The Red Book Magazine/Volume 13/Number 3/Tickling the Palate of Pegasus

by Earl Derr Biggers

Tickling the Palate of Pegasus

BY EARL DERR BIGGERS

ILLUSTRATED BY ARTHUR WILLIAM BROWN

IT was six o'clock of a spring evening.

A steady stream of workers homeward bound hurried past the Café Cote d'Or, while, up above, the elevated growled in constant complaint against the vast army of weary folk it must carry. Arc-lights sputtered into activity: shop girls bestowed upon their favorite newsboys the evening penny: in the middle of the street the voices of the teamster and the motormen were raised in heated repartee. Into the picture jogged the cabs of the early seekers after the resplendent table d'hote.

Inside the Cote d'Or Monsieur Casserole, the proprietor, had lighted the many lamps of welcome for the discriminating who counted his Parisian café their gastronomic shrine. Madame Casserole, ensconced once more within her little cage, was taking stock of change. In the kitchen Adolphe, master of cooks, had buckled on his apron, and the first faint odors of heavenly dishes stole out among the snowy tables.

Monsieur Casserole entered madame's cage, and drew from beneath her counter a bulky ledger.

“To-night,” he said gravely, “it must be done.”

Madame Casserole's famous smile disappeared from its accustomed place above the many chins.

“It is their time,” she murmured, gazing at the clock, “always they are the first to come.”

“And the last to go,” added monsieur.

The door of the café was thrust open, and there entered two gentlemen of Monsieur Casserole's own nationality. They were unusual gentlemen, one knew that at a glance. Not for nothing did they wear the coiffure of the temperamental, the flowing black tie of the dreamer. Not for nothing, for was not the taller Perrin Trimount, who wrote that epic beginning “The fires of my youth are as cold as the snows?” And was not the other, round and small, Antoine Paquet, whose tender vers de société had been had found most affecting by many fair ladies, when read to an accompaniment of those glances of which the author had mastered an assortment so complete?

The pair entered jauntily, arm in arm, humming a gay tune of the boulevards. Before the cage of madame they paused and bowed in pompous courtesy.

“We give you good-evening,” remarked Antoine beamingly.

Madame Casserole lured back the smile in warm response, but the scowl of monsieur was one fearful to behold.

“Antoine—Perrin!” he called, as they turned away to their favorite table, “one word, I beg of you.”

Affecting an air of deep surprise, they faced him.

Casserole hesitated; it was far from his wish to offend, and his severity was feigned. Tender of heart, he held for his irresponsible countrymen nothing save affection.

The pause was ominous. The slamming of the door behind entering patrons, the growl of the elevated, the rattle of cabs, none of these could distract attention from this fact. Such a silence were better broken.

“It is on a matter of business monsieur would consult us?” questioned Perrin, with a hurried glance at the ledger. “So be it. Most gladly will we advise. Though our knowledge of the affairs of trade is sadly deficient—is it not, Antoine? Barter, that most sordid, most—most—”

“Oui,” aided Perrin. “To those whose thoughts dwell ever with the greater things of life—”

“If it is the greater things of life which concern you, messieurs,” Casserole broke in, “surely your account with me is worthy consideration the most grave. Behold, each page of the ledger is filled—from cover to cover. There is no space for recording to-night's repast.”

“Bah! Of ledgers there is no end!”

Antoine offered this assurance.

“The same,” returned the vexed Casserole, “is not to be said of patience. No more will I be put off with the joke, the laugh. No more will I be offered quatrains with which to pay the butcher for his beef. No more will I demand the cool cash, and be offered a sonnet in jest.”

The pair glanced uneasily away. Even in the face of Madame Casserole no mercy was apparent.

“From cover to cover,” went on the Cote d'Or's proprietor firmly, “this book is crowded with the record of meals for which my sole return has been the pleasure of your patronage. Sacre bleu, it is too much. With the book my patience ends. You dine no more with me, messieurs, without material return.”

Antoine feigned surprise.

“Return, monsieur!” he cried. “Morbleu! Surely you have but to seek that in our glorious work, as yet unpublished. In this café, monsieur, are my best couplets inspired. Here I tasted the wine that set me dreaming my 'Lines to a Goddess of Greece.' Return, monsieur? Is it not in the knowledge of the favor you do posterity?”

