Perkins, the Fakeer

CHAPTER VI.

PROTOPLASM AND FROTH

There was not the least doubt that our dinner in honor of the German biologist, Plätner, had been a tremendous success. Long before we had reached the game course I had caught the gleam of triumph in Tom's eyes, and across the long board my gaze had met his in joyous congratulation. It was not merely personal glory that we had won by this well-conceived and smoothly executed social function. In a way, we had vindicated our caste, had proved to a censorious world that the inner circle of metropolitan society is not wholly frivolous, utterly indifferent to the achievements of genius and the marvelous feats of modern science.

When Tom had first suggested to me the possibility of our entertaining Plätner, whose efforts had won the enthusiasm of materialists in all parts of the world, I had fought shy of the project. Tom's idea was to gather at our table the most noted scientists of the city, with the German biologist as the magnet, and to select our women from among the cleverest of our set, once vulgarly known as the "Four Hundred." Upon his first presentation of the scheme I had argued that it was impracticable, that the scientists would find our women frivolous, and that our women would be horribly bored by the sages. Even up to the moment of our entrance to the dining-room I had been annoyed by the fear that my pessimistic attitude toward the function was to be vindicated, that Tom's effort to make oil and water mix was doomed to failure.

And the funniest thing about the whole affair is that we were saved from disaster and raised to glory through the quaint personality of the Herr Doctor, our guest of honor. A typical German savant in appearance, with spectacles, beard and agitated hair, he displayed from the outset a perfect self-control beneath which, one quickly realized, glowed the fires of a fine enthusiasm. Speaking French or English with a fluency that was enviable, he aired his hobby in a genial, entertaining way, which saved him from being the bore that a man with a fixed idea is so apt to prove. Protoplasm may seem to be a most unpromising topic upon which to base the conversation at a fashionable dinner-party, but I found myself intensely interested, before the oyster-plates had been removed, in the scientific discussion that the learned Herr Doctor had set in motion and Tom had deftly kept alive.

"I had been impressed, years ago," Plätner had begun, in answer to a polite question from Mrs. "Ned" Farrington, who is a very tactful woman; "I had been impressed by the similarity of protoplasm to a fine froth." Here the German scientist held an oyster poised on a fork and gazed at it musingly, the while he continued, in almost flawless English: "The most available froth, soap lather, is made up of air bubbles entangled in soap solution. After years of experimenting, my friends, I succeeded in making an oil foam from soapy water and olive oil. Under the microscope my solution closely resembles protoplasm."

"Does it really?" cried Mrs. "Ned," rapturously.

"Wonderful!" commented Professor Shanks, America's most noted zoölogist.

"It's curious," remarked Elinor Scarsdale, rather cleverly, I thought, "that from protoplasm to the highest civilization there should have been a struggle from soap to soap."

The Herr Doctor glanced approvingly at the brightest débutante of the season.

"In those words, young lady," he said, with flattering emphasis, "you have summed up the whole history of physical evolution. But to continue: My drops of oil foam act as if they were alive, their movements bearing a most marvelous resemblance to the activities of Pelomyxa, a jelly-like marine creature, protoplasmic in its simplicity." The Herr Doctor was again addressing his remarks to his oyster fork.

"Do I understand you, Dr. Plätner," asked Tom, from the foot of the table, "that, under the microscope, rhozopod protoplasm, for example, would resemble your–ah–oil foam?"

"So closely, sir," answered Herr Plätner, instantly, "that I have often deceived the most expert microscopists in Germany. Furthermore, Mr. Minturn, my artificial protoplasm retains its activity for long periods of time. I made one drop, sir, that was alive, so to speak, for six days."

"And then it died?" asked Mrs. "Ned," mournfully.

"To speak unscientifically, yes," answered the German, carefully. "Now, what are we to gather from all this, my friends?" The butler had removed the oysters, and the Herr Doctor was forced to glance at his audience.

"New reverence for soap and olive oil," suggested one of the younger scientists, a professor at a neighboring university.

Plätner eyed the speaker suspiciously, and then said:

"That, of course, sir; but much more than that. I have proved conclusively, my friends, that the primary movements of life are due to structure, and that there is absolutely no necessity for believing in any peculiar vital essence or force. The living cell, I confidently assert, may be built up out of inert matter. The old-fashioned idea of a vital spark being absolutely essential is as obsolete as the belief in special creation. Let me live a hundred years, my friends, and I'll make for you a Goethe or a Shakespeare out of soap lather and olive oil."

