More Jonathan Papers | Page 2

and which you don't?"
"Of course, anatomically--structurally--it is one, but functionally it isn't there at all."
"I see," said Jonathan, so contentedly that I knew he was filing this affair away for future use.
On another occasion I asked him to get something for me from the top drawer of the old "high-boy" in the dining-room. He was gone a long while, and at last, growing impatient, I followed. I found him standing on an old wooden-seated chair, screw-driver in hand. A drawer on a level with his head was open, and he had hanging over his arm a gaudy collection of ancient table-covers and embroidered scarfs, mostly in shades of magenta.
"She stuck, but I've got her open now. I don't see any pillow-cases, though. It's all full of these things." He pumped his laden arm up and down, and the table-covers wagged gayly.
I sank into the chair and laughed. "Oh! Have you been prying at that all this time? Of course there's nothing in that drawer."
"There's where you're wrong. There's a great deal in it; I haven't taken out half. If you want to see--"
"I don't want to see! There's nothing I want less! What I mean is--I never put anything there."
"It's the top drawer." He was beginning to lay back the table-covers.
"But I can't reach it. And it's been stuck for ever so long."
"You said the top drawer."
"Yes, I suppose I did. Of course what I meant was the top one of the ones I use."
"I see, my dear. When you say top shelf you don't mean top shelf, and when you say top drawer you don't mean top drawer; in fact, when you say top you don't mean top at all--you mean the height of your head. Everything above that doesn't count."
Jonathan was so pleased with this formulation of my attitude that he was not in the least irritated to have put out unnecessary work. And his satisfaction was deepened by one more incident. I had sent him to the bottom drawer of my bureau to get a shawl. He returned without it, and I was puzzled. "Now, Jonathan, it's there, and it's the top thing."
"The real top," murmured Jonathan, "or just what you call top?"
"It's right in front," I went on; "and I don't see how even a man could fail to find it."
He proceeded to enumerate the contents of the drawer in such strange fashion that I began to wonder where he had been.
"I said my bureau."
"I went to your bureau."
"The bottom drawer."
"The bottom drawer. There was nothing but a lot of little boxes and--"
"Oh, I know what you did! You went to the secret drawer."
"Isn't that the bottom one?"
"Why, yes, in a way--of course it is; but it doesn't exactly count--it's not one of the regular drawers--it hasn't any knobs, or anything--"
"But it's a perfectly good drawer."
"Yes. But nobody is supposed to know it's there; it looks like a molding--"
"But I know it's there."
"Yes, of course."
"And you know I know it's there."
"Yes, yes; but I just don't think about that one in counting up. I see what you mean, of course."
"And I see what you mean. You mean that your shawl is in the bottom one of the regular drawers--with knobs--that can be alluded to in general conversation. Now I think I can find it."
He did. And in addition he amused himself by working out phrases about "when is a bottom drawer not a bottom drawer?" and "when is a top shelf not a top shelf?"
It is to these incidents--which I regard as isolated and negligible, and he regards as typical and significant--that he alludes on the occasions when he is unable to find a red book on the sitting-room table. In vain do I point out that when language is variable and fluid it is alive, and that there may be two opinions about the structural top and the functional top, whereas there can be but one as to the book being or not being on the table. He maintains a quiet cheerfulness, as of one who is conscious of being, if not invulnerable, at least well armed.
For a time he even tried to make believe that he was invulnerable as well--to set up the thesis that if the book was really on the table he could find it. But in this he suffered so many reverses that only strong natural pertinacity kept him from capitulation.
Is it necessary to recount instances? Every family can furnish them. As I allow myself to float off into a reminiscent dream I find my mind possessed by a continuous series of dissolving views in which Jonathan is always coming to me saying, "It isn't there," and I am always saying, "Please look again."
Though everything in the house seems to be in a conspiracy against him, it is perhaps with the