by Mark Twain

The Notorious Jumping Frog of Calaveras County (1865)
The Story of the Bad Little Boy (1865)
Cannibalism in the Cars (1868)
A Day at Niagara (1869)
Legend of the Capitoline Venus (1869)
Journalism in Tennessee (1869)
A Curious Dream (1870)
The Facts in the Great Beef Contract (1870)
How I Edited an Agricultural Paper (1870)
A Medieval Romance (1870)
My Watch (1870)
Political Economy (1870)
Science vs. Luck (1870)
The Story of the Good Little Boy (1870)
Buck Fanshaw's Funeral (1872)
The Story of the Old Ram (1872)
Tom Quartz (1872)
A Trial (1872)
The Trials of Simon Erickson (1872)
A True Story (1874)
Experience of the McWilliamses with Membranous Croup (1875)
Some Learned Fables for Good Old Boys and Girls (1875)
The Canvasser's Tale (1876)
The Loves of Alonzo Fitz Clarence and Rosannah Ethelton (1878)
Edward Mills and George Benton: A Tale (1880)
The Man Who Put Up at Gadsby's (1880)
Mrs. McWilliams and the Lightning (1880)
What Stumped the Bluejays (1880)
A Curious Experience (1881)
The Invalid's Story (1882)
The McWilliamses and the Burglar Alarm (1882)
The Stolen White Elephant (1882)
A Burning Brand (1883)
A Dying Man's Confession (1883)
The Professor's Yarn (1883)
A Ghost Story (1888)
Playing Courier (1891)
The Californian's Tale (1893)
The Diary of Adam and Eve (1893, 1905)
The Esquimau Maiden's Romance (1893)
Is He Living or Is He Dead? (1893)
The ￡1,000,000 Bank-Note (1893)
Cecil Rhodes and the Shark (1897)
The Joke That Made Ed's Fortune (1897)
A Story Without an End (1897)
The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg (1899)
The Death Disk (1901)
Two Little Tales (1901)
The Belated Russian Passport (1902)
A Double-Barreled Detective Story (1902)
The Five Boons of Life (1902)
Was It Heaven? Or Hell? (1902)
A Dog's Tale (1903)
The $30,000 Bequest (1904)
A Horse's Tale (1906)
Hunting the Deceitful Turkey (1906)
Extract from Captain Stormfield's Visit to Heaven (1907)
A Fable (1909)
The Mysterious Stranger (1916)



The Notorious Jumping Frog of Calaveras County



In compliance with the request of a friend of mine, who
wrote me from the East, I called on good-natured, garrulous
old Simon Wheeler, and inquired after my friend's friend,
Leonidas W. Smiley, as requested to do, and I hereunto append
the result. I have a lurking suspicion that Leonidas W.
Smiley is a myth; that my friend never knew such a person-
age; and that he only conjectured that if I asked old
Wheeler about him, it would remind him of his infamous
Jim Smiley, and he would go to work and bore me to death
with some exasperating reminiscence of him as long and as
tedious as it should be useless to me. If that was the
design, it succeeded.

I found Simon Wheeler dozing comfortably by the barroom
stove of the dilapidated tavern in the decayed mining
camp of Angel's, and I noticed that he was fat and bald-
headed, and had an expression of winning gentleness and
simplicity upon his tranquil countenance. He roused up,
and gave me good day. I told him that a friend of mine had
commissioned me to make some inquiries about a cherished
companion of his boyhood named Leonidas W. Smiley --Rev.
Leonidas W. Smiley, a young minister of the Gospel, who he
had heard was at one time a resident of Angel's Camp. I
added that if Mr. Wheeler could tell me anything about this
Rev. Leonidas W. Smiley, I would feel under many obligations
to him.

Simon Wheeler backed me into a corner and blockaded me
there with his chair, and then sat down and reeled off the
monotonous narrative which follows this paragraph. He never
smiled, he never frowned, he never changed his voice from
the gentle-flowing key to which he tuned his initial sentence,
he never betrayed the slightest suspicion of enthusiasm; but
all through the interminable narrative there ran a vein of
impressive earnestness and sincerity, which showed me plainly
that, so far from his imagining that there was anything rid-
iculous or funny about his story, be regarded it as a rey
important matter, and admired its two her( as men of trans-
cendent genius in finesse, I let him go on in his own way,
and never interrupted him once.

"Rev. Leonidas W. H'm, Reverend Le-well, there was a
feller here once by the name of Jim Smiley, in the winter of
'49--or maybe it was the spring of '50--I don't recollect
exactly, somehow, though what makes me think it was one or
the other is because I remember the big flume warn't finished
when he first come to the camp; but anyway, he was the
curiousest man about always betting on anything that turned
up you ever see, if he could get anybody to bet on the other
side; and if he couldn't he'd change sides. Any way that
suited the other man would suit him--any way just so's he
got a bet, he was satisfied. But still he was lucky, uncommon
lucky; he most always come out winner. He was always ready
and laying for a chance; there couldn't be no solit'ry thing
mentioned but that feller'd offer to bet on it, and take any side
you please, as I was just telling you. If there was a horse-race,
you'd find him flush or you'd find him busted at the end of
it; if there was a dog-fight, he'd bet on it; if there was a
catfight, he'd bet on it; if there was a chicken-fight, he'd
bet on it; why, if there was two birds setting on a fence, he
would bet you which one would fly first; or if there was a
camp-meeting, he would be there reg'lar to bet on Parson Walker,
which he judged to be the best exhorter about here, and so
he was too, and a good man. If he even see a straddle-bug
start to go anywheres, be would bet you how long it would
take him to get to--to wherever he was going to, and if you
took him up, he would foller that straddle-bug to Mexico but
what he would find out where he was bound for and how
long he was on the road. Lots of the boys here has seen that
Smiley, and can tell you about him. Why, it never made no
difference to him--he'd bet on any thing--the dangdest feller.
Parson Walker's wife laid very sick once, for a good while,
and it seemed as if they warn't going to save her; but one
morning he come in, and Smiley up and asked him how she
was, and he said she was considerable better--thank the Lord
for his infnite mercy--and coming on so smart that with the
blessing of Prov'dence she'd get well yet; and Smiley, before
he thought, says, "Well, I'll resk two-and-a-half she don't
anyway.'

"Thish-yer Smiley had a mare--the boys called her the fif-
teen-minute nag, but that was only in fun, you know, because
of course she was faster than that--and he used to win
money on that horse, for all she was so slow and always had
the asthma, or the distemper, or the consumption, or something
of that kind. They used to give her two or three hundred
yards' start, and then pass her under way; but always at the
fag end of the race she'd get excited and desperate like, and
come cavorting and straddling up, and scattering her legs
around limber, sometimes in the air, and sometimes out to
one side among the fences, and kicking up m-o-r-e dust and
raising m-o-r-e racket with her coughing and sneezing and
blowing her nose--and always fetch up at the stand just
about a neck ahead, as near as you could cipher it down.

"'And he had a little small bull-pup, that to look at him
you'd think he warn't worth a cent but to set around and
look ornery and lay for a chance to steal something. But as
soon as money was up on him he was a different dog; his
under-jaw'd begin to stick out like the fo'castle of a steam-
boat, and his teeth would uncover and shine like the furnaces.
And a dog might tackle him and bully-rag him, and bite him,
and throw him over his shoulder two or three times, and An-
drew Jackson--which was the name of the pup--Andrew Jackson
would never let on but what he was satisfied, and hadn't ex-
pected nothing else--and the bets being doubled and doubled
on the other side all the time, till the money was all up;
and then all of a sudden he would grab that other dog jest
by the j'int of his hind leg and freeze to it--not chaw,
you understand, but only just grip and hang on till they
throwed up the sponge, if it was a year. Smiley always come
out winner on that pup, till he harnessed a dog once that
didn't have no hind legs, because they'd been sawed off in a
circular saw, and when the thing had gone along far enough,
and the money was all up, and he come to make a snatch for
his pet holt, he see in a minute how he'd been imposed on,
and how the other dog had him in the door, so to speak,
and he 'peared surprised, and then he looked sorter discour-
aged-like, and didn't try no more to win the fight, and
so he got shucked out bad. He give Smiley a look, as much
as to say his heart was broke, and it was his fault, for put-
ting up a dog that hadn't no hind legs for him to take holt
of, which was his main dependence in a fight, and then he
limped off a piece and laid down and died. It was a good pup,
was that Andrew Jackson, and would have made a name for
hisself if he'd lived, for the stuff was in him and he had
genius--I know it, because he hadn't no opportunities to
speak of, and it don't stand to reason that a dog could make
such a fight as he could under them circumstances if he hadn't
no talent. It always makes me feel sorry when I think of
that last fight of his'n, and the way it turned out.

"Well, thiish-yer Smiley had rat-tarriers, and chicken cocks,
and tomcats and all them kind of things, till you couldn't
rest, and you couldn't fetch nothing for him to bet on but
he'd match you. He ketched a frog one day, and took him home,
and said he cal'Iated to educate him; and so he never done
nothing for three months but set in his back yard and learn
that frog to jump. And you bet you he did learn him, too.
He'd give him a little punch behind, and the next minute
you'd see that frog whirling in the air like a doughnut--
see him turn one summerset, or maybe a couple, if he got a
good start, and come down flat-footed and all right, like a
cat. He got him up so in the matter of ketching flies, and
kep' him in practice so constant, that he'd nail a fly every
time as fur as he could see him. Smiley said all a frog wanted
was education, and he could do 'most anything--and I believe
him. Why, I've seen him set Dan'l Webster down here on this
floor--Dan'l Webster was the name of the frog--and sing
out, "Flies, Dan'l, flies!' and quicker'n you could wink he'd
spring straight up and snake a fly off'n the counter there,
and flop down on the floor ag'in as solid as a gob of mud,
and fall to scratching the side of his head with his hind foot
as indifferent as if he hadn't no idea he'd been doin' any
more'n any frog might do. You never see a frog so modest
and straightfor'ard as he was, for all he was so gifted.
And when it come to fair and square jumping on a dead level,
he could get over more ground at one straddle than any animal
of his breed you ever see. Jumping on a dead level was his
strong suit, you understand; and when it come to that, Smiley
would ante up money on him as long as he had a red. Smiley
was monstrous proud of his frog, and well he might be, for
fellers that had traveled and been everywheres all said he
laid over any frog that ever they see.

"Well, Smiley kep' the beast in a little lattice box, and
he used to fetch him down-town sometimes and lay for a bet.
One day a feller--a stranger in the camp, he was--come
acrost him with his box, and says:

"'What might it be that you've got in the box?'

"And Smiley says, sorter indifferent-like, "It might be a parrot,
or it might be a canary, maybe, but it ain't--it's only just
a frog.'

"And the feller took it, and looked at it careful, and turned
it round this way and that, and says, "H'm--so 'tis. Well,
what's he good for?'
"
"Well,' Smiley says, easy and careless, "he's good enough
for one thing, I should judge--he can outjump any frog in
Calaveras County.'

"The feller took the box again, and took another long, parti-
cular look, and give it back to Smiley, and says, very delib-
erate, "Well,' he says, "I don't see no p'ints about that frog
that's any better'n any other frog.

"'Maybe you don't,' Smiley says. "Maybe you understand
frogs and maybe you don't understand 'em; maybe you've
bad experience, and maybe you ain't only a amature, as it
were. Anyways, I've got my opinion, and I'll resk forty dol-
lars that he can outjump any frog in Calaveras County.'

"And the feller studied a minute, and then says, kinder
sad-like, 'Well, I'm only a stranger here, and I ain't got no
fr(; but if I had a frog. I'd bet you.'

"And then Smiley says, "That's all right--that's all right--if
you'll hold my box a minute, I'll go and get you a frog.' And
so the feller took the box, and put up his forty dollars along
with Smiley's, and set down to wait.

"So he set there a good while thinking and thinking to him'
self, and then he got the frog out and prized his mouth open
and took a teaspoon and filled him full of quail-shot--filled
him pretty near up to his chin--and set him on the floor.
Smiley he went to the swamp and slopped around in the mud
for a long time, and finally he ketched a frog, and fetched
him in, and give him to this feller, and says:

"'Now, if you're ready, set him alongside of Danl, with his
fore paws just even with Danl's, and I'll give the word.'
Then he says, "One--two--three--git!' and him and the feller
touched up the frogs from behind, and the new frog hopped
off lively, but Dan'l give a heave, and hysted up his shoulders
--so--like a Frenchman, but it warn't no use--he couldn't
budge; he was planted as solid as a church, and he couldn't
no more stir than if he was anchored out. Smiley was a good
deal surprised, and he was disgusted too, but he didn't have
no idea what the matter was, of course.

"The feller took the money and started away; and when he
was going out at the door, he sorter jerked his thumb over
his shoulder--so--at Dan'l, and says again, very deliberate,
"Well,' he says, "I don't see no p'ints about ftat frog
that's any better'n any other frog.'

"Smiley he stood scratching his head and looking down at
Dan'l a long time, and at last he says, "I do wonder what in
the nation that frog throw'd off for--I wonder if there ain't
something the matter with him--he 'pears to look mighty
baggy, somehow.' And be ketched Dan'l by the nap of the
neck, and hefted him, and says, "Why blame my cats if he
don't weigh five pound!' and turned him upside down and he
belched out a double handful of shot. And then be see how
it was, and he was the maddest man--he set the frog down
and took out after the feller, but he never ketched him.
And--''

[Here Simon Wheeler heard his name called from the front
yard, and got up to see what was wanted.] And turning to me
as he moved away, he said: "Just set where you are, strangor,
and rest easy--I ain't going to be gone a second.”

But, by your leave, I did not think that a continuation of
the history of the enterprising vagabond Jim Smiley would be
likely to afford me much information concerning the Rev.
Leonidas W. Smiley, and so I started away.

At the door I met the sociable Wheeler returning, and he
buttonholed me and recommenced:

"Well, thish-yer Smiley had a yaller one-eyed cow that
didn't have no tail, only just a short stump like a bannanner,
and--”

However, lacking both time and inclination, I did not
wait to hear about the afflicted cow, but took my leave.

　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　1865



The Story of the Bad Little Boy



Once there was a bad little boy whose name was Jim--
though, if you will notice, you will find that bad little
boys are nearly always called James in your Sunday--school
books. It was strange, but still it was true, that this
one was called Jim.

He didn't have any sick mother, either--a sick mother who
was pious and had the consumption, and would be glad to
lie down in the grave and be at rest but for the strong love
she bore her boy, and the anxiety she felt that the world
might be harsh and cold toward him when she was gone.
Most bad boys in the Sunday books are named James, and
have sick mothers, who teach them to say, "Now, I lay me
down," etc., and sing them to sleep with sweet, plaintive
voice, and then kiss them good night, and kneel down by the
bedside and weep. But it was different with this fellow. He
was named Jim, and there wasn't anything the matter with
his mother--no consumption, nor anyng of that kind. She
was rather stout than otherwise, and she was not pious;
moreover, she was not anxious on Jim's account. She said if
he were to break his neck it wouldn't be much loss. She al-
ways spanked Jim to sleep, and she never kissed him good
night; on the contrary, she boxed his ears when she was
ready to leave him.

Once this little bad boy stole the key of the pantry, and
slipped in there and helped himself to some jam, and filled up
the vessel with tar, so that his mother would never know the
difference; but all at once a terrible feeling didn't come over
him, and something didn't seem to whisper to him, "Is it right
to disobey my mother? Isn't it sinful to do this? Where do bad
little boys go who gobble up their good kind mother's jam?"
and then he didn't kneel down all alone and promise never
to be wicked any more, and rise up with a light, happy heart,
and go and tell his mother all about it, and beg her forgive-
ness, and be blessed by her with tears of pride and thankful-
ness in her eyes. No; that is the way with all other bad boys
in the books; but it happened otherwise with this Jim, strange-
ly enough. He ate that jam, and said it was bully, in his sinful,
vulgar way; and he put in the tar, and said that was bully
also, and laughed, and observed "that the old woman would get
up and snort" when she found it out; and when she did find it
out, he denied knowing anything about it, and she whipped him
severely, and he did the crying himself. Everything about
this boy was curious--everything turned out differently with
him from the way it does to the bad Jameses in the books.

Once he climbed up in Farmer Acorn's apple trees to steal
apples, and the limb didn't break, and he didn't fall and
break his arm, and get tom by the farmer's great dog, and
then languish on a sickbed for weeks, and repent and become
good. Oh, no; he stole as many apples as he wanted and
came down all right; and he was all ready for the dog, too,
and knocked him endways with a brick when he came to tear
him. It was very strange--nothing like it ever happened in
those mild little books with marbled backs, and wiA pictures
in them of men with swallow--tailed coats and bell--crowned
hats, and pantaloons that are short in the legs, and women
with the waists of their dresses under their arms, and no
hoops on. Nothing like it in any of the Sunday--school books.

