The Passionate Eskimo, F. Scott Fitzgerald

A master of American fiction comes back to Liberty’s pages with a lively comedy of bizarre adventure… The sparkling story of a Locksmith’s laugh at love.

Pan-e-troon crawled out of the igloo, pushing away the nose of an inquisitive dog, and uttered in Lapp the equivalent of “Scram!” to the rest of the pack. He looked to see if the line of fish was safely out of their reach and then proceeded a hundred yards over the white surface to his father’s hut.

The old man, his face the color of rawhide, looked at him imperturbably.

“Are you packed and ready?” he asked.

“All packed and ready.”

“Good. We leave early in the morning. Most of the others are on the point of departure.”

It was true. As far as the eye could reach, there were signs of dismantling and preparation, and the bustle and excitement that accompany it.

Pan-e-troon gazed for a moment with an expression of regret that confined itself, however, to his slitlike purple eyes. He was a small youth, but supple and well made—and the contours of his round nose and chin and cheeks gave him a perpetually cheerful expression. He gazed about him for a long time—he had come to like this locality.

“Old Wise One,” he said to his father, “I want to go into Chicago.”

His father started. “What?”

“For one last look.”

“But by yourself?” demanded his father anxiously.

“Yes, Old Wise One. I can find my way around. I speak a lot of American now and if I get lost I only have to say, ‘World’s Fair.’”

The old man grunted.

“I don’t like it. When we have a guide and are together, all right, but alone you’ll get hurt, get lost.”

“Old Wise One, I must go,” said Pan-e-troon. “Here is the last chance before we start for our home. Home is very fine, doubtless—”

“Of course it is!” said his father indignantly.

Pan-e-troon bowed slightly and finished his sentence: “—and often in these hot months I have wished to be fishing through the ice, or hunting bear, or eating well cooked blubber. But—”

“But what?”

“I should like to carry back more memories of this great village. I should like to walk along the street not regarding what the guides tell us to regard but noticing for myself what I wish. I should like to go into a trading post and put down money and say, ‘Here—give me that exchange for this’; and I should like to say to people, ‘Which way, please? Much ’blige.’”

He was a silent young man and this was probably the longest speech he had ever made in his life.

“You are a fool!” grunted his father. But he knew Pan-e-troon, and opening his purse he took out a new silver quarter.

“Spend it carefully,” he said. “Buy me some tobacco. And bring back what change there is.”

Pan-e-troon bowed again.

“I shall indeed, Old Wise One.”

He hurried back to his igloo for a small cache of money of his own—a quarter, two dimes, and two pennies. The fortune jingled together pleasantly in his hand, where indeed he must hold it, for he wore the costume of the Arctic Circle. This was not as oppressive as it sounds in Chicago of a late October afternoon, for it had been especially made of the lightest skins for the purpose of display at the Fair.

He hesitated between his fur cap and a new straw hat which an admirer had given him, finally deciding on the latter.

Then he slipped the money into the top of a moccasin, and once more shouting “Scram!” at the dogs who were leaping at the line of fish, he walked out of the Eskimo village into the pleasance.

Immediately he had a following. Pan-e-troon was grown used to strange eyes, however, and they did not disturb him. He felt quite at ease, quite a part of the crowd, in his new straw hat, and he wished he had borrowed his father’s new spectacles for additional decoration.

Walking through the rapidly disappearing midway, past Spaniards, Dutchmen, Mexicans, Chinese villagers (between whom and the Eskimos there was some strange jealousy of exhibitionism), Pan-e-troon reached Michigan Boulevard. He was happy, he was excited. He stopped now and then to stare into shop windows, but they held such a surfeit of charms as to be confusing. So with lingering sighs he went on in the direction of a tall building which he knew as one of the city’s great department stores. He had gone through it with the other Eskimos several months before as part of a bus tour of the city.

First, though, he would get the tobacco of the Old Wise One off his mind, and he turned into a shop with pipes in the window.

The perspiring man in charge gave him immediate attention. Several men lounging in the store stared at him.

Pan-e-troon beamed. He had never made a purchase in America by himself.

“I give you something,” he announced, “and you give me something.”

The salesman glanced at the others and then back at Pan-e-troon.

“That’s all right with me, brother. What do you want to give me?”

Pan-e-troon’s grin grew wider.

