The Work of Greg Clark and Jimmie Frise

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A Barrel of Pippins

October 29, 1938

Summer’s Over

I thought of sailors… of rich men… of carelessness… of loveliness. “Jimmie,” I said, but not very loud, “we must work, we must toil.”

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.

September 2, 1942

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. ↩︎

Some Other Time

Jim hauled ahead and I wobbled and staggered along between the shafts of the barrow…. “We’ll have to make it snappy,” said Jim….

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).

There’s Always Boo Boo

March 19, 1938

This is another story by Merrill Denison about his dog, illustrated by Jim.

March 19, 1938

Charity Game

We were introduced with great enthusiasm to the men around the table…

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.


Editor’s Notes:

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

An Early Shopper

December 17, 1938

C.O.D. is cash on delivery, requiring the recipient to pay for the postage. So Eli is particularly cheap.

Put it in Writing

“I don’t want to even know his reasons,” shouted Jimmie. “I don’t want to even speak to him!” “Very well,” I said. “We’ll make it brief and snappy like this.”

By Gregory Clark, Illustrated by James Frise, November 12, 1938.

“Listen,” hissed Jimmie Frise. “Listen to that row.”

I listened. From somewhere came the deep, booming notes of a radio penetrating into Jimmie’s living room.

“Upstairs?” I inquired.

“Next door,” said Jim, bitterly. “Here it is 11 o’clock at night, and that bird keeps his radio going like that until 1 or 2 in the morning.”

“Why don’t you speak to him?” I asked.

“Speak to him?” cried Jimmie. “Speak, to him? I’ve spoken to him. I’ve telephoned him. I’ve even gone and rung his front door bell at 3 am, and threatened him with bodily harm if he didn’t turn his machine off. Or turn it lower, anyway.”

“And why doesn’t he?” I asked.

“He just laughs,” grated Jim. “He just shuts the door in my face and laughs.”

“But there ought to be some law,” I suggested. “Why don’t you call the police? What that amounts to is a disturbance of the peace.”

We both sat still and listened. The deep throb, throb, boom, boom of the radio next door beat and reverberated on the ear drums. Not enough to hear the tune or even to follow the rhythm. But just a nerve-racking and muffled vibration.

“I have called the police,” said Jim. “And when they arrived, he shut the machine off. And there sat the cops, right in this room, listening, and they couldn’t hear a sound. It made me feel very silly. And the cops gave me a funny look.”

“Maybe he saw the cops arrive,” I suggested.

“I have no doubt he did,” agreed Jim. “You ought to hear it in the summer. With all the windows open…”

“Does it go all the time?” I inquired.

“No, he is one of those active, outdoor men,” explained Jim “he bowls, plays golf, goes to meetings and movies. He seems to come home about 11 every night, and go straight to the radio and turn it on. Loud.”

“There are never any programs after 11,” I sympathized.

“Nothing but oompa, oompa, night club bands,” agreed Jim. “All the same. Mostly drum and saxophone. And yet that guy turns it up as loud as it will go and lets her rip, oompa, oompa, until he goes to bed around 2 o’clock in the morning.”

“I certainly wouldn’t put up with it,” I submitted.

“What can I do?” protested Jimmie. “I speak to him, and he just laughs and says, why do I live in such a flimsy house? And when I call him up in the middle of the night, he just laughs and hangs up the receiver.”

No Way to Retaliate

“Can’t you think of any kind of retaliation?” I offered. “Can’t you think up some nuisance on him, and get even with him?”

“I’ve thought of everything,” sighed Jim. “Last summer, I got up early one Sunday morning and carried my radio upstairs to a room opposite his bedroom. I opened the window and set my radio pointing straight into his window at 7.30 of a Sunday morning, and let her rip.”

“That’s the idea,” I applauded. “What happened?”

“He didn’t do anything,” said Jim. “But the first thing I knew, a police cruiser was in front of my house and two cops were ringing the door bell furiously, to say that the whole neighborhood was complaining to the police station.”

“It doesn’t seem just,” I confessed, sitting again in silence and listening. Yes, there, more clearly than ever, once I became conscious of it, was the oompa, oompa, of the radio next door.

“Isn’t there anything else you can do?” I wondered. “Couldn’t you put up a spite fence or anything?”

