Love Conquers All by Robert C. Benchley

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Then I go in to buy a hat. The mirror in the hat store is triplicate, so
that you see yourself not only head-on but from each side. The
appearance that I present to myself in this mirror is that of three
police-department photographs showing all possible approaches to the
face of Harry DuChamps, alias Harry Duval, alias Harry Duffy, wanted in
Rochester for the murder of Nettie Lubitch, age 5. All that is missing
is the longitudinal scar across the right cheek.

I have never seen a meaner face than mine is in the hat-store mirror. I
could stand its not being handsome. I could even stand looking weak in
an attractive, man-about-town sort of way. But in the right hand mirror
there confronts me a hang-dog face, the face of a yellow craven, while
at the left leers an even more repulsive type, sensual and cruel.

Furthermore, even though I have had a hair-cut that very day, there is
an unkempt fringe showing over my collar in back and the collar itself,
(a Wimpet, 14-1/2, which looked so well on the young man in the
car-card) seems to be something that would be worn by a Maine guide when
he goes into Portland for the day. My suit needs pressing and there is
a general air of its having been given to me, with ten dollars, by the
State on my departure from Sing Sing the day before.

But for an unfavorable full-length view, nothing can compare with the
one that I get of myself as I pass the shoe-store on the corner. They
have a mirror in the window, so set that it catches the reflection of
people as they step up on the curb. When there are other forms in the
picture it is not always easy to identify yourself at first, especially
at a distance, and every morning on my way to work, unless I
deliberately avert my face, I am mortified to discover that the
unpleasant-looking man, with the rather effeminate, swinging gait, whom
I see mincing along through the crowd, is none other than myself.

[Illustration: I am mortified to discover that the unpleasant looking
man is none other than myself.]

The only good mirror in the list is the one in the elevator of my
clothing-store. There is a subdued light in the car, a sort of golden
glow which softens and idealizes, and the mirror shows only a two-thirds
length, making it impossible to see how badly the cuffs on my trousers
bag over the tops of my shoes. Here I become myself again. I have even
thought that I might be handsome if I paid as much attention to my looks
as some men do. In this mirror, my clothes look (for the last time) as
similar clothes look on well-dressed men. A hat which is in every
respect perfect when seen here, immediately becomes a senatorial
sombrero when I step out into the street, but for the brief space of
time while I am in that elevator, I am the _distingue_, clean-cut,
splendid figure of a man that the original blue-prints called for. I
wonder if it takes much experience to run an elevator, for if it
doesn't, I would like to make my life-work running that car with the
magic mirror.

XXIX

THE POWER OF THE PRESS

The Police Commissioner of New York City explains the wave of crime in
that city by blaming the newspapers. The newspapers, he says, are
constantly printing accounts of robberies and murders, and these
accounts simply encourage other criminals to come to New York and do the
same. If the papers would stop giving all this publicity to crime, the
crooks might forget that there was such a thing. As it is, they read
about it in their newspapers every morning, and sooner or later have to
go out and try it for themselves.

This is a terrible thought, but suggests a convenient alibi for other
errant citizens. Thus we may read the following NEWS NOTES:

Benjamin W. Gleam, age forty-two, of 1946 Ruby Avenue, The Bronx, was
arrested last night for appearing in the Late Byzantine Room of the
Museum of Fine Arts clad only in a suit of medium-weight underwear. When
questioned Gleam said that he had seen so many pictures in the newspaper
advertisements of respectable men and women going about in their
underwear, drinking tea, jumping hurdles and holding family reunions,
that he simply couldn't stand it any longer, and had to try it for
himself. "The newspapers did it," he is quoted as saying.

Mrs. Leonia M. Eggcup, who was arrested yesterday on the charge of
bigamy, issued a statement today through her attorneys, Wine, Women and
Song.

"I am charged with having eleven husbands, all living in various parts
of the United States," reads the statement. "This charge is correct. But
before I pay the extreme penalty, I want to have the public understand
that I am not to blame. It is the fault of the press of this country.
Day after day I read the list of marriages in my morning paper. Day
after day I saw people after people getting married. Finally the thing
got into my blood, and although I was married at the time, I felt that I
simply had to be married again. Then, no sooner would I become settled
in my new home, than the constant incitement to further matrimonial
ventures would come through the columns of the daily press. I fell, it
is true, but if there is any justice in this land, it will be the
newspapers and not I who will suffer."

