The Humour of Pauline Pepper

1

General Graf von Donner u. Blitzen possessed the most mathematical mind on the Austrian Staff. He not only could calculate everything, from the trajectory of a shell to the m.p.h. of a goulash-cannon, to fifteen places of decimals, but he would; and no one had ever been able to stop him. He had a mind like a chemical balance; and he would ploy a curve whenever he wanted to curve a plot!

This exemplary officer was seated in the line at Trafoi, on the Austrian side of what is called Stilfser-joch by Teutons, and the Stelvio by Italians. His solitary lunch had been laid out like an oasis in a desert of logarithms; for Italy was expected to declare war at any moment, and he was charged with the important work of the final inspection of the frontier posts. He had resolved to motor to the summit of the pass after lunch to make a last survey of the hidden defences.

It is a royal ride, from Trafoi to Stelvio, with the mighty mass of the Ortler towering on the East, its glaciers aglow with the glory of the sun on their fresh-fallen snows. Here, as one rises by the long zig-zags of the road, new peaks, the Königspitze, Monte Zebrù, the Eisseespitze, and many another, come into startling view, until one suddenly becomes aware of that vast snowy plateau which culminates in Monte Cevedale.

But the General's mind was on more detailed beauties, on batteries concealed in crags, on land-mines cunningly distributed to blow up the road at critical points, and on the arrangement of carefully hidden telephone communications with the base at Meran.

Late that afternoon he signalled from the crest of the pass that his calculations were 'complete and satisfactory'; yet one might have gone through all the stacks of figure-covered papers in his automobile without finding a single reference to Josef Kohn, the Delicatessen Merchant from Sixth Avenue.

2

Josef Kohn had a mathematical mind, also, though it ran on different lines to the General's. His speciality was the calculation of profits on pretzels. It had been worth a Government job to him, but it had enabled him to run a Ford, which he drove in Central Park every evening, wet or fine, with a perfect contempt for the limousines of the millionaires. He never gave a thought to his rich uncle in Trieste, or indulged a hope that he would be remembered in the Will. It was a complete surprise, early in 1915, when the old man died, and left him half his fortune. A less pleasant surprise was when he learnt that there would be difficulty in realising the estate; his lawyer advised him that his best chance was to go over and attend to the matter himself. About three-quarters of a million dollars was the amount, and Josef was not the man to hesitate, though he had a very sick feeling about submarines. Once in Triests, he found no trouble in collecting his fortune, and transferring it to sound American securities. But, being in Europe, he thought he might as well see Europe, war or no war. At least he could have a fairly good time in the neutral countries. And to Josef Kohn a good time meant motoring.

He was not going to be bothered with a chauffeur; anyhow, he might have some difficulty in getting one. Un fact, it was not easy to buy a car. It needed a little bribery as well as a long price to get even the car he did get. This was a discarded military despatch car, a racing pattern of tremendous power, calculated to climb like a goat—and with a kick like a mule. Josef was always half afraid to put the clutch in. He spent a great deal of money getting the car patched up—the steering-gear had been badly messed up by a bullet—but his energy and enthusiasm overcame not only this difficulty, but that of shipping his purchase over to Venice. There, however, his troubles ended, and he spent a wonderful spring touring over Lombardy. The only fly in his ointment was the periodical difficulty with the military authorities, who seemed to dislike the name on his passport, fortified though that was by the most imposing official seals and stamps, and letters of recommendation from all sorts of bigwigs.

3

It was in Bormio that some sportive god picked him up between thumb and finger and proceeded to use him as a pawn in a game of international importance. Of course it would be easy to slip from the hold if it were not for that stickiest of all substances with which the gods lime their destined prey—love.

Josef Kohn would never have been a hero if he had not lost his heart to Pauline Pepper, whom he found sketching in the woods around Bormio on the second afternoon of his little visit. She was a startling blonde, with an impudent scarlet mouth, and a broad tip-tilted nose, a mixture of sensuality and fun. She belonged to a French-Swedish family from Boston, and believed that she could paint. It was error; she had nothing but beauty and—a sense of humour.

Josef Kohn stimulated this devil in her; she thought him and his delicatessen the most comic of earth's joys, set as he was in such jewelcraft as that sub-Alpine scenery. It made her think of things uncanny. When he became amorous, she found his mixture of shyness and effrontery amazing. He treated her partly as if he had just been presented at court, partly as if he had picked up her on Coney Island. But she did not let him get very far. She heaved a terrible sigh; her blue eyes filled with tears; she uttered but one word 'Belovèd' and sank upon his breast. But, before he could clasp her to his manly bosom, she sprang up with a shriek. "Alas! unhappy me! I had forgot my tragic destiny. No, Josef, happiness is not for us! Fly! Fly! Forget me!"

Pressed to disclose the serpent secret that was gnawing at her breast, she ultimately revealed that She Was Not What She Seemed. At that she left the astounded and delighted Kohn, her face buried in her hands, her gait calculated to make Hecuba look like a third-rate vaudeville artist. All she would do was to vouchsafe a hint that she would tell him more—'Perhaps To Mahorrow!'

