The Idiot

I

For some weeks af­ter the hap­py event which trans­formed the pop­ular Mrs. Smithers in­to the charm­ing Mrs. John Ped­agog all went well at that la­dy's se­lect home for sin­gle gen­tle­men. It was on­ly prop­er that dur­ing the hon­ey-​moon, at least, of the hap­py cou­ple hos­til­ities be­tween the Id­iot and his fel­low-​board­ers should cease. It was ex­pect­ing too much of mankind, how­ev­er, to look for a con­tin­ued armistice, and the morn­ing ar­rived when Na­ture once more re­assert­ed her­self, and trou­ble be­gan. Just what it was that prompt­ed the re­mark no one knows, but it hap­pened that the Id­iot did say that he thought that, af­ter all, life on a canal-​boat had its ad­van­tages. Mr. Ped­agog, who had come in­to the din­ing-​room in a slight­ly ir­ri­ta­ble frame of mind, in­duced per­haps by Mrs. Ped­agog's in­sis­tence that as he was now part pro­pri­etor of the house he should be a lit­tle more prompt in mak­ing his con­tri­bu­tions to­wards its main­te­nance, chose to take the re­mark as im­ply­ing a re­flec­tion up­on the way things were man­aged in the house­hold.

“Humph!” he said. “I had hoped that your habit of air­ing your id­iot­ic views had been put aside for once and for all.”

“Very ab­surd hope, my dear sir,” ob­served the Id­iot. “Views that are not aired be­come musty. Why shouldn't I give them an at­mo­spher­ic op­por­tu­ni­ty once in a while?”

“Be­cause they are the sort of views to which suf­fo­ca­tion is the most ap­pro­pri­ate end,” snapped the School-​Mas­ter. “Any man who as­serts, as you have as­sert­ed, that life on a canal-​boat has its ad­van­tages, ought to go fur­ther, and prove his sin­cer­ity by liv­ing on one.”

“I can't af­ford it,” said the Id­iot, meek­ly. “It isn't cheap by any man­ner of means. In the first place, you can't live hap­pi­ly on a canal-​boat un­less you can af­ford to keep hors­es. In fact, canal-​boat life is a com­bi­na­tion of the most ex­pen­sive lux­uries, since it com­bines yacht­ing and driv­ing with do­mes­tic­ity. Nev­er­the­less, if you will put your mind on it, you will find that with a canal-​boat for your home you can do a great many things that you can't do with a house.”

“I de­cline to put my mind on a canal-​boat,” said Mr. Ped­agog, sharply, pass­ing his cof­fee back to Mrs. Ped­agog for an­oth­er lump of sug­ar, there­by con­tribut­ing to that good la­dy's dis­com­fi­ture, since be­fore their mar­riage the mere fact that the cof­fee had been poured by her fair hand had giv­en it all the sweet­ness it need­ed; or at least that was what the School-​Mas­ter had said, and more than once at that.

“You are un­der no obli­ga­tion to do so,” the Id­iot re­turned. “Though if I had a mind like yours I'd put it on a canal-​boat and have it towed away some­where out of sight. These oth­er gen­tle­men, how­ev­er, I think, will agree with me when I say that the mere fact that a canal-​boat can be moved about the coun­try, and is in no sense a fix­ture any­where, shows that as a dwelling-​place it is su­pe­ri­or to a house. Take this house, for in­stance. This neigh­bor­hood used to be the best in town. It is still far from be­ing the worst neigh­bor­hood in town, but it is, as it has been for sev­er­al years, de­te­ri­orat­ing. The es­tab­lish­ment of a Turk­ish bath on one cor­ner and a gro­cery-​store on the oth­er has tak­en away much of that air of re­fine­ment which char­ac­ter­ized it when the block was de­vot­ed to res­iden­tial pur­pos­es en­tire­ly. Now just sup­pose for a mo­ment that this street were a canal, and that this house were a canal-​boat. The canal could run down as much as it pleased, the neigh­bor­hood could de­te­ri­orate eter­nal­ly, but it could not af­fect the val­ue of this house as the home of re­fined peo­ple as long as it was pos­si­ble to hitch up a team of hors­es to the front stoop and tow it in­to a bet­ter lo­cal­ity. I'd like to wa­ger ev­ery man at this ta­ble that Mrs. Ped­agog wouldn't take five min­utes to make up her mind to tow this house up to a spot near Cen­tral Park, if it were a canal-​boat and the streets were wa­ter in­stead of a mix­ture of wa­ter, sand, and Bel­gian blocks.”

