A Thousand and One Afternoons in Chicago Part 21

Of the crowds on the pavements; of the crowds in the pa.s.senger cars, elevators, lobbies, one wonders little where they are going. Answering advertis.e.m.e.nts, forsooth. Vertebrate brothers of the codfish. But these others! Ah, one stands on the curb with the vanilla phosphate playing havoc with one's blood and wonders a hatful.

These sybarites of the taxis are going somewhere. Make no doubt of that.

These insanely a.s.sorted creatures bouncing on the leather cus.h.i.+ons are launched upon mysterious and important enterprises. And these bold-looking jehus, black eyed, hard mouthed--a fetching tribe! A cross between Acroceraunian bandits and Samaritans. One may stare at a taxi scooting by and think with no incongruity of Carlyle's "Night of Spurs"--with Louis and his harried Antoinette flying the guillotine. And of other things which our inefficient memory prevents us from jotting down at this moment.

But of other things.

Journalism is incomplete without its moral or at least its overtones of morals. And we come to that now as an honest reporter should. Our moral is very simple. Any good plat.i.tudinarian will already have forestalled it. It is that the goodly company riding about in these taxicabs upon which we have been speculating are none other than these codfish of the pavements.

The same, messieurs. A fact which gives us hope; briefly, hope for the fact that the world is not as sane as it looks and that, despite all the fine strivings of construction engineers, plumbers, advertisers and the like, men and women still preserve the quaint spirit of disorder and melodrama which once lived in the ornaments of the town.

THE WATCH FIXER

The wooden counter in front of Gustave is littered with tiny pieces of spring, tiny keys, almost invisible screws and odd-looking tools. Gustave himself is a large man with ponderous eyebrows and a thick nose. He stands behind his counter in the North Wells Street repair shop looking much too large for the store itself and grotesquely out of proportion with the springs, keys, screws and miniature tools before him.

Attached to Gustave's right eye is a microscope. It is fastened on by aid of straps round his large head. When he works he moves the instrument over his eye and when he rests he raises it so that it sticks out of his eyebrow.

Gustave is a watchmaker. When he was young he made watches of curious design. But for years he has had to content himself with repairing watches. Incased in his old-fas.h.i.+oned leather ap.r.o.n that hangs from his shoulders, the venerable and somewhat Gargantuan Gustave stands most of the day peering into the tiny mechanisms of watches brought into the old furniture shop. Gustave's partner is responsible for the furniture end of the business. As Gustave grows older he seems to lose interest in things that do not pertain to the delicate intricacies of watches.

I had a watch that was being fixed. Gustave said it would be ready in a half-hour. He slipped the microscope over his eye and, bending in his heavy round-shouldered way above the small watch, began to pry with his thick fingers. A pair of tiny pincers, a fragile-looking screwdriver and a set of things that looked like dolls' tools occupied him.

We talked, Gustave answering and evading questions and offering comments as he worked.

"Not zo hard ven you ged used to it," he said. "Und I am used to it.

Vatches are my friends. I like to look into dem und make dem go. Yes, I have been vorking on vatches for a long time. Years und years.

"No, I vas vunce in the manuf.a.gturing business. Long ago. It vas ven I vas married und had children. I come over from the old country den und I start in. Preddy soon ve had money to spare. Ve came oud here to Chicago und got a house. A very nice house.

"My vife was a danzer in the old country. Maybe you have heard of her. But never mind. I had dis vatch factory over here by the river. Dat vas thirty years ago. Und we had a barn und horses.

"But you know how it is! Vat you have today you don't have tomorrow. Not so? My vife first. The nice house und the children vasn't enough for her.

She must danze also. I vas younger und my head vas harder den. Und I said, 'No.' Alzo she vent avay. Yes, she vent avay. Und der vas two kids. My youngest a girl und my oldest a boy."

The microscope fastened itself closely to the inanimate springs and keys and screws. Gustave's thick fingers reached for a pair of baby pincers.

And he continued now without the aid of questions in a low, gutteral voice:

"Vell, business got bad und I gave up the factory. Und I starded in someding else. Den my youngest she died. Yes, dat's how it goes. First vun ding und den anoder ding. Und preddy soon you have nodings.

"I tried to find my vife, but she vas hiding from me. Perhaps I vas hard headed in dem days. Ven you are young you are like dat. Now id is diff'rend. She iss dead und I am alive. Und if she had been my vife righd along she vould still be dead now. Alzo vat matter does it make?

"Dat vas maybe tventy years ago or maybe more. Maybe tventy-five years ago. Dings got all mixed up and my businesses got vorse und vorse. Und den my son ran avay und wrides me he become a sailor. So I vas alone."

"Dis vatch," sighed Gustave, "is very hard to figx. It iss an old vatch und not much good to begin vit. But I figx him. Vat vas ve talking aboud?

Oh, my business. Yes, yes. It goes like dat. I don't hear from my vife und I don't hear from my son. Und my liddle vun iss dead. Und so I lose my fine house und the horses und everyding.

"Preddy soon I got no job even und preddy soon I am almost a b.u.m. I hang around saloons und drink beer und do noding but spend a little money I pick up now un den by doing liddle jobs. Ah, now I have it. It vas de liddle spring. See? Zo. Most of dese vatches iss no good vatsoever. Dey make vatches diff'rend now as dey used to. Chust vun minute or two more und I have him figxed so he don'd break no more for a vile. Und vat vas we talking aboud?

