The Frowardness of Fripley.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XLV, Issue 17, 26 April 1911, Page 50

The Frowardness of Fripley.

By

VALE DOWNIE.

▼ ~OE would have got out of the elevator if it had been humanly 1 I possible to do so, for he had a / horror of a jam. It was not the personal annoyance of being trampled upon and outrageously squeezed, so much as the agony of being obliged to occupy space which was apparently coveted by others. Existence became an unpardonable obtrusion and an affront. Even at the risk of coming to work five minutes late he would have waited in the lobby for the rush to subeide, and taken a later car.

, But escape was out of the question, lie had been one of the first passengers to enter the car and was now, in consequence, backed into one of the farther corners and effectually imprisoned. Besides, there was a girl with a big sailor hat directly in front of him, a pretty girl and an acquaintance; and it would have been much easier for him to simply evaporate or fade miraculously through the grille behind him than to deliberately jostle her. • For it must be understood that Fripley was a very modest, and in every way a model, young man. He was rather tall, but not painfully so; somewhat felender, but not extremely so; good looking, but not emphatically handsome; in fact, not emphatically anything. He had a gentle and winning smile and he spoke in accents soft and musical. There were two red depressions on the bridge of his nose, caused by his large, eternal spectacles. He was a’ bit of a jrecluse, spending most of his evenings in his boarding-house with a few excellent old books, such as Addison’s “'Spectator” and the “Sentimental Journey,” and he had not very many friends. He was twenty-four years ogage, had never smoked a cigarette, spent' a dollar foolishly, worn a coloured hat band or. spoken eight consecutive words to a pretty girl.

This was the admirable character of Samuel Fripley, a lad of meek demeanour and of manner mild, as he entered the elevator car on that ill-starred Saturday morning in June. “I’m shrry I can’t keep the. hat out of your face, Mr. Fripley,” said the girl.

“That’s all right,” he hastened to reply, “I like it. 1 mean, it’s no matter.” He blushed.

-j A large man with a satchel was now thrust, by the herculean efforts of two porters, into the already overcrowded elevator, and the door was hauled shut. The girl was jammed against Fripley. 'She gave a little cry of distress, and Fripley groaned. J “It’s the hat.,” she sighed. “I wonder if I couldn’t change places with you.” “Perhaps that would be better,” said Fripley, in a cold sweat. The exchange was managed and seemed to afford some relief. He braced his arms against the sides of the car, over her shoulders, and stiffened the muscles of his back.

( Miss Bruce drew a breath of relief in this comparatively commodious situation, and smiled her thanks into Fripley’s eyes. As this smile had a distance of scarcely live incdies to travel, it had an unusually destructive effect. Mark this: At this instant Samuel Fripley was being rude to the passengers behind him. He was not conscious of this fact. If it had been brought to his attention, his ♦ittitude would probably have been one of indifference.' “You are so strong,” said the girl, and smiled again ami sighed contentedly. “Am I?” said Fripley, with surprise. r “Yes, and tall.” ’ “Not tall.” “Yes, you are. I’m so stumpy,” she giggled. “Never!” cried Fripley. ' “You may lb< ” The word he wanted was “cuddleable,” but it was not in his vocabulary. “ —petite,” he made it, for lack of a ter term, “but not—not stumpy. A girl cannot lie stumpy who has ” “Has what, Mr. Fripley?” He turned beet-red with a sudden realisation of what he had been about

to say. Miss Bruce determined to know or die.

“Tell -me,” she pleaded. Fripley had never -before experienced the Third Degree. She smiled up at him joyously, wistfully, confidently, confidingly, persuasively, mournfully, promisingly all from a distance of five inches.

