The Red Book Magazine/Volume 31/Number 5/A Chip of the Old Block
IN his new novel Rupert Hughes says “Nothing keeps the mind in balance on the tight-rope of sanity like the counter-weight that comedy furnishes to tragedy.” Which is very, very true. Lincoln could not have borne the burdens which were piled upon his shoulders had he lost the ability to appreciate a joke. Therefore, let's give thanks for the Ring Lardners of to-day. They show us the silver lining to dark clouds.
A CHIP of
the Old
BLOCK
DEAR Grandfather:
How can I thank you for remembering me on my twenty-first birthday with such a wonderful present? I know how you feel about spending money recklessly, and I assure you I will not throw it away on foolish luxuries. In fact, I have about made up my mind not to spend it at all, but to deposit the check in the savings bank and not draw it out until actually necessary. Perhaps I will keep it until the next Liberty Loan is announced and buy a Liberty Bond with it, because I think a person ought to do all they can for the Government at a time like this. Thanks ever so much, dear Grandfather, and I wish there was some way in which I might show my appreciation otherwise than mere words.
I suppose you are like all the rest of us and crazy to get the papers every day and find out the latest about what is going on “over there.” The news has been rather discouraging lately, don't you think? But Mother and I both think things will improve fast as soon as Gen. Pershing gets enough men so that he can begin to really do something. How splendidly the French and British have been fighting, and how glad they will be when we come to their rescue! But I guess the Kaiser wont be so glad.
I have not made up my mind as yet just what to do. The other night I spoke to Mother about enlisting in the Navy, and just talking about it affected her so that I gave up the idea. Once a few weeks ago I mentioned the aviation, but she said it seemed such a terrible waste to go into that branch, as most of the aviators were accidentally killed before they ever got to do any fighting.
So, as I say, I don't know exactly what to do, and there is no one here whom we can rely on to give me advice. Mr. Leslie, who was one of Father's old friends and in the Spanish War with him, said yesterday that if he were I, he would not worry, but would wait until the next draft. But there are several reasons why I don't like to do that. In the first place, there might be some other way in which I could serve my country to better advantage. Then it takes so long for a man to be called after he is drafted, and then he is kept in training for months before they send him anywhere. Besides, I suppose the men in charge of the drafting make mistakes the same as everybody else, and I might be overlooked entirely or left out in some way, and then it might be too late for me to do anything.
However, Mother is going to write soon to Congressman Shultz and see if he can give us any advice. I must do something to keep up the family record and following the footsteps of you and poor Dad, and I only wish it was the Germans who had killed Dad instead of the Spaniards so I could avenge his death or at least try to.
Well, Grandfather, thanks again for the check, and! know how you hate to write, so I wont expect an answer to this letter, but we will let you know the news as soon as there is any.
Evan.
P.S. I looked up in the back of the dictionary one time to see what my name meant, and it means “young warrior!” So, altogether it seems “up to me” to do something, don't you think so, Grandfather?
DEAR Grandfather:
Just a line, Grandfather, to tell you the news. Mother received a letter yesterday from Congressman Shultz saying that I was to come to Washington at once, as he thought he could arrange for me to get a commission. He did not say what brand of the service it was in, but he did say I would be located in Washington and not sent to France, so I suppose it has something to do with the secret service or something.
Mother is almost heartbroken over the thought of losing me, but I tell her everybody must be brave in times like this and smile, no matter what happens. Besides, as soon as she can find trustworthy people to whom to rent the house, she is going to follow me to Washington and keep house for me.
I know you will be pleased to hear that I am about to enter the service, and that no one can say the grandson of a Civil War veteran and the son of a Spanish War hero failed to do his bit when his country needed him.
Mother and I were at the cemetery to-day and I thought of you when we saw the G. A. R. graves being decorated.
There is no time to write more now, as I must do a lot of packing, but Mother has made me promise I will write you once a week after I get there, though I would have made it a point to do so without her asking me, knowing as I do that you must be deeply interested in everything that is going on.
Evan.
DEAR Grandfather:
Well, Grandfather, here I am in the Capital, and it seems like a different world. Washington is not at all like it was when Mother and I were here in 1915. Then it was just a beautiful, staid old city, but now everything is bustle and hurry, and it gives me a thrill to think that soon I will be bustling and hurrying with the rest of them and doing my share, for everyone must do it here, as there is no room for a slacker.
I arrived this afternoon and am at the Shoreham, where I shall probably stay until Mother comes and finds a house or an apartment. I called on Congressman Shultz as soon I arrived, but he was busy and said I was to come again to-morrow morning.
