Bab Bab 32 · BOOK III CHAPTER VI

"Let me introduce you," said the Prodigal, "to my friend the 'Pote.'"

"Glad to meet you," said the Pote cheerfully, extending a damp hand.

"Just been having a dishwashing bee. Excuse my dishybeel."

He wore a pale-blue undershirt, white flannel trousers girt round the

waist with a red silk handkerchief, very gaudy moccasins, and a rakish

Panama hat with a band of chocolate and gold.

"Take a seat, won't you?" Through his gold-rimmed spectacles his eyes

shone benevolently as he indicated an easy-looking chair. I took it. It

promptly collapsed under me.

"Ah, excuse me," he said; "you're not onto the combination of that

chair. I'll fix it."

He performed some operation on it which made it less unstable, and I sat

down gingerly.

I was in a little log-cabin on the hill overlooking the town. Through

the bottle window the light came dimly. The walls showed the bark of

logs and tufts of intersecting moss. In the corner was a bunk over which

lay a bearskin robe, and on the little oblong stove a pot of beans was

simmering.

The Pote finished his dishwashing and joined us, pulling on an old

Tuxedo jacket.

"Whew! Glad that job's over. You know, I guess I'm fastidious, but I

can't bear to use a plate for more than three meals without passing a

wet rag over it. That's the worst of having refined ideas, they make

life so complex. However, I mustn't complain. There's a monastic

simplicity about this joint that endears it to me. And now, having

immolated myself on the altar of cleanliness, I will solace my soul with

a little music."

He took down a banjo from the wall and, striking a few chords, began to

sing. His songs seemed to be original, even improvisations, and he sang

them with a certain quaintness and point that made them very piquant. I

remember one of the choruses. It went like this:

"In the land of pale blue snow

Where it's ninety-nine below,

And the polar bears are dancing on the plain,

In the shadow of the pole,

Oh, my Heart, my Life, my Soul,

I will meet thee when the ice-worms nest again."

Every now and then he would pause to make some lively comment.

"You've never heard of the blue snow, Cheechako? The rabbits have blue

fur, and the ptarmigans' feathers are a bright azure. You've never had

an ice-worm cocktail? We must remedy that. Great dope. Nothing like

ice-worm oil for salads. Oh, I forgot, didn't give you my card."

I took it. It was engraved thus:

OLLIE GABOODLER.

Poetic Expert.

Turning it over, I read:

Graduate of the University of Hard Knocks.

All kinds of verse made to order with efficiency and

dispatch.

Satisfaction guaranteed or money returned.

A trial solicited.

In Memoriam Odes a specialty.

Ballads, Rondeaux and Sonnets at modest prices.

Try our lines of Love Lyrics.

Leave orders at the Comet Saloon.

I stared at him curiously. He was smoking a cigarette and watching me

with shrewd, observant eyes. He was a blond, blue-eyed, cherubic youth,

with a whimsical mouth that seemed to alternate between seriousness and

fun.

He laughed merrily at my look of dismay.

"Oh, you think it's a josh, but it's not. I've been a 'ghost' ever since

I could push a pen. You know Will Wilderbush, the famous novelist? Well,

Bill died six years ago from over-assiduous cultivation of John

Barleycorn, and they hushed it up. But every year there's a new novel

comes from his pen. It's 'ghosts.' I was Bill number three. Isn't it

rummy?"

I expressed my surprise.

"Yes, it's a great joke this book-faking. Wouldn't Thackeray have

lambasted the best sellers? A fancy picture of a girl on the cover,

something doing all the time, and a happy ending--that's the recipe. Or

else be as voluptuous as velvet. Wait till my novel, 'Three Minutes,'

comes out. Order in advance."

"Indeed I will," I said.

He suddenly became grave.

"If I only could take the literary game seriously I might make good. But

I'm too much of a 'farceur.' Well, one day we'll see. Maybe the North

will inspire me. Maybe I'll yet become the Spokesman of the Frozen

Silence, the Avatar of the Great White Land."

He strutted up and down, inflating his chest.

"Have you framed up any dope lately?" asked the Prodigal.

"Why, yes; only this morning, while I was eating my beans and bacon, I

dashed off a few lines. I always write best when I'm eating. Want to

hear them?"

He drew from his pocket an old envelope.

"They were written to the order of Stillwater Willie. He wants to

present them to one of the Labelle Sisters. You know--that fat lymphatic

blonde, Birdie Labelle. It is short and sweet. He wants to have it

engraved on a gold-backed hand-mirror he's giving her.

"I see within my true love's eyes

The wide blue spaces of the skies;

I see within my true love's face

The rose and lily vie in grace;

I hear within my true love's voice

The songsters of the Spring rejoice.

