Cromwell, on the other hand, was a hearty laugher. At times he didn’t know what he was laughing about, but our own laughter was so infectious that he didn’t give a damn what he was laughing about. Now and then he asked a question or two about Mona, whom it was obvious he regarded as a very strange individual, though an adorable one. We, of course, pretended that we had known her from infancy. We praised her writing outrageously, inventing a whole arsenal of poems, essays and stories which she, we were certain, was too modest to have mentioned the existence of. Kronski went so far as to express the opinion that she would be the foremost woman writer in America before long. I pretended not to be so certain of this but agreed that she possessed extraordinary talent, extraordinary possibilities.
Asked if we had seen any of the columns she had turned out, we professed to be completely ignorant, astounded in fact, that she was doing such a thing.
We’ll have to put a stop to that, said Kronski. She’s too good to be wasting her time that way.
I agreed with him. Cromwell looked baffled. He couldn’t see what was so terrible about writing a daily column. Besides, she needed money.
Money? shouted Kronski. Money? Why, what’s the matter with its? I’m sure Dr. Marx and I can take care of her needs. He seemed amazed to hear that Mona might be in need of money. A little hurt, in fact.
Poor Cromwell felt that he had made a faux-pas. He assured us that it was only an impression he had gathered. But, to get back to the subject, he would like us to glance at those columns and give him our honest opinion of them. He said he was no judge himself. If they were really good he was certain he could get her the assignment. He mentioned nothing, of course, about shelling out a hundred a week.
We had another drink on this and then diverted him to other subjects. It was easy enough to sidetrack him. He had only one thought in mind—when would she arrive? Every now and then be begged us to let him dash out and make a telephone call to Washington. In one way or another we always managed to frustrate these attempts. We knew that Mona would not arrive, not at least until we had gotten him out of the way. She had given us until one in the morning to get rid of him. Our only hope therefore was to get him so potted that we could put him in a taxi and pack him off.
I had tried several times to find out where he was staying but got nowhere. Kronski thought it of slight importance—any old hotel would do. In the midst of the goings-on I asked myself why this fool business had been arranged. It made no sense. Later I was told that Mona had thought it important to let Cromwell see that she was really living alone. There was another side to it, of course, and that was to find out if Cromwell really hoped to sell the column to the syndicate. It was Mona’s belief that he would be more frank with us than with her. But we had dropped this subject early in the evening, thanks to Kronski. For some queer reason of his own, Kronski was obsessed with the notion of filling Cromwell with hair-raising stories about the operating ward. I of course had to chime in with him. No one in his right senses would have given the least credence to these yarns he kept inventing. They were so sensational, so utterly fantastic, and so gory and gruesome withal, that I wondered that Cromwell, dead drunk though he was, didn’t see through them. Of course the more horrible and unbelievable the tale, the more we laughed, Kronski and I. Our hilarity puzzled Cromwell somewhat, but finally he accepted it as professional callousness.
To believe Kronski, nine out of ten operations were pure criminal experiments. Except for a rare handful, all surgeons were born sadists. Not content with diabolical fantasies about the mistreatment of human beings, he went into long dissertations on the subject of our cruelty to animals. One of these, a harrowing story, which he told amidst gales of laughter, concerned a poor little rabbit which,—after numerous injections, electric shocks, and all manner of miraculous resuscitations, was brutally butchered. To cap it all, he elaborated on how he, Kronski, had gathered the remnants of the poor little creature and made a stew of it, oblivious, until after he had swallowed a few portions, that arsenic had been injected into the poor rabbit. Over this he laughed inordinately.
Cromwell, slightly sobered by the bloody tale, remarked that it was too bad Kronski hadn’t died, then laughed so heartily over this thought that absentmindedly he swallowed a full glass of cognac neat. Whereupon he had such a fit of coughing that we had to stretch him out on the floor and work over him like a drowned man.
It was at this point that we found Cromwell becoming unmanageable. To give him a working-over we had stripped off his coat, vest, shirt and undershirt. Kronski, to be sure, was doing the major work; I merely pummeled Cromwell now and then, or slapped his chest. Now that he was stretched out comfortably, Cromwell didn’t feel like putting on his things. He said he felt too good to budge. Wanted to take a snooze, if only for a few minutes. He reached out vaguely for the divan, wondering, I suppose, if he could transfer himself to a still more comfortable position without rousing himself.
The thought that he might go to sleep on us was alarming. We began to cut up like real jackanapes now, standing poor Cromwell on his head, dancing around him (to his utter bewilderment, of course), making grimaces, scratching ourselves like apes … anything to make him laugh, anything to prevent his heavy lids from closing. The harder we worked—and by now we had become positively frenetic—the more insistent he became about having his little snooze. He had reached the point now of crawling on all fours towards the coveted divan. Once there, God himself would be powerless to wake him up.
Let’s lay him out, I said, indicating by gestures and grimaces that we could then dress him and bundle him out.
It took us almost a half hour to get his things on. Cromwell drunk and sleepy though he was refused with might and main to permit us to unbutton his trousers, which we had to do to tuck his shirt in. We were obliged to leave his fly open and his shirt sticking out. When it came time we would cover his shirt with the overcoat.
Cromwell passed out immediately. A heavy trance, punctuated by obscene snores. Kronski was radiant. Hadn’t had such a good time in ages, he assured me. Then, without dropping his voice, he blandly suggested that we go through Cromwell’s pockets. We ought at least to get back what we laid out for food and drink, he insisted. I don’t know why I suddenly became so scrupulous but I refused to entertain the notion. He’d never miss the money, said Kronski. What’s fifty or a hundred bucks to him? Just to reassure himself he extracted Cromwell’s wallet. To his utter amazement there wasn’t a bill in it.
Well I’ll be damned! he mumbled. That’s the rich for you. Never carry cash. Pfui!
We’d better get him out of here soon, I urged.
Try and do it! said Kronski, grinning like a billy-goat. What’s wrong with letting him stay here?
Are you mad? I shouted.
He laughed. Then he calmly proceeded to tell us how wonderful he thought it would be if we would play the farce out to the end, that is, to wake up, all five of us (next morning) and continue to enact our respective roles. That would give Mona a chance to do some real acting, he thought. Kronski’s wife wasn’t at all enthusiastic over this suggestion—it was all too complicated to suit her.
After much palaver we decided to rouse Cromwell, drag him out by the heels, if necessary, and dispatch him to a hotel. We had to tussle with him for a good quarter of an hour before we succeeded in getting him to a semi-standing position. His knees simply refused to straighten out; his hat was over his eyes and his shirt-tails were sticking out from under the overcoat which we were unable to button. He looked for all the world like Snuffy the Cabman. We were laughing so hysterically that it was all we could do to descend the steps without rolling over one another. Poor Cromwell kept protesting that he didn’t want to go yet, that he wanted to wait for Mona.
She’s gone to Washington to meet you, said Kronski maliciously. We got a telegram while you were asleep.
Cromwell was too stupefied to get the full import of this. Every now and then he sagged, threatening to collapse in the street. Our idea was to give him a bit of air, brace him up a bit, and then bundle him into a cab. To find a cab we had to
