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A Service of Love

Short Stories

"Fox-in-the-Morning"

A Bird of Bagdad

A Blackjack Bargainer

A Call Loan

A Chaparral Christmas Gift

A Chaparral Prince

A Comedy in Rubber

A Cosmopolite in a Cafe

A Departmental Case

A Dinner at--------*

A Double-Dyed Deceiver

A Fog in Santone

A Harlem Tragedy

A Lickpenny Lover

A Little Local Colour

A Little Talk about Mobs

A Madison Square Arabian Night

A Matter of Mean Elevation

A Midsummer Knight's Dream

A Midsummer Masquerade

A Municipal Report

A Newspaper Story

A Night in New Arabia

A Philistine in Bohemia

A Poor Rule

A Ramble in Aphasia

A Retrieved Reformation

A Ruler of Men

A Sacrifice Hit

A Service of Love

A Snapshot at the President

A Strange Story

A Technical Error

A Tempered Wind

According to Their Lights

After Twenty Years

An Adjustment of Nature

An Afternoon Miracle

An Apology

An Unfinished Christmas Story

An Unfinished Story

Aristocracy Versus Hash

Art and the Bronco

At Arms With Morpheus

Babes in the Jungle

Best-Seller

Between Rounds

Bexar Scrip No. 2692

Blind Man's Holiday

Brickdust Row

Buried Treasure

By Courier

Calloway's Code

Caught

Cherchez La Femme

Christmas by Injunction

Compliments of the Season

Confessions of a Humorist

Conscience in Art

Cupid a La Carte

Cupid's Exile Number Two

Dickey

Dougherty's Eye-Opener

Elsie in New York

Extradited from Bohemia

Fickle Fortune or How Gladys Hustled

Friends in San Rosario

From Each According to His Ability

From the Cabby's Seat

Georgia's Ruling

Girl

He Also Serves

Hearts and Crosses

Hearts and Hands

Helping the Other Fellow

Holding Up a Train

Hostages to Momus

Hygeia at the Solito

Innocents of Broadway

Jeff Peters as a Personal Magnet

Jimmy Hayes and Muriel

Law and Order

Let Me Feel Your Pulse

Little Speck in Garnered Fruit

Lord Oakhurst's Curse

Lost on Dress Parade

Madame Bo-Peep, of the Ranches

Makes the Whole World Kin

Mammon and the Archer

Man About Town

Masters of Arts

Memoirs of a Yellow Dog

Modern Rural Sports

Money Maze

Nemesis and the Candy Man

New York by Camp Fire Light

Next to Reading Matter

No Story

October and June

On Behalf of the Management

One Dollar's Worth

One Thousand Dollars

Out of Nazareth

Past One at Rooney's

Phoebe

Proof of the Pudding

Psyche and the Pskyscraper

Queries and Answers

Roads of Destiny

Roses, Ruses and Romance

Rouge et Noir

Round the Circle

Rus in Urbe

Schools and Schools

Seats of the Haughty

Shearing the Wolf

Ships

Shoes

Sisters of the Golden Circle

Smith

Sociology in Serge and Straw

Sound and Fury

Springtime a La Carte

Squaring the Circle

Strictly Business

Strictly Business

Suite Homes and Their Romance

Telemachus, Friend

The Admiral

The Adventures of Shamrock Jolnes

The Assessor of Success

The Atavism of John Tom Little Bear

The Badge of Policeman O'Roon

The Brief Debut of Tildy

The Buyer From Cactus City

The Caballero's Way

The Cactus

The Caliph and the Cad

The Caliph, Cupid and the Clock

The Call of the Tame

The Chair of Philanthromathematics

The Champion of the Weather

The Church with an Overshot-Wheel

The City of Dreadful Night

The Clarion Call

The Coming-Out of Maggie

The Complete Life of John Hopkins

The Cop and the Anthem

The Count and the Wedding Guest

The Country of Elusion

The Day Resurgent

The Day We Celebrate

The Defeat of the City

The Detective Detector

The Diamond of Kali

The Discounters of Money

The Dog and the Playlet

The Door of Unrest

The Dream

The Duel

The Duplicity of Hargraves

The Easter of the Soul

The Emancipation of Billy

The Enchanted Kiss

The Enchanted Profile

The Ethics of Pig

The Exact Science of Matrimony

The Ferry of Unfulfilment

The Fifth Wheel

The Flag Paramount

The Fool-Killer

The Foreign Policy of Company 99

The Fourth in Salvador

The Friendly Call

The Furnished Room

The Gift of the Magi

The Girl and the Graft

The Girl and the Habit

The Gold That Glittered

The Greater Coney

The Green Door

The Guardian of the Accolade

The Guilty Party - An East Side Tragedy

The Halberdier of the Little Rheinschloss

The Hand that Riles the World

