Biltmore Oswald — 06 - Part 6

I still feel convinced that Biff-Bang lost one of its most prepossessing and talented artists when I was so unceremoniously removed from the chorus.

_June 10th.

_ I was standing doing harm to no one in a vague, rather unfortunate way I have, when all of a sudden, without word or warning, a very competent looking sailor seized me by the shoulders and, thrusting his face close to mine, cried out: "Do you want to make a name for yourself in the service?"

I left the ground two feet below me in my fright and when I alighted there were tears of eagerness in my eyes.

"Yes," I replied breathlessly, "oh, sir, yes."

"Then pick up that," he cried dramatically, pointing to a cigar butt on the parade ground.

I didn't wait for the laughter.

I didn't have to.

It was forthcoming immediately.

Huge peals of it.

Sailors are a very low tribe of vertebrate.

They seem to hang around most of the time waiting for something to laugh at--usually me.

It is my belief that I have been the subject of more mirth since I came to camp than any other man on the station.

Whatever I do I seem to do it too much or too little.

There even seems to be something mirth-provoking in my personal appearance, which I have always regarded hitherto not without a certain shade of satisfaction.

Only the other day I caught the eyes of the gloomiest sailor in camp studying me with a puzzled expression.

He gazed at me for such a long time that I became quite disconcerted.

Slowly a smile spread over his face, then a strange, rusty laugh forced itself through his lips.

"Doggone if I can solve it," he chuckled, turning away and shaking his head; "it's just simply too much for me."

He looked back once, clapped his hands over his mouth and proceeded merrily on his way.

I am glad of course to be able to bring joy into the lives of sailors, but I did not enlist for that sole purpose.

Returning to the cigar butt, however, I was really quite disappointed.

I do so want to make a name for myself in the service that I would eagerly jump at the chance of sailing up the Kiel canal in a Barnegat Sneak Box were it not for the fact that sailing always makes me deathly sick.

I don't know why it is, but the more I have to do with water the more reasons I find for shunning it.

The cigar butt episode broke my heart though.

I was all keyed up for some heroic deed--what an anti-climax!

I left the spot in a bitter, humiliated mood.

There is only one comforting part about the whole affair--I did not pick up that cigar butt.

He did, I'll bet, though when nobody was looking.

I

don't know as I blame him--there were still several healthy drags left in it.

_June 11th.

_ This war is going to put a lot of Chinamen out of business if it keeps up much longer.

The first thing a sailor will do after he has been paid off will be to establish a laundry, and he won't be a slouch at the business at that.

I feel sure that I am qualified right now to take in family laundry and before the end of summer I guess I'll be able to do fancy work.

At present I am what you might call a first class laundryman, but I'm not a fancy laundryman yet.

Since they've put us in whites I go around with the washer-woman's complaint most of the time.

Terrible shooting pains in my back!

My sympathy for the downtrodden is increasing by leaps and bounds.

I can picture myself without any effort of the imagination bending over a tub after the war doing the family washing while my wife is out running for alderman or pulling the wires to be appointed Commissioner of the Docks.

The white clothes situation, however, is serious.

It seems that every spare moment I have I am either washing or thinking of washing or just after having washed, and to one who possesses as I do the uncanny faculty of being able to get dirtier in more places in the shortest space of time than any ten street children picked at random could ever equal, life presents one long vista of soap and suds.

[Illustration: "THIS WAR IS GOING TO PUT A LOT OF CHINAMEN OUT OF BUSINESS"]

"You boys look so cute in your funny white uniforms," a girl said to me the other day.

"It must be so jolly wearing them."

I didn't strike her, for she was easily ten pounds heavier than I was, but I made it easily apparent that our relations would never progress further than the weather vane.

I used to affect white pajamas, the same seeming to harmonize with the natural purity of my nature, but after the war I fear I shall be forced to discontinue the practise in favor of more lurid attire.

However, I still believe that a bachelor should never wear anything other than white pajamas or at the most lavender, but this of course is merely a personal opinion.

_June 14th.

_ I have been hard put to-day.

The Lord only knows what trials and tribulations will be visited upon me next.

At present I am quite unnerved.

