TEN MINUTES’ STORY.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXXV, Issue 3950, 5 June 1913, Page 3

TEN MINUTES’ STORY.

THE LAST JESTER.

(By Frank M. O’Brien.)

At the top of the ‘‘'miscellaneous” column in the Paris edition of an American newspaper there stood the following advertisement: FOR SALE—A Fool; fifty thousand francs.—Apply by letter to J.G.F., this office.

George Blair, of New York, who was at coffee in the restaurant of the Hotel des Gobes, stared at it with a smile. It was to him the only intersting thing in the whole paper, for it savored of amusement, and he had rushed abroad, a week before, in order to be amused. So far he had found it a serious, nerve-racking pursuit. “Wild has been bulling the fool market?” lie asked himself. I have a few fools on my. list that I’d give ten thousand dollars to get rid of. I shall not ‘apply by letter to J.G.F., this office.’ ”

Nor did he, but he drove at once to the newspaper office, told the clerk at the advertisement counter that he was a personal friend of Mr Bent, the proprietor, and arranged that J.G.F.. immediately on arrival, should call up Mr Blair at the hotel. At two o’clock Mr Blair and J.G.F. were at luncheon together. Jean Gerault Fontaine may have been French by virtue of ancestry, but he was a cosmopolite in reality, and a buyer and seller of anything that would bring him profit. ' ‘ Of course,” he explained to Blair, “the fool isn’t' really for sale. That would be slave traffic, and wicked. But I have a fifty-year contract with Arthur, having* paid his former master for it.”

“Were you ever a baseball magnate?” inquired' Blair. Fontaine ignored the flippancy. “Arthur can’t read or write, and is quite deaf,” lie continued. “It- is sufficient for him that lie have three meals a day, a warm room, and good treatment.”

“What is he, exactly?” asked Blair, who was still a bit in the dark.

“A fool,” said Mr Fontaine; “a court jester, a buffoon —the last one of tho type in the civilised world. He is a lineal descendant of Muckle John, tho last Royal fool of England.” “Really!” said Mr Blair, with a rise of the eyebrows. “The last?” “I mean,” Mr Fontaine hastened to say, “that Muckle John was the last official fool to amuse royalty. He was in the court of Charles I.” “Made Charles laugh Ins head off, didn’t he?” suggested Mr. Blair. But Mr Fontaine, busily describing his merchandise, paid no heed. “After the execution of that unhappy monarch,” he went on, betraying by his glib sing-song that he must, some time in his career, have been a Cook’s guide, “Muckle John went to the South of France. In each of his descendants’ families there has been one buffoon, trained for court life as Muckle John was himself trained. Arthur is the last of the race. I won’t sav 110 is as clever as Bahahul, and he may not- bo as bold as the jesters of Montezuma, who kept them because thev told him the i - eal jtrutli about himself.”

Blair grinned. “Arthur better hadn’t,” lie said, “I’m a sensitive young man.” The luncheon elided with the transfer to Mr Fontaine of fifty thousand francs, for which he agreed to have Arthur waiting at the pier a week later, when Blair would start for Home. Arthur was guaranteed to ho sound of body and practically so in mind: to be charged with humor somewhat after the manner of a syphon bottle, which does not fizz until you press tho trigger; and it was in the contract that he sliould be so soberly clothed that Blair might take him across the sea in the guise of a valet. Blair was proud of his purchase. He had had everything else that a bachelor is supposed to desire —-health, wealth, and fric-nds galore. New ho would have something in the way of a royal luxury; something that his friends cculcl not duplicate. They could imitate, it was true, merely by putting bells on some of the young men he knew; but his fool would be the only real, blown-in-the-bottle article. - “I cant hope,’’ he reflected, that Arthur will be as genuinely idiotic as Bony Van Gruyn, but he will be on the job more regularly, and he won’t owe me bridge money. I must try, though, to dress him up more conspicuously t';an Freddie Kanollyn, and that'is going to be some job!” So “Mr Blair and valet” sailed away. Mr Fontaine was at the pier. “One last word of warning,” he said to Blair. “Arthur is in excellent physical trim, but he is, as many jesters have been, sensitive in certain ways. Keep sad things from him. Don’t let him know, if you can help it, that there is such a thing as gloom. He can t read, so he’s sale from morbid books, and lie’s pretty deaf, so he isn’t likely to overhear depressing conversation. His masters have always kept him in an atmosphere of. brightness and good humor. He has been to the theatre, but only to performances that were light and airy. He has been guarded against pictures that shook, repel, or make despondent, for it was feared that the sight might- not only destroy his faculty for making fun, hut to be perfectly frank, might kill him.” Blair, duly impressed, then and there sent a cablegram to his decorators in New York, ordering the fitting up of ail apartment in his house that should suit the temperament cf Arthur. They landed in New dork on Easter Saturday, after a voyage in which Arthur's disguise proved to be perfect. Blair liked the little fellow. He was mis-shapen, but not in a- repellent -ivaV. His face was thoughful and not ill-looking. On the steamer "lie did not utter a comic word or do a comic thing, for Blair had explained to him that°the time was not yet. Arthur’s apartment proved to be properlv made. Blair had supplied the main idea—cheerfulness—and the decorators had done well with it. lho walls were of white and cream, and the pictures on them were chosen to cheer. They were ruddy English prints, with ruddier English faces m them. The choicest cartoons from Le Rire vied with the snappiest cuts from Eliegende Blatter. A sour fellow, indeed, who could scan the walls without a smile! The furniture was of light Food. The rugs were combinations of the brightest and cleanest colors. Great windows let in a flood of light. Mechanical toys were provided to fill out the jester’s leisure hours. Arthur beamed with joy. He would be content, oven happy. Blair spent most of The afternoon of Easter Sunday at his club, hogging a Fifth Avenue window for hours. “Why this deep study of the common people, old top?” a club colleague inquired. “I’m trying to get ideas for a costume for a court fool,” said Blair. His club-mate, who did not know about Arthur, uttered a complimentary guffaw. Telling the blank truth is one way to be disbelieved. At the end 9f the day’s parade Blair rose with a sigh. “No use!” he said. “I need something more conservative than anything I’ve seen.”' Next day he- went to his tailor and gave the order for Arthur’s official wardrobe. The coat was to be short and loose, and made of th latest shirtstriping: the tight Icnee-breeches or bright gi’een, suggestive of the comic Irishman on the stage 20 years ago. One stocking was to be orange, rare black, for dear old Princeton. The tail was bothersome. to the tailor,, because, to conform with what Blair had read: in Doran’s “History of Court Fools” it must be ornamented with a coxcombs, asses’’ ears, and bells.

