by Howard Mason
“Ah!” he said triumphantly. “Now, by Godfrey, I’ll hand him some facts—and true ones, too, from A to Izzard—facts that’ll make an argument he won’t find a-a-any answer whatsoever for. Not by a—a jugful, by Godfrey. Not by—”
“Come in!” he barked impatiently. “Come in!”
The door opened almost gingerly. Revealing a tall man, in shiny black clothing, with a long nose, and silver spectacles that hung far down it. He wore an old-fashioned batwing collar that seemed in perfect keeping with his high, intellectual forehead.
“I hope—” he ventured.
“Come on, come on,” ordered Hutchcock McDolphus impatiently. “I’m waiting.”
Ochiltree Jark advanced dubiously, closed the door, and came over to the rolltop desk. Dropping into the single stiff kitchenlike visitor’s chair at the side of the desk only at the hides-dealer’s brusque nod towards it.
And Jark now spoke.
“What seems to me so odd, Mr. McDolphus,” he essayed, “is that you won’t consider selling that book at any price when no price has as yet been broached. Since there really is no such thing in the universe as an article without price.”
“Well, there is in this case,” grunted McDolphus. “And it’s that book.” He thrust his pointed jaw out firmly, sulked a second, then spoke.
“But here—we’ll dispose of this fool matter for all time to come.” He faced the bookdealer almost belligerently. “Jark, I’m a practical man—completely minus nonsense and flapdoodle and—and screwball thinking. I’m a man who—well, who likes comedies on the screen, and prize fights—” He stopped, wondering whether he had built up a firm foundation of good common sense, for what he was about to reveal.
Indeed, he stopped so long that the bookdealer seemed to feel he must make some sort of comment.
“Then,” he ventured, “you’ll probably be wanting to take in a certain show, in a few days more or less, at the Parradine Moderne ’way uptown. First showing of an absolutely unshown new British comic, and first showing of a—a fight not yet even come off.”
The hides-dealer hastily whipped from his outer upper vest pocket a slender black notebook with pencil stuck in its binding and, withdrawing the pencil, opened the notebook to one of its pages.
“Parradine Moderne, you say?” He set that down. “Yes, I’ve heard of it. Though chiefly in the matter that it’s got the hugest theater marquee in New York, and maybe in the world. For—like to know the inside of that? Or is books your only meat?”
The bookdealer hastily shook his head. “For reasons of my own,” he said, “I would very much like to hear anything or of concerning Parradine—ah—Parradine Moderne Theatre,” he corrected.
“Well,” recounted McDolphus almost derisively, “there’s an inside story of how this damn fool who built the theater, and some huge block up there too, got stuck with the biggest marquee in the world. I got it all straight from an alderman on the City Council. But I won’t mention any names, see?” He shook his head helplessly. “Seems that this damn fool—Parradine is his name—and Parradine Block is the real-estate development in question—this damn fool added 12 feet of his own valuable Broadway frontage—12 feet back, y’ understand, of his official building line, for a whole block—added that 12 feet to the city’s 20-foot sidewalk—thinking that with a 32-foot sidewalk in that block, the city would be willing to call it Parradine Plaza. But—and the hides dealer now chuckled derisively at the naïveté of people who created real-estate enterprises—“the Parradine gazebo didn’t pass the proper mazuma to the proper aldermen, and so, on top of not getting it called Parradine Plaza, he had a godawful 32-foot sidewalk to cross—with his theater marquee—with the result that it’s the biggest in height and depth in all New York, and probably eats him out of house and home for lighting it, since— But here!—I’m discussing real estate, you’re discussing films, and we’re both supposed to be discussing a book. So what are these two first-run pics, anyway—of my fav’rite film fare?”
