There were seven of them. In the rear seat of the surrey sat two young
men wearing broad-brimmed Stetsons, and corduroys. Their scarfs were
pronouncedly Windsor, and the ends thereof streamed in the breeze as did
the pennon of cloud from the top of Electric Peak off there in the west.
The one with the long hair and the Dresden-china complexion starting to
peel off at the lips, was the Minor Poet who eked out a living by the
muck-raker's dreadful trade. He spoke of our malefactors of great wealth
as "burglars" and grew soft-eyed and mute as the splendors of the
Yellowstone Wonderland grew upon him. With him was a smaller man,
shorter of hair, and younger in years--which youth was advertised by
its disguise: a dark, silky Vandyke. He was an artist who was known to
the readers of _Puck_, _Judge_ and _Life_ for his thick-lipped "coons"
and shapeless hoboes, and who was here in the Park with the Poet for the
purpose of drawing pictures for a prose poem which should immortalize
both. So much for the rear seat.
The next seat forward was sacred to love. That is, it was occupied by
the Bride and Groom, who called each other by the names of "Billy" and
"Dolly," and tried to behave as if very mature and long-married--with
what success we have seen. It was in pursuance of this scheme that they
deliberately refused to take the rear seat when it was pointedly offered
them by the Poet and the Artist. They were very quiet now, the Bride in
stout shoes, mountain-climbing skirt and sweater, the Groom in
engineer's boots and khaki. In the next seat forward sat the man of
note-books, field-glasses, magnifying-glasses and drabs. The driver
called him at first "Doc"; but soon adopted the general usage by which
he was dubbed "Professor." He was myopic; but proud of his powers of
observation. So wide was his reading that he knew nothing. His tour of
the Park was made as a step toward that mastery of all knowledge which
he had adopted as his goal. At once he saw that the rest of the party
were light-minded children, frittering life away; and at once they took
his measure. This made for mutual enjoyment. Nothing so conduces to good
relations as the proper niching of the members of the party.
With him sat Colonel Baggs, of Omaha, who smoked all the time and quoted
Blackstone and Kent for his seat-mate's Epictetus and Samuel Smiles.
Whenever time hung heavy on the party for sheer lack of power to wonder,
Colonel Baggs restored tonicity to their brains by some far-fetched
argument to which he provoked Professor Boggs, wherein the Colonel
violated all rules and escaped confusion by the most transparent fakir's
tricks, solemnly regarding the Professor with one side of his face, and
winking and grimacing at those behind with the other.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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