The Rubaiyat of a Scotch Highball

by O. Henry

　　

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This document is intended to strike somewhere between a temperancelecture and the "Bartender's Guide." Relative to the latter, drinkshall swell the theme and be set forth in abundance. Agreeably tothe former, not an elbow shall be crooked.Bob Babbitt was "off the stuff." Which means--as you will discoverby referring to the unabridged dictionary of Bohemia--that he had"cut out the booze;" that he was "on the water wagon." The reasonfor Bob's sudden attitude of hostility toward the "demon rum"--asthe white ribboners miscall whiskey (see the "Bartender's Guide"),should be of interest to reformers and saloon-keepers.There is always hope for a man who, when sober, will not concede oracknowledge that he was ever drunk. But when a man will say (in theapt words of the phrase-distiller), "I had a beautiful skate on lastnight," you will have to put stuff in his coffee as well as pray forhim.One evening on his way home Babbitt dropped in at the Broadway barthat he liked best. Always there were three or four fellows therefrom the downtown offices whom he knew. And then there would behigh-balls and stories, and he would hurry home to dinner a littlelate but feeling good, and a little sorry for the poor Standard OilCompany. On this evening as he entered he heard some one say:"Babbitt was in last night as full as a boiled owl."Babbitt walked to the bar, and saw in the mirror that his face wasas white as chalk. For the first time he had looked Truth in theeyes. Others had lied to him; he had dissembled with himself. He wasa drunkard, and had not known it. What he had fondly imagined was apleasant exhilaration had been maudlin intoxication. His fancied withad been drivel; his gay humors nothing but the noisy vagaries of asot. But, never again!"A glass of seltzer," he said to the bartender.A little silence fell upon the group of his cronies, who had beenexpecting him to join them."Going off the stuff, Bob?" one of them asked politely and with moreformality than the highballs ever called forth."Yes," said Babbitt.Some one of the group took up the unwashed thread of a story he hadbeen telling; the bartender shoved over a dime and a nickel changefrom the quarter, ungarnished with his customary smile; and Babbittwalked out.Now, Babbitt had a home and a wife--but that is another story. And Iwill tell you that story, which will show you a better habit and aworse story than you could find in the man who invented the phrase.It began away up in Sullivan County, where so many rivers and somuch trouble begins--or begin; how would you say that? It was July,and Jessie was a summer boarder at the Mountain Squint Hotel, andBob, who was just out of college, saw her one day--and they weremarried in September. That's the tabloid novel--one swallow ofwater, and it's gone.But those July days!Let the exclamation point expound it, for I shall not. Forparticulars you might read up on "Romeo and Juliet," and AbrahamLincoln's thrilling sonnet about "You can fool some of the people,"&c., and Darwin's works.But one thing I must tell you about. Both of them were mad overOmar's Rubaiyat. They knew every verse of the old bluffer byheart--not consecutively, but picking 'em out here and there as youfork the mushrooms in a fifty-cent steak a la Bordelaise. SullivanCounty is full of rocks and trees; and Jessie used to sit on them,and--please be good--used to sit on the rocks; and Bob had a way ofstanding behind her with his hands over her shoulders holding herhands, and his face close to hers, and they would repeat over andover their favorite verses of the old tent-maker. They saw only thepoetry and philosophy of the lines then--indeed, they agreed thatthe Wine was only an image, and that what was meant to be celebratedwas some divinity, or maybe Love or Life. However, at that timeneither of them had tasted the stuff that goes with a sixty-cent_table d'hote_.Where was I? Oh, they married and came to New York. Bob showed hiscollege diploma, and accepted a position filling inkstands in alawyer's office at $15 a week. At the end of two years he had workedup to $50, and gotten his first taste of Bohemia--the kind thatwon't stand the borax and formaldehyde tests.They had two furnished rooms and a little kitchen. To Jess,accustomed to the mild but beautiful savor of a country town, thedreggy Bohemia was sugar and spice. She hung fish seines on thewalls of her rooms, and bought a rakish-looking sideboard, andlearned to play the banjo. Twice or thrice a week they dined atFrench or Italian _tables d'hote_ in a cloud of smoke, and brag andunshorn hair. Jess learned to drink a cocktail in order to get thecherry. At home she smoked a cigarette after dinner. She learned topronounce Chianti, and leave her olive stones for the waiter to pickup. Once she essayed to say la, la, la! in a crowd but got only asfar as the second one. They met one or two couples while dining outand became friendly with them. The sideboard was stocked with Scotchand rye and a liqueur. They had their new friends in to dinner andall were laughing at nothing by 1 A. M. Some plastering fell in theroom below them, for which Bob had to pay $4.50. Thus they footed itmerrily on the ragged frontiers of the country that has no boundarylines or government.And soon Bob fell in with his cronies and learned to keep his footon the little rail six inches above the floor for an hour or soevery afternoon before he went home. Drink always rubbed him theright way, and he would reach his rooms as jolly as a sandboy.Jessie would meet him at the door, and generally they would dancesome insane kind of a rigadoon about the floor by way of greeting.Once when Bob's feet became confused and he tumbled headlong over afoot-stool Jessie laughed so heartily and long that he had to throwall