Once he stole the teacher's penknife, and, when he was afraid
it would be found out and be would get whipped, he slipped it
into George Wilson's cap--poor Widow Wilson's son, the moral
boy, the good little boy of the village, who always obeyed
his mother, and never told an untrutib, and was fond of his
lessons, and infatuated with Sunday-School. And when the
knife dropped from the cap, and poor George hung his bead
and blushed, as if in conscious guilt, and the grieved
teacher charged the theft upon him, and was just in the very
act of brining the switch down upon his trembling shoulders,
a white-haired, improbable justice of the peace did not sud-
denly appear in their midst, and strike an attitude and say,
"Spare this noble boy--there stands the cowering culprit! I
was passing the school door at recess, and, unseen myself, I
saw the theft committed!" And then Jim didn't get whaled, and
the venerable justice didn't read the tearful school a homily,
and take George by the hand and say such a boy deserved to
be exalted, and then tell him to come and make home with
him, and sweep out the office, and make fires, and run er-
rands, and chop wood, and study law, and help his wife do
household labors, and have all the balance of the time to play,
and get forty cents a month, and be happy. No; It would
have happened that way in the books, but it didn't happen
that way to Jim. No meddling old clam of a justice dropped
in to make trouble, and so the model boy George got
thrashed, and Jim was glad of it because, you know, Jim
hated moral boys. Jim said be was "down on them milksops."
Such was the coarse language of this bad, neglected boy.

But the strangest thing that ever happened to Jim was the
time he went boating on Sunday, and didn't get drowned,
and that other time that he got caught out in the storm when
he was fishing on Sunday, and didn't get struck by lightning.
Why, you might look, and look, all through the Sundayschool
books from now till next Christmas, and you would
never come across anything like this. Oh, no; you would find
that all the bad boys who go boating on Sunday invariably
get drowned; and all the bad boys who get caught out in
storms when they are fishing on Sunday infallibly get struck
by lightning. Boats with bad boyss in them always upset on
Sunday, and it always storms when bad boys go fishing on
the Sabbath. How this Jim ever escaped is a mystery to me.

This Jim bore a charmed life--that must have been the way of
it. Nothing could hurt him. He even gave the elephant in the
menagerie a plug of tobacco, and the elephant didn't knock the
top of his head off with his trunk. He browsed around the cup--
board after essence of peppermint, and didn't make a mistake
and drink aqua fortis. He stole his father's gun and went hunt--
ing on the Sabbath, and didn't shoot three or four of his fin-
gers off. He struck his little sister on the temple with his
fist when he was angry, and she didn't linger in pain through
long summer days, and die with sweet words of forgiveness upon
her lips that redoubled the anguish of his breaking heart. No;
she got over it. He ran off and went to sea at last, and didn't
come back and find himself sad and alone in the world, his loved
ones sleeping in the quiet churchyard, and the vine-embowered
home of his boyhood tumbled down and gone to decay. Ah! no; he
came home as drunk as a piper, and got into the station-house
the first thing.

And he grew up and married, and raised a large family, and brain-
ed them all with an axe one night, and got wealthy by all manner
of cheating and rascality; and now he is the infernalist wickedest
scoundrel in his native village, and is universally respected, and
belongs to the Legislature.

So you see there never was a bad James in the Sunday-school
books that had such a streak of luck as this sinful Jim with the
charmed life.


　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　1865



Cannibalism in the Cars



I visited St. Louis lately, and on my way West, after chang-
ing cars at Terre Haute, Indiana, a mild, benevolent--looking
gentleman of about forty--five, or maybe fifty, came in at one
of the way--stations and sat down beside me. We talked to-
gether pleasantly on various subjects for an hour, perhaps,
and I found him exceedingly intelligent and entertaining.
When he learned that I was from Washington, he immediately
began to ask questions about various public men, and
about Congressional affairs; and I saw very shcntly that I was
conversing with a man who was perfectly familiar with the
ins and outs of political life at the Capital, even to the ways
and manners, and customs of procedure of Senators and Rep-
resentatives in the Chambers of the national Legislature.
Presently two men halted near us for a single moment, and
one said to the other:

"Harris, if you'll do that for me, I'll never forget you, my
boy."

My new comrade's eye lighted pleasantly. The words had
touched upon a happy memory, I thought. Then his face set-
tled into thoughtfulness--almost into gloom. He turned to
me and said, "Let me tell you a story; let me give you a secret
chapter of my life--a chapter that has never been referred
to by me since its events transpired. Listen patiently,
and promise that you will not interrupt me."

I said I would not, and he related the following strange ad-
venture, speaking sometimes with animation, sometimes with
melancholy, but always with feeling and earnestness.


On the 19th of December, 1853, I started from St Louis on
the evening train bound for Chicago. There were only twenty-
four passengers, all told. There were no ladies and no children.
We were in excellent spirits, and pleasant acquaintancediips
were soon formed. The journey bade fair to be a happy one;
and no individual in the party, I think, had even the vaguest
presentiment of the horrors we were soon to undergo.

At 1I P.M. it began to snow hard. Shortly after leaving the
small village of Welden, we entered upon that tremendous
prairie solitude that stretches its leagues on leagues of
houseless dreariness far away toward the Jubilee Settlements.
The winds, unobstructed by trees or hills, or even vagrant
rocks, whistled fiercely, across the level desert, driving
the falling snow before it like spray from the crested waves
of a stormy sea. The snow was deepening fast; and we knew, by
the diminished speed of the train, that the engine was plow-
ing through it with steadily increasing difficulty. Indeed, it
almost came to a dead halt sometimes, in the midst of great
drifts that piled themselves like colossal graves across the
track. Conversation began to flag. Cheerfulness gave place to
grave concern. The possibility of being imprisoned in the snow,
on the bleak prairie, fifty miles from any house, presented
itself to every mind, and extended its depressing influence
over every spirit

At two o'clock in the morning I was aroused out of an uneasy
slumber by the ceasing of all motion about me. The appalling
truth flashed upon me instantly--we were captives in
a snow--drift! "All hands to the rescue!" Every man sprang to
obey. Out into the wild night, the pitchy darkness, the billowy
snow, the driving storm, every soul leaped, with the consc-
iousness that a moment lost now might bring destruction to
us all. Shovels, hands, boards--anything, everything that
could displace snow, was brought into instant requisition. It
was a weird picture, that small company of frantic men fighting
the banking snows, half in the blackest shadow and half
in the angry light of the locomotive's reflector.

One short hour sufficed to prove the utter uselessness of
our efforts. The storm barricaded the track with a dozen drifts
while we dug one away. And worse than this, it was discovered
that the last grand charge the engine had made upon the enemy
had broken the fore-and-aft shaft of the driving-wheel!
With a free track before us we should still have been helpless.
We entered the car wearied with labor, and very sorrowful.
We gathered about the stoves, and gravely canvassed our
station. We had no provisions whatever--in this lay our
cef distress. We could not freeze, for there was a good supply
of wood in the tender. This was our only comfort The discus-
sion ended at It in accepting the disheartening decision
of the conductor, that it would be death for any man to
attempt to travel miles on foot through snow like that, We
could not send for help, and even if we could it would
not come. We must submit, and await, as patiently as we
might, succor or starvation! I think the stoutest heart
there felt a momentary chill when those words were uttered.

Within the hour conversation subsided to a low murmur
here and there about the car, caught fitfully between the
rising and falling of the blast; the lamps grew dim; and die
majority of the castaways settled themselves among the flick-
ering shadows to think--to forget the present, if they could
--to sleep, if they might.

The eternal night--it surely seemed eternal to us--wore its
lagging hours away at last, and the cold gray dawn broke in
the east. As the light grew stronger the passengers began to
stir and give signs of life, one after another, and each in
turn pushed his slouched hat up from his forehead, stretched
his stiffened limbs, and glanced out of the windows upon the
cheerless prospect It was cheerless, indeed!--not a living
thing visible anywhere, not a human habitation; nothing but
a vast white desert; uplifted sheets of snow drifted hither
and thither before the wind--a world of eddying flakes shut-
ting out the firmament above.

All day we moped about the cars, saying little, thinking
much. Another lingering dreary night--and hunger.

Another dawning--another day of silence, sadness, wasting
hunger, hopeless watching for succor that could not come.
A night of restless slumber, filled with dreams of feasting
--wakings distressed with the gnawings of hunger.

The fourth day came and went--and the fifth! Five days
of dreadful imprisonment! A savage hunger looked out at
every eye. There was in it a sign of awful import--the
foreshadowing of a something that was vaguely shaping
itself in every heart--a something which no tongue dared
yet to frame into words.

The sixth day passed--the seventh dawned upon as gaunt
and haggard and hopeless a company of men as ever stood
in the shadow of death. It must out now! That thing which
had been growing up in every heart was ready to leap from
every lip at last! Nature had been taxed to the utmost--she
must yield. RICHARD H. GASTON of Minnesota, tall, cadaverous,
and pale, rose up. All knew what was coming. All prepared--
every emotion, every semblance of excitement was smother-
ed--only a calm, thoughtful seriousness appeared in the
eyes that were lately so wild.

"Gentlemen: It cannot be delayed longer! The time is at
hand! We must determine which of us shall die to furnish
food for the rest!"

MR. JOHN J. WILLIAMS of Illinois rose and said: "Gentle-
men--I nominate the Rev. James Sawyer of Tennessee."

MR. WM. R. ADAMS of Indiana said: I nominate Mr. Daniel
Slote of New York."

MR. CHARLES J. LANGDON: "I nominate Mr. Samuel A.
Bowen of St. Louis."

MR. SLOTE : "Gentlemen--I desire to decline in favor of
Mr. John A. Van Nostrand, Jun., of New Jersey."

MR. GASTON: "If there be no objection, the gentleman's
desire will be acceded to."

MR. VAN NOSTRAND objecting, the resignation of Mr. Slote
was rejected. The resignations of Messrs. Sawyer and Bowen
were also offered, and refused upon the same grounds.

MR. A. L, BASCOM of Ohio: "I move that the nominations
now close, and that the House proceed to an election by
ballot."

MR. SAWYER: "Gentlemen-- protest earnestly against these
proceedings. They are, in every way, irregular and unbe-
coming. I must beg to move that they be dropped at once,
and that we elect a chairman of the meeting and proper
officers to assist him, and then we can go on with the
business before us understandingly."

MR. BELL of Iowa: "Gentlemen--I object. This is no time
to stand upon forms and ceremonious observances. For more
than seven days we have been without food. Every moment
we lose in idle discussion increases our distress. I am
satisfied with the nominations that have been made--every
gentleman present is, I believe--and I, for one, do not
see why we should not proceed at once to elect one or
more of them. I wish to offer a resolution--
"
MR. GASTON: It would be objected to, and have to lie over
one day under the rules, thus bringing about the very delay
you wish to avoid. The gentleman from New Jersey--
"
MR. VAN NOSTRAND: "Gentlemen--I am a stranger among you;
I have not sought the distinction that has been conferred
upon me, and I feel a delicacy--"

MR. MORGAN of Alabama (interrupting) : "I move the previous
question,"

The motion was carried, and further debate shut off, of
course. The motion-- to elect officers was passed, and under
it Mr. Gaston was chosen chairman, Mr. Blake, secretary.
Messrs. Holcomb, Dyer, and Baldwin a committee on nommations,
and Mr. R. M. Howland, purveyor, to assist the committee in
making selections.

A recess of half an hour was then taken, and some little cau-
cusing followed. At the sound of the gavel the meeting assembl-
ed, and the committee reported in favor of Messrs. George Fer-
guson of Kentucky, Lucien Herrman of Louis iana, and W. Messick
of Colorado as candidates. The report was accepted.

MR. ROGERS of Missouri: "Mr. President--The report being
properly before the House now, I move to amend it by substi-
tuting for the name of Mr. Herrman that of Mr. Lucius
Harris of St. Louis, who is well and honorably known to us all.
I do not wish to be understood as casting the least reflection
upon the high character and standing of the gentleman from
Louisiana--Jar from it. I respect and esteem him as much as
any gentleman here present possibly can; but none of us
can be blind to the fact that he had lost more flesh during
the week that we have lain here than any among us--none
of us can be blind to the fact that the committee has been
derelict in its duty, either through negligence or a graver
fault, in thus offering for our suffrages a gentleman who,
however pure his own motives may be, has really less nutriment
in him--"

THE CHAIR: "The gentleman from Missouri will take his
seat. The Chair cannot allow the integrity of the committee
to be questioned save by the regular course, under the rules.
What action will the House take upon the gentleman's motion?"

MR. HALLiDAY of Virginia: "I move to further amend the
report by substituting Mr. Harvey Davis of Oregon for Mr.
Messick. It may be urged by gentlemen that the hardships
and privations of a frontier life have rendered Mr. Davis
tough; but, gentlemen, is this a time to cavil at toughness? Is
this a time to be fastidious concerning trifles? Is this a time
to dispute about matters of paltry significance? No, gentlemen,
bulk is what we desire, substance, weight, bulk--these
are the supreme requisites now--not talent, not genius, not
education. I insist upon my motion."

MR. MORGAN (excitedly) : "Mr. Chairman--I do most strenu-
ously object to this amendment. The gentleman from Oregon
is old, and furthermore is bulky only in bone--not in flesh.
I ask the gentleman from Virginia if it is soup we want in-
stead of solid sustenance? if he would delude us with shadows?
if he would mock our suffering with an Oregonian specter?
I ask him if he can look upon the anxious faces around him,
if he can gaze into our sad eyes, if he can listen to the
beating of our expectant hearts, and still thrust this famine-
stricken fraud upon us? I ask him if he can think of our des-
olate state, of our past sorrows, of our dark future, and still
unpityingly foist upon us this wreck, this ruin, this tottering
swindle, this gnarled and blighted and sapless vagabond from
Oregon's inhospitable shores? Never!" [Applause.]

The amendment was put to vote, after a fiery debate, and
lost. Mr. Harris was substituted on the first amendment. The
balloting then began. Five ballots were held without a choice.
On the sixth, Mr. Harris was elected, all voting for him but
himself. It was then moved that his election should be ratified
by acclamation, which was lost, in consequence of his
again voting against himself.

MR. RADWAY moved that the House now take up the remain-
ing candidates, and go into an election for breakfast. This
was carried.

On the first ballot there was a tie, half the members favor-
ing one candidate on account of his youth, and half favoring
the other on account of his superior size. The President gave
the casting vote for the latter, Mr. Messick. This decision
created considerable dissatisfaction among the friends of Mr.
Ferguson, the defeated candidate, and there was some talk of
demanding a new ballot; but in the midst of it a motion to
adjourn was carried, and the meeting broke up at once.

The preparations for supper diverted the attention of the
Ferguson faction from the discussion of their grievance for
a long time, and then, when they would have taken it up
again, the happy announcement that Mr. Harris was ready
drove all thought of it to the winds.

We improvised tables by propping up the backs of car-seats,
and sat down with hearts full of gratitude to the finest sup-
per that had blessed our vision for seven torturing days. How
changed we were from what we had been a few short hours be-
fore! Hopeless, sad-eyed misery, hunger, feverish anxiety,
desperation, then; thankfulness, serenity, joy too deep for
utterance now. That I know was the cheeriest hour of my event-
ful life. The winds howled, and blew the snow wildly about
our prison--house, but they were powerless to distress us
any more. I liked Harris, He might have been better done,
perhaps, but I am free to say that no man ever agreed with
me better than Harris, or afforded me so large a degree of
satisfaction. Messick was very well, though rather high-
flavored, but for genuine nutritiousness and delicacy of fi-
ber, give me Harris. Messick had his good points--I will not
attempt to deny it, nor do I wish to do it--but he was no more
fitted for breakfast than a mummy would be, sir--not a bit
Lean? why, bless me!--and tough? Ah, he was very tough! You
could not imagine it--you could never imagine anything like
it.