The Handbook of Hymen

The Harbinger

The Head-Hunter

The Hiding of Black Bill

The Higher Abdication

The Higher Pragmatism

The Hypotheses of Failure

The Indian Summer of Dry Valley Johnson

The Lady Higher Up

The Last Leaf

The Last of the Troubadours

The Lonesome Road

The Lost Blend

The Lotus And The Bottle

The Love-Philtre of Ikey Schoenstein

The Making of a New Yorker

The Man Higher Up

The Marionettes

The Marquis and Miss Sally

The Marry Month of May

The Memento

The Missing Chord

The Moment of Victory

The Octopus Marooned

The Passing of Black Eagle

The Pendulum

The Phonograph and the Graft

The Pimienta Pancakes

The Plutonian Fire

The Poet and the Peasant

The Pride of the Cities

The Princess and the Puma

The Prisoner of Zembla

The Proem

The Purple Dress

The Ransom of Mack

The Ransom of Red Chief

The Rathskeller and the Rose

The Red Roses of Tonia

The Reformation of Calliope

The Remnants of the Code

The Renaissance at Charleroi

The Roads We Take

The Robe of Peace

The Romance of a Busy Broker

The Rose of Dixie

The Rubaiyat of a Scotch Highball

The Rubber Plant's Story

The Shamrock and the Palm

The Shocks of Doom

The Skylight Room

The Sleuths

The Snow Man

The Social Triangle

The Song and the Sergeant

The Sparrows in Madison Square

The Sphinx Apple

The Tale of a Tainted Tenner

The Theory and the Hound

The Thing's the Play

The Third Ingredient

The Trimmed Lamp

The Unknown Quantity

The Unprofitable Servant

The Venturers

The Vitagraphoscope

The Voice of the City

The Whirligig of Life

The World and the Door

Thimble, Thimble

Tictocq

To Him Who Waits

Tobin's Palm

Tommy's Burglar

Tracked to Doom

Transformation of Martin Burney

Transients in Arcadia

Two Recalls

Two Renegades

Two Thanksgiving Day Gentlemen

Ulysses and the Dogman

Vanity and Some Sables

What You Want

While the Auto Waits

Whistling Dick's Christmas Stocking

Witches' Loaves







When one loves one's Art no service seems too hard.

That is our premise. This story shall draw a conclusion from it, and
show at the same time that the premise is incorrect. That will be a
new thing in logic, and a feat in story-telling somewhat older than
the great wall of China.

Joe Larrabee came out of the post-oak flats of the Middle West
pulsing with a genius for pictorial art. At six he drew a picture
of the town pump with a prominent citizen passing it hastily. This
effort was framed and hung in the drug store window by the side of
the ear of corn with an uneven number of rows. At twenty he left for
New York with a flowing necktie and a capital tied up somewhat
closer.

Delia Caruthers did things in six octaves so promisingly in a pine-
tree village in the South that her relatives chipped in enough in her
chip hat for her to go "North" and "finish." They could not see her
f--, but that is our story.

Joe and Delia met in an atelier where a number of art and music
students had gathered to discuss chiaroscuro, Wagner, music,
Rembrandt's works, pictures, Waldteufel, wall paper, Chopin and
Oolong.

Joe and Delia became enamoured one of the other, or each of the
other, as you please, and in a short time were married--for (see
above), when one loves one's Art no service seems too hard.

Mr. and Mrs. Larrabee began housekeeping in a flat. It was a
lonesome flat--something like the A sharp way down at the left-hand
end of the keyboard. And they were happy; for they had their Art,
and they had each other. And my advice to the rich young man would
be--sell all thou hast, and give it to the poor--janitor for the
privilege of living in a flat with your Art and your Delia.

Flat-dwellers shall indorse my dictum that theirs is the only true
happiness. If a home is happy it cannot fit too close--let the
dresser collapse and become a billiard table; let the mantel turn to
a rowing machine, the escritoire to a spare bedchamber, the washstand
to an upright piano; let the four walls come together, if they will,
so you and your Delia are between. But if home be the other kind,
let it be wide and long--enter you at the Golden Gate, hang your hat
on Hatteras, your cape on Cape Horn and go out by the Labrador.

