THE credit item established by the $1,332,000, Europe's Capital and Ours 000 foreign securities bought with American capital in 1926 had been increased through purchase of existing American and foreign securities from foreign markets to the imposing total sum of $1,981,000,000. Yet when foreign payments made to our markets in redemption of maturing foreign bonds were canvassed, and with them foreign purchases in our own market of foreign and American securities, the total of such offsetting payments during 1926 reached no less a sum than $1,424,000,000. Of this surprising total, the department's information proved that $250,000,000 foreign loans held in this country were paid off last year, that $286,000,000 foreign securities owned here were sold back to foreigners, and that our markets sold abroad $636,000,000 of American stocks and bonds; 76 per cent of these purchases being for account of Europe, and comparing with a negligible amount of such investments three or four years ago. But that is a remarkable sidelight on European conditions. It means that not only has Europe's annual bill against the United States for our travellers' expenditure increased in a larger total sum than our own bill against Europe for interest on our accumulating foreign investments, but that the outside world is actually placing its own capital in America in an amount nearly three-fourths as great as the investment of our own capital abroad. Whatever else may be said of these comparisons, so huge an offset to our mounting "foreign credit fund" means that a baffling economic problem is at least beginning to solve itself in its own way. Reader Services We invite all readers of SCRIBNER'S MAGAZINE to make use of the Shopping Service School and Camp Service Investor's Service Bureau Travel Department Expert service rendered free to subscribers. Address the department in which you are interested, in care of SCRIBNER'S MAGAZINE 597 Fifth Avenue SCRIBNER'S MAGAZINE VOL. LXXXII DECEMBER, 1927 NO. 6 The Flea, the Pup, and the Millennium BY DON MARQUIS Author of "The Old Soak," "When the Turtles Sing," etc. ILLUSTRATIONS BY ARTHUR DOVE S you walk over the comfort of pedestrians. There is an iron railing about the outer edge of the platform. If you were to climb upon the railing, give a yell, and jump, you would be at the bottom of the deepest part of the East River in no time. Right at this place there fell into the river, not long ago, what an eminent philanthropist believed to be the Hope of Humanity. And with it went Scipio the Flea. Scipio was the most ferocious, the hardest-biting flea that ever stung the cuticle of man or beast. Among flea fanciers it is said that it was impossible to make him work as one of a team of trained fleas; he invariably murdered all his mates. He was anti-social. But he was intelligent. His master often said with pride: "My Scipio is worth his weight in radium!" His master, who had inherited him from a friend in the show business, was Professor Doddbridge Jenkinson, a man who ever smiled and smiled, showing a golden tooth. He wore cloth-topped shoes and smoothed his hair with oil; his mustache was large and brilliantly black; his forehead sloped gracefully, and he always sported a fancy vest. Scipio would perform for no one else; and Professor Jenkinson, out of a sentiment for the dead friend, never asked him to perform professionally. Scipio lived in a pill-box that reposed in the upper lefthand pocket of the fancy vest, just over the fond heart of Doddbridge Jenkinson; they were blood-brothers and between them was a bond passing the love of woman. They dwelt in ulterior Flatbush, out toward Coney Island, in the boardinghouse of Mrs. Kate Akimbo, a handsome and buxom widow. Mrs. Akimbo was the mother of a pair of interesting twins, Barnum Akimbo and Bailey Akimbo, just five years old. They had been born the day an Asian elephant, forgetful of his training, knelt upon their father in a great circus. Mrs. Akimbo, the twins, and the other boarders (who were mostly employed about the shows and concessions at Coney Island) all looked up to Doddbridge Jenkinson as a man who knew a thing or two about the world. But with Kate Akimbo admiration for Professor Jenkinson had grown to something far deeper. Briefly, she worshipped him. But did he care for her? Sometimes, she was sure of it. And then there would jump before her wistful mental vision the shadow of the flea. But with the guile of woman Mrs. Akimbo pretended that she admired Scipio. Professor Doddbridge Jenkinson was what is known as a pitchman; just now he busied himself taking orders for crayon Copyrighted in 1927 in United States, Canada, and Great Britain by Charles Scribner's Sons. portraits, enlarged from photographs in funereal blacks and grays; at one time he had employed himself in the sale of indissoluble, indestructible, and opalescent pearls. When his work was done he loved to sit upon the widow's porch of a summer evening and practise upon the slidetrombone the slanting late sunlight beautiful upon his satin, salmon-colored tie which was stuck rakishly through with a turquoise pin. Often Barnum Akimbo and Bailey Akimbo would clamber upon his lap and beg to see Scipio perform, a boon never granted, though Doddbridge was indulgent to the twins in other ways. But one tragic day in early autumn, after the professor had satiated himself with his luncheon and his trombone, he fell a-drowse upon the front veranda, his mouth ajar beneath his brilliant mustache, and his golden dentistry glimmering through the golden afternoon. Barnum Akimbo saw his chance and slyly took the pill-box from the professor's pocket. Then the twins stole into the garden, crawled through a gap in the back fence, and, all oblivious of a Bearded Stranger coming into the alley, opened the pill-box. "Hullo, little Busters!" said the Bearded Stranger, falsely genial, looking about to see that they had no natural protector near. They were startled, but the tramp fixed them with such a compelling look they did not move. "Has Momma sent you to the drug-store with that pretty pill-box to buy medicine?" He endeavored to endow his husky voice with an ingratiating quality, but did not succeed. He patted Barnum on the head. "You mustn't be scared of your Uncle Fuller-lemme see the shiny pennies Momma gave you.' But Barnum Akimbo, drawing back, He seemed not merely puzzled but displeased. He walled his eyes, he clicked his tongue, he opened wide his mouth and showed some jagged, tobacco-blackened teeth. "I've et kids that told me lies, afore this," he said. The boast seemed entirely plausible to the twins, for he looked like the ogre in one of their picture-books. "Gimme them penniesQuick!" He grasped each twin by its nearest ear, and both twins howled. Mrs. Akimbo's voice rang sharply out from the kitchen in instant, maternal response to the terrified bellowing of her young. The Bearded Stranger loosed the ears and ran. But Scipio had leaped into the man's matted beard. Mrs. Akimbo rushed from the house, followed by several boarders, and, a moment later, by Professor Doddbridge Jenkinson. When Doddbridge learned the flea was gone his grief was unbridled. "Woman! My flea !" he cried. "My flea! These meddlesome brats have lost my flea! Get them out of my sight, for I'll not be answerable for anything that I may do! When I think that I intended to propose marriage to you, while shooting the chutes at Coney Island next Sunday, and become the stepfather of these abominable twins, I wonder at myself! Scipio, Scipio is gone, and I shall never look upon his like again!" Kate Akimbo stood stricken to the heart, for she loved him deeply. Yet she mustered up a certain show of pride, and she drew in a long breath, and she said: "Professor Doddbridge Jenkinson you have chosen between us and since you love that insect better than you do me I am glad I found it out in time and now that your flea is gone Doddbridge Jenkinson you had better go yourself and I'm glad my two preciouses didn't get a stepfather that cared so much for fleas he would have been brutal to them and my poor Akimbo was a gentleman even if he did drink so come along Barnum and Bailey and get your faces washed and quit your sniffling and don't drag back or I'll slap you and keep away from Mister Jenkinson or he'll think you're trying to steal his watch Then, being out of breath, Mrs. Akimbo fainted. |