"Do you mean to tell me that--"

"Do not interrupt me, please. After breakfast we elected a man
by the name of Walker, from Detroit, for supper. He was very
good. I wrote his wife so afterward. He was worthy of all
praise. I shall always remember Walker. He was a little
rare, but very good. And then the next morning we had Mor-
gan of Alabama for breakfast He was one of the finest men
I ever sat down to--handsome, educated, refined, spoke several
languages fluently--a perfect gentleman--he was a perfect
gentleman, and singularly juicy. For supper we had that
Oregon patiarch, and he was a fraud, there is no question
about it--old, scraggy, tough, nobody can picture the reality.
I finally said, gentlemen, you can do as you like, but I will
wait for another election. And Grimes of Illinois said,
"Gentlemen, I will wait also. When you elect a man that has
something to recommend him, I shall be glad to join you
again." It soon became evident that there was general dissat-
isfaction with Davis of Oregon, and so, to preserve the good
will that had prevailed so pleasantly since we had had Harris,
an election was called, and the result of it was that Baker of
Georgia was chosen. He was splendid! Well, well--after that
we had Doolittle, and Hawkins, and McElroy (there was some
complaint about McElroy, because he was uncommonly short
and thin), and Penrod, and two Smiths, and Bailey (Bailey
had a wooden leg, which was clear loss, but he was otherwise
good), and an Indian boy, and an organ-grinder, and a gentle-
man by the name of Buckminster--a poor stick of a vagabond
that wasn't any good for company and no aocount for breakfast.
We were glad we got him elected before relief came."

"And so the blessed relief did come at last?"

"Yes, it came one bright, sunny morning, just after election.
John Muiphy was the choice, and there never was a better,
I am willing to testify; but John Murphy came home with us,
in the train that came to succor us, and lived to marry the
widow Harris--"

"Relict of--"

"Relict of Qur first choice. He married her, and is happy
and respected and prosperous yet Ah, it was like a novel, sir
--it was like a romance. This is my stopping--place, sir; I
must bid you good--by. Any time that you can make it con-
venient to tarry a day or two with me, I shall be glad to have
you. I like you, sir; I have conceived an affection for you. I
could like you as well as I liked Harris himself, sir. Good
day, sir, and a pleasant journey."


He was gone. I never felt so stunned, so distressed, so bewil-
dered in my life. But in my soul I was glad he was gone. With
all his gentleness of manner and his soft voice, I shuddered
whenever he turned his hungry eye upon me; was when I heard
that I had achieved his perilous affection, and that I stood
almost with the late Harris in his esteem, my heart fairly
stood still.

I was bewildered beyond description. I did not doubt his
word: I could not question a single item in a statement so
stamped with the earnestness of truth as his; but its dreadful
itails overpowered me, and threw my thoughts confusion. I saw
the conductor looking at me. I said, Who is that man?"

"He was a member of Congress once, and a good one. But
be got caught in a snow--drift in the cars, and like to have
been starved to death. He got so frost--bitten and frozen up
generally, and used up for want of something to eat, that he
was sick and out of his head two or three months afterward.
He is all right now, only he is a monomaniac, and when he
gets on that old subject he never stops till he has eat up that
whole car--load of people he talks about. He would have finished
the crowd by this time, only he had to get out here. He had got
their names as pat as A B C. When he gets all eat up but himself,
he always says: "Then the hour for the usual election for break-
fast having arrived, and there being no opposition, I was duly
elected, after which, there being no objections offered, I re-
signed. Thus I am here.'
"
I felt inexpressibly relieved to know that I had only been
listening to the harmless vagaries of a madman instead of the
genuine experiences of a bloodthirsty cannibal.

　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　1868



A Day at Niagara



Niagara Falls is a most enjoyable place of resort. The hotels
are excellent, and the prices not at all exorbitant. The oppor-
tunities for fishing are not surpassed in the country; in fact,
they are not even equaled elsewhere. Because, in other locali-
ties, certain places in the streams are much better than others;
but at Niagara one place is just as good as another, for the
reason that the fish do not bite anywhere, and so there is no
use in your walking five miles to fish, when you can depend
on being just as unsuccessful nearer home. The advantages
of this state of things have never heretofore been properly
placed before the public.

The weather is cool in summer, and the walks and drives
are all pleasant and none of them fatiguing. When yon start
out to "do" the Falls you first drive down about a mile, and
pay a small sum for the privilege of looking down from a
precipice into the narrowest part of the Niagara River. A
railway "cut" through a hill would be as comely if it had the
angry river tumbling and foaming through its bottom. You
can descend a staircase here a hundred and fifty feet down,
and stand at the edge of the water. After you have done it,
you will wonder why you did it; but you will then be too late.

The guide will explain to you, in his blood-curdling way,
how he saw the little steamer, Maid of the Mist, descend the
fearful rapids--how first one paddle-box was out of sight be-
hind the raging billows and then the other, and at what point
it was that her smokestack toppled overboard, and where her
planking began to break and part asunder--and how she did
finally live through the trip, after accomplishing the incred-
ible feat of traveling seventeen miles in six minutes, or six
miles in seventeen minutes, I have really forgotten which. But
it was very extraordinary, anyhow. It is worth the price of
admission to hear the guide tell the story nine times in suc-
cession to different parties, and never miss a word or alter
a sentence or a gesture.

Then you drive over to Suspension Bridge, and divide your
misery between the chances of smashing down two hundred
feet into the river below, and the chances of having the rail-
way-train overhead smashing down onto you. Either possibility
is discomforting taken by itself, but, mixed together, they
amount in the aggregate to positive unhappiness.

On the Canada side you drive along the chasm between long
ranks of photographers standing guard behind their cameras,
ready to make an ostentatious frontispiece of you and your
decaying ambulance, and your solemn crate with a hide on it,
which you are expected to regard in the light of a horse, and
a diminished and unimportant background of sublime Niagara;
and a great many people have the incredible effrontery or
the native depravity to aid and abet this sort of crime.

Any day, in the hands of these photographers, you may
see stately pictures of papa and mamma, Johnny and Bub and
Sis, or a couple of country cousins, all smiling vacantly, and
all disposed in studied and uncomfortable attitudes in their
carriage, and all looming up in their awe-inspiring imbecility
before the snubbed and diminished presentment of that maj-
estic presence whose ministering spirits are the rainbows,
whose voice is the thunder, whose awful front is veiled in
clouds, who was monarch here dead and forgotten ages be-
fore this hackful of small reptiles was deemed temporarily
necessary to fill a crack in the world's unnoted myriads, and
will still be monarch here ages and decades of ages after
they shall have gathered themselves to their blood-relations,
the other worms, and been mingled with the unremembering
dust.

There is no actual harm in making Niagara a background
whereon to display one's marvelous insignificance in a good
strong light, but it requires a sort of superhuman self--
complacency to enable one to do it.

When you have examined the stupendous Horseshoe Fall
till you are satisfied you cannot improve on it, you return to
America by the new Suspension Bridge, and follow up the
bank to where they exhibit the Cave of the Winds.

Here I followed instructions, and divested myself of all my
clothing, and put on a waterproof jacket and overalls. This
costume is picturesque, but not beautiful. A guide, similarly
dressed, led the way down a flight of winding stairs, which
wound and wound, and still kept on winding long after the
thing ceased to be a novelty, and then terminated long before
it had begun to be a pleasure. We were then well down
under the precipice, but still considerably above the level
of the river.

We now began to creep along flimsy bridges of a single
plank, our persons shielded from destruction by a crazy
wooden railing, to which I clung with both hands--not because
I was afraid, but because I wanted to. Presently the descent
became steeper, and the bridge flimsier, and sprays from the
American Fall began to rain down on us in fast increasing
sheets that soon became blinding, and after that our pro-
gress was mostly in the nature of groping. Now a furious
wind began to rush out from behind the waterfall, which
seemed determined to sweep us from the bridge, and scatter
us on the rocks and among the torrents below. I remarked
that I wanted to go home; but it was too late. We were al-
most under the monstrous wall of water thundering down
from above, and speech was in vain in the midst of such a
pitiless crash of sound.

In another moment the guide disappeared behind the deluge,
and, bewildered by the thunder, driven helplessly by the
wind, and smitten by the arrowy tempest of rain, I follow-
ed. All was darkness. Such a mad storming, roaring, and
bellowing of warring wind and water never crazed my ears
before. I bent my head, and seemed to my receive the At-
lantic on back. The world seemed going to destruction. I
could not see anything, the flood poured down so savagely.
I raised my head, with open mouth, and the most of the Am-
erican cataract went down my throat. If I had sprung a leak now
I had been lost. And at this moment I discovered that the bridge
had ceased, and we must trust for a foothold to the slippery
and precipitous rocks. I never was so scared before and sur-
vived it. But we got through at last, and emerged into the
open day, where we could stand in front of the laced and
frothy and seething world of descending water, and look at
it When I saw how much of it there was, and how fearfully
in earnest it was, I was sorry I had gone behind it.

The noble Red Man has always been a friend and darling of
mine. I love to read about him in tales and legends and ro-
mances. I love to read of his inspired sagacity, and his love
of the wild free life of mountain and forest, and his general
nobility of character, and his stately metaphorical manner of
speech, and his chivalrous love for the dusky maiden, and the
picturesque pomp of his dress and accoutrements. Especially
the picturesque pomp of his dress and accoutrements. When
I found the shops at Niagara Falls full of dainty Indian bead-
work, and stunning moccasins, and equally stunning toy fig-
ures representing human beings who carried their weapons in
holes bored through their arms and bodies, and had feet
shaped like a pie, I was filled with emotion. I knew that
now, at last, I was going to come face to face with the no-
ble Red Man.

A lady clerk in a shop told me, indeed, that all her grand
array of curiosities were made by the Indians, and that they
were plenty about the Falls, and that they were friendly, and
it would not be dangerous to speak to them. And sure enough,
as I approached the bridge leading over to Luna Island, I
came upon a noble Son of the Forest sitting under a tree, dil-
igently at work on a bead reticule. He wore a slouch hat and
brogans, and had a short black pipe in his mouth. Thus does
the baneful contact with our effeminate civilization dilute
the picturesque pomp which is so natural to the Inan udien
far removed from us in his native haunts. I addressed the
relic as follows:

"Is the Wawhoo--Wang--Wang of the Whack--a--Whack
happy? Does the great Speckled Thunder sigh for the war-
path, or is his heart contented with dreaming of the dusky
maiden, the Pride of the Forest? Does the mighty Sachem
yearn to drink the blood of his enemies, or is he satisfied
to make bead reticules for the pappooses of the paleface?
Speak, sublime relic of bygone grandeur--venerable ruin,
speak!"

The relic said:

"An' is it mesilf, Dennis HoUigan, that ye'd be takin' for a
dirty Ijin, ye drawlin', lantern--jawed, spider--legged divill
By the piper that played before Moses, I'll ate ye!"

I went away from there.

By and by, in the neighborhood of the Terrapin Tower, I
came upon a gentle daughter of the aborigines in fringed
and ded buckskin moccasins and leggins, seated on a bench
with her pretty wares about her. She had just carved out a
wooden chief that had a strong family resemblance to a
clothespin, and was now boring a hole Uirough his abdomen
to put his bow through. I hesitated a moment, and then ad-
dressed her:

"Is the heart of the forest maiden heavy? Is the Laughing
Tadpole lonely? Does she mourn over the extinguished council--
fires of her race, and the vanished glory of her ancestors?
Or does her sad spirit wander afar toward the huntinggrounds
whither her brave Gobbler--of--the--Lightnings is gone?
Why is my daughter silent? Has she aught against the paleface
stranger?"

The maiden said:

"Faix, an' is it Biddy Malone ye dare to be callin' names?
Lave this, or I'll shy your lean carcass over the cataract,
ye sniveling blaggard!"

I adjourned from there also.

"Confound these Indians!" I said. "They told me they were
tame; but, if appearances go for anything, I should say they
were all on the warpath."

I made one more attempt to fraternize with them, and only
one. I came upon a camp of them gathered in the shade of a
great tree, making wampum and moccasins, and addressed
them in the language of friendship:

"Noble Red Men, Braves, Grand Sachems, War Chiefs, Squaws,
and High Muck-a-Mucks, the paleface from the land of the
setting sun greets you! You, Beneficent Polecat--you, Devourer
of Mountains--you. Roaring Thundergust--you. Bully Boy with
a Glass eye--the paleface from beyond the great waters greets
you all! War and pestilence have thinned your ranks and des-
troyed your once proud nation. Poker and seven-up, and a vain
modern expense for soap, unknown to your glorious ancestors,
have depleted your purses. Appropriatmg, in your simplicity,
the property of others has gotten you into trouble. Misrep-
resenting facts, in your simple innocence, has damaged your rep-
utation with the soulless usurper. Trading for forty-rod whis-
ky, to enable you to get drunk and happy and tomahawk your
families, has played the everlasting mischief with the pict-
uresque pomp of your dress, and here you are, in the broad light
of the nineteenth century, gotten up like a rag-tag and bobtail
of the purlieus of New York. For shame! Remember your ances-
tors! Recall their mighty deedsl Remember Uncas!--and Red
Jacket!--and Hole in the Day!--and Whoopdedoodledo! Emulate
their achievements! Unfurl yourselves under my banner, noble
savages, illustrious guttersnipes--"

"Down wid him!" "Scoop the blaggard!" "Burn him!" Hang him!"
"Dhround him!"

It was the quickest operation that ever was. I simply saw a
sudden flash in the air of clubs, brick-bats, fists, bead-
baskets, and moccasins--a single flash, and they all appeared
to hit me at once, and no two of them in the same place. In the
next instant the entire tribe was upon me. They tore half the
clothes off me; they broke my arms and legs; they gave me a
thump that dented the top of my head till it would hold coffee
like a saucer; and, to crown their disgraceful proceedings and
add insult to injury, they threw me over the Niagara Falls, and
I got wet.

About ninety or a hundred feet from the top, the remains of
my vest caught on a projecting rock, and I was almost drowned
before I could get loose. I finally fell, and brought up in
a world of white foam at the foot of the Fall, whose celled
and bubbly masses towered up several inches above my head.
Of course I got into the eddy. I sailed round and round in
it forty-four times--chasing a chip and gaining on it--each
round trip a half-mile--reaching for the same bush on the
bank forty-four times, and just exactly missing it by a hair's-
breadth every time.

At last a man walked down and sat down close to that bush,
and put a pipe in his mouth, and lit a match, and followed
me with one eye and kept the other on the match, while
he sheltered it in his hands from the wind. Presently a puff
of wind blew it out. The next time I swept around he said:

"Got a match?"

"Yes; in my other vest. Help me out, please."

"Not for Joe."

When I came round again, I said:

"Excuse the seemingly impertinent curiosity of a drowning
man, but will you explain this singular conduct of yours?"

"With pleasure. I am the coroner. Don't hurry on my account.
I can wait for you. But I wish I had a match."

I said: "Take my place, and I'll go and get you one."

He declined. This lack of confidence on his part created a
coldness between us, and from that time forward I avoided
him. It was my idea, in case anything happened to me, to so
time the occurrence as to throw my custom into the hands
of the opposition coroner on the American side.

At last a policeman came along, and arrested me for disturbing
the peace by yelling at people on shore for help. The judge
fined me, but I had the advantage of him. My money was with
my pantaloons, and my pantaloons were with the Indians.

Thus I escaped. I am now lying in a very critical condition.
At least I am lying anyway--critical or not critical. I am hurt
all over, but I cannot tell the full extent yet, because the
doctor is not done taking inventory. He will make out my mani-
fest this evening. However, thus far he thinks only sixteen of
my wounds are fatal. I don’t mind the others.

Upon regaining my right mind, I said:

"It is an awful savage tribe of Indians that do the beadwork
and moccasins for Niagara Falls, doctor. Where are they from?"

"Limerick, my son."

　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　1869



Legend of the Capitoline Venus



　　　　　　　CHAPTER 1

　　[Scene-An Artist's Studio in Rome.]

"Oh, George, I do love you!"

"Bless your dear heart, Mary, I know that--why is your father
so obdurate?"

"George, he means well, but art is folly to him--he only under-
stands groceries. He thinks you would starve me."

"Confound his wisdom--it savors of inspiration. Why am I not
a money-making bowelless grocer, instead of a divinely gifted
sculptor with nothing to eat?"

"Do not despond, Georgy, dear--all his prejudices will fade
away as soon as you shall have acquired fifty thousand dol--"

"Fifty thousand demons! Child, I am in arrears for my board!"


　　　　　　　CHAPTER II

　　[Scene-A Dwelling in Rome.]

"My dear sir, it is useless to talk. I haven't anything a-
gainst you, but I can't let my daughter marry a hash of love,
art, and starvation--I believe you have nothing else to offer."

"Sir, I am poor, I grant you. But is fame nothing? The Hon.
Bellamy Foodle of Arkansas says that my new statue of Amer-
ica, is a clever piece of sculpture, and he is satisfied that
my name will one day be famous."

"Bosh! What does that Arkansas ass know about it? Fame's
nothing--the market price of your marble scarecrow is the
thing to look at. It took you six months to chisel it, and
you can't sell it for a hundred dollars. No, sir! Show me
fifty thousand dollars and you can have my daughter-- oth-
erwise she marries young Simper. You have just six months
to raise the money in. Good morning, sir."

