Seen by Appointment Only

I

ONCE upon a time there was a man who lived in Irvington. Every morning at sixteen minutes past eight he ate the sugar out of the bottom of his coffee cup and kissed his wife and drove down to catch the train that took him in to his office in the Graybar Building. I don’t mean that the train took him right into his office, but it did take him almost into the building. He was owner and publisher of a weekly travel magazine called Bon Voyage, for which he himself wrote a column called ‘Pertinent Paragraphs.’ Bon Voyage piled up a nice little deficit each issue, but he did n’t mind, for he had a large safe-deposit box full of bonds down at the bank.

Beyond that there really is n’t much to say about him. He was the kind of man that when you looked at him was nice-looking, but when you turned away you could n’t remember whether he was n’t somebody else. That is, if you remembered him at all. In fact, I can’t remember what his name was. Let’s call him Wilson Whicher.

Well, Mr. Whicher’s wife’s name was Linnet, which I personally think is the hell of a name, but that’s what it was. She was an English girl and she had everything. When you turned away from her you did n’t forget her and you did n’t turn away unless somebody pinched you.

But the trouble with English girls is that they grow up into English women. This is of course true of other nationalities, but not so much so. And you could see what Mrs. Whicher was growing into because her mother, a Mrs. Donnithorpe, lived with her. Mrs. Whicher was n’t much like Mrs. Donnithorpe yet, but she was beginning to resemble her in one way and that was the way she treated Mr. Whicher. She was n’t overbearing or mean or anything. She just did n’t pay any attention to him at all.

Now nobody had ever paid much attention to what Mr. Whicher said, and so, although his wife’s inattention was more annoying than it had been in his mother and sisters and aunts and uncles, it did n’t seem to him to be anything to get specially worked up over. He was used to being ignored and interrupted and to being practically a ghost in the family circle. And it had always seemed really too much trouble to try to assert himself. But gradually things got worse.

The first thing Mr. Whicher noticed was when one morning at breakfast he said, ‘ Lin, had n’t I better give you some money if you’re going into town this afternoon?’ Neither his wife nor his mother-in-law appeared to have heard the question and after a minute Mrs. Donnithorpe said, ‘Did Freda Nelson call you up yesterday, Linnet?’ ‘Yes,’ said Mrs. Whicher; ‘she and Dick will come Friday.’ ‘I’ll leave you twenty dollars,’ said Mr. Whicher, ‘and then you won’t have to get a check cashed.’ ‘But she wants to bring her sister,’ said Mrs. Whicher, ‘ and so I ’ll have to get another man.’ So Mr. Whicher got up and kissed her and went out to the garage.

Well, Mrs. Whicher had never before been deaf to remarks about money and it worried Mr. Whicher all the way in on the train. He felt that he had to assert himself somehow, and so when he got to the office the first thing he did was to fire the circulation manager. He had been going to do it for some time, but when it was over and the circulation manager had gone out to clean out his desk Mr. Whicher felt better, and he called in his secretary, Miss Budge, and dictated all the Pertinent Paragraphs for the next issue.

But when he came into the office next morning there was the circulation manager sitting at his desk as if nothing had happened. ‘Good morning, Mr. Whicher,’ he said pleasantly. ‘Why — ah — good morning,’ said Mr. Whicher, and he started to go by and then stopped and said, ‘I hardly expected to see you here this morning.’ ‘Oh?’ said the manager inquiringly, and Mr. Whicher said, ‘ Well, after our talk yesterday.’ ‘Oh,’ said the manager, ‘our talk. Yes.’ ‘You don’t remember what it was about?’ said Mr. Whicher, and the manager said, ‘Oh yes — of course. Why, of course I remember. A very pleasant talk, Mr. Whicher, and please don’t think I don’t appreciate all the nice things you said, but —’ ‘Ah, well, let it go,’ said Mr. Whicher, and went into his office.

