The Thurber Carnival

by James Thurber

  ‘Puppy biscuit,’ said Walter Mitty. He stopped walking and the buildings of Waterbury rose up out of the misty courtroom and surrounded him again. A woman who was passing laughed. ‘He said “Puppy biscuit”,’ she said to her companion. ‘That man said “Puppy biscuit” to himself.’ Walter Mitty hurried on. He went into an A. & P., not the first one he came to but a smaller one farther up the street. ‘I want some biscuit for small, young dogs,’ he said to the clerk. ‘Any special brand, sir?’ The greatest pistol shot in the world thought a moment. ‘It says “Puppies Bark for It” on the box,’ said Walter Mitty.

  His wife would be through at the hairdresser’s in fifteen minutes, Mitty saw in looking at his watch, unless they had trouble drying it; sometimes they had trouble drying it. She didn’t like to get to the hotel first; she would want him to be there waiting for her as usual. He found a big leather chair in the lobby, facing a window, and he put the overshoes and the puppy biscuit on the floor beside it. He picked up an old copy of Liberty and sank down into the chair. ‘Can Germany Conquer the World Through the Air?’ Walter Mitty looked at the pictures of bombing planes and of ruined streets.

  … ‘The cannonading has got the wind up in young Raleigh, sir,’ said the sergeant. Captain Mitty looked up at him through tousled hair. ‘Get him to bed,’ he said wearily. ‘With the others. I’ll fly alone.’ ‘But you can’t, sir,’ said the sergeant anxiously. ‘It takes two men to handle that bomber and the Archies are pounding hell out of the air. Von Richtman’s circus is between here and Saulier.’ ‘Somebody’s got to get that ammunition dump,’ said Mitty. ‘I’m going over. Spot of brandy?’ He poured a drink for the sergeant and one for himself. War thundered and whined around the dugout and battered at the door. There was a rending of wood and splinters flew through the room. ‘A bit of a near thing,’ said Captain Mitty carelessly. ‘The box barrage is closing in,’ said the sergeant. ‘We only live once, Sergeant,’ said Mitty, with his faint, fleeting smile. ‘Or do we?’ He poured another brandy and tossed it off. ‘I never see a man could hold his brandy like you, sir,’ said the sergeant. ‘Begging your pardon, sir.’ Captain Mitty stood up and strapped on his huge Webley-Vickers automatic. ‘It’s forty kilometres through hell, sir,’ said the sergeant. Mitty finished one last brandy. ‘After all,’ he said softly, ‘what isn’t?’ The pounding of the cannon increased; there was the rat-tat-tatting of machine-guns, and from somewhere came the menacing pocketa-pocketa-pocketa of the new flame-throwers. Walter Mitty walked to the door of the dugout humming ‘Auprès de Ma Blonde’. He turned and waved to the sergeant. ‘Cheerio!’ he said….

  Something struck his shoulder. ‘I’ve been looking all over this hotel for you,’ said Mrs Mitty. ‘Why do you have to hide in this old chair? How did you expect me to find you?’ ‘Things close in,’ said Walter Mitty vaguely. ‘What?’ Mrs Mitty said. ‘Did you get the what’s-its-name? The puppy biscuit? What’s in that box?’ ‘Overshoes,’ said Mitty. ‘Couldn’t you have put them on in the store?’ ‘I was thinking,’ said Walter Mitty. ‘Does it ever occur to you that I am sometimes thinking?’ She looked at him. ‘I’m going to take your temperature when I get you home,’ she said.

  They went out through the revolving doors that made a faintly derisive whistling sound when you pushed them. It was two blocks to the parking lot. At the drugstore on the corner she said, ‘Wait here for me. I forgot something. I won’t be a minute.’ She was more than a minute. Walter Mitty lighted a cigarette. It began to rain, rain with sleet in it. He stood up against the wall of the drugstore, smoking…. He put his shoulders back and his heels together. ‘To hell with the handkerchief,’ said Walter Mitty scornfully. He took one last drag on his cigarette and snapped it away. Then, with that faint, fleeting smile playing about his lips, he faced the firing squad; erect and motionless, proud and disdainful, Walter Mitty the Undefeated, inscrutable to the last.

