The White Mice.

by Richard Harding Davis.

I

Once upon a time a lion dropped his paw upon a mouse.

"Please let me live!" begged the mouse, "and some day I will do as much for you."

"That is so funny," roared the king of beasts, "that we will release you. We had no idea mice had a sense of humor."

And then, as you remember, the lion was caught in the net of the hunter, and struggled, and fought, and struck blindly, until his spirit and strength were broken, and he lay helpless and dying.

And the mouse, happening to pa.s.s that way, gnawed and nibbled at the net, and gave the lion his life.

The morals are: that an appreciation of humor is a precious thing; that G.o.d moves in a mysterious way, His wonders to perform, and that you never can tell.

In regard to this fable it is urged that, according to the doctrine of chances, it is extremely unlikely that at the very moment the lion lay bound and helpless the very same mouse should pa.s.s by. But the explanation is very simple and bromidic.

It is this--that this is a small world.

People who are stay-at-home bodies come to believe the whole world is the village in which they live. People who are rolling-stones claim that if you travel far enough and long enough the whole world becomes as one village; that sooner or later you make friends with every one in it; that the only difference between the stay-at-homes and the gadabouts is that while the former answer local telephone calls, the others receive picture postal-cards. There is a story that seems to ill.u.s.trate how small this world is. In fact, this is the story.

General Don Miguel Rojas, who as a young man was called the Lion of Valencia, and who later had honorably served Venezuela as Minister of Foreign Affairs, as Secretary of War, as Minister to the Court of St.

James and to the Republic of France, having reached the age of sixty found himself in a dungeon-cell underneath the fortress in the harbor of Porto Cabello. He had been there two years. The dungeon was dark and very damp, and at high-tide the waters of the harbor oozed through the pores of the limestone walls. The air was the air of a receiving-vault, and held the odor of a fisherman's creel.

General Rojas sat huddled upon a canvas cot, with a blanket about his throat and a blanket about his knees, reading by the light of a candle the story of Don Quixote. Sometimes a drop of water fell upon the candle and it sputtered, and its light was nearly lost in the darkness. Sometimes so many drops gathered upon the white head of the Lion of Valencia that he sputtered, too, and coughed so violently that, in agony, he beat with feeble hands upon his breast. And _his_ light, also, nearly escaped into the darkness.

On the other side of the world, four young Americans, with legs crossed and without their shoes, sat on the mats of the tea-house of the Hundred and One Steps. On their sun-tanned faces was the glare of Yokohama Bay, in their eyes the light of youth, of intelligent interest, of adventure. In the hand of each was a tiny cup of acrid tea. Three of them were under thirty, and each wore the suit of silk pongee that in eighteen hours C. Tom, or Little Ah Sing, the Chinese King, fits to any figure, and which in the Far East is the badge of the tourist tribe. Of the three, one was Rodman Forrester. His father, besides being pointed out as the parent of "Roddy" Forrester, the one-time celebrated Yale pitcher, was himself not unfavorably known to many governments as a constructor of sky-sc.r.a.pers, breakwaters, bridges, wharves and light-houses, which latter he planted on slippery rocks along inaccessible coast-lines. Among his fellow Captains of Industry he was known as the Forrester Construction Company, or, for short, the "F. C. C." Under that alias Mr. Forrester was now trying to sell to the j.a.panese three light-houses, to illuminate the Inner Sea between Kobe and Shimoneseki. To hasten the sale he had shipped "Roddy" straight from the machine-shops to Yokohama.

Three years before, when Roddy left Yale, his father ordered him abroad to improve his mind by travel, and to inspect certain light-houses and breakwaters on both sh.o.r.es of the English Channel.

While crossing from Dover to Calais on his way to Paris, Roddy made a very superficial survey of the light-houses and reported that, so far as he could see by daylight, they still were on the job. His father, who had his own breezy sense of humor, cancelled Roddy's letter of credit, cabled him home, and put him to work in the machine-shop.

There the manager reported that, except that he had shown himself a good "mixer," and had organized picnics for the benefit societies, and a base-ball team, he had not earned his fifteen dollars a week.

When Roddy was called before him, his father said:

"It is wrong that your rare talents as a 'mixer' should be wasted in front of a turning-lathe. Callahan tells me you can talk your way through boiler-plate, so I am going to give you a chance to talk the j.a.ps into giving us a contract. But, remember this, Roddy," his father continued sententiously, "the j.a.ps are the Jews of the present. Be polite, but don't appear _too_ anxious. If you do, they will beat you down in the price."

Perhaps this parting injunction explains why, from the time Roddy first burst upon the Land of the Rising Sun, he had devoted himself entirely to the Yokohama tea-houses and the base-ball grounds of the American Naval Hospital. He was trying, he said, not to appear too anxious. He hoped father would be pleased.

With Roddy to j.a.pan, as a companion, friend and fellow-tourist, came Peter de Peyster, who hailed from the banks of the Hudson, and of what Roddy called "one of our ancient poltroon families." At Yale, although he had been two cla.s.ses in advance of Roddy, the two had been roommates, and such firm friends that they contradicted each other without ceasing. Having quarrelled through two years of college life, they were on terms of such perfect understanding as to be inseparable.