So he sat down and went through his mail, which consisted of two handwritten manuscripts and a circular from a home for destitute something or other to which he had once, in an outpouring of generosity, given two dollars. And Miss Budge brought in some letters for him to sign and the typed copy of the Pertinent Paragraphs that he had dictated. He had a high opinion of Miss Budge and so he usually did n’t read the Paragraphs until they were in proof and he seldom read the letters at all. But this morning if he did n’t read them there was nothing else to do but think about the circulation manager. And he did n’t want to think about him.

Well, he read a couple of the letters and then he frowned and read them over again. And after that he read the rest of them and the Paragraphs. And then he called Miss Budge in and said, ‘See here, Miss Budge, this is n’t what I said when I gave you these letters.’ ‘Why, is n’t it?’ said Miss Budge, looking at them. ‘Are n’t they all right?’ ‘Oh, they’re all right,’ said Mr. Whicher, ‘but I’d like you to compare them with your notes.’ So she did and she said, ‘Why, these seem to be the same.’ ‘Well,’ said Mr. Whicher, ‘look at your notes for the Paragraphs. This one about the train service in Wales. I did n’t dictate anything about that.’ But Miss Budge flipped back a page in her notebook and said vaguely, ‘Why, yes, Mr. Whicher, I have it here.’ So there was n’t anything Mr. Whicher could do.

And so things went on like that for a while. In the office the letters he signed bore less and less resemblance to what he dictated. He tried firing the circulation manager again, but the man did n’t go. At home in desperation he tried saying the most outrageous things. This gave him a certain amount of pleasure, for there was a streak of vulgarity in his nature which he had never been able to indidge fully. But there’s no fun in being low if nobody notices it. Poor Mr. Whicher. They were n’t even annoyed with his unseemliness. They just did n’t tune in on it.

II

But there was one person who listened to Mr. Whicher, and that was Marion Cassilis. She was a rather quiet girl whom nobody suspected of being clever, but Mr. Whicher knew that she was because she had written several travel articles for Bon Voyage. She had never traveled at all, but she could skim through a couple of travel books and then write a wonderful personal experience piece on it. She wrote copy for an advertising agency, and this ability to write convincingly on subjects she knew nothing about was a valuable asset to her firm.

Now I can see that you are getting suspicious of the relations between Mr. Whicher and Miss Cassilis and are looking for disclosures. All I can say is you’ve an evil mind. Even Mrs. Whicher was n’t suspicious. There was a bond between them, but it was a bond of the spirit.

Well, one evening there was a large dinner party at the Whichers’ and Miss Cassilis was there. Everybody was talking and laughing and being very gay and uproarious, and along about the salad Mr. Whicher was swept away by the general bonhomie and started to tell a story. But about halfway through he saw that most of the people were n’t looking at him and the rest had that polite glaze in their eyes that he was so used to. So he switched to the Lord’s Prayer suddenly. He recited the whole prayer and nobody noticed. And at the end he laughed the way you do when you tell a story — or anyway I do — and the two people who were still looking at him smiled vaguely and turned away.

But Miss Cassilis was looking at him, and she began to laugh and she laughed so hard that Mrs. Whicher said, ‘Well, Marion, you might let us in on the joke.’ ‘Oh, it’s just that story of Wilson’s,’ said Miss Cassilis. ‘It was — well, it was funny, I thought.’ ‘Wilson’s?’ said Mrs. Whicher vaguely. ‘ Oh yes. Did he say something?’ ‘If you had the brains of a tomtit, Lin,’ said Miss Cassilis pleasantly, ‘you’d listen to Wilson occasionally. You might at the least get a laugh.’ ‘I can get one without so much effort,’ said Mrs. Whicher. ‘And we don’t have tomtits in America, do we?’ ‘No, thank God,’ said Miss Cassilis.

