The Bandbox

Pause… “Beg pardon?”

“Iff.”

“If what, sir?”

“I-double-F, Iff: a name, not a joke. I-F-F – William Howard Iff. W. H. Iff, Whiff: joke.”

“Ow-w?”

“But you needn’t laugh.”

With dignity: “I was not intending to laugh, sir.”

Staff could hardly refrain from refreshing himself with a glance at the individual so singularly labelled. Appraising him covertly, he saw a man whose stature was quite as much shorter than the normal as his own was longer, but hardly less thin. Indeed, Staff was in the habit of defining his own style of architecture as Gothic, and with reasonable excuse; but reviewing the physical geography of Mr. Iff, the word emaciation bobbed to the surface of the literary mentality: Iff was really astonishingly slight of build. Otherwise he was rather round-shouldered; his head was small, bird-like, thinly thatched with hair of a faded tow colour; his face was sensitively tinted with the faintest of flushes beneath a skin of natural pallor, and wore an expression curiously naïve and yet shrewd – an effect manufactured by setting the eyes of a child, round and dimly blue, in a mask of weathered maturity.

Now while Staff was receiving this impression, Mr. Iff looked sharply round; their glances crossed. Primarily embarrassed to be caught rudely staring, Staff was next and thoroughly shocked to detect a distinct if momentary eclipse of one of Mr. Iff’s pale blue eyes. Bluntly, openly, deliberately, Mr. Iff winked at Mr. Staff, and then, having accomplished his amazement and discomfiture, returned promptly, twinkling, to the baiting of his clerk.

“Your age, sir?”

Mr. Iff enquired in simple surprise: “Do you really care to know?”

“It’s required, sir, by the – ”

“Oh, well – if I must! But, mind you, strictly as man to man: you may write me down a freeborn American citizen, entitled to vote and more ’n half white.”

“Beg pardon?”

“I say, I am an adult – ”

“Oh!” The clerk wrote; then, bored, resumed: “Married or single, please?”

“I’m a spinster – ”

“O-w?”

“Honestly – neither married nor unmarried.”

“Then-Q” – resignedly. “Your business – ?”

But here Staff’s clerk touched the exasperated catechist on the shoulder and said something inaudible. The response, while equally inaudible, seemed to convey a sense of profound personal shock. Staff was conscious that Mr. Iff’s clerk glanced reproachfully in his direction, as if to suggest that he wouldn’t have believed it of him.

Divining that he and Mr. Iff were bargaining for the same accommodations, Staff endeavoured to assume an attitude of distinguished obliviousness to the entire proceeding; and would have succeeded but for the immediate and impatient action of Mr. Iff.

That latter, seizing the situation, glanced askance at dignified Mr. Staff, then smiled a whimsical smile, cocked his small head to one side and approached him with an open and ingenuous air.

“If it’s only a question of which berth,” said he, “I’m quite willing to forfeit my option on the lower, Mr. Staff.”

That gentleman started and stared.

“Oh, lord, man!” said Iff tolerantly – “as if your portrait hadn’t been published more times than you can remember! – as if all the world were unaware of Benjamin Staff, novelist!”

There was subtle flattery in this; and flattery (we are told) will warm the most austere of authors – which Staff was not. He said “Oh!” and smiled his slow, wry smile; and Mr. Iff, remarking these symptoms of a thaw with interest and encouragement, pressed his point.

“I don’t mind an upper, really – only chose the lower because the choice was mine, at the moment. If you prefer it – ”

“The trouble is,” Staff interrupted, “I want the whole room.”

“Oh!.. Friend with you?”

“No; but I had some notion of doing a little work on the way over.”

“Writing? I see. But if that’s all – !” Mr. Iff routed a negligible quibble with an airy flirt of his delicate hand. “Trust me; you’ll hardly ever be reminded of my existence – I’m that quiet. And besides, I spend most of my time in the smoking-room. And I don’t snore, and I’m never seasick… By the way,” he added anxiously, “do or are you?”

“Never – ”

“Then we’ll get along famously. I’ll cheerfully take the upper, and even should I tumble out on top of you, you’d never know it: my weight is nothing – hardly that. Now what d’ you say? Is it a go?”

“But – I don’t know you – ”

“Business of making a noise like an Englishman!” commented Mr. Iff with bitter scorn.

“ – well enough to accept such a favour from you. I’ll take second choice myself – the upper, I mean.”

“You won’t; but we’ll settle that on shipboard,” said Mr. Iff promptly. “As for knowing me – business of introducing myself. Mr. Staff, I want you to shake hands with my friend, Mr. Iff. W. H. Iff, Whiff: sometimes so-called: merry wheeze based on my typographical make-up; once a joke, now so grey with age I generally pull it myself, thus saving new acquaintances the mental strain. Practical philanthropy – what? Whim of mine.”

“Indeed?”

“Believe me. You’ve no notion how folks suffer in the first throes of that giddy pun. And then when it falls flat – naturally I can’t laugh like a fool at it any longer —blooie!” said Mr. Iff with expression – “like that —blooie!– they do feel so cheap. Wherefore I maintain I do humanity a service when I beat it to that moth-eaten joke. You follow me?”

Staff laughed.

“Then it’s all settled. Good! We shan’t be in one another’s way. You’ll see.”

“Unless you talk in your sleep, too.”

Mr. Iff looked unspeakable reproach. “You’ll soon get accustomed to me,” he said, brightening – “won’t mind my merry prattle any more ’n the song of a giddy humming-bird.”

He turned and saw their booking-clerks in patient waiting behind the counter. “Ah, there you are, eh? Well, it’s all settled…”

Thus was the thing accomplished.

And shortly thereafter these two paused in parting at the door.

“Going my way?” enquired Mr. Iff.

Staff named whatever destination he had in mind.

“Sorry. I go t’other way. Take care of yourself. See you tomorrow.”