Give an account of all the circumstances that had led up to Michael's offense against the law.

Write up the story as if it were a newspaper report.

5. Tell the story as if related by a) his wife, b) one of the bridge players, c) the detective.

Explain the title of the story.

Why is it always unwise to give way to impulse?

JAMES THURBER

THE REMARKABLE CASE OF MR BRUHL

Samuel O. Bruhl was just an ordinary-looking citizen, like you and me, except for a curious, shoe-shaped scar on his left cheek, which he got when he fell against a wagon-tongue in his youth. He had a good job as treasurer for a syrup-and-fondant concern, a large, devout wife, two tractable daughters, and a nice home in Brooklyn.² He worked from nine to five, took in a show occasionally, played a bad, complacent game of golf, and was usually in bed by eleven o'clock. The Bruhls had a dog named Bert, a small circle of friends, and an old sedan. They had made a comfortable, if unexciting, adjust­ment to life.

There was no reason in the world why Samuel Bruhl shouldn't have lived along quietly until he died of some commonplace malady. He was a man designed by Nature for an uneventful life, an inexpensive but respectable funeral, and a modest stone marker. All this you would have predict­ed had you observed his colourless comings and goings, his mild manner, the small stature of his dreams. However Samuel Bruhl was suddenly picked out of the hundreds of men and marked for an extravagant and unpredictable end. Oddly enough it was the shoe-shaped scar on his left cheek which brought to his heels a Nemesis⁴ he had never dreamed of. A blemish on his heart, a tic in his soul would have been different; one would have blamed Bruhl for whatever anguish an emotional or spiritual flaw laid him open to, but it is ironical indeed when the Furies⁵ ride down a man who has been guilty of nothing worse than an accident in his child­hood.

Samuel O. Bruhl looked very much like George ('Shoe-scar') Clinigan. Clinigan had that same singular shoe-shaped 'scar on his left cheek. There was also a general resemblance in height, weight, and complexion (the natural colour and condition of the skin on a person's face), A careful study would

have revealed very soon that Clinigan's eyes were shifty and Bruhl's eyes were clear, and that the syrup-and- fondant com­pany's treasurer had a more pleasant mouth and a higher forehead than the gangster and racketeer, but at a glance the similarity was remarkable.

Had Clinigan not become notorious, this prank (a trick that is played on sb as a joke) of Nature would never have been detected, but Clinigan did become notorious and dozens of persons observed that he looked like Bruhl. They saw Clinigan's picture in the papers the day he was shot, and the day after and the day after that. Presently someone in the syrup-and-fondant concern mentioned to some­one else that Clinigan looked like Mr Bruhl, remarkably like Mr Bruhl. Soon everybody in the place had commented on it, among themselves, and to Mr Bruhl.

Mr Bruhl rather laughed it off at first, but one day when Clinigan had been in the hospital a week, a cop peered close­ly at Mr Bruhl when he was on his way home from work. After that, the little treasurer noticed a number of other strangers staring at him with mingled surprise and alarm. One small, dark man hastily thrust a hand into his coat pocket and paled slightly.

Mr Bruhl began to worry. He began to imagine things. "I hope this fellow Clinigan doesn't pull through," he said one morning at breakfast. "He's a bad actor.⁶ He's better off dead."

"Oh, he'll pull through, "said Mrs Bruhl, who had been reading the morning paper. "It says here he'll pull through. But it says they'll shoot him again. It says they're sure to shoot him again."

The morning after the night that Clinigan left the hospi­tal, secretly by a side door, and disappeared into the town, Bruhl decided not to go to work. "I don't feel so good today," he said to his wife. "Would you call up the office and tell them I'm sick?"

"You don't look well," said his wife. "You really don't look well. Get down, Bert," she added, for the dog had jump­ed upon her lap and whined. The animal knew that some­thing was wrong.

That evening Bruhl, who had mooned⁷ about the house all day, read in the papers that Clinigan had vanished, but was be­lieved to be somewhere in the city. His various rackets re­quired his presence, at least until he made enough money to skip out⁸ with; he had left the hospital penniless. Rival gangsters the paper said, were sure to seek him out, to hunt

him down, to give it to him⁹ again. "Give him what again?" asked Mrs Bruhl when she read this. "Let's talk about some­thing else," said her husband.

It was little Joey, the office boy at the syrup-and-fondant company, who first discovered that Mr Bruhl was afraid. Joey, who went about with tennis shoes on, entered the treas­urer's office suddenly — flung open the door and started to say something. "Good God!" cried Mr Bruhl, rising from his chair. "Why, what's the matter, Mr Bruhl?" asked Joey. Other little things happened. The switchboard girl phoned Mr Bruhl's desk one afternoon and said there was a man wait­ing to see him, a Mr Globe. "What's he look like?" asked Bruhl, who didn't know anybody named Globe.' "He's small and dark," said the girl. "A small, dark man?" said Bruhl. "Tell him I'm out. Tell him I've gone to California." The personnel, comparing notes, decided at length that the treasurer was afraid of being mistaken for Shoescar and put on the spot.¹⁰ They said nothing to Mr Bruhl about this, be­cause they were forbidden to by Oilie Breithofer, a fattish clerk who was a tireless and inventive practical joker and who had an idea.