To-day I was initiated into all the horrifying secrets and possibilities of the bayonet, European style.

Never do I remember spending a more unpleasant half an hour.

The instructor was a resourceful man possessed of a most vivid imagination.

Before he had finished with us potential delicatessen dealers were lying around as thick as flies.

We were brushing them off.

After several hair-raising exhibitions he formed us into two lines facing each other and told us to begin.

"Now lunge," he said, "and look as if you meant business."

I glanced ingratiatingly across at my adversary.

He was simply glaring at me.

Never have I seen an expression of greater ferocity.

It was too much.

I knew for certain that if he ever lunged at me I'd never live to draw another yellow slip.

"Mister Officer," I gasped, pointing across at this blood-thirsty man, "don't you think that he's just a little too close?

I'm afraid I might hurt him by accident."

The officer surveyed the situation with a swift, practical eye.

"Oh, I guess he can take care of himself all right," he replied.

That was just what I feared.

The man smiled grimly.

"But does he know that this is only practise?"

I continued.

"He certainly doesn't look as if he did."

"That's the way you should look," said the officer, "work your own face up a bit.

This isn't a vampire scene.

Don't look as if you were going to lure him.

Y'know you're supposed to be angry with your opponent when you meet him in battle, quite put out in fact.

And furthermore you're supposed to look it."

I regarded my opponent, but only terror was written on my face.

Then suddenly we lunged and either through fear or mismanagement I succeeded only in running my bayonet deep into the ground.

In some strange manner the butt of the gun jabbed me in the stomach and I was completely winded.

My opponent was dancing and darting around me like a local but thorough-going lightning storm.

I abandoned my gun and stood sideways, thus decreasing the possible area of danger.

Had the exercises continued much longer I would have had a spell of something, probably the blind staggers.

[Illustration: "I STOOD SIDE-WAYS, THUS DECREASING THE POSSIBLE AREA OF DANGER"]

"You're not pole vaulting," said the instructor to me, as he returned the gun.

"In a real show you'd have looked like a pin cushion by this time."

I felt like one.

Then it all started over again and this time I thought I was doing a little better, when quite unexpectedly the instructor shouted at me.

"Stop prancing around in that silly manner," he cried, "you're not doing a sword dance, sonny."

"He thinks he's still a show girl," some one chuckled, "he's that seductive."

Mess gear interrupted our happy morning.

The sight of a knife fairly sickened me.

_June 24th.

_ Last week I caught a liberty--a perfect Forty-three--and went to spend it with some cliff dwelling friends of mine who, heaven help their wretched lot!

lived on the sixth and top floor of one of those famous New York struggle-ups.

Before shoving off there was some slight misunderstanding between the inspecting officer and myself relative to the exact color of my, broadly speaking, Whites.

"Fall out, there," he said to me.

"You can't go out on liberty in Blues."

"But these, sir," I responded huskily, "are not Blues; they're Whites."

"Look like Blues to me," he said skeptically.

"Fall out anyway.

You're too dirty."

For the first time in my life I said nothing at the right time.

I just looked at him.

There was a dumb misery in my eyes, a mute, humble appeal such as is practised with so much success by dogs.

He couldn't resist it.

Probably he was thinking of the days when he, too, stood in line waiting impatiently for the final formalities to be run through before the world was his again.

"Turn around," he said brokenly.

I did so.

"Fall in," he ordered, after having made a prolonged inspection of my shrinking back.

"I guess you'll do, but you are only getting through on a technicality--there's one white spot under your collar."

Officers are people after all, although sometimes it's hard to realize it.

This one, in imagination, I anointed with oil and rare perfumes, and costly gifts I laid at his feet, while in a glad voice I called down the blessings of John Paul Jones upon his excellent head.

Thus I departed with my kind and never did the odor of gasoline smell sweeter in my nose than did the fumes that were being emitted by the impatient flivver that waited without the gate.

And sweet, too, was the fetid atmosphere of the subway after the clean, bracing air of Pelham, sweet was the smell of garlic belonging to a mustache that sat beside me, and sweet were the buttery fingers of a small child who kept clawing at me while their owner demanded of the whole car if I was a "weal mavy sailor boy?"