“No,” said Jim, “the only thing that would do would prevent his kids from throwing things over into my garden. Or it might stop his wife from shaking rugs out her window when the wind is just right to carry the dust in all our windows. In fact, I don’t know what to do. I was thinking of moving.”

“Never, Jim,” I cried. “That would be rank cowardice. That would be retreat in full flight. There must be some way you can handle this situation.”

“All right,” said Jim bitterly, “you think up something.”

“Have you written him a letter?” I asked eagerly. “A letter is the real solution to all such difficulties as this.”

“He’d throw it in the waste basket,” muttered Jim.

“Not a lawyer’s letter,” I cried. “You get a lawyer to write him a letter, threatening legal action if he doesn’t put an end to a nuisance that is impairing your health.”

“I’ve looked it up,” said Jim. “There isn’t any law to prevent a man playing a musical instrument in his own house if the windows are closed and all reasonable precautions taken to prevent the disturbance of the neighbors.”

“Well, this is a disturbance,” I pointed out.

“It is,” agreed Jim, “and the worst kind of a disturbance, too, a soft, barely audible thud, thud, that nearly drives you crazy. But when I explained that to the police, do you know what they said? They said that they knew lots of people that couldn’t sleep on account of crickets.”

“Crickets?” I exclaimed.

The cops told me,” said Jim, “that night they were here and couldn’t hear anything, that one time they had a lady call them in and demand that they force her next door neighbor to get out and kill a cricket that was singing in his garden.”

“Oh, no,” I laughed.

“Oh, yes,” said Jim, “she said she had exterminated all the crickets in her property and she demanded that the police abate the nuisance in the neighbor’s garden. But they found there was no law governing the singing of crickets.”

“Did the police suggest,” I demanded, “that your complaint was in the same class as that?”

“They did,” said Jim. “They said that if the man was playing a trombone or something that could be heard in my house, they would take action. But they could hear nothing. And all I could hear, they explained, was a faint oompa, oompa, and that wasn’t enough to base any action re nuisance on.”

“Let’s write him a letter,” I suggested. “Not a lawyer’s letter, but a plain, man-to-man letter, calling upon his decency and neighborly…”

“He hasn’t any,” interrupted Jim. “He’s just one of those big, hearty, laughing men who sleeps like a log. Everything he does is loud and hearty. An appeal to his good nature would just result in suggesting I go and see a doctor.”

“We could try,” I offered, taking my pencil and drawing up a chair to Jim’s living room table. Let’s see.”

So I started and wrote:

“My dear sir-

“Would you be kind enough to give your friendliest consideration to the following appeal? I have spoken to you many times without result, but I feel that if you were to take into consideration all the facts, you would most certainly be disposed to co-operate in a neighborly spirit.

“As you know, your radio is audible in my house, especially in the quieter hours of the night, between 11 p.m. and 2 a.m. It makes a faint but fully audible sound, due to the fact that you have the instrument turned on louder than perhaps is really necessary. This faint sound, unaccompanied by any soothing strains of music, is sufficient to beat upon my nerves and to cause me loss of sleep and distress.

“While I have not the pleasure of your close acquaintance, I feel sure from your appearance and general deportment, that you are not the type of man who would willingly cause distress and possibly ill-health to anyone at the price of a slight adjustment of your radio dial.”

“There,” I said; “now listen to this, Jim.” And I read it to him.

Jim listened with an increasingly frozen face.

“Nothing doing,” he interrupted, near the end. “I wouldn’t humiliate myself by writing any such balderdash. That guy! Not willingly cause distress? Why, he gets a kick out of causing distress. He’s a Sadist. He gets a queer pleasure in making other people suffer in some small, intangible, defenceless way…”

“I’ll make it a little stiffer,” I offered. “I believe in letters. A letter demands some action.”

I sat down and started again.

“My dear sir-

“From time to time I have attempted to bring to your attention a little matter of no apparent interest to you, but which is a nuisance to me and is likely in time to affect my health. I refer to the use of your radio at all hours of the night, the sounds of which penetrate my house and disturb my lawful sleep.

“Before taking steps to have this matter settled by process of law, which will doubtless put you to some expense and not a little loss of face in the neighborhood, I suggest that we settle the question in a decent and amicable fashion.