the couch pillows at her to make her hush.In such wise life was speeding for them on the day when Bob Babbittfirst felt the power that the giftie gi'ed him.But let us get back to our lamb and mint sauce.When Bob got home that evening he found Jessie in a long aproncutting up a lobster for the Newburg. Usually when Bob came inmellow from his hour at the bar his welcome was hilarious, thoughsomewhat tinctured with Scotch smoke.By screams and snatches of song and certain audible testimonials ofdomestic felicity was his advent proclaimed. When she heard his footon the stairs the old maid in the hall room always stuffed cottoninto her ears. At first Jessie had shrunk from the rudeness andfavor of these spiritual greetings, but as the fog of the falseBohemia gradually encompassed her she came to accept them as love'strue and proper greeting.Bob came in without a word, smiled, kissed her neatly butnoiselessly, took up a paper and sat down. In the hall room the oldmaid held her two plugs of cotton poised, filled with anxiety.Jessie dropped lobster and knife and ran to him with frightenedeyes."What's the matter, Bob, are you ill?""Not at all, dear.""Then what's the matter with you?""Nothing."Hearken, brethren. When She-who-has-a-right-to-ask interrogates youconcerning a change she finds in your mood answer her thus: Tell herthat you, in a sudden rage, have murdered your grandmother; tell herthat you have robbed orphans and that remorse has stricken you; tellher your fortune is swept away; that you are beset by enemies, bybunions, by any kind of malevolent fate; but do not, if peace andhappiness are worth as much as a grain of mustard seed to you--donot answer her "Nothing."Jessie went back to the lobster in silence. She cast looks ofdarkest suspicion at Bob. He had never acted that way before.When dinner was on the table she set out the bottle of Scotch andthe glasses. Bob declined."Tell you the truth, Jess," he said. "I've cut out the drink. Helpyourself, of course. If you don't mind I'll try some of the seltzerstraight.""You've stopped drinking?" she said, looking at him steadily andunsmilingly. "What for?""It wasn't doing me any good," said Bob. "Don't you approve of theidea?"Jessie raised her eyebrows and one shoulder slightly."Entirely," she said with a sculptured smile. "I could notconscientiously advise any one to drink or smoke, or whistle onSunday."The meal was finished almost in silence. Bob tried to make talk,but his efforts lacked the stimulus of previous evenings. He feltmiserable, and once or twice his eye wandered toward the bottle, buteach time the scathing words of his bibulous friend sounded in hisear, and his mouth set with determination.Jessie felt the change deeply. The essence of their lives seemed tohave departed suddenly. The restless fever, the false gayety, theunnatural excitement of the shoddy Bohemia in which they had livedhad dropped away in the space of the popping of a cork. She stolecurious and forlorn glances at the dejected Bob, who bore the guiltylook of at least a wife-beater or a family tyrant.After dinner the colored maid who came in daily to perform suchchores cleared away the things. Jessie, with an unreadablecountenance, brought back the bottle of Scotch and the glasses anda bowl of cracked ice and set them on the table."May I ask," she said, with some of the ice in her tones, "whetherI am to be included in your sudden spasm of goodness? If not, I'llmake one for myself. It's rather chilly this evening, for somereason.""Oh, come now, Jess," said Bob good-naturedly, "don't be too roughon me. Help yourself, by all means. There's no danger of youroverdoing it. But I thought there was with me; and that's why Iquit. Have yours, and then let's get out the banjo and try over thatnew quickstep.""I've heard," said Jessie in the tones of the oracle, "that drinkingalone is a pernicious habit. No, I don't think I feel like playingthis evening. If we are going to reform we may as well abandon theevil habit of banjo-playing, too."She took up a book and sat in her little willow rocker on the otherside of the table. Neither of them spoke for half an hour.And then Bob laid down his paper and got up with a strange, absentlook on his face and went behind her chair and reached over hershoulders, taking her hands in his, and laid his face close to hers.In a moment to Jessie the walls of the seine-hung room vanished, andshe saw the Sullivan County hills and rills. Bob felt her handsquiver in his as he began the verse from old Omar:"Come, fill the Cup, and in the Fire of Spring

　　The Winter Garment of Repentance fling:

　　The Bird of Time has but a little way

　　To fly--and Lo! the Bird is on the Wing!"And then he walked to the table and poured a stiff drink of Scotchinto a glass.But in that moment a mountain breeze had somehow found its way inand blown away the mist of the false Bohemia.Jessie leaped and with one fierce sweep of her hand sent the bottleand glasses crashing to the floor. The same motion of her armcarried it around Bob's neck, where it met its mate and fastenedtight."Oh, my God, Bobbie--not that verse--I see now. I wasn't always such

　　a fool, was I? The other one, boy--the one that says: 'Remould it to

　　the Heart's Desire.' Say that one--'to the Heart's Desire.'""I know that one," said Bob. "It goes:"'Ah! Love, could you and I with Him conspire

　　To grasp this sorry Scheme of Things entire

　　Would not we--'""Let me finish it," said Jessie."'Would not we shatter it to bits--and then

　　Remould it nearer to the Heart's Desire!'""It's shattered all right," said Bob, crunching some glass under hisheel.In some dungeon below the accurate ear of Mrs. Pickens, the landlady,located the smash."It's that wild Mr. Babbitt coming home soused again," she said."And he's got such a nice little wife, too!"

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