A bit of black velvet edged the collar of her dress, emphasising her white neck. She wore a bunch of flowers on her breast; they had been crushed and their fragrance arose into the nostrils of Fripley and well nigh destroyed his reason. He could no more have withheld the word she wanted than he could have stopped breathing. “Please tell me.” She was pouting wistfully and her eyes were misty. “I know it was something hateful.” “Not hateful!” cried the horrified Fripley, rising gallantly to the bait, his embarrassment eclipseu for the moment by a more painful apprehension. “It was only- a ridiculous thing with no meaning to it, that I am ashamed to repeat.” “Please, Mr. Fripley.” “It was only, that a girl cannot be stumpy,” he replied gravely, “who has—has dimples. Perfect rot, of course.” “Well, I don’t know,” giggled Miss Bruce, who seemed to find nothing offensive either in the original assertion or final retraction of this curious proposition. The car had been pursuing its jerky course to the top of the building, decanting a part of its load at every floor. It -had now come to a -final stop. Fripley turned to find the elevator boy regarding him with a smile of amusement.‘They were the only remainihg'dcCttpaiits-of the car. . “Twenty-four!” said She operator, gind Fripley became -painfully conscious that -it was the third.’time he h;id said it. - “Do you wanta transfer?” inquired the boy. “I don’t go no further.” As they left the car, Miss Bruce froze the impudent one. with' a glance, and Fripley requested him to avoid being fresh. 'She was a stenographer and he was a both worked for the Gilford Machinery -Company, whose offices ■occupied the entire twenty-fourth- floor of the building. They separated in the lobby, and Miss Bruce waved a hand at Fripley, as she disappeared-through the door of the private office of Montgomery, chief of the engineering department.

yot passionately, nor in a moment of imaginative heat, but deliberately and in cold blood, did Samuel Fripley take up his compasses and draw -a circle threesixteenths of an inch in diameter on the creamy sheet spread out before him. Having done this, he paused and leisurely sharpened a hard lead pencil with an ebony handled stencil cutter’s knife. His soul was full of unholy joy. No such circle appeared on the rough sketch at Fripley’s elbow! There were a dozen other young men

in the large, well lighted room, and they sat on very high stools and drew skeletons of machinery on large, smooth, ■paper-clad boards. Officially it was known as -Section D of the Engineering Department; -but among the draughtsmen of Section- A, who sat, .. some on lower stools and some on swivel chairs (one s salary was. inversely, at. the height of the stool on which he sat and Fripley’s, was about the tallests in the .department), among these superior gentlemen, Section D was known as, tjie boneyard,” on .account, .no doubt, of the skeleton business above alluded.to. . Section A saw the machines with a creative and spiritual eye; but no such pleasureable visions were ever referred for attention to the “boneyard. All that ever came thither were a few notes of dry details and some maddeningly complete, though arid, sketches. Section A betook itself out of the. factory, at will, and viewed the finished crea vines in all their physical beauty, as a whole, alive; but all that Fripley ever saw was detached and inarticulate cross sections, plans and elevations, composed of the scrawniest of straight lines and the vapidest of circles. . But there is nothing m all this to afford the shadow of an excuse for what he had done. ~ If the men in Section D were not paid enormous salaries, neither were they burdened witli responsibility. Mathematical and mechanical accuracy was about all that was exacted of them; invention and ineenuitv they were not -requned to possess. If they did not enjoy all the privileges of Department'A, neither were-they obliged to 101 l for hours with their heels on their desks and pipes in their mouths, painfully devising new power transmission apparatus and systems of lubrication. Indeed, a paternal management had seen fit to stringently forbid the indulgence, on the part of the “ boueyardj. of a natural tendency toward " Lion ” Their duty was to stick rigidly to the sketches and instructions furn.-shed by Section A. ‘As for Fripley’s circle t-hree-sixteen’tbs of an inch in diameter, the thing simply wasn’t done.

Furthermore, lie was -the last person in the office who would be ■thought capable of such a misdemeanour. After all, one knows very little about the chap at one’s elbow The mild mannered old gentleman sitting beside you in the street car may be a successful a‘-«as-sin, returning homeward from his occasional employment with the head of his latest victim in an innocentlooking gladstone bag, The Sunday-school suiperin- ‘ tending "telfSi, who has worked across

the desk from’ you in the bank foe M years, and never taken a postage stamp, will probably walk out of the cage this evening with 50,000 dollars of tbe bank’s money done up in a neait parcel, and start for Mexico with a chorus girl. Nothing, however, is more certain than that murder will, eventually and most embargasingly, out. Presently came Haskins, foreman of the “ boneyard,” to see. how Fripley was getting on. While stil-1 at a distance of thirty feet from the board hie eye