“Any previous attempts on my part to discuss the matter with you have met with complete rebuff. I suggest that if you are not prepared to reduce the volume of your radio to normal strength so that its sound does not disturb the peace of my house, you will be good enough to give me some reason for your attitude towards this matter.”

“I am, etc.”

With suitable dignity and oratorical effects, I read this masterpiece to Jimmie, but at the end, he exploded.

“I don’t want to know his reasons,” shouted Jimmie. “I don’t want to save him any legal expenses. I don’t want to have anything to do with him. I don’t even want to speak to him…”

“Very well, then,” I hastened, “make it brief and snappy, like this.”

And I took a fresh sheet and started again, while Jimmie leaped up and began prowling up and down the living room and above the scratching of my pen, the remote, African thud, thud, thud of the radio next door beat faintly and infuriatingly on the peaceful air.

“Dear sir-

“I give you final warning that if you do not tone down your radio after 11 p.m. so that its sound does not penetrate my home, I shall take steps that will astonish you.”

“There you are, Jimmie,” I shouted. “That’s get it. Listen.”

I read it to him, in a crisp, dangerous voice.

“What steps,” shouted Jim, “will I take?”

“That’s the power of this note,” I explained. “It contains mystery, threat, menace: yet you do not incriminate yourself.”

“I want to incriminate myself,” bellowed Jimmie. “I will take steps that will astonish him, all right. I’ll tell him what I am going to do.”

He snatched his coat off the back of a chair and started to pull it on fiercely.

“Here,” I said, “don’t go and get into trouble.”

“I’m fed up,” cried Jim. “I’m going to take matters into my own hands. I’m going out there and I’m going to ring his door bell and when he comes to the door I’m going to pop him on the nose.”

“Now, now…” I begged.

“Yes, sir,” cried Jim, heading for the door, “that’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to pop him one on the nose. The minute he opens the door.”

“Wait a minute…” I pleaded, running after him.

The Crucial Moment

But the door bell, at that curious instant, rang, arresting Jimmie in full flight, just as he started to open the vestibule door.

“Thank heavens,” I said, exchanging a very astonished look with Jim, who controlled himself with a great effort and slowly opened the door.

It was a spectacled young man with a brief case.

“Mr. Frise?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“I’m terribly sorry to bother you so late as this,” said the young man, “but may I step in, just a moment?”

“What is it?” demanded Jim, still slightly bristling.

“It’s about your radio,” said the young man, stepping inside.

“My,” said Jim, “radio?”

“I am from the department,” explained the young gentleman, politely, opening his brief case and taking a handful of letters out. “It seems all your neighbors have complained about a serious interference emanating from your house.”

“My house?” demanded Jim loudly.

“Our trouble truck,” said the young man, “has traced the source of the difficulty to your house, and they say on their report that it is probably an oil furnace. Have you an oil furnace?”

“Yes,” said Jim.

“Is it a new model or a…?” inquired the tired young government man.

“It’s a model 1912,” said Jim, stoutly, “in perfect shape.”

“May I examine it?” asked the young gentleman. “Or would you, perhaps, prefer that I come back tomorrow?”

“What is this?” cried Jim, angrily. “What’s all this about my furnace?”

“There is a strong static interference,” explained the young chap, “that upsets all the radios in this neighborhood, and it has been traced to the electric motors in your house, probably an oil furnace.”

“Who reported this?” shouted Jim. “Give me his name.”

“Oh, it is no one person,” assured the young man. “It is all the neighbors.”

“All the neighbors?” said Jim.

“Dozens of them,” confirmed the young man. “We have only got around to it now. We’ve been very busy this season.”

“What do you want to do now?” inquired Jim, very subdued.

“May I just take a look at your furnace?” said the young chap, hanging up his hat and setting down his brief case.

So Jim took him down cellar while I stood in the living room, listening to the now fateful African drum, tumpa tump, from the house next door.

When they came up, Jimmie was telling the young man about the problems of the house next door.

“Unfortunately,” the young chap summed up, as he took his hat and brief case, “unfortunately, Mr. Frise, there is nothing in the law that governs situations such as you describe. You will attend to the other matter, will you? The furnace?”

