CHAPTER XII.
HOW THE PLUMBER FIXED MY BOILER--A VEXATIOUS BUSINESS--HOW HE DIDN'T COME TO TIME, AND WHAT THE ULTIMATE RESULT WAS--AN ACCIDENT, AND THE PATHETIC STORY OF YOUNG CHUBB--REMINISCENCES OF GENERAL CHUBB--THE ECCENTRICITIES OF AN ABSENT-MINDED MAN--THE RIVALS--PARKER VERSUS SMILEY.
We have had a great deal of trouble recently with our kitchen boiler,which is built into the wall over the range. It sprang a leak a fewweeks ago, and the assistance of a plumber had to be invoked for thepurpose of repairing it. I sent for the plumber, and after examining theboiler, he instructed the servant to let the fire go out that night, sothat he could begin operations early the next morning. His order wasobeyed, but in the morning the plumber failed to appear. We had a coldand very uncomfortable breakfast, and on my way to the depot I overtookthe plumber going in the same direction. He said he was sorry todisappoint me, but he was called suddenly out of town on imperativebusiness, and he would have to ask me to wait until the next morning,when he would be promptly on hand with his men. So we had no fire in therange upon that day, and the family breakfasted again upon cool viandswithout being cheered with a view of the plumber. Upon calling at theplumber's shop to ascertain why he had not fulfilled his promise, I wasinformed by the clerk that he had returned, but that he was compelled togo over to Wilmington. The man seemed so thoroughly in earnest in hisassertion that the plumber positively would attend to my boiler upon thefollowing morning that we permitted the range to remain untouched, andfor the third time we broke our fast with a frigid repast. But theplumber and his assistants did not come.
As it seemed to be wholly impossible to depend upon these faithlessartisans, our cook was instructed to bring the range into service againwithout waiting longer for repairs, and to give the family a properlyprepared meal in the morning. While we were at breakfast there was aknock at the gate, and presently we perceived the plumber and his mencoming up the yard with a general assortment of tools and materials. Therange at the moment of his entrance to the kitchen was red hot; and whenhe realized the fact, he flung his tools on the floor and expressed hisindignation in the most violent and improper language, while hisattendant fiends sat around in the chairs and growled in sympathy withtheir chief. When I appeared upon the scene, the plumber addressed mewith the air of a man who had suffered a great and irreparable wrong atmy hands, and he really displayed so much feeling that for a few momentsI had an indistinct consciousness that I had somehow been guilty of anact of gross injustice to an unfortunate and persecuted fellow-being.Before I could recover myself sufficiently to present my side of thecase with the force properly belonging to it, the plumbers marched intothe yard, where they tossed a quantity of machinery and tools and leadpipe under the shed, and then left.
We had no fire in the range the next morning, but the plumbers did notcome until four o'clock in the afternoon, and then they merely dumped acart load of lime-boxes and hoes upon the asparagus bed and went home.An interval of four days elapsed before we heard of them again; andmeanwhile the cook twice nearly killed herself by stumbling over thetools while going out into the shed in the dark. One morning, however,the gang arrived before I had risen; and when I came down to breakfast,I found that they had made a mortar bed on our best grass plot, and hadclosed up the principal garden walk with a couple of wagon loads ofsand. I endured this patiently because it seemed to promise speedyperformance of the work. The plumbers, however, went away at about nineo'clock, and the only reason we had for supposing they had not forgottenus was that a man with a cart called in the afternoon and shot aquantity of bricks down upon the pavement in such a position that nobodycould go in or out of the front gate. Two days afterward the plumberscame and began to make a genuine effort to reach the boiler. It wasburied in the wall in such a manner that it was wholly inaccessible byany other method than by the removal of the bricks from the outside. Theman who erected the house evidently was a party with the plumber to aconspiracy to give the latter individual something to do. They laboredright valiantly at the wall, and by supper-time they had removed atleast twelve square feet of it, making a hole large enough to haveadmitted a locomotive. Then they took out the old boiler and went away,leaving a most discouraging mass of rubbish lying about the yard.
