 
 " He went up to the store with me, and, would 
 yer believe it, he got jest enough grub to keep us 
 goin' a week, if we got sick, to say nothin' about a 
 month, with the kind of appetite even dyspeptics 
 get when they're out in the woods. I knew I was in 
 for it, so said nothin'. His wife, she was as close as 
 he was, sometimes I thought worse. 
 
 " We started off, and got into the woods, bringin 5 
 up to where we are now. Old Hyde, he pulled off 
 his shoes to save leather; and his wife, she'd most 
 likely have done the same if she hadn't got feet that, 
 judging by the way they looked with her boots on, 
 would 've made good snowshoes, 'cause they were 
 as flat and broad as griddlecakes. 
 
 "Hyde, he thought the world was just made fer 
 him and nobody else. He had more conceit to the 
 square inch than had any college grad I ever had 
 charge of, 'fore he gets the education kicked up 
 far 'nough for him to corral it. He was all the 
 time talkin' 'bout his big factory and the number 
 of pairs he turned out, and 'bout the thunderin' big 
 deals he made, till I got to thinkin' that if it hadn't
 
 148 THE KNOCKERS' CLUB 
 
 been for him, we'd all 've gone barefoot, 'cause so 
 far as I could see, from the talk he handed out, he 
 made all the shoes in the world and a blame-sight 
 more. 
 
 " He wasn't worth a cuss shootin', and couldn't 
 fish, 'cause he had so much front to him, that if he 
 tried it, he couldn't 've seen where the line struck 
 the water 'less he'd had a pole a quarter of a mile 
 long. But he wanted to shoot something, didn't care 
 what, so I let him have my gun, and he'd set on a 
 rock and jest wait, while the flies were busy at him. 
 
 " As I couldn't get any more provisions 'less I 
 tramped and canoed twenty mile for 'em, I went 
 lightly on what we had, caught a few fish, and 
 brought down a squirrel or two. I managed to keep 
 'em half-filled, and by eatin' 'tween meals, when they 
 weren't watching', I didn't suffer much. 
 
 "His wife, poor woman, if ever a critter needed 
 heavy fodderin', she did. She didn't carry any stock 
 of flesh on her, but he'd have lived a year on what he 
 had, and would 've looked a blame-sight better for 
 it. 
 
 " One day he was sittin' on a rock strong enough 
 to hold him, 'side a deep pool in the water. One of 
 those busy bumblebees give him a push into it. He 
 flopped about like a rhinoceros. I couldn't fish him 
 out, 'cause I'm no Samson, so I poled him into shal 
 low water, and rolled him ashore."
 
 THE KNOCKERS' CLUB 149 
 
 "Did you get your pay?" inquired Don. 
 
 " Oh, yes," replied the guide. " He saved enough 
 on the grub he didn't have to settle with me and have 
 some left over." 
 
 "I don't see how he did it," interjected Arch. 
 " If he paid for the food, how could he realize suf 
 ficiently upon it to have more than he put out in the 
 first place? " 
 
 " Easily," said Don, " if you know how to finance. 
 An old uncle of mine, a Maine farmer, was so close 
 a calculator that every time he sold a cow for fifty 
 dollars, he'd make sixty-five." 
 
 " But," protested Arch, " I don't see how you 
 can get more out of a thing than there is in it origi 
 nally. It stands to reason " 
 
 "Pull in your tongue, Arch," ejaculated Tom, 
 " and get down where you belong. How many times 
 have I told you that business isn't a complicated af 
 fair like your psychology is? It adjusts itself to 
 conditions. If you had anything about you to carry 
 it away in, I'd try to teach you something." 
 
 Arch entered the cabin, and hours afterward we 
 found him there, among his machinery and books, 
 working hard at some problem. 
 
 "Whatcher doin'?" Tom asked. 
 
 " Tom," he said solemnly, " you heard what Don 
 said about his uncle's cow? I've dived into every 
 thing I have here, and I can't figure out how he
 
 150 THE KNOCKERS' CLUB 
 
 made sixty-five dollars when he received only fifty 
 for the animal." 
 
 "You forgot the milk," Tom remarked drily. 
 
 Over Arch's face spread a look of intense satis 
 faction. 
 
 " Thanks," he muttered. " Why. didn't I think of 
 that?"
 
 CHAPTER XXVII 
 
 IT rained! 
 No, it wasn't rain, for rain, according to the 
 encyclopedia, the dictionary, the Old Farmer's 
 Almanack, and the Government scientists who order 
 the weather, is composed of separate and individual 
 drops of water, which, from the sky, fall and don't 
 dash upon the earth beneath. The liquid phenom 
 ena, which was exhibiting itself all about us, was a 
 sky-topped waterfall which filled the air completely, 
 with not a microscopic air space among it. It was 
 solid water, one great and mighty flood. 
 
 Were we in it? 
 
 Oh, no, we were under it; for the cabin, although 
 it looked leaky, was as tight as the collateral money 
 lender. 
 
 We were indoors, each with a pipe, and none of 
 us seemed to want to say anything or talk. 
 
 Suddenly the door opened, and in came two tons 
 of water with a man in the middle of it. 
 
 He was not wet, he was water-logged. 
 
 After Tom had pushed him against the wall until 
 the active water was pressed out of him, we helped 
 
 him out of his clothes, and, from our limited ward- 
 
 151
 
 152 THE KNOCKERS' CLUB 
 
 robe, covered him with a shirt from one of us, a pair 
 of trousers from another of us, while still another 
 of us provided a coat for him. 
 
 The stranger was a splendid looking chap of forty 
 or more, with a body and head that matched. 
 
 We took a liking to him at once, and bid him wel 
 come. As we had only a pipe apiece, and as no 
 amateur woodsman can maintain both cast and 
 cigars, we took turns in lending him a pipe. 
 
 Somehow, his arrival, and the flood that accom 
 panied him, thawed us out, and we began to play a 
 game of conversation with the stranger taking his 
 turn at trumping. 
 
 For some reason (most likely for no reason) we 
 didn't tell him where we came from, and we allowed 
 him to pay the Empire City the highest compliment 
 by intimating that he thought we were New Yorkers. 
 
 After we had talked and re-talked for a while, Don 
 turned to him and suddenly asked, " Where do you 
 hail from?" 
 
 Proudly the stranger rose to his feet, and with 
 out-blown chest exclaimed, " From Chicago ! " 
 
 *' Always lived there ? " inquired Walt. 
 
 " Unfortunately, no," he replied, with a sigh and 
 a blush. " It's no use for me to deny that I was born 
 among the Cape Cod sand fields and emigrated to 
 Boston in the days when the Hub of Conceit was be 
 ginning to appreciate its Spokes."
 
 THE KNOCKERS' CLUB 153 
 
 " Don't apologize," I said. " You were not to 
 blame." 
 
 "What's the matter with Boston?" asked Tom. 
 
 " Everything ! " exclaimed the Chicagoan em 
 phatically. " Say, fellows, would you like to know 
 how I escaped from Eastern cold storage, and got 
 into a place where things move without being pushed 
 or coerced? " 
 
 There was unanimous assent. We intuitively felt 
 that something worth while was coming, and wanted 
 it to come. 
 
 " Well, I'll tell you," he said, " and maybe some of 
 you, if you ever go to Boston, will not take violent 
 exceptions to all of my contentions. Boston, in my 
 early days, was the biggest, happiest, most fraternal 
 town in all creation, the beautiful, satisfied, and 
 slightly booming abiding place of peace and plenty, 
 with not too much of either. 
 
 " As my mind harks back to those happy days of 
 my youth, I wish I could renovate the great, lumber 
 ing Boston of to-day, and strangle the presumptu 
 ous progressives who filled up her tide-covered flats 
 with the mixed mud of cosmopolitanism, and satu 
 rated her simplicity with a solution of society which 
 upsets the tranquillity of respectability. 
 
 "My not yet fleeting memory suggests a longing 
 for those days of Boston's yore, when something 
 which resembled fraternity was at the bat, and good-
 
 154 THE KNOCKERS' CLUB 
 
 will pitched a ball a self-respecting player could 
 strike at. 
 
 "Folks knew each other in those ante-city days, 
 and commercial cussedness crawled in the shadows, 
 with few avaricious enough to sell their sense for 
 dollars. 
 
 "Now Boston is a great, big yardful of money 
 monuments, erected by t{ie successful fishers of men 
 and suckers, who would rather bite at the golden 
 hook, and get caught, than live upon the natural 
 food provided by a natural mother. 
 
 "Boston and I grew up together, yet neither of 
 us acknowledged the honor to the other. There were 
 others who were responsible for the up-fall of good 
 Boston into the money-mire of metropolitan merce- 
 nariness." 
 
 Our stranger friend paused, while we gasped in 
 amazed appreciation. 
 
 When we got part way back to normal, Walt re 
 marked drily, " Did all of you assimilate the 
 epigrammatic ponderousness of his literary allitera 
 tion, and get onto his ' mercenariness '? " 
 
 "I did for one," said Tom, and turning to our 
 guest, he remarked, " You're a wonder at word-sling 
 ing. Perhaps some of 'em are of doubtful coinage, 
 but there's a ring to 'em which adds a metallic bril 
 liancy to your talk, that's mighty refreshing in these 
 days of diseased vocabularies, when men, and women,
 
 THE KNOCKERS' CLUB 155 
 
 too, paint their word-pictures with silken brushes too 
 soft to hold the colors of life." 
 
 " Thanks," remarked the Chicagoan meekly, " I'm 
 glad that you're able to follow me without over-ex 
 ertion. Shall I go on, or have you had enough? " 
 
 " Let her spin," replied Tom. " Go as far as you 
 like. We're used to listening to stuff that would 
 peel the skin off a circus-cured rhinoceros. You 
 can't upset our equanimity." 
 
 Thus encouraged, our friend continued: 
 
 "I entered business, became a changer of goods 
 into money ; learned the legerdemain of buying some 
 thing at under price and of selling it at more than 
 it was worth. I became a self-appointed captain of 
 the industry of others. I levied my own tolls, and 
 collected them, with the aid of a business gun. I was 
 a smoking part of that nerveless engine of trade, 
 which forever strives to make a dollar's worth of 
 steam out of fifty cents' worth of fuel. 
 
 " As men run, for no man of money-making ever 
 walks, I was considered a pretty decent sort of fel 
 low, one of Boston's constant worshipers at the 
 shrine of Get-There, No matter How, But Get 
 There ! 
 