alighted on the circle three-sixteenths of an inch in diameter, which by this time had been ’embellished with a corrugated edge. ‘I Why, Fripley.” he remonstrated, “you are in wrong here. No intermediate pinion is shown on Montgoinfery’s sketch. I am sure-, because I noticed the oniiss:o.p,._and- thought it,-strange. Let’s see. the sketch.” “.No,' it’s not on the sketch,” observed Fripley, aS one would casualty remark, “ It -may . possibly, raim” < Haskins stiffened iind turned,-his eyes upon an unaccustomed Fripley. who, in -turn, coolly regarded his work with evident, though subdued, pride and satisfaction. • V Well, wli —why did you .put it in?” stammered Haskins. ~ . , ~ , Fripley affected to yawn. “ Because it belongs there. Easier to do it now than later, when Montgomery notices the slip. I’ve made enough drawings of these machines to know that this front gear has .got to have a contraclockwise motion, and that means an intermediate pinion.” With a trembling hand Haskins laid down the sketch. After a few momenta -he began to talk softly, sadly, and distinctly. , “You have made enough of .'these machines to know how they ought to be made, have you, Fripley?” It was the first time anybody liad ever been in a towering rage at Fripley. It was a novel, interesting and even pleasurable sensation. Yesterday he would have been in a panic; but to-day he rather enjoyed it. He turned his large, innocent grey eyes upon Haskins. “ Yes, I’im pretty familiar with them.” “ Well, but, let me ask, are you paid, for that sort of tiling, Fripley?” “ I’ve often thought I ought to have more money,” he admitted. “ You do not, or will not understand, Fripley. Are you, or are you not, paid to follow -these instructions to -the letter?” A note of protest crept into the tone of Fripley’s reply. “ I never understood, Mr. Haskins,” he said, “ that I was paid to make a fool of myself.” Haskins visibly counted twenty before replying. “This goes to Montgomery!” he said shortly, and waited for Fripley to lift the sheet off the board. “ I’ll do what I can for you,” he added, as be went off with t.he sketch and the partially completed drawing, “ but I'm sure you’ll be fired,” - “ You may do as' you daiun please,**

were the amazing words uttered by Samuel Fripley in round, even tones. Something had assuredly come over Fripley. .Even now, however, it is probable that no saving sense of his truly desperate situation was present with this youuig man. As he turned up another piece of work he actually chuckled. His eleven confreres began, with one accord, to erase the errors their trembling hands had made in the last five minutes.

Jus.fc before noon—it was a half-holi-day—Fripley received hrs customary weekly pay envelope, containing twenty dollars, and was eoldly, and was coldly ordered by Haskins to stop at Montgomery’s office as he went out.

With that unaccountable indifference to fate which often benumbs the sensibilities of the criminal on. the roa.l to the gallows, he entered the suite of the chief. But Montgomery happened, at the moment, to have a visitor, and sent word requesting Fripley to come in Monday morning, instead. It was Miss Bruce who brought the reprieve, the office boy having departed. Her desk was in an inner room. Flhe wore her hat and jacket, and was obviously going to lunch. A brilliant and absolutely unprecedented idea occurred to Fripley. “ It is a nice day, Miss Bruce/’ he volunteered. “ Isn’t it,” she replied sweetly, pausing at the door. “My birthday,” added Fripley, mendaciously. “Is that so? Congratulations!” “ Thank yon,” said he, and proceeded boldly to the point. “In view of the occasion I-thought you might consent to lunch with me.” “ Why, I’d be delighted to do so,” laughed the girl, with a little surprise. “ You are very kind,” said he. The most expensive restaurant in the vicinity was the Mazarin, and thither the headlong Fripley directed their course. He had never been within the gorgeous portals before; but the carnal delights of the place seized upon his latent. susceptibilities at once. At one end of the lofty salon was a gallery from which came the muisie of an excellent orchestra. He was fond of music. The snowy linen, the glistening glass and rich silver rejoiced his soul. A score of deft waiters moved noiselessly over the thick carpet. One of them awaited FTupley’s order. Into his hand was thrust a card printed entirely in French. He studied it carefully and at length discovered that the prices, at least, were printed in decipherable characters. He had a little knowledge of French, acquired at school, but it did not seem to be of much assistance here.

