THE CAMELāS BACK
THE GLAZED EYE of the tired reader resting for a second on the above title will presume it to be merely metaphorical. Stories about the cup and the lip and the bad penny and the new broom rarely have anything to do with cups or lips or pennies or brooms. This story is the exception. It has to do with a material, visible and large-as-life camelās back.
Starting from the neck we shall work toward the tail. I want you to meet Mr. Perry Parkhurst, twenty-eight, lawyer, native of Toledo. Perry has nice teeth, a Harvard diploma, parts his hair in the middle. You have met him beforeāin Cleveland, Portland, St. Paul, Indianapolis, Kansas City, and so forth. Baker Brothers, New York, pause on their semi-annual trip through the West to clothe him; Montmorency & Co. dispatch a young man post-haste every three months to see that he has the correct number of little punctures on his shoes. He has a domestic roadster now, will have a French roadster if he lives long enough, and doubtless a Chinese tank if it comes into fashion. He looks like the advertisement of the young man rubbing his sunset-colored chest with liniment and goes East every other year to his class reunion.
I want you to meet his Love. Her name is Betty Medill, and she would take well in the movies. Her father gives her three hundred a month to dress on, and she has tawny eyes and hair and feather fans of five colors. I shall also introduce her father, Cyrus Medill. Though he is to all appearances flesh and blood, he is, strange to say, commonly known in Toledo as the Aluminum Man. But when he sits in his club window with two or three Iron Men, and the White Pine Man, and the Brass Man, they look very much as you and I do, only more so, if you know what I mean.
Now during the Christmas holidays of 1919 there took place in Toledo, counting only the people with the italicized the, forty-one dinner parties, sixteen dances, six luncheons, male and female, twelve teas, four stag dinners, two weddings, and thirteen bridge parties. It was the cumulative effect of all this that moved Perry Parkhurst on the twenty-ninth day of December to a decision.
This Medill girl would marry him and she wouldnāt marry him. She was having such a good time that she hated to take such a definite step. Meanwhile, their secret engagement had got so long that it seemed as if any day it might break off of its own weight. A little man named Warburton, who knew it all, persuaded Perry to superman her, to get a marriage license and go up to the Medill house and tell her sheād have to marry him at once or call it off forever. So he presented himself, his heart, his license, and his ultimatum, and within five minutes they were in the midst of a violent quarrel, a burst of sporadic open fighting such as occurs near the end of all long wars and engagements. It brought about one of those ghastly lapses in which two people who are in love pull up sharp, look at each other coolly and think itās all been a mistake. Afterward they usually kiss wholesomely and assure the other person it was all their fault. Say it all was my fault! Say it was! I want to hear you say it!
But while reconciliation was trembling in the air, while each was, in a measure, stalling it off, so that they might the more voluptuously and sentimentally enjoy it when it came, they were permanently interrupted by a twenty-minute phone call for Betty from a garrulous aunt. At the end of eighteen minutes Perry Parkhurst, urged on by pride and suspicion and injured dignity, put on his long fur coat, picked up his light brown soft hat, and stalked out the door.
āItās all over,ā he muttered brokenly as he tried to jam his car into first. āItās all overāif I have to choke you for an hour, damn you!ā This last to the car, which had been standing some time and was quite cold.
He drove downtownāthat is, he got into a snow rut that led him downtown. He sat slouched down very low in his seat, much too dispirited to care where he went.
In front of the Clarendon Hotel he was hailed from the sidewalk by a bad man named Baily, who had big teeth and lived at the hotel and had never been in love.
āPerry,ā said the bad man softly when the roadster drew up beside him at the curb, āIāve got six quarts of the doggonedest still champagne you ever tasted. A third of itās yours, Perry, if youāll come up-stairs and help Martin Macy and me drink it.ā
āBaily,ā said Perry tensely, āIāll drink your champagne. Iāll drink every drop of it. I donāt care if it kills me.ā
āShut up, you nut!ā said the bad man gently. āThey donāt put wood alcohol in champagne. This is the stuff that proves the world is more than six thousand years old. Itās so ancient that the cork is petrified. You have to pull it with a stone drill.ā
āTake me up-stairs,ā said Perry moodily. āIf that cork sees my heart itāll fall out from pure mortification.ā
The room up-stairs was full of those innocent hotel pictures of little girls eating apples and sitting in swings and talking to dogs. The other decorations were neckties and a pink man reading a pink paper devoted to ladies in pink tights.
āWhen you have to go into the highways and bywaysāāā said the pink man, looking reproachfully at Baily and Perry.
āHello, Martin Macy,ā said Perry shortly, āwhereās this stone-age champagne?ā
āWhatās the rush? This isnāt an operation, understand. This is a party.ā
Perry sat down dully and looked disapprovingly at all the neckties.
Baily leisurely opened the door of a wardrobe and brought out six handsome bottles.
āTake off that darn fur coat!ā said Martin Macy to Perry. āOr maybe youād like to have us open all the windows.ā
āGive me champagne,ā said Perry.