 " I got there. With my feet firmly planted upon 
 the rock of expediency, the foundation of com 
 mercial enterprise, I fairly sweat respectability, 
 and exhaled conventional goodness.
 
 156 THE KNOCKERS' CLUB 
 
 "By minding my own business, I got business 
 from those who didn't attend to their business. I 
 owned the land that others sowed and cultivated; 
 and, at the harvesting, I gathered in their wheat 
 that I might sell it to those who grew it. 
 
 " Underfed talent lifted its hat to me. The church 
 sold me absolution at the price of pew rent, two per 
 cent, off for cash. 
 
 "From the top of the wave, I waved my dollar- 
 starred banner, and gayly danced upon the shores 
 of society to the sweet, singing symphony of the 
 lightly rolling ripples, which never got near enough 
 to becoming a wave to foam or roar. 
 
 "Disintegrating Boston wanted what I was and 
 had. I played the game of policy, and won at the 
 rubber. 
 
 " Then reaction set in. I rebelled at being a 
 puppet pulled by the strings of a bless-you, damn- 
 you society, which loved its fellows with an affection 
 so thin that it couldn't withstand the pressure of a 
 handshake. 
 
 " I ceased to build houses of gold dust. I turned 
 my face toward the Western Open, where men re 
 sembled men, and where women were of common 
 gender. 
 
 "But before I left for the promised land of op 
 portunity, I remained in Boston long enough to 
 shake my fist at her bacteria-ated culture, and to
 
 THE KNOCKERS' CLUB 157 
 
 tell my fellows the plain, unvarnished, undressed 
 truth about the shut-up-ness of the unventilated 
 East." 
 
 He paused to give us opportunity to suggest that 
 he continue. 
 
 We were game. 
 
 " Go on," we said. 
 
 " Hold ! " interrupted Arch. 
 
 " Shut up ! " shouted Walt. " Our guest is at the 
 bat. You field-it for a while longer." 
 
 Our friend gathered himself together again, and 
 resumed : 
 
 "A handful of I-want-to-be philanthropists, kid- 
 gloved and of surface immaculateness, with anti 
 septic spades, turned up enough of the Fenway mud 
 to scatter the decay of the ages. 
 
 " The smell, however, was historic. It came from 
 the Sacred Past. Like babies' milk, it was bottled in 
 bonded sterilizers, and became the bluing used in 
 the wash-tubs of reform. 
 
 " These self-selected censors for revenue princi 
 pally formed a heeling, twisted, deformed, loose- 
 jointed association for the reincarnation of a 
 bigger, bitterer, bigoted Boston. They appointed 
 ten thousand net inactive committees, each chair- 
 manned by a man of name, but not of action, and 
 built a rostrum in every hall which was not located 
 well enough to be used for a moving-picture show.
 
 158 THE KNOCKERS' CLUB 
 
 They accepted bids for privileges to speak, and to 
 deliver, the inexhaustible spillings of the Boston 
 mind, which didn't mind its business because it hadn't 
 any business to mind. 
 
 " Thousands of degreed and pedigreed men and 
 women swallowed the line, the hook, and the bait. 
 The lettered minority attempted to paint the al 
 phabet of asininity upon the sun-burned faces of the 
 unlettered majority. 
 
 " Heaven closed her near-earth windows that she 
 might not be suffocated by the whirling dust of 
 ground-up dictionaries, which belched from the 
 blowers of lecture hall and pulpit. 
 
 " Boston went reform mad, without being cross 
 about it. She filled her smooth-bore mouth with 
 wet words, and sprinkled, not soaked, her populace. 
 (Hang that metaphor! It's mixed. But so was the 
 stuff it tried to picture.) 
 
 "I joined the speech-rangers, but my rostrum oc 
 cupancy was short-lived. 
 
 " Why? There were several reasons. 
 
 " There was to be a continuous performance of 
 word-contests at the Old Museum of Departed Arts. 
 Its fourteen halls had fourteen platforms. Four 
 teen men were to talk simultaneously against time 
 and audience. 
 
 " I had Hall Number Thirteen, an unlucky num 
 ber for my hearers. I endeavored to close my ha-
 
 THE KNOCKERS' CLUB 159 
 
 rangue with one fell swoop of pent-up fury let loose. 
 I would be eloquent, unique, impressive, epigram 
 matic, and even grammatical, and all else that goes 
 to make up a ringing finale. 
 
 " ' My fellows,' I shouted, ' what's the matter 
 with Boston? ' 
 
 " Then, I paused to give them a chance to answer 
 the unanswerable. Striking what I imagined to be a 
 heroic attitude, a sort of cross between Napoleon 
 at Helena and Bryan in Convention, I waxed, I 
 whacked, I grabbed the American bird of oratory by 
 the claws, and soared above my hearers, at the 
 bird's expense. I fired my load, and blazed away 
 after my ammunition was exhausted. I tangled my 
 self in the thread of my remarks. Like a spent top, 
 I wobbled. With a mighty effort I straightened up, 
 and ran down with the following yell: 
 
 " * The yeast of the East is rising in the West, 
 and men are going where there's room to throw a 
 thought and catchers who won't muff it.' 
 
 " The applause was conspicuous by its absence. 
 Not a hand, not a hiss, nothing to show that I had 
 said either something or nothing. 
 
 " Then and there I became an undesirable speaker, 
 and my career as a Boston orator, philantro- 
 pist, reformer, and cultivator of superannuated 
 progress was nipped in the first shoot of its bud 
 ding."
 
 160 THE KNOCKERS' CLUB 
 
 " Isn't this a good place for applause to come 
 in? " suggested Walt. 
 
 Even Arch and the Professor joined in the hand- 
 clapping. 
 
 " I'm 'most through," the Chicagoan said, " and 
 you can rest in peace. 
 
 " 'I said unto myself,' " he continued, 'why at 
 tempt to swim longer in a water too light to support 
 my weight? ' 
 
 " I was still young, my digestion was normal, and 
 ambition had not forsaken me. I had some money, 
 which I had pried from out the sewed-up Boston 
 pocketbook. 
 
 " My business was of a movable character, and 
 could be planted to grow in any commercial soil. 
 So I moved it and myself to Chicago. There I have 
 been for five years. 
 
 "In that wonderful city I found the Cream of 
 the East, the men who had courage enough, and 
 ambition enough, and sense enough to escape from 
 suffocation and enter an air reeking with activ 
 ity. 
 
 " In ninety days I was as much at home in my 
 adopted town as I had been in the place of my youth 
 and early manhood. 
 
 " Out there I combated fierce competition, and ran 
 across obstacles and handicaps; but even those who 
 combated me did it in that good-hearted friendly way
 
 THE KNOCKERS' CLUB 161 
 
 which takes the sting out of competition, and adds 
 fraternity to rivalry. 
 
 " And I found culture there ; not the weary, 
 effete culture of the East, but the kind that made 
 a specialty of distributing itself. 
 
 " The Chicago library didn't have as many books 
 as its windowless counterpart in the East, but every 
 book was working. 
 
 " But, enough, boys ! I'm hungry. What you got 
 for grub?" 
 
 We fed him. 
 
 After he was internally filled, we filed before him, 
 and each of us, save Arch, in turn, made a grandil 
 oquent five-minute address, calculated to impress 
 him with our appreciation; and, perhaps, it did. 
 
 Arch remained silent, wrapped in thought and an 
 army blanket. He was rummaging among the foot 
 hills of psychophysical mountains, hunting for the 
 "last analysis." 
 
 " My friend," said Don, after the Chicagoan had 
 made a characteristic reply, " the joke's on you. 
 We're Bostonians, every one of us is of Boston, 
 from Boston, and going back to Boston." 
 
 The Man from Chicago stood at attention. He 
 blushed not, neither did he smile. " Boys," he re 
 plied soberly, "truth never apologizes, never re 
 tracts, but stands immutably upon her unmovable 
 base, defying man and Boston."
 
 162 THE KNOCKERS' CLUB 
 
 Somebody turned off the water, the clouds dis 
 appeared, and our friend (for he seemed no longer 
 a stranger to us) bid as a hearty good-bye, with a 
 promise to call on us and dine with us when next he 
 visited our city; and we jointly and severally ac 
 cepted his invitation to make his house our home 
 when in Chicago.
 
 CHAPTER XXVin 
 
 HE reader, if he is alive at this stage of the 
 book, has undoubtedly wondered at my ultra- 
 prominent modesty and my sublime and heroic (ap 
 parent) desire to bill the exploits of others to the 
 almost complete exclusion of myself. He has doubt 
 less generated a warmth of affection for me, and 
 has longed at times to hear more from me about 
 what I said and did, as he, my friends, and I, have 
 journeyed together. 
 
 But I will not allow him falsely to lavish enco 
 miums of praise upon me, nor permit him to feel an 
 appreciation which is not deserved. 
 
 With more faults than virtues to my credit, I am 
 honest, so filled with the triple essence of pure 
 truthfulness, that I would rather starve on the 
 crusts I earn than auto through this story on the 
 gas I borrow. 
 
 I am not a man of modesty. In my lexicon no 
 such word appears. I was born in conceit, for at 
 my birth my father collected a hat from our doctor 
 on the wager that his next arrival would be a boy. 
 
 Because I was the only one in the family who had 
 
 any prospect of becoming a man, my parents handed 
 
 163
 
 164 THE KNOCKERS' CLUB 
 
 me the stored conceit of generations, and taught me 
 all the show-off stunts which would throw me before 
 the public eye and develop my prenatal egoism. 
 
 I am conceited, so filled with it that if I cast it 
 off at this late day, I would be as nude as the un 
 dressed statues which connoisseurs have clothed with 
 the unseen veil of Art. 
 
 When I started in to write this screed, I alter 
 nated pen with rubber stamps of capital " I's." I 
 planted an " I " in the middle of the page, and wrote 
 around it. Every other paragraph began with " I 
 said" or "said I." I solar-printed my jokes, and 
 magnified my puns. I strewed the bubblings of my 
 brilliancy broadcast upon its pages. The sun of my 
 personality scorched the paper. Every thought I 
 could think was credited to me. The other members 
 of the cast were but supernumeraries, with little to 
 do save to serve as my background, and act as 
 frames for my posings. 
 
 I wanted to name the book " Me and Mine." 
 
 An artist, to whom I had loaned money, painted 
 my portrait as many times as the debt would per 
 mit, and if I had had my way the book would have 
 begun with a dozen frontispieces of me, each repre 
 senting an angle of my consummate cuteness. 
 