"Alas! Woe is me!"


　　　　　　　CHAPTER III

　　　　[Scene-The Studio.]

"Oh, John, friend of my boyhood, I am the unhappiest of men."

"You're a simpleton!"

"I have nothing left to love but my poor statue of America--
and see, even she has no sympathy for me in her cold marble
countenance--so beautiful and so heartless!"

"You're a dummy!"

"Oh, John!"

Oh, fudge! Didn't you say you had six months to raise the
money in?"

"Don't deride my agony, John. If I had six centuries what
good would it do? How could it help a poor wretch without
name, capital, or friends?"

"Idiot! Coward! Baby! Six months to raise the money in--and
five will do!"

"Are you insane?"

"Six months--an abundance. Leave it to me. I'll raise it."

"What do you mean, John? How on earth can you raise such a
monstrous sum for me?"

"Will you let that be my business, and not meddle? Will you
leave the thing in my hands? Will you swear to submit to what-
ever I do? Will you pledge me to find no fault with my actions?"

"I am dizzy--bewildered--but I swear."

John took up a hammer and deliberately smashed the nose of A-
merica! He made another pass and two of her fingers fell to
the floor--another, and part of an ear came away--another, and
a row of toes was mangled and dismembered--an-other, and the
left leg, from the knee down, lay a fragmentary ruin!

John put on his hat and departed.

George gazed speechless upon the battered and grotesque night-
mare before him for the space of thirty seconds, and then
wilted to the floor and went into convulsions

John returned presently with a carriage, got the broken-
hearted artist and the broken--legged statue aboard, and
drove off, whistling low and tranquilly. He left the art-
ist at his lodgings, and drove and disappeared down the
Via Quitinalis with the statue.


　　　　　　　CHAPTER IV

　　　　[Scene--The Studio]

"The six months will be up at two o'clock to-day! Oh,
agonyl My life is blighted. I would that I were dead. I had
no supper yesterday. I have had no breakfast to-day. I dare
not enter an eating-house. And hungry?--don't mention it!
My bootmaker duns me to death--my tailor duns me--my
landlord haunts me. I am miserable. I haven't seen John since
that awful day. She smiles on me tenderly when we meet in
the great thoroughfares, but her old flint of a father makes
her look in the other direction in short order. Now who is
knocking at that door? Who is come to persecute me? That
malignant villain the bootmaker. I'll warrant. Come in!"

"Ah, happiness attend your highness--Heaven be propitious
to your grace! I have brought my lord's new boots--ah,
say nothing about the pay, there is no hurry, none in the
world. Shall be proud if my noble lord will continue to honor
me with his custom--ah, adieu!"

"Brought the boots himself! Don't want his pay! Takes his
leave with a bow and a scrape fit to honor majesty withall
Desires a continuance of my custom! Is the world coming to
an end? Of all the--come in!"

Pardon, Signore, but I have brought you new suit of clothes
for--"

"Come in!!!"

"A thousand pardons for this intrusion, your worship!
But I have prepared the beautiful suite of rooms below for
you--this wretched den is but ill suited to--"

"Come in!!!"
_
I have called to say that your credit at our bank, some
time since unfortunately interrupted, is entirely and most
satisfactorily restored, and we shall be most happy if you
will draw upon us for any--
"
"COME IN!!!"

"My noble boy, she is yours! She'll be here in a momenti
Take her--marry her--love her--be happy!--God bless you
both! Hip, hip, hur--

"COME IN!!!"

"Oh, George, my own darling, we are saved!"

"Oh, Mary, my own darling, we are saved--but I'll swear
I don't know why nor how!"


　　　　　　　CHAPTER IV
　　　　[Scene--A Roman Cafe]

One of a group of American gentlemen reads and translates
from the weekly edition of Il Slangwhanger di Roma as
follows:

Wonderful DiscoveryI--Some six months ago Signor
John Smitthe, an American gentleman now some years a rest"
dent of Rome, purchased for a trifle a small piece of ground
in the Campagna, just beyond the tomb of the Scipio family,
from the owner, a bankrupt relative of the Princess Bor
ghese. Mr. Smitthe afterward went to the Minister of the Puh
lie Records and had the piece of ground transferred to a
poor American artist named George Arnold, explaining that he
did it as payment and satisfaction for pecuniary damage oc-
cidentally done by him long since upon property belonging to
Signor Arnold, and further observed that he would make ad-
ditional satisfaction by improving the ground for Signor A.,
at his own charge and cost. Four weeks ago, while making
some necessary excavations upon the property. Signor Smitthe
unearthed the most remarkable ancient statue that has
ever been added to the opulent art treasures of Rome. It was
an exquisite figure of a woman, and though sadly stained
by the soil and the mold of ages, no eye can look unmoved
upon its ravishing beauty. The nose, the left leg from the
knee down, an ear, and also the toes of the right foot and
two fingers of one of the hands were gone, but otherwise the
noble figure was in a remarkable state of preservation. The
government at once took military possession of the statue,
and appointed a commission of art--critics, antiquaries, and
cardinal princes of the church to assess its value and deter-
mine the remuneration that must go to the owner of the
ground in which it was found. The whole affair was kept a pro-
found secret until last night. In the mean time the commis-
sion sat with closed doors and deliberated. Last night they
decided unanimously that the statue is a Venus, and the work
of some unknown but sublimely gifted artist of the third century
before Christ. They consider it the most faultless work of
art the world has any knowledge of.

At midnight they held a final conference and decided that
the Venus was worth the enormous sum of ten million francs!
In accordance with Roman law and Roman usage, the gov-
ernment being half--owner in all works of art found in the
Campagna, the State has naught to do but pay five million
francs to Mr, Arnold and take permanent possession of the
beautiful statue. This morning the Venus will be removed to
the Capitol there to remain, and at noon the commission will
wait upon Signor Arnold with His Holiness the Pope's order
upon the Treasury for the princely sum of five million francs
in gold!

Chorus of Voices.--"Luck! It's no name for it!"

Another Voice.--"Gentlemen, I propose that we immediately
form an American joint--stock company for the purchase
of lands and excavations of statues here, with proper
connections in Wall Street to bull and bear the stock."

All.--"Agreed."


　　　　　　　CHAPTER VI

[Scene--The Roman Capitol Ten Years Later]

"Dearest Mary, this is the most celebrated statue in the
world. This is the renowned "Capitoline Venus' you've heard
so much about. Here she is with her little blemishes "restored'
(that is, patched) by the most noted Roman artists--and the
mere fact that they did the humble patching of so noble a
creation will make their names illustrious while the world
stands. How strange it seems--this place! The day before I
last stood here, ten happy years ago. I wasn't a rich man
--bless your soul, I hadn't a cent And yet I had a good deal to
do with making Rome mistress of this grandest work of ancient
art the world contains."

"The worshiped, the illustrious Capitoline Venus--and
what a sum she is valued at! Ten millions of francs!"

"Yes--now she is,"

"And .oh, Georgy, how divinely beautiful she is!"

"Ah, yes--but nothing to what she was before that blessed
John Smith broke her leg and battered her nose. Ingenious
Smith!--gifted Smith!--noble Smith! Author of all our bliss!
Hark! Do you know what that wheeze means? Mary, that cub
has got the whooping--cough. Will you never learn to take care
of the children!"

THE END

The Capitoline Venus is still in the Capitol at Rome, and
is still the most charming and most illustrious work of ancient
art the world can boast of. But if ever it shall be your fortune
to stand before it and go into the customary ecstasies
over it, don't permit this, true and secret history of its origin
to mar your bliss--and when you read about a gigantic Petrified
Man being dug up near Syracuse in the State of New
York, or near any other place, keep your own counsel--and
if the Bamum that buried him there offers to sell to you at an
enormous sum, don't you buy. Send him to the Pope!

NOTE: The above sketch was written at the time the famous
swindle of the "Petrified Giant" was the sensation of the day in
the United States.

　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　1869



Journalism in Tennessee



The editor of the Memphis Avalanche swoops thus mildly down
upon a correspondent who posted him as a Radical:--"While he
was writing the first word, the middle, dotting his i's, cross-
ing his t's, and punching his period, he knew he was concocting
a sentence that was saturated with infamy and reeking with false-
hoods."

Exchange

I was told by the physician that a Southern climate would
improve my health, and so I went down to Tennessee, and got
a berth on the Morning Glory and Johnson County War Whoop as
associate editor. When I went on duty I found the chief editor
sitting tilted back in a three--legged chair with his feet on
a pine table. There was another pine table in the room and an-
other afflicted chair, and both were half buried under news-
papers and scraps and sheets of manuscript There was a wooden
box of sand, sprinkled with cigar stubs and "old soldiers,"
and a stove with a door hanging by its upper hinge. The chief
editor had a long--tailed black cloth frockcoat on, and white
linen pants. His boots were small and neatly blacked. He wore
a ruffled shirt, a large seal-ring, a standing collar of ob-
solete pattern, and a checkered neckerchief with the ends hang-
ing down. Date of costume about 1848. He was smoking a cigar,
and trying to think of a word, and in pawing his hair he rump-
led his locks a good deal. He was scowling fearfully, and I
judged that he was concocting a particularly knotty editorial
He told me to take the exchanges and skim through them and write
up the "Spirit of the Tennessee Press," condensing into the
article all of their contents that seemed of Interest

I wrote as follows:

SPIRIT OF THE TENNESSEE PRESS

The editors of the Semi--Weekly Earthquake evidently labor
under a misapprehension with regard to the Ballyhack railroad.
It is not the object of the company to leave Buzzardville off
to one side. On the contrary, they consider it one of the most
important points along the line, and consequently can have no
desire to slight it. The gentlemen of the Earthquake will of
course, take pleasure in making the correction.

John W. Blossom, Esq., the able editor of the Higginsville
Thunderbolt and Battle Cry of Freedom, arrived in the city
yesterday. He is stopping at the Van Buren House.

We observe that our contemporary of the Mud Springs
Morning Howl has fallen into the error of supposing that the
election of Van Werter is not an established fact, but he
will have discovered his mistake before this reminder reaches
him, no doubt. He was doubtless misled by incomplete election
returns.

It is pleasant to note that the city of Blathersville is endea-
voring to contract with some New York gentlemen to pave its
well--nigh impassable streets with the Nicholson pavement.
The Daily Hurrah urges the measure with ability, and seems
confident of ultimate success.

I passed my manuscript over to the chief editor for acceptance,
alteration, or destruction. He glanced at it and his face clouded.
He ran his eye down the pages, and his countenance grew por-
tentous, it was easy to see that something was wrong. Presently
he sprang up and said:

"Thunder and lighting! Do you suppose I am going to speak
of those cattle that way? Do you suppose my subscribers are
going to stand such gruel as that? Give me the pen!"

I never saw a pen scrape and scratch its way so viciously,
or plow through another man's verbs and adjectives so relent-
lessly. While he was in the midst of his work, somebody shot
at him through the open window, and marred the symmetry of
my ear.

"Ah," said he, "that is that scoundrel Smith, of the Moral
Volcano--he was due yesterday." And he snatched a navy
revolver from his belt and fired. Smith dropped, shot in the
thigh. The shot spoiled Smith's aim, who was just taking a
second chance, and he crippled a stranger. It was me. Merely
a finger shot off.

Then the chief editor went on with his erasures and inter-
lineations. Just as he finished then a hand--grenade came down
the stove--pipe, and the explosion shivered the stove into a
thousand fragments. However, it did no further damage, except
that a vacant piece knocked a couple of my teeth out.

"That stove is utterly ruined," said the chief editor.

I said I believed it was.

"Well, no matter--don't want it this kind of weather. I
know the man that did it I'll get him. Now, here is the way
this stuff ought to be written."

I took the manuscript It was scarred with erasures and inter-
lineations till its mother wouldn't have known it if it had
had one. It now read as follows:

SPIRIT OF THE TENNESSEE PRESS

The inveterate liars of the Semi--Weekly Earthquake are
evidently endeavoring to palm off upon a noble and chivalrous
people another of their vile and brutal falsehoods with regard
to that most glorious conception of the nineteenth centuryp
the Ballyhack railroad. The idea that Buzzardville was to be
left off at one side originated in their own fulsome brains--
or rather in the settlings which they regard as brains. They
had better swallow this lie if they want to save their aban
doned reptile carcasses the cowhiding they so richly deserve.
That ass. Blossom, of the Higginsville Thunderbolt and
Battle Cry of Freedom, is down here again sponging at the
van Buren.

We observe that the besotted blackguard of the Mud
Springs Morning Howl is giving out, with his usual prosperity
for lying, that Van Werter is not elected. The heaven--born
mission of journalism is to disseminate truth; to eradicate
error; to educate, refine, and elevate the tone of public morals
and manners, and make all men more gentle, more vir-->
tuous, more charitable, and in all ways better, and holier, and
happier; and yet this black--hearted scoundrel degrades his
great office persistently to the dissemination of falsehood,
calumny, vituperation, and vulgarity.

Blathersville wants a Nicholson pavement--it wants a jail
and a poorhouse more. The idea of a pavement in a one--horse
town composed of two gin--mills, a blacksmith shop, and that
mustard--plaster of a newspaper, the Daily Hurrah! The craw
ling insect, Buckner, who edits the Hurrah, is braying about
his business with his customary imbecility, and imagining
he is talking sense.

"Now that is the way to write--peppery and to the point
Mush--and--milk journalism gives me the fan-tods."

About this time a brick came through the window with a
splintering crash, and gave me a considerable of a jolt in
the back. I moved out of range--I began to feel in the way.
The chief said, "That was the Colonel, likely. I've been ex-
pecting him for two days. He will be up now right away."

He was correct. The Colonel appeared in the door a mo-
ment afterward with a dragoon revolver in his hand.
He said, "Sir, have I the honor of addressing the poltroon
who edits this mangy sheet?"

"You have. Be seated, sir. Be careful of the chair, one of
its lep is gone. I believe I have the honor of addressing
the putrid liar, Colonel Blatherskite Tecumesh?"

"Right, sir. I have a little account to settle with you.
If you are at leisure we will begin."

"I have an article on the "Encouraging Progress of Mora!
and Intellectual Development in America' to finish, but
there is no hur. Begin."

Both pistols rang out their fierce clamor at the same instant.
The chief lost a lock of his hair, and the Colonel's bullet
ended its career in the fleshy part of my thigh. The Colonel's
left shoulder was clipped a little. They fired again. Both
missed their mp this time, but I got my share, a shot in the
arm. At the third fire both gentlemen were wounded slightly,
and I had a knuckle chipped. I then said, I believed I would
go out and take a walk, as this was a private matter, and I
had a delicacy about participating in it further. But both
gentlemen begged me to keep my seat, and assured me that
I was not in the way.

They then talked about the elections and the crops while
they reloaded, and I fell to tying up my wounds. But pres-
ently they opened fire again with animation, and every shot
took effect--but it is proper to remark that five out of the
six fell to my share. The sixth one mortally wounded the Col-
onel, who remarked, with fine humor, that he would have to say
good morning now, as he had business uptown. He then inquired
the way to the undertaker's and left.

The chief turned to me and said, "I am expecting company to
dinner, and shall have to get ready. It will be a favor to
me if you will read proof and attend to the customers."

I winced a little at the idea of attending to the customers,
rat I was too bewildered by the fusillade that was still ring-
ing m my ears to think of anything to say.

He continued, "Jones will be here at three--cowhide him,
Gillespie will call earlier, perhaps--throw him out of the
wintow, Ferguson will be along about four--kill him. That is
all for to--day, I believe. If you have any odd time, you may
wnte a blistering article on the police--give the chief inspec-
tor rats. The cowhides are under the table; weapons fa the
drawer--ammunition there in the corner--lint and bandages
up there in the pigeonholes. In case of accident, go to Lancet,
the surgeon, down--stairs. He advertises--we take it out in
trade."

He was gone. I shuddered. At the end of the next three
hours I had been through perils so awful that all peace of
mind and all cheerfulness were gone from me. Gillespie had
called and thrown me out of the window. Jones arrived
promptly, and when I got ready to do the cowhiding he took
the job off my hands. In an encounter with a stranger, not fa
the bill of fare, I had lost my scalp. Another stranger, by the
name of Thompson, left me a mere wreck and ruin of chaotic
rags. And at last, at bay in the corner, and beset by an in-
furiated mob of editors, blacklegs, politicians, and despera-
does, who raved and swore and flourished their weapons
about my head till the air shimmered with glancing flashes
of steel, I was in the act of resigning my berth on the paper
when the chief arrived, and with him a rabble of charmed
and enthusiastic friends. Then ensued a scene of riot and
carnage such as no human pen, or steel one either, could de-
scribe. People were shot, probed, dismembered, blown up,
thrown out of the window. There was a brief tornado of
murky blasphemy, with a confused and frantic war--dance
glimmering through it, and then all was over. In five minutes
there was silence, and the gory chief and I sat alone and sur-
veyed the sanguinary ruin that strewed the floor around us.