The morning came, and with it an explanation that she was not worthy of a Real Man's Love. After teasing poor Josef for about two hours, she finally confessed, with her hair down amid floods of tears, that she had been Deeply Wronged.

"Tell me his name!" hissed Josef Kohn, all worked up. "His life-blood shall pollute my virgin steel"—or words to that effect as came within his rather limited vocabulary.

Pauline tried to think of some one as inaccessible as possible, but the Crown Prince, she thought, had been rather overworked; so she hit on a name she had seen several times in the papers as on a tour of inspection of the Austrian Tyrol, just across the Stelvio pass from Bormio, General Graf von Donner und Blitzen!

Josef Kohn refused to regard What Had Happened as any bar to wedlock; to him she was Even More Pewer. But he certainly saw that it was his duty to kill the Libertine; the only difficulty was—how to do it. However, he was not fated to be bothered about this, for Pauline, having promised to marry him as soon as his steel imbrued in the heart's blood of her oppressor, got very fed up with the vulgar little ass, and began to resent his familiarities. So she came to him with a most portentous look, and told him—what was quite true—that Italy might declare war any minute, and that things would be very unpleasant for anybody named Kohn, passport or no passport. She advised him to get across the pass into Austria, and home to America via Switzerland and France, Besides, she added, once in Austria you will be able to avenge me on my Destroyer.

4

Josef Kohn got cold feet. He saw himself stabbed in nine hundred and ninety-nine places by a frenzied mob of Italians. He went out to think it over, and saw a little Austrian shop being stoned by the people, a rumour that war was declared having come up the valley. He scribbled a note for Pauline: 'Await me; I go to avenge you,' jumped into the big car, and got out of Bormio—as it happened, a few hours before the telegraph closed the frontier.

The further he went, the closer the fear gripped him. Up and up he went, the long zig-zags of the road irritating him infinitely with their interminability. His car was of enormous power; it carried him towards the pass at an average of thirty miles an hour.

The gods timed his arrival to a second. He just cleared the frontier officials; before he had got away five hundred yards—which only meant about one hundred measured straight down the slope of the hill—the officer in charge was reading a heliograph message that he was to close the frontier. Also that he was to be particularly careful to look out for Austrian spies with forged American passports.

He jumped to his job. "Get that man back!" he shouted, "get him dead or alive!" The Austrian outposts were withdrawn some distance down the valley; some of the Italians started to their feet, and ran helter-skelter down the hill; others started to fire at the flying car. Josef Kohn had been in a panic when he started; he needed no explanation of what was happening. He let her out! His terror keyed him up to the stage when men perform miracles. He cleared the first three corners on two wheels, the next two on one, the sixth by a manoeuvre that seemed to him rather like looping the loop in an airplane. But he got round. He was leaving his pursuers well behind, and he was hidden from the sharpshooters by the curve of the hillside.

But seven was never his lucky number, the seventh corner, with an angle of about fifteen degrees, was beyond even a miracle for a car going at ninety miles an hour.

It went quietly through the parapet, and found itself on an immense patch of snow frozen extremely hard; down this it rushed like an avalanche. Josef Kohn became more frightened of the Law of Gravitation than he had been of the Italians; he tried to pull up. Aided by various small obstacles, he very nearly succeeded, and came into the next stretch of road below without overturning. But his momentum was just a little too great; the car lurched through the wall and reached the next slope.

This was no easy slope of snow, but steep and broken crags. The car began to bump and jump. Josef Kohn lost hope. He clung to the wheel by instinct, awaiting the crash.

And then the crags became precipitous. The car took the last fifty feet through the air in one tremendous bound. Down it came almost vertically—on the top of the military automobile of General Graf von Donner und Blitzen!

5

It was a very burned and bruised and battered Josef Kohn that opened his eyes in the Austrian base hospital at Meran. But when he did so, they showed him a pompous procession in the square outside—the funeral obsequies of his Hated Rival.

The automobile, he learned had not only killed the General and three of his staff, but set fire to all those wonderful calculations which were to annihilate Italy, and which had foolishly omitted to take cognisance of Sixth Avenue, New York, and Mr Josef Kohn.

This important gentleman, convalescent, hastened to write to Pauline, announce the success of his mission, and claim her hand.

Alas! his luck was altogether out. She wrote that her Wicked Uncle had insisted on her immediate marriage to a Man Whom She Could Never Love—the Principe Ravioli dei Spaghetti.

Josef Kohn pocketed the loss; he is a hero in Sixth Avenue; few delicatessen merchants have slain a general officer, and three of his staff, and destroyed the war plans of a frontier, in single combat. He never mentioned Pauline Pepper to Rosina Grossman, who was a very wealthy widow indeed, and dearly loved a hero.

But he will never ride again in a motor-car.

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