 The publisher's editor, however (may he never 
 get his pay raised!), rudely tore out the portrait 
 pages, and ripped out the lines of my glorying and
 
 THE KNOCKERS' CLUB 165 
 
 glorification, and left only the words I had used to 
 connect the gems I had written for me to deliver, 
 with the incidental expressions of the others, who 
 were there merely as my foils. 
 
 The best part of this book is not in this book. 
 It has been cut out, squeezed out, put out, by that 
 rigid connecting rod 'twixt the brilliant author with 
 his scintillating work and the money-making pub 
 lisher the man professionally known as the pub 
 lisher's editor. 
 
 Nevertheless, I have copies of the sunshine and 
 moonshine, the glares of humor, the ripples of wit, 
 which were not allowed to effuse these pages; and 
 some day, when I become famous, if luck passes my 
 way, I will make a book of what isn't in this book, 
 and this new book will be mine, all mine. Then this 
 reflection of what I can do, this expurgated, torn- 
 asunder book, will have a competitor, which will 
 drive it into the cave of innocuous desuetude. 
 
 Now I will go back to the woods, because it is 
 time to pack up for home. The days are growing 
 shorter, the baked beans are sprouting in the can, 
 the sugar just covers the bottom of the bag, the 
 last sardine box is waiting for the can-opener, the 
 cracker sack is lean and lank; in the words of Arch 
 " The opportune time has arrived for our exodus, 
 and let us grasp it by the forelock, and quit." 
 
 I would have kept the reader in the woods for a
 
 166 THE KNOCKERS' CLUB 
 
 month more of pages, and have harassed him with 
 descriptions of our harmless exploits, which never 
 occurred in duplicate. I would have filled a book 
 too large to sell at a reasonable price, with what the 
 guide said; and would have builded an encyclopedia 
 out of the sagenesses of Arch and the Professor, 
 but I am tired, not of the woods, but of writing about 
 them. 
 
 So we went home, home to the city of cut-rate cul 
 ture, to the abiding place of men and women, and 
 others, who are thinking the faded thoughts of the 
 gone, and drinking the stagnant water of the past.
 
 CHAPTER XXIX 
 
 IN the cool of a settling September we were again 
 at the Round Table. Don had had an antiseptic 
 shave. Arch's hair had been trimmed to the pro 
 fessional length approved by the Authors' Club. 
 The Professor was wearing a collar. Walt had had 
 his trousers pressed; and Tom had just returned 
 from the cleanser's, where his flowing beard had been 
 renovated and the moss combed out of it; while I, 
 in my red necktie, was not far behind the others in 
 the appearance of respectability. 
 
 After the conversation had furnished gratuitous 
 advice to the President of the United States, and ex 
 pert counsel to the Mayor of Boston, and the lead 
 ing problems of the day had been sifted through 
 our minds and settled for the present, Don brought 
 it down to where we were. 
 
 " Boys," he said, " I was at the shop yesterday, 
 and things were moving, some of 'em fairly humming. 
 Nobody seemed to have missed me. Green, my man 
 ager, met me at the door, shook hands, and re 
 marked, * Glad you're back, Mr. Bennett, but you 
 needn't have hurried. Business never was better. 
 Everything's running like a chronometer.' I opened 
 
 167
 
 168 THE KNOCKERS' CLUB 
 
 my desk, but there was nothing on it, not even a 
 memorandum, save the reports, which had been 
 properly O'Ked. 
 
 " ' How's White doing? ' I asked of my secretary, 
 referring to a new man we had placed in charge of 
 an important department. 
 
 " * He's a worker, and he's caught on in great 
 skape ; landed a big one yesterday, the one we've been 
 trying to get for five years.' 
 
 " After a while I went down to the bank. Most 
 of the fellows were there. They nodded at me, and 
 nobody said anything. I wondered at it, because 
 they hadn't seen me for six weeks. 
 
 " ' How's business? ' I asked of the cashier, after 
 I had waited an hour for somebody to say some 
 thing. 
 
 " ' Good,' he replied. ' Better than it has been at 
 this season for ten years. But why do you ask?' 
 
 " * No particular reason for it,' I replied, with 
 slight irritation, 'but I thought I'd inquire if any 
 thing had happened since I went away.' 
 
 " The cashier looked at me for a moment, then re 
 marked quietly, 'Have you been away, Mr. Ben 
 nett?' 
 
 " If it had been you," continued Don, looking at 
 Tom, " I'd have knocked your head off." 
 
 " Play it was me," returned Tom. 
 
 " But there's a serious side to it," resumed Don,
 
 THE KNOCKERS' CLUB 169 
 
 without seeming to notice Tom's pleasantry. " It 
 proves pretty conclusively that mighty few of us 
 amount to anything, and most of us don't amount to 
 that much. Here I've been away for a month and a 
 half, and nobody has missed me, and most of the fel 
 lows who work for me didn't know I had gone. But 
 the worst of it is that business has actually improved 
 during my absence. Maybe," he continued thought 
 fully, and as though talking to himself, " if I'd not 
 come back at all, they'd have doubled it." 
 
 " Don," interrupted Arch soberly, " you are sim 
 ply experiencing the unpreventable result of the 
 natural law of accomplishment. Business-doing, al 
 though to the eye of the layman it is apparently at 
 variance with the immutable laws of science, is not in 
 fact removed from the great fundamental and under 
 lying influences which determine and pre-determine 
 the weight and measure of the inevitable result. 
 Back of all action lies a cause for each and every 
 movement, an impulse which compels obedience to it. 
 You can no more escape it than can water refuse to 
 respond to the call of gravity. You, as the chief 
 manager of that peculiar activity, which you and 
 your kin call business, have, by your innate or al 
 leged ability, imparted to it an unseen yet powerful 
 momentum, which will, when once established, carry 
 on its work long after the creative energy which 
 started it has been withdrawn."
 
 170 THE KNOCKERS' CLUB 
 
 Tom was getting uneasy, but a glance from Arch 
 was sufficient to quiet him. 
 
 " You have built up," continued Arch, " a sort of 
 automatic machine; and you, or your energy, is the 
 mainspring of it, with many assisting springs repre 
 sented by your officers and employees. You and 
 they began action simultaneously. After all of these 
 springs are fairly exerting their push-and-pull 
 power, you may, with impunity, remove yourself for 
 a time, and yet this voluntary absence on your part 
 need not, and does not, necessarily discontinue or re 
 tard the motion of, or energy contained in, the main 
 spring, which is vested in you, or springs from you. 
 It will continue to exert a pressure for days, and, 
 perhaps, for years ; and before it runs down, if that 
 should occur, it will, with mechanical intelligence, 
 notify the adjacent springs of your coming depart 
 ure, and these, trained and tempered by you, will re 
 ceive an incentive to extra exertion because of your 
 withdrawal; and their combined and increased 
 activity may furnish a greater force than is likely to 
 occur when they are directly influenced or controlled 
 by the immediate presence of you, the main or fun 
 damental spring of them all." 
 
 The uneasiness of the silence betold eruption, but 
 Arch bravely continued: 
 
 " From this reason, which I have made so concise 
 and plain that even Tom, though a fool, can under-
 
 THE KNOCKERS' CLUB 171 
 
 stand, my dear Don, it is clear that you are not of 
 inconsequence in the conduct of your business. It 
 simply substantiates one of the great economic 
 theories, which has demonstrated that the constant 
 attention, or continuous application, of an initial 
 energy is not necessary to the permanence of non- 
 material activity. Do you understand me? " 
 
 " Yes, Arch," replied Don gently, as he held back 
 Walt's arm, which was bent in Arch's direction, " I 
 understand that you are trying to understandingly 
 express yourself, and I think that I comprehend 
 what you are getting at, if I don't follow your con 
 foundedly vague way of getting at it." 
 
 " It is well," responded Arch. " It would ap 
 pear that you are approaching the foothills which 
 surround the mountains of intelligence. There is a 
 glimmer of hope for you, Don."
 
 CHAPTER XXX 
 
 exclaimed Don, after we had re- 
 covered from Arch's attack, " I've something 
 up my sleeve." 
 
 " Roll up your sleeve ! " ej aculated Walt. 
 
 "If I did," retorted Don, "somebody would get 
 hit." 
 
 " Take your time," remarked Tom drily, " because 
 if you do, maybe you'll reconsider and not say it." 
 
 " Boys," resumed Don, and we could see that he 
 was serious, " I've got a plan which you fellows will 
 tumble to. You know I never had an automobile, 
 partly because I could afford it. I thought I 
 wouldn't risk my credit by running one of those 
 symptoms of bankruptcy. But why not? Some of 
 the autos we see are driven by men who can afford 
 to keep 'em. I'm going to take a chance. I'll buy 
 a touring car, and we'll enjoy a trip in it." 
 
 " Going to drive it yourself? " inquired Walt, with 
 a twinkle in his eye. 
 
 " I'm not all fool net," returned Don. " No, I'll 
 get a chauffeur to run it. I want the blamed thing 
 to run, and it won't run if I run it." 
 
 "Allow me to offer my services," said the Pro 
 fessor. 
 
 176
 
 THE KNOCKERS' CLUB 173 
 
 " My dear Professor," replied Don gently, " I 
 thank you for your kind offer, but I feel, we all feel, 
 that it would be far better for you to act as ad 
 visor to the chaffeur, to be ever ready to come to 
 his assistance when complications too intricate for 
 his unscientific mind to master arise, than to burden 
 yourself with the disagreeable labor incumbent upon 
 the one who turns the steering wheel and attends to 
 the stops." 
 
 The Professor looked satisfied, but was he? 
 
 " Before you get any farther," put in Tom, " I 
 want to know whether this trip's going to be at Don's 
 expense, or whether we're going to chip in." 
 
 " You're to be my guests," replied Don heartily. 
 
 " NO ! " shouted Tom decidedly. 
 
 " Why not? " asked Don, and his face showed that 
 he was a little nettled. 
 
 " I won't be a guest," replied Tom positively. 
 " I ain't going to have Don chucking his generosity 
 at me all winter. If I go, I'm going to pay my 
 share. No getting under obligations for me." 
 
 "I'm with Tom," broke in Walt. "It's Dutch 
 treat, or nothing. Do you remember that twenty- 
 five cent cigar Don gave me last winter?" 
 
 " No." 
 
 " Don hasn't forgotten it," resumed Walt. " I've 
 smoked that cigar eleven million times, counting the 
 references Don has made to it."
 