Well, after dinner they settled down to bridge. But Mr. Whicher did n’t care much for bridge because nobody paid any attention to his bids, so he wandered out into the garden and he was sitting on a bench wondering about things when Miss Cassilis came along. ‘What are you doing here?’ she said. ‘Rehearsing the Prayer Book for your next dinner party? You know, Wilson, that was terribly funny.’ ‘It is n’t really so funny, though,’ said Mr. Whicher. ‘No,’ she said, ‘I know it is n’t. But it’s your own fault. People take you at your own valuation, Wilson.’ ‘ Oh, I’m the original Forgotten Man,’ said Mr. Whicher. ‘I can’t even bore people. But let’s not talk about me.’ So they talked about something else.

Well, next morning Mrs. Whicher and Mrs. Donnithorpe were tired and breakfasted in bed and Mr. Whicher ate alone. The maid, whose name was Bessie, came in and said would he have sausages or bacon, and he said bacon and she brought in sausages, and Mr. Whicher gave them an unfriendly look and then shrugged and ate them. And then he got a terrible shock.

It was this way. A few minutes later Bessie came in with some toast. But instead of putting it on the table she stopped inside the door and looked around sort of puzzled and said under her breath, ‘Well, where in hell did the little shrimp go to?’ ‘Come, come, Bessie,’ said Mr. Whicher reprovingly, but Bessie sniffed and put the toast on the sideboard and went out. ‘Well, this is too much!’ said Mr. Whicher, and he got up to get the toast, but as he picked it up he glanced in the mirror over the sideboard and the plate dropped from His hand. He made no reflection in the mirror.

Well, that sort of thing would scare anybody. Mr. Whicher just stared for a minute, and then he waved his arms and made faces and put his nose almost against the mirror. But it was no good. He had vanished.

After a minute he pulled himself together and went out into the kitchen. Bessie and the cook turned around as the door swung open and the cook said, ‘It’s just the wind,’ and Bessie went on with what she was saying. ‘And if they’re cold when he comes back,’ she said, ‘he’ll eat ’em and like ’em.’ ‘If the missis was down,’ said the cook, ‘he would n’t dast leave his breakfast. But when the cat’s away — ’ ‘He’s a mouse, all right,’ said Bessie.

Well, Mr. Whicher was pretty angry, but what’s the good of being angry if you can’t make yourself seen or heard? He left the kitchen and went up to Mrs. Whicher’s room. She was sitting up in bed with her breakfast tray across her knees and Mrs. Donnithorpe was walking up and down in a Jaeger bathrobe drinking her coffee. ‘I’m going, now, darling,’ said Mr. Whicher. But neither of them looked at him and Mrs. Donnithorpe said, ‘Well, to tell you the truth, I have n’t noticed him around particularly the past few days and I certainly can’t remember whether he was at dinner with us last night. You might as well not have any husband, Linnet.’ ‘Oh, Wilson’s all right,’ said Mrs. Whicher. ‘He leaves me alone, and that’s what I want. Though it really is funny. I woke up about six and he was n’t in his bed. He must have gone out early.’ ‘Hey, what’s the matter with you?’ said Mr. Whicher. ‘I’m right here! Look at me!’ For his memory had refused to register his terrible experience downstairs. But they did n’t look, and then his terror rushed back and he dashed downstairs and into the garage.

Well, it would be too harrowing to tell of all the shattering experiences Mr. Whicher had that day — for he was now completely invisible. He walked to the station because in that condition he did n’t dare drive. When he held out his commutation ticket on the train the conductor did n’t see it. At the office it was the same. At lunch time he could n’t order, of course, in a restaurant and he was pretty hungry before he got up his courage to go into Charles’s and steal some cookies from the baked-goods counter. When he got home again it was n’t so bad, for at dinner he sat down at the place set for him and they were so used to not noticing him that they did n’t even notice that he apparently was n’t there.

III

And so things went on for a month or so. They went on about the same. Even at the office nobody seemed to notice, and the issues of Bon Voyage that he had planned came out without a hitch. Although he was by no means reconciled to his condition, he began to find that it had compensations. As soon as he felt secure in his invisibility he began going all sorts of places that he otherwise would never have got into. He went to the theatre and wandered about backstage during the performances and he attended a lot of private conferences of bankers and business men and once he went down the bay on a pilot boat and rode back up the river on the bridge of the Queen Mary. It was a life that offered temptations, but on the whole Mr. Whicher resisted fairly well.