The waiter took advantage of Fripley’s apparent preoccupation to refill the glasses, which were in no need of filling from the carafe. Time went by. Fripley laid down his card and addressed himiself to Miss Bruce.

“ Perhaps you would rather make your own selection,” he hazarded. ■His face felt hot; but he had an odd feeling that the waiter had spilled a piece of cracked ice down the back of his neck.

“ Nd, I’d rather you would order,” said Miss Bruce, who pined for a lettuce sandwich and a glass of iced tea. Fripley resumed, with desperate resolve, his examination of the card. The waiter again filled* the glasses and changed his napkin to the cither arm. Things were becoming worse, rather tliaii better; for he was not longer able to spell out the words, which had now become blurred black lines. He was conscious, although he 'dared not look up, that the people in the farther corners

of the room were standing on their chairs in order to get a better view of him. He began to fear that he had lost his voice. That would be awkward. Even if he did decide that he wanted one of the unpronounceable things on the card, what would be the use if he had actually, as he feared, lost control of his vocal eords. He would not be able to make a sound. “Ahem!” said Fripley. The vocal cords were still there. The waiter moved to the other foot and poised his pencil over his pad. “Your name is George, is it not?” said Fripley to the waiter. “No, it is Victor.” “A pretty name,” remarked Fripley and added, “This is my birthday, Victor.” “Yess.” “I am fifty-eight.” “Yess, sir.” “1 always er—eat a lunch, on my birthday.” “Yess,” with a broad smile. “But it must lie a little better than usual, Victor, you understand;” “Ver’ well, yess.” “It is a pleasure to be served by a conscientious ami intelligent waiter, such as yourself, Victor. I’ll just leave the selection of the dishes to you. You know the language, and you know the cook. Just bring on a nice little lunch for two and everything will be all right.” “Ver’ well, yess,” said Victor, and offered an unintelligible suggestion for the first course, which Fripley thought would be very good. The secont'. third,

and following courses were treated » similar fashion. It was all plain sailing now, thanks to Victor, and delightfully simple. The waiter at length closed his book and departed. Fripley sighed his relief. The lunch, when it arrived, vindicated their estimate of Victor. It was, as Miss Bruce evpressed it, a dream. They ate as much as they could, but were obliged to pass by many of the dishes. After ice cream incognito and a demi tasse, Victor placed before Fripley a silver plate containing a box of cigarettes and the bill. The bill amounted to 4.10 dollars, a sum rather larger than he was accustomed to allow himself for lunches during an entire week. Fripley, with the assistance of Victor, lit his first cigarette. Then he extracted one of the four five dollar 'bills from his pay envelope and laid it on the plate. This covered the amount and left a nice tip for Victor, who bowed his gratitude. Ten minutes later Fripley stopped suddenly in the street, and turned to Miss Bruce with blank amazement in his wide grey eyes. “By George, it’s queer,” ho blurted, “but do you know I feel as if I’d known you a long time. It generally takes me about a year to get acquainted with a—with anybody.” Miss Bruce laughed. She had discovered, it may be incidentally remarked, that he had “nice eyes.” “Now, I never said three words t<)

you," lie went on, ‘‘before to-day. And yet I wouldn’t hive the slightest h‘futation about asking you to step into the next haberdashery and choose a shirt for me.” “Why, Mr. Fripley!* she blushed*l’m sure I hare done nothing to encour-

age such familiarity. I never heard of Buch a thing. Besides, you need a hat a good deal worse.” lie removed the emerald hued derby and inspected it. “A bit green,” he conceded. “You ought to have a nice straw,” Miss Bruce commented, helpfully. “I shall,” asserted Fripley.

He had never, for reasons of economy, {been in the habit of buying many clothes. The suit he wore happened t-Q be new; but he had figured on squeezing through the summer without a new hat, or at least until August, when straws may bo bought at greatly reduced prices. No advantage can come from dwelling Upon the painful details of Fripley’s defection from the accustomed paths of strict sobriety; nor from a criticism of the thoughtless frivolity which is characteristic of la jeune femme, in this age of American affairs. It is enough to state the simple fact that the immediate sequel to the above conversation found [Fripley trying on an endless array of summer head-wear.

