MR CABBIT WALKS HOME

Auckland Star, Volume LXIX, Issue 142, 18 June 1938, Page 6 (Supplement)

MR CABBIT WALKS HOME

By---Walter C. Brooks

Short Story

I DO not know of what the liquor was composed with which Mr. Cabbit's friend Anderson had plied him. But it was sweet and fiery, and although he had had only five, or perhaps six small glasses, his head swam when he at last said good-night and stumbled down the dark staira to the street. It had stopped raining, and the low clouds that had trailed damp draperies over the roofs all day had broken, and & tearing wind harried tattered wisps of mist through the streets. He -would walk home, he thought, to clear Ms head for sleep. The street was dark, the lights -were out, and Mr. Cahbit had to pick his way carefully over the wet uneven flags. So he came to the corner and turned down Fifth Avenue. And here, too, there were no lamps lit —the Avenue, as he paused and stared down it in surprise, yawned back as a dragon's mouth. "Curious," ho thought. "Perhaps the storm . . ." And then he noticed another thing. Across the park, where the lights of Eighth Avenue should have winked through the trees, there -was only darkness, and southward there was no Uaie from the sky signs of Broadway. Even in the great houses th»t loomed india'tinetly above him no yellow oblongs of lighted windows stood out. It -was not the street lamps alone. There was no light in the city. "1 had better hail a taxi," he thought. "Undoubtedly something has happened t*> the lighting system, and the streets may be dangerous." He stepped to the kerh. And then he saw what gave the: final flick of uneasiness to his wits, confused and excited as they still were: by that strange liquor. For the broad Avenue uncertainly lit now by a haggard moon that glimmezsA behind torn; clouds was empty—in *11 its dark: length no double spark of an approaching motor swam swiftly towards him along its smooth floor. ♦ + * * His uneasiness Increased as he turned homeward. He reasoned with himself as he went along, trying to reassure the hurried and frightened thoughts that buzzed in his brain like bees in an overturned hive. "It must be late—'much later than I had thought," he said. "Though it is odd I have met no one. There must be a reason, of course. Oh, certainly, there is some reason. If I could only think clearly! Dear me! I shouldn't have taken so much «f that wine!" He stumbled on, over pavements that seemed unaccountably rough, sad once he had to walk out ia the street for half a block to avoid a great heap of stones and rubbish £bat littered the sidewalk oppatfjfe «. |peat gap in the wall of houses .fronted theavenue. "Tearing down hoiSM^'mo doubt," he said to afenself, although there were no scaffoldings or tool boxes or other signs of human labour to be seen. . ■< And presently he began to notice other things that were queer. There were, lor instance, 'bricks and stones and branches cf trees lying about;' and in (me place he floundered for a long way through a drift of fine sand that! the wind whirled stinging into his faee. There were great breaches in the wall of the park, too; and. as he glanced up at the huge, silent bouses he saw shutters hanging driinkenly and jagged hdles in the plate-glass windows. * ♦~. * e ♦ All this was difficult to see clearly, of course, in "the flickering nmunlight, with the great wind shouting in his ears and plucking at his hat brim and eoat tails. Ever and again, too, the moon would go completely under for a tune, or a flight of mist wreaths, like a flock of graceful phantoihs, would drift by, obscuring everything.

It was during one of these times, when the fog was all about him, that he caught a glimpse of something in the middle of the street. He stopped and stared, and then all at once the fog cleared, the moon shone out and he saw it clearly. There was no doubt about it. It was a tree—a tree with a trunk as big as his body, growing straight and tall in the middle of the avenue. Who drinks of terror tastes a stronger liquor than is brewed by men. The drink died in him, the uproar in his brain ceased, and his thoughts seemed all at oncc to become verv small and still. He was confronted for the first time with the most dreadful experience that life can hold — a fact for "which there was no explanation. And aa he stood there, a neat grey - fa-own beast, like & huge dog, noiselessly leaped the park wall and trotted out into the middle of the street. Mr. Oabbit started bade and the creature turned bis head. Far a moment they stared at each ether, and Mr. OiiUt sniffed a curious rank smell that lie associated somehow with a visit he bad once made to the Bronx Zoo. Then, with a shake oi hie head, the aaimal loped off down a side street.