 174 THE KNOCKERS' CLUB 
 
 "Let's get down to business," interjected Tom, 
 turning to Don. " We appreciate your generosity, 
 but you know that, under our self-established rule, 
 each one must pay his own scot. As none of us," 
 he continued, turning to the others, "have the price 
 of a car, we've got to condescend to let Don furnish 
 it. But we'll divide the expense of the trip into six 
 equal parts, and go. What say you, fellows? " 
 
 The reply was a unanimous " Yes." 
 
 "Let's go and buy a car," said Don, who never 
 transferred to the morrow what he could as easily 
 do to-day. 
 
 We started for the Back Bay section, where resi 
 dential doorsteps abut the broad entrances of gar 
 ages and automobile salesrooms, which are planted 
 by day and multiply by night. 
 
 The Professor was happy. His tongue was on a 
 pivot and twirled while it wagged. He, the eminent 
 physicist, the steerer of science in motion, was it 
 not fitting that he should act as chief consulting en 
 gineer? A disconnected train of motor cars ran 
 out of his mouth. He juggled tires and carburetors 
 together, collided limovisines with touring tops, and 
 tangled himself up in mixed metaphors of mechanical 
 construction. 
 
 We entered one of those velvet-carpeted, plush- 
 curtained, and tropical-tree-planted auto parlors, 
 which are supernumerous nowadays, and which, in
 
 THE KNOCKERS' CLUB 175 
 
 point of numbers, outgeneral even the confectionery 
 shops, where classic candy is molded into medieval 
 shapes, and marketed with titles of remote etymol 
 ogy- 
 
 A gentleman in evening dress, the historic twi 
 light falls early on the made-lands of the Fenway, 
 greeted us at the portals, for the modern garage is 
 too gorgeous to have a plebeian door. He didn't 
 hail us with a hearty and businesslike " What can I 
 show you ? " which we hear in New York, and in 
 other places, without a past, but instead, bowed at 
 attention, and statuesquely awaited our pleasure. 
 
 Without vocal interference, we examined a highly 
 colored vehicle, which looked as though it would be 
 better adapted to adorn a plush-lined case than do 
 duty on the road. 
 
 The Professor was in his element. He got under 
 and over the car. He felt the pulse of the motor. 
 He punched the rubber tires. He sat on the cush 
 ions, and jammed his fingers with the levers. He 
 rattled off a lot of technical terms, some of which 
 were undoubtedly unacquainted with the others, 
 which paralyzed the sales-gentleman, who couldn't 
 have understood more than every other sentence. 
 
 At last, tongue-tired and lame-backed, he re 
 marked, " I think, gentlemen, that we had better visit 
 other makers. This car, while it undoubtedly pos 
 sesses most of the essential elements, which, individ-
 
 176 THE KNOCKERS' CLUB 
 
 ually and en masse, produce an acceptable result, 
 does not contain, as I view it, the road-wearing du 
 rability which will enable it to render the service 
 undeniably desirable in a vehicle intended satisfacto 
 rily to meet the vicissitudes of long-distance travel." 
 
 When the attendant regained consciousnees, we 
 considerately withdrew, and moved on to the next. 
 There we found another car, which, according to 
 statements made by the man who had it for sale, had 
 nothing in common with the one we had just seen, or 
 with any other on the face of the road. It stood on 
 a base of its own exclusive excellence. The factor 
 ies of science, and the galleries of art, had impover 
 ished themselves by contributing all they had, and 
 some more, to the making and assembling of that 
 machine. It possessed all the virtues of the main 
 body of the motor decalogue, and its appendix also. 
 It was one hundred plus per cent, pure, spotless, 
 perfect, unapproachable. 
 
 After listening for an hour to a specially prepared 
 lecture upon that car, which its seller had memor 
 ized, Tom, with childlike blandness, asked softly, 
 "How is it, my friend, that there is any other car 
 on the road? " 
 
 But the question didn't feaze the salesman. In 
 stantly he met the inquiry. 
 
 "There wouldn't be, if we could supply the de 
 mand."
 
 THE KNOCKERS' CLUB 177 
 
 " Granted," said Tom politely, " but how is it 
 that you have any on hand? I see," and he glanced 
 around him, " that you have a dozen or so unsold." 
 
 The salesman was floored. He was a post-grad 
 uate of a correspondence university of automobileia, 
 and little of its mailed education had covered the sell 
 ing side of the motor business. 
 
 " What do you think of it? " I asked Don. 
 
 ** No good," he replied decidedly, " because it's too 
 good. I don't want a perfect car. I wouldn't feel 
 at home in it. I'm going to have one that is natural, 
 that can go wrong once in a while, so that I'll know 
 I'm motoring."
 
 CHAPTER XXXI 
 
 THE next place looked like the rotunda of a 
 Florida hotel. It was ruged, and decorated 
 with trees, and plants, and flowers. The attendants 
 were in royal purple uniform and shod in soft 
 rubber. We felt out of place with our everyday 
 clothes on. Here wealth and shoddy met, and the 
 latter were the best customers. 
 
 I can't explain the paradoxical statement of a 
 friend of mine, that " folks who haven't any money; 
 always have money to buy cars with ;" but it's true. 
 
 Certainly the display ravished the eye, and sub 
 dued the bargain instinct. It was a hall of seduc 
 tion, a den of splendor, where people lose their senses, 
 and their dollars. On royal divans rested symphonies 
 in paint, metal, and rubber, art creations, which 
 were too beautiful to be guided by mere man upon 
 common highways. 
 
 The Professor was happy. No stenographer 
 could have written his jargon, and a phonograph 
 would have broken down if it had tried to record the 
 babel of technical terms and queer phrases, which 
 would have choked him if his mouth hadn't been 
 
 trained to pass them. 
 
 178
 
 THE KNOCKERS' CLUB 179 
 
 Mystified and muddled, bewildered and twisted, 
 we backed out of that emporium, and turned down 
 a side street, where there was a small and unpreten 
 tious building, with a single auto in the window, and 
 one man and one desk back of it. We entered, and 
 the single occupant welcomed us in a businesslike 
 manner. 
 
 " Why, Richard, are you here?" exclaimed Walt, 
 who recognized the seller as an old comrade. He 
 introduced us, with the remark that his friend was 
 the only auto dealer in the world who was on speak 
 ing terms with the truth. 
 
 " You'll pardon me," said Don, as he took a long, 
 lingering look at him, " I'm somewhat of a con 
 noisseur of curiosities. Do you plead guilty to 
 Walt's charge?" 
 
 " Oh, no," replied the salesman with a smile, " I 
 don't pretend to be honest. What's the use of mak 
 ing a claim that nobody would believe, even if you 
 substantiated it? Then," giving Walt a hearty slap 
 on the shoulder, " if I were honest, do you think I 
 would hire Walt for my barker? " 
 
 " No ! " we exclaimed in unison. 
 
 But, honest or not, this man talked what was 
 either the truth or a good imitation of it. He was 
 frank, and didn't claim for his car anything beyond 
 the ability of human ingenuity to produce. He 
 called our attention to some of the unavoidable outs,
 
 180 THE KNOCKERS' CLUB 
 
 without forgetting to present the advantages em 
 phatically. 
 
 It didn't take Don long to make up his mind. 
 
 " I'll take it," he remarked quietly. " Give me a 
 receipted bill, and I'll hand you a check." 
 
 " By the way," inquired Don, after the trade had 
 been consummated, " can you recommend a first- 
 class chauffeur? I want an agreeable fellow as well 
 as an engineer." 
 
 " I know just the man you want," replied the 
 salesman quickly. " He lost his job yesterday. His 
 employer failed with two mortgaged autos for assets. 
 I'll telephone him." 
 
 Just then a young man entered the store. 
 
 " Here he is, by good luck ! " exclaimed the 
 salesman, as he introduced us to " Jim." " If 
 he has another name, I never heard of it," he 
 explained. 
 
 " I think I had two names years ago," said Jim, 
 with a smile, " but, honestly, I've forgotten what the 
 other one was." 
 
 Jim certainly looked his part. There was some 
 thing about him which made one look at him twice, 
 and long to continue to look at him. He was of 
 medium size, solidly built and well proportioned. 
 His red hair allowed his perpetual smile to pass over 
 his head in undulations of good fellowship. Of his 
 competency there was no doubt, for the credentials
 
 THE KNOCKERS' CLUB 181 
 
 he showed us proved his efficiency and experience, 
 and Walt's friend vouched for his integrity. 
 
 Jim was a "find." He possessed a Nature-given 
 refinement and an open-air brightness as delightful 
 as they are rare in these days of cosmetic culture 
 and massage polish. He was alert, and prepared to 
 meet emergency on call. He had escaped book- 
 learning, but carried in his head what lazy men leave 
 on their shelves. What he knew, he had with him, 
 ready for immediate delivery. His grammar was a 
 little shaky, and he could split an infinitive at twenty 
 yards. But what he said connected with sense, and 
 you knew what he was driving at, even though he 
 didn't always keep in the middle of the road of 
 macadamized construction. 
 
 He replenished his stock of anecdote faster than 
 he unloaded it. There was a natural humor about 
 him that invited the kind of laugh one doesn't feel 
 ashamed of. 
 
 Don had no foolish notions about the treatment of 
 employees. He reasoned that a man good enough to 
 run his car, and associate with him on the road, was 
 fit to sit at his table. 
 
 Jim became our companion, not our servant. 
 
 Right here I am tempted to tell you what I think 
 of the folks who draw the social line so taut that 
 they cannot exercise in the little roped-off spot they 
 think is society. I used to get mad at them, but
 
 182 THE KNOCKERS' CLUB 
 
 now when I see them, my eyes fill with tears, the 
 flow of pity, and I feel like taking them by the 
 hand, and gently and quietly leading them into the 
 exclusiveness of some far-away wilderness, and leav 
 ing them there, to eat the dry bread their ancestors 
 baked and to drink the water which is filled with 
 the bacteria of the culture of the past. 
 
 Jim was made of the stuff you hunt for when you 
 have an order to deliver a load of genuine manliness. 
 He was one of those unmedaled heroes, who would 
 jump into the water with their boots on to save a 
 drowning mongrel society girl, of the kind who waits 
 for a proper introduction before her petty propriety 
 will allow her to thank the fellow whose self-forget 
 ting generosity would impetuously risk a life worth 
 saving, to haul in a lump of human worthless- 
 ness. 
 
