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*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE DREAMERS *** Produced by Steve Read, Suzanne Shell and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net
THE DREAMERS

A Club. Being a More or Less Faithful
Account of the Literary Exercises of
the First Regular Meeting of that
Organization, Reported by

JOHN KENDRICK BANGS WITH ILLUSTRATIONS
By
EDWARD PENFIELD

NEW YORK AND LONDON
HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS
1899

THE FIRST GLOOMSTER THE FIRST GLOOMSTER BY THE SAME AUTHOR.

Peeps at People. Passages from the Writings of Anne Warrington Witherup, Journalist. Illustrated by Edward Penfield. 16mo, Cloth, Ornamental, Uncut Edges and Colored Top, $1.25.

Ghosts I Have Met, and Some Others. With Illustrations by Newell, Frost, and Richards. 16mo, Cloth, Ornamental, $1.25.

A House-Boat on the Styx. Being Some Account of the Divers Doings of the Associated Shades. Illustrated by Peter Newell. 16mo, Cloth, Ornamental, $1.25.

The Pursuit of the House-Boat. Being Some Further Account of the Doings of the Associated Shades, under the Leadership of Sherlock Holmes, Esq. Illustrated by Peter Newell. 16mo, Cloth, Ornamental, $1.25.

Paste Jewels. Being Seven Tales of Domestic Woe. 16mo, Cloth, Ornamental $1.00.

The Bicyclers, and Three Other Farces. Illustrated. 16mo, Cloth, Ornamental, $1.25.

A Rebellious Heroine. A Story. Illustrated by W. T. Smedley. 16mo, Cloth, Ornamental, Uncut Edges, $1.25.

Mr. Bonaparte of Corsica. Illustrated by H. W. McVickar. 16mo, Cloth, Ornamental, $1.25.

The Water Ghost, and Others. Illustrated. 16mo, Cloth, Ornamental, $1.25.

The Idiot. Illustrated. 16mo, Cloth, Ornamental, $1.00.

Three Weeks in Politics. Illustrated. 32mo, Cloth, Ornamental, 50 cents.

Coffee and Repartee. Illustrated. 32mo, Cloth, Ornamental, 50 cents.

NEW YORK AND LONDON:
HARPER & BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS.

Copyright, 1899, by Harper & Brothers.
All rights reserved.

[iv]

Dedicated
WITH ALL
DUE RESPECT AND PROPER APOLOGIES

TO

RICHARD HARDING DAVIS
JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY
WILLIAM DEAN HOWELLS
RUDYARD KIPLING
HALL CAINE
SUNDRY MAGAZINE POETS
ANTHONY HOPE
THE WAR CORRESPONDENTS
A. CONAN DOYLE
IAN MACLAREN
JAMES M. BARRIE
THE INVOLVULAR CLUB
AND
MR. DOOLEY

[v]

CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE I. The Idea 1 II. In which Thomas Snobbe, Esq., of Yonkers, Unfolds a Tale 21 III. In which a Mince-pie is Responsible for a Remarkable Coincidence 44 IV. Being the Contribution of Mr. Bedford Parke 59 V. The Salvation of Findlayson 80 VI. In which Harry Snobbe Recites a Tale of Gloom 102 VII. The Dreamers Discuss a Magazine Poem 123 VIII. Dolly Visits Chicago 142 IX. In which Yellow Journalism Creeps In 163[vi] X. The Mystery of Pinkham’s Diamond Stud 185 XI. Lang Tammas and Drumsheugh Swear off 207 XII. Conclusion—Likewise Mr. Billy Jones 228

[vii]

