Arrived home, he studied the book with great concentration, «This is perfectly simple,» said he. «You just take your voice and bounce it, as if it were a ball, immobilizing the jaws as you do so. I used to bounce a ball as a youngster, and my jaws have had good practice at resting immobile. Here, too, is a little picture of the larynx, with A, B, C, D—everything. I can learn to ventriloquize as well as anyone, and with a dummy that is a real work of art I shall soon be making a fortune.»
He at once dragged out all his long accumulated works, to find one suitable to set up as a rival to Charlie McCarthy. But though he had renounced his ideals something of the old artist still survived within him. «They are all marvellous,» he said, «but I can do better. I will make something so life-like that the audience will swear it's a stooge, and I shall have to invite them to step up on the platform and stick pins in it.»
He looked about for material from which to carve this masterpiece, but he had been so long on the rocks that he had no longer a piece of stone to work upon. «Never mind,» said he, «I will model him in clay, which has the advantage of being lighter and less chilly, and will yield a little to the points of the pins. This will provide an agreeable sensation for those who step up to make the test, for such people are bound to be sadistically inclined.»
Next morning he went out into the yard behind his studio, and toiled with pick and shovel until he had uncovered a bed of red clay, of a quality very noticeably superior to that which is sold in the art stores. From this he fashioned a male figure of singularly attractive appearance, with crimpy hair and a Graeco-Roman profile. He thought the face wore a slightly supercilious expression, and this he strove to modify, but in spite of his skill his efforts were unavailing. «After all,» he said, «it is a work of genius, and as such it is entitled to a slightly supercilious expression.»
In order to impart a sufficient flexibility to his creation, he jointed the limbs and neck with pieces of old bedsprings, such as are indigenous to the soil of the back yards of Brooklyn. This experiment was so successful that he broke up two or three battered alarm clocks he found, which his neighbours had thrown at the cats, and fixed up the fingers, the toes, and the eyelids. He scrabbled about in the debris, and found other springs of all shapes and sizes, which he employed to the utmost advantage, not even neglecting those details that were least likely to be seen by the audience. In the end, the figure had good reason to look supercilious.
Next, he heated his old rusty furnace to the point of incandescence, and baked the clay to a light, porous, and permanent texture. He had given it a low glaze, and tinted it in the most agreeable colours. Finally he borrowed a little money and got his best suit out of hock, and found to his delight that it fitted the figure to perfection, which had not been the case when he himself had worn it. Our friend admired the effect for an hour or two; then he took up the telephone and called Sadie. «Sadie,» said he, «I want you to come around at once. I've a grand surprise for you.»
«I don't think I ought to come around unless we're able to get married,» said she. «It doesn't do a girl any good to be seen going to a sculptor's studio.»
«Don't worry,» said he. «The years of waiting are over. We can afford to flout the conventions, for I shall soon be earning I don't know how many hundred thousand a year.»
«In that case,» she said, «I'll be around immediately.»
Pretty soon she was tapping at the door, and Eustace hastened to let her in. «I can hardly believe it,» said she. «Oh, Eustace, it has seemed so long!»
«Never mind,» said he. «It's all over now. Let me introduce you to the author of our good fortune. This is Mr. Bertie McGregor.»
«Oh, how do you do?» said she with a blush and a smile. «If what Eustace says is true, you are my favourite author from now on. Yes, I think you're wonderful.»
«Wonderful is the word,» said Eustace. «However, you need not go on buttering him up, for he is only a dummy, and the praise is due to me.»
«A dummy?» she cried. «And I have been talking to him all the time! How handsome he is for a dummy! But, Eustace, when I spoke to him first, it seemed to me he smiled and nodded.»
«He is handsome,» said Eustace, «because I took pains to make him so. As for smiling and nodding, that is not unlikely, for I have fixed him up with springs. He is perfect in every particular.»
«Is that really so?» said she.
«Yes,» said he. «I will explain it all to you when we are married. But tell me frankly — you don't think his expression is a little too supercilious?»
«Oh, no,» said she. «I think he just looks sort of cute and masculine; sort of … I'll explain it to you when we are married. But, Eustace, if he is really a dummy, how can he be the author of our good fortune? That sounds a bit like fiction to me.»
«I assure you,» he replied, smiling, «it is straightforward biography.» With that he told her of his great plan. «And here,» said he in conclusion, «is a bill I'm designing, announcing us to the public. I thought we might use your savings, and start in by hiring a hall. I think the lettering is pretty effective. See where I invite the audience to stick pins in him at the end of the performance, to assure themselves that he is not really alive, in spite of his life-like appearance and rapier wit.»
«Shall we really have you don't know how many hundred thousand a year?» said she. «You know how long it has taken me to save up that little nest-egg.»
Eustace pointed proudly to his creation. «Which is the more life-like?» he demanded.
«In some ways he is, and in some ways you are,» responded Sadie.
«Come, come!» said Eustace, «I meant he or Charlie McCarthy.»
«Oh, he is,» replied Sadie. «There's no doubt at all about that.»
«Then there's no doubt about the money,» said Eustace. «And as for your own pitiful little hoard, I've no doubt we'll get it all back the very first evening.» With that he took her in his arms, as masterfully as his somewhat debilitated condition allowed. Suddenly Sadie squealed and thrust him from her. «Eustace,» said she, «I wish you would not pinch me like that, even if we are going to be rich. After all, we are not yet married.»
«Pinch you?» said he. «I wouldn't dream of doing such a thing.»
«I didn't say don't dream of it,» said she captiously. «You're in love. You're young. You're an artist. There's nothing wrong in dreaming.»
«I am glad you think so,» said he, «for you must have dreamed you were pinched.»
«No. I wouldn't dream it,» said she, «because I'm a healthy, normal girl, and therefore dream differently. But if you are healthy and normal, as I thought you were, you might very well dream of it, because you are a man. But are you? Or are you a mouse?»
«I am a man, Sadie,» said he. «But hitherto I've been an artist also, and that sort of thing has been absorbed in the creative impulse. Now I am altogether practical, and I expect I shall dream like a demon. Don't let us quarrel, my dear. After all, what's a pinch, be it real or imaginary? Perhaps I did it unconsciously — who can tell? Let us go to the bank and draw out your money, and then we will hire the hall.»