第51章

When Jacob first began to compare the eyes of needles with the camels in the Zoo he decided upon organized charity.He had his secretary send a check for one million to the Universal Benevolent Association of the Globe.You may have looked down through a grating in front of a decayed warehouse for a nickel that you had dropped through.But that is neither here nor there.The Association acknowledged receipt of his favor of the 24th ult.with enclosure as stated.Separated by a double line, but still mighty close to the matter under the caption of "Oddities of the Day's News" in an evening paper, Jacob Spraggins read that one "Jasper Spargyous" had "donated $100,000 to the U.B.A.of G." A camel may have a stomach for each day in the week; but I dare not venture to accord him whiskers, for fear of the Great Displeasure at Washington; but if he have whiskers, surely not one of them will seem to have been inserted in the eye of a needle by that effort of that rich man to enter the K.of H.The right is reserved to reject any and all bids; signed, S.Peter, secretary and gatekeeper.

Next, Jacob selected the best endowed college he could scare up and presented it with a $200,000 laboratory.The college did not maintain a scientific course, but it accepted the money and built an elaborate lavatory instead, which was no diversion of funds so far as Jacob ever discovered.

The faculty met and invited Jacob to come over and take his A B Cdegree.Before sending the invitation they smiled, cut out the C, added the proper punctuation marks, and all was well.

While walking on the campus before being capped and gowned, Jacob saw two professors strolling nearby.Their voices, long adapted to indoor acoustics, undesignedly reached his ear.

"There goes the latest _chevalier d'industrie_," said one of them, "to buy a sleeping powder from us.He gets his degree to-morrow.""_In foro conscientai_," said the other."Let's 'eave 'arf a brick at 'im."Jacob ignored the Latin, but the brick pleasantry was not too hard for him.There was no mandragora in the honorary draught of learning that he had bought.That was before the passage of the Pure Food and Drugs Act.

Jacob wearied of philanthropy on a large scale.

"If I could see folks made happier," he said to himself--"If I could see 'em myself and hear 'em express their gratitude for what I done for 'em it would make me feel better.This donatin' funds to institutions and societies is about as satisfactory as dropping money into a broken slot machine."So Jacob followed his nose, which led him through unswept streets to the homes of the poorest.

"The very thing!" said Jacob."I will charter two river steamboats, pack them full of these unfortunate children and--say ten thousand dolls and drums and a thousand freezers of ice cream, and give them a delightful outing up the Sound.The sea breezes on that trip ought to blow the taint off some of this money that keeps coming in faster than I can work it off my mind."Jacob must have leaked some of his benevolent intentions, for an immense person with a bald face and a mouth that looked as if it ought to have a "Drop Letters Here" sign over it hooked a finger around him and set him in a space between a barber's pole and a stack of ash cans.Words came out of the post-office slit--smooth, husky words with gloves on 'em, but sounding as if they might turn to bare knuckles any moment.

"Say, Sport, do you know where you are at? Well, dis is Mike O'Grady's district you're buttin' into--see? Mike's got de stomach-ache privilege for every kid in dis neighborhood--see? And if dere's any picnics or red balloons to be dealt out here, Mike's money pays for 'em--see? Don't you butt in, or something'll be handed to you.Youse d--- settlers and reformers with your social ologies and your millionaire detectives have got dis district in a hell of a fix, anyhow.With your college students and professors rough-housing de soda-water stands and dem rubber-neck coaches fillin' de streets, de folks down here are 'fraid to go out of de houses.Now, you leave 'em to Mike.Dey belongs to him, and he knows how to handle 'em.Keep on your own side of de town.Are you some wiser now, uncle, or do you want to scrap wit' Mike O'Grady for de Santa Claus belt in dis district?"Clearly, that spot in the moral vineyard was preempted.So Caliph Spraggins menaced no more the people in the bazaars of the East Side.To keep down his growing surplus he doubled his donations to organized charity, presented the Y.M.C.A.of his native town with a $10,000 collection of butterflies, and sent a check to the famine sufferers in China big enough to buy new emerald eyes and diamond-filled teeth for all their gods.But none of these charitable acts seemed to bring peace to the caliph's heart.He tried to get a personal note into his benefactions by tipping bellboys and waiters $10 and $20 bills.He got well snickered at and derided for that by the minions who accept with respect gratuities commensurate to the service performed.He sought out an ambitious and talented but poor young woman, and bought for her the star part in a new comedy.He might have gotten rid of $50,000 more of his cumbersome money in this philanthropy if he had not neglected to write letters to her.But she lost the suit for lack of evidence, while his capital still kept piling up, and his _optikos needleorum camelibus_--or rich man's disease--was unrelieved.

In Caliph Spraggins's $3,000,000 home lived his sister Henrietta, who used to cook for the coal miners in a twenty-five-cent eating house in Coketown, Pa., and who now would have offered John Mitchell only two fingers of her hand to shake.And his daughter Celia, nineteen, back from boarding-school and from being polished off by private instructors in the restaurant languages and those 'etudes and things.