Monsieur Casserole shrugged his shoulders.

“With posterity,” he said, “I am not concerned. I am concerned with Tubbs, the butcher, and Scarlett, the grocer. The one would build—what you say—a cupola—on his house, the other would educate a daughter. These things are not done on roundelays, messieurs.”

“So be it?” remarked Perrin, haughtily. “We will take our trade elsewhere. But monsieur should pause to think what the biographers will say. 'Casserole!' they will say, 'such is the despised name of him who, at the outset of their brilliant careers, turned these two immortal singers hungry from his door.'”

“To me,” responded Casserole, repeating the shrug, “the threat means little. I shall be many years in my grave when that is written. Also, the ledger may be found recording the many times I allowed the immortal singers to stay.”

“Monsieur forgets,” Antoine said, “only proofs of evil interest biographers. But we will say no more. We go—Heaven knows where.”

He turned a doleful face toward the street, whither he and his companion were to be thrust dinnerless. Perrin bowed his head as if the blow were more than he could bear. Madame turned an appealing glance toward monsieur.

“Mon Dieu,” cried that gentleman, shifting uneasily in his turn, “it is not my wish to be cruel. With the greatest pain I refuse the winners of immortal-bays-to-come an omelette or a filet whereon to build a verse.”

No answer from the gloomy pair before the cage.

“Parbleu!” Casserole cried again. “I am no miser. To-night, messieurs, you shall dine with me, on the best Adolphe can cook, at my expense. But—it grieves me so to speak, mes amis—it is the last—at my expense.”

Sadly the distinguished pair bowed their thanks; with faces woefully lengthened they sought their table, where they sat for some moments in silence. It was when the waiter set before them the glorious product of an ancient vintage that Perrin gave forth a groan which penetrated even into kitchen of Adolphe, where it narrowly missed wrecking an omelette in the making.

“It is of all horrors the worst,” Perrin said

“Assuredly nothing was ever more terrible,” agreed Antoine.

“Here it was—” Perrin's voice broke, “I ate the filet which inspired 'The Fires of My Youth.'”

“It was salsifis—shall I ever forget—which set me singing of Nanette. And in stanzas destined to live, as these fools of editors shall some day be taught.

A waiter bent above them with some commonplace on the weather, but Perrin brushed him mournfully aside

“They write,” he said, “of flashing eyes and hair of gold that set the poet's lute to strumming. Bah! Of escargots and and omelettes, of Chartreuse and salads—of these things should they write. For without them, poetry must die.”

Antoine gloomily regarded his glass.

“With us,” he repeated brokenly, “poetry dies to-night. We who have seen the heights of Parnassus must turn back. And to what?”

“I have heard of places such as those towards which we drift, Antoine. One eats sitting on a stool, like the school dunce. Under glass globes are the soiled sandwiches preserved—as in a museum.”

“And inspiration? Inspiration for sonnet and triolet? Is it to be found there, Perrin?”

Perrin's head wagged slowly.

“Nothing is to be found there,” he said, “save indigestion.”

The Café Cote d'Or was now merry with the laughter of those who had found the solace of the table d'hote. Glasses tinkled, waiters sped on the wings of love of a tip. Monsieur Casserole circulated among his guests. At one table only, sadness lingered.

Antoine set down his glass and spoke loudly.

“It is carried too far,” he cried. “It is an outrage to sensitive souls unbearable. Let us—”

“Enough,” Perrin admonished. “Our sorrow is our own.” He leaned across the table. “For some time,” he whispered, “I have noticed that the gentleman at the table behind you—he of the impressive waistcoat and crimson face—listens to our talk. Let us say no more.”

Antoine accepted the suggestion, and silence again fell at the table of genius. But the gentleman of the crimson face had not listened in vain. He turned to his companion, a handsome young man in his early twenties

“Jimmy,” he said, exultingly, “I've got an idea, and it's a lulu.”

The young man flicked the ash from his cigaret.

“I presume that, as usual, it concerns Elysium Oats,” he said languidly. “With you, ideas and oats appear inseparable.”

