The Genial Idiot: His Views and Reviews by John Kendrick Bangs

Author:John Kendrick Bangs [Bangs, John Kendrick]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Biography & Autobiography, General
Publisher: BiblioBazaar
Published: 2010-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

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[123]

XI

THE GENTLE ART OF BOOSTING

THE Idiot was very late at breakfast—so extremely late, in fact, that some apprehension was expressed by his fellow-boarders as to the state of his health.

“I hope he isn’t ill,” said Mr. Whitechoker. “He is usually so prompt at his meals that I fear something is the matter with him.”

“He’s all right,” said the Doctor, whose room adjoins that of the Idiot in Mrs. Smithers-Pedagog’s Select Home for Single Gentlemen. “He’ll be down in a minute. He’s suffering from an overdose of vacation—rested too hard.”

Just then the subject of the conversation appeared in the doorway, pale and haggard, but with an eye that boded ill for the larder.

[124] “Quick!” he cried, as he entered. “Lead me to a square meal. Mary, please give me four bowls of mush, ten medium soft-boiled eggs, a barrel of saute potatoes, and eighteen dollars’ worth of corned-beef hash. I’ll have two pots of coffee, Mrs. Pedagog, please, four pounds of sugar, and a can of condensed milk. If there is any extra charge you may put it on the bill, and some day, when the common stock of the Continental Hen Trust goes up thirty or forty points, I’ll pay.”

“What’s the matter with you, Mr. Idiot?” asked Mr. Brief. “Been fasting for a week?”

“No,” replied the Idiot. “I’ve just taken my first week’s vacation, and, between you and me, I’ve come back to business so as to get rested for the second.”

“Doesn’t look as though vacation agreed with you,” said the Bibliomaniac.

“It doesn’t,” said the Idiot. “Hereafter I am an advocate of the rest-while-you-work system. Never take a day off if you can help it. There’s nothing so restful as paying attention to business, and no greater promoter of weariness of spirit and vexation[125] of your digestion than the modern style of vacating. No more for mine, if you please.”

“Humph!” sneered the Bibliomaniac. “I suppose you went to Coney Island to get rested up, bumping the bump and looping the loop, and doing a lot of other crazy things.”

“Not I,” quoth the Idiot. “I didn’t have sense enough to go to some quiet place like Coney Island, where you can get seven square meals a day, and then climb into a Ferris-wheel and be twirled around in the air until they have been properly shaken down. I took one of the Four Hundred vacations. Know what that is?”

“No,” said Mr. Brief. “I didn’t know there were four hundred vacations with only three hundred and sixty-five days in the year. What do you mean?”

“I mean the kind of vacation the people in the Four Hundred take,” explained the Idiot. “I’ve been to a house-party up in Newport with some friends of mine who’re ’in the swim,’ and I tell you it’s hard swimming. You’ll never hear me talking about[126] a leisure class in this country again. Those people don’t know what leisure is. I don’t wonder they’re always such a tired-looking lot.”

“I was not aware that you were in with the Smart Set,” said the Bibliomaniac.

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