“You not understand. I give you something—”

One of the lounging men helped out with:

“He wants to give you his straw hat, George.”

“Well, I wish he’d make up his mind. I’ve got ’bout ten degrees hotter since he come in here.”

Pan-e-troon shook his head regretfully but still smiled. Then he reached down into his moccasin and held out money.

“Here!” he said triumphantly. “I give you this—you give me that.”

He pointed at the row of cans behind the man.

“Pipe tobacco?”

Pan-e-troon nodded.

“What kind?” The salesman named a few brands.

“One,” said Pan-e-troon.” I give you something, you give me something.”

The salesman, unresourceful by nature, gave up. The man who had spoken came behind the counter to his assistance.

“Now, Robinson Crusoe, we got vely mely kinds, savvy?” He put several cans on the counter. “This is a dime; this is a quarter; this is imported, two dollars a pound. How much do you want to spend?”

Pan-e-troon looked at the array.

“One.”

“All right. How much you got?” Pan-e-troon showed his money. “I guess you want the cheapest kind. This is a good dime tobacco.”

“No more cheap, eh?” inquired Pan-e-troon.

“No more cheap.”

“Much ’blige.”

“All right. Don’t set yourself on fire or melt down your house. Good-by.”

“Good-by. I give you something—”

“I understand, and I give you something. All clear—even a banker could understand it.”

Pan-e-troon proceeded along Michigan Boulevard toward the department store. He had made a purchase by himself—his heart glowed. Now he could get what he wanted. Reaching the store, he walked through the busy shuffle, looking at the counters and buying copies of Real Sleuths and Gangsters’ Secrets, his favorite magazines. His true desire was on an upper floor, but his eye was caught suddenly by an object on a counter. It was a lady—at least it was part of a lady—and she stood on a little pedestal with a short cape over her shoulders; her eyes were a bright blue and she had golden hair. Pan-e-troon beamed at her. Gently he touched her shoulder and then spoke to the saleswoman:

“I give you—”

Half hearing him, she looked at the tag on the cape and said:

“Two fifty-nine.”

“What say?”

“Two dollars and fifty-nine cents.”

He shook his head regretfully and passed on.

On the occasion of the bus tour the Eskimos had mounted by elevator and moving stairway; but he could find neither, so he walked up a flight and made the same thorough inspection of all the aisles. Luckily the department he sought was on the third floor—he recognized it immediately with a feeling of delight. It was the toy department.

“I want to buy airplane,” he said to a saleswoman.

She confronted the strange spectacle with a start.

“You mean these toy ones, don’t you? I remember now—you were all in here a few weeks ago.”

She wound an elastic motor on a model and sent the model flier soaring around the room. Pan-e-troon watched in rapture.

“How much I give?” he asked.

“These? They are ninety-nine cents, marked down from a dollar fifty.”

Ruefully Pan-e-troon surveyed his money.

“No can,” he said. “Not give for this?”

“No, not give for that.”

Though sorely disappointed, he met the debacle with a smile, as if it were the greatest joke in the world, and turned away. But something about him touched the woman.

“Look here, you. If that’s all the money you got you’ll get the most out of it at the five-and-ten. They may have little models, smaller than this.”

“Five-and-ten?” he repeated blankly.

“There’s one just around the corner.” She called a bundle boy. “Earl, will you take this—this Eskimo around to the five-and-ten? He don’t get the idea.”

Earl eyed Pan-e-troon resentfully.

“Me be seen on the street with that!”

“Don’t be yourself all the time—I’ll fix it with Mr. Richards. Now, monseer, or whatever you call yourself, go along with this boy and he’ll fix you up.”

Presently he was deposited at the swarming entrance of the emporium. But he had hardly begun his wandering when his attention was caught by a counter piled high with locks of all kinds—padlocks, door locks, safety locks, tire locks—and he gave out a grunt of delight as he approached it.

Locks were his passion—in early boyhood he had come into possession of one from off a Russian steamer that had broken up on the ice. Toys were nonexistent, and he spent many an hour taking the lock apart and putting it together. Later a missionary gave him another, and another wreck yielded up a few more. This mechanical passion was entirely theoretical, due to the absence of doors on igloos; but the chests which his party had brought south were so thoroughly sealed that only Pan-e-troon, using