College humour magazines were all the rage in the 1920s. Typically they included jokes, cartoons, and short stories. The University of Toronto got in on the act with “The Goblin” magazine which began with the cover date of February 1921. Jimmie started contributing in the April 1923 issue by designing the cover. By December 1923, he was contributing not just covers, but cartoons inside for almost every issue until November 1925. After that, his contributions were only sporadic. The Goblin ceased publication with the May 1929 issue.
Rusty gave a violent leap at the nearest duck… The leash caught me around the knees…
By Gregory Clark, Illustrated by James Frise, February 7, 1942.
“When this war is over,” enunciated Jimmie Frise, “this world is going to be a different place.”
“No, Jim,” I asserted, “you’ve just been reading the propaganda. What you’ve got to read is history. This world never changes.”
“Are you insinuating,” demanded Jim, “that our propaganda isn’t true?”
“Well, the German propaganda started all this stuff about a new and better world, a new order and so forth,” I pointed out. “Later, we took up the cry.”
“You had better be careful,” warned Jimmie, “what you say about propaganda.”
“Is it all right if I just think about it?” I inquired.
“It’s better not even to think about it,” advised Jim. “Then you can’t get into any trouble. In wartime, ours not to reason why. Ours but to do and die.”
“Very well,” I surrendered. “But all the same, I think we ought to read history. In times like these, it is good for the soul to read history. It gives you courage.”
“Does history suggest,” asked Jimmie, “that the world won’t be a better place after this war?”
“All history teaches,” I explained, “is that nothing ever changes. What happened to men in ancient Babylon is happening to men in modern Toronto and modern Birdseye Center. There is a wise old saying that history repeats itself. That is just a silly and high-sounding way of saying that men do the same things over and over again, forever and ever.”
“Then, you mean there will always be wars…?” questioned Jimmie darkly.
“I’ll tell you when there will be no more wars, Jim,” I declaimed. “There will be no more wars when no motorist tries to pass another motorist on the highway. When boys no longer fight in schoolyards, wars will end. When women no longer shove each other around at bargain counters, when hockey and baseball and golf are forbidden by law, wars will cease.”
“Puh,” said Jimmie. “No connection.”
“All the connection there is,” I declared. “I’ll tell you when war will end. When you turn the other cheek, war will end. If a motorist, trying to pass you on the street, cuts in ahead of you and bashes in your front left hand fender, and you get out of your car and go and shake hands with him and pat him on the back and plead with him to cease weeping – then wars will end. Read history, Jim. Read history.”
“If history is as cynical as all that…” uttered Jim.
Just the Form Chart
“History is just the form chart, Jim,” I explained. “You’re a racing man. You like horse-racing. How do you decide to bet on a horse?”
“I play hunches,” asserted Jimmie. “I stick a pin through my program and bet all the horses the pinhole punctures. Or else, if I see a guy run over by a truck on my way to the race-track and then find a horse named Smashem on the program, I bet Smashem for all I’m worth.”
“Do you win?” I asked.
“Sometimes,” confessed Jim. “But not often. It’s as good a way as any, though.”
“Better than the form chart?” I protested. “Why, Jim, that’s absurd. In the form chart, you see the full record of all the horses. You see who their sire and dam were, and what blood they’ve got in them. You see all the races they’ve run and how they did in them. You see all the conditions under which they ran: whether muddy track or track fast; whether they run best in the spring, summer, autumn or winter: whether they are due for another win any day now, or whether they’ve had too many wins lately to be likely to win again. That’s what they call form. That’s history. It’s the record.”
“I play hunches,” insisted Jim. “Form charts give me a headache.”
“So you’ve got a hunch,” I followed up, “regarding the war. You’ve got a hunch that the world is going to be a better place after this war?”
“Well, what do you think?” countered Jimmie.
“To tell you the truth, Jim.” I surrendered. “I think so too. But it is not going to be a better place for the rich and powerful. It is not going to be a better place for comfortable guys like you and me and our families. It is not going to be a better place for kings and dukes and barons. It is not going to be a better place for millionaires and smart guys and clever people. It is only going to be a better place for the mass of mankind.”
“And what’s the matter with that?” demanded Jimmie.
“Nothing,” I assured him. “But it does sound kind of funny to hear you, a comfortable cartoonist, making good money for just sitting at a drawing board twiddling your fingers lazily, talking about a better world that is coming. It won’t be better for you. The world that is to come won’t be able to afford to pay fancy wages to cartoonists any more than it will be able to pay a hundred thousand a year to some clever guy who can operate a factory so smartly that he puts all other factories out of business.”
“When I say a better world,” explained Jimmie, “I do not refer to dollars and cents.”
“Most people do,” I assured him. “When public men speak over the radio about the new world that is coming, 99 per cent. of the listeners automatically translate that, in their thoughts, to better wages, a nicer house, more clothes, a new car…”
“Look,” interrupted Jimmie, “if I am going to be paid truck driver’s wages for being a cartoonist, then I am going to be a truck driver. Because it’s a lot more fun to drive a truck than to have to sit here, week after week, year after year, thinking up a new idea every day.”
“Okay, you be a truck driver then,” I agreed, “and let somebody do the cartooning that really loves being a cartoonist, who gets more kick out of drawing a cartoon than out of drawing a fat pay envelope.”
“That would have been me, 30 years ago,” sighed Jimmie. “When you are young, you don’t worry about the wages. You work for the thrill, the adventure of it. Then, as you grow older, your fingers start to crook.”
“History teaches,” I stated, “that men never change, that men will go to war for one cause or another, every generation. The cause is always high and holy. But whether the cause is the natural one that makes boys fight in schoolyards, or whether it is the one that makes you want to knock the block off the guy who cuts in ahead of you on the highway, fight we must.”
“I don’t like that,” declared Jim.
“Fine,” I said. “Then go ahead sticking pins through programs. But history also teaches something else. There is only one central core, one backbone to all history, Greek, Roman, European, Asiatic, ancient, modern-one thing upon which all historians can agree. And that is, that with the passage of time, freedom, power, happiness and privilege is broadening out, ever and ever, from the few to the many. More and more of humanity is being set free from slavery and bondage with every century. Come conquerors, come tyrants, come Charlemagne and his Holy Roman hosts, come Philip of Spain with his world conquering Spaniards, come Elizabeth of England with her Drake and Raleigh and Hawkins and Frobisher… only one thing is eternally true through all the million pages of history: and that is, that the common man, the plain, happy, hungry, insignificant common man is freer, happier, more powerful, has a greater share in life than he had in the 50-year period preceding any page you like to delve into in history, all across the ages.”
