Further Foolishness

Ch. 2 - Snoopopaths

Or, Fifty Stories in One

This particular study in the follies of literature is

not so much a story as a sort of essay. The average reader

will therefore turn from it with a shudder. The condition

of the average reader's mind is such that he can take in

nothing but fiction. And it must be thin fiction at

that--thin as gruel. Nothing else will "sit on his

stomach."

Everything must come to the present-day reader in this

form. If you wish to talk to him about religion, you

must dress it up as a story and label it _Beth-sheba_,

or _The Curse of David_; if you want to improve the

reader's morals, you must write him a little thing in

dialogue called _Mrs. Potiphar Dines Out_. If you wish

to expostulate with him about drink, you must do so

through a narrative called _Red Rum_--short enough and

easy enough for him to read it, without overstraining

his mind, while he drinks cocktails.

But whatever the story is about it has got to deal--in

order to be read by the average reader--with A MAN and

A WOMAN, I put these words in capitals to indicate that

they have got to stick out of the story with the crudity

of a drawing done by a child with a burnt stick. In other

words, the story has got to be snoopopathic. This is a

word derived from the Greek--"snoopo"--or if there never

was a Greek verb snoopo, at least there ought to have

been one--and it means just what it seems to mean. Nine

out of ten short stories written in America are

snoopopathic.

In snoopopathic literature, in order to get its full

effect, the writer generally introduces his characters

simply as "the man" and "the woman." He hates to admit

that they have no names. He opens out with them something

after this fashion: "The Man lifted his head. He looked

about him at the gaily bedizzled crowd that besplotched

the midnight cabaret with riotous patches of colour. He

crushed his cigar against the brass of an Egyptian tray.

'Bah!' he murmured, 'Is it worth it?' Then he let his

head sink again."

You notice it? He lifted his head all the way up and let

it sink all the way down, and you still don't know who

he is. For The Woman the beginning is done like this:

"The Woman clenched her white hands till the diamonds

that glittered upon her fingers were buried in the soft

flesh. 'The shame of it,' she murmured. Then she took

from the table the telegram that lay crumpled upon it

and tore it into a hundred pieces. 'He dare not!' she

muttered through her closed teeth. She looked about the

hotel room with its garish furniture. 'He has no right

to follow me here,' she gasped."

All of which the reader has to take in without knowing

who the woman is, or which hotel she is staying at, or

who dare not follow her or why. But the modern reader

loves to get this sort of shadowy incomplete effect. If

he were told straight out that the woman's name was Mrs.

Edward Dangerfield of Brick City, Montana, and that she

had left her husband three days ago and that the telegram

told her that he had discovered her address and was

following her, the reader would refuse to go on.

This method of introducing the characters is bad enough.

But the new snoopopathic way of describing them is still

worse. The Man is always detailed as if he were a horse.

He is said to be "tall, well set up, with straight legs."

Great stress is always laid on his straight legs. No

magazine story is acceptable now unless The Man's legs

are absolutely straight. Why this is, I don't know. All

my friends have straight legs--and yet I never hear them

make it a subject of comment or boasting. I don't believe

I have, at present, a single friend with crooked legs.

But this is not the only requirement. Not only must The

Man's legs be straight but he must be "clean-limbed,"

whatever that is; and of course he must have a "well-tubbed

look about him." How this look is acquired, and whether

it can be got with an ordinary bath and water are things

on which I have no opinion.

The Man is of course "clean-shaven." This allows him to

do such necessary things as "turning his clean-shaven

face towards the speaker," "laying his clean-shaven cheek

in his hand," and so on. But every one is familiar with

the face of the up-to-date clean-shaven snoopopathic man.

There are pictures of him by the million on magazine

covers and book jackets, looking into the eyes of The

Woman--he does it from a distance of about six inches--with

that snoopy earnest expression of brainlessness that he

always wears. How one would enjoy seeing a man--a real

one with Nevada whiskers and long boots--land him one

solid kick from behind.