Oh, why need I seek Nature's charms--

I hold my true love in my arms.

"How'll that hit her? There's such a lot of natural beauty about

Birdie."

"Do you get much work?" I asked.

"No, it's dull. Poetry's rather a drug on the market up here. It's just

a side-line. For a living I clean shoes at the 'Elight' Barbershop--I,

who have lingered on the sunny slopes of Parnassus, and quenched my

soul-thirst at the Heliconian spring--gents' tans a specialty."

"Did you ever publish a book?" I asked.

"Sure! Did you never read my 'Rhymes of a Rustler'? One reviewer would

say I was the clear dope, the genuine eighteen-carat, jewelled-movement

article; the next would aver I was the rankest dub that ever came down

the pike. They said I'd imitated people, people I'd never read, people

I'd never heard of, people I never dreamt existed. I was accused of

imitating over twenty different writers. Then the pedants got after me,

said I didn't conform to academic formulas, advised me to steep myself

in tradition. They talked about form, about classic style and so on. As

if it matters so long as you get down the thing itself so that folks can

see it, and feel it go right home to their hearts. I can write in all

the artificial verse forms, but they're mouldy with age, back numbers.

Forget them. Quit studying that old Greek dope: study life, modern life,

palpitating with colour, crying for expression. Life! Life! The sunshine

of it was in my heart, and I just naturally tried to be its singer."

"I say," said the Prodigal from the bunk where he was lounging, in a

haze of cigarette smoke, "read us that thing you did the other day, 'The

Last Supper.'"

The Pote's eyes twinkled with pleasure.

"All right," he said. Then, in a clear voice, he repeated the following

lines:

"THE LAST SUPPER.

Marie Vaux of the Painted Lips,

And the mouth so mocking gay;

A wanton you to the finger tips,

That break men's hearts in play;

A thing of dust I have striven for,

Honour and Manhood given for,

Headlong for ruin driven for--

And this is the last, you say:

Drinking your wine with dainty sips,

Marie Vaux of the Painted Lips.

Marie Vaux of the Painted Lips,

Long have you held your sway;

I have laughed at your merry quips,

Now is my time to pay.

What we sow we must reap again;

When we laugh we must weep again;

So to-night we will sleep again,

Nor wake till the Judgment Day.

'Tis a prison wine that your palate sips,

Marie Vaux of the Painted Lips.

Marie Vaux of the Painted Lips,

Down on your knees and pray;

Pray your last ere the moment slips,

Pray ere the dark and the terror grips,

And the bright world fades away:

Pray for the good unguessed of us,

Pray for the peace and rest of us.

Here comes the Shape in quest of us,

Now must we go away--

You and I in the grave's eclipse,

Marie Vaux of the Painted Lips."

Just as he finished there came a knock at the door, and a young man

entered. He had the broad smiling face of a comedian, and the bulgy

forehead of a Baptist Missionary. The Pote introduced him to me.

"The Yukon Yorick."

"Hello," chuckled the newcomer, "how's the bunch? Don't let me stampede

you. How d'ye do, Horace! Glad to meet you." (He called everybody

Horace.) "Just come away from a meeting of my creditors. What's that?

Have a slab of booze? Hardly that, old fellow, hardly that. Don't tempt

me, Horace, don't tempt me. Remember I'm only a poor working-girl."

He seemed brimming over with jovial acceptance of life in all its

phases. He lit a cigar.

"Say, boys, you know old Dingbats the lawyer. Ha, yes. Well, met him on

Front Street just now. Says I: 'Horace, that was a pretty nifty spiel

you gave us last night at the Zero Club.' He looked at me all tickled up

the spine. Ha, yes. He was pleased as Punch. 'Say, Horace,' I says, 'I'm

on, but I won't give you away. I've got a book in my room with every

word of that speech in it.' He looked flabbergasted. So I have--ha, yes,

the dictionary."

He rolled his cigar unctuously in his mouth, with many chuckles and a

histrionic eye.

"No, don't tempt me, Horace. Remember, I'm only a poor working-girl.

Thanks, I'll just sit down on this soap-box. Knew a man once, Jobcroft

was his name, Charles Alfred Jobcroft, sat down on a custard pie at a

pink tea; was so embarrassed he wouldn't get up. Just sat on till every

one else was gone. Every one was wondering why he wouldn't budge: just

sat tight."

"I guess he _cussed hard_," ventured the Prodigal.

"Oh, Horace, spare me that! Remember I'm only a poor working-girl.

Hardly that, old fellow. Say, hit me with a slab of booze quick. Make

things sparkle, boys, make things sparkle."

