Mammon and the Archer O. Henry

... "There are some things that money can't accomplish," remarked young Rockwall, rather gloomily.

"Now, don't say that," said old Anthony, shocked. "1 bet my money on money every time. I've been through the encyclopaedia down to Y looking for something you can't buy with it; and I expect to have to take up the appendix next week. I'm for money against the field. Tell me something money won't buy."

"For one thing," answered Richard, rankling a little, "it won't buy one into the exclusive circles of society."

"Oho! won't it?" thundered the champion of the root of evil. "You tell me where your exclusive circles would be if the first Astor* hadn't the money to pay for his steerage passage over?'

Richard sighed.

"And that's what I was coming to," said the old man, less boisterously. "That's why I asked you to come in. There's something going wrong with you, boy. I've been noticing it for two weeks. Out with it. [...I If it's your liver, there's the Rambler* down in the bay coaled, and ready to steam down to the Bahamas* in two days." "Not a bad guess, dad; you haven't missed it far." "Ah," said Anthony, keenly, "what's her name?" Richard began to walk up and down the library floor. There was enough comradeship and sympathy in this crude old father of his to draw his confidence.

"Why don't you ask her?" demanded old Anthony. "She'll jump at you. You've got the money and the looks, and you're a decent boy. Your hands are clean. You've got no Eureka soap on 'em. " I... "I haven't had a chance," said Richard. "Make one," said Anthony. "Take her for a walk in the park, or a straw ride,* or walk home with her from the church. Chance! Pshaw!"

"You don't know the social mill, dad. She's part of the stream that turns it. Every hour and minute of her time is arranged for days in advance. I must have that girl, dad, or this town is a black-jack swamp forevermore. And I can't write it-I can't do that." "Tut!" said the old man. "Do you mean to tell me that with all the money I've got you can't get an hour or two of a girl's time for yourself?"

"I've put it off too late. She's going to sail for Europe at noon the day after tomorrow for a two years' stay. I'm to see her alone tomorrow evening for a few minutes. She's at Larchmont now at her aunt's. I can't go there. But I'm allowed to meet her with a cab at the Grand Central Station tomorrow evening at the 8.30 train. We drive down Broadway to Wallack's at a gallop, where her mother and a box party will be waiting for us in the lobby. Do you think she would listen to a declaration from me during that six or eight minutes under those circumstances? " No. And what chance would I have in the theatre or afterward? None. No, dad, this is one tangle that your money can't unravel. We can't buy one minute of time with cash; if we could, rich people would live longer. There's no hope of getting a talk with Miss Lantry before she sails."

"All right, Richard, my boy," said old Anthony, cheerfully. "You may run along down to your club now. I'm glad it ain't your liver." ...

That night came Aunt Ellen, gentle, sentimental, wrinkled, sighing, oppressed by wealth, in to Brother Anthony at his evening paper, and began discourse on the subject of lovers' woes.

"He told me all about it," said Brother Anthony, yawning. "I told him my bank account was at his service. And then he began to knock money. Said money couldn't help. Said the rules of society couldn't be backed for a yard by a team of tenmillion-airs."

"Oh. Anthony," sighed Aunt Ellen, "I wish you would not think so much of money. Wealth is nothing where a true affection is concerned. Love is all-powerful. If he only had spoken earlier! She could not have refused our Richard. But now I fear it is too late. He will have no opportunity to address her. All your gold cannot bring happiness to your son."

At eight o'clock the next evening Aunt Ellen took a quaint old gold ring from a moth-eaten case and gave it to Richard. But now I fear it is too late. "Wear it tonight, nephew," she begged. "Your mother gave it to me. Good luck in love she said it brought. She asked me to give it to you when you had found the one you loved."

Young Rockwall took the ring reverently and tried it on his smallest finger. It slipped as far as the second joint and stopped.

He took it off and stuffed it into his vest pocket, after the manner of man. And then he phoned for his cab.

At the station he captured Miss Lantry out of the gabbing mob at eight thirty-two.

"We mustn't keep mamma and the others waiting," said she. "To Wallack's Theatre as fast as you can drive!" said Richard, loyally.

At Thirty-fourth Street young Richard quickly thrust up the trap l6 and ordered the cabman to stop.

"I've dropped a ring," he apologized, as he climbed out. "It was my mother's and I'd hate to lose it. I won't detain you a minute - I saw where it fell."