As the hunt went on for Clinigan and he still wasn't found and killed, Mr Bruhl lost weight and grew extremely fidg­ety. He began to figure out new ways of getting to work, one requiring the use of two different ferry lines; he ate his lunch in, he wouldn't answer bells, he cried out when anyone drop­ped anything, and he ran into stores or banks when cruising taxi-drivers shouted at him. One morning, in setting the house to rights, Mrs Bruhl found a revolver under his pillow. '"I found a revolver under your pillow," she told him that night. "Burglars-are bad in this neighbourhood," he said. "You oughtn't to have a revolver," she said. They argued about it, he irritably, she uneasily, until time for bed. As Bruhl was undressing, after locking and bolting all the doors, the telephone rang. "It's for you, Sam," said Mrs Bruhl. Her husband went slowly to the phone, passing Bert on the way. "I wish I was you," he said to the dog, and took up the receiver. "Get this, Shoescar," said a husky voice. "We trail­ed you where you are, see? You're cooked."" The receiv­er at the other end was hung up. Bruhl shouted. His wife came running. "What is it, Sam, what is it?" she cried. Bruhl, pale, sick-looking, had fallen into a chair. "They got me," he moaned. "They got me." Slowly, deviously (in a dishonest or indirect way, or deceiving people, in order to get sth) Minnie Bruhl got it out of her husband that he had been mistaken for

Clinigan and that he was cooked. Mrs. Bruhl was not very-quick mentally, but she had a certain intuition and this intui­tion told her, as she trembled there in her nightgown above her broken husband, that this was the work of Oilie Breithofer. She instantly phoned Oilie Breithofer's wife and, before she hung up, had got the truth out of Mrs. Breithofer. It was Oilie who had called.

The treasurer of the Maskonsett Syrup & Fondant Company, Inc., was so relieved to know that the gangs weren't after him that he admitted frankly at the office next day that Oilie had fooled him for a minute. Mr Bruhl even joined in the laughter and wisecracking, which went on all day. After that, for almost a week, the mild little man had comparative peace of mind. The papers said very little about Clinigan now. He -s had completely disappeared. Gang warfare had died down for the time being.

One Sunday morning Mr. Bruhl went for an automobile ride with his wife and daughters. They had driven about a mile through Brooklyn streets when, glancing in the mirror above his head, Mr. Bruhl observed a blue sedan just behind him. He turned off into the next side street, and the sedan turned off too. Bruhl made another turn, and the sedan fol­lowed him. "Where are you going, dear?" asked Mrs. Bruhl.

.Mr Bruhl didn't answer her, he speeded up, he drove terrifically fast, he turned corners so wildly that the rear wheels swung around. A traffic cop shrilled at him. The younger daughter screamed. Bruhl drove right on, weaving in and out. Mrs. Bruhl began to berate him wildly. "Have you lost your mind, Sam?" she shouted. Mr. Bruhl looked behind him. The sedan was no longer to be seen. He slowed up. "Let's go home," he said. "I've had enough of this."

A month went by without incident (thanks largely to Mrs. Breithofer) and Samuel Bruhl began to be himself again. On the day that he was practically normal once more, Sluggy Pensiotta, alias Killer Lewis, alias Strangler Koetschke, was shot. Sluggy was the leader of the gang that had sworn to get Shoescar Clinigan. The papers instantly took up the gang-war story where they had left off. Pictures of Clinigan were published again. The slaying of Pensiotta, said the pa­pers, meant but one thing: it meant that Shoescar Clinigan was cooked. Mr. Bruhl reading this, went gradually to pieces once more.

After another week of skulking about, starting at every noise, and once almost fainting when an automobile back-

fired near him, Samuel Bruhl began to take on a remarkable new appearance. He talked out of the corner of his mouth, his eyes grew shifty. He looked more and more like Shoescar Clinigan. He snarled at his wife. Once he called her "Babe", and he had never called her anything but Minnie. He kissed her in a strange, new way, acting rough, almost brutal. At the office he was mean and overbearing. He used peculiar language. One night when the Bruhls had friends in for bridge — old Mr. Creegan and his wife — Bruhl suddenly appeared from upstairs with a pair of scarlet pyjamas on, smoking a cigarette, and gripping his revolver. After a few loud and incoherent remarks of a boastful nature, he let fly at a clock on the mantel, and hit it squarely in the middle. Mrs. Bruhl screamed. Mr. Creegan fainted. Bert, who was in the kitchen, howled. "What's the matta with you?" snarled Bruhl. "Ya bunch of softies."¹²