The trip was hot and dusty, but I made up my mind I would not complain because a man must get used to things and take them as they come, and I would feel pretty mean if I “kicked” at discomforts.
For some reason our sleeper was taken off at noon and we had to complete the journey in another Pullman that was already pretty well filled, but I found a seat in the smoking-compartment, though I did not have it to myself, but shared it with an elderly man about thirty-six or thirty-seven. He smoked continually and nearly choked me to death, but I was so excited about getting here and “in it” that I hardly noticed his “poison gas.” I made some remark about the train being late, and I am glad I started a conversation with him, as it turned out to be rather amusing. One of the first things he said was:
“As a rule, when traveling, I shun intercourse with strangers. But how can a man be reserved when even the seats find it impossible?”
Then he asked me if I had ever been in Washington before, and I said yes, in 1915. Then he said:
“Well, young man, if you haven't been there for three years, you will find some changes. I suppose the male population then was about hundred thousand. Now there are two hundred thousand men and three hundred thousand officers.”
Of course I knew he was trying to jolly me, but I didn't mind, so I asked him what kind of officers, and he said N. C. O.'s. So I pretended I believed him and said:
“You don't mean to tell me there are actually three hundred thousand corporals and sergeants in Washington.”
“No,” he said. “But I do mean to tell you there are about three hundred thousand N. C. O.'s, and by that I mean noncombatant officers. I don't know whether my figure is accurate or not, but I'll make you a little bet there are more officers than men, and I'll leave it to any bellhop you care to name.”
Well, I laughed and said I didn't know any “bellhops” by name, so I was afraid his offer would have to go unchallenged. Then he asked me what I was going to do, and I told him I expected a commission, but I didn't know just yet in what branch of the service it would be. He seemed very much interested in me and asked me all sorts of questions, so finally I thought it was time to return the compliment, and I began cross-examining him. He didn't seem to mind at all and told me his name was Tracy and that he was a newspaper correspondent from Cincinnati, and he said he would like to call and see me after I had got my commission and have an interview with me for his paper. Well, I told him he might, for I suppose a man in the service must receive reporters and all kinds of people. Besides, as I said, he is rather amusing. So he asked me where I expected to stop, and I said at the Shoreham, and he said I would be right at home, because that was where most of the young N. C. O.'s were garrisoned.
“Of course,” he said, “you must expect a great many inconveniences. They have no rat-traps in the rooms, and they don't dress or undress you. But you'll have to overlook those things, for you're in the army now.”
I can't remember all we said, and anyway I'm afraid I have bored you with this long letter, but I thought you might be amused with his chatter. These newspaper men do get around and see life, I suppose, and their conversation is so breezy one can't help enjoying them for a while, though I suppose too much of it would prove tedious.
Well, Grandfather, good-by for this time, and I hope the warm weather agrees with you. Mother would send love if she were here.
Evan.
DEAR Grandfather:
Well, Grandfather, salute your grandson, Captain Barnes. For that is what I am, Grandfather, and have been since this morning. Congressman Shultz made good his promise, and early this week got me placed in the Sleuth Department with the title of captain. It's a pretty ticklish assignment, for I have to do all sorts of detective work, such as shadowing, eavesdropping, etc., and report to headquarters anything I learn which might lead to the apprehension of German propagandists and spies. But the more danger there is, why, the more excitement, and the better I will like it. Moreover a man must expect to put himself in constant peril at a time like this, and if I can discover one plot in time to frustrate it, I will not care what is done to me in the way of vengeance. I will feel that my life has not been wasted in that case.
My one regret is that Father could not have lived to see me “make good.”
But just think, Grandfather, here I am, only twenty-one and a captain, while you were only a sergeant at the end of the Civil War after being in it almost from the time it began. Of course I don't mean that seriously, and I wouldn't say anything to hurt you for the world, and I realize that conditions were different then. I also realize that you did not have the same advantage of an education which I have had, which is a big advantage after all. But doesn't it seem queer when you think of it?
Mother wired that she was glad I had made good, but warned me not to take any foolish risks. Isn't that just like a woman, to imagine a man would stop to consider risks if there was important work at hand, no matter how ticklish it might be?
My duties, of course, will keep me fairly busy, but at that my time will be practically my own. I am to report at headquarters every morning at ten, and if there is any particular assignment for the day, they will give it to me. If not, I am just to drop in at the cafés and pick up, without seeming to, any information that I think valuable. I go to work to-morrow and will soon let you know how I am getting along.