 Jim had traveled with all sorts and conditions of 
 humanity and inhumanity. He had piloted an ex 
 press truck, and had guided the car owned or hired 
 by that altogether too prevalent product of modern 
 society, commonly known as the snob, not neces 
 sarily a representative of the newly rich, for the al 
 ways rich are not a whit behind their new neighbors 
 in their unquenchable thirst to drink liquid cash out 
 of a golden goblet, always to be seen of men. 
 
 Yet Jim was never forward nor conceited. He 
 kept his place, except when we pulled him out of it,
 
 THE KNOCKERS' CLUB 183 
 
 and never by word or action did he take advantage 
 of the good fellowship we offered him. 
 
 Some day, somewhere, I don't know where, folks 
 like Jim are going to play the first cornet in the 
 Grand March of Progress, where unaccompanied 
 money cannot buy a clear title to anything hitched 
 to anything that won't budge when the wind blows. 
 
 Handicapped as Don was by the advice handed 
 him by the Professor, he managed to fit up the car 
 to the full satisfaction of Jim, to whom, strange as 
 it may seem, the Professor had taken a great fancy. 
 But I think that Jim was primarily responsible for 
 the friendship on the part of the Professor. Jim 
 was a diplomat. He sized up the Professor the first 
 time he met him, recognized his theoretical knowl 
 edge; and, as a shrewd student of mechanics, he got 
 more real good out of him than any of his pupils 
 were able to extract in the mechanical atmosphere 
 of his academic workshop. 
 
 The Professor's large lack of practical informa 
 tion about autos and their accessories, which in 
 creased his belief that he knew all that there was to 
 know about them, bothered Don not a little, for the 
 Professor assumed to dictate what should and 
 should not be purchased until Don turned him over 
 to Jim, who handled him like a nurse does a child. 
 
 The question of search lamps came up. Don left 
 it to Jim, after the Professor had insisted upon get-
 
 184 THE KNOCKERS' CLUB 
 
 ting a kind which was a has-been before it began to 
 shed its irresponsible rays. 
 
 " Professor," said Jim, " I want to show you a 
 lamp the inventor tells me he built after reading one 
 of your books, that on the * Scientific Search for 
 Sunlight.' " 
 
 The Professor fairly radiated affability. He 
 accompanied Jim to the light-maker's shop, and en 
 thusiastically recommended the purchase of a lamp 
 which was the opposite of the one he had insisted 
 upon Don's getting in the first place. 
 
 When science won't yield to sense, try diplomacy, 
 and let Jim, or some fellow like him, apply it.
 
 CHAPTER XXXII 
 
 * * "IV/r EET me at the club at eight o'clock, Mon- 
 *** day morning," said Don, as we parted. 
 
 We were there, each with a dress-suit case, save 
 Arch and the Professor. 
 
 " Where are your bags ? " inquired Don, when he 
 noticed that they were singularly unprovided for. 
 
 " Here's mine," answered Arch, as he presented 
 an envelope box tied with black and tan shoe-strings. 
 " I knew there wouldn't be much room, so I brought 
 the least possible baggage." 
 
 " Whatcher got in there?" 
 
 " A pair of pajamas, a comb, a tooth-brush, a cake 
 of soap, and an extra shirt." 
 
 " Must be made of invisible cloth," remarked Don 
 drily. 
 
 " Don't you think you're taking too much for a 
 two-weeks' trip?" inquired Walt. 
 
 " No," replied Arch soberly. " I don't see how 
 I could get along with less." 
 
 " Cut out the soap," remarked Tom. 
 
 " You don't need an extra shirt," suggested Walt. 
 
 " Where's yours ? " asked Don, turning to the 
 Professor. 
 
 186
 
 186 THE KNOCKERS' CLUB 
 
 " Right here," replied the Professor, proudly ex 
 hibiting one of those green cloth bags, which lawyers 
 use because they make the papers in them look as 
 though they had been tampered with. 
 
 " Got your dress-suit and overcoat in there? " in 
 terpolated Tom. 
 
 " Why, no. Do you think I'll need them ? " ques 
 tioned the Professor. 
 
 "If you've any extra room," remarked Walt, 
 " I'd like to have you shove in a couple of boxes of 
 cigars." 
 
 But Arch and the Professor had reentered the club 
 house. In a moment they returned, accompanied by 
 four bell boys loaded to the necks with books and 
 other stuff. 
 
 "What's that?" exclaimed Don, in amazement. 
 
 " Just a few things I want while away," answered 
 Arch. 
 
 " I brought along a few of my models," explained 
 the Professor. 
 
 Don turned to the bell boys. 
 
 " Take that truck back," he ordered decidedly. 
 
 " Say, you educated fools," he exclaimed, turning 
 to Arch and the Professor, "do you take this car 
 for a baggage truck, and me for the keeper of an 
 asylum ? " 
 
 Neither Arch nor the Professor made any reply. 
 They gazed longily at their disappearing parapher-
 
 THE KNOCKERS' CLUB 187 
 
 nalia, but at the " All aboard " of Don, climbed with 
 the rest of us into the car. 
 
 Jim had already cranked the motor, and, with 
 blessings, and other remarks, from the dozen or so 
 Round-Tablers who stood at the door, we were on 
 our way. 
 
 We turned into Commonwealth Avenue, styled, 
 by those who don't live there, or are unacquainted 
 with its residents, the great artery of blue blood ; but 
 many years ago it changed its consistency to liquid 
 cash, and is the modern abiding place of the dollars 
 of the money-pumping hearts of wealth, and were 
 soon out in the open, among the cliff dwellers of the 
 flats and the tax jumpers of unimproved lands. 
 
 We ran at moderate speed, because we had good 
 sense, and because Don was not a member of that 
 increasing clan of law breakers, who respect no or 
 dinances which interfere with the speed of their self 
 ishness. Jim drove the car with painstaking cau 
 tion. He didn't try to pass the racers, who, unfor 
 tunately, are more likely to injure others than them 
 selves, nor did he turn sharp corners at a breakneck 
 pace. 
 
 Judging by the way the autos passed us, we were 
 the only law-abiding citizens on the road. Some 
 time the courts will fine the poor and jail the rich, 
 and then there will be at least the appearance of con 
 sideration for the rights and safety of others. It
 
 188 THE KNOCKERS' CLUB 
 
 will then be as wicked to swing a golf stick on the 
 grounds of the Country Club, on Sunday, as it is to 
 play a game of scrub ball on the public parks. 
 
 Law is now, however, only convalescent. By and 
 by it will be strong enough to attend to its business. 
 
 At noon we reached the Oldtime Inn, one of those 
 tumbled-down, propped-up hostelries, which Bos 
 ton's undertone thinks that it appreciates. It was 
 a farm house a century or more ago, and in its un- 
 ventilated interior were born and raised the folks we 
 might not have reverenced had we lived with them, 
 eaten their hog meat, and drank out of the disease- 
 spreading bucket which hung in the well of typhoid. 
 
 The whole affair, inside and out, had been re 
 modeled, cut up, and patched up until it looked like 
 a jumbled mixture of what originally was, was sev 
 eral times changed to be, and now is, each succeed 
 ing occupant having added something without tak 
 ing anything away. It was a shambly, shamefaced 
 monument of an intermixture of modern interference 
 and long-ago irregularity. 
 
 It is, however, a success, and will continue to be as 
 long as Boston's hopper turns out effeminate men and 
 bachelor women with stomachs fitted to assimilate 
 only the stale bread and dried cabbages of the crops 
 of decayed ancestry, and with brains which are but 
 the left-overs of an unsuppressible past. 
 
 The floor of the living room and the office re-
 
 THE KNOCKERS' CLUB 189 
 
 sembled the undulating surface of the troubled 
 waters. Upon the walls hung framed letters of old- 
 time men and portraits of old-fashioned women. 
 The chairs were historically uncomfortable, and the 
 window panes were so close together that if it hadn't 
 been for the glass, a Jerseyman would have taken 
 them for mosquito nettings. The parlor, with its 
 h'air-cloth furniture and its up-to-date piano and 
 electric lights, reminded one of a half-shaven face, 
 hair on one side and razor-swept on the other. 
 
 Borrowing a pen from one of the dozen post-card 
 fanatics, who occupied all of the writing space, Don 
 registered for us. An imitation of a town crier, 
 with a colonial coat and a modern crease in his 
 trousers, gave the ancestral dinner-cry through an 
 up-to-date megaphone. * 
 
 We entered the space walled off as a dining room, 
 which was once occupied by three low-studded 
 chambers and a shed. 
 
 " By all that's queer ! " exclaimed Tom, as he 
 took up the bill of fare. " Look at this." 
 
 Here was an old American house, fairly saturated 
 with tradition, with a bill of fare written in the im 
 possible vernacular of a French-crammed sopho 
 more. Not a single dish bore an American title. In 
 desperation Don ordered the waiter to bring him 
 " that," as he handed her the sheet upon which the 
 eatables were scheduled.
 
 190 THE KNOCKERS' CLUB 
 
 The dinner was about what you would get at a 
 second-rate boarding house, except that each viand 
 had a historical flavor its exclusive own, and the 
 sauces and gravies carried an atmosphere which 
 fairly smelled of the days when meat was parboiled, 
 and all the vegetables were cooked in the same 
 water. 
 
 The room was so musty that we didn't have to be 
 told that we were temporarily occupying the abode 
 of long-ago sleeping generations, some of whom were 
 evidently with us. In nook and corner rested the 
 cob-webbed dust from their last sweepings. 
 
 Filled with historical atmosphere and some food, 
 we paid two dollars apiece, twenty-five cents for 
 what we ate, and a dollar and seventy-five cents for 
 the air that surrounded it. 
 
 The afternoon run brought us to the foothills of 
 the mountains. We drove up to one of those big 
 boxes of rooms, garnished with a fringe of veran 
 das. It was the Hotel de Caste, erected by the 
 amateur owner of a dairy, who was looking for a 
 profitable market for his registered milk and pedi 
 greed butter. 
 
 By the use of a poetical booklet and fashionably 
 adjectived announcement, it had attained that pecul 
 iar position which society labels exclusiveness, but 
 which means only that its patronage is limited to 
 the folks with the price about them,- the patronage
 
 THE KNOCKERS' CLUB 191 
 
 of that class of society soapoids, who have no appe 
 tite save for the stuff that is served in imitation 
 Havelin and the seconds of imported crockery. 
 
 Men in waiter's uniforms, and who may wait upon 
 the waiters when merit becomes the criterion of so 
 ciety, wilted their high collars in the breezeless ro 
 tunda; and women, overcovered below and under- 
 draped above, listened to meaningless words and 
 simpered back meaningless replies. And yet these 
 puppets, pulled by the strings of society, without 
 heart, sense, or gumption, thought that they were 
 enjoying relaxation in the open. 
 