XXX

HOME FOR THE HOLIDAYS

As a pretty tribute to that element of our population which is under
twenty-two years of age, these are called "the Holidays."

This is the only chance that the janitors of the schools and colleges
have to soak the floors of the recitation halls with oil to catch the
dust of the next semester, and while this is being done there is nothing
to do with the students but to send them home for a week or two. Thus it
happened that the term "holidays" is applied to that period of the year
when everybody else is working just twice as hard and twice as long
during the week to make up for that precious day which must be lost to
the Sales Campaign or the Record Output on Christmas Day.

For those who are home from school and college it is called, in the
catalogues of their institutions, a "recess" or "vacation," and the
general impression is allowed to get abroad among the parents that it is
to be a period of rest and recuperation. Arthur and Alice have been
working so hard at school or college that two weeks of good quiet
home-life and home cooking will put them right on their feet again,
ready to pitch into that chemistry course in which, owing to an
incompetent instructor, they did not do very well last term.

That the theory of rest during vacation is fallacious can be proved by
hiding in the coat closet of the home of any college or school youth
home for Christmas recess. Admission to the coat closet may be forced by
making yourself out to be a government official or an inspector of gas
meters. Once hidden among the overshoes, you will overhear the following
little earnest drama, entitled "Home for the Holidays."

There was a banging of the front door, and Edgar has arrived. A round of
kisses, an exchange of health reports, and Edgar is bounding upstairs.

"Dinner in half an hour," says Mother.

"Sorry," shouts Edgar from the bath-tub, "but I've got to go out to the
Whortleberry's to a dinner dance. Got the bid last week. Say, have I got
any dress-studs at home here? Mine are in my trunk."

Father's studs are requisitioned and the family cluster at Edgar's door
to slide in a few conversational phrases while he is getting the best of
his dress shirt.

"How have you been?" (Three guesses as to who it is that asks this.)

"Oh, all right. Say, have I got any pumps at home? Mine are in the
trunk. Where are those old ones I had last summer?"

"Don't you want me to tie your tie for you?" (Two guesses as to who it
is that asks this.)

"No, thanks. Can I get my laundry done by tomorrow night? I've got to go
out to the Clamps' at Short Neck for over the week-end to a bob-sledding
party, and when I get back from there Mrs. Dibble is giving a dinner and
theatre party."

"Don't you want to eat a little dinner here before you go to the
Whortleberry's?" (One guess as to who it is that asks this.)

But Edgar has bounded down the stairs and left the Family to comfort
each other with such observations as "He looks tired," "I think that he
has filled out a little," or "I wonder if he's studying too hard."

You might stay in the coat-closet for the entire two weeks and not hear
much more of Edgar than this. His parents don't. They catch him as he is
going up and down stairs and while he is putting the studs into his
shirt, and are thankful for that. They really get into closer touch with
him while he is at college, for he writes them a weekly letter then.

Nerve-racking as this sort of life is to the youth who is supposed to
be resting during his vacation, it might be even more wearing if he were
to stay within the Family precincts. Once in a while one of the parties
for which he has been signed up falls through, and he is forced to spend
the evening at home. At first it is somewhat embarrassing to be thrown
in with strangers for a meal like that, but, as the evening wears on,
the ice is broken and things assume a more easy swing. The Family begins
to make remarks.

"You must stand up straighter, my boy," says Father, placing his hand
between Edgar's shoulder-blades. "You are slouching badly. I noticed it
as you walked down the street this morning."

"Do all the boys wear soft-collared shirts like that?" asks Mother.
"Personally, I think that they look very untidy. They are all right for
tennis and things like that, but I wish you'd put on a starched collar
when you are in the house. You never see Elmer Quiggly wearing a collar
like that. He always looks neat."

"For heaven's sake, Eddie," says Sister, "take off that tie. You
certainly do get the most terrific-looking things to put around your
neck. It looks like a Masonic apron. Let me go with you when you buy
your next batch."

By this time Edgar has his back against the wall and is breathing hard.
What do these folks know of what is being done?

If it is not family heckling it may be that even more insidious trial,
the third degree. This is usually inflicted by semi-relatives and
neighbors. The formulae are something like this:

"Well, how do you like your school?"

