Tales of Fantasy and Fact

by Brander Matthews

  SIXTEEN YEARS WITHOUT A BIRTHDAY

  While the journalist deftly dealt with the lobster _a la_ Newburg,as it bubbled in the chafing-dish before him, the deep-toned bell ofthe church at the corner began to strike twelve.

  "Give me your plates, quick," he said, "and we'll drink Jack's healthbefore it's to-morrow."

  The artist and the soldier and the professor of mathematics did as theywere told; and then they filled their glasses.

  The journalist, still standing, looked the soldier in the eye, andsaid: "Jack, this is the first time The Quartet has met since the oldschool-days, ten years ago and more. That this reunion should takeplace on your birthday doubles the pleasure of the occasion. We wishyou many happy returns of the day!"

  Then the artist and the mathematician rose also, and they looked at thesoldier, and repeated together, "Many happy returns of the day!"

  Whereupon they emptied their glasses and sat down, and the soldier roseto his feet.

  "Thank you, boys," he began, "but I think you have already made meenjoy this one birthday three times over. It was yesterday that I wastwenty-six, and----"

  "But I didn't meet you till last night," interrupted the journalist;"and yesterday was Sunday; and I couldn't get a box for the theatre andfind the other half of The Quartet all on Sunday, could I?"

  "I'm not complaining because yesterday was my real birthday," thesoldier returned, "even if you have now protracted the celebration onto the third day--it's just struck midnight, you know. All I have tosay is, that since you have given me a triplicate birthday this time,any future anniversary will have to spread itself over four days if itwants to beat the record, that's all." And he took his seat again.

  "Well," said the artist, who had recently returned from Paris, "thatwon't happen till we see 'the week of the four Thursdays,' as theFrench say."

  "And we sha'n't see that for a month of Sundays, I guess," thejournalist rejoined.

  There was a moment of silence, and then the mathematician spoke for thefirst time.

  "A quadruplex birthday will be odd enough, I grant you," he began, "butI don't think it quite as remarkable as the case of the lady who had nobirthday for sixteen years after she was born."

  The soldier and the artist and the journalist all looked at theprofessor of mathematics, and they all smiled; but his face remainedperfectly grave.

  "What's that you say?" asked the journalist. "Sixteen years without abirthday? Isn't that a very large order?"

  "Did you know the lady herself?" inquired the soldier.

  "She was my grandmother," the mathematician answered. "She had nobirthday for the first sixteen years of her life."

  "You mean that she did not celebrate her birthdays, I suppose," theartist remarked. "That's nothing. I know lots of families where theydon't keep any anniversaries at all."

  "No," persisted the mathematician. "I meant what I said, and preciselywhat I said. My grandmother did not keep her first fifteen birthdaysbecause she couldn't. She didn't have them to keep. They didn't happen.The first time she had a chance to celebrate her birthday was when shecompleted her sixteenth year--and I need not tell you that the familymade the most of the event."

  "This a real grandmother you are talking about," asked the journalist,"and not a fairy godmother?"

  "I could understand her going without a birthday till she was fouryears old," the soldier suggested, "if she was born on the 29th ofFebruary."

  "That accounts for four years," the mathematician admitted, "since mygrandmother _was_ born on the 29th of February."

  "In what year?" the soldier pursued. "In 1796?"

  The professor of mathematics nodded.

  "Then that accounts for eight years," said the soldier.

  "I don't see that at all," exclaimed the artist.

  "It's easy enough," the soldier explained. "The year 1800 isn't aleap-year, you know. We have a leap-year every four years, except thefinal year of a century--1700, 1800, 1900."

  "I didn't know that," said the artist.

  "I'd forgotten it," remarked the journalist. "But that gets us overonly half of the difficulty. He says his grandmother didn't have abirthday till she was sixteen. We can all see now how it was she wentwithout this annual luxury for the first eight years. But who robbedher of the birthdays she was entitled to when she was eight and twelve.That's what I want to know."

  "Born February 29, 1796, the Gregorian calendar deprives her of abirthday in 1800," the soldier said. "But she ought to have had herfirst chance February 29, 1804. I don't see how----" and he paused indoubt. "Oh!" he cried, suddenly; "where was she living in 1804?"

