Tag: 1938 Page 1 of 5

By Gregory Clark, Illustrated by James Frise, November 26, 1938.

“My, you’re sulky,” observed Jimmie Frise.

“Jim,” I requested, “do you know any dirty tricks I could play on a certain party?”

“Do you mean on me?” inquired Jim, cautiously.

“No, it’s this bird McMuddle,” I confided. “I’ve come to the end. I’ve got to do something about him.”

“Aw,” said Jim. “He’s not such a bad scout. You’re just a little allergic to his type, that’s all.”

“He has really got on my nerves,” I declared, firmly. “I find myself brooding about him during the day, when I should be thinking of my work. I find myself spending my evenings sitting at home, sunk in an easy chair, just patiently hating that guy.”

“You shouldn’t let individuals get you down like that,” protested Jimmie. “After all, he has never done you any real damage. He’s just irritated you, that’s all.”

“Irritation,” I submitted, “can often be worse than a real injury.””

“What has he done,” inquired Jim, “that has finally got you so worked up?”

“As a matter of fact,” I admitted, “it was rather a childish incident. I was standing talking on the street corner with a couple of acquaintances when this McMuddle came along behind me. I didn’t see him. He clapped me heartily on the shoulder, in passing, and sang out in a loud voice: ‘Well, my little man, have you got them spellbound?'”

“That wasn’t very bad,” smiled Jim. “You admit you generally do make speeches whenever you get a couple of guys backed into a corner.”

“As a matter of fact,” I declared, “I did have them spellbound. I was explaining to them the situation in Europe, how the different nations are all lining up against Russia….”

“Then what was the matter with McMuddle remarking the fact,” demanded Jim, “if you had them standing there with their mouths open?”

“Oh, it’s just the climax of a hundred things this McMuddle has done to me,” I gritted. “And you know it. You know if he is in the party, either at anybody’s home or on a fishing or shooting trip, if that guy is in the party, it’s ruined for me.”

“He just kids you,” protested Jim.

“He haunts me,” I insisted. “He makes fun of every word I say. If I make a suggestion, he instantly offers a counter suggestion. If I do anything, like last summer, the time I brought in those six big bass, not one of them under three pounds, what does that bird do? Any natural pride I might have in the performance is simply made ridiculous by the way he rushed about, shouting to everybody to come and see, and overdoing the praise and being so excited that anybody could see he was just making a fool of me.”

“You and Mac,” explained Jim, “happen to be two types that just naturally get on each other’s nerves. You irritate him. He irritates you. Like cat and dog.”

“Or like cat and rat,” I muttered, “and I know who’s the rat.”

“Why Does He Pick on Me?”

“You’re right, to some extent,” admitted Jim. “Mac is a bit of a poor sport. He always sees he gets the best of anything that is going, like on that same trip last summer, he snaffled the best guide and the boat with the cushions in it, and all that.”

“He’s greedy, Jim,” I cried. “And selfish. And without a vestige of sporting character in his make-up. Even when we were out at Ed’s house last week, McMuddle acted like a paid entertainer, took the floor and held it all night, never stopped talking for a minute, ate all the olives, picked all the ripe olives out of the dish before even the sandwiches were passed.”

“I think,” said Jim, carefully “that he was just having a little fun with you because your well-known preference for ripe olives.”

“Why does he pick on me?” I shouted.

“To tell the truth,” said Jim, embarrassed, “I think he held the floor, over at Ed’s, because he thought unless he did, you’d get it and hold it.”

“Jim,” I said, “That’s very unfair. If I ever take the floor, it is because I have come with something interesting to say. McMuddle just talked birds, that night.”

“Everybody thought,” said Jim, “that he gave a pretty fair take-off of you. We all laughed enough.”

“Except me.” I pointed out.

“Yes, but,” considered Jim, “I agree with you, Mac is a bit of a pain in the neck. He is one of those practical jokers. One of those outspoken, frank fellows who imagines he is hitting straight from the shoulder, whereas all he is doing is hitting a man when he’s down.”

“You said it,” I agreed fervently.

“You’re not the only one he picks on,” went on Jim. “As a matter of fact, he is pretty free with his tongue to everybody.”

“I wonder you put up with it,” I said.

“Well, Mac’s type,” explained Jim, “is kind of hard to handle. He’s big and husky. He is good-looking and hearty. He says what he thinks. He has a quick wit. You get into an argument with him, and no holds are barred. He says anything he likes to you or about you. He just puts his head back, looks down his nose at you, and in a loud, sarcastic voice, he just rips you up, and you are so flustered with his style of attack, you can’t even think…”

“That’s him, that’s him,” I concurred. “I wish we could get rid of the guy, some way. Can’t we drop him from our gang?”

“That would be hard,” said Jim, “anyway, some of the gang would accuse us of not being able to take it.”

“I wish,” I stated deeply, “I could think of some way we could put him on the spot. I’ve gone over dozens of imaginary meetings with him. I’ve dramatized, in my own mind, dozens of conversations with him, in which I have flayed him to the bone. But when I meet him, the conversations never turn out that way.”

A Whale of a Stunt

“Did you ever hear the story about dear old Lou Marsh and the Detroit Yacht club?” asked Jimmie. “It’s one of the funniest tales I ever heard.”

“What was it?” I enquired hopefully.

“Lou was over at some sailing races in Detroit,” said Jim, “and, as you recollect, Lou was a pretty masterful type. During the races, Lou was very much on top of any situations that arose. He wasn’t taking anything from the Americans. And after the races were ended, the Detroit boys decided they’d have one on Lou.”

“That would not be easy to do,” I submitted.

“They staged a party in the clubhouse,” related Jimmie. “About 20 prominent sailors were invited. Among other diversions was a poker game, into which about nine of them sat, including Lou. The game went on for long time, with increasing tension, which was not lessened by the fact that one of the men at the table was a bad actor who, as the evening drew on, started making trouble in a quiet way.”

“There is always a McMuddle in every party,” I put in.

“Suddenly,” recounted Jimmie, “this trouble maker leaped to his feet. Pointing an accusing finger across the table at another member of the party, he shouted, ‘Cheat, cheat!'”

“Good gracious,” I exclaimed.

“Lou,” went on Jim, “and all the others, sat frozen with horror. In an exclusive club. Amongst a pleasant party. The accused man got angry and leaped to his feet. There were violent words shouted across the table. The accused man took a sudden swing at the trouble-maker. The trouble-maker reached back, pulled a gun and fired point-blank at the accused man.”

“What a scene,” I breathed.

“And at that instant,” said Jim, “the lights were switched off, pandemonium broke loose and three more shots were fired by the man with the gun.”

“Pandemonium is right,” I admitted.

“Of course, nobody,” explained Jim, “except three of them knew it was a joke, that the gun was the starter’s pistol for the sailing races and blank cartridges were being used.”

“What a whale of a stunt.” I cried.

“Well, there it is,” concluded Jim. “The gun spitting, the sudden darkness, everybody crashing and leaping in all directions, sheer panic. And then, suddenly, the lights go on. Some of them are under the tables and chairs. One man has even crawled under the edge of the carpet. Three of them raced for the stairway and one fell down the stairs, bruising himself badly. And Lou Marsh was on his hands and knees trying to get his 200-pound bulk in behind the iron radiator along the wall.”

“Grand, grand,” I crowed. “I can see it. It was magnificent. It was a good one on Lou and on everybody else, and nobody would have acted any differently.”

“Not even you or me,” admitted Jim.

“But how can we work this on McMuddle?” I demanded.

“Exactly the same,” said Jim. “Exactly, in every detail. At the next party we’re on, and there is to be one next week at Bill’s house; we’ll pull it. We’ll only have to let one other man in on it. The one we’ll accuse of cheating. You handle the pistol, I’ll handle the lights.”

“No, no, Jim,” I said. “Let me handle the lights. Let me be the guy that reveals McMuddle for what he really is.”