In less than a minute he was back in the cab with the ring, but ut within that minute a crosstown car had stopped directly in front of the cab. The cabman tried to pass to the left, but a heavy express wagon cut him off. He tried the right and had to back away from a furniture van that had no business to be there. He tried to back out, but dropped his reins and swore dutifully. He was blockaded in a tangled mess of vehicles and horses. One of those street blockades had occurred that sometimes tie up commerce and movement quite suddenly in the big city.

"Why don't you drive on?" said Miss Lantry, impatiently. "We'll be late.”

Richard stood up in the cab and looked around. He saw a congested flood of wagons, trucks, cabs, vans and street cars filling the vast space where Broadway, Sixth Avenue, and Thirty-fourth Street cross one another. [...] And still from all the cross streets they were hurrying and rattling toward the converging point at full speed, and hurling themselves into straggling mass, locking wheels and adding their drivers' imprecations to the clamor. The entire traffic of Manhattan seemed to have jammed itself around them. The oldest New Yorker among thousands of spectators that lined the sidewalks had not witnessed a street blockade of the proportions of this one. .

"I'm very sorry," said Richard, as he resumed his seat, but it looks as if we are stuck. They won't get this jumble loosened up in an hour. It was my fault. If I hadn't dropped the ring we...

"Let me see the ring," said Miss Lantry. "Now that it can't be helped, 1 don't care. I think theatres are stupid, anyway."

At 11 o'clock that night somebody tapped lightly on Anthony Rockwall's door.

"Come in," shouted Anthony, who was in a red dressing-gown, reading a book of piratical adventures.

Somebody was Aunt Ellen, looking like a gray-haired angel that had been left on earth by mistake.

"They're engaged, Anthony," she said, softly. "She has promised to marry our Richard. On their way to the theatre there was a street blockade, and it was two hours before their cab could get out of it.

"And oh, Brother Anthony, don't ever boast of the power of money again. A little emblem of true love - a ring that symbolized unending and unmercentary affection - was the cause of our Richard finding his happiness. He dropped it in the street, and got out to recover it. And before they could continue the blockade occurred. He spoke to his love and won her there while the cab was hemmed in. Money is dross compared with true love, Anthony." "All right," said old Anthony. "I'm glad the boy has got what he wanted. 1 told him I wouldn't spare any expense in the matter if " "But, Brother Anthony, what good could your money have done?" "Sister," said Anthony Rockwall. "I've got my pirate in a devil of a scrape. ..I wish you would let me go on with this chapter." The story should end here. I wish it would as heartily as you who read it wish it did. But we must go to the bottom of the well of truth. The next day a person with red hands and a blue polkadot neck tie who called himself Kelly, called at Anthony Rockwall's house, and was at once received in the library.

"Well," said Anthony, reaching for his check-book, "it was a good bilin' of soap. Let's see - you had 85,000 in cash."

"I paid out $300 more of my own," said Kelly. "1 had to go a little above the estimate. I got the express wagons and cabs mostly for $5; but the trucks and two-horse teams mostly raised me to $10.

The motor man wanted $10, and some of the loaded teams $20. The cops struck me hardest - $50. I paid two, and the rest $20 and $25. But didn't it work beautiful, Mr Rockwall? ... And never a rehearsal, either! The boys were on time to the fraction of a second. It was two hours before a snake could get below Greeley's statue."

"Thirteen hundred -there you are, Kelly," said Anthony, tearing off a check. "Your thousand, and the $300 you were out."

Anthony called Kelly when he was at the door.

"You didn't notice," said he, anywhere in the tie-up, a kind of a fat boy without any clothes on shooting arrows around with a bow, did you?"

"Why, no," said Kelly, mystified. "I didn't. If he was like you say, maybe the cops pinched him before I got there."

'"I thought the little rascal wouldn't be on hand," chuckled Anthony. "Good-bye, Kelly."

COMMENTARY

The pseudonym O. Henry (originally William Sydney Porter) has become a symbol to represent a recognizable species of short story writing. Within a decade or so O. Henry produced nearly three hundred stories that captured the fancy and touched the hearts of countless newspaper and magazine readers of his time. (He also wrote many stories and humorous verses.) Most of O. Henry's stories were translated into foreign languages, not only European but some oriental too. Many of them in radio, television and cinema adaptations have been and -still are equalar popular with millions of people, O. Henry's stories above all else are very American in language, attitudes & spirit. O. Henry possesses one of the largest vocabularies among his contemporaries. Sometimes he uses it ostentatiously but more frequently than not he uses it effectively. The humorous devices he employs are also traditionally American. These are exaggeration, incongruous comparisons, malapropisms, misquotations and inflated circumlocutions.