 In single-windowed rooms they breathed the air 
 they had brought with them, and three times a day 
 they swallowed the gravies of mysterious viands, so 
 oversauced that tripe looked like liver and tasted 
 like quail, and the pies and puddings which contained 
 the odors of the laboratory in which they were com 
 pounded. 
 
 The size of our auto was sufficient to unbend the 
 dandy clerk, who ordered six " fronts " to surround 
 us, although our baggage remained in the car. Don 
 registered for all of us, including Jim. 
 
 " Seven rooms with connecting baths," he said. 
 
 " But there are only six of you," replied the 
 clerk. 
 
 "Seven," replied Don, "including the chauffeur." 
 
 The clerk stared at us, immediately in-drew his
 
 192 THE KNOCKERS' CLUB 
 
 politeness, and remarked stiffly, " The chauffeur will 
 occupy a bunk in the garage." 
 
 " Not much," replied Don decidedly. " He's to 
 have as good a place as any of us." 
 
 " Sorry," said the clerk stiffly, " but this is a 
 high-class hotel, and its refined patronage will not 
 permit servants to occupy guests' rooms." 
 
 " Is that so ! " returned Don drily, and then, as 
 he pointed to a jaundice- faced bundle of fatty de 
 generation, who was passing near us, he questioned, 
 " Is that a sample of your refinement? " 
 
 "That's Major Morse, the great fertilizer king," 
 said the clerk solemnly. " He stays here all sum 
 mer." 
 
 " My friend," replied Don impressively, " I think 
 too much of my chauffeur to expose him knowingly 
 to contagion, and the rest of us wouldn't care to be 
 disinfected. We appreciate your condescension, 
 but, really, we're not fit to mingle with the human 
 collection you carry in your menagerie. We'll go 
 where men are put up for the night." 
 
 We returned to the car, and in a few minutes 
 were alongside of a small and modest summer hotel, 
 which had an air of neatness and respectability that 
 didn't need evening dress and its accompanying fol 
 lies as an advertisement. 
 
 We were given the rooms we asked for, and none 
 of us, including Jim, was discriminated against.
 
 THE KNOCKERS' CLUB 193 
 
 Here we found all the necessary comforts, and none 
 of the useless luxuries which snobdom demands. 
 
 Within the dining-room sat with their families a 
 half-dozen men known commercially to Don. After 
 supper he introduced us. 
 
 " Boys," he said, when we were alone under one of 
 the big trees, " do you know, any one of the men I 
 introduced you to could buy Hotel de Caste, more 
 than duplicate the aggregate income of its inmates, 
 and have enough left over to keep the wolf from get 
 ting nearer than the next street. I recognized a 
 dozen or so of the men at that gilded maze of fash 
 ion, and some of 'em are depositors in my bank. 
 Many of 'em, I happen to know, are hard up, and 
 our bank wouldn't discount their paper if endorsed 
 by most of the rest of 'em." 
 
 "But how do they do it?" inquired Tom. 
 " Board is expensive where they are, and I take it 
 for granted that most of them have autos with 
 chauffeurs, and that some of the women have lady's 
 maids. It takes money to live the way they do." 
 
 "Yes," replied Don drily, "it uses up all the 
 money they have, and all they can borrow, and they 
 go back strapped." 
 
 " You don't mean to say," inquired Walt, " that 
 all the occupants of that golden cage are impecu 
 nious ? " 
 
 " Oh, no," replied Don. " Shoddy never inhabits
 
 194 THE KNOCKERS' CLUB 
 
 a place wholly unoccupied by wealth. The fashion 
 able hotel manager, if he knows his business, always 
 gets into his house a few men with property, who, 
 although wealthy, act and feel like snobs." 
 
 " Do you know," remarked Arch, " that in no 
 other place can we find so plentifully distributed 
 the material for the study of social psychology, as 
 at the summer resort? Here you get an assortment 
 of human samples, such as is not likely to come to 
 gether anywhere else." 
 
 " How about the theater or opera? " asked Tom. 
 
 "You don't find them there in their full activ 
 ity," replied Arch. "There may be as large a va 
 riety, but they are separated into groups, and don't 
 move about, or express themselves, or associate one 
 with another" 
 
 " Guess you've never put in much time at a Bos 
 ton theater," retorted Tom. " * Don't move 
 about!' Gee whiz! don't they? For the life of me 
 I can't see why they choose an auditorium for their 
 conversation-playing. I have many a time vowed 
 I wouldn't again attend a performance at any of our 
 high-toned playhouses. It's mighty seldom that 
 you can see the beginning of a play because of the 
 folks coming in, or the last of a play because of 
 the folks going out, or much of the middle of it be 
 cause of the tongue-wagging and candy-chewing of 
 your neighbors. Many a time I have resolved to
 
 THE KNOCKERS' CLUB 195 
 
 confine my entertainment-going to the cheap houses, 
 where the audience knows that it must keep still or 
 get out. But pardon me for interrupting, Arch." 
 
 " Acceptance of your view of the case," replied 
 Arch seriously, " does not controvert the tenets of 
 my contention that the summer hotel is the great 
 melting-pot of society, in which are amalgamated 
 the several and diverse elements of the body politic." 
 
 " Cut out the amalgamation," interjected Walt. 
 " They may get into a mixture all right, but they 
 don't amalgamate so anybody can see it." 
 
 " Rather than argue with one of your species," 
 replied Arch, "I will admit the correctness of your 
 diagnosis, particularly as it does not materially in 
 terfere with the burden of my assumption." 
 
 " If it is burdensome," remarked Tom drily, 
 " why don't you ship it by freight and not try to 
 express it yourself?" 
 
 " One of us has got to shut up," demanded Arch, 
 with the emphasis of irritation. " Take your 
 choice. Shall it be Tom and Walt, or me?" 
 
 " What's the matter with all of you keeping 
 still?" sighed Don sleepily. "Let's go to bed." 
 
 We went, and the solution of another great psy 
 chological problem was tabled before it had a chance 
 to develop into something probably not worth 
 while.
 
 CHAPTER XXXIII 
 
 A FTER a hearty breakfast of food that is food, 
 ** with quantity so mixed with quality that when 
 eating it you felt that you were accomplishing some 
 thing, we started northward. 
 
 The highroad ran alongside of about everything 
 that Nature contributes to the pleasure of folks 
 who don't give preference to the artificial, and who 
 prefer to see originals rather than spend their 
 time with imitations. 
 
 Valley ran into hill, and hill into mountain. 
 Here and there a shining streak of silver smiled at 
 us, then darted away as though playing hide and 
 seek with sunshine. The friendly breeze fanned our 
 cheeks, and the cool, bracing air clipped off half of 
 the years of our ages, till Arch forgot to reason 
 and the Professor was at peace. We were in the 
 circle of radiating scenery, where each turn of the 
 eye brought new beauties to admire. 
 
 But what's the use of attempting to paint Na 
 ture with a typographical brush? Let others, who 
 can't do it, make a mess of it. When wonder-drink 
 ing, better keep your tongue at "steady," or you 
 will check the inflow. 
 
 106
 
 THE KNOCKERS' CLUB 197 
 
 After a while Jim remarked, "Looks like fish in 
 that stream." 
 
 "Think so?" asked Don. 
 
 "Why not?" inquired Tom. 
 
 " Well," remarked Don, " I waded ten miles for 
 an inch and a half of fish hereabouts, and when I got 
 it, I gave it back to the lonesome waters." 
 
 We didn't stop to try our luck and patience. 
 
 " Speaking of fishing," remarked Jim, " have I 
 told you the best fish story I ever heard? " 
 
 "No." 
 
 "I was up in the Rangeleys three years ago," 
 said Jim, " chauffeuring for a fellow named Colin 
 Campbell Cameron Scott." 
 
 "Was he a Scotchman?" inquired Arch inno 
 cently. 
 
 " Guess so," answered Jim. " At any rate he 
 wasn't Irish. He was the biggest bunch of big * I ' 
 this side of total conceit. He knew more than it 
 all. There wasn't a thing he hadn't done, nor any 
 where he hadn't been." 
 
 " How could he have done everything and been 
 everywhere? " interrupted Arch soberly. 
 
 "Hold your tongue, Arch," ejaculated Walt. 
 " Go on, Jim." 
 
 " We were at one of those big log-cabin camps 
 on an inlet just off the lake. Evenings we got to 
 gether round a fireplace, and each took his turn at
 
 198 THE KNOCKERS' CLUB 
 
 lying. There was a fellow who'd summered there 
 about twenty years. According to his tell, he'd 
 caught more fish, and larger ones, than the whole 
 State of Maine ever had. He and my boss got at 
 each other, and, say, it was fun. The fur would 
 have flown, if either of 'em had had any." 
 
 " ' Talk about your big fish,' said the Scotchman, 
 ' you ought to see what we catch in the Scottish 
 lakes. There ain't none to reach 'em by a foot up 
 here. We don't think anything of pulling in a hun 
 dred or more of ten-pounders in a morning there.' 
 
 " Then the other fellow would let loose, and spring 
 sizes on us you'd have to go twice with a yardstick 
 to measure, while the rest of us sat and listened. 
 
 " By and by a little, wizened-up chap, who'd been 
 keeping still in a corner, spoke up. 
 
 " * I've been listening to your talk,' said he, * and 
 I ain't going to say I think either one of you have 
 been stretching the length of your fish, 'cause I've 
 seen fish so long that yourn would look like cunners 
 alongside of 'em. Any of you chaps ever've thrown 
 a line off of the coast of Labrador?' 
 
 " ' No,' replied a dozen of us. 
 
 " ' Well, I did, summer 'fore last. Some of us 
 chartered a schooner, and spent a couple of months 
 up there. One day we got into a sort of cove where 
 the water was smooth. We went ashore, where we 
 found an old shanty. As we'd been living aboard
 
 THE KNOCKERS' CLUB 199 
 
 ship for a few weeks, we thought we'd camp out 
 awhile on shore, so we brought over a lot of bed 
 ding, etc., and put in a week. 
 
 " * One morning, when the other fellows were 
 sleeping, I thought I'd surprise 'em by giving 'em 
 a fish breakfast, so I went out on the rocks and hove 
 a line. In about ten minutes I'd hauled in about 
 twenty of the biggest fish I'd ever set eyes on.' 
 
 "'What were they?' asked the Scotchman con 
 descendingly. 
 
