Best Short Stories - [50]

Two days later, on Saturday morning, I arose, a tottering wreck, and went forth to fulfil an engagement with a valued friend, the Rev. Mr. — , to walk to the Talcott Tower, ten miles distant. He stared at me, but asked no questions. We started. Mr. — talked, talked, talked as is his wont. I said nothing; I heard nothing. At the end of a mile, Mr. — said ‘Mark, are you sick? I never saw a man look so haggard and worn and absent-minded. Say something, do!’

Drearily, without enthusiasm, I said: ‘Punch brothers, punch with care! Punch in the presence of the passenjare!’

My friend eyed me blankly, looked perplexed, they said:

‘I do not think I get your drift, Mark. Then does not seem to be any relevancy in what you have said, certainly nothing sad; and yet — maybe it was the way you said the words — I never heard anything that sounded so pathetic. What is —’

But I heard no more. I was already far away with my pitiless, heartbreaking ‘blue trip slip for an eight-cent fare, buff trip slip for a six-cent fare, pink trip slip for a three-cent fare; punch in the presence of the passenjare.’ I do not know what occurred during the other nine miles. However, all of a sudden Mr. — laid his hand on my shoulder and shouted:

‘Oh, wake up! wake up! wake up! Don’t sleep all day! Here we are at the Tower, man! I have talked myself deaf and dumb and blind, and never got a response. Just look at this magnificent autumn landscape! Look at it! look at it! Feast your eye on it! You have traveled; you have seen boaster landscapes elsewhere. Come, now, deliver an honest opinion. What do you say to this?’

I sighed wearily; and murmured:

‘A buff trip slip for a six-cent fare, a pink trip slip for a three-cent fare, punch in the presence of the passenjare.’

Rev. Mr. — stood there, very grave, full of concern, apparently, and looked long at me; then he said:

‘Mark, there is something about this that I cannot understand. Those are about the same words you said before; there does not seem to be anything in them, and yet they nearly break my heart when you say them. Punch in the — how is it they go?’

I began at the beginning and repeated all the lines.

My friend’s face lighted with interest. He said:

‘Why, what a captivating jingle it is! It is almost music. It flows along so nicely. I have nearly caught the rhymes myself. Say them over just once more, and then I’ll have them, sure.’

I said them over. Then Mr. — said them. He made one little mistake, which I corrected. The next time and the next he got them right. Now a great burden seemed to tumble from my shoulders. That torturing jingle departed out of my brain, and a grateful sense of rest and peace descended upon me. I was light-hearted enough to sing; and I did sing for half an hour, straight along, as we went jogging homeward. Then my freed tongue found blessed speech again, and the pent talk of many a weary hour began to gush and flow. It flowed on and on, joyously, jubilantly, until the fountain was empty and dry. As I wrung my friend’s hand at parting, I said:

‘Haven’t we had a royal good time! But now I remember, you haven’t said a word for two hours. Come, come, out with something!’

The Rev. Mr. — turned a lack-luster eye upon me, drew a deep sigh, and said, without animation, without apparent consciousness:

‘Punch, brothers, punch with care! Punch in the presence of the passenjare!’

A pang shot through me as I said to myself, ‘Poor fellow, poor fellow! he has got it, now.’

I did not see Mr. — for two or three days after that. Then, on Tuesday evening, he staggered into my presence and sank dejectedly into a seat. He was pale, worn; he was a wreck. He lifted his faded eyes to my face and said:

‘Ah, Mark, it was a ruinous investment that I made in those heartless rhymes. They have ridden me like a nightmare, day and night, hour after hour, to this very moment. Since I saw you I have suffered the torments of the lost. Saturday evening I had a sudden call, by telegraph, and took the night train for Boston.[80] The occasion was the death of a valued old friend who had requested that I should preach his funeral sermon. I took my seat in the cars and set myself to framing the discourse. But I never got beyond the opening paragraph; for then the train started and the car-wheels began their “clack, clack-clack-clack-clack! clack-clack! — clack-clack-clack!” and right away those odious rhymes fitted themselves to that accompaniment. For an hour I sat there and set a syllable of those rhymes to every separate and distinct clack the car-wheels made. Why, I was as fagged out, then, as if I had been chopping wood all day. My skull was splitting with headache. It seemed to me that I must go mad if I sat there any longer; so I undressed and went to bed. I stretched myself out in my berth, and — well, you know what the result was. The thing went right along, just the same. ‘Clack-clack clack, a blue trip slip, clack-clack-clack, for an eight cent fare; clack-clack-clack, a buff trip slip, clack clack-clack, for a six-cent fare, and so on, and so on, and so on punch in the presence of the passenjare!’ Sleep? Not a single wink! I was almost a lunatic when I got to Boston. Don’t ask me about the funeral. I did the best I could, but every solemn individual sentence was meshed and tangled and woven in and out with ‘Punch, brothers, punch with care, punch in the presence of the passenjare.’ And the most distressing thing was that my delivery dropped into the undulating rhythm of those pulsing rhymes, and I could actually catch absent-minded people nodding time to the swing of it with their stupid heads. And, Mark, you may believe it or not, but before I got through the entire assemblage were placidly bobbing their heads in solemn unison, mourners, undertaker, and all. The moment I had finished, I fled to the anteroom in a state bordering on frenzy. Of course it would be my luck to find a sorrowing and aged maiden aunt of the deceased there, who had arrived from Springfield