"I suppose you have plenty of time for pranks, eh?"

"What a good time you boys must have! It isn't so much what you get out
of books that will help you in after life, I have found, but the
friendships made in college. Meeting so many boys from all parts of the
country--why, it's a liberal education in itself."

"What was the matter with the football team this season?"

"Let's see, how many more years have you? What, only one more! Well,
well, and I can remember you when you were that high, and used to come
over to my house wearing a little green dress, with big mother-of-pearl
buttons. You certainly were a cute little boy, and used to call our cook
'Sna-sna.' And here you are, almost a senior."

[Illustration: "I can remember you when you were that high."]

"Oh, are you 1924? I wonder if you know a fellow
named--er--Mellish--Spencer Mellish? I met him at the beach last summer.
I am pretty sure that he is in your class--well, no, maybe it was
1918."

After an hour or two of this Edgar is willing to go back to college and
take an extra course in Blacksmithing, Chipping and Filing, given during
the Christmas vacation, rather than run the risk of getting caught
again. And, whichever way you look at it, whether he spends his time
getting into and out of his evening clothes, or goes crazy answering
questions and defending his mode of dress, it all adds up to the same in
the end--fatigue and depletion and what the doctor would call "a general
run-down nervous condition."

* * * * *

The younger you are the more frayed you get. Little Wilbur comes home
from school, where he has been put to bed at 8:30 every night with the
rest of the fifth form boys: and has had to brush his hair in the
presence of the head-master's wife, and dives into what might be called
a veritable maelstrom of activity. From a diet of cereal and
fruit-whips, he is turned loose in the butler's pantry among the
maraschino cherries and given a free rein at the various children's
parties, where individual pound-cake Santas and brandied walnuts are
followed by an afternoon at "Treasure Island," with the result that he
comes home and insists on tipping every one in the family the black
spot and breaks the cheval glass when he is denied going to the six-day
bicycle race at two in the morning.

* * * * *

Little girls do practically the same, and, if they are over fourteen, go
back to school with the added burden of an _affaire de coeur_ contracted
during the recess. In general, it takes about a month or two of good,
hard schooling and overstudy to put the child back on its feet after the
Christmas rest at home.

* * * * *

Which leads us to the conclusion that our educational system is all
wrong. It is obvious that the child should be kept at home for eight
months out of the year and sent to school for the vacations.

XXXI

HOW TO UNDERSTAND INTERNATIONAL FINANCE

It is high time that someone came out with a clear statement of the
international financial situation. For weeks and weeks officials have
been rushing about holding conferences and councils and having their
pictures taken going up and down the steps of buildings. Then, after
each conference, the newspapers have printed a lot of figures showing
the latest returns on how much Germany owes the bank. And none of it
means anything.

Now there is a certain principle which has to be followed in all
financial discussions involving sums over one hundred dollars. There is
probably not more than one hundred dollars in actual cash in circulation
today. That is, if you were to call in all the bills and silver and gold
in the country at noon tomorrow and pile them up on the table, you would
find that you had just about one hundred dollars, with perhaps several
Canadian pennies and a few peppermint life-savers. All the rest of the
money you hear about doesn't exist. It is conversation-money. When you
hear of a transaction involving $50,000,000 it means that one firm wrote
"50,000,000" on a piece of paper and gave it to another firm, and the
other firm took it home and said "Look, Momma, I got $50,000,000!" But
when Momma asked for a dollar and a quarter out of it to pay the man who
washed the windows, the answer probably was that the firm hadn't got
more than seventy cents in cash.

This is the principle of finance. So long as you can pronounce any
number above a thousand, you have got that much money. You can't work
this scheme with the shoe-store man or the restaurant-owner, but it goes
big on Wall St. or in international financial circles.

This much understood, we see that when the Allies demand 132,000,000,000
gold marks from Germany they know very well that nobody in Germany has
ever seen 132,000,000,000 gold marks and never will. A more surprised
and disappointed lot of boys you couldn't ask to see than the Supreme
Financial Council would be if Germany were actually to send them a
money-order for the full amount demanded.

What they mean is that, taken all in all, Germany owes the world
132,000,000,000 gold marks plus carfare. This includes everything,
breakage, meals sent to room, good will, everything. Now, it is
understood that if they really meant this, Germany couldn't even draw
cards; so the principle on which the thing is figured out is as follows:
(Watch this closely; there is a trick in it).