“You handle the pistol,” said Jim, “because you’re a hot-tempered little guy anyway, and just nutty enough to be carrying a pistol. Nobody would ever imagine I’d carry a gun.”

“Oh, wouldn’t they?” I retorted. “You good-natured fellows are the ones that really boil over when you get mad. Please, Jim, let me be the one that turns on the lights. That’ll give me more satisfaction than anything I can imagine.

Finding a Villain

“I don’t see how we can fool our gang,” insisted Jim. “Nobody, least of all McMuddle, would ever believe either you or I would carry a gun.”

“Could we ring in a stranger?” I asked.

“Look,” said Jim, suddenly. “I think I have it. I’ll agree to come to the party, and then have to beg off on account of a jam I’m in with a fellow. I have to entertain that night.”

“Yes?” I urged.

“Bill and the boys will insist on me coming and bring the guy,” explained Jim, “and I’ll try to beg off, because this fellow is a very bad actor, a fellow I’ve got mixed up with in a rather funny deal, and I think he’s a crook. See?”

“Swell.” I agreed

“And when Bill says bring him along anyway and let’s look him over, I’ll agree, on one condition that Bill explain to all the rest of the gang that this fellow is a louse, and probably has got me rooked for $2,000 but that I can’t be sure and I’ve got to be nice to him, and so on.”

“It builds up lovely,” I agreed.

“At the party,” concluded Jim. “I’ll act kind of moody and restrained. Not my old jolly self. see? And it will become more and more strained until, at the agreed signal, you get up and go and stand by the light switch, emptying your pipe or something, and then I’ll cut loose.”

What a glorious set-up,” I agreed, seeing McMuddle already trying to creep up the fireplace chimney.

Bill’s party was called for Thursday as usual. Six of us as a rule attend. Just a lot of cards, sandwiches and stuff, while the ladies are out to a movie.

Jim had no trouble finding a suitable villain from amongst his Russian pool-playing friends¹, a lean and sinister fellow in the musical instrument business, wholly unknown to any of the rest of us. He was also an amateur theatricals enthusiast, and he fell for the plot with joy. To Bill, Jim told, with obvious reluctance, some of the facts of his being rooked by this gent, and how good it was of Bill and the boys to agree to Jim bringing him along. All through the evening, from the moment Jim arrived with the fictitious Mr. Sacrahan, which was a lovely name for a villain, Jim was ill at ease, anxious, jumpy. But all of us, realizing how embarrassed he was with this ringer in the party, were highly sympathetic and not a little jumpy ourselves. In fact, McMuddle, on whom I kept gloating and expectant eye, was almost decent throughout the night.

About 10 p.m., Jim began to get a little nasty with Mr. Sacrahan.

“Let’s have a look,” he would say, leaning over and examining Mr. Sacrahan’s cards whenever he tossed a winning hand down.

Sacrahan just gazed, with a malevolent expression, at Jim. In a few minutes, we all began to observe that Mr. Sacrahan was eyeing Jim steadily with increasing venom in his expression.

And Jim continued to make short, ugly remarks about each of Mr. Sacrahan’s bets, raises, calls.

Shots Crash Terribly

At a prearranged look from Jim, I rose and sauntered over to the dining-room light switch, and proceeded to fill my pipe.

Suddenly Jim leaped to his feet, crashing his chair over behind him.

“You crook!” grated Jim, pointing scarlet-faced at Sacrahan.

“Sit down,” said Mr. Sacrahan, evilly.

“You crook,” repeated Jim thickly. “I saw you take a card out of your sleeve.”

“That’s a lie,” said Sacrahan, as we all held our breaths in dazed horror.

“I’ve suspected for months,” began Jimmie, leaning forward across the table.

Mr. Sacrahan leaped to his feet and made a violent swing at Jim. I reached for the light switch, my eyes on McMuddle, who was observing the scene with tense fascination.

Out of Jim’s pocket came the bulldog starter’s pistol we had borrowed from Lou Marsh’s old sailing club.

All in one expert motion, the pistol swept up and crashed terribly in the strained and silent dining room.

Out went the lights.

And four more shots. scarlet, vicious, stabbed the pitch black.

Pandemonium is a poor word for it. Shouts, groans, yelps, crashes, scuffles, roars, and then, after 10 stupendous seconds in which I could hardly control the beating of my heart and the sobs of laughter fighting my diaphragm, I switched on the lights.

Bill was under his thick dining-room table. Others were rolled in corners, two were wedged in the narrow doorway, madly struggling to escape.

But on the floor lay Jimmie, flat on his back, and on top of him knelt McMuddle, one powerful hand holding Jim’s pistol hand at arm’s length pinned to the floor, the other hand clasped about Jim’s windpipe, slowly squeezing the life out of him.

“Here!” I shouted, “let go, let him up!”

McMuddle reached up and carefully took the gun from Jim’s now limp grasp.

“Has he gone nuts?” demanded McMuddle, in a cold, icy voice. “Has the poor guy gone completely nuts?”

“It was a joke,” I muttered.

“Does he want to hang?” continued McMuddle, slowly rising off the almost lifeless Jimmie, whose face had gone purple.

Then he saw Mr. Sacrahan grinning in the corner. And then we had to explain to everybody that it was just a little fun; and help Jim to his feet and take him into the kitchen for cold water.

“I should have known it was a joke,” said McMuddle, “but your acting was too good.”

“I guess,” said Jim, ruefully fingering his throat, “we should have let you in on the joke.”

And when the party broke up, all in the highest spirits, with Mr. Sacrahan suddenly blooming as one of the best story tellers we have ever had in our gang, Jim said to me aside: “It’s a funny thing, but often the most unpleasant people have the most guts.”

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Editor’s Note:

1. It has been mentioned before that Jim likes to play Russian Pool. There are different variations so I am not sure which he played. ↩︎

By Gregory Clark, Illustrated by James Frise, June 4, 1938.

“Ah, June, June,” sighed Jimmie Frise, “what a month.”

“A lot of the world’s troubles,” I agreed, “start in June.”

“And most of the world’s joys,” declared Jim.

“In May,” I decreed, “most young people may see each other for the first time with love’s soft gaze; but it is in June that they get to the point of proposing. And in June, if the society pages are any evidence to go by, they mostly marry.”

“And,” demanded Jim, as we drove the car lazily through the soft summer night, amidst the quiet streets all slumber bound, “do you include marriage amongst the troubles of the world?”

“Certainly,” I replied. “Certainly. And so do you.”

“I have had a happy life,” declared Jim emotionally. “And so have you.”

“Ah,” I explained, “that’s the mischief of it. We who write and draw cartoons and entertain the public are naturally happy people. If we weren’t born happy, we’d be accountants or storekeepers, or something else gloomy like that. But being happy by nature, we think everybody else is happy and we talk about marriage and love and everything, and kid thousands of people into thinking that’s the way to be happy.”

“Oh, most people are happily married,” protested Jim, slowing the car and waving his hand at all the quiet homes, the sleeping and peaceful homes with their dimmed lights and gardens glossy and secret in the night. “In all these homes, there are men and women and children all living in happiness and quiet joy. You can’t deny that.””

“Think,” I said, “of all the big sloppy men in those houses, cranky and tired and kicking about the noise.”

“They’re pretty nice homes to my eye,” said Jim, reducing the speed of the car to a crawl.

“Think,” I continued, “of all the thin, nagging women in those deceptive houses. True, the houses look tidy and snug and homey. But that is just habit, just tradition. Often the sourest women are the neatest housekeepers.”

“Listen,” said Jim, “can you hear any sounds of discord? Or see any signs of it? Do you see boots or rolling pins come smashing out through the windows? No, sir, just peace, perfect peace.”

“The meanest man I ever knew,” I declared, “had the best kept house and garden I ever saw. His kids slunk and hid when supper time drew nigh and the old man was expected.”