“Weelllll,” cried Jimmie heartily, “what more do we want?”
“All right then,” I concluded, “but 10 years from now, don’t expect any sympathy from me when you start complaining about the fact that street car motormen earn nearly as much as cartoonists.”
“When I think of the better world to come,” said Jim, “I have in mind a world where people will be more secure not only as regards money, but as regards life itself. After this war, there is going to be a terrific reaction. There is going to be the most gosh- awful uprising of League of Nations sentiment and humanitarian enterprises. After all this insane slaughter not only of fighting men but of harmless bystanders, there is bound to be a terrific kick-back in human nature. Disarmament, world peace organizations, international brotherhoods…”
“There will also be a powerful group,” I pointed out, “who will insist on keeping big standing armies, and more battleships and war factories.”
“They will be snowed under, as usual,” stated Jim. “The mass of mankind will be thoroughly sick of war. As we all were after the last war. Our whole generation will be ashamed of itself, for having gone mad. We will settle back to cultivate the better human qualities within us. Maybe a golden age will dawn, a golden age of art and beauty and literature and music.”
“During which,” I interpolated, “somebody else will be secretly arming with shovels and wooden practise tanks against us.”
A Perfect Example
“You’re terribly cynical,” accused Jim.
“No, sir,” I protested. “I’m childishly simple. I read history. And believe it.”
“Aw,” groaned Jimmie, “how soft and how hard we humans can be! One minute, we are up with the angels, gentle, kindly, filled with humane and lofty ideals: destroying slums; passing mighty legislation to free another vast group of our fellow men from injustice and cruelty; dreaming splendid dreams; writing sublime books, plays, music. The next minute, we are down with the devils, destroying one another like wild men. I am weary of war. I am hungry for gentleness. I just want to go and stand in the streets and watch children at play. I want to take my old dog on my knees and fondle his ears. I… I …”
“Which reminds me,” I interrupted, “of the purpose of my visit, this fine Sunday afternoon.
“By the way, yes,” agreed Jim. “Take your coat off. What have you got in the bag?”
“This is bread, Jim,” I said, opening the bag. “I’m on my way down to Sunnyside Beach to feed the wild ducks. I called to see if you’ll come for the walk.”
Jim was already up on his feet.
“And I’ll get some bread crusts, too,” he said.
So from Jim’s bread box we filched all the crusts and odds and ends of bread and filled the paper bag full to the top. And then we went forth into the fine winter afternoon and walked down to Sunnyside, only five blocks south. Old Rusty, Jim’s feeble-minded Irish water spaniel, joined us.
“Get that dope on a leash,” I warned, “or he’ll chase all the ducks out to sea.”
“He wouldn’t harm a duck,” scoffed Jim. “He’d love to see them.”
“He can see them, all right,” I said. “But get a leash.”
Which unfortunately Jim did, and when we neared the lake, Jim put Rusty on the leash and we walked over the trodden snow beach to the icy water’s edge, where numbers of people, with children, were tossing bread and corn to the mallards, black duck, and a few species of other wild duck which find a winter haven in the open water off Toronto’s pleasure beach.
At first, the ducks were scared of Rusty, even though he was on a leash, and they swam to visit other people who were tossing bread. But with friendly and wheedling calls, Jimmie and I both tossed bread far out and coaxed the ducks toward us. Rusty whined softly.
“The old fool,” said Jim, “He goes to sleep in the duck blind when the hunting season’s on. But now he is all of a tremble.”
“Isn’t it strange,” I mused. “Less than 15 weeks ago, when the duck season was open, we were risking our lives out in harsh blizzards, crouched down in wet, sodden swamps, trying to shoot these beautiful creatures. And here we are, tenderly feeding them.”
“It is a perfect example,” agreed Jim, tossing bread to the ducks now only five feet out from the edge of the ice, “of what I was saying about human nature. One minute, we are full of tenderness. The next, we are shooting guns.”
“I Didn’t Laugh Once”
“Quaaack, quack, quack,” I soothed, tossing broken particles of the bread to the lustrous mallards and the handsome proud black ducks. “You never see ducks like this in the shooting season. When you are hunting, a duck is a wild, racing creature out in the wind going 50 miles an hour. Just a dark swift pattern against the gray sky. Tempting the sporting instinct. But here, on the water, they are queer, comic, greedy little beautiful creatures…”
“It’s quite possible,” said Jim queerly, “that we might actually have shot at these very ducks, up north. And here we are, feeding them like pets.”
“Aw, they’re cute, Jim,” I cried. “Look at that mallard. Look at the expression. Why, he’s smiling!”
“Your attitude towards ducks,” said Jim, “and towards men, depends largely on where and how you see them.”
“I’m almost ready to say,” I said, “that I have nothing against ducks.”
“Hyah,” yelled Jimmie suddenly.
For Rusty, who had been lurking us while we tossed the crusts, whining faintly, gave a violent leap, leash or no leash, in an attempt to break Jim’s hold and make a grab at the nearest duck, a handsome mallard busy with a large hunk of bread.
The leash caught me around the knees, and before Jim could get a proper jerk, Rusty had rounded me and hauled my feet from under me.
The ice, bathed not only by the lake but by the fine sun, was wet and horribly smooth. I felt myself sliding even as my feet went up.
“Whoa, don’t go in there,” warned Jimmie.
But what good are warnings? In a sitting posture, I went in. It was not deep. In fact, it was quite shallow. I raised my feet in the air and was able to hold my upper portions fairly upright, with the result that only my least dignified portions were immersed in the bitter and icy waters of Lake Ontario.
Rusty splashed me a little and the ducks made a great outcry which caused many of my fellow citizens, who might otherwise not have seen me, to witness what they thought was an attempt on my part to snatch a duck.
“I’ve a good mind,” yelled one gentleman who, with his wife and baby, were standing nearby, “to call the cops.”
Jim assisted me out. I was wet only amidships, though it trickled icily down my legs and into my boots. But a brisk walk up street for home soon removed the chills.
“You’ve got to give me credit,” said Jimmie, when he left me at my sidewalk, “I didn’t laugh once.”
When Jim was first hired, he was a staff illustrator so he had to draw whatever was needed. One thing he did a lot in the early days was draw title illustrations for some sections of the newspaper. In this case, the Star Weekly was serializing the book “The Garden of Fate” by Roy Norton.
The man at the wheel leaned out the window and said quietly, “Are you the gents that were expecting us?” “I guess you gents know what you’re up against, huh? You know what end of a gun is loaded, ha ha!”