That was the last we saw of them for more than a week. Whenever I wentafter the plumber for the purpose of persuading him to hasten the work,I learned that he had been summoned to Philadelphia as a witness in acourt case, or that he had gone to his aunt's funeral, or that he wastaking a holiday because it was his wife's birthday, or that he had asore eye. I have never been able to understand why the house was notrobbed. An entire brigade of burglars might have entered the cottage andfrolicked among its treasures without any difficulty. I did propose atfirst that Bob and I should procure revolvers and take watch and watchevery night until the breach in the wall should be repaired; but Mr.Parker did not regard the plan with enthusiasm, and it was abandoned. Wehad to content ourselves with fastening the inner door of the kitchen assecurely as possible, and we were not molested. But we were nervous.Mrs. Adeler, I think, assured me positively at least twice every nightthat she heard robbers on the stairs, and entreated me not to go outafter them; and I never did.
Finally the men came and began to fill the hole with new bricks. Thatevening the plumber walked into my parlor with mud and mortar on hisboots, and informed me that by an unfortunate mistake the hole left forthe boiler by the bricklayers was far too small, and he could not insertthe boiler without taking the wall down again.
"Mr. Nippers," I said, "don't you think it would be a good idea for meto engage you permanently to labor upon that boiler? From the manner inwhich this business has been conducted, I infer that I can finally berid of annoyance about such matters by employing a perennial plumber tolive for ever in my back yard, and to spend the unending cycles ofeternity banging boilers and demolishing walls."
Mr. Nippers said, with apparent seriousness, that he thought it would bea first-rate thing.
"Mr. Nippers, I am going to ask a favor of you. I do not insist uponcompliance with my request. I know that I am at your mercy. Nippers, youhave me, and I submit patiently to my fate. But my family is sufferingfrom cold, we are exposed to the ravages of thieves, we are deprived ofthe means of cooking our food properly, and we are made generallyuncomfortable by the condition of our kitchen. I ask you, therefore, asa personal favor to a man who wishes you prosperity here and felicityhereafter, and who means to settle your bill promptly, to fix thatboiler at once."
Mr. Nippers thereupon said that he always liked me, and he swore asolemn oath that he would complete the job next day without fail. Thatwas on Tuesday. Neither Nippers nor his men came again until Saturday,and then they put the boiler in its place and went away, leaving four orfive cart loads of ruins in the yard. On Sunday the boiler began to leakas badly as ever, and I feel sure Nippers must have set the old one inagain, although when he called early Monday morning with a bill for$237-84/100, which he wanted at once because he had a note to meet, hedeclared upon his honor that the boiler was a new one, and that itwould not leak under a pressure of one thousand pounds to the squareinch.
I am going to buy a cooking stove, and defy Nippers andthe entire plumbing fraternity.
* * * * *
Cooley's boy has been in trouble again. Yesterday morning Mrs. Adelerheard loud screaming in Cooley's yard, and in a few moments a servantcame to say that Mrs. Cooley wished to see Mrs. Adeler at once. Mrs. A.hurried over there, supposing that something terrible had happened. Shefound Mrs. Cooley shaking her boy and crying, while the lad stood, thepicture of misery and fright, his eyes protruding from his head and hishands holding his stomach. Mrs. Cooley explained in a voice broken withsobs that Henry had been playing with a small "mouth organ," and hadaccidentally swallowed it. The case was somewhat peculiar; and as Mrs.Adeler was not familiar with the professional methods which are adoptedin such emergencies, she recommended simply a liberal use of musta
rd andwarm water. The application was ultimately successful, and the missingmusical instrument was surrendered by the boy. The incident is neitherinteresting nor remarkable, and I certainly should not have mentioned itbut for the fact that it had a result which is perhaps worth chroniclinghere.
Last evening Bob came into the sitting-room and behaved in a mannerwhich led me to believe that he had something on his mind. I asked himif anything was the matter. He said,
"Well, no; not exactly. The fact is I've been thinking about thataccident to Cooley's boy, and it kind of suggested something to me."
"What was the nature of the suggestion?"
"I've jotted it down on paper. I've half a notion to send it to the_Argus_ if you think it's good enough, and that's what I want to findout. I want to hear your opinion of the story. I don't do much of thissort of thing, and I'm kind of shy about it. Shall I read it?"
"Of course; let us hear it."
"I'm going to call it 'The Fate of Young Chubb.' I expect it'll make oldCooley mad as fury when he sees it. It is founded upon the catastropheof which his boy was the victim."