“Tomorrow,” said Jim.

“By the way,” asked the young fellow, “I suppose you have your radio license?1

“I suppose so,” muttered Jim; “the family looks after that sort of thing.”

“I was just wondering, sir,” said the young man, bowing out. “I issue them. So I always inquire.”

“That’s all right,” said Jim

And he softly closed the door.

“Who reported this?” shouted Jim to the young man from the department (November 27, 1943)

Editor’s Notes: This story was repeated on November 27, 1943 with the same title.

  1. From 1922 to 1953 individual members of the public were required to pay for annual Private Receiving Station licences in order to legally receive broadcasting stations. ↩︎

The Trespasser

August 6, 1938.

Mud In Your Eye!

All of a sudden the green sedan slackened speed. “Tricked!” said I. “Worse than tricked,” said Jim, looking out the window.

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

“Oh, oh, did you see that?” shouted Jimmie Frise.

“It was an accident,” I assured him. “At this season of the year, everybody ought to expect to get splashed a little.”

“Oh, yeah?” cried Jim. “Why, that car deliberately swerved to one side to slash through that big puddle. And he shot up sheet of muddy slush and water all over those two poor girls.”

Jim was craning his neck to look back.

“They’re standing there,” said Jim, “soaked and filthy, with a lot of passers-by. What a shame!”

“They sure got a slather,” I admitted, slowing our car slightly so as to ooze through a puddle. “But it’s easy to forget about puddles. If we hadn’t noticed the guy splash those girls, I would have just sailed right through that last puddle.”

“The onus is on the motorist,” stated Jim.

“Why?” I demanded. “Isn’t there some responsibility on the pedestrian to look out for puddles?

“Listen,” said Jim, “all law boils down to common sense. There have always been puddles and slush at this time of the year. There were puddles before there were people. There were people before there were cars. The cars make the splash. Therefore it is the car’s fault.”

“No,” I said, slowing down for another big puddle, for which kindness several ladies and gentlemen on foot smiled gratefully at me, “the onus is on the community. Cars are no longer an incident or an accident. They are here to stay. Therefore, the community should eliminate puddles. It is the duty of the city to keep the streets drained. In a modern city, slush and puddles are as preposterous as corduroy roads would be.”

“But people,” explained Jimmie, “move at lot faster than society. It will be years before any city reaches the point of spending enough money to keep its streets drained so that nobody can be splashed. Meantime, thousands of people are going to be subjected to the indignity of being sprayed with filth, not to mention the damage done to their clothes. I say, until society reaches that stage of development, the onus should be on the motor car, and we ought to have a by-law against splashing. A car that splashes ought to be made to pay for the damage it does.”

“No, Jim,” I explained patiently, “that isn’t the way society develops. What we really want is streets so free of puddles, so beautifully drained at all seasons, that nobody can splash and nobody can be splashed. Isn’t that, right?”

“In the meantime…” started Jim.

“No, no,” I cried. “If we merely take the half-measure of a little law that allows injured parties to collect damages for ruined clothes, we won’t get anywhere. Some will use the law and others will just let it pass. Some will abuse the law, deliberately getting themselves splashed or even accusing the wrong car of splashing them. There will be measly people, who will stand for hours around a puddle waiting for a big wealthy car to come by, and then they’ll accuse the big car of ruining their clothes and collect.”

“We Must Have Outrages”

“Do you prefer that splashing go right on?” said Jim drily.

“To get reform,” I informed him, “we must have outrages. Good, strong, vigorous outrages. If there is anything I hate, it is a meek and half-hearted outrage. Or an outrage partly healed with lukewarm by-laws. Let the splashing continue, say I, until the outrage rouses the whole city, and they demand the true cure – which is, proper street cleaning and drainage, in recognition of the mutual rights of motor cars and of pedestrians.”

“You’re a Fascist,” accused Jimmie. “You want all or nothing. We democrats are satisfied with a partial cure, which at least gives us hope of healing.”

“Democrats,” I suggested, “must be mostly lawyers. Democracy is an evasive middle ground, with lots of room for argument and plenty of scope for smart guys to beat the rules.”

