“What the hell is a misogynist–a guy that collects postage stamps, or something?”

“A misogynist, my dear Mr. Cyril Fortesque, née Henry Stubbs,” declaimed Allan White, “is a fellow who hates dames–that’s me.”

“Me, too,” said Fortesque. “‘Destructive, damnable, deceitful woman!’-Thomas Otway; The Orphan, Act iii, Scene 1.”

“Why did you ask? You were supposed to be reading the want ads, looking for a job. That is the trouble with you, Cyril, or at least one of the troubles; you permit your mind to wander, monkeylike; or can it be that someone is advertising for a misogynist? But, no; it can’t.”

“Listen to this:

 
WANTED: Men without family ties to join scientific expedition to be gone for two years; need some with scientific and some with seafaring experience; must be in excellent physical condition; misogynists preferred. Address R264, Morning Tribune.

Now what do you make of that?”

“I hope to make a job out of it,” replied White. “I have worn the seats out of two pair of pants waiting around in the offices of booking agents, hoping to get a part in some lousy show.”

“You answer it for both of us,” said Fortesque. “Having had one year in college, you handle the literary end of this act.”

“Do you suppose it can mean that this expedition is going someplace where there are no women? and for two years! At last Fortune smiles upon us!”

“And we must not shrink, Allan.

 

To be, or not to be: that is the question:

Whether ’t is nobler in the mind to suffer

The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,

Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,

And by opposing end them? To die:–”

 

“Shut up; I’m trying to write a letter to R264.”

“Hamlet, Act iii, Scene 1.”

“How should I start it? Is ‘Dear R264’ too familiar?”

Myron Perry, in his room at the Waldorf-Asteria, was answering the same ad. He had not been reading the Help Wanted columns of his Sunday paper because he needed a job; he did not. He was merely following a custom of long standing, for in the Classified Section of the Sunday paper he found humor, pathos, tragedy–the full gamut of human emotions: avarice, greed, faith, charity, hope, despair; and there was always an undercurrent of mystery; as, for example, an ad that read. “Mabel: Come home; all is forgiven. Mother,” might mean that Mabel was forgiven, or it might mean that it was safe for “Looey the Louse” to come out of hiding.

But when Myron Perry read “misogynists preferred,” he took his pen in hand; for Myron was a confirmed misogynist, and with reason. He had graduated from Annapolis with high honors; and then, when it was discovered that he had married while still a midshipman, he had been discharged. That was bad enough, but worse was to follow: his wife divorced him and married a lieutenant commander. The flutter of a skirt, now, was to Myron Perry as the waving of a red rag to a bull is supposed to be–but isn’t.

And away off across the continent Fate was conspiring in the patio of Miss Minerva Johnson on an eminence from which one can see Catalina on a clear day.

At a round, glossy, white, iron table with a glass top beneath which was a potted fern, sat Minerva and her three guests: Shanly Lawrence, Doris Carson, and Calida Doncella.

Shanly was pulchritudinous, twenty-five, Minerva’s secretary; and, like her employer, a confirmed man hater.

Doris and Calida had come to Hollywood as God’s gifts to Louis B., Darryl Zanuck, and what-have-you. They wanted to sweep into the Carthay Circle in ermines and things between cheering mobs of fans who had come to see them arrive for the premieres of their first starring vehicles; they wanted Oscars. What they got, and they were damn lucky at that, were jobs waiting on the Ares, the To-bes, and the Has-wases in the Beverly Hills Brown Derby.

Each was twenty-three, and Doris was super-pulchritudinous; Calida was super-super-pulchritudinous, a little Mexican girl, a dancer with a figure that was nobody’s business. Her psyche was one part chili and two parts tabasco, and was she vivacious! Neither she nor her tongue were often still simultaneously; she had what the French so naively term ants in the pants.

