NO FOOL

INTRODUCTION, by Vella Munn

“No Fool” is a lighthearted father/son tale written from the son’s perspective. It examines the wisdom that comes with maturity, and proves—once again—that sometimes, the younger generation doesn’t know as much as it thinks it does. It’s interesting to speculate on how much of Homer Flint’s relationship with his own father, Henry, might have influenced the telling of this tale.

Because economic necessity separated Homer from his children in the last year of his life, he wasn’t able to be a full-time father. His daughters were quite young (five and three), but his son, Max Hugh, was nine years old and leaving childhood behind. Homer desperately wished he was there to guide him.

Mabel wrote to her husband on January 23, 1923:

I notice that Max is thinner, but much taller than he was a short time ago. This running up hills in order to slide down has taken his weight down considerable. He looks almost angular when undressed, and is getting to that lanky stage when development begins. This weather & surroundings are doing wonders for him. He “listens in” in his greedy way while I am teaching the sixth & seventh grades, so is learning extra things thereby. He’s a cute old kid, but how he hates to get wood in.

Homer responded by saying that the imagination of Bonnie, their middle child, was: more spontaneous than Max’s, although Lord knows there is nothing frail about his…Max has a similar disposition (empathy), but in addition he has that awful ability to view certain things in scientific cold blood.

* * * *

Homer was spot on about his son. All his life, Max was fascinated by chemistry, physics, biology, paleontology, and anthropology. He served as Senior Laboratory Technician under Nobelists Dr. Edward Teller, Dr. Glenn Seaborg, and Dr. Melvin Calvin at Lawrence Radiation Laboratory at Berkeley, and was Laboratory Analyst in research at Lockheed. On his own time, Max researched whether mankind could be the result of a prehistoric union of terrestrial humanoids and starmen, publishing his thesis as On Tiptoe Beyond Darwin.

That was followed by Mankind, Child of the Stars, written with Otto O. Binder, best known for his Captain Marvel scripts. Mankind was favorably reviewed by Erich von Daniken, co-founder of the Archaeology, Astronautics and SETI Research Association. Max’s final work was Between the Apes and the Angels.

Had he survived, Homer would have been proud of his eldest child—much more so than the father in No Fool is of his own self-absorbed son.

NO FOOL

“Dear, I read a good one this morning,” said I to my wife at lunch. “A foxy young confidence men gets in thick with a head-strong heiress, intending to swindle her in some way. But she takes him to be an angel on earth, and falls in love with him. Practically forces him to propose to her. She knows that her aristocratic family will be horrified, but doesn’t care.

“Her mother is a wise one. Instead of opposing the match, she invites the swindler to her house. Makes him think she approves heartily; then springs her little trap. Says how proud she is to turn her daughter over to a man of spirit, one who will make up for her daughter’s loss of her money, since it was to be hers only while single.

“Poor crook’s heart is broken. Tells the girl she has deceived him, gives her no chance to explain; and she gets mad, turns him out, and all ends as it should. Dandy yarn.”

My wife frowned in silence for a few moments. Then, “H., I’m tired of stories that always have a little fool girl in them, or else a handsome young chump with a nasty temper or an appetite for booze. What do they always want to pick on the young folks?” she demanded.

“Force of habit,” I replied. “No reason, though, why the sinner shouldn’t be some old codger. By George, I’m going to work up something like that!”

So, now it’s up to me. Clearly, it won’t do for my characters to be just common, ordinary, everyday folks. They never have any adventures. It’s only the rich and the criminal—excuse the grouping—who do the unusual things. So I’ll make the old man a wealthy widower; we’ll assume that he made the money himself, legitimately. Naturally his son will have to be one of the idle rich; and since he is to be our hero, very good-looking indeed.

You will agree that the woman must be beautiful but shockingly mercenary. This actress idea is overdone; let’s make her a regular, standard, designing widow—all widows are designing—and say that she has urgent financial reasons for wanting to land another husband.

Now we’re all set.

* * * *

Walter had heard several rumors about his father’s new romance. He had a vague notion that a certain amount of propriety was to be expected from elderly people, but as yet was not deeply concerned. He only knew that Mrs. Zettle—our clever, beautiful, unscrupulous, etc., widow—scarcely belonged to their set. Meanwhile, he himself had still to come to father for money.

“This makes the fourth thousand this month,” said Jonas Crever, as he slipped the check to Walter. “Not that I care much—it comes easy enough. But I certainly wish you were spending it more wisely.”