  Here Lies Miss Groby

  Miss Groby taught me English composition thirty years ago. It wasn’t what prose said that interested Miss Groby; it was the way prose said it. The shape of a sentence crucified on a blackboard (parsed, she called it) brought a light to her eye. She hunted for Topic Sentences and Transitional Sentences the way little girls hunt for white violets in springtime. What she loved most of all were Figures of Speech. You remember her. You must have had her, too. Her influence will never die out of the land. A small schoolgirl asked me the other day if I could give her an example of metonymy. (There are several kinds of metonymies, you may recall, but the one that will come to mind most easily, I think, is Container for the Thing Contained.) The vision of Miss Groby came clearly before me when the little girl mentioned the old, familiar word. I saw her sitting at her desk, taking the rubber band off the roll-call cards, running it back upon the fingers of her right hand, and surveying us all separately with quick little henlike turns of her head.

  Here lies Miss Groby, not dead, I think, but put away on a shelf with the other T squares and rulers whose edges had lost their certainty. The fierce light that Miss Groby brought to English literature was the light of Identification. Perhaps, at the end, she could no longer retain the dates of the birth and death of one of the Lake poets. That would have sent her to the principal of the school with her resignation. Or perhaps she could not remember, finally, exactly how many Cornishmen there were who had sworn that Trelawny should not die, or precisely how many springs were left to Housman’s lad in which to go about the woodlands to see the cherry hung with snow.

  Verse was one of Miss Groby’s delights because there was so much in both its form and content that could be counted. I believe she would have got an enormous thrill out of Wordsworth’s famous lines about Lucy if they had been written this way:

  A violet by a mossy stone

  Half hidden from the eye,

  Fair as a star when ninety-eight

  Are shining in the sky.

  It is hard for me to believe that Miss Groby ever saw any famous work of literature from far enough away to know what it meant. She was forever climbing up the margins of books and crawling between their lines, hunting for the little gold of phrase, making marks with a pencil. As Palamides hunted the Questing Beast, she hunted the Figure of Speech. She hunted it through the clangorous halls of Shakespeare and through the green forests of Scott.

  Night after night, for homework, Miss Groby set us to searching in Ivanhoe and Julius Caesar for metaphors, similes, metonymies, apostrophes, personifications, and all the rest. It got so that figures of speech jumped out of the pages at you, obscuring the sense and pattern of the novel or play you were trying to read. ‘Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears.’ Take that, for instance. There is an unusual but perfect example of Container for the Thing Contained. If you read the funeral oration unwarily – that is to say, for its meaning – you might easily miss the C.F.T.T.C. Antony is, of course, not asking for their ears in the sense that he wants them cut off and handed over; he is asking for the function of those ears, for their power to hear, for, in a word, the thing they contain.

  At first I began to fear that all the characters in Shakespeare and Scott were crazy. They confused cause with effect, the sign for the thing signified, the thing held for the thing holding it. But after a while I began to suspect that it was I myself who was crazy. I would find myself lying awake at night saying over and over, ‘The thinger for the thing contained’. In a great but probably misguided attempt to keep my mind on its hinges, I would stare at the ceiling and try to think of an example of the Thing Contained for the Container. It struck me as odd that Miss Groby had never thought of that inversion. I finally hit on one, which I still remember. If a woman were to grab up a bottle of Grade A and say to her husband, ‘Get away from me or I’ll hit you with the milk,’ that would be a Thing Contained for the Container. The next day in class I raised my hand and brought my curious discovery straight out before Miss Groby and my astonished schoolmates. I was eager and serious about it and it never occurred to
me that the other children would laugh. They laughed loudly and long. When Miss Groby had quieted them she said to me rather coldly, ‘That was not really amusing, James.’ That’s the mixed-up kind of thing that happened to me in my teens.

  In later years I came across another excellent example of this figure of speech in a joke long since familiar to people who know vaudeville or burlesque (or radio, for that matter). It goes something like this:

  A: What’s your head all bandaged up for?

  B: I got hit with some tomatoes.

  A: How could that bruise you up so bad?

  B: These tomatoes were in a can.

  I wonder what Miss Groby would have thought of that one.

  I dream of my old English teacher occasionally. It seems that we are always in Sherwood Forest and that from far away I can hear Robin Hood winding his silver horn.