“You are right,” continued the elder man, severely; “the idea does concern Elysium Oats. And I might add that if more of your own ideas were turned in that direction, your advancement in the company might progress at a rate of speed in keeping with the clothes you wear. But that is neither here nor there. Have you noticed the pair at the next table—the vaudeville sketch-team in the East Aurora neckwear?”

“Not particularly.”

“You've missed it. They're poets, and broke. A common combination maybe. Now it's always been my idea that the inspiration for a rattling good poem—say like 'Hiawatha' or—or 'When the Frost is on the Pumpkin'—was usually supplied by an airy fairy Lillian in a Gainsborough hat.”

“So history teaches.”

“Well, history's lying—that is, if the tale handed out by these amateur Tennysons is O.K. According to them, Jimmy, there's more inspiration in boarding-house hash than in a young ladies' seminary. Give 'em a meal and they give you a sonnet. A meal-ticket gets better results than a seat in the front row near the chorus.”

“So far so good And now, my dear uncle, the idea?”

“Simple enough. I'm going to feed them Elysium Oats.”

“Expecting them to turn out a second Maud Muller on a summer's day, raking the meadow sweet with hay.”

“Talk sense. Can't you see the point? I feed 'em Elysium Oats. Maybe other things are on the bill, but the oats are featured. Inspired by the best breakfast-food on the market, they sit down and dash off immortal verse in praise of it. Me running ads in the papers. 'Great poets agree,' I say in the ads, 'that the only real, red-hot inspiration for a struggling poet is a good meal. Read what Lucius J. Somebody, the eminent poet, wrote after one dish of Elysium Oats.' Here, Jimmy, I follow with a hummer of a poem. 'To-morrow,' I say at the bottom, 'be on the lookout for a poem by Junius H. Singer, also inspired by our oats. Just add cream and sugar and serve.”

“A brilliant scheme, my dear uncle,” laughed the young man, “but you will never carry it through. A poet has a soul. What you suggest would sear and mutilate it.”

“Nonsense. A poet has a palate. What I suggest will tickle it. Will you come with me while I arrange matters with the Poets' Union?”

“No thanks.” The young man yawned. “I'll wait here, if you don't mind.”

The elderly man crossed to the table where Antoine and Perrin were consuming, in gloomy silence, the divine dishes of Adolphe. He bowed politely and drew up a chair.

“Pardon my intrusion, gentlemen,” he remarked. “I'm a plain man, and I don't dally with the dictionary when I talk. I've got a proposition to put to you. My name is Henry J. Stumps, and I am manager of the Elysium Oats Company, Limited. You have eaten Elysium Oats?”

He paused for an answer. Both poets regarded him solemnly. Neither spoke.

“Ah—I perceive you have not. That is not your fault, but your misfortune. I wont take the time to apologize for overhearing part of your recent conversation—I just want to know this: Does a fancy dish really set the—er—the poet's flute—er—lute to humming?”

“Ah, monsieur, if you but knew,” Antoine burst out. “The wonderful dishes cooked by Adolphe—how they fill the artistic soul with joy—with bliss—”

“All right,” interrupted the head of the Elysium Oats Company. “All right. That's all I want to know. Now here's the proposition: I pay for the inspiration, you furnish the poetry. I take you by the hand and introduce you to the sort of dinner that lives in history. In return, you train your guns on Elysium Oats and grind out some epics that'll make all other breakfast-foods forgotten.”

For a moment the scheme did not penetrate the artist minds, but when it did, Perrin Trimount—he who had lyrically confessed that the fires of his youth were as cold as the snows—rose to his feet in a blaze of indignation.”

“Monsieur,” he shrieked, “it is an insult! To our calling it is an insult! For this you shall pay!”

Mr. Stumps reached into an pocket.

“Naturally,” he responded. “I pay for everything. I'm a liberal man.”

Perrin fell back into his chair

“Malpeste!” he cried. “You do not even talk our language.”

“I usually let my money do the talking,” replied Mr. Stumps, “and I never noticed that it had any difficulty making itself understood. Now listen. I'll give you a dinner that will be one dazzling dream from soup to au revoir. There'll be inspiration to throw away. Laboring under the influence of this meal you sit down and do me a poem each in praise of Elysium Oats, the best breakfast-food on the American market to-day. I'll run your anthems in the papers and say the Oats inspired them—oh, the Oats'll be on the menu, too—I'm no believer in advertising fakes. For your interest in the cause, besides paying the cost of the dinner, I hand you each—”

“Monsieur, have a care!” screamed Perrin, angrily.