 "'Don't know,' replied the chap who was telling 
 the story, 'but they were biggers, fourteen times 
 larger than anything I'd ever caught.' 
 
 " ' Maybe they were whales,' remarked the other 
 fisherman derisively. 
 
 " ' Whales, you fool ! ' exclaimed the Labradorian, 
 ' I baited with whale ! * 
 
 " The Scotchman and the other braggart spelled 
 each other in shutting up." 
 
 " Jim," said Arch soberly, " how was it possible 
 for your friend to affix a whale on to his hook, as 
 suming that the hook was of sufficient caliber to be 
 used for that purpose? And if he did accomplish 
 this apparently impossible feat, how did he, un 
 aided, land his catch? " 
 
 The motor stopped with a jerk. There were 
 questions in Arch's philosophy that would check the 
 flow of even an enlarged Niagara.
 
 CHAPTER XXXIV 
 
 WHILE none of us, save Don, had his name 
 upon the State's auto register, and, like a 
 convict, was known by number, we had ridden in 
 rubber-necked, sight-seeing autos, and had accepted 
 free invitations from motor-car friends. Conse 
 quently we were familiar with auto etiquette. With 
 the exception of the Professor, we ignored the stop 
 page, and appeared not to realize that we were not 
 in motion. 
 
 For this silence, Jim was duly thankful. There 
 are times when shut-up-ness is the best aid to the 
 injured. 
 
 " Did I tell you a good one on Arch ? " Walt in 
 quired, to fill up a gap in the conversation. 
 
 "No," replied Tom, "but go ahead, and get it 
 out of your system. You're bound to spring it 
 sometime, so let it off when we are feeling strong 
 enough to stand it." 
 
 Thus encouraged, Walt began: 
 
 "You know the Future Club? " 
 
 "I've heard of it," Tom replied. "You, and 
 Arch, and the Professor belong to it, don't you? " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 200
 
 THE KNOCKERS' CLUB 201 
 
 " Well, it ought to suit Arch and the Professor, 
 but I don't see where you come into it." 
 
 " Why not ? " asked Walt, as he fell into the open 
 door. 
 
 " You've some sense, altogether too much to fra 
 ternize with that crowd of mouth-workers, who, 
 when they get together, pump wind enough to give 
 steerage way to all the flying machines the sky can 
 accommodate." 
 
 " Better whirl with the wind than stagnate in 
 holes," retorted Walt. " Maybe we don't get there 
 while we talk there, but if it wasn't for the kind of 
 breezes we stir up, some of you outsiders would find 
 the air mighty close." 
 
 "I'm willing to give talk the credit it's entitled 
 to," responded Tom, " but somehow I like a little 
 stiffer stuff back of it, something to start up with, 
 or something for it to blow against." 
 
 "It's there all right," replied Walt, "but some 
 folks are so wind-proof you've got to peel 'em be 
 fore you'll find a crevice sensitive enough to feel 
 anything short of a tornado." 
 
 " I went there once," remarked Tom, " when you 
 fellows got up and roasted Japan, Roumania, Scan 
 dinavia, Bolivia, and the tip ends of South America 
 and Africa; and you braves just sailed into abuses 
 too far off to feel the little typhoon you started. 
 Why don't you get nearer home once in a while?"
 
 202 THE KNOCKERS' CLUB 
 
 " We do sometimes," responded Walt. " Do you 
 recall our crusade against the present deplorable 
 condition of the modern drama? " 
 
 " Pshaw ! " exclaimed Tom. " I read about that 
 in the papers. It made about as much of an im 
 pression as would the kid gloves you chaps wear 
 when up against the boxers in the real ring. You 
 hemmed and hawed, generalized, and then closed up 
 with a selected lot of resolves couched in language 
 which even the dictionaries shy at, too weak and 
 lifeless to bother a feather in a vacuum. Your 
 meetings remind me of a big pump on exhibition at 
 the Mechanics' Fair. It took up a lot of room, was 
 painted red, with brass trimmings, and made a 
 noise. But it pumped water out of a tank back into 
 the same tank. That's what I call wasted energy, 
 a sort of curved bullet that hits the fellow who fired 
 it, and doesn't interfere with anybody en route." 
 
 " Now that you've relieved yourself, Tom," said 
 Walt calmly, "I'll proceed with my story." 
 
 "Wait until I light my pipe," said Tom. "I 
 cannot give proper attention to two important 
 events at the same time." 
 
 " I am sure that I will be interested in any nar 
 rative that concerns my learned friend Arch," 
 called the Professor from under the car. " What 
 big discovery did he make? " 
 
 " Discovery nothing ! " resumed Walt. " It's
 
 THE KNOCKERS' CLUB 203 
 
 what he didn't do that I'm going to tell you about. 
 A year or so ago I was appointed stated speaker at 
 one of the Future Club meetings " 
 
 "How did you work it?" interrupted Don. 
 
 " Merit, pure, undefiled merit did it," responded 
 Walt. " Occasionally real talent is recognized." 
 
 "Go on," said Don, "guess we can stand it." 
 
 " If you fellows have any more interruptions to 
 sling, I pray you chuck 'em now. I'll not start un 
 til I'm sure of a clear course." 
 
 " Cast off your fasts, and get into the stream," 
 said Don. 
 
 " Weigh anchor and let her go," remarked Tom. 
 
 " Look out for rocks ! " exclaimed Don. " It 
 looks shallow." 
 
 " Head her up into the wind," remarked Tom. 
 
 " Isn't it most time to tack? " inquired I. 
 
 "How can he tack before he is under way? " asked 
 Arch seriously. 
 
 "It's your turn," said Walt, shouting to the Pro 
 fessor. " If you have any flings to sling, let her 
 went." 
 
 But the Professor was too far under to hear. 
 
 " I'll tell this story to Jim," said Walt quietly. 
 
 " What's Jim done? " asked Tom. 
 
 Walt didn't reply for a moment, then at the re 
 quest of Don he resumed. 
 
 " Well, it was my day at the club. I had been
 
 204 THE KNOCKERS' CLUB 
 
 mighty busy, and hadn't had time to fix up any 
 thing, but I didn't want to disappoint the large 
 gathering which had braved the storm to hear me." 
 
 " One of those winds which doesn't blow good to 
 anybody," interrupted Tom. 
 
 " Would the disappointment have damaged 
 them? " queried Don. 
 
 "Boys!" shouted Walt, "I'm going to tell this 
 story if I have to chloroform you! Will you have 
 it now, or get it later? " 
 
 "Better now," said Tom resignedly. 
 
 " As I hadn't prepared my speech, I had to talk 
 on the spur of the moment," continued Walt. 
 
 " Did the spur hurt you?" asked Don sympa 
 thetically. 
 
 Walt took no notice of the remark, but resumed: 
 
 " You know that most of the speakers read from 
 manuscripts " 
 
 " I believe you," interjected Tom. "If it weren't 
 so, they'd be talking still." 
 
 But Walt continued: 
 
 " So I thought I'd do a double act, explain how 
 I was fixed, and hit 'em at the same time. I got up 
 and said : * Fellow members, I'm here without a 
 written speech. Unfortunately I've been too busy 
 to give the subject necessary preparation.' Then 
 I stopped, so as to get 'em in a condition to appre 
 ciate what was coming. Striking a dramatic atti-
 
 THE KNOCKERS' CLUB 205 
 
 tude and rolling my eyes, I pushed out both my 
 arms, and remarked, * I'd rather be an extempora 
 neous fool than a premeditated ass.' ' 
 
 Walt paused to receive the appreciative laughter 
 he confidently expected. But not a lip twitched, 
 nor an eye danced. 
 
 "What's the joke?" asked Tom quietly. 
 
 " Maybe you're both," I suggested. 
 
 "Where does Arch come in?" inquired Don so 
 berly. 
 
 Walt glared at us, and casting a look of sublime 
 pity upon us, he continued: 
 
 "Arch was there. He'd been eating a dinner at 
 my expense, and was naturally in a condition to ap 
 preciate my humor." 
 
 " Better feed us before you start another," sug 
 gested Tom significantly. 
 
 But Walt kept on. 
 
 "Arch joined in the burst of laughter that filled 
 the hall." 
 
 "Then the hall wasn't empty?" interjected Don. 
 
 " If you'd been there, it would have been emptier," 
 retorted Walt. And he continued: 
 
 " After it was all over, Arch came to me and 
 said, ' Walt, old boy, that " extemporaneous fool " 
 idea of yours caught the crowd. Was it original 
 with you? ' 
 
 "I told him that it was.
 
 206 THE KNOCKERS' CLUB 
 
 " ' Best thing you ever said,' continued Arch. 
 ' I'm going to use it in my business. Next time I 
 lecture, I'll spring it on the audience.' 
 
 " I didn't see Arch for a week or two. When I 
 met him he was boiling with rage, and he overflowed 
 on me. 
 
 " * Say, Walt, you chump,' he exclaimed, ' next 
 time I work off any of your old stuff, I'll be older 
 than I am now ! " 
 
 *" Where did you spring it?' I asked. 
 
 " ' Went up to Concord night before last,' he 
 replied, 'to lecture on Social Stagnation, and I 
 threw that remark of yours at the audience. But 
 I didn't get a hand, nobody laughed, and it fell 
 flat.' 
 
 "' When did you let it loose? ' I inquired. 
 
 " ' Oh,' replied Arch soberly, ' I didn't think of 
 it at the beginning, so pushed it in as a sort of 
 climax.' ' 
 
 Arch had been listening intently, but didn't join 
 in the general laugh. Instead he turned to us, and 
 asked, "What's the matter?" 
 
 But we didn't tell him.
 
 CHAPTER XXXV 
 
 WHILE the conversation held us in its grip, 
 and we were oblivious to outside influences, 
 our auto was standing still, either because Arch's vo 
 cabulary had clogged the bearings, or for inside 
 reasons. Hitherto there hadn't been a hitch to our 
 going. 
 
 Jim had quietly and systematically set to work, 
 and with marvelous self-control didn't resent the 
 stream of technical questions thrown at him by the 
 Professor, who, devoid of coat, was sprawling under 
 and crawling over the machinery, working persist 
 ently with his mouth. At last, Jim, in desperation, 
 grabbed him by the arm and forcibly led him to a 
 place by the side of the road, where he pushed him 
 into one of those rustic seats, which some kindly 
 summerer had erected for the common good and as 
 a means of exposing his name, an advertisement of 
 his inexpensive philanthropy. The Professor made 
 no resistance. He was busily talking to himself 
 about things which may have had to do with motor 
 ing, but his language was too dense for us to com 
 prehend its meaning. 
 