“No tak­ers,” said the Bib­lio­ma­ni­ac.

“Tutt-​tutt-​tutt,” ejac­ulat­ed Mr. Ped­agog.

[Il­lus­tra­tion: “THE NUI­SANCE OF HAV­ING TO PAY”]

“You seem to lose sight of an­oth­er fact,” said the Id­iot, warm­ing up to his sub­ject. “If man had had the sense in the be­gin­ning to adopt the canal-​boat sys­tem of life, and we were used to that sort of thing, it would not be so hard up­on us in sum­mer-​time, when we have to live in ho­tels in or­der that we and our fam­ilies may reap the ben­efits of a pe­ri­od of coun­try life. We could sim­ply drive off to that sec­tion of the coun­try where we de­sired to be. Ho­tels would not be need­ed if a man could take his house along with him in­to the fields, and one phase of life which has more bad than good in it would be en­tire­ly oblit­er­at­ed. There is noth­ing more dis­turb­ing to the seren­ity of a do­mes­tic man's mind than the ar­ti­fi­cial man­ner of liv­ing that pre­vails in most sum­mer ho­tels. The nui­sance of hav­ing to pay bills ev­ery Mon­day morn­ing un­der the penal­ty of los­ing one's lug­gage would be ob­vi­at­ed, and all the com­forts of home would be di­rect­ly with­in reach. The trou­ble in­ci­dent up­on get­ting the trunks packed and the chil­dren ready for a long day's jour­ney by rail, and the fa­tigue aris­ing from such a jour­ney, would be re­duced to a min­imum. The trou­bles at­ten­dant up­on go­ing in­to a far coun­try, and leav­ing one's house in the sole charge of a lot of ser­vants for a month or two ev­ery year, would be done away with en­tire­ly; and if at any time it be­came nec­es­sary to dis­charge one of these ser­vants, she could be put off the boat in an in­stant, and then the boat could be pushed out in­to the mid­dle of the canal, so that the dis­charged do­mes­tic could not pos­si­bly get aboard again and take her re­venge by smash­ing your crock­ery and fix­tures. That is one of the worst fea­tures of liv­ing in a sta­tion­ary house. You are en­tire­ly at the mer­cy of vin­dic­tive ser­vants. They know pre­cise­ly where you live, and you can­not es­cape them. They can come back when there is no man around, and raise sev­er­al va­ri­eties of Ned with your wife and chil­dren. With a mov­able house, such as the canal-​boat would be, you could al­ways go off and leave your fam­ily in per­fect safe­ty.”

[Il­lus­tra­tion: “SHE COULD NOT POS­SI­BLY GET ABOARD AGAIN”]

“How about safe­ty in a storm?” asked the Bib­lio­ma­ni­ac.

“Safe­ty in a storm?” echoed the Id­iot. “That seems an ab­surd sort of a ques­tion to one who knows any­thing about canal-​boats. I, for one, nev­er heard of a canal-​boat be­ing se­ri­ous­ly dam­aged in a storm as long as it was an­chored in the canal prop­er. It cer­tain­ly isn't any more dan­ger­ous to be in a canal-​boat in a storm than it is to be in a house that of­fers re­sis­tance to the winds, and is shak­en from roof to cel­lar at ev­ery blast. More hous­es have been blown from their foun­da­tions than canal-​boats sunk, pro­vid­ed or­di­nary care has been tak­en to pro­tect them.”

“And you think the canal-​boat would be healthy?” asked the Doc­tor. “How about damp­ness and all that?”

“That is a pro­fes­sion­al ques­tion,” re­turned the Id­iot, “which I think you could an­swer bet­ter than I. I don't see why a canal-​boat shouldn't be healthy, how­ev­er. The damp­ness would not amount to very much. It would be out­side of one's dwelling, and not with­in it, as is the case with so many hous­es. A canal-​boat hav­ing no cel­lar could not have a damp one, and if by some un­to­ward cir­cum­stance it should spring a leak, the wa­ter could be pumped out at once and the leak plugged up. How­ev­er this might be, I'll of­fer an­oth­er wa­ger to this board on that point, and that is that more peo­ple die in hous­es than on canal-​boats.”

“We'd rather give you our mon­ey right out,” re­tort­ed the Doc­tor.