“Parbleu! What an outrage,” cried Antoine.

“Fifty dollars in cash. What's more, there's fifty each in it for all the rising young poets of your acquaintance you care to ring in on the feed.”

Antoine thoughtfully regarded his coffee. He did not speak. Perrin also was silent. Mr. Stumps watched a waiter hurry by with a very red lobster.

“I'm after a high grade of work,” he went on, a moment later. “I want poems the children'll learn to recite and the old folks'll enjoy. I want poems that'll haunt people long after they've laid down the paper or passed the bill-board; poems that will follow them round and make them miserable until they've tried the Oats. I'm out for the big stuff, and ready to pay for it. What's the answer?”

There seemed to be no answer. Neither of the poets spoke. When Monsieur Casserole paused at their table with the gracious hope that the fare was of the usual excellence, they did not seem to hear. Their dreamy eyes were fixed on space.

“What's the answer?” the Oats man asked again.

Perrin pulled himself together.

“Monsieur,” he said with dignity, “you do not understand. We cannot accept. Antoine and I—together we fight toward the ideal. Antoine and I—”

Antoine raised a commanding hand.

“One moment,” he broke in. “What was the sum monsieur offered?”

“Fifty dollars each,” returned Mr. Stumps quickly. “Fifty round, cold, clammy dollars. Take my advice, gentlemen. Bury the ideals. Ideals never got a man a meal yet. Bury them, and don't waste good time doing a 'Heart Bowed Down' specialty over their grave, either. If you must be poets, join the balance in the bank division; come in among the velvet carpets and the drop-lights.”

Another silence fell. A lady Antoine Paquet had once celebrated in song smiled at him across the Cote d'Or, but he looked at her with unseeing eyes. His lips moved.

“Fifty dollars,” he murmured.

“Antoine!” cried Perrin, in horrified warning.

“There is, then,” continued Antoine, “so much money in the world?”

“Think what it is—to prostitute one's Art,” Perrin said.

“Think what it is—to dine,” responded Antoine.

His eyes, wandering across the café to Madame's cage, fell upon a huge ledger at her elbow, which she had forgotten to return to its place beneath her desk.

“Monsieur,” said Antoine firmly, “I dedicate my Muse to your infernal Oats.”

“Good!” said Henry J. Stumps.

He looked at Perrin.

“And you?” he asked.

“We share all,” returned Perrin brokenly, “shame, as well as glory.”

Mr. Stumps rose briskly.

“All settled,” he said. “Meet me here to-morrow evening at seven with all the eating poets you can corral. I want to rush this through. Remember—at seven.”

He hurried back to his nephew.

“It's a go,” he cried delightedly. “I got 'em. They was a little touchy at first, but I guess I can handle their kind.”

As they passed out, Mr. Stumps turned and waved a farewell to his subsidized poets.

“Adiós,” he cried.

“Adieu—adieu,” prompted his nephew. “Adiós' is Spanish.”

“Thunder! I thought it was French,” said Henry J. Stumps.

Out under the elevated he raised his eyes to the great structure as if he sought the stars beyond.

“The scheme of a Napoleon,” he exulted. “The master stroke of the age. Tickling the palate of Pegasus. I'll publish poems about Elysium Oats that'll live in literature. I'll run all other breakfast-foods off the market.”

 

In the Café Cote d'Or Perrin Trimount mourned fitfully the crash of his high ideals.

“Outrage!” he muttered. “Insult!”

Antoine Paquet made no reply. Only with the handle of his fork he traced and retraced an unseen word on the cloth. And the word that he traced was “fifty.”

Again it was six o'clock, the dining hour. Monsieur Casserole had lighted the lamps of welcome, madame had settled herself in her cage, Adolphe had buckled on his apron. The Cote d'Or glowed warmly, luringly, in gay suggestion to the seeker after the resplendent table d'hote.