By Gregory Clark, Illustrated by James Frise, January 27, 1934.
“We,” said Jimmy Frise, “lead a pretty humdrum life.”
“You and me?” I asked.
“Yes,” said Jimmie. “Think of all the prize fighters, and the rich people that ride horses over high jumps, and the actors dancing in all the vaudeville theatres and everything.”
“Yes, but think,” I said, “of all the long rows of houses, miles and miles of rows of houses, and in them all the people sitting doing nothing, nothing is happening, nothing ever has happened, and nothing ever will happen!”
“But think of firemen,” said Jimmie, “never knowing what minute the fire bell will ring and they go lashing out into the icy streets, in dark and storm, to fight the demon fire. Think of Gordon Sinclair1 going to Darkest Africa. Of detectives, in the middle of the night, creeping along dark alleys, right here in Toronto, with guns in their hands, their teeth bared.”
“And think,” I said, “of all the people yawning in Toronto and lying back in their chairs, waiting for bed time, half asleep.”
“You have no romance in your soul,” said Jim. “Life should be an adventure.”
“In Toronto?” I asked.
“Yes, in Toronto. I bet you there is not a single street in Toronto, no matter how short,” said Jim, “in which, at this moment, tremendous adventure is not being enacted. Romance, tragedy, thrill, revenge, hate, yes, murder!”
“Not murder, Jim!” I cried. “Toronto won’t put up with murder. I grant you a little romance, yes. Romance of a decent sort. But revenge, murder, hate, all those things, no. Not at all.”
“You’re a typical Torontonian,” said Jim, caustically.
“I ought to be,” I said, proudly. “My great-grandfather was born here, in the village of York. I have remote ancestors buried under all the biggest skyscrapers in Toronto. There is not a downtown corner that one of my forebears did not own at one time or another and traded them to Jesse Ketchum2 for a hundred acres in Markham township.”
“You certainly show it,” said Jim. “In all my travels, from Lindsay to St. Thomas, I never knew anybody like the Torontonians for dodging life, though it be right under their noses.”
“We don’t dodge life, Jimmie,” I explained, “we just keep it calm and orderly.”
“You are only fooling yourselves,” said Jim. “Life and adventure are going on, right under your noses but you are too dumb to see it.”
“I defy you,” I said; “I defy you to show me any life going on in Toronto. I defy you!”
“Why,” cried Jimmie, “we could go and stand on any corner in Toronto, and unless you were too timid, adventure would come along and sweep you off in its embrace before you knew where you were!”
“Nothing of the sort,” I said. “A policeman would come along and order us to move on. That’s all that would happen.”
Challenging Adventure
“Would you like to try?” demanded Jimmie, his eyes narrow.
“It would be no use,” I said. “I know my Toronto.”
“Would you risk standing with me,” said Jim, levelly, “at any corner you like in Toronto and accepting the first adventure that comes along?”
“We would just feel silly,” I said. “Watching all the married couples out window-shopping after dinner.”
“You are as usual evading the question,” said Jim. “Will you come with me now, to-night, and stand on a corner and accept the first adventure that comes to us? Will you?”
“It is after 9 o’clock, Jim,” I said. “There will be only a few people walking along, coming from the first show at the movies.”
“I challenge you,” said Jim; “I challenge you to come right now and stand on any corner you like and see if adventure doesn’t come along and smack us on the nose!”
“It’s 9.20,” I said, “but I’ll come.”
So we got in Jim’s car that was out in front and we drove down along Bloor toward the city.
“There you are, Jimmie,” I said, waving at the familiar scene. “The only bright spots are the Italian fruit stores and, as you see, they are starting to carry the stuff indoors, preparatory to closing up. A few blonde ladies in lingerie shops standing looking sadly out their windows. Drug stores very busy selling cough remedies and soaps. Adventure, thank goodness, has been eliminated from Toronto the Good.”
“Name a corner,” said Jim, briefly.
“All right,” I said, “let’s just scramble it. Turn two blocks up, two blocks right, one block up and one block right, and where that will bring us out, I don’t know.”
“One corner is as good as another,” said Jim, turning up at a street I never saw before. We drove up two blocks, turned right and drove two blocks, then north another block and then right. Jim slowed down near the corner and parked. We got out. It was a typical west end corner. There were pleasant houses all around up and down the four streets at which we stood. Their lights burned dimly. Bridge lamps3 glowed softly in windows. Nobody moved. Not a living soul was to be seen. It was now twenty to 10 o’clock, and in all those pleasant, safe, comfortable homes there was not a sign or shadow of life. The Hydro lights glowed brightly.
“H’m,” I said, as we strolled to the corner and took up our stand.
“H’m is right,” said Jimmie. “Just look about you. Would you ever dream that in this quiet, peaceful neighborhood romances are being staged, tragedies and dramas being enacted? Can you hear screams, yells? Can you detect the odor of poisons, lethal gases, blood?”
“Jimmie,” I hushed him, “lower your voice!”
The calm was beautiful. For such a calm have we true Torontonians labored and voted and paid our taxes for a century.
“Know What You’re Up Against?”
We stood side by side. A car drove along the street. It turned carefully into a side drive. The gentleman driving it closed his garage doors. He stamped his feet carefully on the front walk to knock off any mud or snow that might be adhering to his feet. He coughed. He let himself into his house. All was quiet again.
“Well, well,” I said. “The great, wicked city!”
A boy on a bicycle rode past, singing softly to himself.
Two more cars drove carefully and pleasantly up the street.
“All I can hear,” I said, “is a faint radio, and if it isn’t Seth Parker4, it is one of his imitators.”
“Just wait,” said Jimmie, “this quiet is ominous, menacing.”
I smiled.
A car came slowly along to us. Two men were in it. As it came even with us, it braked and stopped.
The man at the wheel leaned out the window and said quietly:
“Are you the gents that were expecting us?”
My heart stopped beating.
“Yes,” said Jimmie.
“Hop in,” said the driver, reaching back and opening the rear door of the car. Jimmie took me by the elbow and shoved me into the car, ahead of him. He slid in beside me and slammed the door. The car started and the driver stepped on it. We lurched around the first corner and, gathering speed, raced southward.
“Easy,” I said nervously. “Not too fast.”
The second man in the car turned and rested his arm on the back of the front seat.
“We got to make it snappy,” he said.
“The Big Boy don’t like waiting around on a job like this.”
“No, of course,” said Jim, squeezing my knee.
