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Public-domain ebook sourced from Project Gutenberg #70041.
The opening · free to read
The roof of the Sheridan Apartment House, near Washington Square, New York. Let us examine it. There will be stirring happenings on this roof in due season, and it is well to know the ground.
The Sheridan stands in the heart of New York's Bohemian and artistic quarter. If you threw a brick from any of its windows, you would be certain to brain some rising interior decorator, some Vorticist sculptor or a writer of revolutionary vers libre. And a very good thing, too. Its roof, cosy, compact and ten storeys above the street, is flat, paved with tiles and surrounded by a low wall, jutting up at one end of which is an iron structure--the fire-escape. Climbing down this, should the emergency occur, you would find yourself in the open-air premises of the Purple Chicken restaurant--one of those numerous oases in this great city where, in spite of the law of Prohibition, you can still, so the cognoscenti whisper, "always get it if they know you." A useful thing to remember.
On the other side of the roof, opposite the fire-escape, stands what is technically known as a "small bachelor apartment, penthouse style." It is a white-walled, red-tiled bungalow, and the small bachelor who owns it is a very estimable young man named George Finch, originally from East Gilead, Idaho, but now, owing to a substantial legacy from an uncle, a unit of New York's Latin Quarter. For George, no longer being obliged to earn a living, has given his suppressed desires play by coming to the metropolis and trying his hand at painting. From boyhood up he had always wanted to be an artist; and now he is an artist; and, what is more, probably the worst artist who ever put brush to canvas.
For the rest, that large round thing that looks like a captive balloon is the water-tank. That small oblong thing that looks like a summer-house is George Finch's outdoor sleeping-porch. Those things that look like potted shrubs are potted shrubs. That stoutish man sweeping with a broom is George's valet, cook, and man-of-all-work, Mullett.
And this imposing figure with the square chin and the horn-rimmed spectacles which, as he comes out from the door leading to the stairs, flash like jewels in the sun, is no less a person than J. Hamilton Beamish, author of the famous Beamish Booklets ("Read Them and Make the World Your Oyster") which have done so much to teach the populace of the United States observation, perception, judgment, initiative, will-power, decision, business acumen, resourcefulness, organisation, directive ability, self-confidence, driving-power, originality--and, in fact, practically everything else from Poultry-Farming to Poetry.
The first emotion which any student of the Booklets would have felt on seeing his mentor in the flesh--apart from that natural awe which falls upon us when we behold the great--would probably have been surprise at finding him so young. Hamilton Beamish was still in the early thirties. But the brain of Genius ripens quickly: and those who had the privilege of acquaintance with Mr. Beamish at the beginning of his career say that he knew everything there was to be known--or behaved as if he did--at the age of ten.
Hamilton Beamish's first act on reaching the roof of the Sheridan was to draw several deep breaths--through the nose, of course. Then, adjusting his glasses, he cast a flashing glance at Mullett: and, having inspected him for a moment, pursed his lips and shook his head.
"All wrong!" he said.
The words, delivered at a distance of two feet in the man's immediate rear, were spoken in the sharp, resonant voice of one who Gets Things Done--which, in its essentials, is rather like the note of a seal barking for fish. The result was that Mullett, who was highly strung, sprang some eighteen inches into the air and swallowed his chewing-gum. Owing to that great thinker's practice of wearing No-Jar Rubber Soles ("They Save the Spine"), he had had no warning of Mr. Beamish's approach.
"All wrong!" repeated Mr. Beamish.
And when Hamilton Beamish said "All wrong!" it meant "All wrong!" He was a man who thought clearly and judged boldly, without hedging or vacillation. He called a Ford a Ford.
"Wrong, sir?" faltered Mullett, when, realising that there had been no bomb-outrage after all, he was able to speak.
"Wrong. Inefficient. Too much waste motion. From the muscular exertion which you are using on that broom you are obtaining a bare sixty-three or sixty-four per cent of result-value. Correct this. Adjust your methods. Have you seen a policeman about here?"
"A policeman, sir?"
Hamilton Beamish clicked his tongue in annoyance. It was waste motion, but even efficiency experts have their feelings.
"A policeman. I said a policeman and I meant a policeman."
"Were you expecting one, sir?"
"I was and am."
Mullett cleared his throat.
"Would he be wanting anything, sir?" he asked a little nervously.
"He wants to become a poet. And I am going to make him one."
"A poet, sir?"
"Why not? I could make a poet out of far less promising material. I could make a poet out of two sticks and a piece of orange-peel, if they studied my booklet carefully. This fellow wrote to me, explaining his circumstances and expressing a wish to develop his higher self, and I became interested in his case and am giving him special tuition. He is coming up here to-day to look at the view and write a description of it in his own words. This I shall correct and criticise. A simple exercise in elementary composition."
"I see, sir."
"He is ten minutes late. I trust he has some satisfactory explanation. Meanwhile, where is Mr. Finch? I would like to speak to him."
"Mr. Finch is out, sir."
"He always seems to be out nowadays. When do you expect him back?"
"I don't know, sir. It all depends on the young lady."
"Mr. Finch has gone out with a young lady?"
"No, sir. Just gone to look at one."
"To look at one?" The author of the Booklets clicked his tongue once more. "You are drivelling, Mullett. Never drivel--it is dissipation of energy."
"It's quite true, Mr. Beamish. He has never spoken to this young lady--only looked at her."
"Explain yourself."
"Well, sir, it's like this. I'd noticed for some time past that Mr. Finch had been getting what you might call choosey about his clothes...."
"What do you mean, choosey?"
"Particular, sir."
"Then say particular, Mullett. Avoid jargon. Strive for the Word Beautiful. Read my booklet on Pure English. Well?"
"Particular about his clothes, sir, I noticed Mr. Finch had been getting. Twice he had started out in blue with the invisible pink twill and then suddenly stopped at the door of the elevator and gone back and changed into the dove-grey. And his ties, Mr. Beamish. There was no satisfying him. So I said to myself 'Hot dog!'"
"You said what?"
"Hot dog, Mr. Beamish."
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