He said, "You'll like this place when you get used to it."

I said, "I'll have to get you to excuse me; I think maybe I
might write to suit you after a while; as soon as I had had
some practice and learned the language I am confident I
could. But, to speak the plain truth, that sort of energy of
expression has its inconveniences, and a man is liable to
interruption. You see that yourself. Vigorous writing is calcu-
lated to elevate the public, no doubt, but then I do not like to
attract so much attention as it calls forth. I can't write with
comfort when I am interrupted so much as I have been to--day.
I like this berth well enou, but I don't like to be left here to
wait on the customers. The experiences are novel, I grant you,
and entertaining, too, after a fashion, but they are not judi-
ciously distributed. A gentleman shoots at you through die
window and cripples me; a bombshell comes down the stovepipe
for your gratification and sends the stove door down my
throat; a friend drops in to swap compliments with you, and
freckles me with bullet--holes till my sldn won't hold my prin-
ciples; you go to dinner, and Jones comes with his cowhide,
Gillespie throws me out of the window, Thompson tears all
my clothes off, and an entire stranger takes my scalp with the
easy freedom of an old acquaintance; and in less than five
minutes all the blackguards in the country arrive in their war-
paint, and proceed to scare the rest of me to death with their
tomahawks. Take it altogether, I never had such a spirited
time in all my life as I have had to--day. No; I like you, and
I like your calm unruffled way of explaining things to the
customers, but you see I am not used to it. The Southern heart
is too impulsive; Southern hospitality is too lavish with the
stranger. The paragraphs which I have written to--day, and
into whose cold sentences your masterly hand has iiffused
the fervent spirit of Tennesseean journalism, will wake up an-
other nest of hornets. All that mob of editors will come--and
they will come hungry, too, and want somebody for breakfast.
I shall have to bid you adieu. I decline to be present at
these festivities. I came South for my health, I will go back
on the same errand, and suddenly. Tennesseean journalism is
too stirring for me."

After which we parted with mutual regret, and I took
apartments at the hospitaL

　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　1869



A Curious Dream
CONTAINING A MORAL



Night before last I had a singular dream. I seemed to be
sitting on a doorstep (in no particular city perhaps) ruminat-
ing appeared to be about twelve or one o'clock. The weather
was balmy and delicious. human There was no sound m the air,
not even a footstep. There was no sound of any nd to emphasize
the dead stillness, except the ocional hollow barking of a dog
in the distance and the a further dog. Presently up the street
resently up the street. I heard a bony clack-clacking, and guess-
ed it was the castanets of a serenading party. In a minute more
a tall skeleton, hooded, and half clad in a tattered and moldy
shroud, whose shreds were flapping about the ribby latticework
of its person, swung by me with a stately stride and disappear-
ed in the gray gloom of the starlight. It had a broken and worm-
eaten coffin on its shoulder and a bundle of something in its
hand. I knew what the clack-clacking was then; it was this par-
ty's joints working together, and his elbows knocking against
his sides as he walked. I may say I was surprised. Before I
could collect my thouts and enter upon any speculations as to
what this apparation might portend, I beard another one coming
--for I recognized his clack-clack. He had two-thirds of a
coffin on his shoulder, and some foot and head boards under his
arm. I mightily wanted to peer under his hood and speak to him,
but when he turned and smiled upon me with his cavernous sock-
ets and his projecting grin as he went by, I thought I would
not detain him. He was hardly gone when I heard the clacking
again, and another one issued from the shadowy halflight.
This one was bending under a heavy gravestone, and dragging
a shabby coffin after him by a string. When be got to me be
gave me a steady look for a moment or two, and then rounded
to and backed up to me saying:

"Ease this down for a fellow, will you?"

I eased the gravestone down till it rested on the ground, and
in doing so noticed that it bore the name of "John Baxter
Copmanhurst," with "May, 1839," as the date of his death.
Deceased sat wearily down by me, and wiped his os frontis
with his major maxillary--chiefly from former habit I judged,
for I could not see that he brought away any perspiration.
"It is too bad, too bad," said he, drawing the remnant of
the shroud about him and leaning his jaw pensively on his
hand. Then he put his left foot up on his knee and fell to
scratching his anklebone absently with a rusty nail which he
got out of his coffin.

"What is too bad, friend?"

"Oh, everything, everything. I almost wish I never had
died."

"You surprise me. Why do you say this? Has anything
gone wrong? What is the matter?"

"Matter! Look at this shroud--rags. Look at this gravestone,
all battered up. Look at this disgraceful old coffin. All
a man's property going to ruin and destruction before his
eyes, and ask him if anything is wrong? Fire and brimstone!"

"Calm yourself, calm yourself," I said. "It is too bad--it is
certainly too bad, but then I had not supposed that you would
much mind such matters, situated as you are."

"Well, my dear sir, I do mind them. My pride is hurt, and
my comfort is impaired--destroyed, I might say. I will state
my case--I will put it to you in such a way that you can
comprehend it, if you will let me," said the poor skeleton,
tilting the hood of his shroud back, as if he were clearing for
action, and thus unconsciously giving himself a jaunty and
festive air very much at variance with the grave character of
his position in life--so to speak--and in prominent contrast
with his distressful mood.

"Proceed," said I.

"I reside in the shameful old graveyard a block or two
above you here, in this street--there, now, I just expected that
cartilage would let gol--third rib from the bottom, friend,
hitch the end of it to my spine with a string, if you have got
such a thing about you, though a bit of silver wire is a deal
pleasanter, and more durable and becoming, if one keeps it
polished--to think of shredding out and going to pieces in
this way, just on account of the indiiference and neglect of
one's posterity!"--and the poor ghost grated his teeth in a
way that gave me a wrench and a shiver--for the effect is
mightily increased by the absence of muffling flesh and
cuticle. "I reside in that old graveyard, and have for these
thirty years; and I tell you things are changed since I first
laid this old tired frame there, and turned over, and stretched
out for a long sleep, with a delicious sense upon me of being
done with bother, and grief, and anxiety, and doubt, and fear,
forever and ever, and listening with comfortable and increasing
satisfaction to the sexton's work, from the startling clatter
of his first spadeful on my coffin till it dulled away to the
faint platting that shaped the roof of my new home--delicious!
My! I wish you could try it to-night!" and out of my
deceased fetched me a rattling slap with a bony hand.

"Yes, sir, thirty years ago I laid me down there, and was hap-
py. For it was out in the country then--out in the breezy, flow-
ery, grand old woods, and the lazy winds gossiped with the leaves,
and the squirrels capered over us and around us, and the creeping
things visited us, and the birds filled the tranquil solitude
with music. Ah, it was worth ten years of a man's life to be
dead then! Everything was pleasant. I was in a good neighbor-
hood, for all the dead people that lived near me belonged to
the best families in the city. Our posterity appeared to think
the world of us. They kept our graves in the very best condi-
tion; the fences were always in faultless repair, head-boards
were kept painted or whitewashed, and were replaced with new
ones as soon as they began to look rusty or decayed; monuments
were kept upright, railings intact and bright, the rose-bushes
and shrubbery trimmed, trained, and free from blemish, the
walks clean and smooth and graveled. But that day is gone by.
Our descendants have forgotten us. My grandson lives in a
stately house built with money made by these old hands of
mine, and I sleep in a neglected grave with invading vermin
that gnaw my shroud to build them nests withall I and friends
that lie with me founded and secured the prosperity of this
fine city, and the stately bantling of our loves leaves us to
rot in a dilapidated cemetery which neighbors curse and
strangers scoff at. See the difference between the old time
and this--for instance: Our graves are all caved in now; our
head--boards have rotted away and tumbled down; our railings
reel this way and that, with one foot in the air, after a
fashion of unseemly levity; our monuments lean weay, and
our gravestones bow their heads discouraged; there be no
adornments any more--no roses, nor shrubs, nor graveled
walks, nor anything that is a comfort to the eye; and even
the paintless old board fence that did make a show of hold-
ing us sacred from companionship with beasts and the defile-
ment of heedless feet, has tottered till it overhangs the
street, and only advertises the presence of our dismal rest-
ingplace and invites yet more derision to it. And now we cannot
hide our poverty and tatters in the friendly woods, for the
city has stretched its withering arms abroad and taken us in,
and all that remains of the cheer of our old home is the cluster
of lugubrious forest trees that stand, bored and weary of a
city life, with their feet in our coffins, looking into the hazy
distance and wishing they were there. I tell you it is disgrace-
ful!

"You begin to comprehend--you begin to see how it is. While
our descendants are living sumptuously on our money, right
around us in the city, we have to fight hard to keep skull
and bones together. Bless you, there isn't a grave in our
cemetery that doesn't leak--not one. Every time it rains in
the night we have to climb out and roost in the trees--and
sometimes we are wakened suddenly by the chilly water trickl-
ing down the back of our necks. Then I tell you there is a
general heaving up of old graves and kicking over of old mon-
uments, and scampering of old skeletons for the trees! Bless
me, if you had gone along there some such nights after
twelve you might have seen as many as fifteen of us roost-
ing on one limb, with our joints rattling drearily and the
wind wheezing through our ribs! Many a time we have
perched there for three or four dreary hours, and then come
down, stiff and chilled through and drowsy, and borrowed
each other's skulls to bail out our graves with--if you will
glance up in my mouth now as I tilt my head bac you can
see that my head-piece is half full of old dry sediment--
how top-heavy and stupid it makes me sometimes! Yes, sir,
many a time if you had happened to come along just before
the dawn you'd have caught us bailing out the graves and
hanging our shrouds on the fence to dry. Why, I had an ele-
gant shroud stolen from there one morning--think a party by
the name of Smith took it, that resides in a plebeian grave-
yard over yonder--I think so because the first time I ever
saw him he hadn't anything on but a check shirt, md the last
time I saw him, which was at a social ga&ering in the new
cemetery, he was the best--dressed corpse in the company
and it is a significant fact that he left when he saw me;
and presently an old woman from here missed her coffin--she
generally took it with her when she went anywhere, because
she was liable to take cold and bring on the spasmodic rheu-
matism that originally killed her if she exposed herself to
the night air much. She was named Hotchkiss--Anna Matilda
Hotchkiss--you might know her? She has two upper front teeth,
is tall, but a good deal inclined to stoop, one rib on the
left side gone, has one shred of rusty hair hanging from the
left side of her head, and one little tuft just above and a
little forward of her right ear, has her underjaw wired on one
side where it had worked loose, small bone of left forearm
gone--lost in a fight--has a kind of swagger in her gait and a
"gallus* way of going with her arms akimbo and her nostrils in
the air--has been pretty free and easy, and is all damaged
and battered up till she looks like a queensware crate in
ruins --maybe you have met her?"

"God forbid!" I involuntarily ejaculated, for somehow I was
not looking for that form of question, and it caught me a
little off my guard. But I hastened to make amends for my
rudeness, and say, "I simply meant I had not had the honor
--for I would not deliberately speak discourteously of a friend
of yours. You were saying that you were robbed--and it
was a shame, too--but it appears by what is left of the shroud
you have on that it was a costly one in its day. How did--"

A most ghastly expression began to develop among the de-
cayed features and shriveled integuments of my guest's face,
and I was beginning to grow uneasy and distressed, when he
told me he was only working up a deep, sly smile, with a
wink in it, to suggest that about the time he acquired his
present garment a ghost in a neighboring cemetery missed
one. This reassured me, but I begged him to confine himself
to speech thenceforth, because his facial expression was
uncertain. Even with the most elaborate care it was liable to
miss fire. Smiling should especially be avoided. What he
might honestly consider a shining success was likely to strike
me in a very different light. I said I liked to see a skeleton
cheerful, even decorously playful, but I did not think smiling
was a skeleton's best hold.

"Yes, friend," said the poor skeleton, "the facts are just as
I have given them to you. Two of these old graveyards--the
one that I resided in and one further along--have been delib-
erately neglected by our descendants of to-day until there
is no occupying them any longer. Aside from the osteological
discomfort of it--and that is no light matter this rainy
weather--the present state of things is ruinous to property.
We have got to move or be content to see our effects wasted
away and utterly destroyed.

Now, you will hardly believe it, but it is true, nevertheless,
that there isn't a single coffin in good repair among all my
acquaintance--now that is an absolute fact. I do not refer to
low people who come in a pine box mounted on an express--wagon,
but I am talking about your high--toned, silver--mounted burial
--case, your monumental sort, that travel under black plumes
at the head of a procession and have choice of cemetery lots--
I mean folks like the Jarvises, and the Bledsoes and Burlings,
and such. They are all about ruined. The most substantial peo-
ple in our set, they were. And now look at them--utterly used
up and povertystricken. One of the Bledsoes actually traded
his monument to a late barkeeper for some fresh shavings to
put under his head. I tell you it speaks volumes, for there
is nothing a corpse takes so much pride in as his monument.
He loves to read the inscription. He comes after a while to
believe what it says himself, and then you may see him sitting
on the fence night after night enjoying it. Epitaphs are cheap,
and they do a poor chap a world of good after he is dead, ex-
pecially if he had hard luck while he was alive. I wish they
were used more. Now I don't complain, but confidentially I do
think it was a little shabby in my descendants to give me no-
thing but this old slab of a gravestone--and all the more that
there isn't a compliment on it. It used to have

"GONE TO HIS JUST REWARD"

on it, and I was proud when I first saw it, but by and by I
noticed that whenever an old friend of mine came along he
would hook his chin on the railing and pull a long face and
read along down till he came to that, and then he would
chuckle to himself and walk off, looking satisfied and com-
fortable. So I scratched it off to get rid of those fools. But
a dead man always takes a deal of pride in his monument.
Yonder goes half a dozen of the Jarvises now, with the family
monument along. And Smithers and some hired specters
went by with his awhile ago. Hello, Higgins, good--by, old
friend I That's Meredith Higgins--died in '44--belongs to
our set in the cemetery--fine old family--great--grandmother
was an Injun--I am on the most familiar terms with him--he
didn't hear me was the reason he didn't answer me. And I
am sorry, too, because I would have liked to introduce you*
You would admire him. He is the most disjointed, swaybacked,
and generally distorted old skeleton you ever saw,
but he is full of fun. When he laughs it sounds like rasping
two stones together, and he always starts it off with a cheery
screech like raking a nail across a window-pane. Hey, Jones!
That is old Columbus Jones--shroud cost four hundred dollars
--entire trousseau, including monument, twenty--seven
hundred. This was in the spring of '26. It was enormous style
for those days. Dead people came all the way from the Alle-
ghanies to see his things--the party that occupied the grave
next to mine remembers it well. Now do you see that individual
going along with a piece of a head-board under his arm,
one leg-bone below his knee gone, and not a thing in the
world on? That is Barstow Dalhousie, and next to Columbus
Jones he was the most sumptuously outfitted person that ever
entered our cemetery. We are all leaving. We cannot tolerate
the treatment we are receiving at the hands of our descendants.
They open new cemeteries, but they leave us to our ignominy.
They mend the streets, but they never mend anything
that is about us or belongs to us. Look at that coffin
of mine--yet I tell you in its day it was a piece of furniture
that would have atacted attention in any drawing--room in
this city. You may have it if you want it--I can't afford to
repair it. Put a new bottom in her, and part of a new top, and
a bit of fresh lining along the left side, and you'll find her
about comfortable as any receptacle of her species you
ever tried. No thanks--no, don't mention it--you have been
civil to me, and I would give you all the property I have got
before I would seem ungrateful. Now this winding--sheet is a
kind of a sweet thing in its way, if you would like to-- No?
Well, just as you say, but I wished to be fair and liberal
--there's nothing mean about me. Good--by, friend, I must be
going. I may have a good way to go to--night--don't know. I
only know one thing for certain, and that is that I am on the
emigrant trail now, and I'll never sleep in that crazy old
cemetery again. I will travel till I find respectable quarters,
if I have to hoof it to New Jersey. All the boys are going.
It was decided in public conclave, last night, to emigrate,
and by the time the sun rises there won't be a bone left in
our old habitations. Such cemeteries may suit my surviving
friends, but they do not suit the remains that have the honor
to make these remarks. My opinion is the general opinion. If
you doubt it, go and see how the departing ghosts upset things
before they sted. They were almost riotous in their demonstra-
tions of distaste. Hello, here are some of the Bledsoes, and
if you will give me a lift with this tombstone I guess I will
join company and jog along with them--mighty respectable old
family, the Bledsoes, and used to always come out in sixhorse
hearses and all that sort of thing fifty years ago when I
walked these streets in daylight. Good--by, friend."