“Then, if you’re so fond of outrages,” inquired Jim, “why do you slow up for all the puddles? I’d expect you, from your talk, to be going around looking for big puddles and crowds of people to splash. Thus promoting the great reform.”

“My humanity always gets the better of my beliefs,” I confessed.

“Yah,” taunted Jim, “then you’re nothing but a democrat after all.”

“Pardon me,” I protested, “but some of the kindliest and most humane people in the world splash their fellow men unwittingly. And some of the most tolerant and Christian people in the world, the minute they get splashed, turn into raging bolsheviks. It isn’t what you believe that matters in life, it’s what happens to you.”

“Then,” said Jim, “all your feelings about this annual splashing bee in our fair city depend upon the fact that you are now driving a car and in a position to be a splasher. If you were a splashee, walking in the street, your ideas would be the opposite.”

“We’re getting somewhere,” I admitted, “at last.”

“No, Jim,” I said, settling more comfortably behind the wheel, “this whole field of traffic and motor cars and driving needs to be organized. We educate our children for nearly twelve compulsory years of school, in all the human relations, so that when they go out into the world, they will be social-minded. Without much more delay, we will have to introduce into our schools classes and courses in traffic.”

“When a boy or girl leaves school,” agreed Jim, “at 16 years of age, he ought to have his driver’s permit.”

“Precisely,” I cried. “That’s it. We give them training in public speaking and manual training and domestic science, but the one field in which they are most likely to get into trouble in life, either as drivers or pedestrians, we completely ignore.”

“If we started now,” declared Jim, “with a half-hour period on traffic every day from the kindergarten right through to the high schools, we would have the most perfect city in the world in 12 years.”

“Jim,” I declared, “you ought to run for the board of education. I tell you, you’ve got hold of a wonderful idea there.”

“Public life,” said Jim, off-handedly, “doesn’t appeal to me.”

Depends on Who’s Splashed

But still, it is a nice feeling to sit in a car full of imposing ideas and gratifying notions such as running for the board of education. Jim and I were sitting there, enjoying the sensation which is not unlike the sensation of a fine big dinner, when without warning, a large green sedan swerved past us at 35 miles an hour, we hitting our usual 25. And to pass us, the green sedan had to swipe through a large puddle on the off-side of the street.

From the fat tires of the sedan a sheet of filthy and muddy slush and water rose eight feet in the air. Like a fire hose, it lashed that filth all over us, making a loud sound. And a few cupfuls of the muck came through the slightly open window all over both of us. Our windshield was darkened with it. We were inundated.

I snapped on the windshield wiper.

“Look,” I shouted. “The beggar’s laughing at us.”

The green sedan had slacked speed, and we could see its driver and the lady with him turn to peer through the rear-view mirror. The man’s shoulders were shaking in mirth, and he waved an insolent hand at us.

“Git him,” grated Jimmie.

I stepped on the gas.

“I’ll git him,” I vowed, “there’s some swell puddles farther along.”

We gathered speed in the wake of the green sedan. But the driver of it, glancing in his mirror, saw us speeding up and he put on speed too.

“Boy,” I said, “will I ever give you a bath, my pretty lad!”

His car was shiny and svelte, despite the weather.

“As you pass him,” said Jim excitedly, “sort of curve around him and put on your brakes slightly. That will pick up a deluge.”

“Leave it to me,” I assured. “I know the very puddle.”

The green sedan allowed me to approach within a couple of car lengths.

“He thinks it’s a swell joke.” I muttered.

But when I started to draw ahead, he too stepped a little on the gas, with that air of ease that seems to go with green sedans.

“It isn’t going to be easy to catch that guy,” suggested Jim.

“This old crate,” I stated, “can catch anything.”

“What I’ll do,” I planned, “is make a few false starts to pass him, and that will give him a sense of security. Then suddenly I’ll really give her the gun.”

“Strategy,” agreed Jim. “Does it ever pay to be an old soldier?”

And with a gloating inside us, we began to make false starts after our green sedan friends. With a sudden tramp on the gas, I would start to creep up and swerve out as if to pass, and he, watching in his mirror, would step on the gas and leap ahead.

Four times I did this, until, the fourth time, he was so amused at what he believed to be his superior power that he barely speeded at all.