  "Most of the time in Russia," the mathematician answered. "Although thefamily went to England for a few days early in the year."

  "What was the date when they left Russia?" asked the soldier, eagerly.

  "They sailed from St. Petersburg in a Russian bark on the 10th ofFebruary," answered the professor of mathematics, "and owing tohead-winds they did not reach England for a fortnight."

  "Exactly," cried the soldier. "That's what I thought. That accounts forit."

  "I don't see how," the artist declared; "that is, unless you mean tosuggest that the Czar confiscated the little American girl's birthdayand sent it to Siberia."

  "It's plain enough," the soldier returned. "We have the reformedcalendar, the Gregorian calendar, you know, and the Russians haven't.They keep the old Julian calendar, and it's now ten days behind ours.They celebrate Christmas three days after we have begun the new year.So if the little girl left St. Petersburg in a Russian ship on February10, 1804, by the old reckoning, and was on the water two weeks, shewould land in England after March 1st by the new calendar."

  "That is to say," the artist inquired, "the little girl came into anEnglish port thinking she was going to have her birthday the next week,and when she set foot on shore she found out that her birthday waspassed the week before. Is that what you mean?"

  "Yes," answered the soldier; and the mathematician nodded also.

  "Then all I have to say," the artist continued, "is that it was a meantrick to play on a child that had been looking forward to her firstbirthday for eight years--to knock her into the middle of next week inthat fashion!"

  "And she had to go four years more for her next chance," said thejournalist. "Then she would be twelve. But you said she hadn't abirthday till she was sixteen. How did she lose the one she wasentitled to in 1808? She wasn't on a Russian ship again, was she?"

  "No," the mathematician replied; "she was on an American ship thattime."

  "On the North Sea?" asked the artist.

  "No," was the calm answer; "on the Pacific."

  "Sailing east or west?" cried the soldier.

  "Sailing east," answered the professor of mathematics, smiling again.

  "Then I see how it might happen," the soldier declared.

  "Well, I don't," confessed the artist.

  The journalist said nothing, as it seemed unprofessional to admitignorance of anything.

  "It is simple enough," the soldier explained. "You see, the world isrevolving about the sun steadily, and it is always high noon somewhereon the globe. The day rolls round unceasing, and it is not cut off intotwenty-four hours. We happen to have taken the day of Greenwich orParis as the day of civilization, and we say that it begins earlier inChina and later in California; but it is all the same day, we say.Therefore there has to be some place out in the middle of the PacificOcean where we lose or gain a day--if we are going east, we gain it; ifwe are going west, we lose it. Now I suppose this little girl of twelvewas on her way from some Asiatic port to some American port, and theystopped on their voyage at Honolulu. Perhaps they dropped anchor therejust before midnight on their February 28, 1808, thinking that themorrow would be the 29th; but when they were hailed from the shore,just after midnight, they found out that it was already March 1st."

  As the soldier finished, he looked at the mathematician forconfirmation of his explanation.

  Thus appealed to
, the professor of mathematics smiled and nodded, andsaid: "You have hit it. That's just how it was that my grandmother lostthe birthday she ought to have had when she was twelve, and had to gofour years more without one."

  "And so she really didn't have a birthday till she was sixteen!" theartist observed. "Well, all I can say is, your great-grandfather tooktoo many chances. I don't think he gave the child a fair show. I hopehe made it up to her when she was sixteen--that's all!"

  An hour later The Quartet separated. The soldier and the artist walkedaway together, but the journalist delayed the mathematician.

  "I say," he began, "that yarn about your grandmother was veryinteresting. It is an extraordinary combination of coincidences. Ican see it in the Sunday paper with a scare-head--

  'SIXTEEN YEARS WITHOUT A BIRTHDAY!'

  Do you mind my using it?"

  "But it isn't true," said the professor.

  "Not true?" echoed the journalist.

  "No," replied the mathematician. "I made it up. I hadn't done my shareof the talking, and I didn't want you to think I had nothing to say formyself."

  "Not a single word of truth in it?" the journalist returned.

  "Not a single word," was the mathematician's answer.

  "Well, what of that?" the journalist declared. "I don't want to file itin an affidavit--I want to print it in a newspaper."

  (1894.)