It was then that Mr. Ua&bit lirst began to run. Down the centre of the street he ridiculously raced, a tiny but frantic figure in the immense indifference of the avenue. His black derby hat fell off, but he plunged heedlessly on, leaping fallen trees, stumbling in great cracks that zig-zagged across the asphalt, scrambling over the heaps of fallen masonry that ever and again barred his way. The darkness and desolation, which before had been disquieting, were now actively sinister. For the tree had convinced him that whatever dreadful thing had happened to the city, something still more dreadful had happened to him. He dared not even think. But Mr. Oabbit was not in training. And presently even terror gave way to the sheer physical need of getting his breath. He collapsed gasping against the park wall. And immediately from somewhere among the wind-swept shrubbery lof the park came a wild screaming burst of laughter. Mr. Cabbit went on.

Staggering and stumbling he went on. Again and again he fell. Dim shapes moved reluctantly from his path to scramble over the park wall, or disappear in ruined doorways. And once a group of little black man-like creatures fled chattering and swung themselves upward across the facade of a tall house. Tattered and streaming with perspiration, with bursting lunge, he had the feeling that, high up on the cool slopes of heaven, the gods were rocking with laughter on their silver thrones. He had reached the lower Sixties. His home, on East 54th Street, was less than half a mile away. But now he became aware that something was following him. At first he was not sure. He could see nothing; the beat of his racing pulses drowned out all sound; but somehow he was sure that just Behind the .wall something was secretly keeping

pace with him. He ran with his head turned back over on© shoulder, and at last where a section of the wall was broken down, he saw it —a huge slinking shape as big as a horse, that flitted like a shadow across the opening. Despair gripped Mr. Cabbit's heart. But as he lurched on he remembered the great hotels that crowd about the south-eastern entrance to the park. If he could reach one of them, perhaps he would be safe. The New Netherland I was the nearest. And somehow "he reached it. The steps were broken and uneven and strewn with debris; but he scrambled up them, then plunged through the doorway into blackness, tripped and fell. He must have lost consciousness for a time, for when he could sit up and look towards the glimmering square of the door his breathing was easier; and although he was sick and weak, his heart no longer seemed as if it would leap out of his breest with every beat. He watched the door intently. A black shadow moved to and fro across it, and he could hear the beast sniff, and see it raise and lower its head as it triinl to get sight or smell of him. Evidently it feared to enter. He was soon to learn why. For gradually he became aware of a faint and continuous sound, a dry rustle as of dragged folds of heavy silk,* that was all about him. And, shifting his posi-

tion, his hand, came in contact with a round cold body tliat squirmed powerfully at his touch. And then Mr. Cabbit screamed. He put his whole energy into that scream, und then, gathering that energy together again, he made a great leap that shot him through the door and out. into the moonlit square, where he stopped —face to face with the snarling black-barred mask of the hug© tiger. What would have happened to Mr. Cabbit then I shudder to think. For the beast had 1 raised an inquisitive, playful paw—a paw as large as Mr. Cabbit's head—had drawn it back for the blow that would have set a period to the tale of this dreadful - evening, when there «ame a low humming in the air, as from the huge bass string of some giant's guitar. It grew and spread through the silent city, shaking the air, and then Mr. Cabbit, for the first time since he had left his friend's doorstep, saw lights—a long tow of them, like the windows of a lighted train, only high up in the air and approaching with more than an express train's speed. In two bounds the tiger was over the park well, and Mr. Cabbit stared in utter bewilderment as the great ship roared by overhead, its huge searchlight sweeping the street and lighting up ruined houses, pavements split by frost and sprouting with weeds, all the debris of centuries of neglect. And then it was gone. ♦ ♦ * ♦ How Mr. Cabbit at least reached home he never knew. His terror, which before had been a physical terror, was now a terror of the soul. For the searchlight had revealed things to Mr. Cabbit —had shown him a city dead as Troy or Nineveh, and for as long. Dark chapes slunk and slid and scampered from his path, and once through the roar of the wind came the deeper rumble of a fallen building. And at last he was before his own house. He flung himself through the cluttered hallway, up stairs half fallen away, and plunged through the open door of his own room to collapse in a heap on the floor. The tinkle of a bell woke him. He sat up with a groan for his sore bones. The Bun was in his eyes, about him the familiar book-lined walls of his living room. His tattered clothes flapped upon him as he walked stiffly to the 'phone. A voice burred metallically at him through the instrument. "What?" said Mr. Cabbit. "Anderson? Hello, Anderson." "No," said Mr. Cabbit. "No head at all. Delightful evening." "Eli?" said Mr. Cabbit. "Oh, yes. Nothing like a little walk to clear your head. Yes, I walked home."