Joe was painting in the class of the great Magister--you know his
fame. His fees are high; his lessons are light--his high-lights have
brought him renown. Delia was studying under Rosenstock--you know
his repute as a disturber of the piano keys.

They were mighty happy as long as their money lasted. So is every--
but I will not be cynical. Their aims were very clear and defined.
Joe was to become capable very soon of turning out pictures that old
gentlemen with thin side-whiskers and thick pocketbooks would sandbag
one another in his studio for the privilege of buying. Delia was to
become familiar and then contemptuous with Music, so that when she
saw the orchestra seats and boxes unsold she could have sore throat
and lobster in a private dining-room and refuse to go on the stage.

But the best, in my opinion, was the home life in the little flat--
the ardent, voluble chats after the day's study; the cozy dinners and
fresh, light breakfasts; the interchange of ambitions--ambitions
interwoven each with the other's or else inconsiderable--the mutual
help and inspiration; and--overlook my artlessness--stuffed olives
and cheese sandwiches at 11 p.m.

But after a while Art flagged. It sometimes does, even if some
switchman doesn't flag it. Everything going out and nothing coming
in, as the vulgarians say. Money was lacking to pay Mr. Magister and
Herr Rosenstock their prices. When one loves one's Art no service
seems too hard. So, Delia said she must give music lessons to keep
the chafing dish bubbling.

For two or three days she went out canvassing for pupils. One
evening she came home elated.

"Joe, dear," she said, gleefully, "I've a pupil. And, oh, the
loveliest people! General--General A. B. Pinkney's daughter--on
Seventy-first street. Such a splendid house, Joe--you ought to see
the front door! Byzantine I think you would call it. And inside!
Oh, Joe, I never saw anything like it before.

"My pupil is his daughter Clementina. I dearly love her already.
She's a delicate thing-dresses always in white; and the sweetest,
simplest manners! Only eighteen years old. I'm to give three
lessons a week; and, just think, Joe! $5 a lesson. I don't mind it
a bit; for when I get two or three more pupils I can resume my
lessons with Herr Rosenstock. Now, smooth out that wrinkle between
your brows, dear, and let's have a nice supper."

"That's all right for you, Dele," said Joe, attacking a can of peas
with a carving knife and a hatchet, "but how about me? Do you think
I'm going to let you hustle for wages while I philander in the
regions of high art? Not by the bones of Benvenuto Cellini! I guess
I can sell papers or lay cobblestones, and bring in a dollar or two."

Delia came and hung about his neck.

"Joe, dear, you are silly. You must keep on at your studies. It is
not as if I had quit my music and gone to work at something else.
While I teach I learn. I am always with my music. And we can live
as happily as millionaires on $15 a week. You mustn't think of
leaving Mr. Magister."

"All right," said Joe, reaching for the blue scalloped vegetable
dish. "But I hate for you to be giving lessons. It isn't Art. But
you're a trump and a dear to do it."

"When one loves one's Art no service seems too hard," said Delia.

"Magister praised the sky in that sketch I made in the park," said
Joe. "And Tinkle gave me permission to hang two of them in his
window. I may sell one if the right kind of a moneyed idiot sees
them."

"I'm sure you will," said Delia, sweetly. "And now let's be thankful
for Gen. Pinkney and this veal roast."

During all of the next week the Larrabees had an early breakfast.
Joe was enthusiastic about some morning-effect sketches he was doing
in Central Park, and Delia packed him off breakfasted, coddled,
praised and kissed at 7 o'clock. Art is an engaging mistress. It
was most times 7 o'clock when he returned in the evening.

At the end of the week Delia, sweetly proud but languid, triumphantly
tossed three five-dollar bills on the 8x10 (inches) centre table of
the 8x10 (feet) flat parlour.

Sometimes," she said, a little wearily, "Clementina tries me. I'm
afraid she doesn't practise enough, and I have to tell her the same
things so often. And then she always dresses entirely in white, and
that does get monotonous. But Gen. Pinkney is the dearest old man!
I wish you could know him, Joe. He comes in sometimes when I am with
Clementina at the piano--he is a widower, you know--and stands there
pulling his white goatee. 'And how are the semiquavers and the
demisemiquavers progressing?' he always asks.