āGoing to the Townsendsā circus ball to-night?ā
āAm not!ā
ā āVited?ā
āUh-huh.ā
āWhy not go?ā
āOh, Iām sick of parties,ā exclaimed Perry. āIām sick of āem. Iāve been to so many that Iām sick of āem.ā
āMaybe youāre going to the Howard Tatesā party?ā
āNo, I tell you; Iām sick of āem.ā
āWell,ā said Macy consolingly, āthe Tatesā is just for college kids anyways.ā
āI tell youāāā
āI thought youād be going to one of āem anyways. I see by the papers you havenāt missed a one this Christmas.ā
āHm,ā grunted Perry morosely.
He would never go to any more parties. Classical phrases played in his mindāthat side of his life was closed, closed. Now when a man says āclosed, closedā like that, you can be pretty sure that some woman has double-closed him, so to speak. Perry was also thinking that other classical thought, about how cowardly suicide is. A noble thought that oneāwarm and inspiring. Think of all the fine men we should lose if suicide were not so cowardly!
An hour later was six oāclock, and Perry had lost all resemblance to the young man in the liniment advertisement. He looked like a rough draft for a riotous cartoon. They were singingāan impromptu song of Bailyās improvisation:
āTrouble is,ā said Perry, who had just banged his hair with Bailyās comb and was tying an orange tie round it to get the effect of Julius CƦsar, āthat you fellas canāt sing worth a damn. Soonās I leave thā air and start singinā tenor you start singinā tenor too.ā
ā āM a natural tenor,ā said Macy gravely. āVoice lacks cultivation, thaās all. Gotta natural voice, māaunt used say. Naturally good singer.ā
āSingers, singers, all good singers,ā remarked Baily, who was at the telephone. āNo, not the cabaret; I want night egg. I mean some dog-gone clerk āatās got foodāfood! I wantāāā
āJulius CƦsar,ā announced Perry, turning round from the mirror. āMan of iron will and stern ātermination.ā
āShut up!ā yelled Baily. āSay, iss Mr. Baily. Senā up enormous supper. Use yāown judgment. Right away.ā
He connected the receiver and the hook with some difficulty, and then with his lips closed and an expression of solemn intensity in his eyes went to the lower drawer of his dresser and pulled it open.
āLookit!ā he commanded. In his hands he held a truncated garment of pink gingham.
āPants,ā he exclaimed gravely. āLookit!ā
This was a pink blouse, a red tie, and a Buster Brown collar. āLookit!ā he repeated. āCostume for the Townsendsā circus ball. Iām liālā boy carries water for the elephants.ā
Perry was impressed in spite of himself.
āIām going to be Julius CƦsar,ā he announced after a moment of concentration.
āThought you werenāt going!ā said Macy.
āMe? Sure, Iām goinā. Never miss a party. Good for the nervesā like celery.ā
āCƦsar!ā scoffed Baily. āCanāt be CƦsar! He is not about a circus. CƦsarās Shakespeare. Go as a clown.ā
Perry shook his head.
āNope; CƦsar.ā
āCƦsar?ā
āSure. Chariot.ā
Light dawned on Baily.
āThatās right. Good idea.ā
Perry looked round the room searchingly.
āYou lend me a bathrobe and this tie,ā he said finally.
Baily considered.
āNo good.ā
āSure, thaās all I need. CƦsar was a savage. They canāt kick if I come as CƦsar, if he was a savage.ā
āNo,ā said Baily, shaking his head slowly. āGet a costume over at a costumerās. Over at Nolakās.ā
āClosed up.ā
āFind out.ā
After a puzzling five minutes at the phone a small, weary voice managed to convince Perry that it was Mr. Nolak speaking, and that they would remain open until eight because of the Townsendsā ball. Thus assured, Perry ate a great amount of filet mignon and drank his third of the last bottle of champagne. At eight-fifteen the man in the tall hat who stands in front of the Clarendon found him trying to start his roadster.
āFroze up,ā said Perry wisely. āThe cold froze it. The cold air.ā āFroze, eh?ā
āYes. Cold air froze it.ā
āCanāt start it?ā
āNope. Let it stand here till summer. One those hot ole August daysāll thaw it out awright.ā
āGoinā let it stand?ā
āSure. Let āer stand. Take a hot thief to steal it. Gemme taxi.ā
The man in the tall hat summoned a taxi.
āWhere to, mister?ā
āGo to Nolakāsācostume fella.ā
II
Mrs. Nolak was short and ineffectual looking, and on the cessation of the world war had belonged for a while to one of the new nationalities. Owing to unsettled European conditions she had never since been quite sure what she was. The shop in which she and her husband performed their daily stint was dim and ghostly, and peopled with suits of armor and Chinese mandarins, and enormous papier-mĆ¢chĆ© birds suspended from the ceiling. In a vague background many rows of masks glared eyelessly at the visitor, and there were glass cases full of crowns and scepters, and jewels and enor...