“Was you waiting long?” asked the man facing us. I could feel him inspecting us with gleaming eyes as we flashed rapidly past lamp after lamp.
“No,” said Jim. “We hadn’t waited five minutes.”
“We wasn’t sure of the streets up in this swell neighborhood,” said the man. “Say, you gents don’t look much like what we expected to meet.”
“Is that so?” said Jim.
“No, we was looking for something…. well… a little more… how do you say it?”
“Sophisticated?” suggested Jim.
“Sure, that’s it,” said the man beside the driver. We were going faster than ever. We were headed out Queen St.
“Oh, I guess you can’t tell by the looks of a man what is inside of him,” said Jim.
“You sure can’t,” said he. “But still, I guess you gents know what you’re up against? Huh? You know what end of a gun is loaded. Ha, ha!”
“Ha, ha,” said Jimmie.
“Ha, ha,” said I. Jimmie squeezed my knee again.
Little Guys are the Big Shots
“The Big Guy.” continued the man in front, “he don’t want to deal with no pikers. He says to me, if these two guys can’t come across, then we’re going to deal with somebody acrost the line. See? Somebody that knows this sort of business. Regular guys, you understand?”
“Oh, sure,” said Jimmie.
“Have you had much experience along these lines?” asked the man in front, respectfully.
“Enough, I think,” said Jim, dryly.
“What I mean to say,” said he, “the thing you are going to do to-night isn’t done every day, is it? Not in Toronto.”
“No,” said Jim. “I guess it will give the old town quite a jolt.”
“It sure will,” said the man in front.
“You’ll have to keep mum,” warned Jimmie.
“I don’t want anybody going around shooting off his mouth, you understand.”
“No, sir: no, sir,” said the man in front. “The Big Boy has got me trained. I only wish I was big enough in your racket to swing a thing like this myself.”
“Why don’t you try some time?” asked Jimmie.
“Me?” cried the man. “Huh, I haven’t got the nerve. If I was all hopped up, and could keep myself hopped up for a year, I might take one swipe at it. But I know my limits, I leave jobs like this to the sharp shooters.”
“Excuse me,” I broke in.
But Jimmie grabbed my knee so sharply that all I could do was lean back in the seat and bite my tongue.
“Uh?” said the man in front. “What’s the little guy got to do?”
“Oh,” said Jimmie, “he’s the real performer to-night.”
But
“Excuse ME,” cried the man in front, jovially. “I beg your pardon, mister. I ought to of knew. All my life, I’ve noticed that it is the little guys that is the big shots. Leave it to a little guy to step in, do the trick and make a slick getaway.”
“I don’t shoot,” I stated, despite Jim’s sudden grab at the soft part of my leg above the knee.
“Haw, haw,” laughed the man in front, and even the driver laughed, though he should have been attending to his driving at the speed we were going. We were lacing in amongst some dirty old downtown back streets.
“Haw, haw, haw,” laughed the man in front. “Oh, no. You don’t shoot. Not if the Big Boy has picked you for this job. Listen, he never picked a muff in his life he’s worked with gents in your line of business all over North America.”
“In Chicago?” I asked.
“Yes, in Chicago,” said the man in front. “And that’s a tough town to work in, I’m telling you.”
“Ohhhhhh,” I said.
“I beg pardon?” asked the man.
“My friend was just yawning,” said Jimmie.
A Fit Place For a Murder
The car had slowed. We were picking our way down a narrow, half-lighted street. The back of warehouses, tall blind brick walls were massed about and above us, as the car jolted carefully in the narrow, ill-paved lane.
“Where are we?” I asked.
“We’re driving around to the back,” said the man in front. “The front doors are padlocked and under police guard. The Big Boy has the key to the back.”
“Police?” I asked.
“Sure,” said he. “The house is empty. isn’t it?”
“Ohhhhhhhh,” I said again.
“Uh?” said the man in front.
“My friend always gets sleepy when he he’s excited,” explained Jimmie.
“He ought to be excited,” said the man in front. The car had stopped in the shadowiest spot in all the long, narrow lane, and he was out and had opened the car door.
“Follow me,” he said quietly. “And hey, Andy, turn off them lights and wait ready to drive these gents wherever they say when the job’s over.”
He stepped up and unlocked the small door in the tall, ghostly brick wall.
“Jimmie,” I hissed, stepping tight against him, “this is gone far enough!”
“You’re going through with it,” replied Jim, in a murmur. “Get in there.”
The man was holding the door open for us, and we saw a narrow, dusty, unused corridor, dimly lighted by a dirty bulb hanging from the ceiling.
“Jim,” I said, “if I go another step, you’ll carry me!”
“Very well, I’ll carry you,” hissed Jim.
“Step along, gents,” said the man, whom I now saw to be a short, swarthy individual of foreign appearance.
Jim shoved me in, and the man slammed the door behind us.
“Watch your step,” said he.
He led us along the corridor, through dark chambers filled with the smell of dust and mould. It was a queer, unearthly place. A fit place for a murder.
We came out in a vast, empty chamber, filled with darkness. At a rough table on a platform sat a small man with a flashlight burning beside him.
“The Big Boy,” whispered our guide.
Jim took my arm and we walked across the creaking board floor, amidst that vast, echoing chamber, with its gaunt shadows cast by the tiny beam of the flashlight.
“Ah,” cried the Big Boy, leaping up. He was a tiny, weazened little foreigner, with his coat collar turned up and a wicked light in his close-set eyes. “So here you are!”
“Yes,” said Jimmie. “This is the man you want to deal with.”
The Big Boy reached excitedly and shook my hand.
“Are you prepared to do the job?” he cried.
“No,” I shouted, my voice echoing in the empty, forbidding and ghostly emptiness. “No, I am not!”
“You what!” gasped the Big Boy.
“My friend,” thrust in Jimmie, standing forward, “like all geniuses, is a little mad. That is his idea of a joke. Of course, he will do the job. Tell him what it is.”
“We’re Two Gunmen, See?”
“Listen,” said the Big Boy, swelling himself up, and staring hypnotically at me. “I picked you on your record. I heard about you all over America. I know what you can do. You’re the man I want.”
“I picked you on your record,” said the Big Boy. “I heard about you all over America.”
“No, I’m not,” I cried loudly. “You’ve got me wrong. I’m a law-abiding citizen of the city of Toronto. My forebears were archdeacons. Their portraits hang in Trinity College. I’m no gunman! Never!”
“Ha, ha,” laughed the Big Boy, like a rooster crowing. “That’s what I want exactly. A law-abiding citizen. The guy that runs this theatre for me has got to be law-abiding, or it would never get by.”