You put down a lot of figures, like this. Any figures will do, so long
as you can't read them quickly:

132,000,000,000 gold marks

$33,000,000,000 on a current value basis

$21,000,000,000 on reparation account plus 12-1/2% yearly tax on German
exports

11,000,000,000 gold fish

$1.35 amusement tax

866,000 miles. Diameter of the sun

2,000,000,000

27,000,000,000

31,000,000,000

Then you add them together and subtract the number you first thought of.
This leaves 11. And the card you hold in your hand is the seven of
diamonds. Am I right?

XXXII

'TWAS THE NIGHT BEFORE SUMMER

(_An Imaginary Watch-Night with the Weather Man_)

It was 11 o'clock on the night of June 20. We were seated in the office
of the Weather Bureau on the twenty-ninth floor of the Whitehall
Building, the Weather Man and I, and we were waiting for summer to come.
It was officially due on June 21. We had the almanac's word for it and
years and years of precedent, but still the Weather Man was skeptical.

It had been a hard spring for the Weather Man. Day after day he had been
forced to run a signed statement in the daily papers to the effect that
some time during that day there would probably be showers. And day after
day, with a ghastly consistency, his prophecy had come true. People had
come to dislike him personally; old jokes about him were brought out and
oiled and given a trial spin down the road a piece before appearing in
funny columns and vaudeville skits, and the sporting writers, frenzied
by the task of filling their space with nothing but tables of batting
averages, had become positively libellous.

And now summer was at hand, and with it the promise of the sun. The
Weather Man nibbled at his thumb nail. The clock on the wall said 11:15.

"It just couldn't go back on us now," he said, plaintively, "when it
means so much to us. It always _has_ come on the 21st."

There was not much that I could say. I didn't want to hold out any false
hope, for I am a child in arms in matters of astronomy, or whatever it
is that makes weather.

"I often remember hearing my father tell," I ventured, "how every year
on the 21st of June summer always used to come, rain or shine, until
they came to look for it on that date, and to count from then as the
beginning of the season. It seems as if"--

"I know," he interrupted, "but there have been so many upsetting things
during the past twelve months. We can't check up this year by any other
years. All we can do is wait and see."

A gust of wind from Jersey ran along the side of the building, shaking
at the windows. The Weather Man shuddered, and looked out of the corner
of his eye at the anemometer-register which stood on a table in the
middle of the room. It indicated whatever anemometers do indicate when
they want to register bad news. I considerately looked out at the
window.

"You've no idea," he said at last, in a low voice, "of how this last
rainy spell has affected my home life. For the first two or three days,
although I got dark looks from slight acquaintances, there was always a
cheery welcome waiting for me when I got home, and the Little Woman
would say, 'Never mind, Ray, it will soon be pleasant, and we all know
that it's not your fault, anyway.'

"But then, after a week had passed and there had been nothing but rain
and showers and rain, I began to notice a change. When I would swing in
at the gate she would meet me and say, in a far-away voice, 'Well, what
is it for to-morrow?' And I would have to say 'Probably cloudy, with
occasional showers and light easterly gales.' At which she would turn
away and bite her lip, and once I thought I saw her eye-lashes wet.

"Then, one night, the break came. It had started out to be a perfect
day, just such as one reads about, but along about noon it began to
cloud over and soon the rain poured down in rain-gauges-full.

[Illustration: She would turn away and bite her lip.]

"I was all discouraged, and as I wrote out the forecast for the papers,
'Rain to-morrow and Friday,' I felt like giving the whole thing up and
going back to Vermont to live.

"When I got home, Alice was there with her things on, waiting for me.

"'You needn't tell me what it's going to be to-morrow,' she sobbed. 'I
know. Every one knows. The whole world knows. I used to think that it
wasn't your fault, but when the children come home from school crying
because they have been plagued for being the Weather Man's children,
when every time I go out I know that the neighbors are talking behind my
back and saying "How does she stand it?" when every paper I read, every
bulletin I see, stares me in the face with great letters saying,
"Weather Man predicts more rain," or "Lynch the Weather Man and let the
baseball season go on," then I think it is time for us to come to an
understanding. I am going over to mother's until you can do better.'"