Well, you see that Mr. Whicher was really having a pretty good time. But after all it was a ghost’s life. And what if he got sick? No doctor was going to take much interest in a patient that he could neither hear nor see. Also Mr. Whicher was in love with his wife. He saw her nearly every day, for he continued to go home nights except when he had been out pretty late — then he would stay at some good hotel. It was quite easy to ride up in an elevator and take the key of an unoccupied room from the floor clerk’s desk. And in the morning there was nearly always an unattended breakfast wagon standing around in the hall.

Well, one morning rather late he came out of the Waldorf into Park Avenue and someone came up behind him and took his arm and said, ‘Hello, Wilson!’ Mr. Whicher gave a leap and turned and said, ‘Why — why, Marion! You can see me!’ ‘I can indeed,’ said Miss Cassilis, ‘ and you look like the devil.’ ‘ Well, I — I have n’t bothered to shave for a day or two,’ said Mr. Whicher. ‘You see, I — I’m invisible.’ ‘Ah,’ said Miss Cassilis gravely. ‘Well, strong coffee is good for that. Come along.’ And she led him down a side street and into a restaurant. There was some trouble with the waiter, but Miss Cassilis’s manner was so assured that he finally brought the two cups of coffee she ordered and even went away when she told him to.

So Mr. Whicher told her his story. At first she did n’t believe him. But when he got up and went over to the cigar counter and helped himself to half a dozen cigars under the cashier’s nose she was convinced. ‘This is terrible, Wilson,’ she said. ‘You’ve always seemed unnecessarily self-effacing, but good heavens! I did n’t know it could be as bad as this. What can we do?’ ‘I don’t know,’said Mr. Whicher miserably. ‘I don’t see how I can begin asserting myself now. I should have done that years ago. It’s too late now. But I wonder,’ he said, ‘why it is you can see me when no one else can?’ ‘That’s so,’ she said thoughtfully. ‘Of course in my work I’ve been fairly successful because I’ve been able to see things that did n’t exist. That’s what so much of advertising is. Seeing them and — Oh, Wilson! Making other people see them, too. Oh, wait! That gives me an idea! ’ ‘ Let’s get out of here,’ said Mr. Whicher. ‘People are beginning to stare.’

So they walked up to Miss Cassilis’s apartment and she elaborated her idea. ‘This is going to cost something, you know,’ she said. ‘I’ve made eighty thousand dollars in the past week,’ said Mr. Whicher. ‘You know — it’s funny, but my broker can hear me over the phone when I give an order.’ ‘Eighty thousand dollars!’ said Miss Cassilis. ‘Yes,’ said Mr. Whicher. ‘You see, I pick up a lot of information, being invisible. I was in Oscar Dahn’s office when that steel merger went through. Sitting in the fireplace. And by the way, if you’ve any loose capital put it into Shields Mining. They’ve struck oil on one of their properties, but they’re not telling the stockholders. I was backstage at the Frivolity last night when Gregory Shields came round to see Querida and I heard him tell her about it.’ ‘You certainly get around,’ said Miss Cassilis. ‘In Querida’s dressing room, Wilson?’ ‘It’s a good place to get tips,’ said Mr. Whicher, blushing. ‘Even a sort of general education, I imagine,’ said Miss Cassilis, dialing her broker’s number on the phone.

Well, the big Whicher build-up began the following week with an item in the Pertinent Paragraphs column of Bon Voyage giving the facts about the finding of oil on the Shields property. Miss Cassilis saw to it that it did not go unnoticed. Gregory Shields was always news, and within twenty-four hours the newspapers had uncovered the brokers through whom he was quietly buying in the stock and were asking him questions. Within another twenty-four they were asking, ‘Who is Whicher?’