  ‘Drat that man for making such a racket on his cornet!’ cries Miss Groby. ‘He scared away a perfectly darling Container for the Thing Contained, a great, big, beautiful one. It leaped right back into its context when that man blew that cornet. It was the most wonderful Container for the Thing Contained I ever saw here in the Forest of Arden.’

  ‘This is Sherwood Forest,’ I say to her.

  ‘That doesn’t make any difference at all that I can see,’ she says to me.

  Then I wake up, tossing and moaning.

  The Man Who Hated Moonbaum

  After they had passed through the high, grilled gate they walked for almost a quarter of a mile, or so it seemed to Tallman. It was very dark; the air smelled sweet; now and then leaves brushed against his cheek or forehead. The little, stout man he was following had stopped talking, but Tallman could hear him breathing. They walked on for another minute. ‘How we doing?’ Tallman asked, finally. ‘Don’t ask me questions!’ snapped the other man. ‘Nobody asks me questions! You’ll learn.’ The hell I will, thought Tallman, pushing through the darkness and the fragrance and the mysterious leaves; the hell I will, baby; this is the last time you’ll ever see me. The knowledge that he was leaving Hollywood within twenty-four hours gave him a sense of comfort.

  There was no longer turf or gravel under his feet; there was something that rang flatly: tile, or flagstones. The little man began to walk more slowly and Tallman almost bumped into him. ‘Can’t we have a light?’ said Tallman. ‘There you go!’ shouted his guide. ‘Don’t get me screaming! What are you trying to do to me?’ ‘I’m not trying to do anything to you,’ said Tallman. ‘I’m trying to find out where we’re going.’

  The other man had come to a stop and seemed to be groping around. ‘First it’s wrong uniforms,’ he said, ‘then it’s red fire – red fire in Scotland, red fire three hundred years ago! I don’t know why I ain’t crazy!’ Tallman could make out the other man dimly, a black, gesturing blob. ‘You’re doing all right,’ said Tallman. Why did I ever leave the Brown Derby with this guy? he asked himself. Why did I ever let him bring me to his house – if he has a house? Who the hell does he think he is?

  Tallman looked at his wrist watch; the dial glowed wanly in the immense darkness. He was a little drunk, but he could see that it was half past three in the morning. ‘Not trying to do anything to me, he says!’ screamed the little man. ‘Wasn’t his fault! It’s never anybody’s fault! They give me ten thousand dollars’ worth of Sam Browne belts for Scotch Highlanders and it’s nobody’s fault!’ Tallman was beginning to get his hangover headache. ‘I want a light!’ he said. ‘I want a drink! I want to know where the hell I am!’ ‘That’s it! Speak out!’ said the other. ‘Say what you think! I like a man who knows where he is. We’ll get along.’ ‘Contact!’ said Tallman. ‘Camera! Lights! Get out that hundred-year-old brandy you were talking about.’

  The response to this was a soft flood of rose-coloured radiance; the little man had somehow found a light switch in the dark. God knows where, thought Tallman; probably on a tree. They were in a courtyard paved with enormous flagstones which fitted together with mosaic perfection. The light revealed the dark stones of a building which looked like the Place de la Concorde side of the Crillon. ‘Come on, you people!’ said the little man. Tallman looked behind him, half expecting to see the shadowy forms of Scottish Highlanders, but there was nothing but the shadows of trees and of oddly shaped plants closing in on the courtyard. With a key as small as a dime, the little man opened a door that was fifteen feet high and made of wood six inches thick.