“I tal you,” she was saying, “thees is ’eavenly, no man! Nowhere I don’ look I see a man. I hate heem. My father, he beat me; my boy-friend, he steal all my money an’ spen’ it on a little bow-legged bitch; my manager, he try to seduce me. I hope to God I never see another man as long as I live.”

Hibiscus Washington, who had already brought the tea and was now passing some little cakes, looked at her with large brown eyes which reflected a certain disapproval of a remark so closely verging on sacrilege. Never to see a man!

“M-m-m, Miss Calida,” she said with a shake of her head, “Ah hopes you had yo’ fingers crossed when you said that wish, els’n it might come home to roost some day.”

“You are just a child, Hibiscus,” said Minerva; “you haven’t had any experience with men.”

Hibiscus grinned. “That’s what you think,’” she thought, as she went back to the kitchen; but she didn’t say anything. Twenty-one years on Central Avenue and pretty–and no experience of men!

Hibiscus giggled. “I feel just the same way as Calida,” said Doris Carson, “and I think any decent girl would who’d been chased around every studio back lot in Hollywood by a lot of lecherous morons, as I have. All men are wolves and wholly unnecessary.”

“I think we are all agreed,” said Minerva. “Shanly and I have each had most harrowing experiences with men. Personally, I hate the very sight of them. I should like to get away someplace where there wouldn’t be a single one of the odious creatures.”

“You tal me w’ere that place ees, I go quick; like that!” exclaimed Calida Doncella, snapping her fingers.

“I know just the place,” said Minerva: “The Naiad III. I’ve sailed her to Honolulu and back twice. Of course, I had a couple of men along; but Shanly and Hibiscus made the last trip with me, and they both learned the ropes. I’m sure the five of us could sail her anywhere in the world.”

“Wonderful!” exclaimed Doris. “When do we start?”

—

John Alexander was only forty; but he had already made one fortune, lost it during the depression, made another, and retired. He was a wealthy eccentric who liked to dig for things. Given a shovel and Yucatan, and he would have been perfectly happy but for the fact that there are many women in Yucatan. The fact that they were brown made no difference; they were women, and all women were anathematic to John Alexander since his wife had stuck nobly by him until he lost his money and then run out on him. Every time he thought of her, he could feel his blood pressure zoom. Whereupon he would drink another highball.

By appointment, Allan White, Cyril Fortesque, and Myron Perry met in John Alexander’s apartment on a Wednesday evening.

“Gentlemen,” he said, after they had introduced themselves all around, “I have selected you for an initial interview out of many applicants for the positions I advertised in Sunday’s Tribune. I was surprised and pleased by the great number that I received. I had no idea that there were so many misogynists in the world, or that such a large percentage of them were women.”

“Doubtless, those who answered your advertisement had ulterior designs,” said Cyril Fortesque;

“‘Men, some to business, some to pleasure take;

But every woman is at heart a rake.

–Pope.’”

“Quite true; quite true,” agreed Alexander. “They were probably women of very low character.

“‘Most women have no characters at all’–Pope,” quoted Fortesque.

“I see that you are a man after my own heart,” said Alexander: “and now let me explain my proposition. I am something of an amateur archeologist and a little more than an amateur yachtsman. I have sailed pretty much all over the world and have dug in many places. Recently, I heard of an island in the south seas where there are evidences of an ancient civilization far more advanced than that ever attained by the Polynesians. It is an uninhabited island; therefore, there are no women there. Need I say more?”

“It sounds perfect to me,” said Myron Perry.

Alexander got up and pushed a button in the wall. “We will discuss the details over a highball, gentlemen,” he said.

A moment later a colored man came in, pushing a wagon with glasses, bottles, charged water, and ice.

“This is James,” said Alexander; “he will be the fifth member of our expedition.”

“Is James a misogynist?” inquired Cyril Fortesque, facetiously.

“Is Ah a misogynist, suh? Ah is! That yaller gal Ah ma’ied knifed me, stole all mah savings, an’ run off with a prize fighter. Ah is a super-misogynist.”

