Christopher Morley - In The Sweet Dry And Dry

discovered these hitherto unsuspected powers in myself. Was I

justified in putting them to use, for the good of humanity? And wasn't there a certain pathetic significance in the fact that I, the daughter of the man who had done so much to put these poor lonely spirits into the Beyond, should be made their sole channel of reunion with their bereaved and sorrowing adorers? In all his harangues, I had never heard my Father attack anything but the actual DRINKING of liquor. This form of communication seemed to me to solve so many problems. And it was in this way that I first met

Virgil."

"Virgil?" said Bleak, absent-mindedly, for he was wondering whether he might be privileged to attend one of these seances.

"Virgil Quimbleton," she said. "In the early days of my trances I

was much haunted by the spirit of a certain cocktail-blended, I

believe, of champagne and angostura-which insisted that it would be inconsolable until it could get in contact with Quimbleton and reassure him as to the certainty of its existence beyond mortal bars. The deep affection and old comradeship evidently cherished between Quimbleton and this cocktail was very touching, and I was more than happy to be able to effect their reunion. It was for this reason that Quimbleton, under a careful disguise, came to live next door to us on Caraway Street. I would go out into the garden and have a trance; Quimbleton, poor bereaved fellow, would sit by me in the dusk and revel with the spirit of his dear comrade. This common bond soon ripened into Jove, and we became betrothed."

She stripped off one of her gloves and showed Bleak a beautiful amethyst ring.

"This is my engagement ring," she said. "It's a very precious symbol, for Quimbleton explained to me that the amethyst is a talisman against drunkenness. I looked it up in the dictionary, and found that he was right. As long as I wear this ring the departed spirits have no ill effect upon me. But I sometimes wonder," she added with a sigh, "whether Virgil really loves me for myself, or only as a kind of swinging door into the spirit world."

The car was now approaching an open belt of country. Behind them lay the dark line of pine woods; far off, across a wide shimmer of sun and sandy fields sweetened by purple clover; and flowering grasses, was a blue ribbon of sea. But even in this remote shelf of New Jersey the implacable hand of Chuff was at work. From a meadow near by they saw an observation balloon going up and the windlass unwinding its cable. A huge paraboloid breath-detector

(or breathoscope) was stationed on a low ridge. This terribly ingenious machine, which had just been invented by the pan-antis, records the vibrations of any alcoholic breath within five miles, and indicates on a sensitive dial the exact direction and distance of the breath. It was only too evident that the search for

Quimbleton was going forward with fierce system. In the shelter of an old barn they heard a cork-popping machine-gun going off rapidly. This was one of the most atrocious ruses employed by the chuffs in their search for conscientious drinkers. The gun fires no projectile, but produces a pleasant detonation like the swift and repeated drawing of corks. Set up in the neighborhood of any bottle-habited man, it will invariably lure him into an approach.

Near it was an ice-tinkling device, used for the same purposes of stratagem.

"Poor Virgil!" said Miss Chuff with a sigh. "I'm afraid he has had a grievous ordeal. We must run carefully now, so as not to give him away."

Fortunately Miss Chuff's presence at the wheel, and Bleak's credentials as war correspondent, enabled them to pass several scouting parties of chuff uhlans without suspicion. In this way they neared the extensive grounds surrounding the Federal Home for

Inebriates, Cana, N. J. This magnificent Gothic building, already showing some signs of decay from two years of vacancy, stands on a slight eminence among what the real estate agents call "old shade," with a fine and carefully calculated view over one of the largest bodies of undrinkable fluid known to man, the Atlantic

Ocean.

The car turned into a narrow sandy road skirting one side of the walled park. This byway was completely screened from outside observation by the high bulwark of the Home and by thick masses of rhododendron shrubbery. At a bend in the road Miss Chuff halted the motor, and motioned Bleak to descend.

"Now we will look for the persecuted patriot," she said.

Bleak took charge of the basket of food, and Miss Chuff drew a small rope ladder from a locker under the driver's seat. This she threw deftly up to the top of the wall, hooking it upon the iron spikes. Bleak politely ascended first, and they scaled the wall, dropping down into a tangle of underbrush.

"I left him in here somewhere," said the girl, as they set off along a narrow path. "This was obviously the best place to hide, as, except for Father's horse, the Home hasn't had an inmate for two years. There was some talk of Father making this the headquarters of the Great General Strafe in this campaign, but I

don't believe they have done so yet."

"Hush!" said Bleak. "What is that I hear?"

A dull, regular, recurrent sound, a sort of rasping sigh, stole through the thickets. They both listened in some agitation.

"Sounds a little like an airplane, with one engine missing," said

Bleak.

"Can it be the sea, the surf breaking on the sand?" asked Miss

Chuff.

This seemed probable, and they accepted it as such; but as they pushed on through the tangle of saplings and bushes the sound seemed to localize itself on their left. Bleak peeped cautiously through a leafy screen, and then beckoned the girl to his side.

They looked down into a warm sandy hollow, overgrown and sheltered by a large rhododendron with knotted branches and dry, shiny leaves. Curled up on the sand bank, in the unconsciously pathetic posture of sheer exhaustion, lay Quimbleton, asleep. A droning snore buzzed heavily from where he lay.

"Poor Virgil!" said Miss Chuff. "How tired he looks."

He did, indeed. The gray and silver uniform was ragged and soilstained; his boots were white with dust; his face was unshaved, though a razor lay beside him, and it seemed that he had been trying to strop it on his Sam Browne belt. His pipe, filled but unlit, had fallen from his weary fingers; beside him was an empty match-box and tragic evidence of a number of unsuccessful attempts to get fire from a Swedish tandsticker. Crumpled under the elbow of the indomitable idealist was a much-thumbed copy of The

Bartender's Benefactor, or How to Mix 1001 Drinks, in which he had been seeking imaginary solace when he fell asleep. Near his head ticked a pocket alarm clock, which they found set to gong at two o'clock.

"It seems a shame to wake him," said Theodolinda. Her brown eyes liquefied and effervesced with tenderness, until (as Bleak thought to himself) they were quite the color of brandy and soda, without too much soda.

The sleeper stirred, and a radiant smile passed over his unconscious features-a smile of pure and heavenly beatitude.

"Say when, Jerry," he murmured.

"He's dreaming!" cried Theodolinda. "See, his soul is far away!"

"Two years away," said Bleak enviously. "Let him go to it while we reconnoiter. I believe in the Prevention of Cruelty to Sleep. He didn't intend to wake up just yet, you can see by the alarm clock."

"That's a good idea," she agreed. "I'd like to find out whether we're in any immediate danger of pursuit."

They set the basket of food beside Quimbleton, and carefully moved on through the strip of young trees until they neared the broad lawns that surround the Home for Inebriates. Miss Chuff, spying delicately through a leafy chink, gave a cry of alarm.

"Heavens!" she said. "The place is full of people!"