ILLUSTRATIONS Page THE FIRST GLOOMSTER Frontispiece DISCUSSING THE IDEA 3 AND SO TO DREAM 17 THE DREAMERS DINE 25 “‘REMEMBER TO BE BRAVE’” 35 “‘ELEANOR HUYLER HAS DISAPPEARED’” 39 “WRIT A POME ABOUT A KID” 47 “I BOUGHT A BOOK OF VERSE” 51 “IT FILLED ME WITH DISMAY” 55 “‘COME IN’” 61 MARY 65 EDWARDS REBELS 71 THE VICEROY EXAMINES HIS RUINED SMILE 85 THEY GAVE HIM PUNCH 89 THE DONKEY ENGINE CALLS ON FINDLAYSON 93 THE END OF THE GLOOMSTER 109 WISHED HER A HAPPY NEW-YEAR 117 “‘O ARGENT-BROWED SARCOPHAGUS’” 125[viii] “SARCOPHAGUSTUS” 131 MR. BILLY JONES 137 “‘I MUST SEE HIM,’ SAID DOLLY” 145 “‘KAPE YOUR HOOSBAND HOME’” 155 MIXING ILLUSTRATIONS 159 THE SHIP’S BARBER AT WORK 167 A CLEVER CAROM 177 SINKING THE CASTILLA 181 THE LAMP-POSTS WERE TWISTED 191 HOLMES IN DISGUISE INTERVIEWS WATTLES 199 “‘YOU DID TOO!’ SAID POLLY” 203 “‘HOOT MON!’” 209 “A SWEET-FACED NURSE APPEARED” 213 TAMMAS MEETS DRUMSHEUGH 221 MR. JONES BEGINS 231 HE DID NOT SEE 243 THE STENOGRAPHER SLEPT 247

[ix]

The Dreamers: A Club

[1]

THE DREAMERS: A CLUB I THE IDEA

The idea was certainly an original one. It was Bedford Parke who suggested it to Tenafly Paterson, and Tenafly was so pleased with it that he in turn unfolded it in detail to his friend Dobbs Ferry, claiming its inception as his very own. Dobbs was so extremely enthusiastic about it that he invited Tenafly to a luncheon at the Waldoria to talk over the possibilities of putting the plan into practical operation, and so extract from it whatever of excellence it might ultimately be found to contain.[2]

“As yet it is only an idea, you know,” said Dobbs; “and if you have ever had any experience with ideas, Tenny, you are probably aware that, unless reduced to a practical basis, an idea is of no more value than a theory.”

“True,” Tenafly replied. “I can demonstrate that in five minutes at the Waldoria. For instance, you see, Dobbsy, I have an idea that I am as hungry as a bear, but as yet it is only a theory, from which I derive no substantial benefit. Place a portion of whitebait, a filet Bearnaise, and a quart of Sauterne before me, and—”

“I see,” said Dobbsy. “Come along.”

[3]

DISCUSSING THE IDEA DISCUSSING THE IDEA

[4]

And they went; and the result of that luncheon at the Waldoria was the formation of “The Dreamers: A Club.” The colon was Dobbs Ferry’s suggestion. The objects of the club were literary, and Dobbs, who was an observant young man, had noticed that the use of the colon in these days of unregenerate punctuation was confined almost entirely to the literary contingent and its camp-followers. With [5] small poets particularly was it in vogue, and Dobbs—who, by-the-way, had written some very dainty French poems to the various fiancĂ©es with whom his career had been checkered—had a sort of vague idea that if his brokerage business would permit him to take the necessary time for it he might become famous as a small poet himself. The French poems and his passion for the colon, combined with an exquisite chirography which he had assiduously cultivated, all contributed to assure him that it was only lack of time that kept him in the ranks of the mute, inglorious Herricks.

As formulated by Dobbs and Tenafly, then, Bedford Parke’s suggestion that a Dreamers’ Club be formed was amplified into this: Thirteen choice spirits, consisting of Dobbs, Tenafly, Bedford Parke, Greenwich Place, Hudson Rivers of Hastings, Monty St. Vincent, Fulton Streete, Berkeley Hights, Haarlem Bridge, the three Snobbes of Yonkers—Tom, Dick, and Harry—and Billy Jones of the Weekly Oracle, were to form themselves into an[6] association which should endeavor to extract whatever latent literary talent the thirteen members might have within them. It was a generally accepted fact, Bedford Parke had said, that all literature, not even excepting history, was based upon the imagination. Many of the masterpieces of fiction had their basis in actual dreams, and, when they were not founded on such, might in every case be said to be directly attributable to what might properly be called waking dreams. It was the misfortune of the thirteen gentlemen who were expected to join this association that the business and social engagements of all, with the possible exception of Billy Jones of the Weekly Oracle, were such as to prevent their indulgence in these waking dreams, dreams which should tend to lower the colors of Howells before those of Tenafly Paterson, and cause the memory of Hawthorne to wither away before the scorching rays of that rising sun of genius, Tom Snobbe of Yonkers. Snobbe, by-the-way, must have inherited literary[7] ability from his father, who had once edited a church-fair paper which ran through six editions in one week—one edition a day for each day of the fair—adding an unreceipted printer’s bill for eighty-seven dollars to the proceeds to be divided among the heathen of Central Africa.

