The Green Mouse
The building promised to be magnificent; the plans provided for a
thousand private operating rooms, each beautifully furnished in Louis XVI
style, a restaurant, a tea room, a marriage licence bureau, and an
emergency chapel where first aid clergymen were to be always in
attendance.
In each of the thousand Louis XVI operating rooms a Destyn-Carr wireless
instrument was to stand upon a rococo table. A maid to every two rooms, a
physician to every ten, and smelling salts to each room, were provided
for in this gigantic enterprise.
Millions of circulars were being prepared to send broadcast over the
United States. They read as follows:
ARE YOU IN LOVE? IF NOT, WHY NOT?
Wedlock by Wireless. Marriage by Machinery. A Wondrous Wooer Without
Words! No more doubt; no more hesitation; no more uncertainty. The
Destyn-Carr Wireless Apparatus does it all for you. Happy Marriage
Guaranteed or money eagerly refunded!
Psychical Science says that for every man and woman on earth there is a
predestined mate!
That mate can be discovered for you by The Green Mouse, Limited.
Why waste time with costly courtship? Why frivol? Why fuss?
There is only ONE mate created for YOU. You pay us; We find that ONE,
thereby preventing mistakes, lawsuits, elopements, regrets, grouches,
alimony.
Divorce Absolutely Eliminated
By Our Infallible Wireless Method
Success Certain
It is now known the world over that Professor William Augustus Destyn has
discovered that the earth we live on is enveloped in Psychical Currents.
By the Destyn-Carr instrument these currents may be tapped, controlled
and used to communicate between two people of opposite sex whose
subconscious and psychic personalities are predestined to affinity and
amorous accord. In other words, when psychic waves from any individual
are collected or telegraphed along these wireless psychical currents,
only that one affinity attuned to receive them can properly respond.
_We catch your psychic waves for you. We send them out into the world._
WATCH THAT SPARK!
When you see a tiny bluish-white spark tip the tentacle of the Destyn-
Carr transmitter,
THE WORLD IS YOURS!
for $25.
Our method is quick, painless, merciful and certain. Fee, twenty-five
dollars in advance. Certified checks accepted.
THE GREEN MOUSE, Limited.
President PROF. WM. AUGUSTUS DESTYN.
Vice-Presidents THE HON. KILLIAN VAN K. VANDERDYNK.
THE HON. GEORGE GRAY, 3D.
Treasurer THE HON. BUSHWYCK CARR.
These circulars were composed, illuminated and printed upon vellum by
what was known as an "Art" community in West Borealis, N.J. Several tons
were expected for delivery early in June.
Meanwhile, the Carr family and its affiliations had invested every cent
they possessed in Green Mouse, Limited; and those who controlled the
stock were Bushwyck Carr; William Augustus Destyn and Mrs. Destyn, née
Ethelinda Carr; Mr. Killian Van K. Vanderdynk and Mrs. Vanderdynk, née
Sacharissa Carr; George Gray and Mrs. Gray, very lately Sybilla Carr; and
the unmarried triplets, Flavilla and Drusilla Carr.
Remembering with a shudder how Bell Telephone and Standard Oil might once
have been bought for a song, Bushwyck Carr determined that in this case
his pudgy fingers should not miss the forelock of Time and the divided
skirts of Chance.
Squinting at the viewless ether through his monocle he beheld millions in
it; so did William Augustus Destyn and the other sons-in-law.
Only the unmarried triplets, Flavilla and Drusilla, remained amiably
indifferent in the midst of all these family financial scurryings and
preparations to secure world patents in a monopoly which promised the
social regeneration of the globe.
The considerable independent fortunes that their mother had left them
they invested in Green Mouse, at their father's suggestion; but further
than that they took no part in the affair.
For a while the hurry and bustle and secret family conferences mildly
interested them. Very soon, however, the talk of psychic waves and
millions bored them; and as soon as the villa at Oyster Bay was opened
they were glad enough to go.
Here, at Oyster Bay, there was some chance of escaping their money-mad
and wave-intoxicated family; they could entertain and be entertained by
both of the younger sets in that dignified summer resort; they could
wander about their own vast estate alone; they could play tennis, sail,
swim, ride, and drive their tandem.
But best of all--for they were rather seriously inclined at the age of
eighteen, or, rather, on the verge of nineteen--they adored sketching, in
water colors, out of doors.
Scrubby forelands set with cedars, shadow-flecked paths under the scrub
oak, meadows where water glimmered, white sails off Center Island and
Cooper's Bluff--Cooper's Bluff from the north, northeast, east,
southeast, south--this they painted with never-tiring, Pecksniffian
patience, boxing the compass around it as enthusiastically as that
immortal architect circumnavigated Salisbury Cathedral.
And one delicious morning in early June, when the dew sparkled on the
poison ivy and the air was vibrant with the soft monotone of mosquitoes
and the public road exhaled a delicate aroma of crude oil, Drusilla and
Flavilla, laden with sketching-blocks, color-boxes, camp-stools, white
umbrellas and bonbons, descended to the great hall, on sketching bent.
Mr. Carr also stood there, just outside on the porch, red, explosive,
determined legs planted wide apart, defying several courtly reporters,
who for a month had patiently and politely appeared every hour to learn
whether Mr. Carr had anything to say about the new invention, rumors of
which were flying thick about Park Row.
"No, I haven't!" he shouted in his mellow and sonorously musical bellow.