And with his gravestone on his shoulder he joined the
grisly procession, dragging his damaged coffin after him,
for notwithstanding he pressed it upon me so earnestly, I
utterly refused his hospitality. I suppose that for as much
as two hours these sad outcasts went clacking by, laden with
their dismal effects, and all that time I sat pitying them.
One or two of the youngest and least dilapidated among them
inquired about midnight trains on the railways, but the rest
seemed unacquainted with that mode of travel, and merely
asked about common public roads to various towns and cities,
some of which are not on the map now, and vanished from
it and from the earth as much as thirty years ago, and
some few of them never had existed anywhere but on maps,
and private ones in real--estate agencies at that. And they
asked about the condition of the cemeteries in these towns
and cities, and about the reputation the citizens bore as to
reverence for the dead.

This whole matter interested me deeply, and likewise com-
pelled my sympathy for these homeless ones. And it all
seeming real, and I not knowing it was a dream, I mentioned
to one shrouded wanderer an idea that had entered my head
to publish an account of this curious and very sorrowful
exodus, but said also that I could not describe it truthfully,
and just as it occurred, without seeming to trifle with a grave
subject and exhibit an irreverence for the dead that would
shock and distress their surviving friends. But this bland and
stately remnant of a former citizen leaned him far over my
gate and whispered in my ear, and said:

"Do not let that disturb you. The community that can stand
such graveyards as those we are emigrating from can stand
anything a body can say about the neglected and forsaken
dead that lie in them."

At that very moment a cock crowed, and the weird proces-
sion vanished and left not a shred or a bone behind. I
awoke, and found myself lying with my head out of the bed
and "sagging" downward considerably--a position favorable
to dreaming dreams with morals in them, maybe, but not
poetry.

NOTE The reader is assured that if the cemeteries in his town
are kept in good order, this Dream is not leveled at his town
at all, but is leveled particularly and venomously at the next
town.

　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　1870



The Facts in the Great Beef Contract



In as few words as possible I wish to lay before the nation
what share, howsoever small, I have had in this matter--
this matter which has so exercised the public mind, engend-
ered so much ill-feeling, and so filled the newspapers of both
continents with distorted statements and extravagant com-
ments.

The origin of this distressful thing was this--and I assert
here that every fact in the following resume can be amply
proved by the official records of the General Government:
John Wilson Mackenzie, of Rotterdam, Chemung County,
New Jersey, deceased, contracted with the General Govern-
ment, on or about the 10th day of October, 1861, to furnish
General Sherman the sum total of thirty barrels of beef.

Very well.

He started after Sherman with the beef, but when he got
to Washington, Sherman had gone to Manassas; so he took
the beef and followed him there, but arrived too late; he
followed him to Nashville, and from Nashville to Chattanooga,
and from Chattanooga to Atlanta--but he never could
overtake him. At Atlanta he took a fresh start and followed
him clear through his march to the sea. He arrived too late
again by a few days; but hearing that Sherman was going
out in the Quaker City excursion to the Holy Land, he took
shipping for Beirut, calculating to head off the other vessel.
When he arrived in Jerusalem with his beef, he learned that
Sherman had not sailed in the Quaker City, but had gone to
the Plains to fight the Indians. He returned to America and
started for the Rocky Mountains. After sixty-eight days of
Mduous travel on the Plains, and when he had got within
four miles of Sherman's headquarters he was tomahawked and
scalped, and the Indians got the beef. They got all of it
but one barrel. Sherman's army captured that, and so, even
in death, the bold navigator partly fulfilled his contract.
In his will, which he had kept like a journal, he bequeathed
the contract to his son Bartholomew W. Bartholomew W. made
out the following bill, and then died:

THE UNITED STATES

In account with John Wilson Mackenzie, of New
Jersey, deceased Dr.
To thirty barrels of beef for General Sherman, at
$100, $3,000
To traveling expenses and transportation 14,000
Total $17,000
Rec'd Pay't

He died then; but he left the contract to Wm. J. Martin, who
tried to collect it, but died before he got through. He left it to
Barker J. Allen, and he tried to collect it also. He did not
survive. Barker J. Allen left it fo Anson G. Rogers, who attem-
pted to collect it, and got along as far as the Ninth Auditor's
Office, when Death, the great Leveler, came all unsummoned,
and foreclosed on him also. He left the bill to a relative of his
in Connecticut, Vengeance Hopkins by name, who lasted four
weeks and two days, and made the best time on record, coming
within one of reaching the Twelfth Auditor. In his will he gave
the contract bill to his uncle, by the name of O-be-joyful John-
son. It was too undermining for Joyful. His last words were:
"Weep not for me--I am willing to go." And so he was, poor
soul. Seven people inherited the contract after that; but they
all died. So it came into my hands at last. It fell to me through
a relative by the name of Hubbard--Bethlehem Hubbard, of In-
diana. He had had a grudge against me for a long time; but in
his last moments he sent for me, and forgave me everything,
and weeping, gave me the beef contract.

This ends the history of it up to the time that I succeeded
to the property. I will now endeavor to set myself straight
before the nation in everything that concerns my share in
the matter. I twk this beef contract, and the bill for mileage
and transportation, to the President of the United States.

He said, "Well, sir, what can I do for you?"

I said, "Sire, on or about the 10th day of October, 1861,
John Wilson Mackenzie, of Rotterdam, Chemung County, New
Jersey, deceased, contracted with the General Government
to furnish to General Sherman the sum total of thirty
barrels of beef--"

He stopped me there, and dismissed me from his presence--
kindly, but firmly. The next day I called on the &cretary of
State.

He said, "Well, sir?"

I said, "Your Royal Highness: on or about the 10th day of
October, 1861, John Wilson Mackenzie, of Rotterdam, Chemung
County, New Jersey, deceased, contracted with the
General Goveernment to furnish to General Sherman the sum
total of thirty barrels of beef--"

"That will do, sir--that will do; this office has nothing
to do with contracts for beef."

I was bowed out. I thought the matter all over, and finally,
the following day, I visited the Secretary of the Navy, who
said, "Speak quickly, sir; do not keep me waiting."
I said, "Your Royal Highness, on or about the 10th day
of October, 1861, John Wilson Mackenzie, of Rotterdam,
Chemung County, New Jersey, deceased, contracted with the
General Government to General Sherman the sum total of
thirty barrels of beef--"

Well, it was as far as I could get. He had nothing to do
with beef contracts for General Sherman either. I began to
think it was a curious kind of a government. It looked somewhat
as if they wanted to get out of paying for that beef. The
following day I went to the Secretary of the Interior.

I said, "Your Imperial Highness, on or about the 10th day
of October--"

"That is sufficient, sir. I have heard of you before. Go, take
your infamous beef contract out of this establishment. The
Interior Department has nothing whatever to do with subsist-
ence for the army."

I went away. But I was exasperated now. I said I would
haunt them; I would infest every department of this iniquitous
government till that contract business was settled. I would
collect that bill, or fall, as fell my predecessors, trying, I
assailed the Postmaster-General; I besieged the Agricultural
Department; I waylaid the Speaker of the House of Representa-
tives. They had nothing to do with army contracts for beef.
I moved upon the Commissioner of the Patent Office.

I said, "Your August Excellency, on or about--"

"Perdition! have you got here with your incendiary beef con-
tract, at last? We have nothing to do with beef contracts
for the army, my dear sir."

"Oh, that is all very well--but somebody has got to pay for
that beef. It has got to be paid now, too, or Fll confiscate this
old Patent Office and everything in it."

"But, my dear sir--"

"It don't make any difference, sir. The Patent Office is liable
for that beef, I reckon; and, liable or not liable, the Patent
Office has got to pay for it."

Never mind the details. It ended in a fight. The Patent Office
won. But I found out something to my advantage. I was told
that the Treasury Department was the proper place for me to
go to. I went there. I waited two hours and a half, and then I
was admitted to the First Lord of the Treasury.

I said, "Most noble, grave, and reverend Signor, on or about
the 10th day of October, 1861, John Wilson Macken--"

"That is sufficient, sir. I have heard of you. Go to the First
Auditor of the Treasury."

I did so. He sent me to the Second Auditor. The Second Aud-
itor sent me to the Third, and the Third sent me to the First
Comptroller of the Com-Beef Division. This began to look like
business. He examined his books and all his loose papers,
but found no minute of the beef contract. I went to the Se
ond Comptroller of the Com-Beef Division. He examined his
books and his loose papers, but with no success. I was encou-
raged. During that week I got as far as the Sixth Comptroller
in that division; the next week I got through the Claims
Department; the third week I began and completiwl the Mislaid
Contracts Department, and got a foothold in the Dead Reckoning
Department. I finished that in three days. There was only
one place left for it now. I laid siege to the Commissioner
of Odds and Ends. To his clerk, rather--he was not there
himself. There were sixteen beautiful young ladies in the
room, writing in books, and there were seven well-favored
young clerks showing them how. The young women smiled
up over their shoulders, and the clerks smiled back at them,
and all went merry as a marriage bell. Two or three clerks
that were reading the newspapers looked at me rather hard,
but went on reading, and nobody said anything. However, I
had been used to this kind of alacrity from Fourth Assistant
Junior Clerks all through my eventful career, from the very
day I entered the first office of the Com-Beef Bureau clear
till I passed out of the last one in the Dead Reckoning Di-
vision. I had got so accomplished by this time that I could
stand on one foot from the moment I entered an office till
a clerk spoke to me, without changing more than two, or
maybe three, times.

So I stood there till I had changed four different times.
Then I said to one of the clerks who was reading:

"Illustrious Vagrant, where is the Grand Turk?"

"What do you mean, sir? whom do you mean? If you mean
the Chief of the Bureau, he is out."

"Will he visit the harem to-day?"

The young man glared upon me awhile, and then went on
reading his paper. But I knew the ways of ffiose clerks.
I knew I was safe if he got through before another New York
mail arrived. He only had two more papers left After a while
he finished them, and then he yawned and asked me what I
wanted.

"Renowned and honored Imbecile: on or about--"

"You are the beef-contract man. Give me your papers--"

He took them, and for a long time he ransacked his odds and
ends. Finally he found the Northwest Passage, as I regarded
it--he found the long-lost record of that beef contract --he
found the rock upon which so many of my ancestors had split
before they ever got to it. I was deeply moved. And yet I
rejoiced--for I had survived. I said with emotion, "Give
it me. The government will settle now." He waved me back,
and said there was something yet to be done first.

"Where is this John Wilson Mackenzie?" said he.

"Dead."

"When did he die?"

"He didn't die at all--he was killed."

"How?"

"Tomahawked."

"Who tomakawked him?"

"Why, an Indian, of course. You didn't suppose it was the
superintendent of a Sunday-school, did you?"

"No. An Indian, was it?"

"The same."

"Name of the Indian?"

"His name? I don't know his name."

"Must have his name. Who saw the tomahawking done?"

"I don't know."

"You were not present yourself, then?"

"Which you can see by my hair. I was absent."

"Then how do you know that Mackenzie is dead?"

"Because he certainly died at that time, and I have every
reason to believe that he has been dead ever since. I know
he has, in fact."

"We must have proofs. Have you got the Indian?"

"Of course not."

"Well, you must get him. Have you got the tomahawk?"

"I never thought of such a thing."

"You must get the tomahawk. You must produce the Indian
and the tomahawk. If Mackenzie's death can be proven
by these, you can then go before the commission appointed to
audit claims with some show of getting your bill under such
headway that your children may possibly live to receive the
money and enjoy it. But that man's death must be proven.
However, I may as well tell you that the government will
never pay that transportation and those traveling expenses of
the lamented Mackenzie. It may possibly pay for the barrel
of beef that Sherman's soldiers captured, if you can get a re-
lief bill through Congress making an appropriation for that
purpose; but it will not pay for the twenty-nine barrels the
Indians ate."

"Then there is only a hundred dollars due me, and that isn't
certain! After all Mackenzie's travels in Europe, Asia, and
America with that beef; after all his trials and tribulations
and transportation; after the slaughter of all those innocents
that tried to collect that bill! Young man, why didn't the
First Comptroller of the Corn-Beef Division tell me this?"

"He didn't know anything about the genuineness of your
claim."

"Why didn't the Second tell me? why didn't the Third?
why didn't all those divisions and departments tell me?"

"None of them knew. We do things by routine here. You
have followed the routine and found out what you wanted to
know. It is the best way. It is the only way. It is very reg-
ular, and very slow, but it is very certain."

"Yes, certain death. It has been, to the most of our tribe.
I begin to feel that I, too, am called. Young man, you love
ihc bright creature yonder with the gentle blue eyes and the
steel pens behind her ears--I see it in your soft glances; you
wish to marry her--but you are poor. Here, hold out your
hand--here is the beef contract; go, take her and be happyl
Heaven bless you, my children!"

This is all I know about the great beef contract that has cre-
ated so much talk in the community. The clerk to whom I be-
queathed it died. I know nothing further about the contract,
or any one connected with it. I only know that ft a man lives
long enough he can trace a thing through the Circumlocution
Office of Washington and find out, after much labor and trouble
and delay, that which he could have found out on the first
day ft the business of the Circumlocution Office were as in-
geniously systematized as it would be if it were a great pri-
vate mercantile institution.

　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　1870



How I Edited an Agricultural Paper



I did not take temporary editorship of an agricultural paper
without misgivings. Neither would a landsman take command
of a ship without misgivings. But I was in circumstances
that made the salary an object. The regular editor of
the paper was going off for a holiday, and I accepted the
terms he offered, and took his place.

The sensation of being at work again was luxurious, and I
wrought all the week with unflagging pleasure. We went to
press, and I waited a day with some solicitude to see
whether my effort was going to attract any notice. As I left
the oflBce, toward sundown, a group of men and boys at the
foot of the stairs dispersed with one impulse, and gave me
passageway, and I heard one or two of them say: "That's
him!" I was naturally pleased by this incident. The next
morning I found a similar group at the foot of the stairs,
and scattering couples and individuals standing here and
there in the street and over the way, watching me with in-
terest. The group separated and fell back as I approached,
and I heard a man say, "Look at his eye!" I pretended not to
observe the notice I was attracting, but secretly I was pleas-
ed with it, and was purposing to write an account of it to my
aunt. I went up tbe short flight of stairs, and heard cheery
voices and a ringing laugh as I drew near the door, which I
opened, and caught a glimpse of two young rural-looking
men, whose faces blanched and lengthened when they saw
me, and then they both plunged through the window with a
great crash. I was surprised.

In about half an hour an old gentleman, with a flowing
beard and a fine but rather austere face, entered, and sat
down at my invitation. He seemed to have something on his
mind. He took off his hat and set it on the floor, and got
out of it a red silk handkerchief and a copy of our paper.

He put the paper on his lap, and while he polished his
spectacles with his handkerchief he said, "Are you the new
editor?"

I said I was.

"Have you ever edited an agricultural paper before?"

"No," I said; "this is my first attempt."

"Very likely. Have you had any experience in agriculture
practically?"

"No; I believe I have not,"

"Some instinct told me so," said the old gentleman, putting
on his spectacles, and looking over them at me with asperity,
while he folded his paper into a convenient shape. "I wish to
read you what must have made me have that instinct. It was
this editorial. Listen, and see if it was you that wrote it:

"Turnips should never be pulled it injures them. It is
much better to send a hoy up and let him shake the tree."

"Now, what do you think of that?--for I really suppose
you wrote it?"

"Think of it? Why, I think it is good. I think it is sense. I
have no doubt that every year millions and millions of bushels
of turnips are spoiled in this township alone by being pulled
in a half-ripe condition, when, if they had sent a boy up to
shake the tree--
"
"Shake your grandmother! Turnips don't grow on trees!"

"Oh, they don't, don't they? Well, who said they did? The
language was intended to be figurative, wholly figurative.
Anybody that knows anything will know that I meant that
that the boy should shake the vine."

Then this old person got up and tore his paper all into
small shreds, and stamped on them, and broke several things
with his cane, and said I did not know as much as a cow; and
then went out and banged the door after him, and, in short,
acted in such a way that I fancied he was displeased about
something. But not knowing what the trouble was, I could
not be any help to him.