—

The yacht Henry VIII passed through the Panama Canal a few weeks later and headed out across the vast Pacific, bearing five happy, carefree misogynists to the land of their dreams, to an Eveless Garden of Eden; to a place of peace, sans gabble, lipstick, red toenails, permanents, and perfume at forty dollars a drop; and after an uneventful cruise dropped anchor in a little natural harbor that indented the coast of a green, volcanic isle.

“This is Heaven,” exclaimed Myron Perry; “not a skirt; not even a grass skirt. Why should any man want to marry when he can find a place like this?”

“‘Every woman should marry–and no man.’–Disraeli.” quoted Fortesque.

The next day they started digging.

—

The Naiad had stopped at Honolulu just long enough to take on additional provisions; but even this had been too long–long enough to reveal a rift in the lute, the first discord in the sweet music that had prevailed for three heavenly weeks: Hibiscus had discovered a beautiful beach boy. As they sailed south, Hibiscus was a pariah among women. But she took it in her stride; she had memories.

“W’ich,” she said to herself in the privacy of the galley, “is a damn sight more’n they-all’s got.”

They sailed south aimlessly; they were not looking for land, for there there would be men.

“How Heavenly!” exclaimed Shanly Lawrence ecstatically and for the thousandth time; “the blue Pacific! So calm! So peaceful!” And the next day the Pacific turned a dull gray and stood up on end. The wind shrieked and howled through the rigging for three awful days, and the Naiad did everything but a barrel roll. Hibiscus came near achieving a lifelong ambition; she went almost white. She prayed; she even regretted the beach boy.

They all fought with sails until they were exhausted; and then the hurricane, just to show them what a waste of time it had been, picked up the mast and all the sails and carried them away with a wild, ungentlemanly whoop. That night five very terrified man haters crouched in the cabin and awaited death.

About midnight, the hurricane went helling off to pastures new; and when dawn peeked a pale eye over the eastern horizon, the ocean had returned to a more or less horizontal position.

The five dragged themselves wearily on deck to inspect the devastated area. A few sad rope ends trailed dejectedly in the ocean–all that was left of the rigging of the once trim little sloop.

“Well,” said Minerva Johnson, “we still have the auxiliary motor, and if land isn’t too far off we can–”

“Look!” exclaimed Shanly excitedly. “Land!”

They all looked, and sure enough there was land–a green volcanic isle not more than a mile away, and a gentle breeze was drifting the Naiad toward it.

“We’ll start the motor,” said Minerva, “and see if we can find a sheltered place to anchor.”

The motor started; and Minerva took the wheel to bring the Naiad about, as she was drifting toward the island stern first. The wheel spun, but nothing else happened. The sloop started out to sea again, ignoring the helm. They stopped the engine and investigated, to discover that they had lost the rudder during the storm. The Naiad was a helpless derelict.

Myron Perry, coming down to the beach for a swim before breakfast, saw something drifting out at sea. He called to the others and they came and joined him.

“It’s a derelict,” said Alexander.

“There’s someone on it.” said Allan White.

“We’d better row out and tow her in,” suggested Perry, “before she goes ashore.”

They rowed out, all five of them; and the women on the Naiad watched them come.

“Men!” sniffed Minerva.

“Men!” exclaimed Hibiscus.

As the boat approached the sloop, John Alexander said, “My God! a woman!”

“My God! five of ’em!” said Perry.

“‘A rag, a bone, and a hank of hair’–Kipling,” said Cyril Fortesque.

“One of ’em’s a niggah wench,” said James, and then he added. “Stay where you is, razor; don’ tempt me.”

The women on the deck of the Naiad were appraising the five men, four of them scornfully.

“One of dem mens is a culled ge’m’n,” said Hibiscus, arranging her hair.

“Man, false man, smiling, destructive man!” quoted Shanly Lawrence.