"Just imagine it!" exclaimed Mrs. Farringdon, gazing with exaggerated admiration at the German genius.

"It's really not so shocking to our pride of ancestry as it seems at first sight;" Tom ventured to suggest. "Our generation has become reconciled, perforce, to its humble origin. It is hard for us to realize how severely Darwinism shocked our fathers and mothers."

"As I understand you, Dr. Plätner," broke in Mrs. "Bob" Vincent, turning the blaze of her great, dark eyes full upon the German's face, "your discovery is a triumph for the extreme materialists? It destroys absolutely all the bases upon which the belief in psychic forces rests? We are machines, wound up to run for a while, and then to stop forever?"

"You have practically stated my creed, madame," answered the Herr Doctor, gravely. "Constant motion, constant change–these are the alpha and the omega of the universe. Why should we superimpose the concept of a psychical existence upon a structure that is already perfect? As I said in other words, my friends, I could, if sufficient time were granted to me, rebuild the earth and its creatures in my laboratory."

"Provided that it was situated near a barber shop and a delicatessen store," whispered Dr. Hopkins, who had been listening in silence on my left to our guest of honor. I was glad to hear this subdued note of protest from so eminent a source, but he shook his gray head as I glanced at him approvingly. Professor Hopkins, Ph. D., loves science but hates controversy. Had he crossed swords at that moment with the German he would have found, I imagine, that the sympathies of my guests were with the materialist. When a scientist frankly tells you that he can manufacture protoplasm, and goes on to describe to you his method of procedure, it's well to pause before plunging into an argument with him. But I, who had good reason to know that Herr Plätner was ludicrously at fault in his conception of the universe, could not but regret that so brilliant a champion as Dr. Hopkins had not rushed to the defense of the truth. For a moment I was almost tempted to defy the rules of hospitality and voice the new faith that had come to me in the existence of psychic mysteries. This inclination was intensified by Herr Plätner's answer to a question put to him by one of the men.

"It's all the veriest rubbish," I heard the German saying, with great emphasis. "All those Oriental philosophies and religions are merely picturesque presentments of the truths that are clearly stated by modern materialism, so-called. What is Nirvana but simply cessation of motion? Admitting reincarnation, for example, as a working hypothesis, it would mean simply the coming and going of atomic vibrations with successive losses of identity. They are dreamers, those Orientals, seeing half truths clearly enough, but never following them out to their logical conclusions."

"And yet the East is the mother of lather and olive oil," murmured Dr. Hopkins, under his breath.

At that instant my heart leaped into my throat, and I sprang to my feet in affright. With Horatio in her arms, his nurse had rushed frantically into the dining-room, despite the interference of the butler, and, with blanched face and staring eyes, was bearing down on me, with the purpose, evidently, of thrusting the baby into my grasp.

"Take him! take him!" she cried, hysterically, and before I could resist her insistence, Horatio was squirming in my bare arms. "He's bewitched," continued his nurse, frantically. "He's been talking like a man. I'm through with him. He ain't a baby! You just wait a moment, Mrs. Minturn. He'll speak again in a moment. He's got a voice like a steam calliope. And what he says! Oh, my!"

"Take her away at once," Tom was crying to the butler. "She has gone crazy," he went on, rushing past our astounded guests to my assistance. "Don't be frightened, my dear! I always thought that she was unbalanced, and now I know it. Poor little Horatio! He looks scared to death!"

CHAPTER VII.

A BIOLOGIST AND A BABY

"Isn't he a lovely baby!"

"Don't send him away, Mrs. Minturn."

"Get his high chair for him, James."

"See him smile! I don't wonder at his relief. Just imagine being in the care of a crazy nurse!"

"What wild eyes she had! You say she was always eccentric, Mr. Minturn?"

"The baby's only eight months old? Really, Mrs. Minturn, he looks older."

"He has such pretty eyes! And look at the dimples in his little hands. Doesn't he ever cry? How good he is, dear little fellow!"

"Horatio! What a fine, dignified name! Horatio held a bridge, didn't he? or was it a full house?"

"What a question for a famous scientist to ask!"