"I wish you could see the wainscoting in that drawing-room, Joe!
And those Astrakhan rug portieres. And Clementina has such a funny
little cough. I hope she is stronger than she looks. Oh, I really
am getting attached to her, she is so gentle and high bred. Gen.
Pinkney's brother was once Minister to Bolivia."

And then Joe, with the air of a Monte Cristo, drew forth a ten, a
five, a two and a one--all legal tender notes--and laid them beside
Delia's earnings.

"Sold that watercolour of the obelisk to a man from Peoria," he
announced overwhelmingly.

"Don't joke with me," said Delia, "not from Peoria!"

"All the way. I wish you could see him, Dele. Fat man with a
woollen muffler and a quill toothpick. He saw the sketch in Tinkle's
window and thought it was a windmill at first, he was game, though,
and bought it anyhow. He ordered another--an oil sketch of the
Lackawanna freight depot--to take back with him. Music lessons! Oh,
I guess Art is still in it."

"I'm so glad you've kept on," said Delia, heartily. "You're bound to
win, dear. Thirty-three dollars! We never had so much to spend
before. We'll have oysters to-night."

"And filet mignon with champignons," said Joe. "Were is the olive
fork?"

On the next Saturday evening Joe reached home first. He spread his
$18 on the parlour table and washed what seemed to be a great deal of
dark paint from his hands.

Half an hour later Delia arrived, her right hand tied up in a
shapeless bundle of wraps and bandages.

"How is this?" asked Joe after the usual greetings. Delia laughed,
but not very joyously.

Clementina," she explained, "insisted upon a Welsh rabbit after her
lesson. She is such a queer girl. Welsh rabbits at 5 in the
afternoon. The General was there. You should have seen him run for
the chafing dish, Joe, just as if there wasn't a servant in the
house. I know Clementina isn't in good health; she is so nervous.
In serving the rabbit she spilled a great lot of it, boiling hot,
over my hand and wrist. It hurt awfully, Joe. And the dear girl was
so sorry! But Gen. Pinkney!--Joe, that old man nearly went
distracted. He rushed downstairs and sent somebody--they said the
furnace man or somebody in the basement--out to a drug store for some
oil and things to bind it up with. It doesn't hurt so much now."

"What's this?" asked Joe, taking the hand tenderly and pulling at
some white strands beneath the bandages.

"It's something soft," said Delia, "that had oil on it. Oh, Joe, did
you sell another sketch?" She had seen the money on the table.

"Did I?" said Joe; "just ask the man from Peoria. He got his depot
to-day, and he isn't sure but he thinks he wants another parkscape
and a view on the Hudson. What time this afternoon did you burn your
hand, Dele?"

"Five o'clock, I think," said Dele, plaintively. "The iron--I mean
the rabbit came off the fire about that time. You ought to have seen
Gen. Pinkney, Joe, when--"

"Sit down here a moment, Dele," said Joe. He drew her to the couch,
sat beside her and put his arm across her shoulders.

"What have you been doing for the last two weeks, Dele?" he asked.

She braved it for a moment or two with an eye full of love and
stubbornness, and murmured a phrase or two vaguely of Gen. Pinkney;
but at length down went her head and out came the truth and tears.

"I couldn't get any pupils," she confessed. "And I couldn't bear to
have you give up your lessons; and I got a place ironing shirts in
that big Twentyfourth street laundry. And I think I did very well to
make up both General Pinkney and Clementina, don't you, Joe? And
when a girl in the laundry set down a hot iron on my hand this
afternoon I was all the way home making up that story about the Welsh
rabbit. You're not angry, are you, Joe? And if I hadn't got the
work you mightn't have sold your sketches to that man from Peoria.

"He wasn't from Peoria," said Joe, slowly.

"Well, it doesn't matter where he was from. How clever you are, Joe
--and--kiss me, Joe--and what made you ever suspect that I wasn't
giving music lessons to Clementina?"

"I didn't," said Joe, "until to-night. And I wouldn't have then,
only I sent up this cotton waste and oil from the engine-room this
afternoon for a girl upstairs who had her hand burned with a
smoothing-iron. I've been firing the engine in that laundry for the
last two weeks."

"And then you didn't--"

"My purchaser from Peoria," said Joe, "and Gen. Pinkney are both
creations of the same art--but you wouldn't call it either painting
or music.

And then they both laughed, and Joe began:

"When one loves one's Art no service seems--"

But Delia stopped him with her hand on his lips. "No," she said--
"just 'When one loves.'"




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