Well, Grandfather, I wont ask you to congratulate me in writing or by telegraph, for I know how you dislike to bother with things like that. But I know you are proud of me and I will try to make you even prouder by doing “something big” and perhaps rising to a higher rank.
Capt. Evan Barnes.
DEAR Grandfather:
Well, Grandfather, I have been in the service nearly a week now and have not turned up anything big yet, though I have enjoyed a few thrills, and I think the Department is working on a couple of the tips I turned in.
Well, then, Sunday night I was at dinner in the Willard and at the next table I noticed two men who looked very German. They had blond mustaches and everything. To throw them off the track, I pretended I was reading a newspaper, but you can bet I was listening to every word they had to say. Well, pretty soon I heard one of them make the remark that General Foch certainly had a job on his hands, and it wouldn't have sounded so bad if he had not pronounced the name with the guttural German “ch,” but that was a “give-away.” I couldn't catch just what the other replied, and I was afraid to take any chances of their getting through and leaving before I knew who they were; so I got up and went to the head waiter and asked him quietly if he knew them. He said he didn't; and while I was talking to him, one of them looked up and saw me staring at him, and he turned away as if he were afraid of being recognized. So I saw there was nothing more to do about it that night, and I merely wrote out a careful description of both men and put down what I had heard.
The other wasn't quite as positive or exciting. It happened yesterday forenoon. I was walking past the White House grounds on the State Department side, and two strangers were walking ahead of me, and of course their backs were turned and I couldn't see what they looked like, so I hurried up to get ahead of them so I could turn around and look at their faces. Well, just as I was passing them, one of them said: “Well, I suppose that's a swell place to live, but I wouldn't trade jobs with old W. W. for all the White Houses in the world.”
He couldn't have meant anyone else but Woodrow Wilson when he said “W. W.” under those circumstances, and especially when he mentioned the White House in the same breath; so I went on and then turned around and took a long look at both of them so I could describe them at the Department. Of course the remark might have been innocent, and he might have meant the President's job was so hard he would not want it. But anyway it was my duty to report it, and I don't know whether the Department will take it up or not.
Anyway, Grandfather, you see they are keeping me busy, and I like the risk and excitement of it immensely, and I will never be satisfied till I turn up something big, and after that I suppose I will want to turn up something bigger and so on. That's the way it usually goes.
Well, in my spare moments I have met a lot of nice people including a few girls—the nicest of whom unfortunately is engaged. But it always does happen that way, eh, Grandfather? The one we want is the one we can't get. Was it that way with you, or wasn't it? Most of my acquaintances, of course, are fellow-officers of my own age or a few years older, the majority of them captains in various departments, but I guess there aren't many I would trade with, for it's the constant excitement of my job that I like. Anyway, we have gay old times together in the hotel and at parties outside, and if it weren't the military discipline, reporting every morning at ten o'clock, etc., I wouldn't ever want to return to civil life.
Mother expects to be here in a few days.
Capt. Evan Barnes.
DEAR Grandfather:
Mother came yesterday, and after we had spent nearly an hour looking for a house or an apartment that was fit to live in, we gave it up and decided to stop at the Shoreham indefinitely. I think it is much better so, for here we are right in the midst of things. All the best of the young officers are here or come here, and that means it's the social center of the town.
Last night I went to a very pretty ball and would have enjoyed it very much if I could have become interested in any of the “free lance” girls. Unfortunately the only girl who interests me that I have met here so far, is engaged to a fellow in France. He enlisted in the infantry right after we declared war and went over a year ago in July, but he is only corporal now. Her name is Kathryn Stark, and she is “some peach.” But I don't suppose you are interested in such things any more, so I will talk about something else.
I believe I told you about my meeting a man named Tracy on the train coming here. He is correspondent for one of the Cincinnati papers. Well, when I left him after our first meeting, he asked permission to call on me and obtain an interview as soon as I had been given my commission. But he didn't call, and I was glad of it till I got to thinking that perhaps he would be hurt if I didn't, and I don't want to seem snobbish or anything—so yesterday I called him up and had him lunch with me.
He was as breezy as usual; in fact, he did most of the talking, and I was glad to have it that way, for reporters usually make you feel uncomfortable with their impertinent questions. He merely asked what branch of the service I had been commissioned in, and how I liked it, and whether I had run across anything interesting. I told him of course I could not discuss matters like that. So he gave up and entertained me with some of his nonsense.
He asked me what officers I had met, and I gave him the names of a few.
“Haven't you met Major G. Willis Faulkner yet?” he inquired. “That's probably because he's a casualty. But you know who he is, of course.”
