The importance of knowing who my Congressman is had never occurred to me until Professor Wilson Stubbs brought up the subject at a luncheon in the Reform Club. Professor Stubbs spoke on Civic Obligations. He argued that at the bottom of all political corruption lay the average citizen's personal indifference. "For instance," he said, "how many of those present know the name of the man who represents their district at Washington?" And as it happened, while he waited for a reply, his eye rested thoughtfully on me.

I grew red under his scrutiny. I tried my best to remember and failed. I did vaguely recall the lithographed presentment of a large, clean-shaven man, with a heavy jaw. It hung in a barber-shop window between a blue-and-red poster announcing a grand masquerade and civic ball, and a papier-machÉ trout under a glass case. I could not bring back the man's name, although I was sure that his picture was inscribed on the top "Our Choice," and at the bottom he was characterised as somebody's friend—I could not recall whether he was the People's friend, or the Workingman's, or the Bronx's. I could not even make out his features, although, oddly enough, I could see the trout very distinctly. The fish, I recollected, had a peculiarly ferocious scowl, as if it resented the absurd blotches of green and gold with which the artist had attempted to imitate Nature's colour scheme. Gradually I found myself thinking of the trout as a member of Congress. Had I continued much longer, I should have visualised that fish in the act of addressing the Speaker of the House on the tariff bill.

Yet I could not help taking the professor's implied criticism to heart. It would have been something even, to be able to tell whether I lived in the Eleventh Congressional District or the Fifteenth; but I didn't know. For how long a term was the man elected? I didn't know. Was it required that he should be able to read and write? I didn't know.

That was the beginning. When luncheon was over, I sat before the fire and tried to find out how much I did know of the things I should. I found myself staring into bottomless depths of ignorance. I tried to draw up a list of State Governors. I knew there must be between forty and fifty, but I could remember only three Governors, including our own; and later I recalled that one of the three was dead.

From death my mind leaped, oddly enough, to drownings. How should one go about resuscitating a man who has been pulled out of the river? He must be rolled on a barrel, of course; that much I remembered. But was it face down or face upward? And should his arms be pumped vertically up and down, or horizontally away from the body and back? Yes, and how if some intelligent foreigner were to ask me what our five principal cities were, in the order of population? It would be easy enough to begin, New York, Chicago, Philadelphia—and then? Was it Boston, or Baltimore, or San Francisco? I did not know.

There was no stopping now. I was fast in my own clutches. I bit at my cigar, and tried to call the roll of the seven wise men of Greece. I stopped at the first, Solon. He, I remembered, rescued the Athenians from misgovernment and slavery, and left the city before they could experience a change of heart and hang him.

Who were the nine muses? Well, there was Terpsichore—her disciples are spoken of every day in the newspapers. And then there was the muse of History, whose name possibly was Thalia, and the muse of Poetry, whose name I could not recall. I fared much better with the apostles: Peter and Paul, of course, and John and James, and Judas and Matthew, and Mark and Luke; eight out of twelve.

But of the seven wonders of the world I could cite with certainty only one, the Colossus of Rhodes. I was doubtful about Mount Vesuvius. I remembered not a single one of the seven deadly sins, and, at first, could place only two of the ten commandments—the ones on filial obedience and on the Sabbath. Later I thought of the newest realistic hit at the Park Theatre; that brought back one more commandment. On the other hand, it was a relief to call the three Graces straight off—Faith, Hope, and Charity.

I grew humble. I began to doubt if, after all, it is true that a modern schoolboy knows more than Aristotle did. In any case, whether Harrington's boy who is still in the grammar grades knows more than Aristotle, he certainly knows more than his father. They have a new-fashioned branch of study in the modern schools, which they call training the powers of observation. And that boy comes home with mischief in his soul, and asks Harrington which way do the seeds in an apple point. Harrington stares at the boy, and the boy smiles quizzically at Harrington, and the father grows suspicious. Are there seeds in an apple? There are seedless oranges, of course, which presupposes oranges not destitute of seeds; but an apple? Harrington tries to call up the image of the last apple he has eaten and he thinks of sweet and sour apples, apples of a waxen yellow and apples of a purple red, but he cannot visualise the seeds.