“Theatre?” I exclaimed.
“Sure, theatre,” said the Big Boy, puzzled. “What did you think it was, a bank?”
I gazed around at the fearful shadows.
“Aw, now, Mr. Perkins,” cried the Big Boy, “I know she looks terrible. But she’s been empty now three years. That’s why I got the lease so cheap, see?”
“Theatre?” I repeated. And Jimmie was standing closer to me.
“Sure,” said the Big Boy. “I want you should run this theatre for me. I got a swell lease. I pay you what you asked in your letter. I give you free hand. All I want is you should run it, and you know your way around Toronto.”
“I didn’t write you any letter,” I said. By now, I was getting a grip on myself.
“Listen,” said the Big Boy, shrinking inside his overcoat, “aren’t you Mr. Perkins? Hey, Sam, Andy! Come here. Who’s this you brought in here?”
The man who had sat in front of the car walked forward out of the shadows and stared at us.
“They was at the corner where he said to pick him up,” said the man.
“What is this?” yelled the Big Boy, shrilly. “A hold-up?”
“What was you doing at that corner? And getting in our car?” demanded the man called Sam, standing dangerously.
“Just a second,” hissed Jimmie. “We’re two gunmen, see? And we were waiting on that corner for an appointment with a job we have to do to-night. See?”
“Gunmen,” whispered the Big Boy and Sam, backing away.
“Yes,” said Jim. “And when this bird pulled up in a car we thought he was our party.”
“Oh, gosh,” breathed Sam. “Gunmen! In my car!”
“Excuse it,” said the Big Boy, hurriedly. “My boys will take you back. They’ll take you anywhere you say, gentlemen. Right away.”
“No, thanks,” said Jim. “We’ll have nobody driving us, thanks. Show us out.”
“Yes, sir; yes, sir,” said Sam, wobbling for the narrow corridor.
He let us out. Jim and I walked hastily down the lane. We got out to King St. and got in a King car headed west.
“Ah,” breathed Jimmie triumphantly. “So what!”
“Well,” I laughed, “so there was your adventure. A theatre lease!”
“Pardon me,” cried Jim. “We thought they were murderers, and they think we are gunmen. Isn’t that adventure enough for all of us?”
“But it is only thinking,” I exclaimed. “This is Toronto!”
“I know,” countered Jimmie. “But adventure and romance is mostly in our minds anyway.”
“I insist,” I said, “that adventure in Toronto is mostly misunderstanding.”
And it was after 11 o’clock when we got home.
Editor’s Notes:
Gordon Sinclair was a popular international reporter for the Toronto Star at the time. Before World War 2, international reporting was still considered romantic and mysterious, especially outside of Europe and North America. ↩︎
Jesse Ketchum was a political figure in Upper Canada in the early 19th century. ↩︎
A bridge lamp is a floor lamp that has an adjustable arm and is used to light up the floor or a small side table. ↩︎
Phillips Lord was an American radio program writer, creator, producer and narrator. He became a national radio personality after creating the character “Seth Parker”, a clergyman and backwoods philosopher, telling stories of rural New England life featuring ordinary folks singing hymns and telling jokes and stories. ↩︎
As Cousin Madge stepped back, there was a sudden slither and a loud crash.
By Gregory Clark, Illustrated by Duncan Macpherson, January 28, 1950.
“This house,” gloated my Cousin Madge, “is a gold mine.”
She glanced both proudly and distastefully around her living room.
“See that damn thing up there?” She pointed to the mantelpiece.
On it stood a small glass dome inside which, stiff and stark, a bouquet of pallid wax and linen flowers bloomed funereally in pink and cream.
“Guess,” coughed Cousin Madge hilariously, “how much it is worth?”
“I suppose,” I reflected, “it might have great sentimental value…”
“Sentimental my eye!” wheezed Cousin Madge. “That thing is worth $20!1“
“Who to?” I checked.
“To anybody,” assured Madge. “I saw one exactly like it yesterday in an antique shop. Exactly.”
“Aw,” I protested. “Antique stores. You can’t go by the prices in antique stores. The antique dealers are up against a peculiar problem. They run stores. In stores, it is customary to put prices on things. So they just think of a number and put it on. The price of an article in an antique store, however, is merely a starting point. It indicates roughly the figure at which you are supposed to shoot. If they mark a thing like that glass dome full of wax flowers at $20, they expect you to say you would be willing to give $10. That being $8 more than they paid for it, they put on a doubtful air for a minute, and then reluctantly accept the $10.”
“You don’t like antique stores?” queried Cousin Madge, sharply.
“I love them,” I certified. “I haunt them. Antique shops, in this mass-production, consumer-conscious, price-fixed age, are one of the last refuges of individualism. The goods are individual. The seller is an individual. The customer is an individual, or he would be in a bargain basement, somewhere, instead of in a mortuary of bygone gewgaws.”
“But the prices, you said?” persisted Cousin Madge.
“Now, look!” I explained. “When you go into an antique store, you are looking for something unique. Something that cannot be bought anywhere else. Something that nobody else has got. Uncommon. Rare. And old. Facing you is a man or woman, the antique dealer, who, instead of getting a job selling mass-produced merchandise, has spent time and money, has travelled far and off the beaten track, going to a great deal of trouble to find and rescue these few, beautiful, odd things which, in this cold-blooded age, would normally have been thrown on the junk pile. Therefore, when you stand face to face with an antique dealer, two wholesome forces have met: your desire for something different and his satisfaction at having provided for your need.”
“Prices!” insisted Cousin Madge.
“No: there you go!” I protested. “You are trying to apply the principles of vulgar business to an art. The prices in an antique shop are dictated by the extent of your need or desire, in conflict with the gamble the dealer has taken in finding, buying and now offering to you this odd and curious item which, perhaps, you alone in all the world, want!”
Cousin Madge pondered this a moment, meanwhile continuing to gaze around her living room with that same expression of mingled affection and distaste.
“Twenty bucks!” she mused, as her eye again fell on that monstrosity of a glass dome with wax flowers.
“Where did you get it?” I asked.
“It was my mother’s,” said Cousin Madge. “It was given to her as a wedding present by her old Aunt Maria. That must be over 50 years ago, when every parlor had a glass dome on the mantel, either flowers, or stuffed birds or small white nude statues of slender ladies with their arms draped around each others’ shoulders, standing…”
“But why have you kept it?” I needled.