  Marble stairs tumbled down like Niagara into a grand canyon of a living-room. The steps of the two men sounded sharp and clear on the stairs, died in the soft depths of an immensity of carpet in the living-room. The ceiling towered above them. There were highlights on dark wood medallions, on burnished shields, on silver curves and edges. On one wall a forty-foot tapestry hung from the ceiling to within a few feet of the floor. Tallman was looking at this when his companion grasped his arm. ‘The second rose!’ he said. ‘The second rose from the right!’ Tallman pulled away. ‘One of us has got to snap out of this, baby,’ he said. ‘How about that brandy?’ ‘Don’t interrupt me!’ shouted his host. ‘That’s what Whozis whispers to What’s-His-Name – greatest love story in the world, if I do say so myself – king’s wife mixed up in it – knights riding around with spears – Whozis writes her a message made out of twigs bent together to make words: “I love you” – sends it floating down a stream past her window – they got her locked in – goddamnedest thing in the history of pictures. Where was I? Oh – “Second rose from the right,” she says. Why? Because she seen it twitch, she seen it move. What’s-His-Name is bending over her, kissing her maybe. He whirls around and shoots an arrow at the rose – second from the right, way up high there – down comes the whole tapestry, weighs eleven hundred pounds, and out rolls this spy, shot through the heart. What’s-His-Name sent him to watch the lovers.’ The little man began to pace up and down the deep carpet. Tallman lighted a fresh cigarette from his glowing stub and sat down in an enormous chair. His host came to a stop in front of the chair and shook his finger at its occupant.

  ‘Look,’ said the little man. ‘I don’t know who you are and I’m telling you this. You could ruin me, but I got to tell you. I get Moonbaum here – I get Moonbaum himself here – you can ask Manny or Sol – I get the best arrow shot in the world here to fire that arrow for What’s-His-Name – ’

  ‘Tristram,’ said Tallman. ‘Don’t prompt me!’ bellowed the little man. ‘For Tristram. What happens? Do I know he’s got arrows you shoot bears with? Do I know he ain’t got caps on ’em? If I got to know that, why do I have Mitnik? Moonbaum is sitting right there – the tapestry comes down and out rolls this guy, shot through the heart – only the arrow is in his stomach. So what happens? So Moonbaum laughs! That makes Moonbaum laugh! The greatest love story in the history of pictures, and Moonbaum laughs!’ The little man raced over to a large chest, opened it, took out a cigar, stuck it in his mouth, and resumed his pacing. ‘How do you like it?’ he shouted. ‘I love it,’ said Tallman. ‘I love every part of it. I always have.’ The little man raised his hands above his head. ‘He loves it! He hears one – maybe two – scenes, and he loves every part of it! Even Moonbaum don’t know how it comes out, and you love every part of it!’ The little man was standing before Tallman’s chair again, shaking his cigar at him. ‘The story got around,’ said Tallman. ‘These things leak out. Maybe you talk when you’re drinking. What about that brandy?’

  The little man walked over and took hold of a bell rope on the wall, next to the tapestry. ‘Moonbaum laughs like he’s dying,’ he said. ‘Moonbaum laughs like he’s seen Chaplin.’ He dropped the bell rope. ‘I hope you really got that hundred-year-old brandy,’ said Tallman. ‘Don’t keep telling me what you hope!’ howled the little man. ‘Keep listening to what I hope!’ He pulled the bell rope savagely. ‘Now we’re getting somewhere,’ said Tallman. For the first time the little man went to a chair and sat down; he chewed on his unlighted cigar. ‘Do you know what Moonbaum wants her called?’ he
demanded, lowering his heavy lids. ‘I can guess,’ said Tallman. ‘Isolde.’ ‘Birds of a feather!’ shouted his host. ‘Horses of the same colour! Isolde! Name of God, man, you can’t call a woman Isolde! What do I want her called?’ ‘You have me there,’ said Tallman. ‘I want her called Dawn,’ said the little man, getting up out of his chair. ‘It’s short, ain’t it? It’s sweet, ain’t it? You can say it, can’t you?’ ‘To get back to that brandy,’ said Tallman, ‘who is supposed to answer that bell?’ ‘Nobody is supposed to answer it,’ said the little man. ‘That don’t ring, that’s a fake bell rope; it don’t ring anywhere. I got it to remind me of an idea Moonbaum ruined. Listen: Louisiana mansion – guy with seven daughters – old-Southern-colonel stuff – Lionel Barrymore could play it – we open on a room that looks like a million dollars – Barrymore crosses and pulls the bell rope. What happens?’ ‘Nothing,’ said Tallman. ‘You’re crazy!’ bellowed the little man. ‘Part of the wall falls in! Out flies a crow – in walks a goat, maybe – the place has gone to seed, see? It’s just a hulk of its former self, it’s a shallows!’ He turned and walked out of the room. It took him quite a while.