“Hah, hah,” I laughed, “now, my little playmate, comes the deluge.”

And this time tramping on the gas with all my weight and leaving it there, I had the supreme pleasure of feeling the old schooner plunge ahead and start to overhaul the enemy. Ahead, I glimpsed a gleaming sheet of slush and water. But our eyes were glued on the green shining body of the sedan.

“Watch, Jim, watch!” I exulted, as we started to come level with the now racing sedan.

“Oh, boy, what timing!” shouted Jim.

“I Saw the Whole Thing”

But all of a sudden the sedan slacked speed so that it fairly shot out of sight behind us.

“Tricked, by heaven!” I shouted as we crashed through the puddle, heaving a vast curve of mud and slush up beside us.

“Ouch,” hissed Jim. “Worse than tricked.”

“Huh?” I asked, braking.

“A policeman,” said Jim, brokenly. “An officer was sitting on his motorcycle just at the curb.

Through my rear view mirror, I saw, indeed, a motorcycle officer just rousing to action.

“Oh dear!” said I, panicky for a moment. We hit a series of bumps in the road. I skidded and twisted dizzily then shot ahead.

“Look out,” said Jim, “the officer’ll think you’re a hit-and-run driver!”

Looking in the mirror I could see a broad smile on the face of the man in the green sedan.

“Jim,” said I. “Do you know what I think?”

“Yes,” said Jim, “that green sedan deliberately tricked you into splashing the motorcycle officer.”

The green sedan, with a slight ironic toot of its horn, went decorously past us. I did not follow it with my eyes. My eyes were rearward. At 12 miles an hour, I let her chug. And sure as fate itself, the officer followed, drew alongside, signalled us and we pulled to the side of the road.

“Oh, oh, oh,” I said with pain, as I beheld the policeman all slush from helmet to feet.

“Oh, oh,” said Jim.

The policeman heaved himself stiffly off the cycle. He shook himself laboriously, like a St. Bernard. He stood looking down at himself, his arms stiff, his fingers stiff, letting it drip.

Patiently he drew a handkerchief from within the bosom of his coat and stiffly wiped his face. Then he advanced.

“Well?” he said. Grief not anger filled his mien.

“Officer,” I said. “I can’t tell you how sorry…”

“It wasn’t your fault,” said the officer sadly. “I saw the whole thing.”

Jim and I sat speechless.

“Yes, sir,” said the officer, “I saw the whole thing. The car ahead of you seeing the puddle suddenly slacked and you had to pull out around him. On account of him you couldn’t see me. Yet even if you had of seen me, what could you of done?”

Jim and I sat speechless.

“Yes,” sighed the officer, still wiping his face and the back of his neck and digging in his ears. “I saw it all.”

“We’re dreadfully sorry, none the less,” I said warmly.

“Oh, I shouldn’t wonder,” agreed the officer at last putting his dark hanky away and reaching back for his little book.

“I’ll just take your name, anyway,” he said, “in case I ever need witnesses as to how I come to get all wet like that.”

He slowly licked the pages of his little book open and found a lovely clean spot.

“Let’s just take a look at your driver’s permit,” he said, kindly, “so as to get the spelling right, and that sort of thing.”

I showed him my permit. He took down my name, carefully, and checked front and back license plates and wrote down my number thoughtfully.

Jim nudged me sharply.

“Well,” sighed the policeman, closing his book. “Thank you, gents, I guess you can be on your way.”

“Good day, officer,” I said, anxiously.

“Toot, toot,” said he, languidly wiggling his fingers at us.

We drove off. Slowly.

“How fast was I going when we hit that puddle, Jim?” I asked harshly.

“Fifty,” said Jim.

“H’m,” said I.

So now we are waiting for the blue paper.


Editor’s Notes: A corduroy road is an old pioneer type road made of logs lain next to the other.

They use the terms fascist and bolshevik (communist) fairly loosely here, but in 1938 there were still fascist and communist governments.

I’m assuming the blue paper would be a traffic ticket or summons? Maybe back then the police only took your information and the official ticket came in the mail later?

When the Greg-Jim stories started and they were still figuring out the format, it was not uncommon to have more than one illustration. That there were two drawings in this story, 6 years after they started, is unusual.

De Lux

February 12, 1938

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