Robert W. Chambers

The Adventures of a Modest Man

Warsaw 2022

Contents

AN INADVERTENT POEM

CHAPTER I. CONCERNING TWO GENTLEMEN FROM LONG ISLAND, DESTINY, AND A POT OF BLACK PAINT

CHAPTER II. A CHAPTER DEPICTING A RATHER GARRULOUS REUNION

CHAPTER III. TROUBLE FOR TWO

CHAPTER IV. WHEREIN A MODEST MAN IS BULLIED AND A LITERARY MAN PRACTICES STYLE

CHAPTER V. DREAMLAND

CHAPTER VI. SOUL AND BODY

CHAPTER VII. THE BITER, THE BITTEN, AND THE UN-BITTEN

CHAPTER VIII. A MATTER OF PRONUNCIATION

CHAPTER IX. FATE

CHAPTER X. CHANCE

CHAPTER XI. DESTINY

CHAPTER XII. IN WHICH A MODEST MAN MAUNDERS

CHAPTER XIII. A CHANCE ACQUAINTANCE

CHAPTER XIV. A STATE OF MIND

CHAPTER XV. FLOTSAM AND JETSAM

CHAPTER XVI. THE SIMPLEST SOLUTION OF AN ANCIENT PROBLEM

CHAPTER XVII. SHOWING HOW IT IS POSSIBLE FOR ANY MAN TO MAKE OF HIMSELF A CHUMP

CHAPTER XVIII. THE MASTER KNOT OF HUMAN FATE

CHAPTER XIX. THE TIME AND THE PLACE

CHAPTER XX. DOWN THE SEINE

CHAPTER XXI. IN A BELGIAN GARDEN

CHAPTER XXII. A YOUTHFUL PATRIOT

CHAPTER XXIII. ON THE WALL

CHAPTER XXIV. A JOURNEY TO THE MOON

CHAPTER XXV. THE ARMY OF PARIS

To Mr. and Mrs. C. Wheaton Vaughan

This volume packed with bric-à-brac
I offer you with my affection,–
The story halts, the rhymes are slack–
Poor stuff to add to your collection.
Gems you possess from ages back:
It is the modern junk you lack.

We three once moused through marble halls,
Immersed in Art and deep dejection,
Mid golden thrones and choir-stalls
And gems beyond my recollection–
Yet soft!–my memory recalls
Red labels pasted on the walls!

And so, perhaps, mybric-à-brac
May pass the test of your inspection;
Perhaps you will not send it back,
But place it–if you’ve no objection–
Under some nick-nack laden rack
Where platters dangle on a tack.

So if you’ll take this book from me
And hide it in your cupboards laden
Beside some Dresden filigree
And frivolously fetching maiden–
Who knows?–that Dresden maid may see
My book–and read it through pardie!

R. W. C.

“Senilis stultitia quae deliratio appellari
solet, senum levium est, non omnium.”

AN INADVERTENT POEM

There is a little flow-urr
In our yard it does grow
Where many a happy hou-urr
I watch our rooster crow;
While clothes hang on the clothes-line
And plowing has began
–And the name they call this lit-tul vine
Is just “Old Man."

Old Man, Old Man
A-growing in our yard,
Every spring a-coming up
While yet the ground is har-rrd;
Pottering ‘round the chickens’ pan,
Creeping low and slow,
And why they call it Old Man
I never asked to know.
I never want to know.

Crawling through the chick-weed,
Dragging through the quack,
Pussly, tansy, tick-weed
Almost break his back.
Catnip, cockle, dock prevent
His travelling all they can,
But still he goes the ways he’s went,
Poor Old Man!

Old Man, Old Man,
What’s the use of you?
No one wants to see you, like
As if you hadn’t grew.
You ain’t no good to nothing
So far as I can see,
Unless some maiden fair will sing
These lines I’ve wrote to thee.
And sing ’em soft to me.

Some maiden fa-hair
With{ ra-haven} hair
{ go-holden}
Will si-hing this so-hong
To me-hee-ee!

CHAPTER I

CONCERNING TWO GENTLEMEN FROM LONG ISLAND, DESTINY, AND A POT OF BLACK PAINT

“Hello, old man!” he began.

“Gillian,” I said, “don’t call me ‘Old Man.’ At twenty, it flattered me; at thirty, it was all right; at forty, I suspected double entendre; and now I don’t like it.”

“Of course, if you feel that way,” he protested, smiling.

“Well, I do, dammit!”–the last a German phrase. I am rather strong on languages.

Now another thing that is irritating–I’ve got ahead of my story, partly, perhaps, because I hesitate to come to the point.

For I have a certain delicacy in admitting that my second visit abroad, after twenty years, was due to a pig. So now that the secret is out–the pig also–I’ll begin properly.

I purchased the porker at a Long Island cattle show; why, I don’t know, except that my neighbor, Gillian Schuyler Van Dieman, put me up to it.

We are an inoffensive community maintaining a hunt club and the traditions of a by-gone generation. To the latter our children refuse to subscribe.

Our houses are what are popularly known as “fine old Colonial mansions.” They were built recently. So was the pig. You see, I can never get away from that pig, although–but the paradox might injure the story. It has sufficiently injured me–the pig and the story, both.

The architecture of the pig was a kind of degenerate Chippendale, modified by Louis XVI and traces of Bavarian baroque. And his squeal resembled the atmospheric preliminaries for a Texas norther.

Van Dieman said I ought to buy him. I bought him. My men built him a chaste bower to leeward of an edifice dedicated to cows.

Here I sometimes came to contemplate him while my horse was being saddled.

That particular morning, when Van Dieman saluted me so suspiciously at the country club, I had been gazing at the pig.

And now, as we settled down to our morning game of chess, I said:

“Van, that pig of mine seems to be in nowise remarkable. Why the devil do you suppose I bought him?”

“How do I know?”

“You ought to. You suggested that I buy him. Why did you?”

“To see whether you would.”

I said rather warmly: “Did you think me weak-minded enough to do whatever you suggested?”

“The fact remains that you did,” he said calmly, pushing the king’s knight to queen’s bishop six.

“Did what?” I snapped.

“What you didn’t really want to do.”

“Buy the pig?”

“Exactly.”

I thought a moment, took a pawn with satisfaction, considered.

“Van,” I said, “why do you suppose I bought that pig?”

“Ennui.”

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