As Harrington sits there dumb, Jack asks him which shoe does he put on first when he dresses in the morning. Jack knows, the rascal. He can trace every process through which the cotton fibre passes from the plant to the finished cloth. He knows why factory chimneys are built high. He knows how a boat tacks against the wind. And he knows that his father knows nothing of these things.

But I would rather have Harrington's boy quiz me on things that I can pretend are not worth knowing, like the seeds in an apple, than on things that cannot be waved aside. I tried to explain one day how the revolution of the earth about the sun produces the seasons, and I succeeded only in proving that when it is winter in New York it is daylight in Buenos Ayres. Thereupon, Jack asked me what an unearned increment was. When I finished he said his teacher had told them that views like those I had just expressed were common among ill-informed people. The following day he came in and said to Harrington, "Papa, name six female characters in Dickens, in three minutes." Well, Harrington did, but it was a strain, and in order to make up the total he had to count in the anonymous, elderly, single woman whom Mr. Pickwick surprised in her bedroom. Jack insisted that, as she was nameless, it was not fair to call her a character, but Harrington put his foot down and refused to argue the matter.

And as I sit there before the fire, smiling over Harrington and Jack and myself, my cigar goes out, and I signal Thomas to bring me another. Thomas has the ascetic countenance of a tragedian, and the repose of an archbishop. Now, Thomas—and it comes to me with a shock—what do I know about Thomas, the man, as distinguished from the hired servant whom I have been aware of this year and more? Is he married or single? And if he is married, do his children resent their father's wearing livery? Does Thomas himself like to be a servant? Are there ideals and speculations behind that close-shaven mask? Has he any views on the future life? Has he ever thought on the subject of vivisection? Does he vote the Republican ticket? Does he earn a decent wage?

I could only answer, with an aching sense of isolation, with the wistful longing of one who looks into unfathomable depths, that I didn't know. Oh, Thomas, fellow man, brother! We have rubbed elbows for months and I do not know whether you are a man or only a lackey; whether you drink all night, or pray; whether you love me or hate me. How can you hold the cigar box so impassively, so single-mindedly?

I said to myself that I would make amends to Thomas, that it was never too late. And, quietly, genially, I asked him, "How do you like your place here, Thomas?" Thomas grew uneasy, and smiled in a sickish fashion, and entreated me with his eyes to pick my cigar and let him go. But I was in the full swing of new-found righteousness. "There's nothing wrong, is there, Thomas?" And he replied, "I beg pardon, sir; but Henry's my name. Thomas was my predecessor. He left, you will remember, sir, a year ago last May." "But everybody calls you Thomas." "The gentlemen were used to the other name, sir."

Might Professor Wilson Stubbs be wrong, after all, I thought. Perhaps no one is really expected to know what everybody ought to know. I don't know the name of my Congressman. But neither do I know the name of my butcher and my grocer; and my butcher and my grocer can slay me with typhoid or ptomaines, whereas the utmost my Congressman can do is to misrepresent me. I don't know the man who makes my cigars; he may be consumptive. I don't know the critic who supplies me with literary opinions, and the scholar who gives me my outlook upon life. I don't know the man who lives next door. From the decent silence that reigns in his apartment, I gather that he does not beat his wife; but that is all. Yet he and I are supposed to be bound up in a community of interests. We both belong to the class whose income ranges from $2,000 to $4,000 a year, of which we spend 38 per cent. on food; and we raise an average of 2-2/3 children to the family, and are both responsible for the wide prevalence of musical comedy on the American stage. But I have seen my neighbour twice in the last three years.

So that was the end of it. And because it was late in the afternoon, I thought I would telephone to the office that I was not coming back. But for the life of me, I could not think of my telephone number; and Henry looked me up in the directory.