This preyed upon Aubrey’s mind. It gave him a feeling of disembodied spirituality which was most unpleasant. Sometimes he had to pinch himself to make sure that he was there. When signing a check he would often pause an instant to remember what name he ought to write.
He began to brood. Lying awake at night, he would try to think up ways of making a name for himself. He went at it systematically. He made a list of the most prominent men in the country, men who had made names for themselves, as follows:
President Wilson, William J. Bryan, Jack Johnson, Vernon Castle, Billy Sunday, George M. Cohan, John D. Rockefeller.
Could he follow in these men’s footsteps? No, and, briefly, for the following reasons:
He did not know how to wait watchfully. He disliked grape-juice. He could not box. He tripped over his feet when he tried to foxtrot. He did not perspire readily. He had no father. He had a good digestion.
Sometimes he thought of committing a murder or robbing a bank, but refrained because the sight of blood always made him feel faint and there seemed, for a novice, to be so few opportunities of robbing banks.
But one morning Fate relented. Genevieve O’Grady entered his life.
One really scarcely knows what to say of Miss O’Grady. She was employed by the Mammoth Store, and, except on very rare occasions, hardly ever had to work more than eleven hours a day. And she was in receipt of the excellent salary of five and half dollars a week, ample for a young girl who does not keep an automobile and has mastered the art of living on bread and weak tea. Looking at it with the eye of a dispassionate observer, one would have said that life was one long round of enjoyment for the girl. She had the whole day to herself except from eight in the morning till seven at night, and nothing to do with her money, after feeding and clothing herself, except squander it on her personal pleasure.
Yet this child of fortune, in a silly mood, flung herself off the side of a ferry-boat into the whirling waters of the Hudson River. Of the dozen or so spectators of the incident, all had some remark to make about it. One said, “What did she do that for?” Another said, “Would you look at that!” Others declared that somebody ought to do something about it.
The only person present to take definite action was Aubrey Rockmetteller Devine.
To Aubrey this chance seemed sent by Heaven. Pausing merely to remove his hat he plunged in and swam to where Miss O’Grady, now repenting of her rash act, kicked and called for help. The only doubt in his mind was the exact way in which the papers would feature the thing.
They might say:
DEVINE’S DASHING DEED DARINGLY DRAGS DAMSEL FROM DIRE DESTRUCTION
Or possibly,
DEVINE DID IT Saw, Seized, Saved Suicidal Shop Girl
Or again,
DARE-DEVIL DEVINE DIVERTS DEATH BY DROWNING
As he reached her, Miss O’Grady came up for the third time and twined herself clingingly about him. They returned below the surface together.
Just about the time when the only really suitable headline for the incident would have been
DEVINE SWALLOWS ALL OF THE HUDSON RIVER
help arrived.
After they had done all that first-aid-for-the-apparently-drowned stuff on Aubrey, they took him and the dripping lady to Park Row. There the reporters all had a good look at him.
“Why, I know that man,” one of the news editors finally exclaimed. “It’s — it’s — I’ve forgotten his name, but he’s Adelaide Brewster Moggs’ husband.”
THE DISAPPEARANCE OF PODMARSH
GOOD NEWS FOR AFTER-DINNER SPEAKERS
Stuyvesant Bodger, the explorer, is back from West Africa with a strange story, — several strange stories, in fact, but one which differs from the others in that we cannot be absolutely certain that it is a lie. He claims to have seen and spoken to Robert Podmarsh.
Only the oldest members now remember Podmarsh, once the scourge of the club. It is so many years since he disappeared. He vanished one summer without warning, and I can still recall the period of anxiety we lived through. We were afraid he might be in our midst at any moment, telling us those old familiar humorous stories of his under which we had suffered so long. Then, as the days went by and he still remained absent, a new hope began to animate our breasts. And finally we came to the conclusion that he must be dead.