But Miss Cassilis was not giving out any statements yet. She got a leave of absence from her firm and in Mr. Whicher’s name took a suite at the Waldorf, where with three secretaries she began firing indirect publicity in all directions. To all inquiries she replied truthfully that Mr. Whicher could not be seen to-day. Armed with an order from Mr. Whicher, she went over to the Bon Voyage office and beat it into submission. Then she laid out the next issue, quadrupled the printing order, and dictated several Pertinent Paragraphs, among which was one giving in some detail the substance of an agreement between two prominent Congressmen and certain foreign banking interests. Mr. Whicher had stumbled on this by chance. He had gone to the house of a certain financier to have a look at a famous art collection which had never been publicly shown. He had hung round for a while and had at last entered on the heels of a guest to find himself in the middle of a secret conference. ‘Two such disclosures properly handled,’ said Miss Cassilis, ‘will make you the most important political and financial wizard in the country.’

IV

And she was about right. For the next two weeks the affair was front-page stuff. Those involved at first denied everything, and particularly any knowledge of Mr. Whicher. Then Mr. Whicher gave out a statement adding verifiable details. The scandal grew. The press, unable to interview Mr. Whicher, appealed to him editorially to tell more. It was obvious not only that he knew these people but that he was in their inner councils. There was talk of a Congressional investigation. And Miss Cassilis sent Mr. Whicher to Washington.

But on the second day he was back. He called at Miss Cassilis’s apartment late that evening. ‘I’ve seen the President,’ he said. ‘Well, I supposed you would,’ said Miss Cassilis. ‘Could n’t it wait till morning?’ ‘No,’ said Mr. Whicher, ‘for he’s seen me.’ ‘What!’ said Miss Cassilis. ‘You mean you’re visible again already?’ ‘I’ll tell you as quickly as I can,’ said Mr. Whicher. ‘We’ll have to change our plans. You see, when I got to Washington I walked right up to the White House. I could n’t take a taxi or even ask questions, and I thought that was the best thing because we knew that power crowd were going to see the President sometime during the day, and that was the dope we wanted. So I went up and sat on the porch and waited.

‘By and by I got sick of waiting and I thought I’d go in and look around. I got in all right, but just through the first door I looked in a mirror, and my gosh, there I was! I was visible again. Well, the only thing was to get out as quick as possible, but before I was through the door somebody grabbed me. In about three seconds there were half a dozen of them on me. Well, I thought the best thing was to bluff it through, so I just said I was Wilson Whicher and had come to see the President. You’d be surprised how polite they were when I said who I was. Some secretary came out and said of course I could n’t see him unless it was arranged beforehand, and I said yes, I supposed that was so, but I had come into some vital information and just sort of dropped in. And darned if they did n’t have me wait. And anyway I got in to see him.’

‘Gosh,’ said Miss Cassilis, ‘what did you tell him?’ ‘The whole darn thing,’ said Mr. Whicher. ‘Yes. You see, first I told him about that conference, because I knew he’d want to know and he ought to. And he said he’d been hoping I’d come forward — that I seemed to have access to sources of information denied the administration and so on. So then I told him some more things I’d picked up — that Sutler-Japanese agreement, you know, and so on. Things we’ve been holding back. And then I told him the whole story.’

‘Oh Lord,’ said Miss Cassilis, ‘you should n’t have done that!’ ‘Why not?’ said Mr. Whicher. ‘He laughed his head off. And then he said, “Well, Mr. Whicher, we can’t risk having you running around invisible, so I’ll have to give you a little help with your buildup.” So he kept me for lunch and had me sit in as observer or something on the power conference. And then I went to the Mayflower and spent last night and this morning talking to Congressmen and newspaper men. Oh, don’t worry — I did n’t say anything. I was mysterious. You’ll see it all in to-morrow’s papers. I asked them not to print anything today because I wanted to surprise you.’ And then Mr. Whicher got up and stood in front of Miss Cassilis’s mirror with a broad grin and straightened his tie.