“We can always think of exceptions easiest,” stated Jimmie. “We are exceptions, because we were born happy and soft-witted. And skinny women and bad-tempered men are exceptions too. The mass of mankind are pretty decent, happy people, a little overweight, a little too easy-going, a little too lazy to suit their bosses. But, as only one man in a hundred is a boss, so ninety-nine people out of a hundred are pretty decent people.”

Magic in the Air

“Aren’t you a little hard on the bosses?” I inquired.

“Oh, no offence,” said Jim. “I’m just being a realist, as they say. You don’t get to be boss by being easy-going and good-natured. You get to be boss of a hundred men, mostly, by being the hardest worker of the hundred, the most ambitious, the most practical and business-like, the one man in the hundred least willing to let things slide. He is generally a restless person, and you would rather go fishing with any one of the other ninety- nine.”

“Yeah,” I agreed, “and he probably got married in June, too. Because he felt most like getting married then. If he had waited until August, he probably would have turned a practical eye on the girl and seen that she was pretty, all right, but mussy about cooking and a little sharp with her mother when she was upstairs and thought he couldn’t hear.”

“Mmm, mmm,” muttered Jim. “You’ve got a skunner¹ against June, haven’t you?”

“In June,” I said, “men feel big. It is the season of growth. Men feel big and buy farms in June, and buy houses and launch out into programs of expanded business. In June, statesmen look back over a bitter and contentious winter, and seeing nothing done, come to big decisions and go ahead and create the world’s troubles. June is a month when all humanity should summon up all caution, all intelligence, all its shrewdness, to counteract the climate.”

“A fine way,” said Jim, “to try to foil nature. Nature made June in order to make people fall in love and get married and have children. Nature made June this way, in order that we would be full of a sense of power and growth, with big ideas and caution thrown aside. What a world this would be if our native caution were never dulled and dimmed by soft airs and gentle breezes and lavish flowers?”

“Man’s conquest of nature,” I announced, “must never end. And we should never forget that for one June, we have October, November, December, January, February…”

“Ugh,” said Jim, “and March.”

“And March,” I agreed. “Why let one little month like this entangle us for all the long winter to come?”

“You’re getting old,” said Jim, steering the car down a specially bowered and secret and lovely street, with elms and maples arching old-fashioned overhead. “When you can talk, or even think, things like that on a night like this, you are getting old. June is the narcotic month. June is the anaesthetic month. June is the month to eat the lotus flower and forget all the Januaries.”

“Puh,” I said.

“June,” said Jim, “is for romance.”

Upon which words, as we coasted slowly along the quiet, deserted street, taking the longest way home only because of a kind of magic in the air, something caught my eye out the window of the car, something moving in a garden.

“Psst, Jim,” I said. “Hanged if I didn’t see a ladder up against…”

Jim braked the car quietly.

“Burglars,” I hissed. “Second-storey men. Back up easy.”

“It’s an Elopement”

Jim backed the car ever so softly. Through hedges of lilac and orange blossom bushes, we peered for openings and came, shortly, to the one I had glimpsed through.

Sure enough, up against the back wall of a house only a short distance from the street, a ladder was set, its paint catching one glint of light from the street lamp. And at the very moment, two figures were to be seen moving cautiously down.

“It’s a girl,” gasped Jim, “and a man.”

“They’ve got suitcases,” I whispered.

“It’s an elopement,” grated Jim joyously.

“Ssshhh,” I warned.

“An elopement,” cried Jim exulting, and starting to open the car door. “Let’s help them.”

“Help them what?” I gritted angrily. “Just scare the heck out of them.”

“Their car must be hidden around the corner,” said Jim, peering in the yard. “We can help them with their suitcases. Look at him…”

The man was cautiously lowering the suitcases and trying to balance the girl above him at the same time. She was all of a dither, waving her hands in that helpless feminine way that means, “hurry, hurry.”

“Just let’s watch,” I advised.

But Jim, leaving the car door open for fear of noise, crept up to the hedge and felt for the fence. I saw him hoist his leg over what appeared to be a wire fence.

I heard him whistle low, and the two figures on the ladder froze. I saw him skulk forward across the dim lawn. I saw him whispering up the ladder to the young man and motioning towards our car. So I got out quick and scrambled over the wire fence and ran across the lawn to help.

“Whissssh,” said Jim, lurching down a laden suitcase.

“Elopement?” I whispered.

“Yes,” breathed Jim.

So I reached up and took a package from the young fellow and it was a radio, hastily disconnected from its wires. Then a suit case. And then the young man, tenderly assisted by Jim and me.

“An elopement?” I quivered in his ear.

He nodded and cleared his throat gently. He was chalk white with excitement and nervousness. What an old brute the girl’s father must be, I thought.

All three of us assisted the girl down. She was young and nervous, but gay. She was not white in the dim light of moon and street lamp, but full of color and vivacity.

We seized bags and suitcases. The young fellow grabbed up the radio. We all assisted one another over the wire fence and through the garden bushes, after taking a cautious look up and down the streets to make sure no misunderstanding disturbance would create a row and warn the girl’s parents.

Into the car, silent and slick, we piled everything and everybody. We were all breathless. Doors were suddenly slammed and Jim tramped on the running engine and away we lurched down the street and around the astonished corner.

“Where to?” called Jim hoarsely.

“Union Station,” replied the young man and girl, with a tremble and a joy in their voices. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see they were hugged in a joyous embrace in the back seat of our car.

“Now what do you think?” hissed Jim at me as he bent over the steering wheel just like we see heroes do in the movies. “Isn’t this romance for you? Doesn’t this make you feel young again?”

“Sir,” said I, in my most dignified tone, “I apologize, June is for romance. June is the time when we should relax our convictions and give optimism full play.”

“This is mighty wonderful of you,” said the girl, presently. “How on earth did you see us?”

“I saw a glint of light from the street lamp on the ladder,” I explained, “and imagined I saw two figures creeping down. We were just talking about June and romance at the time.”

“Yeah,” put in Jim, “and at first, his reaction was that you were burglars.”

“Burglars!” laughed the young couple behind.

“In fact,” said I, jocosely, “you’ve carried this elopement off so successfully you seem like expert elopers. Just as though you’d done it half a dozen times before. How did you manage to find a ladder and put it up to the window without making any noise?”

“Ah – the ladder was already there on the lawn,” said the young man. “I – ah – think the house is being painted or something. All I had to do was raise it up against the house. The hardest part was getting out of the widow and on to the ladder. The ladder kept banging against the wall.”

The girl giggled deliciously.

“It was me,” said Jim, “who forced the issue and decided you were elopers.”

“Thank you, sir,” said the girl earnestly. “I don’t know how we would have made our getaway without you and your car. We would be a funny sight, walking out to the street car with all these bags and this radio.”

“That radio,” I said, “seems funny. Imagine eloping and bringing your radio,”

“I’m very attached to that radio,” said the girl firmly.

“It was a present from me,” explained the young man.

Down Yonge St. we whizzed.

“Is… ah… is your father…?” I began, cautiously.

“He’s a fine man,” said the girl, “but very pig-headed.”

“And your mother,” added her young man, “she’s a fine woman, but pig-headed too.”

“Oh, no, she…” began the girl, but it was smothered suddenly, so I stopped sitting half turned round and faced the front strictly.

And in this state of slight coughs and throat clearings and humming and hawing and nobody speaking, we whammed and rattled down Yonge St.

“Er… ah…” interrupted Jim, finally, down around Queen St. “Pardon me, be what train are you catching?”

“The 11 p.m. for Hamilton, Buffalo and points west,” said the young man.

“Say,” said Jim suddenly, an eager light in his eye, “I’ll tell you what! I’ll drive you over to Hamilton – or Buffalo. My friend and I haven’t a thing to do”

“Jim,” said I sternly, “I have things to do. But least of all is it my intention to thrust my presence on elopers!”

“No, no,” said Jim waving his head, “that’s not the point. It’d be too bad, if the father catches up with them right at the Union Station, wouldn’t it? And the chances are he’s discovered what’s happened by now and is raging around the house, breaking dishes, threatening murder and calling every police station in the city. And where’s the first place they’ll look? Right at the Union Station!” Jim thumped the steering wheel for emphasis and the horn gave a loud sympathetic bellow.