To the café of the divine dishes of Parisian label came Perrin Trimount, author of “The Fires of My Youth.” Came also Antoine Paquet, he of the tender verses and the no less tender glances. And with these two gentlemen of genius, hot on the trail of a fabled dinner, came their friend Swinburne Smith, the magazine laureate, Paden Burnette, who did comic-opera lyrics; Billy Heath, who filled newspaper columns with verse and worse, together with Rodin and Carter, also reputed to be wooers of the Muse.

Henry J. Stumps, puffing in at a quarter past seven, found them anxiously waiting near madame's cage. With graceful persiflage Antoine introduced him round. He shook hands with the enthusiasm of a man pumping water from a sinking ship.

“Well, well. Glad to know everybody,” he sputtered. “All on hand with the Muse in tow, I presume.”

He led them down aisles bordered by snowy tables to a big banquet board heaped with flowers. With an airy wave of his hand, he seated them.

It was characteristic of Mr. Stump's frank and open way of doing business that when each of the seven opened his napkin, he found fifty dollars in crisp bills inside.

“Don't mention it—don't mention it,” requested the Oats man airily. “For the time being we'll forget the compact. We'll forget that down-town in the offices of Elysium Oats there's a typewriter waiting for each of you.” It was a delicate matter to introduce, but Mr. Stumps felt that he had managed adroitly. “We'll eat, drink, and do the merry-merry, as the poet says. We'll corner the inspiration market so that when we come to tackle the subject of Elysium Oats, the result will make Shakespeare turn over in his grave in envy.”

Proud of his classical allusion, Mr. Stumps sat down, and after a perfunctory cheer, the assembled poets applied themselves to the business in hand with smiling faces. As course followed course, they inclined toward revelry. It was the introduction of a dish said to be Elysium Oats, however, that inspired the gale of laughter which carried the dinner onward into a riotous success.

At 10:30 Mr. Stump rose and gently suggested it was time they found out what the Muse had to offer.

“Oui,” cried Perrin, who, despite fallen ideals, seemed the gayest there, “oui, monsieur. But first, messieurs, I had a friend—”

He whirled away into an anecdote. They followed uproariously. The popping of many corks punctured his story.

At half-past eleven Mr. Stumps rose in his dignity and, gently but firmly overruling all interruptions, led the class in gastronomically inspired poetry to a couple of waiting cabs.

A brisk rain was falling, and as the revelers stepped from the Cote d'Or a chill wind struck them full in the face. On the instant all gayety died. They took their seats in sullen silence, much as members of the chain-gang on a rocky stretch of road. Mr. Stumps, taking it as the natural reaction after the jollity incidental to the cornering of the inspiration market, respected their silence, and sat in a little flutter of excitement waiting for some early blooming Homer in the delegation with which he rode to spout in the darkness a deathless stanza on the virtues of Elysium Oats.

No early blooming Homer developed. The flash of a light under which they passed revealed the party of poets drooping in their seats like wilted flowers. The cabs jogged on through the narrow cañons of the business district, the echo of the horses' hoofs now the only sound where all day had rattled the city's traffic.

Into a great building, dark and gaunt, Mr. Stumps admitted them, and up a Stygian flight of stairs he led the way to an elusive door. Once inside he switched on the lights, and revealed what resembled a newspaper office deserted by its denizens. Some ten typewriters stood, neatly arranged for use, a white sheet of paper in the carriage of each. They awaited only the touch of genius.

The seven who were there to inscribe the anthems of Elysium Oats sat down, each before a machine, and regarded the blank paper in dismay.

Mr. Stumps lighted a cigar.

“Hope the Muse doesn't mind the smoke,” he said jokingly, “take your time, gentlemen. I want poems that'll get a word from the book-reviewers. Go slow, but sure.”

He blew rings toward the dingy ceiling. No sound of a typewriter in action broke the stillness.

“That's right,” Stumps advised, “think it over. And say, if you can, ring it in that Elysium Oats is the best food for the invalid.”

Again silence, then a gust of wind and rain at the window, charitably disturbed it. Mr. Stumps' nerves began to recognize that he was playing the only speaking part. He shifted his chair; it creaked noisily.

“It might start you off,” he ventured, “if I was to tell you we've won three gold medals for purity.”

Still the seven drooped in disdain of conversation before seven sheets of blank paper. Somewhere off in the distance a belated car dragged by on its way to the barns. Mr. Stumps bit off a large portion of his cigar.