Let no man lightly enlist the assistance of a lady in the delicate business of selecting a garment. To do so is to exchange a vexatious detail for a •weighty and arduous enterprise. It should be said for Fripley that, having put his haul to the pernicious plough, hr never wavered nor looked back. With mien of settled melancholy end yet of firm resolve, hr-posed before a long mirror on the one hand and Miss Evelyn Bruce on the otiwr, and tried on 'between three and four hundred straw hats. Two pertuibi'd clerks hustled from the shelves to the counter, balancing high and precariously tottering piles of cylindrical boxes. Mias Bruce had <Ks‘n somewhat hesitant about uuder-

taking the matter; but, hiving given her coa-ent, she entered upon the tank with spirit. Fripley’* head seemed to be of a shape unknown to hatters. This was not m» vital, however, as the difficulty which Miss Bruce encountered in finding exactly the right breadth of brim, height

of crown and colour or ribbon, in com bination. The thing was at length accomplished, nevertheless, and by the insertion of two wads of cotton in the band just over his ears, it was made a fair fit. Miss Bruce thought it a dream. Fripley bestowed the derby jointly upon the two clerks, in recognition of their efficient and unflagging efforts. It was not so much the shape of the hat, for that was really conservative; Miss Bruce did not consider the extreme of the mode harmonious with Fripley’s tout ensemble. Neither was it the price; three dollars is not actually an immoral figure for a good hat, although Sam had never before paid more than half as much. But ah, the ribbon! There was nothing chaste about that ribbon. It had the primary hues of original sin, with all the superadded subdivisions of tint characteristic of actual transgression. “You are really quite presentable,” said Evelyn, surveying him with a critical and proprietary eye. Fripley gulped and turned red. “There is nobody on earth I’d rather please than you, Miss Bruce,” he replied earnestly. “Don’t try to string me so, Mr. Fripley.” Samuel laboured earnestly for five minutes to convince the girl of the truth of something that she had beeu dead sure of for the past hour. Certainly no good end would be served by giving a circumstantial account of the events of that afternoon. It is enough simply to state that Fripley, who had ever eschewed such folly, suggested that they go to the base-ball game—it followed quite naturally upon the hat—and Miss Bruce, who was beguiurng to find much joy in his un-

conscious drollery and frank admiration. consented. It is not necessary to linger upon his winning a dollar front the enthusiastic spectator on his right, on a bet that the home team would score three runs in the second innings. It ought perh.ipe to be noted, as throwing light upon the progress of his dementia, that he stood on his chair during the greater part of the ninth innings, waving the ornate head-gear in lurid circles, deaf alike to the cutreaties of Miss Bruce and the spectators behind him, while the home team garnered the very few tallies needful for victory.

In the soft twilight of that June evening they turned their steps wearily homeward. Fripley had ceased to exercise the faculty of reason. He knew perfectly well that he was driving hard upon the rocks; but it seemed a matter of very little moment. It was enough that her soft, caressing tones sounded in his ears. If was enough that, wherever he turned, her tenderly beaming eyes shone into his souL It ■was incomprehensible—he did not strive to comprehend—that she should take his arm and snuggle up beside him in the crowds and seem happy in his company.

All too soon they reached Evelyn’s home, and came to the moment of par - ling in the Bruces’ dim little parlour. She thanked him warmly for the luncheon and the afternoon. She invited him vaguely to call some- evening the next week. And then she made a blushing confession.

“Do you know, Mr. Fripley,” she stammered, “1 used to think you were -—that is, I always understood, from the others —that you were—well, sort of stiff and disagreeable. But now 1 don’t think so, at all!”

He laid the effulgent head-piece on the little stand which occupied the centre of the room. “Miss Bruce,” he responded, “I have long suspected, in my dull, obtuse way, that you were the prettiest, kindest, sweetest little girl in seven states. But now, by George, I’m dead sure of it!” Then Fripley, having been provided by Fate with a rope of adequate length, took a double hitch around his neck and calmly jumped into the abyss. It iis of no consequence to allege, in extenuation, the accidental circumstance that the passage-way between the stand and the piano was very narrow, that it was obstructed by Fripley, and that Miss Evelyn had to pass practically under his chin to reach and open the door. What happened would have happened in the Hippodrome. The moment he had kissed her he came suddenly to his senses. He fled.