Pretty soon after this a long, cadaverous creature, with
lanky locks hanging down to his shoulders, and a week's
stubble bristling from the hills and valleys of his face,
darted within the door, and halted, motionless, with finger
on lip, and head and body bent in listening attitude. No sound
was heard. Still he listened. No sound. Then he turned the key
in the door, and came elaborately tiptoeing toward me till he
was within long reaching distance of me, when he stopped
and, after scanning my face with intense interest for a while,
drew a folded copy of our paper from his bosom, and said:

"There, you wrote that. Read it to me--quick! Relieve
me. I suffer,"

I read as follows; and as the sentences fell from my lips
I could see the relief come, I could see the drawn muscles
relax, and the anxiety go out of the face, and rest and peace
steal over the features like the merciful moonlight over a
desolate landscape:

The guano is a fine bird, but great care is necessary in
rearing it. It should not be imported earlier than June or
later than September. In the winter it should be kept in a
warm place, where it can hatch out its young.

It is evident that we are to have a backward season for
grain. Therefore it will be well for the farmer to begin
setting out his corn-stalks and planting his buckwheat cakes
in July instead of August.

Concerning the pumpkin. This berry is a favorite with the
natives of the interior of New England, who prefer it to the
gooseberry for the making of fruit-cake, and who likewise
give it the preference over the raspberry for feeding cows,
as being more filling and fully as satisfying. The pumpkin
is the onlv esculent of the orange family that will thrive in
the North/ except the gourd and one or two varieties of the
squash. But the custom of planting it in the front yard with
the shrubbery is fast going out of vogue, for it is now gen-
erally conceded that the pumpkin as a shade tree is a failure.

Now, as the warm weather approaches, and the ganders
begin to spawn--

The excited listener sprang toward me to shake hands, and
said:

"There, there--that will do. I know I am all right now,
because you have read it just as I did, word for word. But,
stranger, when I first read it this morning, I said to myself,
I never, never believed it before, notwithstanding my friends
kept me under watch so strict, but now I believe I am crazy;
and with that I fetched a howl that you might have heard
two miles, and started out to kill somebody--because, you
know, I knew it would come to that sooner or later, and so
I might as well begin. I read one of them paragraphs over
again, so as to be certain, and then I burned my house down
and started. I have crippled several people, and have got one
fellow up a tree, where I can get him if I want him. But I
thought I would call in here as I passed along and make
the thing perfectly certain; and now it is certain, and I tell
you it is lucky for the chap that is in the tree. I should have
killed him sure, as I went back. Good-by, sir, good-by; you
have taken a great load off my mind. My reason has stood
the strain of one of your agricultural articles, and I know
that nothing can ever unseat it now. Good-by, sir."

I felt a little uncomfortable about the cripplings and arsons
this person had been entertaining himself with, for I
could not help feeling remotely accessory to them. But these
thoughts were quickly banished, for the regular editor walked
in! [I thought to myself. Now if you had gone to Egypt as
I recommended you to, I might have had a chance to get my
hand in; but you wouldn't do it, and here you are, I sort of
expected you.]

The editor was looking sad and perplexed and dejected.

He surveyed the wreck which that old rioter and those two
young farmers had made, and then said: "This is a sad bus-
iness--a very sad business. There is the mucilage-bottle
broken, and six panes of glass, and a spittoon, and two
candlesticks. But that is not the worst. The reputation of the
paper is injured--and permanently, I fear. True, there never
was such a call for the paper before, and it never sold such a
large edition or soared to such celebrity;--but does one want
to be famous for lunacy, and prosper upon the infirmities of
his mind? My friend, as I am an honest man, the street out
here is full of people, and others are roosting on the fences,
waiting to get a glimpse of you, because they think you are
crazy. And well they might after reading your editorials.
They are a disgrace to journalism. Why, what put it into
vour head that you could edit a paper of this nature? You do
not seem to know the first rudiments of agriculture. You
speak of a furrow and a harrow as being the same thing; you
talk of the moulting season for cows; and you recommend
the domestication of the pole-cat on account of its playful-
ness and its excellence as a ratterl Your remark that clams
will lie quiet if music be played to them was superfluous
--entirely superfluous. Nothing disturbs clams. Clams always
he quiet. Clams care nothing whatever about music. Ah,
heavens and earth, friend! if you had made the acquiring of
ignorance the study of your life, you could not have graduated
with higher honor than you could to-day. I never saw
anything like it. Your observation that the horse-chestnut as
an article of commerce is steadily gaining in favor is simply
calculated to destroy this journal. I want you to throw up
your situation and go. I want no more holiday--I could not
enjoy it if I had it. Certainly not with you in my chair. I
would always stand in dread of what you might be going to
recommend next. It makes me lose all patience every time I
think of your discussing oyster-beds under the head of ‘Land-
scape Gardening.' I want you to go. Nothing on earth could
persuade me to take another holiday. Oh! why didn't you tell
me you didn't know anything about agriculture?"

Tell you, you corn-stalk, you cabbage, you son of a cauli-
flower? It's the first time I ever heard such an unfeeling re-
mark. I tell you I have been in the editorial business going
on fourteen years, and it is the first time I ever heard of a
man's having to know anything in order to edit a newspaper.
You turnip! Who write the dramatic critiques for the second-
rate papers? Why, a parcel of promoted shoemakers and ap-
prentice apothecaries, who know just as much about good
acting as I do about good farming and no more. Who review
the books? People who never wrote one. Who do up the
heavy leaders on finance? Parties who have had the largest
opportunities for knowing nothing about it. Who criticize
the Indian campaigns? Gentlemen who do not know a war-
whoop from a wigwam, and who never have had to run a
foot-race with a tomahawk, or pluck arrows out of the several
members of their families to build the evening camp-fire
with. Who write the temperance appeals, and clamor about
the flowing bowl? Folks who will never draw another soter
breath till they do it in the grave. Who edit the agricultural
papers, you--yam? Men, as a general thing, who fail in the
poetry line, yellow-colored novel line, sensation-drama line,
city-editor line, and finally fall back on agriculture as a
temporary reprieve from the poor-house. You try to tell me
anything about the newspaper business! Sir, I have been
through it from Alpha to Omaha, and I tell you that the less
a man knows the bigger the noise he makes and the higher
the salary he commands. Heaven knows if I had but been ignorant
instead of cultivated, and impudent instead of diffident,
I could have made a name for myself in this cold, selfish
world. I take my leave, sir. Since I have been treated as you
have treated me, I am perfectly willing to go. But I have done
my duty. I have fulfilled my contract as far as I was permitted
to do it, I said I could make your paper of interest to
all classes--and I have, I said I could run your circulation up
to twenty thousand copies, and if I had had two more weeks
I'd have done it. And I'd have given you the best class of
readers that ever an agricultural paper had--not a farmer in
it, nor a solitary individual who could tell a watermelon-tree
from a peach-vine to save his life. You are the loser by this
rupture, not me, Pie-plant. Adios."

I then left.

　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　1870



A Medieval Romance



I THE SECRET REVEALED

It was night. Stillness reigned in the grand old feudal castle
of Klugenstein. The year 1222 was drawing to a close. Far
away up in the tallest of the castle's towers a single light
glimmered. A secret council was being held there.The stern
old lord of Klugenstein sat in a chair of state meditating.
Presently he said, with a tender accent: "My daughter!"

A young man of noble presence, clad from head to heel in
knightly mail, answered: "Speak, father!"

"My daughter, the time is come for the revealing of the
mystery that hath puzzled all your young life. Know, then,
that it bad its birth in the matters which I shall now unfold.
My brother Ulrich is the great Duke of Brandenburgh.
Our father, on his deathbed, decreed that if no son were bora
to Ulrich the succession should pass to my house, provided
a son were born to me. And further, in case no son were born
to either, but only daughters, then the succession should pass
to Ulrich's daughter if she proved stainless; if she did not,
mny daughter should succeed if she retained a blameless
name. And so I and my old wife here prayed fervently for
the good boon of a son, but the prayer was vain. You were
horn to us. I was in despair. I saw the mighty prize slipping
from my grasp--the splendid dream vanishing away! And I
had been so hopeful! Five years had Ulrich lived in wedlock,
and yet his wife had borne no heir of either sex."

"'But hold,' I said, ‘all is not lost.' A saving scheme had
shot athwart my brain. You were born at midnight. Only
the leech, the nurse, and six waiting-women knew your sex.
I hanged them every one before an hour sped. Next morning
all the barony went mad with rejoicing over the proclamation
that a son was born to Klugenstein--an heir to mighty
Brandenburgh! And well the secret has been kept. Your
mother's own sister nursed your infancy, and from that time
forward we feared nothing.

"When you were ten years old a daughter was bora to Ulrich.
We grieved, but hoped for good results from measles,
or physicians, or other natural enemies of infancy, but were
always disappointed. She lived, she throve--Heaven's malison
upon her! But it is nothing. We are safe. For, ha! ha!
have wc not a son? And is not our son the future duke? Our
well-beloved Conrad, is it not so?--for woman of eight-and-
twenty years as you are, my child, none other name than
that hath ever fallen to you!

"Now it hath come to pass that age hath laid its hand upon
my brother, and he waxes feeble. The cares of state do tax
him sore, therefore he wills that you shall come to him and
be already duke in act, though not yet in name. Your servitors
are ready--you journey forth to-night.

"Now listen well. Remember every word I say. There is a law
as old as Germ.any, that if any woman sit for a single instant
in the great ducal chair before she hath been absolutely
crowned in presence of the people--she shall die! So heed
my words. Pretend humility. Pronounce your judgments from
the Premier's chair, which stands at the foot of the throne.
Do this until you are crowned and safe. It is not likely that
your sex will ever be discovered, but still it is the part of
wisdom to make all things as safe as may be in this treach-
erous earthly life."

"Oh, my father! is it for this my life hath been a lie? Was
it that I might cheat my unoffending cousin of her rights?
Spare me, father, spare your child!"

"What, hussy! Is this my reward for the august fortune my
brain has wrought for thee? By the bones of my father, this
puling sentiment of thine but ill accords with my humor. Betake
thee to the duke instantly, and beware how thou meddles!
with my purpose!"

Let this suffice of the conversation. It is enough for us to
know that the prayers, the entreaties, and the tears of the
gentle-natured girl availed nothing. Neither they nor anything
could move the stout old lord of Klugenstein. And so,
at last, with a heavy heart, the daughter saw the castle gates
close behind her, and found herself riding away in the
darkness surrounded by a knightly array of armed vassals
and a brave following of servants.

The old baron sat silent for many minutes after his daughter's
departure, and then he turned to his sad wife, and said:

"Dame, our matters seem speeding fairly. It is full three
months since I sent the shrewd and handsome Count Detzin
on his devilish mission to my brother's daughter Constance.
If he fail we are not wholly safe, but if he do succeed no
power can bar our girl from being duchess, e'en though ill
fortune should decree she never should be duke!"

"My heart is full of bodings; yet all may still be well."

"Tush, woman! Leave the owls to croak. To bed with ye,
and dream of Brandenburgh and grandeur!"

2 FESTIVITY AND TEARS

Six days after the occurrences related in the above chapter,
the brilliant capital of the Duchy of Brandenburgh was res-
plendent with military pageantry and noisy with the rejoic-
ings of loyal multitudes, for Conrad, the young heir to the
crown, was come. The old duke's heart was full of happiness,
for Conrad's handsome person and graceful bearing had won
his love at once. The great halls of the palace were thronged
with nobles, who welcomed Conrad bravely; and so bright
and happy did all things seem that he felt his fears and sorrows
passing away and giving place to a comforting contentment.

But in a remote apartment of the palace a scene of a different
nature was transpiring. By a window stood the duke's only
child, the Lady Constance. Her eyes were red and swollen
and full of tears. She was alone. Presently she fell to weeping
anew, and said aloud:

"The villain Detzin is gone--has fled the dukedom! I could
not believe it at first, but, alas! it is too true. And I loved him
so. I dared to love him though I knew the duke, my father,
would never let me wed him. I loved him--but now I hate
him! With all my soul I hate him! Oh, what is to become of
me? I am lost, lost, lost! I shall go mad!"

3 THE PLOT THICKENS

A few months drifted by. All men published the praises of
the young Conrad's government, and extolled the wisdom
of his judgments, the mercifulness of his sentences, and the
modesty with which he bore himself in his great office. The
old duke soon gave everything into his hands, and sat apart
and listened with proud satisfaction while his heir delivered
the decrees of the crown from the seat of the Premier. It
seemed plain that one so loved and praised and honored of
all men as Conrad was could not be otherwise than happy.
But, strangely enough, he was not. For he saw with diay
that the Princess Constance had begun to love him! The love
of the rest of the world was happy fortune for him, but this
was freighted with danger! And he saw, moreover, that the
delighted duke had discovered his daughter's passion like*
wise, and was already dreaming of a marriage. Every day
somewhat of the deep sadness that had been in the princess's
face faded away; every day hope and animation beamed brighted
from her eye; and by and by even vagrant smiles visited the
face that had been so troubled.

Conrad was appalled. He bitterly cursed himself for having
yielded to the instinct that had made him seek the compan-
ionship of one of his own sex when he was new and a
stranger in the place--when he was sorrowful and yearned
for a sympathy such as only women can give or feel. He
now began to avoid his cousin. But this only made matters
worse, for, naturally enough, the more he avoided her the
more she cast herself in his way. He marveled at this at first,
and next it startled him. The girl haunted him; she hunted
him; she happened upon him at all times and in all places,
in the night as well as in the day. She seemed singularly
anxious. There was surely a mystery somewhere.

This could not go on forever. All the world was talking
about it. The duke was beginning to look perplexed. Poor
Conrad was becoming a very ghost through dread and dire
distress. One day as he was emerging from a private anteroom
attached to the picture-gallery Constance confronted
him, and seizing both his hands in hers, exclaimed:

"Oh, why do you avoid me? What have I done--what have
I said, to lose your kind opinion of me--for surely I had it
once? Conrad, do not despise me, but pity a tortured heart? I
cannot, cannot hold the words unspoken longer, lest they kill
me--LOVE YOU Conrad! There, despise me if you must, but
they would be uttered!"

Conrad was speechless. Constance hesitated a moment, and
then, misinterpreting his silence, a wild gladness flamed
in her eyes, and she flung her arms about his neck and said:

"You relent! you relent! You can love me--you will love
me! Oh, say you will, my own, my worshiped Conrad!"

Conrad groaned aloud. A sickly pallor overspread his
countenance, and he trembled like an asn. Presently, in
desperation, he thrust the poor girl from him, and cried:

"You know not what you ask! It is forever and ever impossible!"
And then he fled like a criminal, and left the princess
stupefied with amazement. A minute afterward she was
crying and sobbing there, and Conrad was crying and sobbing
in his chamber. Both were in despair. Both saw ruin
staring them in the face.

By and by Constance rose slowly to her feet and moved
away, saying:

"To think that he was despising my love at the very inoment
that I thought it was melting his cruel heart! I hate him!
He spumed me-id this man--he spumed me from him like
a dog!"

4 THE AWFUL REVELATION

Time passed on. A settled sadness rested once more upon
the countenance of the good duke's daughter. She and Con-
rad were seen together no more now. The duke grieved at
this. But as the weeks wore away Conrad's color came back to
his cheeks, and his old-time vivacity to his eye, and he
administered the government with a clear and steadily rip-
ening wisdom.

Presently a strange whisper began to be heard about the pal-
ace. It grew louder; it spread farther. The gossips of the
city got hold of it It swept e dukedom. And this is what the
whisper said:

"The Lady Constance hath given birth to a child!"

When the lord of Klugenstein beard it he swung his
plumed helmet thrice around his head and shouted:
"Long live Duke Comad!--for lo, his crown is sure from
this day forward! Detzin has done his errand well, and the
good scoimdrel shall be rewarded!"

And he spread the tidings far and wide, and for eight-and-
forty hours no soul in all the barony but did dance and sing,
carouse and illuminate, to celebrate the great event, and
oud and happy at old Klugenstein's expense.

5 THE FRIGHTFUL CATASTROPHE

The trial was at hand. All the great lords and barons of
Brandenburgh were assembled in the Hall of Justice in the
ducal palace. No space was left unoccupied where there was
room for a spectator to stand or sit. Conrad, clad in purple
and ermine, sat in the Premier's chair, and on either
side sat the great judges of the realm. The old duke had
sternly commanded that the trial of his daughter should pro-
ceed without favor, and then had taken to his bed broken-
hearted. His days were numbered. Poor Conrad had begged,
as for his very life, that he might be spared the misery of
sitting in judgment upon his cousin's crime, but it did not
avail.

The saddest heart in all that great assemblage was in Conrad's
breast.

The gladdest was in his father's, for, unknown to his daughter
"Conrad," the old Baron Klugenstein was come, and was among
the crowd of nobles triumphant in the swelling fortunes of his
house.