* * * * *
THE FATE OF YOUNG CHUBB.
When Mr. Chubb, the elder, returned from Europe, he brought with himfrom Geneva a miniature musical box, long and very narrow, andaltogether of hardly greater dimensions, say, than a large pocket-knife.The instrument played four cheerful little tunes for the benefit of theChubb family, and they enjoyed it. Young Henry Chubb enjoyed it to suchan extent that, one day, just after the machine had been wound up readyfor action, he got to sucking the end of it, and in a moment ofinadvertence it slipped, and he swallowed it. The only immediateconsequence of the accident was that a harmonic stomach-ache wasorganized upon the interior of Henry Chubb, and he experienced arestlessness which he well knew would defy peppermint and paregoric.
Henry Chubb kept his secret in his own soul, and in his stomach also,determined to hide his misery from his father, and to spare the rod tothe spoiled child--spoiled, at any rate, as far as his digestiveapparatus was concerned.
But that evening, at the supper-table, Henry had eaten but one mouthfulof bread when strains of wild, mysterious music were suddenly waftedfrom under the table. The family immediately made an effort to discoverwhence the sounds came, although Henry Chubb sat there filled with agonyand remorse and bread and tunes, and desperately asserted his beliefthat the music came from the cellar, where the servant-girl wasconcealed with a harp. He well knew that Mary Ann was unfamiliar withthe harp. But he was frantic with anxiety to hide his guilt. Thus it isthat one crime leads to another.
But he could not disguise the truth for ever, and that very night, whilethe family was at prayers, Henry all at once began to hiccough, and themusic box started off without warning with "Way down upon the SuwaneeRiver," with variations. Whereupon the paternal Chubb arose from hisknees and grasped Henry kindly but firmly by his hair and shook him upand inquired what he meant by such conduct. And Henry asserted that hewas practicing something for a Sunday-school celebration, which oldChubb intimated was a singularly thin explanation. Then they tried toget up that music box, and every time they would seize Henry by the legsand shake him over the sofa cushion, or would pour some fresh variety ofemetic down his throat, the instrument within would give a fresh spurt,and joyously grind out "Listen to the Mocking Bird" or "Thou'lt NeverCease to Love."
At last they were compelled to permit that musical box to remain withinthe sepulchral recesses of young Chubb. To say that the unfortunatevictim of the disaster was made miserable by his condition would be toexpress in the feeblest manner the state of his mind. The more musicthere was in his stomach, the wilder and more completely chaotic becamethe discord in his soul. As likely as not it would occur that while helay asleep in the middle of the night the works would begin to revolve,and would play "Home, Sweet Home" for two or three hours, unless the peghappened to slip, when the cylinder would switch back again to "Way downupon the Suwanee River," and would rattle out that tune with variationsand fragments of the scales until Henry's brother would kick him out ofbed in wild despair, and sit on him in a vain effort to subdue theserenade, which, however, invariably proceeded with fresh vigor whensubjected to unusual pressure.
And when Henry Chubb went to church, it frequently occurred that, in thevery midst of the most solemn portion of the sermon, he would feel agentle disturbance under the lower button of his jacket; and presently,when everything was hushed, the undigested engine would give apreliminary buzz and then reel off "Listen to the Mocking Bird" and"Thou'lt Never Cease to Love," and scales and exercises, until theclergyman would stop and glare at Henry over his spectacles and whisperto one of the deacons. Then the sexton would suddenly tack up the aisleand clutch the unhappy Mr. Chubb by the collar and scud down the aisleagain to the accompaniment of "Home, Sweet Home," and then incarcerateHenry in the upper portion of the steeple until after church.
But the end came at last, and the miserable boy found peace. One daywhile he was sitting in school endeavoring to learn his multiplicationtable to the tune of "Thou'lt Never Cease to Love," his gastric juicetriumphed. Something or other in the music box gave way all at once, thesprings were unrolled with alarming force, and Henry Chubb, as he feltthe fragments of the instrument hurled right and left among his vitals,tumbled over on the floor and expired.
At the _post mortem_ examination they found several pieces of "Home,Sweet Home" in his liver, while one of his lungs was severely torn by afragment of "Way down upon the Suwanee River." Small particles of"Listen to the Mocking Bird" were removed from his heart andbreast-bone, and three brass pegs of "Thou'lt Never Cease to Love" werefound firmly driven into his fifth rib.