Then comes The Woman of the snoopopathic story. She is

always "beautifully groomed" (who these grooms are that

do it, and where they can be hired, I don't know), and

she is said to be "exquisitely gowned."

It is peculiar about The Woman that she never seems to

wear a _dress_--always a "gown." Why this is, I cannot

tell. In the good old stories that I used to read, when

I could still read for the pleasure of it, the heroines

--that was what they used to be called--always wore

dresses. But now there is no heroine, only a woman in a

gown. I wear a gown myself--at night. It is made of

flannel and reaches to my feet, and when I take my candle

and go out to the balcony where I sleep, the effect of

it on the whole is not bad. But as to its "revealing

every line of my figure"--as The Woman's gown is always

said to--and as to its "suggesting even more than it

reveals"--well, it simply does _not_. So when I talk of

"gowns" I speak of something that I know all about.

Yet, whatever The Woman does, her "gown" is said to

"cling" to her. Whether in the street or in a _cabaret_

or in the drawing-room, it "clings." If by any happy

chance she throws a lace wrap about her, then it clings;

and if she lifts her gown--as she is apt to--it shows,

not what I should have expected, but a _jupon_, and even

that clings. What a _jupon_ is I don't know. With my

gown, I never wear one. These people I have described,

The Man and The Woman--The Snoopopaths--are, of course,

not husband and wife, or brother and sister, or anything

so simple and old-fashioned as that. She is some one

else's wife. She is _The Wife of the Other Man_. Just

what there is, for the reader, about other men's wives,

I don't understand. I know tons of them that I wouldn't

walk round a block for. But the reading public goes wild

over them. The old-fashioned heroine was unmarried. That

spoiled the whole story. You could see the end from the

beginning. But with Another Man's Wife, the way is blocked.

Something has got to happen that would seem almost obvious

to anyone.

The writer, therefore, at once puts the two snoopos--The

Man and The Woman--into a frightfully indelicate position.

The more indelicate it is, the better. Sometimes she gets

into his motor by accident after the theatre, or they

both engage the drawing-room of a Pullman car by mistake,

or else, best of all, he is brought accidentally into

her room at an hotel at night. There is something about

an hotel room at night, apparently, which throws the

modern reader into convulsions. It is always easy to

arrange a scene of this sort. For example, taking the

sample beginning that I gave above, The Man, whom I left

sitting at the _cabaret_ table, above, rises unsteadily

--it is the recognised way of rising in a _cabaret_--and,

settling the reckoning with the waiter, staggers into

the street. For myself I never do a reckoning with the

waiter. I just pay the bill as he adds it, and take a

chance on it.

As The Man staggers into the "night air," the writer has

time--just a little time, for the modern reader is

impatient--to explain who he is and why he staggers. He

is rich. That goes without saying. All clean-limbed men

with straight legs are rich. He owns copper mines in

Montana. All well-tubbed millionaires do. But he has left

them, left everything, because of the Other Man's Wife.

It was that or madness--or worse. He had told himself so

a thousand times. (This little touch about "worse" is

used in all the stories. I don't just understand what

the "worse" means. But snoopopathic readers reach for it

with great readiness.) So The Man had come to New York

(the only place where stories are allowed to be laid)

under an assumed name, to forget, to drive her from his

mind. He had plunged into the mad round of--I never could

find it myself, but it must be there, and as they all

plunge into it, it must be as full of them as a sheet of

Tanglefoot is of flies.

"As The Man walked home to his hotel, the cool night air

steadied him, but his brain is still filled with the

fumes of the wine he had drunk." Notice these "fumes."

It must be great to float round with them in one's brain,

where they apparently lodge. I have often tried to find

them, but I never can. Again and again I have said,

"Waiter, bring me a Scotch whisky and soda with fumes."

But I can never get them.

Thus goes The Man to his hotel. Now it is in a room in

this same hotel that The Woman is sitting, and in which

she has crumpled up the telegram. It is to this hotel

that she has come when she left her husband, a week ago.