He drank urbanely of the diluted alcohol that passed for whisky.

"Hit me easy, boys, hit me easy," he said, as they refilled his glass.

"I can't hold my hootch so well as I could a few summers ago--and many

hard Falls. Talking about holding your 'hooch,' the best I ever saw was

a man called Podstreak, Arthur Frederick Podstreak. You couldn't get

that man going. The way he could lap up the booze was a caution. He

would drink one bunch of boys under the table, then leave them and go on

to another. He would start in early in the morning and keep on going

till the last thing at night. And he never got hilarious even; it didn't

seem to phase him; he was as sober after the twentieth drink as when he

started. Gee! but he was a wonder."

The others nodded their heads appreciatively.

"He was a fine, healthy-looking chap, too; the booze didn't seem to hurt

him. Never saw such a constitution. I often watched him, for I suspected

him of 'sluffing,' but no! He always had a bigger drink than every one

else, always drank whisky, always drank it neat, and always had a chaser

of water after. I said to myself: 'What's your system?' and I got to

studying him hard. Then, one day, I found him out."

"What was it?"

"Well, one day I noticed something. I noticed he always held his glass

in a particular way when he drank, and at the same time he pressed his

stomach in the region of the 'solar plexus.' So that night I took him

aside.

"'Look here, Podstreak,' I said, 'I'm next to you.' I really wasn't, but

the bluff worked. He grew white.

"'For Heaven's sake, don't give me away,' he cried; 'the boys'll lynch

me.'

"'All right,' I said; 'if you'll promise to quit.'

"Then he made a full confession, and showed me how he did it. He had an

elastic rubber bag under his shirt, and a tube going up his arm and down

his sleeve, ending in a white nozzle inside his cuff. When he went to

empty his glass of whisky he simply pressed some air out of the rubber

bag, put the nozzle in the glass, and let it suck up all the whisky. At

night he used to empty all the liquor out of the bag and sell it to a

saloon-keeper. Oh, he was a phoney piece of work.

"'I've been a total abstainer (in private) for seven years,' he told me.

'Yes,' I said, 'and you'll become one in public for another seven.' And

he did."

Several men had dropped in to swell this Bohemian circle. Some had

brought bottles. There was a painter who had been "hung," a Mus Bac., an

ex-champion amateur pugilist, a silver-tongued orator, a man who had

"suped" for Mansfield, and half a dozen others. The little cabin was

crowded, the air hazy with smoke, the conversation animated. But mostly

it was a monologue by the inimitable Yorick.

Suddenly the conversation turned to the immorality of the town.

"Now, I have a theory," said the Pote, "that the regeneration of Dawson

is at hand. You know Good is the daughter of Evil, Virtue the offspring

of Vice. You know how virtuous a man feels after a jag. You've got to

sin to feel really good. Consequently, Sin must be good to be the means

of good, to be the raw material of good, to be virtue in the making,

mustn't it? The dance-halls are a good foil to the gospel-halls. If we

were all virtuous, there would be no virtue in virtue, and if we were

all bad no one would be bad. And because there's so much bad in this old

burg of ours, it makes the good seem unnaturally good."

The Pote had the floor.

"A friend of mine had a beautiful pond of water-lilies. They painted the

water exultantly and were a triumphant challenge to the soul. Folks came

from far and near to see them. Then, one winter, my friend thought he

would clean out his pond, so he had all the nasty, slimy mud scraped

away till you could see the silver gravel glimmering on the bottom. But

the lilies, with all their haunting loveliness, never came back."

"Well, what are you driving at, you old dreamer?"

"Oh, just this: in the nasty mud and slime of Dawson I saw a lily-girl.

She lives in a cabin by the Slide along with a Jewish couple. I only

caught a glimpse of her twice. They are unspeakable, but she is fair

and sweet and pure. I would stake my life on her goodness. She looks

like a young Madonna----"

He was interrupted by a shout of cynical laughter.

"Oh, get off your foot! A Madonna in Dawson--Ra! Ra!"

He shut up abashed, but I had my clue. I waited until the last noisy

roisterer had gone.

"In the cabin by the Slide?" I asked.

He started, looked at me searchingly: "You know her?"

"She means a good deal to me."

"Oh, I understand. Yes, that long, queer cabin highest up the hill."

"Thanks, old chap."

"All right, good luck." He accompanied me to the door, staring at the

marvel of the glamorous Northern midnight.

"Oh, for a medium to express it all! Your pedantic poetry isn't big

enough; prose isn't big enough. What we want is something between the

two, something that will interpret life, and stir the great heart of the

people. Good-night."