“We wouldn’t think of letting you go to all that trouble,” said the young lady.

“No,” said the young man in a curious tone, “certainly not. In fact,” he added, leaning forward and putting both hands on the back of the front seat, “It’d be better if you did drop us at the station. I’m sure there won’t be any trouble like that.”

“Very well,” said Jim in an aggrieved tone.”

And we pulled up in front of the Union Station at 10.50.

Wishing For Confetti

“I wish,” I said somewhat wistfully, as I handed the young lady out of the car, “I wish I had some confetti or something.”

“A bad beginning,” said Jim, “means a good end. Strangers to see you off, friends for all your life.”

“You certainly are friends,” agreed the young couple, as we all grabbed suitcases and started in. The boy bought the tickets in no time and we helped carry the luggage right down to the entrance to the trains.

“Good-by, good luck,” we cried, shaking hands and the girl giving both Jimmie and me a little quick hug and daughterly sort of kiss, and waving, she ran in the entrance.

“Gentlemen,” said the young fellow, pausing with all his great load of bags, “just before I leave you, I feel you have been so decent to us, it’s a shame to leave you in ignorance. We’ve been married two years!”

“Aha,” I cried, “a secret marriage?”

“Nooooo,” said the young chap, “no, not secret. We’ve been married two years, and we’re just on our way home to see our parents.”

“Er,” said Jimmie and I.

“It was our landlord,” explained the young fellow delightedly, “we were eloping on. He lives in the duplex below us. We… ah heard his radio on very full. This is Thursday night, you know? So we seized the opportunity to elope down the ladder, while he and his family were listening to the big programs. He’s a very nasty fellow, really. Much worse than my wife’s father. Much.”

“But … but… your possessions,” said Jim, “your furniture?”

“It’s not paid for,” explained the young fellow, while the conductor at the entrance roared all aboard for Hamilton, Buffalo, etc. “Just the radio. We’ve paid for it.”

“But,” I said, “you’re skipping? Just skipping?”

“Eloping,” smiled the young fellow, moving towards the exit. “It’s all the same thing.”

And in a final tumult of conductor roaring and people barging through the gate, he vanished to chase heavy-laden after his pretty girl.

“So,” I said to Jimmie as we slowly backed away, “so, Mister Frise, you’re an accessory to a crime, eh?”

“Isn’t it lovely?” sighed Jim. “Two years married, can’t pay their rent, lose all they’ve paid down on their instalment furniture, and yet they’re as happy as two lovers.”

“Puh,” I said, “romance.”

“Hurray,” yelled Jimmie so sudden and so loud that all the sleepy people in the station started up and stared and we had to hurry out of the Union Station, with Jimmie bounding ahead so fast and so jaunty, I was glad people wouldn’t think I was with him.

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Editor’s Notes:

1. Having a “skunner” against something means you have a strong dislike or aversion towards something. ↩︎

By Gregory Clark, Illustrated by James Frise, September 10, 1938.

Greg and Jimmie take this opportunity to wish everyone a happy and prosperous New Year

“Heigh-Ho,” sighed Jimmie Frise, stretching, “summer’s over.”

“Now we’ve got to turn from grasshoppers,” I agreed, “into ants.”

“New Year’s Day,” stated Jimmie, “ought to be somewhere around this time of year instead of in the dead of winter. Because in reality, each year really begins about now, when summer’s ended, and we all knuckle down to the grind.”

“That,” I admitted, “is a real idea.”

“How did this January the first business start,” inquired Jim, “as the beginning of the year?”

“Julius Caesar,” I informed him.

“Oh, him,” muttered Jim, bitterly; remembering his far-off unhappy high school days.

“Yes, sir,” I declared, “Julius Caesar adopted what he called the Julian calendar, in his own honor. And to this day, all over the western world, as if his empire were not in the dust a thousand years, we go on honoring old Caesar by obeying his edicts.”

“It’s time we changed,” stated Jim. “I can’t think of any time of year being less the beginning of anything than January the first is just the dreary middle of the winter, the dreary middle of the long laborious year.”

“Even the ancient Egyptians and Phoenicians,” I advised Jim, “had the right idea. They began their year on September 21, at the autumn solstice.”

“The Egyptians?” cried Jim. “Good gracious, how did we ever get ourselves mixed up with the Romans? Why didn’t we stick with the ancient Egyptians? They’d haye handed us down something like a little civilization, instead of all this glorification of Julius Caesar.”

“Well, you see,” I explained, “the Egyptians could see a year begin and a year end. They saw the crops develop and the calves get born and the year come to its fulness. Then they gathered the crop and that ended the year. They began a new year in September, when a year begins now as it began then. Here we are back from our vacation. Everybody is back from vacation. All the hot dog stands are shuttered. All the highways are getting the has-been look. The show is over. The stage is being dismantled and the properties piled against the wall. Summer’s carnival is ended and here we are back to the grind. The year begins.”

“It ought to be New Year’s,” repeated Jim firmly. “How I hated Latin and algebra.”

“The Jews,” I stated, “begin their civil year still on September 6.”

“Why didn’t we stick with the Jews?” demanded Jim. “All we took was their Bible. We would have been better off if we had taken their calendar and their laws and everything else.”

“My, how vindictive you are,” I smiled. “Who would dream that Julius Caesar could be so alive after 2,000 years?”

“I am happy to learn,” stated Jim, “that Latin is now an optional subject in nearly all civilized nations on the globe.”

“The school year begins in September,” I reminded us. “The, fiscal year begins on October 1. I wonder what we could do to start an agitation for the abandonment of January 1, and the adoption of September 15 as New Year’s Day?”

“Ah, it would be great,” cried Jimmie. “What a lovely season of the year. With its hale winds and its ripeness and vigor. How we could set the stage for a new year’s celebration about September 15.”

“Even nature herself,” I pointed out, “goes into a sort of celebration, turning her leaves scarlet and orange, and all her fields golden.”

Dawn of New Work Year

“Instead of going out into a sleet storm on a blizzard,” went on Jim, “as we do in January, we could stage such a September carnival as would fill every man, woman, and child with a sort of joy at getting back to work again. The dawn of the new year of work.”

“It could be a festival of industry,” I recounted.

“Oh, it could be a great day,” cried Jim. “In the cities, the carnivals, the visiting and inspection of big industrial plants, all decked out, the banquets of employees; and in the country, the farmers painting their barns and hauling in the implements to be painted and repaired for another year’s toil, instead of being left to rot in a far corner of the farthest pasture. And at midnight, at the stroke of midnight, all the factory whistles would blow and all the workers of the world would gather about their shops and factories and offices, brilliantly lighted and bedecked, and a new year would have begun.”

“It’s a beautiful idea,” I confessed. “I think we ought to do something about it.”

“By the way,” said Jim, yawning and pushing his drawing table back a little, “what are we going to do this coming year? I never felt so empty of ideas in my life as I do right now.”

“It’s just the reaction,” I assured him. “Everybody feels like this at the beginning of autumn. It’s a sort of let down after the activity of summer.”

“That’s a funny thing,” declared Jim. “We work harder in summer than any other time of year, yet in summer, there is less accomplished than any other season. Business slacks off. Everybody is away having fun. Yet we exhaust ourselves.”

“Rightly so,” I said. “Summer is the real end of the year. We celebrate the end of the year’s work with a vacation. And we exhaust ourselves having fun.”

“That shows you the true nature of man,” said Jim. “Man’s natural instinct is to have fun.”

“We’ll have to get together right away,” I proposed, shoving back my typewriter desk so as to get my feet up on the edge, “we’ll have to get together in a regular conference and decide on plans for the coming season.”

“Yaw,” yawned Jim, “we’ve really got to. Here we are dawdling through life, writing a few simple stories and drawing a few simple cartoons. Just earning our bread, that’s all.”