The readers know, without even being told, that she left

him "to work out her own salvation"--driven, by his cold

brutality, beyond the breaking-point. And there is laid

upon her soul, as she sits there with clenched hands,

the dust and ashes of a broken marriage and a loveless

life, and the knowledge, too late, of all that might have

been.

And it is to this hotel that The Woman's Husband is

following her.

But The Man does not know that she is in the hotel, nor

that she has left her husband; it is only accident that

brings them together. And it is only by accident that he

has come into her room, at night, and stands there--rooted

to the threshold. Now as a matter of fact, in real life,

there is nothing at all in the simple fact of walking

into the wrong room of an hotel by accident. You merely

apologise and go out. I had this experience myself only

a few days ago. I walked right into a lady's room--next

door to my own. But I simply said, "Oh, I beg your pardon,

I thought this was No. 343."

"No," she said, "this is 341."

She did not rise and "confront" me, as they always do in

the snoopopathic stories. Neither did her eyes flash,

nor her gown cling to her as she rose. Nor was her gown

made of "rich old stuff." No, she merely went on reading

her newspaper.

"I must apologise," I said. "I am a little short-sighted,

and very often a _one_ and a _three_ look so alike that

I can't tell them apart. I'm afraid--"

"Not at all," said the lady. "Good evening."

"You see," I added, "this room and my own being so alike,

and mine being 343 and this being 341, I walked in before

I realised that instead of walking into 343 I was walking

into 341."

She bowed in silence, without speaking, and I felt that

it was now the part of exquisite tact to retire quietly

without further explanation, or at least with only a few

murmured words about the possibility of to-morrow being

even colder than to-day. I did so, and the affair ended

with complete _savoir faire_ on both sides.

But the Snoopopaths, Man and Woman, can't do this sort

of thing, or, at any rate, the snoopopathic writer won't

let them. The opportunity is too good to miss. As soon

as The Man comes into The Woman's room--before he knows

who she is, for she has her back to him--he gets into a

condition dear to all snoopopathic readers.

His veins simply "surged." His brain beat against his

temples in mad pulsation. His breath "came and went in

quick, short pants." (This last might perhaps be done by

one of the hotel bellboys, but otherwise it is hard to

imagine.)

And The Woman--"Noiseless as his step had been, she seemed

to _sense_ his presence. A wave seemed to sweep over her

--She turned and rose fronting him full." This doesn't

mean that he was full when she fronted him. Her gown--but

we know about that already. "It was a coward's trick,"

she panted.

Now if The Man had had the kind of _savoir faire_ that

I have, he would have said: "Oh, pardon me! I see this

room is 341. My own room is 343, and to me a _one_ and

a _three_ often look so alike that I seem to have walked

into 341 while looking for 343." And he could have

explained in two words that he had no idea that she was

in New York, was not following her, and not proposing to

interfere with her in any way. And she would have explained

also in two sentences why and how she came to be there.

But this wouldn't do. Instead of it, The Man and The

Woman go through the grand snoopopathic scene which is

so intense that it needs what is really a new kind of

language to convey it.

"Helene," he croaked, reaching out his arms--his voice

tensed with the infinity of his desire.

"Back," she iced. And then, "Why have you come here?"

she hoarsed. "What business have you here?"

"None," he glooped, "none. I have no business." They

stood sensing one another.

"I thought you were in Philadelphia," she said--her gown

clinging to every fibre of her as she spoke.

"I was," he wheezed.

"And you left it?" she sharped, her voice tense.

"I left it," he said, his voice glumping as he spoke.

"Need I tell you why?" He had come nearer to her. She

could hear his pants as he moved.

"No, no," she gurgled. "You left it. It is enough. I can

understand"--she looked bravely up at him--"I can

understand any man leaving it."

Then as he moved still nearer her, there was the sound

of a sudden swift step in the corridor. The door opened

and there stood before them The Other Man, the Husband

of The Woman--Edward Dangerfield.

This, of course, is the grand snoopopathic climax, when

the author gets all three of them--The Man, The Woman,

and The Woman's Husband--in an hotel room at night. But

notice what happens.