 207
 
 208 THE KNOCKERS' CLUB 
 
 Returning to the car, Jim asked with emphasis, 
 "Who's been monkeying with this machine?" 
 
 " I have," answered the Professor. " I spent 
 half the night inspecting it, and have discovered 
 many imperfections in the equipment and adjust 
 ment, which, fortunately, I was able to correct with 
 the tools at my command." 
 
 " Did you take out that carburetor? " asked Jim, 
 while his face reddened. 
 
 "Yes," replied the Professor. "I borrowed one 
 of a neighboring car, which embodied my ideas of 
 what a carburetor should be." 
 
 "What did you do with the one that was there? " 
 shouted Jim, as his face twitched and his fists grew 
 in size. 
 
 " I put it in back somewhere. " 
 
 Jim fished it out from under the rear seat, and in 
 a few moments had it in place. 
 
 " Who in thunder changed those spark plugs ? " 
 
 " I substituted some I always carry with me," re 
 marked the Professor calmly. 
 
 Jim turned to Don, and, holding himself together 
 with a mighty effort, while his whole body pulsated 
 with anger, said, " Mr. Bennett, may I express my 
 self? I've got a say inside of me, and I'll choke if 
 I don't let it come out." 
 
 " Go ahead," replied Don, as he winked at us. 
 
 Jim gave his trousers a hitch, strode up to where
 
 THE KNOCKERS' CLUB 209 
 
 the Professor sat, and let loose a torrent of mixed 
 metaphor, which would have cracked the receiving 
 plate of a phonograph, and smashed to smithereens 
 the talking end of a telephone. His words poured 
 out of him in a breathless stream of emphatics. His 
 body swayed, and his legs danced accompaniments 
 to his vociferation. 
 
 We sat in the car, while the tears poured down 
 our cheeks. The Professor, absent with his 
 thoughts, made no reply to what he didn't hear, but 
 Jim remained on the firing line, pouring hot air and 
 blasts of flame-curling scorn at him, until satisfied 
 that the Professor was bomb-proof. Exhausted, 
 and with his tongue hanging out of his mouth, he 
 returned to the car. It took him an hour to get 
 things back into place, and longer to restore his 
 equilibrium. His hands and mouth spelled each 
 other in competitive activity. 
 
 I have attended socialistic gatherings, have been 
 scorched by political fireworks, and have been hit 
 by the vocal bullets of peace-convention battles. 
 But I never heard nor saw a display of word pyro 
 technics which approached in volume or in intensity 
 the lightning and thunder which Jim let loose upon 
 the Professor. Untutored though he may have 
 been, he exhausted the dictionary, and coined ex 
 pressive words and sentences, until he had generated 
 a sweeping fire, whose forked flames crackled and
 
 210 THE KNOCKERS' CLUB 
 
 roared as they belched forth from his over-heated 
 interior. 
 
 At last, when the job had been finished and the 
 motor was returned to normal, Jim threw himself 
 upon the ground, closed his eyes, and whispered, 
 "Won't somebody throw a pail of water over me? 
 I smell smoke." 
 
 The Professor all the time was mumbling to him 
 self. We called to him, but he heard us not. 
 
 " Guess we'll have to help him in," said Don. 
 Here's your chance, Jim. Get the Professor into 
 the car." 
 
 Jim sprang to his work. With rolled-up sleeves 
 and fire in his eyes, he gathered the Professor unto 
 himself, and fairly hurled him into the back seat. 
 
 The Professor pulled himself together, and re 
 marked quietly, " Yes, I must be correct in my 
 analysis of the coherent relations of " 
 
 Gently Tom placed his handkerchief on the Pro 
 fessor's mouth, and held it there, while the Pro 
 fessor, to the music of his own mumbling, went off 
 to sleep. 
 
 We struck a sandy road, so soft that it looked as 
 though the wheels couldn't turn us through. For 
 half an hour we seemed to be in a treadmill, the poor 
 engine doing its best to make the wheels advance. 
 
 " Get out back, and talk to it," suggested Don, 
 as he looked at Walt. " Deliver that speech you
 
 THE KNOCKERS' CLUB 211 
 
 worked off at the convention of women's clubs. The 
 machine will do its best to get away." 
 
 " If my speech won't start it," remarked Walt 
 drily, " you get out ahead and let go one of your 
 jokes. If there is a spark of get- there in the car, 
 it will run you down." 
 
 " Rub some of your anti-skid psychology on the 
 tires, Arch," suggested Tom. 
 
 Meanwhile Jim had so maneuvered that the car 
 worked itself out of the depth of sand, and we were 
 again speeding between the no longer tree-protected 
 mountains, which commercial highwaymen had 
 stripped and mutilated. 
 
 We had procured a lunch at one of those country 
 tea rooms, which serve city meat and milk fresh from 
 the condensery; for that peculiar and mysterious 
 tabulation of misinformation, the auto guide, had 
 hinted at the possibility of the absence of good din 
 ing places. 
 
 " We'll stop here and eat," said Don, as we en 
 tered a glen which had escaped the woodchoppers. 
 
 Jim took charge of the eatables. Spreading robes 
 upon the grass, and using the unread pages of the 
 papers we had bought for tablecloths, he gave an 
 appetizing appearance to the canned and cartoned 
 food we had purchased. For the looks of things 
 does count mightily, especially when you have to eat 
 them.
 
 THE KNOCKERS' CLUB 
 
 Surrounded by the whispering pines and the sing 
 ing water (permission to use these words obtained 
 from the " New Century Magazine ") , it seemed to 
 us that wilted crackers were as crisp as sun-kissed 
 codfish, and that the confined meat smelled of the 
 freshness of just gathered roses.
 
 CHAPTER XXXVI 
 
 nnOM was a deep-stained Republican, so thor- 
 - oughly dyed that all the laundries in the world 
 working overtime couldn't have bleached out his bias. 
 Walt was an iron-clad and metal-shod Democrat, 
 who would rather be kicked by his party donkey 
 than ride to victory on the back of the Republican 
 elephant. Arch was one of those undependable, 
 vacillating, front-advancing, backsliding, never- 
 stick-anywhere Independents. It was good for him 
 that he was, because it kept his bump of reason on 
 the move and gave his psychological faculties op 
 portunity to exercise. 
 
 Don wasn't a Republican, or a Democrat, or a 
 Political Independent. He was a citizen, one of 
 those unusual and peculiar fellows who stood for 
 men and measures, giving preference to one of the 
 great parties unless conditions were too raw and 
 rank to permit a decent man to cast a ballot of self- 
 respect at its polls. Then he held his nose, and 
 voted for the opposite candidate. 
 
 After we had sat awhile, enjoying the good di 
 gestion which follows appetite, thinking of nothing 
 save our own thoughts, the preposition may be 
 
 213
 
 THE KNOCKERS' CLUB 
 
 omitted, and watching the curling and ringing of 
 the smoke which came from our pipes, Tom re 
 marked : 
 
 
 
 The report of this discussion will not appear in 
 this or any other book. There are times when dis 
 cretion is the better part of me, and I'm not going 
 to antagonize the book-buying public, which may, 
 in a moment of irresponsibility, buy the book, if it 
 judges it by appearances. 
 
 Then, what is to be gained by recording it? Take 
 any political discussion, don't select it, but collar 
 it as it comes, photograph it upon a plate that is 
 not sensitive, and then expose the plate to a dozen 
 more, and you won't blur the impression. They're 
 all alike, different only in the variance and peculiari 
 ties of their illogical presentation. 
 
 Because a partisan doesn't know why he is a par 
 tisan, he hasn't any idea of what is wrong with his 
 party or what is good about the others. 
 
 And the Independent, he is like a weather-beaten 
 vane, never pointing to anywhere in particular, but 
 just swinging about, sure to-day and sorry for it 
 to-morrow. 
 
 Instead, I will report a wrangle over a not-yet 
 unraveled puzzle, with an answer, which, when dis 
 covered, will not be worth what it cost to get it. 
 Queer, is it not, that men of mind, and men of
 
 THE KNOCKERS' CLUB 215 
 
 money, and men with some of both, and men with 
 none of either, will burn good oil trying to locate 
 the answer of what isn't worth the solution? 
 
 The foregoing sentences pleased me. There 
 seemed to be a ring about them, which sounded good 
 to my ears. Smooth, are they not? And slightly 
 adulterated with the scholarly? Mighty good 
 chance, thought I, for the display of flowery litera 
 ture, which grows so abundantly in the hot houses 
 of modern story. 
 
 I give you my most solemn word that when I 
 penned these lines, I thought I could deliver the 
 goods, but I can't. Really, I fail to summon any 
 subject that will illustrate what I believed I was 
 going to accomplish when I inadvertently took 
 chances with what I thought I possessed. I fell into 
 a self-made trap, and in the fall, its ragged edges 
 stripped me of my conceit, stranded me upon the 
 bars just outside the sea of brilliancy. I am stuck, 
 that's all. 
 
 Is it not better manfully to admit my Waterloo, 
 than to make a bluff attempt to puncture the im 
 pregnable rocks before me, and lacerate myself, 
 that the reader my laugh at my just punishment? 
 
 Years ago my weather-beaten nose of inquiry 
 taught me to anchor when there was fog ahead. 
 
 The auto is running smoothly. The air is cool 
 and bracing. The sunbeams are dancing on the
 
 THE KNOCKERS' CLUB 
 
 mountain streams. There is no rain in the soft blue 
 of the sky, and the earth needs no watering. The 
 gentle breezes are playing among the trees, and all 
 the world in sight is dressed in holiday attire, and 
 without a suggestion of the shadows whose falling 
 is not thought of, as we, in full fellowship, and 
 drinking from out the brimming cup of cheerful 
 ness, bowl along the highway of pleasure. 
 
 Why take chances with the morrow? Why inter 
 fere with to-morrow's business? Why give the Pro 
 fessor opportunity to block the motor? Why^ allow 
 Tom to repeat his many-time-told stories? Why 
 permit Walt to touch the trigger of our sensitive 
 ness? Why retard Don in his money-making? 
 for we may need his savings next year. Why not 
 let Arch's reason rest in the seclusion of its palpi 
 tating self? Why not give Jim a vacation? 
 
 So now, in the quiet of the retiring day, when the 
 air is sleepy and the birds are still, I will not longer 
 suppress the call for silence, but will say 
 
 GOOD-BYE
 
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