Walter’s forehead puckered impatiently. He knew what was coming, and felt that it would be a waste of time. His father went on, gently: “I know, boy; I used to think I must sow my wild oats, too; but a little of that goes a long way. You’ve been hanging around those diving girls. Now—”

“Oh, Dad! What’s the use? All the fellows in my crowd do the same! Besides—” as if clinching the matter—“they’re good kids, all of ’em.”

Jonas drummed his desk thoughtfully. “There are plenty of other ‘good kids,’ as you call them, who don’t have to exhibit themselves for a living.” He hesitated a bit, then, “For instance, there’s Lillian.”

The boy’s face changed. “It’s queer about her, Dad. I can’t remember the time when we weren’t counted sweethearts. But the last year or two I’ve lost interest, somehow—”

“You see her twice a week, don’t you?” The boy nodded, and his father added, “Perhaps that’s the very reason. You’ve had too much Lillian in your life.”

“What?” The idea was new to the boy. It was also rather amusing in view of what he knew about his father. But Jonas did not explain, and Walter went out thinking. It struck him that criticism, like charity, should operate where it originates.

Meanwhile Mrs. Zettle read a certain little note with a great deal of satisfaction. It was written with a stub pen in a man’s scrawling hand, and it was signed “J.C.” However, there are some things which should never be published. One of them is the silly stuff that old folks can and do write and say when they fall in love late in life. Let’s hurry on.

Walter’s presence at the theater that night was a secondary matter. He didn’t care for vaudeville, but he needed an excuse to send in his card to a couple of young ladies in the diving act. To his intense surprise he saw his father in a box. Jonas always preferred the parquet. But the strikingly dressed, overly-attractive lady beside him explained matters, and it made Walter really disgusted. Especially when he heard whispers, “At his time of life, too!” he felt that he simply must do something about it.

The next morning he called on Thatcher, the family lawyer. “Has anything come to you about my father?” he concluded, after telling what he knew.

“I heard a good deal about Mrs. Zettle,” replied the lawyer. “She got in with that Parker crowd, and that’s how your father came to meet her at the Club. So far as I know, Zettle left her only a few thousand. It looks like a plain case.”

“Spending it right and left to make a hit,” guessed the boy. Then, “Has dad made inquiries about her?”

“Not that I know of—certainly not through me. I don’t dare mention her to him, he’s so touchy. Knows he ought to be ashamed of himself, but hasn’t the nerve to admit it.” Which proves that Thatcher was a family lawyer.

Walter went away very much disturbed. He became so engrossed in his father’s misdoings that he could spare no attention to his own little foibles. You know; reformers are often personally careless.

Shortly after that he noticed, in a paper, that Mrs. Zettle would be “among the summer’s guests at Del Marino,” the swellest hotel on the Beach. Walter judged that this exploit would leave the lady broke; her wiles must succeed before fall. And then came the big idea.

He confided in Thatcher, and between them they conspired to put a brake on the affair. They were none too soon with their plans; at dinner Jonas Clever cleared his throat nervously and said:

“Where are you planning to go for the summer, son?”

Walter was instantly on guard. “Oh, I haven’t decided yet, Dad. Some of the fellows are talking of a hunt in Oregon; perhaps it will be that.” He kept his father in the corner of his eye, and noted a sigh of relief. Then he added, casually, “Did you have some other plan in mind?”

“Eh?” It was something new for Walter to consider the wishes of others. “Oh, no. But—ah—I had about made up my mind to stay at the Beach, and of course, if you really would like to come too, why—”

“Thanks just the same, but I had enough ocean last year,” and Walter saw his father’s anxiety change to satisfaction. Later he phoned to Thatcher.

Just as Jonas was giving orders the next morning for the packing of his trunks, he was called to the phone. It was the lawyer; and when Jonas rang off, Walter pretended great concern over his father’s perturbation. Finally Jonas explained.

“Don’t let it interfere with your plans, son, much less worry you. But I’ve kept out of business for over five years, leaving it all up to Thatcher; and now he tells me things are going wrong. I’ve really got to put in two or three days straightening things out. A nuisance, but it serves me right.”

Walter could have told him that Thatcher’s work for the next four months was to make trouble. He was to deliberately bungle things so as to keep the old gentleman on the job. Thatcher could do this easily because of having his entire confidence.

Ostensibly setting out for Oregon, Walter really hurried south to the Beach. He discarded his valet, hid all evidences of wealth, went straight to the Del Merino and asked for a job.