"I have told you one hundred times that when I have anything to say I'll
send for you. Now, permit me to inform you, for the hundred and first
consecutive time, that I have nothing to say--which won't prevent you
from coming back in an hour and standing in exactly the same ridiculous
position you now occupy, and asking me exactly the same unmannerly
questions, and taking the same impertinent snapshots at my house and my
person!"
He executed a ferocious facial contortion, clapped the monocle into his
left eye, and squinted fiercely.
"I'm getting tired of this!" he continued. "When I wake in the morning
and look out of my window there are always anywhere from one to twenty
reporters decorating my lawn! That young man over there is the worst and
most persistent offender!"--scowling at a good-looking youth in white
flannels, who immediately blushed distressingly. "Yes, you are, young
man! I'm amazed that you have the decency to blush! Your insolent sheet,
the Evening Star, refers to my Trust Company as a Green Mouse Trap and a
_Mouse_leum. It also publishes preposterous pictures of myself and
family. Dammit, sir, they even produce a photograph of Orlando, the
family cat! You did it, I am told. Did you?"
"I am trying to do what I can for my paper, Mr. Carr," said the young
man. "The public is interested."
Mr. Carr regarded him with peculiar hatred.
"Come here," he said; "I _have_ got something to say to _you_."
The young man cautiously left the ranks of his fellows and came up on the
porch. Behind Mr. Carr, in the doorway, stood Drusilla and Flavilla. The
young man tried not to see them; he pretended not to. But he flushed
deeply.
"I want to know," demanded Mr. Carr, "why the devil you are always around
here blushing. You've been around here blushing for a month, and I want
to know why you do it."
The youth stood speechless, features afire to the tips of his glowing
ears.
"At first," continued Mr. Carr, mercilessly, "I had a vague hope that you
might perhaps be blushing for shame at your profession; I heard that you
were young at it, and I was inclined to be sorry for you. But I'm not
sorry any more!"
The young man remained crimson and dumb.
"Confound it," resumed Mr. Carr, "I want to know why the deuce you come
and blush all over my lawn. I won't stand it! I'll not allow anybody to
come blushing around me----"
Indignation choked him; he turned on his heel to enter the house and
beheld Flavilla and Drusilla regarding him, wide-eyed.
He went in, waving them away before him.
"I've taught that young pup a lesson," he said with savage satisfaction.
"I'll teach him to blush at me! I'll----"
"But why," asked Drusilla, "are you so cruel to Mr. Yates? We like him."
"Mr.--Mr. _Yates!_" repeated her father, astonished. "Is that his name?
And who told _you?_"
"He did," said Drusilla, innocently.
"He--that infernal newspaper bantam----"
"Pa-_pah!_ Please don't say that about Mr. Yates. He is really
exceedingly kind and civil to us. Every time you go to town on business
he comes and sketches with us at----"
"Oh," said Mr. Carr, with the calm of deadly fury, "so he goes to
Cooper's Bluff with you when I'm away, does he?"
Flavilla said: "He doesn't exactly go with us; but he usually comes there
to sketch. He makes sketches for his newspaper."
"Does he?" asked her father, grinding his teeth.
"Yes," said Drusilla; "and he sketches so beautifully. He made such
perfectly charming drawings of Flavilla and of me, and he drew pictures
of the house and gardens, and of all the servants, and"--she laughed--"I
once caught a glimpse in his sketch-book of the funniest caricature of
you----"
The expression on her father's face was so misleading in its terrible
calm that she laughed again, innocently.
"It was not at all an offensive caricature, you know--really it was not a
caricature at all--it was _you_--just the way you stand and look at
people when you are--slightly--annoyed----"
"Oh, he is so clever," chimed in Flavilla, "and is so perfectly well-bred
and so delightful to us--to Drusilla particularly. He wrote the prettiest
set of verses--To Drusilla in June--just dashed them off while he was
watching her sketch Cooper's Bluff from the southwest----"
"He is really quite wonderful," added Drusilla, sincerely, "and so
generous and helpful when my drawing becomes weak and wobbly----"
"Mr. Yates shows Drusilla how to hold her pencil," said Flavilla,
becoming warmly earnest in her appreciation of this self-sacrificing
young man. "He often lays aside his own sketching and guides Drusilla's
hand while she holds the pencil----"
"And when I'm tired," said Drusilla, "and the water colors get into a
dreadful mess, Mr. Yates will drop his own work and come and talk to me
about art--and other things----"
"He is _so_ kind!" cried Flavilla in generous enthusiasm.
"And _so_ vitally interesting," said Drusilla.
"And so talented!" echoed Flavilla.
"And so--" Drusilla glanced up, beheld something in the fixed stare of
her parent that frightened her, and rose in confusion. "Have I said--
done--anything?" she faltered.
With an awful spasm Mr. Carr jerked his congested features into the
ghastly semblance of a smile.
"Not at all," he managed to say. "This is very interesting--what you tell
me about this p-pu--this talented young man. Does he--does he seem--
attracted toward you--unusually attracted?"
"Yes," said Drusilla, smiling reminiscently.
"How do you know?"
"Because he once said so."
"S-said--w-what?"
"Why, he said quite frankly that he thought me the most delightful girl
he had ever met."
"What--else?" Mr. Carr's voice was scarcely audible.
"Nothing," said Drusilla; "except that he said he cared for me very much
and wished to know whether I ever could care very much for him.... I told
him I thought I could. Flavilla told him so, too.... And we all felt
rather happy, I think; at least I did."