“Because I didn’t know what the heck else to do with it!” snorted Cousin Madge. “I just left it there, because where else could I put it?”
“It’s very quaint,” I confessed. “Very old fashioned very…”
“Ah, that’s not the ONLY treasure,” declared Cousin Madge, hitching herself powerfully forward in her chair. “Just take a look at that mantel. See those two china vases on the end? Pure Dresden. See all those knickknacks?”
She hoisted herself up and went to the mantel, and I followed her. On the shelf must have been 30 items: lustre trays, tiny bowls, leaf-shaped dishes. A bronze slipper with a maroon velvet pincushion cunningly concealed. A gilt-handled paper knife with a horn blade.
Wordless, Cousin Madge led me to a fancy walnut table in the corner. It too was covered with bric-a-brac, a hand-painted china tray, with plums and tulips, beautifully arranged so that you had to look twice to see which was which. Madge pulled out the table drawer: it was stuffed with bric-a-brac. She led me into the dining room, where a large old-fashioned china cabinet with glass door stood back, in the gloom.
It was full of china of every period and style, as well as cut glass vases, carafes, olive trays, pickle dishes. She took them out and clinked them with her finger nail. Real stuff, see?
And silver. Silver entree dishes, silver candlesticks, silver pie servers, pickle forks, sugar tongs, salt cellars, salt bowls, all tarnished from, long disuse.
“This house,” asserted Cousin Madge loudly, “is a gold mine.”
“You should give a lot of this stuff away,” I reproved, “to your nephews and nieces.”
“The heck with them!” said Cousin Madge, heartily. “I’ve got a better idea. I’m going to make myself a little dough.”
“Are you going to try to sell some of this?”
“I got the inspiration yesterday,” announced Madge, “in that antique store. I just happened to drop in, to get a closer look at that glass dome and wax flowers. You could have knocked me over when I asked the prices! They’re terrific.”
“Sure,” I corrected, “but the value of these things of yours, tucked away in drawers, has nothing to do with the price of goods sitting for sale in an antique shop. They may sit there for months, years.”
“According to his figures,” asserted Madge, “I bet I’ve got $200 worth of junk, right here. And I’d never miss the stuff.”
“You wouldn’t get $50 for it,” I ventured.
“I bet I’d get $100,” cried Cousin Madge. “Maybe more!”
“Did you discuss the matter with the antique shop man?”
“How could I,” said Madge, “when I was asking the price of everything? I didn’t want him to think I was checking on him.”
“He probably suspected,” I offered.
“Have you got your car outside?” asked Cousin Madge.
“I’m on my way downtown, an important interview,” I hastened.
But I am always too late.
“Put the kettle on and get a cup of tea ready,” commanded Cousin Madge. “I’ll be dressed in a jiffy.”
In a few minutes, she came back downstairs carrying an empty suitcase and a large wicker market basket. From the kitchen cup- board she gathered up a bunch of old newspapers.
Then, calmly and with the decision that indicated she had given the matter all the thought it required, she proceeded to loot her home.
First of all, down off the mantel came the family heirloom, the glass dome with wax flowers. This she tenderly packed with clumps of newspaper in the big wicker market basket. Off the mantel also came lustre trays, the bronze slipper, the knife, a bulbous glass paper weight showing a picture of the Crystal Palace, the two Dresden vases. The mantel looked horribly barren when she had stripped it. But the market basket was bulging.
From tables and shelves, from the china cabinet and from the cupboard ends of the dining room sideboard, she took silver dishes, bowls, forks, servers, tongs; cut glass dishes and bowls of all sizes; china objects of every sort and description. She worked in about 12 assorted cups and saucers.
“Indian Tree,” she related, as she packed them. “Royal Doulton. Bridge prizes. Christmas presents. For years and years…”
I helped carry the loot out to my car and we set the basket and suitcase, together with an overflow carton, in the trunk of the car. Cousin Madge directed me to the street where the antique shop of her choice was located.
The instant we staggered through the door with the suitcase and basket, I knew Cousin Madge was recognized.
The antique man tightened his lips, scratched his head and rolled his eyes up to the ceiling all in one fluid gesture.
“I thought,” announced Cousin Madge, heartily, “that you might care to look over some stuff I have here. This is just a sort of overflow, that I am prepared to sacrifice, of course, provided I get a decent price.”
“Lady,” said the antique man, “look! Have I any more room for anything? Can you see ONE SPOT where I could lay anything down?”
“The things I have here,” said Cousin Madge, moving cautiously toward him between the small laden tables, the shelves, the counters, “is away ahead of anything you’ve got here.”
“No doubt, lady, no doubt,” said the antique man, who spoke with a heavy Glasgow accent. “But it so happens I am overloaded. Upstairs, in five rooms. I’ve got tons of stuff. Some of it I haven’t even unpacked in two or three years.”
“I’d like you to see this,” soothed Cousin Madge, in her best dominating style. “One look and you’ll want it.”
“Pardon me,” said the Scotsman, scratching his head with both hands, as Cousin Madge opened the suit case. “But up country, I’ve got a barrel of stuff in this town, a box of stuff in that town, that I simply haven’t got room for here.”
Cousin Madge spread the suitcase on the floor and scrunched down to unpack it. She cast the rumpled newspaper wads aside, and one by one placed the objets d’art on an antique oak bench that was handy.
Cut glass dishes, silver pickle forks with pearl handles, Indian Tree cups and saucers.
“Tch! Tch! Tch!” said the antique man.
“Now, just a minute,” whuffed Cousin Madge, signalling me to fetch forward the wicker basket.
From the market basket, flinging the balls of newspaper aside, she triumphantly drew forth the glass globe and the wax flowers; the bronze slipper; the Dresden vases.
The antique man groaned faintly.
Cousin Madge took a long breath and straightened up from her squatting position.
“Lady,” said the antique man, “I’m afraid you didn’t hear me. I tell you I have five rooms upstairs packed solid full of this stuff. Up country, in this town and in that town, I have stored barrels and packing cases…”
“This is far ahead of what you’ve got on display here,” said Cousin Madge firmly.
“Okay! Look:” said the antique dealer. “I’ll: give you $10 for the lot!”
It was his way of getting rid of her, I suppose.
But Cousin Madge looked at him with a sudden empurpling of the face and a swelling of the body.
She struggled to repeat the words, $10.
In her effort to do so, Cousin Madge took a step backward. Now Cousin Madge carries behind her a promontory of which she seems to be unaware.
As she stepped back, there was a sudden slither and a loud crash.
She had upset a table laden with treasure.