The baby, erect and smiling in his high chair, had wonderfully enlivened our dinner-party. Even Tom, startled as he had been by the advent of the distraught nurse, was now wholly at his ease and beamed genially from the foot of the table upon the youngster, who seemed to be delighted at the attention that he was receiving from beautiful women and famous men. As he sat there, merrily waving a spoon in the air and crowing lustily, I watched him with mingled pride and consternation. Although a most distressing episode had been brought to a picturesque conclusion, there seemed to me to be startling possibilities in the present situation. I did not like the flush upon the baby's cheeks, the unnatural gleam in his laughing eyes. Impulsively I bent down and kissed him upon his pretty mouth. My worst fears were instantly realized, and I felt my spinal marrow turn to ice. I had detected the odor of a cocktail upon Horatio's–or, rather, Jack's–breath.

"I am forced to acknowledge, madame," I heard Herr Plätner saying, in answer to one of Mrs. Farringdon's leading questions, "I am forced to acknowledge that my theories destroy much of the poetry of life. It is a most prosaic attitude that I am forced to hold toward yonder most beautiful baby, for example. Romance would point to him as an immortal soul in embryo. Realism asserts that he is a machine, like the rest of us, with a longer lease of activity before him than you or I have, who have been ticking, so to speak, for several years."

"Be good, Horatio!" I whispered. "Don't cry. You can have an ice pretty soon."

The baby brought his spoon down upon the table with a thump, and actually glared at the German professor, while my guests laughed gaily at the child's precocious demonstration.

"Isn't he cunning!" exclaimed Elinor Scarsdale, delightedly.

"He seems to have a prejudice against me, nicht wahr?" remarked the Herr Doctor, laughing aloud.

"You aren't to blame for that, little boy," murmured Dr. Hopkins, so that I alone could hear him. "He says that you are sprung from oil and lather and are rushing toward annihilation."

"Bah!" yelled the baby. "Bah! bah! bah!"

"'Ba-ba, ba-ba, black sheep, have 'oo any wool?' quoted Professor Rogers, the noted comparative philologist, who has identified the germ of epic poetry in the earliest known cradle songs.

"Isn't he fascinating!" cried Elinor Scarsdale, referring to the baby, not to the philologist.

"If you'll excuse me for a time," I said to my guests, seeing that Tom was growing weary of Horatio's prominence at the table, "I'll take the baby to the nursery."

"You'll do it at your peril," I heard a deep voice grumble, and Dr. Hopkins jumped nervously and glanced at me in amazement.

"Don't run off with him, Mrs. Minturn," cried Mrs. Farringdon; and her protest was sustained by a chorus of "don't" and "do let him stay."

"It may be only temporary," I heard Dr. Plätner saying, as he gazed at Professor Shanks, who had asked him, evidently, a question about the baby's nurse. "It's not an uncommon form of insanity, and may be only temporary. I recall an instance of a very learned and perfectly harmless professor at Göttingen who believed for years that his pet cat talked Sanskrit to him. There was at my own university a young man wholly sane, apparently, who made a record of conversations that he had held with the skeleton of a gorilla. Both of these men were eventually restored to mental health, and have never had a return of their delusions. It is fortunate, however, that the poor woman, whose insanity we have so recently witnessed, exhibited her mania at this time. What might have happened otherwise to that charming little baby I shudder to think."

Horatio was pounding the table with a spoon, as if applauding the Herr Doctor's remarks. Suddenly he dropped the spoon and made a grab for Dr. Hopkins's wine-glass.

"What vivacity he has!" remarked Professor Shanks, as if addressing a roomful of students interested in a zoölogical specimen.

"He seems to know a rare vintage when he sees it," suggested Dr. Hopkins, intending, of course, to compliment his hostess.

"I think my dear–" began Tom, nervously.

"Don't go any further, Mr. Minturn," cried Elinor Scarsdale, playfully. "The baby is so much more interesting than–"

"Protoplasm," added Dr. Hopkins, under his breath.

Dr. Plätner was gazing at the baby searchingly. He had been impressed evidently by certain eccentricities in Horatio's bearing.

"How old did you say the boy was, madame?" asked the German savant, presently.

"Eight months," I answered, a catch in my voice that I could not control.

"He's–ah–very intelligent for a child of that age," commented Plätner, laboring under the mistake that he was saying something complimentary. "He has a most expressive face."

As the baby was scowling savagely at the German at that moment, and frantically shaking his little fists at him, there were both pith and point to the latter's remark.

"Rot!" muttered Jack, wickedly. I sprang to my feet and lifted him from his chair. He kicked protestingly for a moment, and gave vent to a yell that bore witness to his possession of a marvelous pair of lungs.