Well, I had heard the name, and I told him so. Faulkner is a young millionaire from down South somewhere, about two years older than I and one of the youngest majors in the service.
“Major Faulkner was on the casualty list about ten days ago,” Tracy went on. “He is a major in the Cushion Corps. His job was to go out to the ball-park every afternoon and keep track of the number of balls lost or injured. Of course it would have been a cinch if the home team here had been the only team playing, because they could use one ball a whole season and then sell it for new. But some of the visiting teams sometimes fouled balls off into the stand or over it, or roughened them up with their bats; so the Major was kept pretty busy. But he was making good when a careless vendor hit him in the head with a sack of peanuts, and he got shell shock.”
Well, of course, he was just talking, but it was such nonsense that I had to smile.
“And right over at that third table,” he went on, “sits Capt. F. Conklin Stone of the Monument Department. He tried to enlist in the regulars but he failed on the physical test on account of his long eyelashes. So he's a captain, and he has to go over to the Monument three times a week and look up and see if the top is still on it. It's bound to give him stiff neck in time, but you'd think to look at him he didn't have a worry in the world.
“And the captain at the table near the window,” Tracy continued, “is Captain Jarvis Bellows of the Toy Balloons. He would have tried for the Marines, but he had a hangnail. So now he has to buy a couple of uninflated balloons every day from a street-hawker, and bring them here to give to some of the guests' kids. And of course he has to blow them up first. And believe me, if one of them ever busted in his face it would be good night! Besides that, he's got his own Rolls-Royce, and some day it's going to get away from him and bang into the Treasury Building, and if his head is thrown hard enough against the side of the building, he'll be laid up a week. So you see you aren't the only man in the army who is taking chances.”
Well, Grandfather, he talked on that way all through the meal until I was nearly worn out with it, and I suppose I have worn you out too, but I haven't told you half. However, I have written a long letter and Mother will be wondering why I don't take her to dinner.
Capt. Evan Barnes.
DEAR Grandfather:
Well, Grandfather, I thought I was going to turn up something big yesterday, but it was a false scent; at least, so I was told this morning at the Department. However, I am grateful to Tracy, my newspaper acquaintance, for giving me the tip, and it's a good thing to stand well with a man like him because he gets around and sees everybody and everything and may some day give me a clue that will amount to something.
He called me up yesterday forenoon just after I had reported at the Department and had returned to the hotel to take Mother for a drive. He said if I would meet him at a certain place on the Avenue, he thought he could put me on the trail of a big conspiracy. So I asked him if it had to be right away, as I had promised to take Mother driving, and he said he thought it would be very dangerous to delay even for two or three hours. So I apologized to Mother and went down to meet him.
When I met him, he said we mustn't be seen talking together in such a prominent place because no one knew who was watching us; so we went into a drugstore where there was only one customer, a girl, and the clerk, and he told me he had just heard that on Florida Avenue, at a certain address, there was a shoe-shining parlor of which the proprietor was a German, whereas almost all the other bootblacks in town were either black or tan, and that was suspicious in itself; but furthermore several young men who had patronized him had been afflicted almost immediately afterwards with falling arches, and it was believed he was using polish of such chemical composition that it would penetrate the leather and cause this condition of the feet, the object of course being to decrease the man power eligible for the draft by rendering them physically deficient.
He gave me the address, and I returned to the hotel and got Mother, for I thought she might as well go along in the taxi for the drive, and of course I would leave her and the machine far enough from the shine-stand to be perfectly safe in case of an outbreak of any kind. But the neighborhood to which we had to go looked so disreputable that I was afraid to leave her—so I told the driver to take her back to the hotel and I would return on the street-car when my work was done.
Well, there was no shine-parlor at the address Tracy had given me—nothing, in fact, but a vacant lot. So I returned to the hotel and called up Tracy, who said he must have had the wrong address, but anyway he was sure the tip was good and if he were I, he would look around town a little and try to find the shine-stand that was not conducted by negroes. But I had an engagement in the afternoon, and of course it was folly to try to do anything about it last night, and there was a dance to which I had accepted an invitation. So I merely wrote down the data I had and gave it to one of the men at the Department this morning.
I heard a bit of rather sad news at the dance. Miss Stark, the girl of whom I believe I once wrote you, was not there, and it seems that her fiancé, who had been in France a year, was so badly wounded last week that he has been honorably discharged as unfit for further service and will be sent back here as soon as he is able to make the trip. It is tough on a young fellow to get it like that, and of course she felt so bad over the news that she would not come to the dance, and as a result I had a rather tedious evening of it. However, I called her up this forenoon and did what I could to cheer her, and to-morrow I am to take her for a drive unless there is some special assignment for me at headquarters.