It was still early in the season. Waiters who would work for thirty a month and found were hard to get. Walter was on the job that evening, and quickly set to work to bait his trap.

The first thing was to let his employers know that he was a mysterious man. He had given the name of Brown. Now, he allowed his fellow employees to notice that some of his effects were initialized “W.S.C.” He made a point of carelessly exposing some jewelry, and hastily shoving it out of sight when observed. It occurred to him that they might suspect him of being a spy; so he allowed himself to be caught in the act of coming out of a pawn-shop, and of sewing on a button. Moreover, he stinted himself and saved half his magnificent wages so as to send it “back home.” This he confided in one person, a chambermaid whom he felt sure would find the information too much for her one small brain to retain, unaided. And he never forgot his purpose.

Mrs. Zettle came a week after his arrival. She made an instantaneous hit with her generosity; and Walter, because of his good looks, was assigned to her table. He felt sure that he was not recognized, relying upon his father’s sensitiveness to keep him from having ever pointed out his son to the lady. Walter was right. The lady became interested in the handsome, deferential youth strictly as “Mr. Brown.”

The boy made no attempt to disguise his breeding. Mrs. Zettle soon deduced that he was more than he appeared to be, and made solicitous inquiries of the clerk. She found out a little at a time; and when she was not concerned over Jonas’ non-appearance, she puzzled over this young aristocrat’s misfortune.

One day she wrote an impatient note to Mr. Crever, and got a most alarming answer. Jonas had no idea it would create so much of a stir; he didn’t dream that this lady could be really concerned over money matters.

“It will be some time before I dare leave my affairs, although I hate to.” Perhaps we had best omit some of the note. Mush is well in its place—at breakfast. However—“Nothing at all serious, of course, but the safety of the future, my dear, really demands my presence here.” The particular thing that was bothering him at the time was: What in Tophet had caused the manager of one of his mills to take delivery of a certain worthless material which he, Jonas, had specifically ordered him to refuse? Thatcher knew, but didn’t tell.

Mrs. Zettle scarcely knew how to take the note. She puzzled over it again and again, and played directly into Walter’s hands by carrying it with her to the table. Recognizing the handwriting and noting the seriousness that it caused, Walter judged that it was time to stage the last act. Rather, it would be just an epilogue.

He sent himself a letter. Nothing wonderful in that, by itself; the point is, he addressed it “W.S. Crever,” then scratched out the “Crever” rather carelessly and added “Brown.” This letter, care of the hotel, had to pass the clerk’s scrutiny. Ah, ha! The kid’s secret was out!

Long before Walter had a chance to claim the letter, most of the employees knew that he, poor fellow, although supposed to have a millionaire father, was in reality broke—forced to work for a living. Mrs. Zettle sensed a new development, asked the clerk—and found out.

The boy saw her find out. She looked positively ill when she mechanically made her way to the table. Walter felt that even poor acting would pass, now; and when he brought the soup, allowed a heart-broken sigh to escape him. She looked up inquiringly, and he contrived a wan little smile.

“This is very different from what I have been used to, ma’am,” he explained, mournfully. “But dad and I must—” He turned sway quickly, a very pathetic figure. Mrs. Zettle stared straight in front of her.

Her cash would last just two months longer. Well! It was too bad about Jonas, of course, but there was always that grocer to fall back on. A come-down, it would be, but better than dress-making. And something might turn up in the meantime. She went to her room and composed a note to Jonas.

Two days later Walter received a telegram from Thatcher: “Come home. Received mitten; heart broken to slivers. Needs you to comfort him, you young imp.” Walter quit his job on the spot.

But when he got home, he found that the storm had passed. Jonas had forgotten Mrs. Zettle in the untangling of Thatcher’s “mistakes,” and had no time to puzzle over his son’s early return.

As for Walter, he wore out half a carpet, pacing up and down his room, endeavoring to account for himself. Finally he tore up the note which had been bothering him, a note signed “Dolly and Daisy.” Then he wrote briefly:

“Don’t look for me anymore. I’ve grown up. W.S.C.”

Then he took up the phone. He had almost forgotten the number, but his face became radiant at the sound of the voice at the other end. “Lillian? Hello yourself! Say, dear”—he said it easy!—“may I come over tonight? I have something extra, important to say to you!”

“Do you think this is as good as the one I told you about?” I asked my wife, when she finished reading it.

“No, I don’t!” she answered, calmly. “But keep on. You’ll learn to write some day.”