“What more can any man do?” I submitted, relaxing.

“Talent,” declared Jim, “is that which a man has in his power. Genius is that which has a man in its power. Why can’t we do something, this winter, on a big scale? Why can’t we do some serious work, like against war or to promote the brotherhood of man?”

“Who’d read it?” I inquired.

“Well,” said Jim, “we’ve presumably got somebody reading your stories now and presumably somebody looking at my cartoons. They’d read the stuff.”

“But they wouldn’t read it again,” I pointed out.

“They’d read it before they knew it wasn’t any good,” explained Jim. “And we’d have scored before they knew it. Let’s work out one tremendous article about world peace or the brotherhood of man or something important like that. Let’s sock it all into one grand big smash. All our regular readers will read it before they discover it’s no good. And we’ll have done our life’s work. Our one noble deed. Our one worthy opus. I hate to pass away, being only a cartoonist.”

Intended to Be Great

“I often see,” I admitted, “a queer expression my family’s face and on the faces of friends and companions. I’ve sometimes wondered if it was pity that I should be so dumb as I am when I write.”

“Can we help it?” demanded Jim, a little angrily, though resting his arms on his drawing board and relaxing his head upon them. “Can we help it if we are only cartoonists and scribblers?”

“I always intended,” I confessed, “to be a great man. I used to read great books and plan what a great book I would write some day. I remember I had a row of books on my desk, as a young man, a row of books like Gibbon’s ‘Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire’ and ‘Sartor Resartus’¹ and Plato’s Republic’ and things like that. I remember how I used to come in at night, after a long day spent covering the waterfront or reporting the police court, and I would look with dignity at that row of great books and they would look back with dignity at me. It was a nice feeling to come in at night to that little room and look at those books.”

“Me,” said Jim, drowsily and unhappily, “I used to get from the library big heavy books about Michael Angelo, full of illustrations not only of his finished masterpieces but with fragments of his rough sketches and drawings preciously preserved across the centuries, and I would pore over these drawings, dreaming and practising, thinking some day I would paint great murals and travel from one country to another, in the wide world, painting the frescoes of cathedrals and vast canvasses that would hang in museums for silent multitudes of people to come and gaze at, breathless and wide-eyed.”

“Ho, hum,” I sighed. “I remember the bronze book ends that held up that long row of noble books. They were bronze moose. I can see those two bronze moose yet, peeping invitingly around the ends of the row of books. I think the end book around which one moose peeped was Maeterlinck’s ‘Treasure of the Humble,’² and at the other end, the moose spied at me from the corner of Darwin’s ‘Descent of Man,’ The books are gone, now. I gave them to my son. He was glad to have them. I can see him often, now, looking at them in a soft way, and they looking up at him with a quiet dignity. But I saved the two bronze moose book ends.”

“What do you do with them now?” inquired Jim, faintly.

“I use them for a rack on the mantel, to rest my good Mauser rifle on,” I confessed.

“That’s the way life is,” sighed Jimmie. “The commonplace always triumphs.”

He was resting his cheek on his arms now and his eyes were closed.

“Here,” I exclaimed, “snap out of it. Let’s do a little figuring. Let’s figure out our stories and cartoons for the next couple of weeks, anyway.”

Jim opened one eye and it had a blank expression in it.

“Think of it,” I cried, “seven, eight, nine years we have been up here, like flagpole sitters³, banging out a story and a cartoon a week…”

“Twenty years,” muttered Jim. “Twenty years for me. Fifty-two times twenty?”

“Flagpole sitters, that’s what we are Jim,” I assured him loudly, because he was obviously slipping away. “Just a couple of flagpole sitters.”

Here we are,” I propounded, “at the start of the new year, in the lovely September, with a whole fine year ahead of us. Think of all the white paper that lies ahead of us. Fifty square yards of drawing paper that you have to fill in the next 50 weeks with just your cartoon alone.”

“Ughhhh,” said Jim.

“And another 50 square yards for this cartoon for me,” I urged. “Jimmie, wake up. Summer’s over. We must be up and doing.”

But he just drew a long slow breath and snuggled a little on his arms.

“And think,” I shouted, “of the thousands of miles of newsprint that we’ve got to help smear. Tens of thousands of miles of newsprint, lots of which is still little trees growing in the swamps up north of Lake Superior somewhere. Think of that.”

“Zzzzzzz,” said Jim, just like in the comics. So I sat and looked at this grizzle-headed old artilleryman snoozing on his drawing desk, this wielder of billiard cues, this lover of pumps and barns and all the homely things of life, and saw in him all the people of the world, in all countries; the workers and the toilers, all flagpole sitters on jobs not amusing in the least; the men who wield axes and handle tools, eternally making the same things; the men and women who go each day at dawn to the same shop and the same store, forever and ever, and glad of it, to handle goods and bow across a counter to the old familiar and the unfamiliar faces.

I thought of sailors at sea, scrubbing decks and knowing they are five, four, three days from land, and that the land will be the same old land as ever. Of all the patient land, round and round, where men till and sow and garner, knowing that no fortune ever was hid beneath any acre, and only by determination. and patience, will even, the daily bread come up out of the earth.

Of rich men, I thought, and how ashamed they often must be, though their faces are proud. Of rulers and governors and presidents and princes, and how in the night time often they must weep.

Of women, young and lovely and afraid. Of cruelty and despair in nations bright upon the map. Of carelessness in a hundred million hearts. Of loneliness, in a hundred million hearts.

Of loveliness unutterable, glinting for an instant in a thousand million hearts, a glint, an instant, of joy, of delight, of pleasure, of happiness, this moment, countless as the pebbles on a shore, at this instant all over the earth, men, women, and children, feeling in their minds and hearts those beads of colored instants…

“Jimmie,” I said, but not very loud. “Jim, wake up. It’s a new year. Summer’s ended. Autumn is here. Winter’s coming. We must work. We must toil. The whole world is waking.”

But Jim just went on gently breathing.

So I shifted my heels a little better on the edge, and lowered my eyelids just to take the weight off them, and in a little moment, I knew that another crowded year of glorious life had begun.

---

Editor’s Notes: This story was repeated on September 2, 1942 as “Time for Toil”.

1. Sartor Resartus: The Life and Opinions of Herr Teufelsdröckh in Three Books is an 1831 novel by Thomas Carlyle. ↩︎
2. The Treasure of the Humble is a collection of thirteen essays by Maurice Maeterlinck. ↩︎
3. Flagpole sitting was a test of endurance and a fad in the 1920s. I believe Greg and Jim worked on the top floor of the Old Toronto Star Building, which is why he would say this. ↩︎

By Gregory Clark, Illustrated by James Frise, May 21, 1938.

“Out in front of my place,” announced Jimmie Frise, strolling in my back gate, “there is a great big pile of stone.”

“So what?” I inquired.

“Well,” stated Jim, “it’s there, and I didn’t order any stone.”

“Maybe it is some neighbor’s,” I offered.

“It’s right on my lawn,” announced Jim with some astonishment. “Neatly stacked right on the lawn.”

“What kind of stone?” I inquired.

“Regular stone,” described Jim. “Stone for building or for rock gardens or for flagstone paths or anything.”

“When was it delivered?” I asked.

“Nobody knows,” said Jimmie. “I’ve asked all around the neighborhood, and nobody knows anything about any stone. All I know is my family looked out the window and there was the pile of stone.”

“Well, that’s a funny one,” I admitted. “Don’t you remember telling anybody that you’d like some stone? Maybe you just happened to drop the remark some time lately and some friend of yours has sent you a present of stone.”

“No, sir,” stated Jim emphatically. “I certainly didn’t. Because if there is anything in the world I don’t want, it’s a pile of stone. Here’s my family already agitating for me to build a rock garden. And I have always said, if there is one thing I don’t want it is a rock garden.”

“You had better leave the pile,” I decreed, “and whoever owns it will turn up and claim it. Probably it has been delivered to the wrong address.”