“It’s a well-known fact,” said Bedford—“a sad fact, but still a fact—that if Poe had not been a hard drinker he never would have amounted to a row of beans as a writer. His dreams were induced—and I say, what’s the matter with our inducing dreams and then putting ’em down?”

That was the scheme in a nutshell—to induce dreams and put them down. The receipt was a simple one. The club was to meet once a month, and eat and drink “such stuff as dreams are made of”; the meeting was then to adjourn, the members going immediately home and to bed; the dreams of each were to be carefully noted in their every detail, and at the following meeting were to be unfolded such soul-harrowing[8] tales as might with propriety be based thereon. An important part of the programme was a stenographer, whose duty it would be to take down the stories as they were told and put them in type-written form, which Dobbs was sure he had heard an editor say was one of the first steps towards a favorable consideration by professional readers of the manuscripts of the ambitious.

“I am told,” said he, “that many a truly meritorious production has gone unpublished for years because the labor of deciphering the author’s handwriting proved too much for the reader’s endurance—and it is very natural that it should be so. A professional reader is, after all, only human, and when to the responsibilities of his office is added the wearisome task of wading through a Spencerian morass after the will-o’-wisp of an idea, I don’t blame him for getting impatient. Why, I saw the original manuscript of one of Charles Dickens’s novels once, and I don’t see how any one knew it was[9] good enough to publish until it got into print!”

“That’s simply a proof of what I’ve always said,” observed one of the Snobbe boys. “If Charles Dickens’s works had been written by me, no one would ever have published them.”

“I haven’t a doubt of it,” returned Billy Jones of the Oracle, dryly. “Why, Snobbey, my boy, I believe if you had written the plays of Shakespeare they’d have been forgotten ages ago!”

“So do I,” returned Snobbe, innocently. “This is a queer world.”

“The stenographer will save us a great deal of trouble,” said Bedford. “The hard part of literary work is, after all, the labor of production in a manual sense. These real geniuses don’t have to think. Their ideas come to them, and they let ’em develop themselves. In realistic writing, as I understand it, the author sits down with his pen in his hand and his characters in his mind’s eye, and they simply run along, and he does the private-detective[10] act—follows after them and jots down all they do. In imaginative writing it’s done the same way. The characters of these ridiculous beings we read of are quite as real to the imaginative writer as the characters of the realist are to the latter, and they do supernatural things naturally. So you see these things require very little intellectual labor. It’s merely the drudgery of chasing a commonplace or supernatural set of characters about the world in order to get 400 pages full of reading-matter about ’em that makes the literary profession a laborious one. Our stenographer will enable us to avoid all this. There isn’t a man of us but can talk as easily as he can fall off a log, and a tale once told at our dinners becomes in the telling a bit of writing.”

“But, my dear Parke,” said Billy Jones of the Oracle, who had been a “literary journalist,” as his fond grandmother called it, for some years, “a story told is hardly likely to be in the form calculated to become literature.”[11]

“That’s just what we want you for, Billy,” Bedford replied. “You know how to give a thing that last finishing-touch which will make it go, where otherwise it might forever remain a fixture in the author’s pigeon-hole. When our stories are told and type-written, we want you to go over them, correct the type-writer’s spelling, and make whatever alterations you may think, after consulting with us, to be necessary. Then, if the tales are ever published as a collection, you can have your name on the title-page as editor.”

“Thanks,” answered Billy, gratefully. “I shall be charmed.”

And then he hurried back to his apartments, and threw himself on his bed in a paroxysm of laughter which seemed never-ending, but which in reality did not last more than three hours at the most.

Hudson Rivers of Hastings, when the idea was suggested to him, was the most enthusiastic of all—so enthusiastic that the Snobbe boys thought that, in their own parlance, he ought to be “called down.”[12]

“It’s bad form to go crazy over an idea,” they said. “If Huddy’s going to behave this way about it, he ought to be kept out altogether. It is all very well to experience emotions, but

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