Miss Cassilis watched him a minute and then she said, ‘Well, it worked sooner than I’d hoped. But of course when there’s really something to build up —’ ‘ I can’t tell you how grateful I am,’ said Mr. Whicher. ‘Pooh!’ said Miss Cassilis. ‘Anything for a friend. Particularly when it nets around $50,000 in tips. But now, as it’s nearly twothirty — ’ ‘Yes,’ said Mr. Whicher, ‘I’ll run along.’ ‘ Better stay at your Waldorf suite to-night,’ she said. ‘There’ll be interviews to-morrow. I’ll be seeing you.’ ‘You will indeed,’ said Mr. Whicher.

But at the Waldorf Mr. Whicher could n’t sleep. He kept getting up and looking at himself in the mirror. It seemed to him that either he looked different than he used to or he’d forgotten what he used to look like. His jaw was firmer and his eyes steadier somehow than he remembered them. And at last at six o’clock he dressed and took a taxi out to Irvington.

He got there just in time for breakfast, so without going upstairs ho went into the dining room and sat down. Pretty soon Bessie came in. ‘Good morning, sir,’ she said, ‘will you have sausages with your breakfast?’ Mr. Whicher glanced at the mirror over the sideboard. He was completely visible. ‘Bacon,’ he said firmly. ‘And Bessie.’ ‘Yes, sir?’ said Bessie. ‘If you want to keep your job,’ said Mr. Whicher, ‘be sure it is bacon.’ ‘Why, I’m sure, sir,’ said Bessie, ‘I always—’ ‘Bacon,’ said Mr. Whicher pleasantly. ‘And get out.’

So he was eating the bacon when Mrs. Whicher and Mrs. Donnithorpe came down. He was nervous, but he remembered what the President had said and he braced himself and went on chewing bacon. They stopped short when they came into the dining room, and Mrs. Donnithorpe, who had a newspaper in her hand, held it out to him and said, ‘Well, Wilson, perhaps you will condescend to explain all this to us.’ But Mr. Whicher ignored her and looked at his wife and said, ‘Linnet, darling, you look lovely this morning.’ ‘Wilson!’ said Mrs. Donnithorpe. ‘Did n’t you hear me? This house has been a perfect shambles for two weeks with reporters and people telephoning and calling, but of course your wife is not to know what it is all about, and I must say —’ ‘Please sit down, Mrs. Donnithorpe,’ said Mr. Whicher, looking her in the eye, and she opened her mouth and then closed it again and sat down. And Mr. Whicher got up and kissed Mrs. Whicher and led her to a chair and said, ‘I’m sorry, Lin, if you’ve been bothered.’ ‘Oh, that’s all right, darling,’ said Mrs. Whicher. ‘You’ve had so many important things. Was the President nice?’ ‘Charming,’ said Mr. Whicher.

‘Wilson!’ said Mrs. Whicher after a minute. ‘Do — do you have to go into town to-day? I ’ve hardly seen you at all these pastfew weeks.’ ‘Why, no,’ said Mr. Whicher, ‘I guess I can take a holiday. What do you say we go up to Rock Hill for a couple of days?’ ‘Lovely, darling,’ said Mrs. Whicher, and Mrs. Donnithorpe said, ‘Linnet, if we go to Rock Hill I —’ ‘Just us two,’ said Mr. Whicher firmly, looking at his wife. And Mrs. Donnithorpe’s eyes flashed and she took in a good lungful of breath, and then she hesitated and let it out again slowly without saying anything.

So that’s about all there is to say about the Whichers. The circulation of Bon Voyage had jumped 500 per cent during Mr. Whicher’s invisibility, but the first time he went, to the office he fired the circulation manager again anyway, and this time the man stayed fired. Mr. Whicher accepted an offer from one of the evening newspapers to write a weekly political column. Of course he had no further inside information to give out, and his political views were in consequence no more important or interesting than yours or mine. But his reputation was made, so he did n’t have to say anything much. And of course he stayed visible. But the funny thing is that Mrs. Donnithorpe has begun to get sort of indistinct. I was over there the other evening and I give you my word I can’t remember whether she was there or not. I even had to turn back to the first page when I wrote this to see what her name was.