He stood in the opening of the doorway looking at them,

a slight smile upon his lips.

"Well?" he said. Then he entered the room and stood for

a moment quietly looking into The Man's face.

"So," he said, "it was you." He walked into the room and

laid the light coat that he had been carrying over his

arm upon the table. He drew a cigar-case from his waistcoat

pocket.

"Try one of these Havanas," he said.

Observe the _calm_ of it. This is what the snoopopath

loves--no rage, no blustering--calmness, cynicism. He

walked over towards the mantelpiece and laid his hat upon

it. He set his boot upon the fender.

"It was cold this evening," he said. He walked over to

the window and gazed a moment into the dark.

"This is a nice hotel," he said. (This scene is what the

author and the reader love; they hate to let it go. They'd

willingly keep the man walking up and down for hours

saying "Well!")

The Man raised his head! "Yes, it's a good hotel," he

said. Then he let his head fall again.

This kind of thing goes on until, if possible, the reader

is persuaded into thinking that there is nothing going

to happen. Then:

"He turned to The Woman. 'Go in there,' he said, pointing

to the bedroom door. Mechanically she obeyed." This, by

the way, is the first intimation that the reader has that

the room in which they were sitting was not a bedroom.

The two men were alone. Dangerfield walked over to the

chair where he had thrown his coat.

"I bought this coat in St. Louis last fall," he said.

His voice was quiet, even passionless. Then from the

pocket of the coat he took a revolver and laid it on the

table. Marsden watched him without a word.

"Do you see this pistol?" said Dangerfield.

Marsden raised his head a moment and let it sink.

Of course the ignorant reader keeps wondering why he

doesn't explain. But how can he? What is there to say?

He has been found out of his own room at night. The

penalty for this in all the snoopopathic stories is death.

It is understood that in all the New York hotels the

night porters shoot a certain number of men in the

corridors every night.

"When we married," said Dangerfield, glancing at the

closed door as he spoke, "I bought this and the mate to

it--for her--just the same, with the monogram on the

butt--see! And I said to her, 'If things ever go wrong

between you and me, there is always this way out.'"

He lifted the pistol from the table, examining its

mechanism. He rose and walked across the room till he

stood with his back against the door, the pistol in his

hand, its barrel pointing straight at Marsden's heart.

Marsden never moved. Then as the two men faced one another

thus, looking into one another's eyes, their ears caught

a sound from behind the closed door of the inner room--a

sharp, hard, metallic sound as if some one in the room

within had raised the hammer of a pistol--a jewelled

pistol like the one in Dangerfield's hand.

And then--

A loud report, and with a cry, the cry of a woman, one

shrill despairing cry--

Or no, hang it--I can't consent to end up a story in that

fashion, with the dead woman prone across the bed, the

smoking pistol, with a jewel on the hilt, still clasped

in her hand--the red blood welling over the white laces

of her gown--while the two men gaze down upon her cold

face with horror in their eyes. Not a bit. Let's end it

like this:

"A shrill despairing cry--'Ed! Charlie! Come in here

quick! Hurry! The steam coil has blown out a plug! You

two boys quit talking and come in here, for heaven's

sake, and fix it.'" And, indeed, if the reader will look

back he will see there is nothing in the dialogue to

preclude it. He was misled, that's all. I merely said

that Mrs. Dangerfield had left her husband a few days

before. So she had--to do some shopping in New York. She

thought it mean of him to follow her. And I never said

that Mrs. Dangerfield had any connection whatever with

The Woman with whom Marsden was in love. Not at all. He

knew her, of course, because he came from Brick City.

But she had thought he was in Philadelphia, and naturally

she was surprised to see him back in New York. That's

why she exclaimed "Back!" And as a matter of plain fact,

you can't pick up a revolver without its pointing somewhere.

No one said he meant to fire it.

In fact, if the reader will glance back at the dialogue--I

know he has no time to, but if he does--he will see that,

being something of a snoopopath himself, he has invented

the whole story.