“It’s always the way,” moaned the antique dealer, as the three of us scrambled around picking up the pieces. “It’s always the ones trying to sell who smash the stuff!”
Quite a lot was broken. The spindly table on which the objets d’art had stood was broken. The lid of a small china box was smashed. A fragile glass vase, “priceless, priceless!” the dealer said, was in fragments.
The antique dealer decided, when we were all tidied up and relaxed, that he would make an inventory and let us know what we owed him. He would keep the stuff we had brought in as security.
But when I suggested that a friend of mine, an insurance adjuster, who knew a good deal about antiques, would call and help him make the inventory, the antique dealer agreed to take, at once, in payment of the damage, two cut glass pickle dishes, one pearl handled pickle fork, both Dresden vases and the glass dome with wax flowers.
When Madge and I got home with the balance of the treasures, and were seated safe and sound with a teapot, she said:
“Well, I’m glad to be rid of that glass dome and those dismal bloody flowers!”
And the can of beans suddenly seemed to leap into the air and explode with a nasty sort of bung.
There are some laws of nature every hunter should know, Like what causes explosions, for instance
By Gregory Clark, Illustrated by James Frise, January 24, 1942.
“Well, how about lunch?” called Jimmie Frise from the far side of fence.
“Okay, let’s follow around this swamp to the road and out to the car,” I agreed. “There isn’t a rabbit in the township.”
“I think it’s the dogs,” said Jim, climbing the fence to join me. “I honestly don’t think those hounds would know a rabbit if they saw one.”
“Maybe they wouldn’t,” I retorted, “but perhaps you don’t know a hound lives by scent alone, not by sight. It is the scent of a rabbit these hounds know. That is their rich inheritance. That is the core and essence of their being. Scent.”
“Maybe they don’t even know what a rabbit smells like,” suggested Jimmie.
“Those hounds,” I stated a little warmly, “come of the finest blood lines in the beagle world. I’ve got some of the greatest hunting strains known to sportsmen in these hounds of mine.”
“Well, I’ve seen a lot of rabbit tracks this morning,” declared Jim, “and I haven’t heard so much as a yip out of the dogs.”
“Cold scent,” I explained. “Only a low-bred hound would run a track by sight. You can buy any number of second-rate hounds that will run a cold track and follow a rabbit from the day before yesterday until yesterday noon before darkness falls and you have to go into a swamp and pick him up. But these little hounds of mine won’t touch anything but a hot scent. They know what sport is. It’s bred right in them.”
“Well, I like to shoot my gun off once in a while,” sighed Jimmie, hefting his old pump-gun to his other arm.
“It’s the sound of the hounds I go for,” I countered. “The shooting is of so little importance that if it weren’t necessary occasionally to knock a rabbit over ahead of the hounds to keep them interested. I wouldn’t even bother to carry a gun.”
“I’ve heard that line before,” scoffed Jimmie. “The music of the hounds. The great outdoors. The smell of pine. Well, for me, I like to see a rabbit going ahead of the hounds, and I like to smack it down.”
“A poor, defenceless little rabbit,” I cried.
“And what’s more,” said Jim, “I like to eat rabbit. I think there is nothing better than a rabbit pie, unless it is jugged hare.”
“It’s a by-product of the sport,” I cut in. as we went over the fence and got on to the road. “The main part of the sport of hunting is the escape from dull, workaday life into the open air with good fellowship and hearty companions.”
Just a Fluke Shot
“Some of the best sport I’ve ever had,” countered Jim, “has been when I was all alone, on days so miserable, either from cold or wet, that it was sheer agony to stay out. Yet on those days, I have shot as high as six rabbits and a fox besides.”
“You had fox pie, I presume?” I presumed.
“No, but I had the grandest shooting,” related Jim, radiantly. “Hard shots. Fast shots. Tricky shots. I remember I got one swamp hare crossing a road at all of 60 yards. I was standing on a road, like this, with swamp on either side. I heard the hounds. coming. So I stood facing straight into the bush…”
“Okay, okay,” I interrupted. “So you killed a white rabbit.”
“Wait a minute,” demanded Jim. “You’ve got to hear this. I listen to all your hunting stories, about the music of the hounds, and the smell of pine. Now you listen: I was standing like this, facing into the swamp, when, out the corner of my eye, I saw something move, away off to my right. Just a tiny flick of movement. That rabbit cleared the road in two bounds. But in that split fraction of a second, I had my gun up and fired. And I got him. Sixty yards. I paced it.”
“Just a fluke shot,” I informed him. “Normally, you would have missed it.”
“A fluke!” protested Jim. “I tell you I…”
“Now, just a minute,” I interrupted. “You say you were not facing the right direction. You admit your eye caught a faint movement out of the corner. The rabbit leaped the road in two jumps. You swung up and fired, almost without aim. You could not have had time to aim. Therefore, it was a fluke.”
“It was no fluke,” said Jim hotly. “It…”
“Jim,” I stated, “the reason you remember that shot out of all the shots you have fired is that it was so unusual. You like to think it was an expert shot. If it were an expert shot, why don’t you do it oftener? No, sir; it was most unusual. Therefore …”
“Awwww,” said Jim, kicking the snow, “all right. The music of the hounds. The smell of the cedar. The great outdoors…”
And we walked a little stiffly along the narrow road between two cedar swamps, with the hounds running anxiously ahead of us, sniffing along the edges of the swamp. still eager to get the whiff of a cottontail or swamp hare.
“Well, sir,” I said, to break the silence, “we’ve got a good lunch ahead of us. I think eating in the open is one of the major features of a day’s hunting.”
“I admit I’m hungry,” said Jim relenting.
“My wife,” I announced, “cooked up a pot of nice beef stew with carrots and potatoes and celery All we’ve got to do is heat it on the fire.”
“And I brought a can of beans,” said Jim. “I insist on beans. No day in the open is right without a feed of beans.”
“Then there is coffee or tea,” I inquired.
“Coffee,” chose Jimmie. “I don’t drink it in town. But I love the appetizing odor of it in the open. And I’ve got some cold fried bacon, with green onions, radishes, pickles and olives on the side. That cold bacon goes swell between bread.”
“I guess we’ll do all right,” I submitted.
For a Happy Nation
So we got back to the car and we proceeded to get the fire going and the boxes of grub laid forth. Jim has a great idea for starting a fire in the open. He tears newspapers into half sheet sizes, rolls them up into tiny, tight rolls about the size of a walnut, ties them with thread and then soaks them in melted paraffin and lets them dry. He carries few of these in his hunting coat pocket at all times. You lay a couple of these under a few sticks and you’ve got a fire in no time.