The third youth was the "Orchid Hunter." His father manufactured the beer that, so Roddy said, had made his home town bilious. He was not really an orchid hunter, but on his journeyings around the globe he had become so ashamed of telling people he had no other business than to spend his father's money that he had decided to say he was collecting orchids.

"It shows imagination," he explained, "and I have spent enough money on orchids on Fifth Avenue to make good."

The fourth youth in the group wore the uniform and insignia of a Lieutenant of the United States Navy. His name was Perry, and, looking down from the toy balcony of the tea-house, clinging like a bird's-nest to the face of the rock, they could see his battle-ship on the berth. It was Perry who had convoyed them to O Kin San and her delectable tea-house, and it was Perry who was talking shop.

"But the most important member of the ship's company on a submarine,"

said the sailor-man, "doesn't draw any pay at all, and he has no rating. He is a mouse."

"He's a _what_?" demanded the Orchid Hunter. He had been patriotically celebrating the arrival of the American Squadron. During tiffin, the sight of the white uniforms in the hotel dining-room had increased his patriotism; and after tiffin the departure of the Pacific Mail, carrying to the Golden Gate so many "good fellows," further aroused it. Until the night before, in the billiard-room, he had never met any of the good fellows; but the thought that he might never see them again now depressed him. And the tea he was drinking neither cheered nor inebriated. So when the Orchid Hunter spoke he showed a touch of temper.

"Don't talk sea slang to me," he commanded; "when you say he is a mouse, what do you mean by a mouse?"

"I mean a mouse," said the Lieutenant, "a white mouse with pink eyes.

He bunks in the engine-room, and when he smells sulphuric gas escaping anywhere he squeals; and the chief finds the leak, and the ship isn't blown up. Sometimes, one little, white mouse will save the lives of a dozen bluejackets."

Roddy and Peter de Peyster nodded appreciatively.

"Mos' extr'd'n'ry!" said the Orchid Hunter. "Mos' sad, too. I will now drink to the mouse. The moral of the story is," he pointed out, "that everybody, no matter how impecunious, can help; even you fellows could help. So could I."

His voice rose in sudden excitement. "I will now," he cried, "organize the Society of the Order of the White Mice. The object of the society is to save everybody's life. Don't tell me," he objected scornfully, "that you fellows will let a little white mice save twelve hundred bluejackets, an' you sit there an' grin. You mus' all be a White Mice.

You mus' all save somebody's life. An'--then--then we give ourself a dinner."

"And medals!" suggested Peter de Peyster.

The Orchid Hunter frowned. He regarded the amendment with suspicion.

"Is't th' intention of the Hon'ble Member from N'York," he asked, "that _each_ of us gets a medal, or just th' one that does th'

saving?"

"Just one," said Peter de Peyster.

"No, we all get 'em," protested Roddy. "Each time!"

"Th' 'men'ment to th' 'men'ment is carried," announced the Orchid Hunter. He untwisted his legs and clapped his hands. The paper walls slid apart, the little Nezans, giggling, bowing, ironing out their knees with open palms, came tripping and stumbling to obey.

"Take away the tea!" shouted the Orchid Hunter. "It makes me nervous.

Bring us fizzy-water, in larges' size, cold, expensive bottles. And now, you fellows," proclaimed the Orchid Hunter, "I'm goin' into secret session and initiate you into Yokohama Chapter, Secret Order of White Mice. And--I will be Mos' Exalted Secret White Mouse."

When he returned to the ship Perry told the wardroom about it and laughed, and the wardroom laughed, and that night at the Grand Hotel, while the j.a.panese band played "Give My Regards to Broadway," which Peter de Peyster told them was the American national anthem, the White Mice gave their first annual dinner. For, as the Orchid Hunter pointed out, in order to save life, one must sustain it.

And Louis Eppinger himself designed that dinner, and the Paymaster, and Perry's brother-officers, who were honored guests, still speak of it with awe; and the next week's _Box of Curios_ said of it editorially: "And while our little Yokohama police know much of ju-jitsu, they found that they had still something to learn of the short jab to the jaw and the quick getaway."

Indeed, throughout, it was a most successful dinner.

And just to show how small this world is, and that "G.o.d moves in a mysterious way, His wonders to perform," at three o'clock that morning, when the dinner-party in rickshaws were rolling down the Bund, singing "We're Little White Mice Who Have Gone Astray," their voices carried across the Pacific, across the Cordilleras and the Caribbean Sea; and an old man in his cell, tossing and shivering with fever, smiled and sank to sleep; for in his dreams he had heard the scampering feet of the White Mice, and he had seen the gates of his prison-cell roll open.

The Forrester Construction Company did not get the contract to build the three light-houses. The j.a.panese preferred a light-house made by an English firm. They said it was cheaper. It _was_ cheaper, because they bought the working plans from a draughtsman the English firm had discharged for drunkenness, and, by causing the revolving light to wink once instead of twice, dodged their own patent laws.