“Why—ah—” returned the bookdealer, as one who was a bit surprised to see what he had started, “one is this—this Broome Sherwood, English comic, who is said authoritatively to have—to have rolled the very cameramen who took the film in the aisles. Or—or whatever,” the bookdealer suggested, a bit uncertainly, “cameramen would roll in or on, in a film studio! And the other feature,” he added, “is of the—the fight that’s due to take place tomorrow night in Brooklyn, between—”
“Oh yes—I know! The fellow Napoleoni, who has fought under so many names it makes one dizzy—‘Napoleon’—‘The Little Corp’—even ‘The Kid.’” Hutchcock McDolphus shook his head, as one who had viewed many fights on many screens. “They’re generally not so hot when they keep switching their names. Wondeer what name he’ll step into the ring under in this set-to? For—but the other is the better man. Yes, this Casey O’Kelly. Who’ll probably— But here!—now I’m off on pugilism—instead of real-estate!” Having, however, as he talked, made some careful notations about the two films, Hutchcock McDolphus put his book away, was momentarily silent, and resumed, with some difficulty. “Well, as I started out to say, Jark, a few minutes back, in trying to emphasize why I can’t sell that book, I’m a man of pract’cal idees. No mysterycism or—or occultishism in me. For—but the point is that when I was a boy, Jark, in Kokomo, Indiana, our fam’ly were desperately poor and—and catastrophe-ridden: I couldn’t begin to tell you what ill luck dogged our family, my mother, my father, us kids. But one day my mother picked up a copy of this work in some secondhand bookstore sidewalk bin for 10 cents, and brought it home. And instantly—believe this or not, Jark!—our luck changed overnight. The old man—uh—our father got work—amazing well paid work, too—we kids found ourselves eating real food for a change—the baby ceased getting ill—mother’s whole nature changed for the better—oh, our whole existence altered. It just seemed, you see, that possession of that p’ticler lit’iary work by our fam’ly created luck. Mother tried to explain it on the basis of something she called caramel—Indian cara—”
“Karma,” corrected the bookdealer, frowning, however. “Indian Karma.”
“P’raps it was that. I’m only a practical man, Jark, who discusses practical phenomenals. Theorems are out of my line; pure facts are all I deal with. Anyway, that possession of the work created Luck with a capital L, was proven when we lost possession of the book. Sold it, by accident, with some old books and newspapers, to a wandering junk buyer. And lo—everything went to billy-be-dam—er—pot—no, to hell, in fact. Oh, we had a terr’ble time. The old ma—er—Father lost his job. One of my brothers fell out of a tree, and fractured both arms. Our baby was dying. Our farm was put under foreclosure. Godamighty, but our luck blew right up in our own faces.
“But—we recovered the work. Yep, we did! Traced it from the local Kokomo junk-dealer to one in the nearby city of Indianapolis. Found our work again—at least Mother did. She brought it triumphyantly home. And lo—everything changed again—instantler. The baby recovered. Father got work. The man who owned the mortgage on our home and garden patch died—and lo, left the mortgage to us. To us! Why, immediately the whole setup changed. Don’t ask me to explain it. It’s—it’s one of them things.”
The hides-dealer paused combatively, as though waiting to cross verbal arguments. But none were forthcoming. For the bookdealer sat stroking his chin helplessly. Hutchcock McDolphus went on.
“But, when Mother died, the book passed from out of possession of our family—or any other, so far as that goes. I was away, at time of her death, with an uncle in Ohio. This time, the work got burned up. I never tried to reobtain a copy of it, for it was too closely connected with her, you see—and her death—it had become somewhat painful. Just a chapter—that was over, that’s all. But what happens the other day, in your shop? Where I’d been a couple of times before, but no more? And always on the same errand—looking amongst the sec
ond-hand trade magazines for old Christmas Annuals of the Hide and Leather Review. You know what happened as well as me. I’m running my eyes along a row of books, after having riffled over your latest second-hand magazines, thinking to maybe just see something interesting-looking on hides or leather; and I come across that ident’cal work that we had in our house years ago! Ident’cal even to the same publisher, if not maybe the exact same edition. But the ident’cal work, Jark, which so often, as a kid, I’d viewed at my own then-eye-height of 4 feet, in my mother’s house. I might have gassed with you a little about it, before buying it—sure!—you being a bookman, and all—but my ticker showed me I was later than billy-be-damned for a business appointment that was more important than—than Hell and Hades, and Hades and Hell! So I plucked that book quickly out, had you slap some paper and string swiftly about it, paid you for it—and without question, don’t forget, as to price—and took it back to my office here, where my man, of that appointment I spoke of, was waiting for me even then outside the door. And—now wait!