I didn't look it, and I didn't feel it, but I had forty-three hours of freedom ahead of me, so what did I care?

All went well with me until I essayed the six flight climb-up to the cave of these cliff-dwelling people, when I found that the one-storied existence I had been leading in the Pelham bungalows had completely unfitted me for mountain climbing.

As I toiled upward I wondered dimly how these people ever managed to keep so fat after having mounted to such a great distance for so long a time.

Somehow they had done it, not only maintained their already acquired fat but added greatly thereto.

There would be no refreshing cup to quaff upon arriving, only water, or at best milk.

This I knew and the knowledge added pounds to my already heavy feet.

"My, what a dirty sailor you are, to be sure," they said to me from the depth of their plump complacency.

"Quite so," I gasped, falling into a chair, "I seem to remember having heard the same thing once before to-day."

_June 25th.

_ Neither Saturday nor Sunday was a complete success and for a while Saturday afternoon assumed the proportions of a disaster.

After having rested from my climb, I decided to wash my Whites so that I wouldn't be arrested as a deserter or be thrown into the brig upon checking in.

The fat people on learning of my intentions decided that the sight of such labor would tire them beyond endurance, so they departed, leaving me in solitary possession of their flat.

I thereupon removed my jumper, humped my back over the tub, scrubbed industriously until the garment was white, then hastened roofwards and arranged it prettily on the line.

This accomplished, I hurried down, removed my trousers, rehumped my back over the tub, scrubbed industriously until the trousers in turn were white and once more dashed roofwards.

I have always been absent minded, but never to such an appalling extent as to appear clad only in my scanty underwear in the midst of a mixed throng of ladies, gentlemen and children.

This I did.

Some venturous souls had claimed the roof as their own during my absence so that when I sprang from the final step to claim my place in the sun I found myself by no means alone.

With a cry of horror I leaped to the other side of the clothes-line and endeavored to conceal myself behind an old lady's petticoat or a lady's old petticoat or something of that nature.

Whoever wore the thing must have been a very short person indeed, for the garment reached scarcely down to my knees, below which my B. V. D.'

s fluttered in an intriguing manner.

"Sir," thundered a pompous gentleman, "have you any explanation for your surprising conduct?"

"Several," I replied briskly from behind my only claim on respectability.

"In the first place, I didn't expect an audience.

In the second--" "That will do, sir," broke in this heavy person in a quarterdeck voice.

"Who, may I ask, are you?"

"You may," I replied.

"I'm a God-fearing sailor man who is doing the best he can to keep nice and clean in spite of the uncalled for intervention of a red-faced oaf of a plumber person who should know better than to stand around watching him."

[Illustration: "I'M A GOD-FEARING SAILOR MAN WHO IS DOING THE BEST HE CAN TO KEEP CLEAN"]

"Don't take on so, George," said one of the women whom I suspected of edging around in order to get a better view of me, "the poor young man is a sailor--where is your patriotism?"

"Yes," broke in the other woman, edging around on the other side, "he's one of our sailor boys.

Treat him nice."

"Patriotic, I am," roared George wrathfully, "but not to the extent of condoning and looking lightly upon such a flagrant breach of decency as this semi-nude, so-called sailor has committed in our midst."

"If you'd give me a couple of Thrift Stamps," I suggested, "I might be able to come out from behind this blooming barrage."

"Shameless," exploded the man.

"Not at all," I replied, "in the olden days it was quite customary for young gentlemen and elderly stout ones like yourself, for instance, to drop in at the best caves with very much less on than I have without any one considering their conduct in any degree irregular.

In fact, the ladies of this time were no better themselves, it being deemed highly proper for them to appear in some small bit of stuff and nobody thought the worst of it at all.

Take the early days of the fifteenth century B. C.

--" At this point in my eloquent address a young child, who had hitherto escaped my attention, took it upon herself to swing on the line with the result that it parted with a snap and my last vestige of protection came fluttering to the roof.

For one tense moment I stood gazing into the dilated eyes of those before me.