In no time, we were relaxed beside a fine leaping fire and on it we set the pot with the cold beef stew to warm, and the coffee pot.
“I’ll warm the beans later,” said Jim, “when the coffee boils.”
“Could anything,” I said, stretching out my legs from the running board of the car, “be more reviving than this, Jim? Even if there is a war, even if we are all supposed to bend every mind and sinew on the war effort, do you see anything wrong with a day like this in the open, only a few miles from home?”
“I suppose there are some who will condemn us,” said Jimmie. “They would prefer that we sit and mope around the house.”
“Getting flabby and morbid-minded,” I added, “fit meat for pessimism and melancholy and disease.”
“I think part of the war effort,” said Jim, “is to keep the whole nation healthy, happy and in high spirits, on the least possible outlay. With the least waste of money, time or material, everybody should be obliged to play a little, for fear of the disheartening effect of plain hard labor.”
“In the army,” I advised, “there is a special department known as the auxiliary services, the duty of which is to entertain and amuse and keep the troops happy. Now that we are all into the war up to our necks, there ought to be some sort of public suggestion about keeping the civilians in good spirits, ready for their work. Not burdened and dispirited by it.”
“Let everybody go rabbit-hunting,” suggested Jim.
“Only a few people care for hunting, Jim,” I reminded him.
“Okay,” said Jim. “What is this rabbit hunting but fancy way of going for a walk in the country? What have we done today, for instance, but walk? Let everybody go for a walk in the country, once a week. There is nothing more invigorating. Nothing more rebuilding. You get the purest air, the finest exercise, and you see simple, homely, refreshing sights. Why not have the government do a broadcast, telling people how to amuse and relax themselves in war-time. And walking in the country should be number one?”
The Hunter’s Luncheon
“For town and village people,” I said, “that’s all right. But how about city people?”
“There are railways and buses running all over,” stated Jim. “There are people who are going to drive their cars anyway, even if it is only aimlessly going some place in the city. Take a train or a bus or your car fifteen miles out, and then get out and walk. Walk for three hours, slowly and happily, up hill, down dale, over back country roads.”
“I’m afraid,” I calculated, “that most city people would be bored stiff by such a suggestion. They are too much fastened by habit. They are like squirrels born in captivity, who never knew anything else but running madly in a revolving cage. If you set them free, they are lost. They start running madly round and round a tree, instead of climbing it.”
“And how the radio has got us hog tied!” added Jim. “They would hate to go for a walk in the country for fear they would miss a news broadcast.”
“I guess we hunters are fortunate,” I said. “Put the beans on, Jim. The coffee is nearly on the boil and the stew’s steaming.”
Jim dropped the can of beans into the middle of the fire.
“Is that the way you heat beans?” I inquired, delighted.
“Leave ’em,” said Jim, “just a minute. They heat in a jiffy.”
“Yes, sirree,” I sighed, leaning back with the steam of the stew and the coffee swirling my way on the crisp winter air. “We hunters are fortunate. The great outdoors. The company of good friends. The companionship of happy, clever little hounds like these. The…”
“The music of hounds,” cut in Jim dreamily. “The smell of cedar and pine and spruce-“
“Well, that’s part of it, Jim,” I insisted. “You can make fun of it if you like. But hunting is very deeply grained into us humans. Only a few thousand years back, and we lived by hunting, and hunting only. If you could not hunt, you did not survive. Therefore, we are the descendants of hunters. All of us. And around that ancient art of hunting, which was our only way of life, we erected a sort of ritual. Merely to get meat was not enough. What distinguishes man from all other animals is that he wants more than meat. He yearns to dignify himself and the meat both. So that is why we should not scoff at the ceremonial and sentimental side of hunting. The music of hounds, scent of pine and spruce and cedar, the so-called rules of sportsmanship – these are the things men, across the ages, have found in addition to meat.”
“I like to hear a gun bang once in a while,” declared Jim stubbornly.
“Aw, the poor little rabbit,” I pleaded. “Think of the life a rabbit leads. In peril always. By night, he must watch for the great silent owl and for the hunting weasel. By day, he must hop timidly about, seeking twigs to eat, and all the while cocking his long ears for the sound of hounds or the whisper of a fox’s feet in the snow. And then, to cap all his terrors, the bang of a gun.”
The Glow Slightly Dimmed
“The first thing you know,” accused Jim, “you’re going to talk yourself out of rabbit hunting.”
“Picture the poor little rabbit,” I continued, leaning back before the lovely wood fire and the simmering stew and the bubbling coffee, “innocently and secretly hopping about in the deep swamp, chewing at willow twigs, and suddenly hearing, back a few yards on his track, the terrible bay of the hound.”
“I thought it was music,” interposed Jim, taking a stick and preparing to hook the bean can out of the fire.
“To us it is music,” I said, “but to the rabbit, it is the voice of doom. Instantly, he leaps and starts to run. He has no other salvation. Away frantically he runs, leaving his warm tracks in the snow. Behind him he hears the terrible yammer and yell of the hounds, now in a pack and running like devils.”
“And then?” said Jim, handing me the can opener.
“And then,” I cried…
And the can of beans, lying in the middle of the red embers, suddenly seemed to leap in the air and explode with a nasty soft bung.
It wasn’t a bang, exactly. It was more of a bung.
And it burst like a shrapnel shell, flinging hot beans in all directions, but especially all over Jimmie and me and the hounds that had been sitting expectantly around the fire with us.
After we had wiped off the beans and sauce and small elements of pork, I got my breath and said to Jimmie:
“Is that the way you heat beans?”
“It’s the way I’ve always heated them in the past,” said Jim, still a little shaken. “They never did that before.”
“Canned goods,” I informed him, “should be heated by setting the can in hot water. You simply cooked that can until it was filled with steam and it naturally burst.”
“If you hadn’t been so long-winded,” retorted Jimmie, “I’d have had the can off the fire long ago.”
“That’s right, blame me;” I said. “Blame me, blame my dogs, blame everything.”
The stew had been slightly upset in the explosion, but most of it was intact. The coffee had not quite half spilled. The fire had been rather scattered about.
We sat down and had a good meal in the wintry setting, none the less.
But the peculiar glow that usually accompanies a hunter’s luncheon was slightly dimmed by the presence of beans stuck on the car doors and fenders, and bean juice marring our hunting coats and a general air of things being scattered about.
And the little hounds would not come closer than about 15 feet and sat out there, shivering, and whining.