They might be false and destructive; but they were not smiling, as they pulled in alongside the sloop. John Alexander looked at Minerva Johnson. “Throw us a rope,” he said, brusquely, “and we’ll tow you into the harbor.”

Minerva’s “Thank you” might have been packed in dry ice. Hibiscus tried to throw a rope to them and got tangled up in it.

“Are there no men on board to do that?” demanded Myron Perry.

“Certainly not,” snapped Minerva, for all the world as though he had asked her if she had small pox or an illegitimate child.

“I know what happened to ’em,” ventured Allan White in a voice loud enough to be heard aboard the sloop; “they jumped overboard. Think of being cooped up on that thing with five women!”

The five men towed the Naiad into the little harbor, and the women dropped anchor alongside the Henry VIII. The men were tired and not a little irritable, for by now the sun was hot.

“Madam,” said John Alexander to Minerva, “you and your party will remain on board your yacht. If you want anything from shore, I will have it brought out to you.”

“If we want anything on shore, we’ll come and get it,” retorted Minerva.

“You will not,” snapped Alexander; “women are not allowed on this island.”

“Very well,” said Minerva icily; “and you will please understand that no men are allowed aboard my yacht.”

“It will be necessary for some of us to come aboard later to make needed repairs, so that you can get out of here as quickly as possible.”

“I shall stay here until the Naiad rots before I shall permit any man to come aboard, and we shall most certainly not step foot on your island.” In spite of herself, Minerva’s voice had gradually risen during this speech until, at the end, she knew that she sounded like a fishwife and that made her all the madder.

“Is that a promise?” demanded Myron Perry.

“‘As soon believe a woman or an epitaph, or any other thing that’s false’–Byron,” chanted Fortesque.

Shanly Lawrence looked over his head at the island. “A very lovely spot,” she said, “where ‘every prospect pleases, and only man is vile’–Reginald Heber.”

Hibiscus smiled coyly at James, but he gave her such a venomous look in return that she withdrew behind Minerva. “Dat’s de meanes’ lookin’ culled ge’m’n Ah almost nea’ly ever seen,” she remarked later.

“We shall find a suitable tree, fell it, and shape a new mast on shore; then we shall have to come on board and step it. I will not have you around here indefinitely. You had no business coming here in the first place.” John Alexander’s tone was definite, final, and frigid.

Calida leaned over the rail as the men started to pull away. She shook a fist at them. “You come on thees boat, I keel you,” she screamed: “we got plenty guns and bullets.”

“Oh, woman, woman! when to ill thy mind

Is bent, all hell contains no fouler fiend.

–Pope,” said Cyril Fortesque.

—

Weeks passed during which nothing but malignant looks passed between sloop and shore. The mast was completed; the day that the men planned to face bullets to step it dawned windless, stifling, and ominous. The sky was a greenish copper color.

“We are going to have a blow,” remarked Alexander.

“We are going to have a hell of a blow,” said Perry; “we’d better wait until it’s over.”

An hour later the full force of the hurricane bore down upon the island. When it was over, the Henry VIII lay bottom up two hundred feet in shore; beside it, with its back broken, lay the sloop Naiad.

Miraculously, no one had been injured.

Let us, with charity, draw an impenetrable veil across the ensuing eighteen months during which five misogynists and five man haters were compelled to live together on a lonely volcanic isle.

—

Excerpt from the log of the SS Westwind:

 

About ten o’clock this morning saw smoke arising from the island of Nui Papaya, supposed to be uninhabited. Stood in and sent boat ashore. Found castaways from the wrecked yachts Henry VIII and Naiad. They asked to have a ship sent with stores and provisions, a list of which they gave me. I offered to evacuate them, but they refused to leave island. There were fifteen people on the island: five men, five women, and five babies, one of them black.

—

Epilogue

by Cyril Fortesque, née Henry Stubbs

 

Woman’s at best a contradiction still.

–Pope