"Ah, yes. Aboud how I drink beer und vas a b.u.m. Dat's how it goes. Ven you are young you have less sense den ven you are old. Und I used to go around thinking I vould commit suicide. Yes, at night ven I vas all alone I used to think like dat. Everyding vas so oopside down und so inside oud. Vat's de use of living und vy go on drinking beer und becoming a vorse und bigger b.u.m?

"Yes, it goes like dat. Ven I vas rich und happy und had my factory und my vife und children und horses und fine house I used to think vat a fine place the vorld vas und how simple it vas to be happy. Und den ven everyding vent avay I vas chust as big a fool und I used to think how terrible the vorld vas und how unhappiness vas all you could get.

"Yes, ten years ago, it vas. I started in again. I started in on vatches again. I got a job figxing vatches und a friend says he vould give me a chance. Und here I am. Still figxing vatches. Dey are my friends. Inside dey are all broken. Dey have liddle tings wrong vid dem und are inside oud und oopside down und I figx dem.

"I don' know vy, but figxing vatches made a new man from me. I don' think no more aboud my troubles und how oopside down and impozzible everyding is. But I look all de time into vatches und make dem go again. Yes, it iss like you say, a delicate business, und my fingers iss getting old for it, maybe. But I like dese liddle tools und all dese liddle things aboud a vatch I like to look at und hold und figx up.

"Because it iss so simple. Ezpecially ven you get acquainted vid how dey run und vy dey stop. Und der are zo many busted vatches. Zo nice outside und zo busted inside. I can'd explain maybe how it iss. But it iss like dat. Ven I hold de busted vatches under the micgrozcope, I feel happy I don' know. Some time maybe somebody pick me up like I vas a busted vatch und hold me under a micgrozcope und figx me up until I go tick tick again.

Maybe dat's vy. Here. All done."

Gustave s.h.i.+fted the microscope up over his eyebrow and smiled ponderously across the counter.

"Put it on," he said, "but be careful. Dat's how vatches iss busted alvays. By b.u.mping und paying no attention to dem."

SCHOPENHAUER'S SON

Life, alas, is an intricate illusion. G.o.d is a pack of lies under which man staggers to his grave. And man--ah, here we have Nature's only mountebank; here we have Nature's humorous and ingenuous experiment in tragedy. And thought--ah, the tissue-paper chimera that seeks forever to devour life.

It is the cult of the pessimist, the gentle malice of disillusion. And, like all other cults, it sustains its advocates. Thus, the city has no more debonairly-mannered, smiling-souled citizen to offer than Clarence Darrow. For years and years Mr. Darrow has been gently disproving the intelligence of man, the importance of life, and the necessity of thought.

For years and years Mr. Darrow has been whimsically deflating the illusions in which man hides from the purposelessness of the cosmos. G.o.d, heaven, politics, philosophies, ambition, love--Mr. Darrow has deflated them time and again--charging from $1 to $2 a seat for the spectacle.

This is nothing against Mr. Darrow--that he charges money sometimes. For years and years Mr. Darrow has been enlivening the intellectual purlieus of the city with his debates. And Mr. Darrow's debates have been always worth $1, $2 and even $5--for various reasons. It is worth at least $5 to observe at first hand what a cheering and invigorating effect Mr. Darrow's pessimism has had upon Mr. Darrow after these innumerable years.

The story concerns itself with a funeral Mr. Darrow attended a few years ago. It is at funerals that Mr. Darrow's gentle malice finds itself crowned by circ.u.mstances. For to this son of Schopenhauer death is a weary smile that is proof of all his arguments.

This time, however, Mr. Darrow was curiously stirred. For there lay dead in the coffin a man for whom he had held a deep affection. It was Prof.

George B. Foster, the brilliant theologian of the University of Chicago.

During his life Prof. Foster had been a man worthy the steel of Mr.

Darrow. Not that Prof. Foster was an unscrupulous optimist. He was merely an intellectual whose congenital tendencies were idealistic, just as Mr.

Darrow's psychic and subconscious tendencies were anti-idealistic. And apart from this divergence of congenital tendencies Mr. Darrow and Prof.

Foster had a great deal in common. They both loved argument. They both doted upon seizing an idea and energizing it with their egoism. They were, in short, ideal debaters.

Whenever Mr. Darrow and Prof. Foster debated on one of the major issues of reason a flutter made itself felt in the city--even among citizens indifferent to debate. Indifferent or not, one felt that a debate between Prof. Foster and Mr. Darrow was a matter of considerable importance.

Things might be disproved or proved on such an occasion.

They were to have debated on "Is There Immortality?" when Prof. Foster's death canceled the engagement. This was one of the favorite differences of opinion between the two friends. Mr. Darrow, of course, bent all his efforts on disproving immortality. Prof. Foster bent all his on proving it. Considerable excitement had been stirred by the coming debate. The death of the brilliant theologian put an end to it.

Instead of the debate there was a funeral. Thousands of people who had admired the intellect, kindness and humanitarianism of Prof. Foster came to the memorial services held in one of the large theaters of the loop.

Mr. Darrow came, his head bowed and grief in his heart. Friends like George Foster never replace themselves. Death becomes not a triumphant argument--an aloof clincher for pessimism, but a robber.