—this all may sound, Jark, like a lot of rumdum, having nothing to do with the subject, but it has a tremendyous bearing on why I won’t sell the book back to you for any price. Well, while I’m talking to my man, who drops in but my niece—who lives on Knightsbridge Terrace, in upper New York—and to whom I pass the wrapped book for safekeeping for me, since I’m in the process of moving where I live, and this place here is nothing but a tinderbox firetrap, and— But here’s the point, Jark, here’s the point: From the moment I owned and—and legally possessed that work, my luck changed. Instantly. Startlingly. And even though ’twas in my niece’s possession, for safekeeping for me. For before, Jark, she’d even gotten home with it under her arm, I got a call on the wire here, and consumyated a profitable business deal in hides that had been originally lost to me because the other man, the seller, had got angry and walked out of it; then, several days later, I sold 2000 hides at a larger profit than I would or should have had due to—uh—error in the figures; then, not long after that, I got news from my doctor that the results of a medical examination that I was awfully, frightfully fearful of—” and Hutchcock McDolphus shook his head, almost fearsomely. “—were negative—yes, all okay—nothing materially wrong, in short; then, subsequent to that, a man came in here from the far West and offered me a consignment of hides dirt cheap all because he—hrmph—thought I was some man named MacDollypus—to whom his brother had been morally indebted—whereas my name was McDolphus! Which consignment I grabbed, of course, while the grabbing was good; for in the hides business, Jark, you have to—but skip it—for there you are, see? Everything in the good luck line has broken for me from the moment I acquired a copy of that litiary work. And merely because of my legal possession of it—and not even my actual possession—since my niece is still taking care of it for me. And so I’d be abs’lutely nuts, don’t you think, to part comp’ny with that lucky piece of—of writing now? Well, I do—and by Godfrey I won’t part with it, ever. For so long, b’Godfrey, as—as I live. For I can vision infynite sim’lar pieces of good luck breaking all along the line of my life, as long as I own it. We-ell—all clear now?”
As Hutchcock McDolphus had talked, the bookdealer had sat in what appeared to be helpless amazement at the facts. At least, he kept moving his head from side to side, as a man quite baffled by something. But now, with the facts completed, he spoke. Reflectively, studiedly.
“Your mother, of course, had the initial—er—occult experience with this—this literary work which you— But here’s what I’m getting at: what was the name of the work?”
“What—what was the name?” barked Hutchcock McDolphus. “Well, you—you ought to know. You wrapped it up for me; took my money for it—”
“I mean,” declared Jark somewhat cryptically, “the work your mother had, and—and apparently swore by?”
“Why, damn it to Hell and Hades,” bit out the hides-dealer irately, “it was—well, that sure is a hell of a funny question, Jark! You must wrap things up, and take money for ’em, without even having looked at—well, it was a novel, of course. Entitled The Way. By an author named Oliver Out. And the publisher was—yes—somebody called Higsmith.”
“Well, I’ll be!” was all Ochiltree Jark said. “I’ll be!”
“What do you mean?” rasped the hides-dealer angrily. “You’ll be? If I want to follow my mother’s beliefs about a fool novel written by a clergyman-missionary in Japan who—”
“Now—now wait,” pleaded Jark. “Wait, Mr. McDolphus. The work you now have—in your niece’s safekeeping, that is—isn’t this work your mother had, and derived undeniable luck from, at all.”
Hutchcock McDolphus gazed at the other almost combatively. “Isn’t? Well, by Godfrey it said on the back edge of the book THE WAY, and underneath it was the author’s last name, OUT. And below that the publisher, Higsmith. Moreover, ’twas bound in red, as was our copy; and the stamping of—of title and author was in Japanesy-like brush-stroke letters like— As I told you, the author, decadys ago, was a missionary in Japan, and—”
“Yes, I know,” nodded Jark. “I know of the author, now that you’re bringing his name up somewhat unexpectedly. But this book that you’ve got, Mr. McDolphus, is named The Way Out. A fact, believe me! Even though the words, ‘THE WAY’ cover one line, and the word ‘OUT’ a second line below it. As for the author of this book, his name is Highsmith, and it appears ’way down. Plainly, you took it to be the publisher, Higsmith, naturally enough. All this is God’s own truth, Mr. McDolphus. And as for the brushstroke-like letters, they—they don’t symbolize Japanese writing at all. For this book is a book of Chinese wisdom. Collated, and compiled, from all the ages of China. I give you my word on it.”