“And meantime,” cried Jim, indignantly, “my lawn is being ruined. I guess not.”

“Well, what are you going to do about it?” I demanded.

“Well, it’s got to get the heck off my lawn, that’s. all,” declared Jim hotly. “I called the police and they said they wouldn’t know about a thing like that. If it was piled on the pavement they could take action. But since it is on my lawn, that is my affair.”

“Jimmie,” I exclaimed, “there is a reasonable explanation for all things. Don’t be hasty. Call up the various dealers in stone and sand and gravel and you’ll find that somebody has either delivered it to the wrong address or else somebody has sent you a gift. Maybe there will be a letter in the mail to-morrow morning informing you that you have won a load of stone in a raffle. Did you buy any raffle tickets lately?”

“Oh, I’m always buying twenty-five-cent raffle tickets,” admitted Jim, feeling in his pockets and bringing out little odds and ends of folded paper and looking at them one after another with surprise, “but I don’t recall any raffle tickets about a load of stone. Unless…”

“Unless what?” I asked.

A Tough Problem

“Unless it was that church raffle,” thought Jim, intently, “where they had a ton of coal and a radio and a pair of handmade patchwork quilts…”

“That would be it,” I assured him. “That’s what’s you’ve done. You’ve won a raffle.”

“Well, what the dickens,” protested Jim. “What do I want with a great big pile of stone?”

“What do you buy raffle tickets for?” I countered.

“I buy them to get rid of the guy,” admitted Jim; “the same as you or anybody else.”

“My dear boy, a load of good stone costs money,” I informed him. “You could sell that stone for maybe five or 10 bucks.”

“That’s an idea,” said Jim brightly. “Who will buy it? Do you want any stone?”

“I could do with some stone,” I admitted, looking around my garden. “I’ve sometimes thought of a rockery. Or maybe a flagstone path along here.”

“O.K., cried Jim, “it’s a deal. How much will you give me for my stone?”

“Not so fast,” I informed him. “I can get a ton of stone for four dollars, delivered right to my garden, down the side drive. Dropped on the spot, so to speak, for four dollars.”

“Hmm,” said Jim.

“In fact,” I pointed out, “that stone you’ve got is, roughly, 150 yards from here. It would have to be transported. Who would transport it?”

“Not me,” agreed Jim. “For any four bucks.”

“In fact,” I mused, “supposing I did take your stone, as a favor, so as to relieve you of it and save your front lawn from damage. I wouldn’t figure on paying for the stone; I’d figure on being paid for removing it.”

“I’ll pay nobody,” stated Jim warmly. “They can’t do this to me. They can’t just come and drop a load of stone all over my front lawn. No, sir. And put all kinds of notions into my family’s head. Why, at this very minute I’ll bet they are all out in the backyard planning where I’ll build a rockery.”

“You could collect damages,” I supported. “You could collect damages for mental anguish and the estrangement of your family’s affections and all kinds of things.”

“Besides wrecking my lawn,” agreed Jim.

“What you had better do,” I suggested, “is go and telephone around the sand and gravel men and offer them the load for nothing if they will come and pick it up. If you leave it there, indefinitely, you will certainly have to do something about it. Either you will have to haul it into your yard and build a rockery or else take it and pile it on the pavement, so bringing the matter to the attention of the police. Then something will be done.”

“And meantime,” added Jim, “my grass will be getting all yellow from the stone being piled on it.”

“Go ahead,” I suggested, “go and call up some sand and gravel men and offer it to them for nothing. And then, after they have picked it up. I might make them an offer to drop it here in my side drive.”

“Ho,” said Jim, eyeing me suspiciously.

“Sure,” I admitted. “I’ll be interested in that load of stone as soon as it is on board a truck. But not before.”

“I’m on the Spot”

So while Jim was gone back down to his house, I set briskly to work studying the garden to see just where a rockery would look best. I figured a small rockery in the southeast corner would look pretty smart, and, if the stone were not too lumpy, I might run a sort of flagstone walk across the bottom end of the garden, a kind of courtyard or close of flag stones, like the pictures in the fashionable magazines of financial wizards’ gardens. In fact, the longer I studied the proposition, the more I wanted some stone. A garden is funny that way. Just let the seed of an idea drop into your mind when you think of gardens and, by George, that seed sprouts as if it were in a garden in reality. With a stick I traced in the sod the outline of a flagstone court at the foot of the yard; and in the corner where the rockery would be, I pulled out a few of the less valuable seedlings, in preparation for the clean-out that would be necessary to make way for the stone.

Jim was gone quite a long time. And when he came back, he came briskly.

“Look,” he said, “I’ll be frank with you. I called up six different dealers and none of them were open after supper. Then I got a seventh, who said it wouldn’t pay him to pick up the load, as the big expense in stone is the handling. He’s got lots of stone already loaded.”

“What would he charge to transport it 150 yards?” I asked.

“He said he was too busy to handle a small order,” stated Jim. “In fact, I offered to pay him for transporting it for you.”

“My dear boy, that was very decent,” I cried. “But I wouldn’t think of letting you do that.”

“To be frank,” said Jim, “I’m on the spot. My family have been out and figured the whole thing out. We’re to have a rock garden.”

“Aha,” said I, disappointed.

“So I’ve got to act quick,” said Jim excitedly. “What kept me was, I drove them all down to the movie. Before they get home that pile of rock has got to be out of there. Do you want it or don’t you?”

“Sure I want it,” I assured him. “But how can we…?”

“We can do it,” cried Jim. “There’s a fellow down the street has a wheel-barrow. With the two of us working, I figure we can shift the whole pile in two hours. In less than two hours. Come on.”

“Wo-ho,” I protested suspiciously. “It’s a lot of work, Why don’t you just wheel it into your own yard? I mean, of the two evils, building a rockery in your yard seems a lot less than wheeling all that stone up here.”

“It’s the principle of the thing,” said Jim. “I don’t want any rockery. And besides, you wouldn’t help me. Whereas, if I give you the stone, you’ll willingly help me get it out of the way.”

“I don’t like this haste,” I informed him.

All Figured Out

“Look,” cried Jim impatiently. “Once you give in, in this garden business, you’re sunk. This rockery is the beginning. If I get a rockery, it means two rockeries, it means flagstone paths and everything. It means planting and buying special rockery plants. I know. I’ve watched my neighbors.”

“Yet you expect me to build a rockery?” I argued.

“Ah, you’re different,” said Jim. “You’ve given in long ago to this garden stuff.”

“Oh, have I?” I snorted.

“Listen,” hissed Jim, “do you want the stone or don’t you? In one hour and 50 minutes, I’ve got to pick them up at the movie. Between now and then, that stone is going to be gone from my lawn. Do you want it?”

“Yes,” I admitted, high-pressured. “But where will you tell the family it went?”

“I’ll say the truck driver left it by mistake and came and took it away,” said Jim, desperately.

“O.K.,” I muttered, being a family man myself.

“I’ll just be five minutes, getting the wheel-barrow,” shouted Jim, already sprinting down the drive. “Come on down and see the stuff.”

So I slipped in and changed to my old shoes and then strolled down to Jim’s. A pile of stone it was, indeed. Lovely limestone gray and colored building stone of the best quality. No pick-up stuff out of a river bed, this. It was stone fit for a mansion or a public building. And there must have been two tons or more, a regular truck load of it.

While I was still estimating how many barrow loads of it there were, doubtfully, Jim came noisily up the street, on a fast walk shoving a big barrow.

“Jim,” I protested, “we can never get all this off of here in two hours.”

“Of course we can,” cried Jimmie. “If we hop into it. Two of us on the barrow.”

“Taking turns?” I asked. “And resting?”

“No, no, I’ve got it all figured out,” exclaimed Jim, throwing off his coat. “You’re the shortest. You hold the handles of the barrow and I’ll walk ahead, hauling on it, My long legs would tilt the barrow too high for it to hold a good big load. Have you any gloves?”

“No,” I muttered.