Fripley tossed that night upon an uneasy couch; and he spent the peaceful Sabbath Day in vain remorse. He would willingly have believed It all a wild, disordered dream; but there was the new straw hat on his dresser, and there was his pay envelope, with ten dollars missing.

Most of the day he sat with his head on his hands aud groaned. He found the remains of • the box of cigarettes in his pocket, and threw them angrily out of the window. He remembered some of the things he had said to Miss Bruce, and turned red to his collar. Words, phrases, whole paragraphs of the drivel he had irtterei rang in Iris repentant and crimsoned ears.

Detached scenes from the sequenc of that mad afternoon rose up and froze his soul with horror. He saw himself altering Montgomery’s sketch with a circle, which, from a diameter of threesixteenths of an inch, had grown to the appalling proportions of a volemic crater. He heard himself telling Haskins, the omnipotent, to do as he “d—n-pleased” about taking the matter to Montgomery. He beheld himself stalking into the Mazarin, to play the fool and pay five dollars for the privilege. Then, that awful hat! And the ball game! Chump! Idiot! Mutt! He had certainly been mad. A touch of sun, possibly; it bad been rather warm lately. He wondered if he were quite well even yet, and felt his pulse. He also looked at his tongue in his shaving mirror. There was no evidence of abnormality.

But the horror of horrors was that lamentable occurrence in the Bruce parlour. That he could not recall without a convulsive spasm of shame and selfcontempt. He resolved never again to inflict the sight of his face upon Miss Bruee. After all, he rather rejoiced in the prospect of immediate dismissal by the Gilford Machinery Company, as it would probably take him foreVer out of her path. He concluded, being of an analytical turn of mind, that the principal cause of his misery was the degradation which he must suffer, and by his own gross blunders, in the eyes of that adorable young lady. He could have borne everything but that. On Monday morning a dejected and chastened Fripley entered the office of Montgomery, chief of the engineering department. “It seems, Fripley,” said the great one, laying the stem of his pipe on the drawing before him, “that you have been taking liberties with the department of design. Now this is your first offence and it comes as a sort of a surprise, particularly so to our excellent Mr Haskins, who says you were unnecessarily profane in telling him to use his judgment about referring the matter to me. Am I correct ?” “Yes, sir,” murmured a sadder and meeker Fripley. “Well, if you can’t keep your intellect under control, Fripley, you are no use in Department D. Do you understand that?” “Yes, sir,” responded Fripley. “You would only be a demoralising influence, in the ‘boneyard.’ But I think we can use you in Department A, and keep your active ingenuity sufficiently

employed into the bargain. You’ll get more money, but you will have every inducement for earning it. Report at once to Mr Brown, please.” “Yes, sir. Thank you. sir,” said Fripley, without emotion.' He smiled sadly as he left Montgomery’s office. W hat a paltry thing was mere wordly advancement. At noon he lingered over his board, making a pretence of working, for twenty minutes after the others had gone. He intended that this should insure against an accidental meeting with Miss Bruce in the lobby. But when he finally emerged from Department A, he found her there in the almost deserted corridor. She came toward him. “I've waited an age,” she sighed, "and I’m as hungry as a bear.” This was a poser for Fripley. She did not act at all like a person boiling with rage. He stole a glance at her. She wore a new dress, one that he had never seen before; it was a light blue, thing, clean, cool and jaunty. “You don’t mean that you're willing—to ” “Why not?” inquired Miss Bruce, sweetly, knowing perfectly well why not, and enjoying his boyish embarrassment immensely. “Well, if you don't know I'm sure I dont,” said Fripley. recovering himself somewhat. In the street she came close to him and took his arm. What a kindly, forgiving little person she was! “The Mazarin?” inquired Fripley. “Not for ours, Sam,” she said shyly. “I think we had—l mean, you had better save your money.” And he, such is the blindness of the transgressor to the just destiny which will speedily involve his fro ward way, did not perceive that within a month she would I*? regularly depositing one half his weekly salary in a savings bank, in her own name.