“Thank you,” said the Id­iot. “But I don't need mon­ey. I don't like mon­ey. Mon­ey is re­spon­si­ble for more ex­trav­agance than any oth­er com­mod­ity in ex­is­tence. Be­sides, it and I are not in­ti­mate enough to get along very well to­geth­er, and when I have any I im­me­di­ate­ly do my lev­el best to rid my­self of it. But to re­turn to our canal-​boat, I note a look of dis­ap­proval in Mr. White­chok­er's eyes. He doesn't seem to think any more of my scheme than do the rest of you--which I re­gret, since I be­lieve that he would be the gain­er if land ed­ifices were sup­plant­ed by the canal sys­tem as pro­posed by my­self. Take church on a rainy morn­ing, for in­stance. A great many peo­ple stay at home from church on rainy morn­ings just be­cause they do not want to ven­ture out in the wet. Sup­pose we all lived in canal-​boats? Would not peo­ple be de­prived of this flim­sy pre­text for stay­ing at home if their homes could be towed up to the church door? Or, bet­ter yet, grant­ing that the church­es fol­lowed out the same plan, and were them­selves con­struct­ed like canal-​boats, how easy it would be for the sex­ton to drive the church around the town and col­lect the ab­sen­tees. In the same man­ner it would be glo­ri­ous for men like our­selves, who have to go to their dai­ly toil. For a con­sid­er­ation, Mrs. Ped­agog could have us driv­en to our var­ious places of busi­ness ev­ery morn­ing, re­turn­ing for us in the evening. Think how fine it would be for me, for in­stance, in­stead of hav­ing to come home ev­ery night in an over­crowd­ed el­evat­ed train or on a ca­ble-​car, to have the of­fice-​boy come and an­nounce, 'Mrs. Ped­agog's Se­lect Home for Gen­tle­men is at the door, Mr. Id­iot.' I could step right out of my of­fice in­to my charm­ing lit­tle bed­room up in the bow, and the time usu­al­ly ex­pend­ed on the cars could be de­vot­ed to dress­ing for tea. Then we could stop in at the court-​house for our le­gal friend; and as for Doc­tor Cap­sule, wouldn't he rev­el in driv­ing this board­ing-​house about town on his dai­ly rounds among his pa­tients?”

“What would be­come of my of­fice hours?” asked the Doc­tor. “If this house were whirling gid­di­ly all about the city from morn­ing un­til night, I don't know what would be­come of my of­fice pa­tients.”

“They might die a lit­tle soon­er or live a lit­tle longer, that is all,” said the Id­iot. “If they weren't able to find the house at all, how­ev­er, I think it would be bet­ter for us, for much as I ad­mire you, Doc­tor, I think your of­fice hours are a nui­sance to the rest of us. I had to el­bow my way out of the house this morn­ing be­tween a dou­ble line of suf­fer­ers from mumps and in­fluen­za, and oth­er pleas­ing­ly af­flict­ed pa­tients of yours, and I didn't like it very much.”

“I don't be­lieve they liked it much ei­ther,” re­turned the Doc­tor. “One man with a sprained an­kle told me about you. You shoved him in pass­ing.”

“Well, you can apol­ogize to him in my be­half,” re­turned the Id­iot; “but you might add that he must ex­pect very much the same treat­ment when­ev­er he and a boy with mumps stand be­tween me and the door. Sprained an­kles aren't con­ta­gious, and I pre­ferred shov­ing him to the oth­er al­ter­na­tive.”

The Doc­tor was silent, and the Id­iot rose to go. “Where will the house be this evening about six-​thir­ty, Mrs. Ped­agog?” he asked, as he pushed his chair back from the ta­ble.

“Where? Why, here, of course,” re­turned the land­la­dy.

“Why, yes--of course,” ob­served the Id­iot, with an im­pa­tient ges­ture. “How fool­ish of me! I've re­al­ly been so wrapped up in my canal-​boat ide­al that I came to be­lieve that it might pos­si­bly be re­al and not a dream, af­ter all. I al­most be­lieved that per­haps I should find that the house had been towed some­where up in­to Westch­ester Coun­ty on my re­turn, so that we might all es­cape the city's tax on per­son­al prop­er­ty, which I am told is un­usu­al­ly high this year.”

With which sal­ly the Id­iot kissed his hand to Mr. Ped­agog and re­tired from the scene.