“Well,” said Jim, “we haven’t time to bother. Let’s get at it.”

Jim leaped with a will into the stone pile and laid in four chunks before I had shifted two, and then I picked up the barrow handles.

“That’s no load,” protested Jim.

“It’s load enough,” I growled, starting to push.

Jim leaped ahead and caught hold of the front of the barrow and hauled. A wheel-barrow is not really one of the larger of human inventions. It may have served its purpose back in the dim and blundering past, before men did any real thinking. But it is pitiful to think of all the generations of mankind who have been warped and twisted out of shape by wheel-barrows. If it hadn’t been for wheel-barrows, think of how tall and beautiful and straight the human race might have been by now? They might have been gods by now, but for the barrow. It drags at the shoulders, the arms, the back. It bends the legs and causes the feet to be flat and large and splayed. It bursts the muscles of the neck and causes the blood vessels of the head and face to bulge. It makes the eyes stick out and the ears to sing. It constricts the lungs and strains the viscera. It makes a man thick and squat, like a gorilla. Rather than believe that the human race is descended from monkeys, I am inclined to think that ages of pushing wheel-barrows has brought man down to the level of gorillas.

Too Late to Retreat

We made a fast trip with the first load.

There is a little terrace from Jim’s lawn requiring that we push the barrow up it, to avoid bumping heavily up or down three concrete steps. It was this terrace that was the hardest point in our short journey from Jim’s lawn to my garden.

“We’ll take turns,” I said heavily, “at the handles.”

“My legs are too long,” pleaded Jim. “A wheel-barrow really calls for a short man.”

“We’ll take turns,” I informed him sternly.

Jim hauled ahead and I wobbled and staggered along between the hafts of the barrow. We took five loads, and the rock pile did not seem to be even nibbled. Only one edge of it appeared to be slightly reduced.

“Seventeen minutes,” gasped Jim. “We’ll have to make it snappy.”

“My hands are blistered already,” I informed him.

The sixth return trip, a large gray empty truck was just backing up to Jim’s lawn.

“Oh, oh,” muttered Jimmie.

It was too late to retreat, because a largish young man in overalls and a stoney face was already swinging down from the truck and saw us.

“Hello,” he called. “What’s going on?”

“What’s the idea,” announced Jim, loudly, “of dumping a lot of rock on my lawn?”

“My axle broke this afternoon,” said the rough young man pleasantly. “I had to unload when the tow-truck called. I didn’t think anybody would mind for a couple of hours.”

“A couple of hours?” cried Jim. “Why. that stone has been there long enough for a whole lot of things to happen.”

“You’ve taken some of it away,” said the young chap, while an even larger and stonier man came down out of the truck cab, drawing on big gauntlets.

“We’ve moved five barrows of it,” I said drily, and a little gladly.

“You’ll have to bring it back,” said the young fellow. “This load is by weight.”

“Bring it back, heck,” said Jim. “You go and get it.”

“Oh, is that so?” replied the youth. “How about me calling the cops and reporting a couple of old guys stealing my stone when my back was turned?”

“And I’ll report that you damped stone on my lawn, ruining it,” shouted Jim.

“Excuse me,” I said, “but if you’ll drive around to my side drive, you can pick up the two or three measly barrow loads we’ve taken.”

“O.K., sir,” said the young fellow, recognizing a gentleman.

So Jim and I walked down the street to restore the barrow to its owner, while the two hearty lads thundered the big rocks back into the truck by hand.

“Well,” sighed Jimmie, “men like us need a little unusual exercise now and then.”

“We sure get it,” I mumbled.

---

Editor’s Note: This story also appeared in The Best of Greg Clark & Jimmie Frise (1977).

By Gregory Clark, Illustrated by James Frise, January 15, 1938.

“How are you,” inquired Jimmie Frise, “at raising money?”

“Middling,” I replied. “When I want $100 I always ask the bank manager for $300.”

“I mean,” said Jim, “canvassing. You know: raising funds for a worthy cause.”

“That’s something,” I admitted, “that I have never tried.”

“Well,” said Jim, “there’s some kind of a new service club starting out in the west end here. Sort of like a junior Rotary or Kiwanis club. It is starting a campaign to raise a sort of operating fund for its first year.”

“I’ll give you a dollar¹,” I said, seeing it was Jim.

“No, no,” he cried. “It’s not that. The boys in charge of it came to see me last night to ask if you and I would do some canvassing for them.”

“Two dollars,” I offered. “I’ll make it two dollars.”

“I offered them five,” said Jim, “if they would let me out of it. But they kind of high-pressured me. They said you and I were so well known, we’d get them the dough like nobody’s business.”

“Ah,” I admitted, “that was very decent.”

“Yes,” went on Jim, “they said that this new service club is really for the younger men of the west end here, where they are sort of out of the swim, as far as the boys of say 16 to 20 are concerned. We’re seven miles from the University. We’re the same distance from downtown and the museums and main libraries and everything. A service club devoted to youth, they say, would fill a long-felt want.”

“I’ll go five too,” I offered.

“Look,” said Jim. “These fellows told me last night that you and I would get $100 as quick as unknown canvassers would get $10.”

“There might be something in it,” I submitted.

“It’s a very simple job,” pointed out Jim. “All we have to do is go out after supper and work about four short streets. They suggested just these four streets right around here. All well-to-do people. We could probably do 15 houses in an evening, between say 7.30 and 10 o’clock. What do you think?”

“Somehow,” I said, “it doesn’t exactly appeal to me. Somehow, I feel that we belong to the giving kind, not to the getting kind.”

“But look,” said Jim, “what have we ever done for the community? Here we are living our selfish lives, not doing a single uncomfortable thing. All we do is buy our way out of a little work with five bucks.”

“Or two,” I corrected. “Make it two bucks, as a rule.”

“And these fellows were really,” continued Jim, “very kind to say what they did about how easy it would be for us. And it’s true, at that, I suppose.”

“That is the only part of the proposition that appeals to me,” I submitted. “Beyond this: that it might be kind of fun to see inside all these homes around here.”

“Yeah,” said Jim, eyes widening.

Going Out Canvassing

“I’ve often,” I informed him, “had a sort of hankering to see what some of these nice big homes are like around here. I see the people who live in them. I see the outside of their houses. But I wonder what the insides are like? What kind of pictures have they on the walls? Have they got any enlarged photographs of defunct aunts, in walnut frames? What books have they? In what opulence or meanness do all these neighbors of ours dwell, who walk so proudly amongst us?”

“It would be fun,” admitted Jim.

“I tell you,” I offered, “let’s tell your friends that we will try one night’s canvassing for them. Tell them we are pretty busy men, but we’ll give them one night, see?”

“That will be safest,” agreed Jim.

“And we can have one grand evening looking over the domiciles of our neighbors,” I laughed. “Nothing is so revealing as the front room of a man’s home.”

“I’ll call the boys,” said Jim, “and tell them we’ll do a night’s work for them. All they’ve got to do is supply us a list with the names, addresses and business occupations of the householders. That’ll guide us.”

“I want,” I said, “to see the inside of an insurance man’s home.”

So Jimmie got in touch with the committee men of the new venture and they sent him a list of selected prospects in our immediate neighborhood. There were insurance men, managers of factories like ink or shoes, doctors, lawyers. And Jim and I went for a preliminary ramble of the district to look over the outside of the prospects and select the kind of houses we would prefer to see the inside of. We selected out of 50 names a short list of 20 which we could nicely cover in one night’s fast work.

“We won’t stay long,” explained Jim. “The boys impressed that on me. Don’t spend more than 15 minutes. The real trouble with the art of canvassing is the inclination to dawdle. Cover the ground: that’s the secret of success.”

“How much should we try to get?” I asked.

“Well, they told me,” said Jim, “to try for an average of $10 and we’d probably average five. But here and there, if we have any luck at all, we’ll strike perhaps $25 or even $50. We mustn’t forget that most of the neighbors around here know us, and some of them might want to impress us.”