"Be quiet, Horatio," I whispered, imploringly, hurrying toward the door, without further apology to my guests. "If you'll be silent now, I'll have a bottle of champagne brought to the nursery."

At these words the baby nestled affectionately in my arms, and I felt that the fight was won. Just as we reached the doorway, however, Jack clambered to my shoulder and waved his little fist defiantly at my guests.

"Damn that frowsy old German donkey!" he muttered, close to my ear. "I'd give half a bottle of cocktails to prove to him what an amazing ignoramus he is! Just wait a minute, will you, Clarissa?"

I rushed out of the dining-room without more ado. In another instant Jack would have said the word that trembled on his tiny mouth, the word that would have brought the whole temple of modern materialism toppling down upon Herr Plätner's devoted head.

CHAPTER VIII.

HUSH-A-BY, NUMBER ONE!

The nursery was in a condition of much disorder as I entered it with the baby's arms around my neck. Much to my surprise and delight Jack had fallen asleep as we mounted the stairs. How to get him into his crib without rousing him was a problem that I longed to solve, although I had determined not to return to the dining-room. I would send a maid presently to tell the butler to inform Tom that I could not leave the baby at this crisis. Surely our guests would consider a crazy nurse sufficient excuse for the retirement of their hostess.

But Jack opened his little eyes and crowed, rather hilariously, as I laid him on his pillows.

"Don't go, my dear Clarissa," he said, his baby tones strangely out of harmony with his words. "I have much to say to you at once. I owe you an explanation and apology. Sit down, won't you?"

"Keep quiet, Jack," I whispered, "I'll be back in a moment."

After I had despatched a servant to the dining-room with my message to Tom, and had assured myself that the baby's hysterical nurse had left the house–poor woman, I was sincerely sorry for her!–I returned to the nursery and shut myself in, with a feeling of great relief. So intense, indeed, was my nervous reaction after hours of varied emotions that I sank at once into a chair to check a sensation of dizziness that had come over me as I crossed the room.

"Isn't this cosy!" exclaimed the baby, kneeling at the side of his crib and striving to touch me with his fat, uncertain little hands. "I wanted to say to you, Clarissa, that I did not deliberately plan to frighten that tyrannical nurse of mine. To tell you the truth, my dear, I had taken just one swallow too much of those cocktails and was astonished to discover that, while thus slightly elevated, so to speak, I could communicate in the language of maturity with this–ah–comparative stranger. Naturally, it was a great shock to the nurse. As I remarked to you before, my dear, she's narrow. A more broad-minded woman would not have rushed before the public, making a kind of Balaam's ass of a helpless baby. But she's been discharged, of course?"

"She has gone away, if that's what you mean," I answered, laughing rather hysterically. "How do you account for your sudden loquacity in her presence, Jack?"

"That's a mystery," said the baby, screwing up his tiny mouth into a funny little knot. "Spirits had something to do with it, I suppose."

"Spirits!" I repeated, nervously.

"Yes," responded Jack, clapping his palms together with a ludicrously infantile gesture. "You see, my dear, there were spirits in the cocktail. To tell you the truth, Clarissa, I'm a bit scared. I'm going to swear off. By the way, did you order that champagne?"

"No," I answered, curtly.

"Well, perhaps it's better, on the whole, that you didn't," sighed the baby, tumbling back on his pillows and waving his chubby legs in the air. "I've about made up my mind, my dear, to lead a better life. It'll be easier for me to be good than it has been, now that the nurse is gone. She was so narrow, Clarissa! It was always on my mind, and it finally drove me to drink."

"I'll have to replace her at once, Jack," I remarked, drawing my chair closer to the crib. "What–ah–that is–have you some idea as to just what kind of a nurse you'd like?"

The baby was on his knees again at the side of the crib, waving his expressive fists in the air.

"Understand me, Clarissa," he said, sternly, "I refuse to risk my life again by placing myself in the power of a hireling nurse. You can't expect people of that kind to be open to new ideas. To a man of my temperament, my dear, you must realize that repeated doses of baby-talk are actually cloying. If you could engage some broad-minded, elderly woman who had been deaf and dumb from birth, I might put up with her for a while. But, of course, it would be hard to find such a prize. You'll have to look after your little baby yourself, my dear, until I'm a few years older. It'll be hard for you, I realize that, Clarissa. But, frankly, is there any other alternative? If I'm to lead a better life, my dear, I must have some encouragement."

I leaned back in my chair, and closed my eyes wearily. The burden that had been thrust upon me was growing greater than I could bear.