As Ochiltree Jark spoke, profound disgust was written on Hutchcock McDolphus’ face.
“Chinese wisdom?” he echoed. “We-ell, if you know that fact, you—you must know it. But, damn it, once I acquired the—the fool book, my luck started to—”
“Belief in luck, Mr. McDolphus, or sheer coincidence. Rather, let me put it, your mother’s turn of luck may have been coincidence, or maybe not,” the bookdealer hastened to say, “but your belief that you had good-luck by the—er—tail, gilded your affairs with 24-karat gold.”
“Hrmph,” grunted the hides-dealer dubiously. Then: “Maybe it did, at that. Just as people who believe in their doctor get well; and those who don’t—” He stopped. “Well, fooey on all my theories. And I thought I was owning a copy of—hell-fire and Hades’ smoke!—and so I’ve been owning a book named The Way Out, all the time, instead of a work The Way by Oliver Out? Well, I’ll be—I feel like an idiot.” He stopped. “However, on the other hand, maybe this book itself is luck—”
The phone in back of him rang.
“Excuse me a minute.”
He turned about. Took up his instrument.
“Hutchcock McDolphus, Dealer in Hides and—”
He was interrupted by a male voice on the other end. “Listen here, McDolphus, those beef hides you got from that ‘Westerner’ who thought you were named “MacDollypus’ and wanted to ‘pay back some moral debt that his brother’—well, they—”
“Don’t—don’t tell me they’ve got—”
The other man laughed harshly. “I can’t say they ‘stink,’ because all hidees stink. But they’re on the rotten fringe, all of ’em, when they catch the new three-way pull-test. The cattle they were off of plainly were infected with—I can’t pay you a cent more now than their worth as ground-up leather pulp for fertilizing broccoli and—”
“I’ll—I’ll call later,” said Hutchcock McDolphus. Deposited the instrument. Turned about.
“Good luck—my behind!” he said bitterly and unpoetically. “The—the goddamned book—”
“—May now,” pointed out Jark, “bring you bad luck, since you now discovered bad luck to be associated with it. But tell me now if I can buy it back?”
“Hell and Hades—yes!” snapped the hides-dealer. “For a song. You can even have it for noth—now wait—what’ll you give me?”
“I’ll give you, Mr. McDolphus,” the bookdealer declared, “nothing less than a copy of the very book in which you do have such profound faith as to its being a—a luck fetich. Yes, a copy of The Way—by Oliver Out! For I know a dealer, specializing quite heavy on religious books, who has an entire set of Oliver Out. In the Higsmith edition, even. Some dozen volumes, all in all. He’s been quite unable to dispose of it as a set, even to clergymen, for the author’s neither interesting, nor colorful, nor dram—but that’s not the point here, is it? The point is that this dealer is ready to break up the set, and toss it in the outside bin—or he’ll sell it to me for the cost of that The Way Out book, and I can put out in my bin all the copies other than the one that—that figures in your life. And—but that’s my offer. The book you thought you had for the one you have. Is—is it a deal?”
“A deal it is!” said the hides-dealer quickly. “It’s a deal. No backing out now! For—”
Again the phone in back of him rang.
“Just a minute, Jark,” he said impatiently. And again turned ’round, and took up the instrument.
“Hutchcock McDolphus, Dealer in Hi—” he began. But was interrupted by an amused trill, in pronouncedly feminine tones.
Then a girl’s voice.
“This is Carmine, Uncle Hutchcock,” said that voice.
Hutchcock McDolphus’ demeanor changed completely, in discussion with this, his only and much-beloved niece. “Ah there, child? What can I do for you?”
“I have your book, Uncle, now that you’re safely ensconced in your new quarters—and we, at home, are going to housecleaning! That book, you know, of Chinese wisdom, by Gordon Highsmith?”
“Hrmph,” was all Hutchcock McDolphus said.
“I—I just got it back,” the girl replied, a bit contritely, “from a young man to whom I had loaned it.”