“The bells will bo easy to buy,” said the tailor; “but asses’ ears—” “There must be more than four million pairs of them in New York,” suggested Blair. “I will try first at the Bucephalus stableSj in Twenty-sixth Street,” said the tailor. “And as for the coxcombs.”

“Coxcombs,” said Mr Blair,-- “are to be seen in infinite variety in any club.”

“I will send to Washington market for a model,” said the tailor, patiently and prosaically. “Get a nice big bladder at the market, too,” said Blair. “That’s part of tho works. It swings from the end of the staff that has Punch’s head on it.” When all was ready in the way of costuming, Blair gave .a small comingout party for Arthur. The jester was a success at every point. He sat at the head of the table, and the diners gaped at him- Old Jarkins, after being beaten on tho head with the bladder, offered fifty thousand dollars for Arthur.

“I haven’t laughed so,” he explained, “since we permitted the public to buy the stock of the X. and Q.” And s-o on. far into the night, as other chroniclers have remarked.

In the days that followed, Arthur proved! a. lively companion for the bored rich man. Even ,at breakfast lie was amusing. By turns lie was droll, grave, and ridiculous, but always diverting. His own spirits were excellent, even when he was not professionally engaged. . One*day, entering his private gallery, Blair found that Arthur had wandered there by mistake, and was gazing at a rather ghastly Verestehagin. Remembering Fontaine admonition, Blair was alarmed, and drew the jester quickly away from the.gory canvas. Arthur seemed not one whit disturbed, however. The next night, by way of experiment, .Blair took the fool to the opera, Arthur watched the sad goings on of

“Gav.alliera Rusticana’’. without' a shudder.

Shown the pictures in Fox’s “Book of Martyrs,” the jester displayed little interest and no alarm.

“I guess,” Blair decided, “that Fontaine was away off on that depression business. To-morrow’s Sunda}', mv lady day, and I’ll spend it cautiously trying him out with some illustrations in ‘Captain Cook’s Voyages,’ where the South Sea savage is depicted at his uninspected abattoir.” So he went away to his club, light at heart and proud of his possession. Blair’s Sunday morning came to him sodden and maroon. The barbs of katzenjammer struck in, hot and poisonous. A shave in bed only irritated him. Two bathes merely showed him that he might be clean and cool without and a fiery furnace within. A pint of champagne, cooled to 3o degrees Fahrenheit, slid down his July throat, and revived him just-enough to prove to him that he felt worse than ever before in his life. He barked for a Sunday newspaper. The first page showed him that Ins best friend of college days had fallen several thousand feet from an aeroplane; the second, that of old Mr Hensliaw, who was his most trustworthy friend in the stock market, had died of galloping senility; tho third page that the Wall Street experts figured on nothing better than a month of dull crashes.

“But where is the funny part of this paper?” he cried in derision. “Where is the comic supplement.? Where is that which brings the- ringing laugh to the throat of every New Yorker cn his day of rest ?” It was not there. “Good!” cried B'air. and sprang up to dress.

Then he remembered the jewel of his household—Arthur.

“Send my jester here,” he commanded his valet, “and hurry. I will strive with my cuff-links single-hand-ed and alone; but bring me my jester quicklv, or I will cleave you to the chin !”

Wenks came Lack, but not very quickly. “I can’t arouse him, sir,” he said. “He’s deaf, you know,” said Blair. “Did you knock loudly?”

Very loudly, sir,’’ said Wenks

“Open the door and wake him up,” Blair ordered.

“The ■door is locked, sir” explained Wenks; “and no one has a key but you and lie, sir.” '“Right!” admitted Blair. “I’m ready now, and I’ll wake the clown up myself.”

With Wenks trotting behind him, the sad rich man went to tho apartment of the fool. He unlocked the door and flung it open. Yes, it had been o pretty, cheerful room. On the white walls the Holbein portraits of Will Sommers and Kunz von dev Rozen —great kings’ fools in their day—looked out from between the rosy prints. Arthur’s pet tov. a white biplane, swung from- its little white hangar. Tho gib rug, eating Tip the sunshine, was bright and gay. Gav except in the spot where, with the gentle spring sunlight pouring in on Ids little tinselled body, the jester lay dead. On the face, usually so calm beneath the motley cap, it seomwritten that sadness, melancholy, and horror had struck their lethal blows together. And beside him, hideous in its brilliancy of reds and greens, and yellows, lav guiltily the comic supplement that Blair'had missed.