Capt. Evan Barnes.
DEAR Grandfather:
Well, Grandfather, I just had the pleasure of meeting Gen. Rowan, one of the biggest men in the country to-day, but of course there is no need of my telling you who he is. Capt. Bellows introduced me to him, and he asked us both to sit down at his table and visit a moment. He inquired what branch I was in, and I told him, and he seemed very much interested in me and asked whether I was all right physically. I told him I certainly was, though sometimes I felt awfully tired and nervous in the morning. Then he said to Bellows:
“Why is it some of you boys don't try to get to France?”
Bellows said he supposed it was because most of us had been there with our parents several years ago, so it would be no novelty, and others of us preferred waiting until long enough after the war so that the country would be rebuilt to look something like its old self. Then the General asked us if we would please get up and leave him, as he felt rather nauseated and wanted to be alone; so of course we got up and left. Poor old General, I suppose he is in a decline and wont be of service much longer, but everyone seems to think highly of him now, and I guess the country would be better of if there were more like him, only younger, of course.
Between you and me, Grandfather, I am not very well satisfied with the way things are being run here. There appears to be a lack of seriousness, particularly in my branch of the service. For instance, I have turned in four or five clues for the Department to work on, and so far as I can make out, nothing has been done with any of them. I cannot get a satisfactory answer when I complain, and altogether it is discouraging to work under such conditions. Sometimes I feel like chucking the whole thing up and taking Mother back home. But of course that is just a temporary spell, you might call it, for nothing could drive me from my duty at a time like this.
Miss Stark, the girl I have written you about, received word from France yesterday that her fiancé would not be able to leave the hospital and start back for two months or more, and of course she feels pretty blue over it. Well, it's all in the game, grandfather.
Capt. Evan Barnes.
DEAR Grandfather:
Congratulate me, Grandfather! I am engaged to the dearest girl that ever lived or ever could live. You would be crazy about her if you could see her, which I trust will be in the near future, for she has relatives in Sandusky, the J. F. Hammonds, whom perhaps you know, though they are new people there and I know you don't get around much any more. But anyway, if I can get leave of absence, I will come to Sandusky and she will arrange to be there at the same time, and I can bring her to see you, for I know you will be crazy about her.
We are planning to be married in the fall, for neither of us wants to wait long, and I am confident we can get along on my salary.
I am too happy to write much, but I wanted you to be among the first to know. Of course it is unnecessary to tell you her name, as I know I have written about her till you must be sick of my maudlin ravings. But anyway I will tell you: it's Kathryn Stark, the girl who I once told you was “some peach.” Well, she is, Grandfather, if you will pardon the slang.
Mother is almost as wild about her as I am, and when you have met her and given us your blessing, everything will be perfect.
We think we will have a rather quiet wedding, as Kathryn was engaged to marry a poor sucker who went to France and was so badly wounded that he is through as a soldier, and will be sent home as soon as he can travel. So of course we don't want any big splurge.
Well, Grandfather, good-by for this time and I wish it weren't so much trouble for you to write so you could congratulate me. But never mind; it will be time enough when I see you.
Capt. Evan Barnes.
Capt. Evan Barnes,
Sleuth Department, Washington, D. C.
DEAR SIR:
As you say, it is a great deal of trouble for me to write. Yet I am going to take that trouble once or twice more before my pen and I are too hopelessly rusted.
Your confidence that you will be able to live on your salary pleases me beyond measure and leaves me free to dispose of my modest means as I see fit. I presume that should you, in some dare-devil undertaking in behalf of your government, lose sight of discretion in patriotism and perish of, say, poisoned shoe-blacking, your widow would always be well provided for by said government. Nevertheless I beg you to take no needles risk; for the Government, under stress of other weighty matters, might forget.
In view of our relationship and former acquaintance, may I make three requests?
First, that neither you nor your lady nor both of you attempt to visit me here. My physician advises me that any excitement would probably be my death-warrant.
Second, that you forward me the name and address of the poor sucker who enlisted in the infantry right after we declared war, won only a corporal's stripes though he fought in France a year and is now lying in a French hospital, through as a soldier.
Third, that the letter providing me with the information regarding him be the last you write me, for though it is a great deal of trouble for me to write, it is even more to read.
Your grandfather (God help him),
This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was published before January 1, 1929.
The longest-living author of this work died in 1933, so this work is in the public domain in countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 90 years or less. This work may be in the public domain in countries and areas with longer native copyright terms that apply the rule of the shorter term to foreign works.
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