They had no music at the funeral. They sifted the machinery out of himand buried him quietly in the cemetery. Whenever the Chubbs buy musicalboxes now, they get them as large as a piano and chain them to the wall.
* * * * *
While Bob was engaged in reading the account of the melodious misery ofthe unhappy Chubb, Lieutenant Smiley came in, and the result was thatboth became uneasy. Bob disliked to subject himself to the criticism ofa man whom he regarded as an enemy, and the lieutenant was so jealous ofBob's success that he began instantly to try to think of something thatwould enable him at least to maintain his reputation as a teller ofstories.
"That is very good indeed, Bob," I said. "Bangs will be only too glad topublish it. It is very creditable. Put your name to it, however, if itgoes into the _Argus_, or the colonel will persuade the community thathe is the author of it."
"He will have to get a new brain-pan set in before he can write anythingas good," said Bob.
"It is a very amusing story," remarked Mrs. Adeler. "I had no idea thatyou ever attempted such things. It is quite good, is it not,lieutenant?"
"Oh, very good indeed," said Smiley. "V-e-r-y good. Quite anachievement, in fact. Ha! ha! do you know that name 'Chubb' reminds meof a very comical incident."
"Indeed?"
"Ha! yes! Old General Chubb was the actor in it. Perhaps you knew him,Parker?"
"No, I didn't," growled Bob.
"Well, he was a very eccentric old man. Deuced queer, you know, and themost absent-minded person that ever lived. He had a wooden leg late inhis life, and I've often known him to put that leg on backward with thetoes pointing behind him, and then he would come jolting down the streetin the most extraordinary manner, with his good knee bending north andhis timber knee doubling up southwardly; and when I would meet him, hewould stop and growl because the authorities kept the pavements in suchbad repair that a man could hardly walk."
"I don't see anything very funny about that," said Bob, impolitely andsavagely.
"Well, one day a few months ago," continued Smiley, without noticing Mr.Parker's ill-nature, "he sauntered into the studio of the celebratedmarine painter Hamilton, in Philadelphia. The artist was out at themoment, but standing upon the floor was a large and very superb pictureof
the sea-beach, with the surf rolling in upon it. The general stoodlooking at it for a while, until his mind wandered off from the present,and under the influence of the picture he was gradually impressed with avague notion that he was at the seashore. So, still gazing at thepainting, he slowly removed his clothes, and finally stood in a reverywithout a stitch upon him. Then he clasped his nose with his fingers,bent his neck forward and plunged head foremost into the surf. Thepeople on the floor below thought there was an earthquake. The artistcame rushing in, and found General Chubb with his head against thewashboard, one leg hanging from the ragged surf and the toes of his leftfoot struggling among the ruins of the lighthouse. Hamilton has thattorn picture yet. He says that Chubb's dive is the highest tribute everpaid to his genius."
As the lieutenant finished the narrative, Bob rose and left the roomwith the suggestion, muttered as he passed me, that the story was tough.
"Mr. Parker don't seem well," remarked the lieutenant when Bob had gone.
"Oh yes, he is perfectly well. I imagine that he does not regard youwith precisely the same amount of enthusiastic admiration that he mightperhaps feel if you were not treading on his toes a little."
"Oh," laughed the lieutenant, "you refer, of course, to our relationswith the Magruders? I don't like to talk much about that matter, ofcourse; it is delicate, and you may think I am meddling with a businessin which I have no concern. But perhaps I may as well tell you franklythat Parker has no earthly chance there--not the least in the world. Theyoung lady won't smile on him. I am as certain of that as I am ofdeath."
"You are positive of that, are you?"
"Yes, sir, you can rely upon my word. Parker might as well give it up.By the way, I wonder if he has gone down there now?"
"Very likely."
"Well, I must say good-night, then; I promised to call there athalf-past eight, and it is time to be off."
So Lieutenant Smiley bade us adieu. Mrs. Adeler immediately asked:
"Do you believe what that man says?"
"Certainly not, my dear. I have as much faith as a dozen ordinary men,but it would require a grand army to believe him. He is foolish enoughto hope to frighten Bob away. But Bob shall settle the matter to-morrow.If he doesn't, we will disown him. The end of the campaign has come. Nowfor victory or defeat!"