The Weather Man got up and went to the window. Out there over the
Battery there was a spot casting a sickly glow through the cloud-banks
which filled the sky.

"That's the moon up there behind the fog," he said, and laughed a bitter
cackle.

It was now 11:45. The thermograph was writing busily in red ink on the
little diagrammed cuff provided for that purpose, writing all about the
temperature. The Weather Man inspected the fine, jagged line as it
leaked out of the pen on the chart. Then he walked over to the window
again and stood looking out over the bay.

"You'd think that people would have a little gratitude," he said in a
low voice, "and not hit at a man who has done so much for them. If it
weren't for me where would the art of American conversation be to-day?
If there were no weather to talk about, how could there be any dinner
parties or church sociables or sidewalk chats?

"All I have to do is put out a real scorcher or a continued cold snap,
and I can drive off the boards the biggest news story that was ever
launched or draw the teeth out of the most delicate international
situation.

"I have saved more reputations and social functions than any other
influence in American life, and yet here, when the home office sends me
a rummy lot of weather, over which I have no control, everybody jumps on
me."

He pulled savagely at the window shade and pressed his nose against the
pane in silence for a while.

There was no sound but the ticking of the anemometer and the steady
scratching of the thermograph. I looked at the clock. 11:47.

Suddenly the telegraph over in the corner snapped like a bunch of
firecrackers. In a second the Weather Man was at its side, taking down
the message:

NEW ORLEANS, LA NHRUFKYOTLDMRELPWZWOTUDK HEAVY PRECIPITATION SOUTH
WESTERLY GALES LETTER FOLLOWS

NEW ORLEANS U S WEATHER BUREAU

"Poor fellow," muttered the Weather Man, who even in his own tense
excitement did not forget the troubles of his brother weather prophet in
New Orleans, "I know just how he feels. I hope he's not married."

He glanced at the clock. It was 11:56. In four minutes summer would be
due, and with summer a clearer sky, renewed friendships and a united
family for the Weather Man. If it failed him--I dreaded to think of what
might happen. It was twenty-nine floors to the pavement below, and I am
not a powerful man physically.

Together we sat at the table by the thermograph and watched the red line
draw mountain ranges along the 50 degree line. From our seats we could
look out over the Statue of Liberty and see the cloud-dimmed glow which
told of a censored moon. The Weather Man was making nervous little pokes
at his collar, as if it had a rough edge that was cutting his neck.

Suddenly he gripped the table. Somewhere a clock was beginning to strike
twelve. I shut my eyes and waited.

Ten-eleven-twelve!

"Look, Newspaper Man, look!" he shrieked and grabbed me by the tie.

I opened my eyes and looked at the thermograph. At the last stroke of
the clock the red line had given a little, final quaver on the 50 degree
line and then had shot up like a rocket until it struck 72 degrees and
lay there trembling and heaving like a runner after a race.

But it was not at this that the Weather Man was pointing. There, out in
the murky sky, the stroke of twelve had ripped apart the clouds and a
large, milk-fed moon was fairly crashing its way through, laying out a
straight-away course of silver cinders across the harbor, and in all
parts of the heavens stars were breaking out like a rash. In two minutes
it had become a balmy, languorous night. Summer had come!

I turned to the Weather Man. He was wiping the palms of his hands on his
hips and looking foolishly happy. I said nothing. There was nothing that
could be said.

Before we left the office he stopped to write out the prophecy for
Wednesday, June 21, the First Day of Summer. "Fair and warmer, with
slowly rising temperatur." His hand trembled so as he wrote that he
forgot the final "e". Then we went out and he turned toward his home.

On Wednesday, June 21, it rained.

XXXIII

WELCOME HOME--AND SHUT UP!

There are a few weeks which bid fair to be pretty trying ones in our
national life. They will mark the return to the city of thousands and
thousands of vacationists after two months or two weeks of feverish
recuperation and there is probably no more obnoxious class of citizen,
taken end for end, than the returning vacationist.

In the first place, they are all so offensively healthy. They come
crashing through the train-shed, all brown and peeling, as if their
health were something they had acquired through some particular credit
to themselves. If it were possible, some of them would wear their
sun-burned noses on their watch-chains, like Phi Beta Kappa keys.

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