“Especially,” I pointed out, “if we catch them sitting in their shirt sleeves in a living room with a lot of shabby looking furniture…”

“Now you’re talking,” cried Jim, who is only an amateur in the science of psychology.

So, putting on our best hats and the special mufflers we got for Christmas that our wives had put away in a drawer, we sallied forth. It was a lovely night.

“I imagine a lot of people will be out on a night like this,” I suggested.

“We have to take our chances on that,” said Jim.

In a Worthy Cause

The first home we had extra-selected on our list was that of a lawyer, a gentleman whose name is often in the papers. He occupies one of the larger and remoter houses in our neighborhood. It stands back. It has trees in front of it.

“This,” I said, “is going to be imposing. Tall, book-lined walls. Old walnut furniture. A few dim, expensive paintings by old masters on the wall.”

We rang.

We rang again.

Lights glowed within, so we knew somebody was home. But often, in these better-class homes, it takes even the maid a long time to answer the door. It is as if even the maid had more important things to do.

So we rang again, long and steady.

In the distance we heard sounds as of somebody coming. We saw, through the frosted glass of the inner door, a shadow of somebody moving. Then the inner door opened, and there appeared a queer sight. It was the gentleman we sought, true enough, the lawyer, but he was grotesquely attired. He had on some old kind of a dressing gown. he had a towel around his neck, his hair was all tousled, and he was stooped over, as if he were huddling from the cold. He opened the door a crack.

“What is it?” he demanded shortly.

“We’ve dropped in,” I started pleasantly, “in connection with a very worthy cause that has been started in the neighborhood….”

“Good grief, man,” shouted the lawyer thickly. “I only came to the door because I thought you were the doctor. I was up taking a mustard foot bath. I’m nearly dead with a cold, would you mind getting out of this with your…”

And with a terrific slam, he shut the door in our faces.

“Hmmmm,” said Jim.

So we went down the street four doors, rather hurriedly, to the next selected house on our extra-selected list.

“The poor fellow,” I suggested. “Us bringing him down to the door.”

“A bad beginning means a good end,” replied Jim.

We mounted the steps of the next house with confidence.

A girl came dancing to the door.

“Is Mr. Puckle in?” we asked beamingly, as became workers in a worthy cause.

“Just a minute.” said the young girl, uncertainly, and she left us in the vestibule.

The house was loud with music. The radio was going full blast. A swell band was raving and whanging, and somebody on the air said something and the house was filled with laughter.

To Change Their Luck

The girl went inside, and a man in his shirt sleeves came hurriedly out the hall and leaned into the vestibule, as if in flight.

“Mr. Puckle?” said Jim, heartily.

“Yes?” said Mr. Puckle, sharply.

“We’re a couple of neighbors of yours,” began Jim. We wanted to see you for a few minutes on a matter respecting a worthy cause, a new venture in the interests…”

“Not now, not now,” cried Mr. Puckle, his ears laying back as he tried to hear what the radio comedian was saying at the same time. “It’s Thursday night, man. Not to-night.”

“But we only require five minutes,” started Jim.

He made shushing gestures with his hands. “Don’t you understand?” he shouted. “Thursday night. It’s the biggest night on the radio. Nobody should be allowed out on Thursday nights. Imagine, you come here trying to talk to me about some worthy cause… here!”

And he stepped strongly past us, opened the door and waved us out.

Just plain out.

“Well,” breathed Jim as we stood on the steps under the stars.

“I guess he didn’t know who we were,” I suggested.

“Probably he didn’t and perhaps he did,” said Jim. “But so far, we haven’t averaged five bucks.”

“The night’s young,” I encouraged him, as we went down the walk a little way and looked at our list under the street light for the next house.

Well, the next house was another handsome edifice where the maid who answered the door wanted to know our business when we asked for the gentleman. We explained our business.

“I’m sorry,” said the maid. “My instructions are that all requests for aid or money should be referred to the master in business hours.”

“Just take our names in,” I suggested.

She took our names in, and we waited on the veranda.

She returned.

“He says, will you please see him in business hours?”

So we again went down the street and this time we studied the list more closely. To change our luck, we decided to go around a block and start on a new segment of our list.

It was, to the eye, a more appealing home we selected than any of the others. It too had a jolly look, but when we got to the veranda and listened in the window, we could hear no big Thursday night radio rumpus. We rang. In a smoking jacket, a man swung the door wide, in a generous gesture.

“Hello?” he said cheerily.

“We’re calling on you,” said Jimmie, “in connection with a worthy cause connected with this neighborhood. It is a sort of youth service club that some of the people around here…”

“Come on in,” said the gentleman gaily, “and rest your hats.”

We stepped into his parlor.

“Now, look,” said our host, “I’ve got a few of the neighbors in the dining room. We’ve got a little game on. How’d you like to speak your little piece to the whole bunch of us and save time?”

“Swell,” we cried.

And we were led into the dining room, where around the dining room table three gentlemen were sitting in the usual poker attitudes. We were introduced with great enthusiasm, though I didn’t recollect ever having seen any of the neighbors before, and they obviously had never heard of us. Still, it was neighborly.

Jimmie Makes a Speech

Jim made the speech. He explained the purpose of the proposed organization. How it would benefit the whole community insofar as offering some activity and interest to the younger men and older boys. It would teach them public speaking, self-assurance and confidence. Jim really did a beautiful job. All four gentlemen sat back, their cards laid down. and smoked their cigars in that thoughtful way poker players smoke their cigars, in little, puckered-mouth puffs, slowly steaming out.

When Jim concluded, with a rousing request for a few donations on the dotted line, to be followed in due course by a suitably engraved acknowledgment from the president and executive of the new organization, the four gentlemen looked at one another thoughtfully.

“Well, Bill,” said our host to the only one of them in his shirt sleeves, and they tell me those are always the most dangerous poker players, “what say?”

“Personally,” said Bill, slowly and in a deep, cigar-stained voice. “I make it a practice never to give money away. I offer my money on the altar of chance. If a cause is worthy, it generally survives the ordeals of chance.”

“Well put,” cried they all. “Well stated, Bill.”

“My suggestion is,” went on Bill, “that these two gentlemen sit into this game and, if their cause is really worthy, it will probably plaster them with luck and they can take my money off me, and welcome.”

“It’s an idea, gentlemen,” cried our host, offering to take our hats and coats.

“Wait a minute,” said Jim. “I don’t happen to have more than three or four dollars on me.”

“I’ve only got two,” I put in drily. Poker is not one of my good points.

“Why,” said Bill, “you stand to win ten times as much as you could collect out of us.”

“I’m in,” said Jim, starting to take off his coat.

So I sat in too. I sat in to play my own kind of game. I play poker my own way. It is this. I play nothing but jackpots. That is, I ante. And then, if I get one of three hands, a royal flush, a straight flush or a full house, I bet for all I am worth. But unless I get one of those three, I throw my hand in. True, I seldom get such a hand. But in a long evening’s play, all I can lose is my ante. And as the ante was five cents and the game five and ten, naturally, I was able to sit the game out with my two dollars for forty deals. Forty deals I sat and watched that game, and never did I get anything better than three aces, though I got several two pairs.

It took Jim all that time to lose and win and lose his four dollars, back and forward, and back and forward. But this little group of neighbors had a rule that on the stroke of midnight the game ended, no matter what, by finishing out the hand.

And when the stroke of midnight sounded. Jim pushed all his chips, and what do you think he was betting on?

A pair of fives.

Naturally he lost, and for all our night’s canvassing, we had nothing but our key rings and penknives and a couple of buttons and stuff in our pockets.

But the gang broke up with a swell tray-load of chicken sandwiches and coffee, and while none of us had ever heard of one another, and didn’t seem to care, we thanked everybody for a very pleasant evening and went forth into the night.

“So much for canvassing,” said Jimmie.

“So much,” I agreed, and we parted at the corner.

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Editor’s Notes:

1. $1 in 1938 is the equivalent of $20.85 in 2023. ↩︎