Bunker Bean by Harry Leon Wilson
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Harry Leon Wilson >> Bunker Bean
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"First we go see a ball game," he said.
The flapper astounded him.
"I don't think they have it over here--baseball," she observed.
No baseball? She must be crazy. He rang the bell.
The capable Swiss entered. In less than ten minutes he was able to
convince the amazed American that baseball was positively not played on
the continent of Europe. It was monstrous. It put a different aspect
upon Europe.
"Makes no difference where we go, then," announced Bean. "Just any
little old last year's place. We'll 'lope."
"Ripping," applauded the flapper, with brightening eyes.
"Hurry and dress. I'll get a little old car and we'll beat it before
they get back. No time for trunk; take bag."
Down in the office he found they made nothing of producing little old
cars for the right people. The car was there even as he was taking the
precaution to secure a final assurance from the manager that Paris did
not by any chance play London that day.
The two bags were installed in the ready car; then a radiant flapper
beside an amateur upstart. The driver desired instructions.
"_Ally, ally!_" directed Bean, waving a vague but potent hand.
"We've done it," rejoiced the flapper. "Serve the perfectly old taggers
good and plenty right!"
Bean lifted a final gaze to the laurel-crowned Believer. He knew that
Believer's secret now.
"What a stunning tie," exclaimed the flapper. "It just perfectly does
something to you."
"'S little old last year's tie," said her husband carelessly.
* * * * *
At six-thirty that evening they were resting on a balcony overlooking
the garden of a hotel at Versailles. Back of them in the little parlour
a waiter was setting a most companionable small table for two. Such
little sounds as he made were thrilling. They liked the hotel much. Its
management seemed to have been expecting them ever since the building's
erection, and to have reserved precisely that nest for them.
They had been "doing" the palace. A little self-conscious, in their
first free solitude, they had agreed that the palace would be
instructive. Through interminable galleries they had gone, inspecting
portraits of the dead who had made and marred French history ... led on by
a guide whose amiable delusion it was that he spoke English. The flapper
had been chiefly exercised in comparing the palace, to its disadvantage,
with a certain house to be surrounded on all sides by scenery and
embellished with perfectly patent laundry tubs.
The flapper sighed in contentment, now.
"We needn't ever do it again," she said. "How they ever made it in that
old barn--"
Bean had occupied himself in thinking it was funny about kings. To have
been born a king meant not so much after all. He still dwelt upon it as
they sat looking down into the shadowed garden.
"There was that last one," he said musingly. "Born as much a king as
any ... and look what they did to him. Better man than the other two
before him ... they had 'habits' enough, and he was decent. But he
couldn't make them believe in him. He couldn't have believed in
himself very hard. His picture looks like a man I know in New York
named Cassidy .. always puttering around, dead serious about
something that doesn't matter at all. You got to bluff people, and
this poor old dub didn't know how ... so they clipped his head off
for it. Two or three times a good bluff would have saved him."
"No bath, no furnace," murmured the flapper. "That perfectly reminds me,
soon as we get back--"
"Then," pursued Bean, "along comes Mr. little old George W. Napoleon
Bluff and makes them eat out of his hand in about five minutes. Didn't
he walk over them, though? And they haven't quit thanking him for it
yet. Saw a lot of 'em snivelling over him at that tomb this morning.
Think he'd died only yesterday. You know, I don't blame him so much for
a lot of things he did--fighting and women and all that. He knew what
they'd do to him if he ever for one minute quit bluffing. You know, he
was what I call an upstart."
The flapper stole a hand into his and sighed contentedly.
"You've perfectly worked it all out, haven't you?" she said.
"--and if you come right down to it, I'm nothing but 'n upstart myself."
"Oh, splash!" said the flapper, in loving refutation.
"'S all," he persisted; "just 'n upstart. Of course I don't have to be
one with you. I wouldn't be afraid to tell you anything in the world;
but those others, now; every one else in the world except you; I'll show
'em who's little old George W. Upstart--old man Upstart himself, that's
what!"
"You're a king," declared the flapper in a burst of frankness.
"Eh?" said Bean, a little startled.
"Just a perfectly little old king," persisted the flapper with dreamy
certitude. "Never fooled little George W. Me. Knew it the very first
second. Went over me just like _that_."
"Oh, I'm no king; never was a king; rabbit, I guess. Little old
perfectly upstart rabbit, that's what!"
"What am I?" asked the flapper pointedly.
"Little old flippant flapper, that's what! But you're my Chubbins just
the same; my Chubbins!" and he very softly put his hand to her cheek.
"_Monsieur et Madame sont servi_," said the waiter. He was in the
doorway but discreetly surveyed the evening sky through an already
polished wine-glass held well aloft.
* * * * *
The three perfectly taggers meeting their just due, consulted miserably
as they gathered about a telephone in Paris the following morning. The
Demon had answered the call.
"Says she has it all reasoned out," announced the Demon.
"'S what she said before," grunted Breede. "Tha's nothing new."
"And she says we're snoop-cats and we might as well go back home--now,"
continued the Demon. "Says she's got the--u-u-m-mm!--says to perfectly
quit tagging."
"Nothing can matter now," said the bereaved mother.
"He's talking himself," said the Demon. "Mercy he's got a new
voice ... sounds like another man. He says if we don't beat it out of here
by the next boat--he can imagine nothing of less--something or other I
can't hear--"
"--consequence," snapped Breede.
"Yes, that's it; and now he's laughing and telling her she's a perfectly
flapper."
"Oh, my poor child," murmured the mother.
"Puzzle t' me," said Breede. "I swear I can't make out just how many
kinds of a--"
"James!" said his wife sternly, and indicated the presence of several
interested foreigners.
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