“See here,” he cried, “how long does it take to get going in your business?”

Antoine yawned sleepily, and broke the long continued silence of the poets' union.

“Sometimes,” he said, “the first light of the morning streams through my windows before I so much as dip my pen—”

“Not for mine,” cried Mr. Stumps, leaping to his feet. “I'm going home. I never was much for late hours. Show your poems to the night-watchman when you get through, and if he likes them, he'll let you out. Good-night.”

 

Mr. Stumps did not sleep well that night; 6:30 o'clock the next morning found him opening the door of the room in the offices of Elysium Oats, where he had left seven poets in the throes of com position. At the first glance inside, he started back with a cry of amazement. A horrible and unexpected sight had met his gaze.

The first rays of a belated sun, creeping in through windows the janitor never washed, fell warmly on seven poets sleeping the sleep of the weary. Expressions of beatific calm crowned their faces. Seven pairs of arms were twined in loving caress around seven typewriters.

As Mr. Stumps leaped forward in angry protest against what looked like a disregard of his compact, he beheld that which cooled his anger. Something had been written on the paper that had last night been blank.

“Oats that in far off, sun-kissed fields,
Were tossed by winds from Elysium—”

Mr. Stumps read on the nearest. Hurriedly he scanned the products of six other machines. There also he found verses extolling his beloved oats. The contract had been honored, and this sleep of the poets was one of natural exhaustion following a duty well performed.

“Wake up!” cried Mr. Stumps, snatching the manuscript from the typewriters. “Wake up, gentlemen, it is morning. Wake up and accept my thanks for these poems. I tell you, Elysium Oats is going down in literature, as I predicted.”

Starting guiltily, the seven awoke and blinked at the busy Mr. Stumps like owls caught out by day. To his warm praises of the verses, if they replied at all, it was in unintelligible monosyllables. He bowed them out, still overflowing with congratulations over the product of the wee, small hours.

Then Mr. Stumps went wildly in search of his nephew.

“You sneered at my scheme,” he said. “You claimed it wouldn't work. Look at the result.”

“You like the poems?” inquired the young man.

“They're just what I wanted.”

The other yawned elaborately.

“That's good,” he remarked carelessly. “I'm glad they suit. I wrote them.”

“What!” screamed the excited Mr. Stumps.

“I wrote them. I used to do that sort of thing—verses and stuff—on the college-papers.”

“But—but—”

“I found your class in poetry asleep at the switch when I came in this morning. You must have overdone the inspiration.”

Mr. Stumps put his hand to his head.

“I aint been mixed up very often since I went out to chase the gay old dollar,” he remarked, “but—but I guess I'll run down and have a cup of coffee. Before I go, though, I want to say I guess your probation is ended. You go over into the advertising end Monday morning.”

He sighed heavily.

“What breaks me up,” he added, “is that this bunch of four-flushers walked away into the great unknown with three hundred and fifty of my good money.”

“Guess again,” responded Jimmy.

He took a roll of bills from his pocket.

“I did a little painless extracting while they slept. Take it before I break down at the unusual sight of so much money.”

The elder Stumps wrung his hand with renewed warmth.

“Jimmy, you're a jewel. All this will come back to you by way of salary. You young duffer, why didn't you tell me you was a poet?”

“I'm not,” protested Jimmy; “that's the pleasant part of it—I'm not. Or if I am, then the-tickling-the-palate-of-Pegasus gag goes up in smoke. This being Saturday morning, and the last painful period before the drawing of my weekly stipend of nine dollars, I wrote those things on a breakfast consisting of a piece of squash pie and a glass of milk.”

 

One final picture of the Café Cote d'Or at six o'clock, the hour for dining. The door is thrust open, and there enter two gentlemen of Monsieur Casserole's own nationality. One may note they wear the coiffure of the temperamental, the flowing black tie of the dreamer. They advance, and stand before the cage of Madame. One of them—Antoine Paquet—carries a huge package, which he lays upon the counter. They both bow in pompous courtesy.

“With the compliments of both of us,” says Antoine. “It is a new ledger, Monsieur. The largest to be found.”

Monsieur Casserole weighs it gloomily in his hand.

“Mon Dieu,” he sighs, “it is yet too small—too small.”