Quite by accident, Mrs. Bruhl discovered, hidden away in a closet, eight or ten books on gangs and gangsters, which Bruhl had put there. They included AlCapone,¹³ You can't Win, 10,000 Public Enemies and a lot of others; and they were all well thumbed. Mrs. Bruhl realized that it was high time something was done, and she determined to have a doc­tor for her husband. For two or three days Bruhl had not gone to work. He lay around in his bedroom, in his red pyjamas, smoking cigarettes. The office phoned once or twice. When Mrs. Bruhl urged him to get up and dress and go to work, he laughed and patted her roughly by the head. "It's a knockover,¹⁴ kid," he said. "We'll be sitting pretty. To hell with it."

The doctor who finally came and slipped into Bruhl's bedroom was very grave when he emerged. "This is a psycho­sis," he said, "a definite psychosis. Your husband is living in a world of fantasy. He has built up a curious defence me­chanism against something or other." The Doctor suggested that a psychiatrist be called in, but after he had gone Mrs Bruhl decided to take her husband out of town on a trip. The Maskonsett Syrup & Fondant Company, Inc., was very fine about it. Mr Scully said of course. "Sam is very valuable to us, Mrs Bruhl," said Mr Scully, "and we all hope he'll be all right." Just the same he had Mr Bruhl's accounts examined, when Mrs Bruhl had gone.

Oddly enough, Samuel Bruhl was amenable to the idea of going away. "I need a rest," he said. "You're right. Let's get the hell out of here." He seemed normal up to the time

they set out for the Grand Central and then he insisted on leaving from the 125th Street station. Mrs Bruhl took excep­tion ¹⁵ to this, as being ridiculous, whereupon her doting hus­band snarled at her. "God, what a dumb¹⁶ doll¹⁷ I picked," he said to Minnie Bruhl, and he added bitterly that if the heat¹⁸ was put to him it would be his own babe who was to blame. "And what do you think of that?" he said, pushing her to the floor of the cab.

They went to a little inn[2] in the mountains. It wasn't a very nice place, but the rooms were clean and the meals were good. There was no form of entertainment, except a Tom Thumb¹⁹ golf course and an uneven tennis court, but Mr Bruhl didn't mind. He said it was too cold outdoors, anyway. He stayed indoors, reading and smoking. In the evening he played the mechanical piano in the dining-room. He liked to play "More Than You Know" over and over again. One night, about nine o'clock he was putting his seventh or eighth nickel when four men walked into the dining-room. They were silent men, wearing overcoats, and carrying what appeared to be cases for musical instruments. They took out various kinds of guns from their cases, quickly, expertly, and walked over toward Bruhl, keeping step. He turned just in time to see them line up four abreast and aim at him. Nobody else was in the room. There was a cumulative roar and a series of flashes. Mr Bruhl fell and the men walked out in single file, rapidly, nobody having said a word.

Mrs Bruhl, state police, and the hotel manager tried to get the wounded man to talk. Chief Witznitz of the nearest town's police force tried it. It was no good. Bruhl only snarl­ed and told them to go away and let him alone. Finally, Commissioner O'Donnell of the New York City Police Depart­ment arrived at the hospital. He asked Bruhl what the men looked like. "I don't know what they looked like," snarled Bruhl, "and if I did know I wouldn't tell you." He was silent, a moment, then: "Cop!" he added, bitterly. The Commission­er sighed and turned away. "They're all like that," he said to the others in the room. "They never talk." Hearing this, Mr Bruhl smiled, a pleased smile, and closed his eyes.

NOTES

1. wagon-tongue: the pole of a wagon (дышло)

2. Brooklyn: a borough of New York City, on western Long Island

3. sedan: a type of closed automobile having two or four doors, and two seats, front and rear

4. Nemesis: in Greek mythology, the goddess of vengeance

5. Furies: in Greek mythology, the goddesses of vengeance, the Erinnyes or Eumenides, the furies Alecto, Tisi phone, and Megaer

6. bad actor (s/.): a criminal

7. moon: to wander about in an idle, listless manner

8. skip out (colloq.): to leave a place hurriedly

9. give it to (colloq.): to punish

10. put on the spot (s/.): to murder

11. cooked (s/.): finished, done with

12. softy (colloq.): a person who is soft or weak in body, character, or mind

13. Al Capone: Alphonse (Scarface) Capone, a notorious Chi­cago gangster of the twenties

14. It's a knockover (Am. E. sl.): there's nothing to worry about

15. take exception: to object

16. dumb (colloq.): stupid

17. doll (s/.): any girl or young woman

18. heat (s/.): force, pressure, coercion, as by torture

19. Tom Thumb: small in size, from a tiny hero of many English folk tales. Compare: мальчик-с-пальчик

EXERCISES