Then with surprising presence of mind, I sprang to a ladder that led to the water tank, swarmed up it with the agility of a cat and lowered myself with a gasp of despair into the cold, cold water of the tank.

From this place of security I gazed down on the man who had been responsible for my unfortunate plight.

I felt myself sinned against, and the longer I remained in that water, up to my neck, the more I felt my wrongs.

I

gave voice to them.

I said bitter, abusive things to the man.

"Clear the quarter deck," I shouted, "get aft, or, by gad, I'll come fluttering down there on your flat, bald head like a blooming flood.

Vamoos, hombre, pronto--plenty quick and take your brood with you."

Then I said some more things as my father before me had said them, and the man withdrew with his women.

"He's a sailor," he said as he did so.

"Hurry, my dears, this is worse than nakedness."

I emerged and sat in a borrowed bathrobe the rest of the evening.

The next morning my clothes were still damp.

Now, that's what I call a stupid way to spend a Saturday night on liberty.

The fat people enjoyed it.

_June 29th.

_ I met a very pleasant dog yesterday, whom I called Mr. Fogerty because of his sober countenance and the benign but rather puzzled expression in his large, limpid eyes, which were almost completely hidden by his bangs.

He was evidently a visitor in camp, so I took him around and introduced him to the rest of the dogs and several of the better sort of goats.

In all of these he displayed a friendly but dignified interest, seeming to question them on the life of the camp, how they liked the Navy and what they thought were the prospects for an early peace.

He refused to be separated from me, however, and even broke into the mess hall, from which he was unceremoniously ejected, but not before he had gotten half of my ration.

In some strange manner he must have found out from one of the other dogs my name and address and exactly where I swung, for in the middle of the night I awoke to hear a lonesome whining in the darkness beneath my hammock and then the sniff, sniff of an investigating nose.

As I know how it feels to be lonely in a big black barracks in the dead of night I carefully descended to the deck and collected this animal--it was my old friend, Mr. Fogerty, and he was quite overjoyed at having once more found me.

After licking my face in gratitude he sat back on his haunches and waited for me to do something amusing.

I

didn't have the heart to leave him there in the darkness.

Dogs have a certain way about them that gets me every time.

I lifted Mr. Fogerty, a huge hulk of a dog, with much care, and adjusting of overlapping paws into my hammock, and received a kiss in the eye for my trouble.

Then I followed Mr. Fogerty into the hammock and resumed my slumber, but not with much comfort.

Mr. Fogerty is a large, sprawly dog, who evidently has been used to sleeping in vast spaces and who sees no reason for changing a lifelong habit.

Consequently he considered me in the nature of a piece of gratifying upholstery.

He slept with his hind legs on my stomach and his front paws propped against my chin.

When he scratched, as he not infrequently did, what I decided must be a flea, his hind leg beat upon the canvas and produced a noise not unlike a drum.

Thus we slept, but through some miscalculation I must have slept over, for it seems that the Master-at-arms, a very large and capable Irishman, came and shook my hammock.

[Illustration: "I TOOK HIM AROUND AND INTRODUCED HIM TO THE REST OF THE DOGS AND SEVERAL OF THE BETTER SORT OF GOATS"]

"Hit the deck there, sailor," he said, "shake a leg, shake a leg."

At this point Mr. Fogerty took it upon himself to peer over the side of the hammock to see who this disturber of peace and quiet could be.

This was just a little out of the line of duty for the jimmy legs, and I can't say as I blame him for his conduct under rather trying circumstances.

Mr. Fogerty has a large, shaggy head, not unlike a lion's, and his mouth, too, is quite large and contains some very long and sharp teeth.

It seems that Mr. Fogerty, still heavy with slumber, quite naturally yawned into the horrified face of the Jimmy-legs, who, mistaking the operation for a hostile demonstration, retreated from the barracks with admirable rapidity for one so large, crying in a distracted voice as he did so: "By the saints, it's a beast he's turned into during the night.

Sure, it's a visitation of Providence, heaven preserve us."

It seems I have been washing hammocks ever since.

Mr. Fogerty sits around and wonders what it's all about.

I like Fogerty, but he gets me in trouble, and in this I need no help whatsoever.