Much of what O. Henry wrote bears the stamp of individuality. Whatever its devices, O. Henry's humour is very different from that of Mark Twain or any other American writer of his time.

1. Mammon and the Archer

In this title the author makes use of one of the most expressive tropes - a metaphor. This is a figure of speech in which a word or phrase literally denoting one kind of object or idea is used instead of another to suggest likeness or analogy between them. The metaphor may be expressed by any part of speech. Here Mammon (the god of riches of ancient Syrians) is a symbol of wealth, especially wealth having an evil power or debasing influence. An archer is a person skilled in the use of the bow and arrow. Here the archer stands for Cupid, the Roman love-god, usually shown in pictures and statues as a chubby naked boy with wings and a bow and arrow. (See the end of the story.) Cupid is used as a symbol of love. Juxtaposition of these two notions is meant to produce a humorous effect.

2. I bet my money on money every time.

I am ready to bet any sum of money any time for I put much confidence in the omnipotence of money.

3. ... the appendix ...

Here the supplement to the encyclopaedia, containing matter explanatory, but not essential to its completeness. It is mentioned here to intensify the comic effect, produced by old Rockwall's speech in defence of his views.

4. I'm for money against the field.

The power of money is supreme (in sport "field" means all the persons taking part in a competition or contest)

5. I've been noticing it for two weeks.

The Present Perfect Continuous is often used in colloquial speech. It denotes an action taking place for a certain period of time up to the moment of speech. The use of this form with verbs of perception is characteristic of emotional colloquial speech

6. She’ll jump at you.

She will eagerly accept your proposal. The word "jump" is used metaphorically here.

7. Your hands are clean. You've no Eureka soap on.

You are a gentleman. The father means that personally Robert has nothing to do with "degrading" business and thus must be willingly accepted into the "exclusive circles" of society. The word "clean" is used figuratively.

It is interesting to note that though a common businessman Anthony Rockwall gives his soap a Greek name for advertising purpose. Eureka is a cry of triumph at a discovery. In English it means "1 have found it!" This exclamation is attributed to Archimedes, Greek mathematician and inventor on discovering a method for determining the purity of gold.

8. You don't know the social mill, dad. She's part of the stream that turns it.

This is an example of prolonged or extended metaphor, that is the case when one word used in a transferred sense calls forth a transference of meaning in the whole sequence of words related to it. "The social mill" is a hackneyed or trite metaphor as it has been made common as the result of being very often in use.

9. She's going to sail for Europe at noon day after tomorrow...

Note the absence of article before the noun "day". In colloquial American speech articles are often dropped in adverbial modifiers of time.

10. Do you think she would listen to a declaration from me during that six or eight minutes under those circumstances?

Here the demonstrative pronoun "that" is used in the singular to denote a period of time as a whole.

11. That night came Aunt Ellen, gentle, sentimental, wrinkled, sighing, oppressed by wealth, to Brother Anthony at his evening paper, and began discourse on the subject of lovers' woes.

This is a case of inversion. It is common when a sentence begins with an adverbial modifier and the subject is accompanied by a lengthy attribute. This makes the position of the subject more prominent.

The words "Brother" and "Aunt" are often capitalized when they are used instead or with proper names.

The use of a prepositional phrase ("at his evening paper") instead of a possible attributive clause or a participial phrase makes the writer's remark more concise and matter-of-fact.

12. And then he began to knock money. And he began to speak ill of money.

13. Said the rules of society couldn't be backed for a yard by a team of ten-millionairs.

Said that a team of ten-millionairs couldn't change the rules of society even a bit. "To back" means to act, move or stand firm in opposition.

14. Good luck in love she said it brought.

The front position of the object ("good luck in love") makes it more prominent.

15. ... Richard quickly thrust up the trap ...

Richard hurriedly raised the window of the carriage that separated the cabman from the passengers.

16. ... it looks as if we are stuck.

The use of the indicative mood after the conjunction "as if" shows that comparison here is treated as a fact. It looks as if we are stuck and we really are. Compare with the Russian, "похоже, что мы застряли"

17. ... it was a good bilin' of soap.

We have produced a good lot of soap. Being a manufacturer of soap — a soap king — old Mr Rockwall uses this metaphor to show his satisfaction that good results have been achieved.

18. I had to go a little above the estimate.

1 had to give in payment more than it had been planned.

19. The cops struck me hardest — $50.

The policemen demanded to be payed more than the rest — $50.

20. Your thousand, and the $300 you were out.

Take your thousand for what you have done and the $300 which you have paid out of your own pocket.

UNIT 6