After the heralds had made due proclamation and the other
preliminaries had followed, the venerable Lord Chief
justice said: "Prisoner, stand forth!"

The unhappy princess rose, and stood unveiled before the
vast multitude. The Lord Chief Justice continued:

"Most noble lady, before the great judges of this realm it
hath been charged and proven that out of holy wedlock your
Grace hath given birth unto a child, and by our ancient law
the penalty is death excepting in one sole contingency, whereof
his Grace the acting duke, or good Lord Conrad, will advertise
you in his solemn sentence now; wherefore give heed."

Conrad stretched forth his reluctant scepter, and in the self-
same moment the womanly heart beneath his robe yearned pity-
ingly toward the doomed prisoner, and the tears came into his
eyes. He opened his lips to speak, but the Lord Chief Justice
said quickly:

"Not there, your Grace, not there! It is not lawful to pro-
nounce judgment upon any of the ducal line save from THE
DUCAL throne!"

A shudder went to the heart of poor Conrad, and a tremor
shook the iron frame of his old father likewise. Conrad had
NOT BEEN crowned--dared he profane the throne? He hesitated
and turned pale with fear. But it must be done. Wondering
eyes were already upon him. They would be suspicious
eyes if he hesitated longer. He ascended the throne.
Presently he stretched forth the scepter again, and said:

"Prisoner, in the name of our sovereign Lord Ulrich, Duke
of Brandenburgh, I proceed to the solemn duty that hath de-
volved upon me. Give heed to my words. By the ancient law
of the land, except you produce the partner of your guilt and
deliver him up to the executioner you must surely die. Embrace
this opportunity--save yourself while yet you may.
Name the father of your child!"

A solemn hush fell upon the great court--a silence so profound
that men could hear their own hearts beat. Then the
princess slowly turned, with eyes gleaming with hate, and,
pointing her finger straight at Conrad, said:

"Thou art the man!"

An appalling conviction of his helpless, hopeless peril struck
a chill to Conrad's heart like the chill of death itself. What
power on earth could save him! To disprove the charge he must
reveal that he was a woman, and for an uncrowned woman to sit
on the ducal chair was death! At one and the same moment he
and his grim old father swooned and fell to the ground.

The remainder of this thrilling and eventful story will not
be found in this or any other publication, either now or at
any future time.

The truth is, I have got my hero (or heroine) into such a
particularly close place that I do not see how I am ever going
to get him (or her) out of it again, and therefore I will wash
my hands of the whole business, and leave that person to get
out the best way that offers--or else stay there. I thought it
was going to be easy enough to straighten out that little dif-
ficulty, but it looks different now.

　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　1870



My Watch
AN INSTRUCTIVE LITTLE TALE



My beautiful new watch had run eighteen months without los-
ing or gaining, and without breaking any part of its machinery
or stopping. I had come to believe it infallible in its judgments
about the time of day, and to consider its constitution
and its anatomy imperishable. But at last, one night, I let
it run down. I grieved about it as if it were a recognized
messenger and forerunner of calamity. But by and by I cheer-
ed up, set the watch by guess, and commanded my bodings and
superstitions to depart. Next day I stepped into the chief
jeweler's to set it by the exact time, and the head of
the establishment took it out of my hand and proceeded to
set it for me. Then he said, "She is four minutes slow--
regulator wants pushing up." I tried to stop him--tried to
make him understand that the watch kept perfect time. But no;
all this human cabbage could see was that the watch was four
minutes slow, and the regulator must be pushed up a little;
and so, while I danced around him in anguish, and implored
him to let the watch alone, he calmly and cruelly did the
shameful deed. My watch began to gain. It gained faster
and faster day by day. Within the week it sickened to a raging
fever, and its pulse went up to a hundred and fifty in the
shade. At the end of two months it had left all the time-
pieces of the town far in the rear, and was a fraction over
thirteen days ahead of the almanac. It was away into Novem-
ber enjoying the snow, while the October leaves were still
turning. It hurried up house rent, bills payable, and such
things, in such a ruinous way that I could not abide it. I
took it to the watchmaker to be regulated. He asked me if I
had ever had it repaired. I said no, it had never needed any
repairing. He looked a look of vicious happiness and eagerly
pried the watch open, and then put a small dice-box into his
eye and peered into its machinery. He said it wanted cleaning
and oiling, besides regulating--come in a week. After being
cleaned and oiled, and regulated, my watch slowed down to
that degree that it ticked like a tolling bell. I began to
be left by trains, I failed all appointments, I got to miss-
ing my dinner; my watch strung out three days' grace to four
and let me go to protest; I gradually drifted back into yes-
terday, then day before, then into last week, and by and by
the comprehension came upon me that all solidary and alone
I was lingering along in week before last, and the world was
out of sight. I seemed to detect in myself a sort of sneaking
feOow-feeling for the mununy in the museum, and a desire
to sw{ news with him. I went to a watchmaker again. He took
the watch all to pieces while I waited, and then said the
barrel was "swelled." He said he could reduce it in three
days. After this the watch averaged well, but nothing more.
For half a day it would go like the very mischief, and keep
up such a barking and wheezing and whooping and sneezing
and snorting, that I could not hear myself think for the dis-
turbance; and as long as it held out there was not a watch in
the land that stood any chance against it But the rest of (he
day it would keep on slowing down and fooling along until
all the clocks it had left behind caught up again. So at last,
at the end of twenty-four hours, it would trot up to the
judges' stand all right and just in time. It would show a fair
and square average, and no man could say it had done more
or less than its duty. But a correct average is only a mild
virtue in a watch, and I took this instrument to another
watchmaker. He said the king-bolt was broken. I said I
was glad it was nothing more serious. To tell the plain truth,
I had no idea what the king-bolt was, but I did not choose to
appear ignorant to a stranger. He repaired the king-bolt, but
what the watch gained in one way it lost in another. It
would run awhile and then stop awhile, and then run awhile
again, and so on, using its own discretion about the inter-
vals. And every time it went off it kicked back like a musket.
I padded my breast for a few days, but finally took the
watch to another watchmaker. He picked it all to pieces, and
turned the ruin over and over under his glass; and then he
said there appeared to be something the matter with the hair-
trigger. He fixed it, and gave it a fresh start. It did well
now, except that always at ten minutes to ten the hands would
shut together like a pair of scissors, and from that time forth
they would travel together. The oldest man in the world could
not make head or tail of the time of day by such a watch,
and so I went again to have the thing repaired. This person
said that the crystal had got bent, and that the mainspring
was not straight. He also remarked that parts of the works
needed half-soling. He made these things all right, and
then my timepiece performed unexceptionably, save that now
and then, after working along quietly for nearly eight hours,
everything inside would let go all of a sudden and begin to
buzz like a bee, and the hands would straightway begin to
spin round and round so fast that their individuality was lost
completely, and they simply seemed a delicate spider's web
over the face of the watch. She would reel off the next
twenty-four hours in six or seven minutes, and then stop
with a bang. I went with a heavy heart to one more watch-
maker, and looked on while he took her to pieces. Then I
prepared to cross-question him rigidly, for this thing was
getting serious. The watch had cost two hundred dollars or-
iginally, and I seemed to have paid out two or three thousand
for repairs. While I waited and looked on I presently recog-
nized in this watchmaker an old acquaintance--a steamboat
engineer of other days, and not a good engineer, either. He
examined all the parts carefully, just as the other watch-
makers had done, and then delivered his verdict with the
same confidence of manner.

He said:

"She makes too much steam--you want to hang the monkey-
wrench on the safety-valve!"

I brained him on the spot, and had him buried at my own
expense.

My uncle William (now deceased, alas!) used to say that a
good horse was a good horse until it had run away once, and
that a good watch was a good watch until the repairers got a
chance at it. And he used to wonder what became of all the
unsuccessful tinkers, and gunsmiths, and shoemakers, and
engineers, and blacksmiths; but nobody could ever tell him.

　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　1870



Political Economy



Political Economy is the basis of all good government The
wisest men of all ages have brought to bear upon this subject
the

[Here I was interrupted and informed that a stranger
wished to see me down at the door. I went and confronted
him, and asked to know his business, struggling all the time
to keep a tight rein on my seething political-economy ideas,
and not let them break away from me or get tangled in their
harness. And privately I wished the stranger was in the bottom
of the canal with a cargo of wheat on top of him. I was
all in a fever, but he was cool. He said he was sorry to dis-
turb me, but as be was passing he noticed that I needed some
lightning-rods. I said, "Yes, yes--go on--what about it?" He
said there was nothing about it, in particular--nothing except
that he would like to put them up for me. I am new to house-
keeping; have been used to hotels and boarding-houses all
my life. Like anybody else of similar experience, I try to
appear (to strangers) to be an old housekeeper; consequently
I said in an offhand way that I had been intending for some
time to have six or eight lightning-rods put up, but--The
stranger started, and looked inquiringly at me, but I was
serene. I thought that if I chanced to make any mistakes, he
would not catch me by my countenance. He said he would
rather have my custom than any man's in town. I said, "All
right," and started off to wrestle with my great subject again,
when he called me back and said it would be necessary to
know exactly how many "points" I wanted put up, what parts
of the house I wanted them on, and what quality of rod I
preferred. It was close quarters for a man not used to the
exigencies of housekeeping; but I went through creditably,
and be probably never suspected that I was a novice. I told
him to put up eight "points," and put them all on the roof,
and use the best quality of rod. He said he could furnish the
"plain" article at 20 cents a foot; "coppered," 25 cents;
"zinc-plated spiral-twist," at 30 cents, that would stop a
streak of lightning any time, no matter where it was bound,
and "render its errand harmless and its further progress apoc-
ryphal." I said apocryphal was no slouch of a word, emanating
from the source it did, but, philology aside, I liked the spi-
ral-twist and would take that brand. Then he said he could make
two hundred and fifty feet answer; but to do it right, and
make the best job in town of it, and attract the admiration
of the just and the unjust alike, and compel all parties to
say they never saw a more symmetrical and hypothetical display
of lightning-rods since they were born, he supposed he really
couldn't get along without four hundred, though he was not
vindictive, and trusted he was willing to try. I said, go a-
head and use four hundred, and make any kind of a job he
pleased out of it, but let me get back to my work. So I got
rid of him at last; and now, after half an hour spent in
getting my train of political-economy thoughts coupled tog-
ether again, I am ready to go on once more.]

richest treasures of their genius, their experience of life,
and their learning. The great lights of commercial jurisprudence,
international, confraternity, and biological deviation, of all
ages, all civilizations, and all nationalities, from Zoroaster
down to Horace Greeley, have--

[Here I was interrupted again, and required to go down
and confer further with that lightning-rod man. I hurried
off, boiling and surging with prodigious thoughts wombed in
words of such majesty that each one of them was in itself a
straggling procession of syllables that might be fifteen minutes
passing a given point, and once more I confronted him --he so
calm and sweet, I so hot and frenzied. He was standing in the
contemplative attitude of the Colossus of Rhodes, with one
foot on my infant tuberose, and the other among my pansies,
his hands on his hips, his hat-brim tilted forward, one eye
shut and the other gazing critically and admiringly in the
direction of my principal chimney. He said now there was
a state of things to make a man glad to be alive; and add-
ed, "I leave it to you if you ever saw anything more del-
iriously picturesque than eight lightning-rods on one chim-
ney?" I said I had no present recollection of anything that
transcended it. He said that in his opinion nothing on earth
but Niagara Falls was superior to it in the way of natural
scenery. All that was needed now, he verily believed, to
make my house a perfect balm to the eye, was to kind of
touch up the other chimneys a little, and thus "add to the
generous coup d'oeil a soothing uniformity of achievement
which would allay the excitement naturdly consequent
upon the coup d'etat. I asked him if he learned to talk
out of a book, and if I could borrow it anywhere? He
smiled pleasantly, and said that his manner of spiking was
not taught in books, and that nothing but familiarity with
lightning could enable a man to handle his conversational
style with impunity. He then figured up an estimate, and
said that about eight more rods scattered about my roof
would about fix me right, and he guessed five hundred feet
of stuff would do it; and added that the first eight had got
a little the start of him, so to speak, and used up a mere
trifle of material more than he had calculated on--a hundred
feet or along there. I said I was in a dreadful hurry, and I
wished we could get this business permanently mapped out, so
that I could go on with my work. He said, "I could have put
up those eight rods, and marched off about my business--some
men would have done it. But no; I said to myself, this man
is a stranger to me, and I will die before I'll wrong him;
there ain't lightning-rods enough on that house, and for one
I'll never stir out of my tracks till I've done as I would be
done by, and told him so. Stranger, my duty is accomplished;
if the recalcitrant and dephlogistic messenger of heaven
strikes your--" "There, now, there," I said, "put on the
other eight--add five hundred feet of spiral-twist--do any-
thing and everything you want to do; but calm your sufferings,
and try to keep your feelings where you can reach them with
the dictionary. Meanwhile, if we understand each other now,
I will go to work again."

I think I have been sitting here a full hour this time,
trying to get back to where I was when my train of thought
was broken up by the last interruption; but I believe I have
accomplished it at last, and may venture to proceed again.]

wrestled with this great subject and the greatest among them
have found it a worthy adversary, and one that always comes
up fresh and smiling after every throw. The great Confucius
said that he would rather be a profound political economist
than chief of police, Cicero frequently said that political
economy was the grandest consummation that the human mind
was capable of consuming; and even our own Greeley had said
vaguely but forcibly that "Political--

[Here the lightning-rod man sent up another call for me. I
went down in a state of mind bordering on impatience. He said
he would rather have died than interrupt me, but when he was
employed to do a job, and that job was expected to be done
in a clean, workmanlike manner, and when it was finished
and fatigue urged him to seek the rest and recreation he
stood so much in need of, and he was about to do it, but
looked up and saw at a glance that all the calculations had
been a little out, and if a thunder-storm were to come up,
and that house, which he felt a personal interest in,
stood there with nothing on earth to protect it but six-
teen lightning-rods--"Let us have peace!" I shrieked. "Put
up a hundred and fifty! Put some on the kitchen! Put a dozen
on the barn! Put a couple on the cow! Put one on the cook!--
scatter them all over the persecuted place till it looks
like a zinc-plated, spiral-twisted, silver-mounted canebrake!
Move! Use up all the material you can get your hands on, and
when you run out of lightning-rods put up ramrods, cam-rods,
stair-rods, piston-rods--anything that will pander to your
dismal appetite for artificial scenery, and bring respite
to my raging brain and healing to my lacerated soul!" Whol-
ly unmoved--further than to smile sweetly--this iron being
simply turned back his wrist-bands daintily, and said he
would now proceed to hump himself. Well, all that was near-
ly three hours ago. It is questionable whether I am calm
enough yet to write on the noble theme of political economy,
but I cannot resist the desire to try, for it is the one
subject that is nearest to my heart and dearest to my brain
of all this world's philosophy.]

-"economy is heaven's best boon to man." When the loose but
gifted Byron lay in his Venetian exile he observed that,
if it could be granted him to go back and live his misspent
life over again, he would give his lucid and unintoxicated
intervals to the composition, not of frivolous rhymes, but
of essays upon political economy. Washington loved this ex-
quisite science; such names as Baker, Beckwith, Judson,
Smith, are imperishably linked with it; and even imperial
Homer, in the ninth book of the Iliad, has said:

Fiat justitia, ruat coelum,
Post mortem unum, ante bellum,
Hic jacet hoc, ex-parte res,
Politicum e-conomico est.

The grandeur of these conceptions of the old poet, together
with the felicity of the wording which clothes them, and the
sublimity of the imagery whereby they are illustrated, have
singled out that stanza, and made it more celebrated than
any that ever--

["Now, not a word out of you--not a single word. Just state
your bill and relapse into impenetrable silence for ever and
ever on these premises. Nine hundred, dollars? Is that all?
This check for the amount will be honored at any respectable
bank in America. What is that multitude of people gathered
in the street for? How?--'looking at the lightning-rods!'
Bless my life, did they never see any lightning-rods before?
Never saw 'such a stack of them on one establishment,' did
I understand you to say? I will step down and critically
observe this popular ebullition of ignorance."]

THREE DAYS LATER.--We are all about worn out. For four-and-
twenty hours our bristling premises were the talk and wonder
of the town. The theaters languished, for their happiest scenic
inventions were tame and commonplace compared with my
lightning-rods. Our street was blocked night and day with spec-
tators, and among them were many who came from the coun-
try to see. It was a blessed relief on the second day when
a thunderstorm came up and the lightning began to "go for"
my house, as the historian Josephus quaintly phrases it. It
cleared the galleries, so to speak. In five minutes there
was not a spectator within half a mile of my place; but all
the high houses about that distance away were full, windows,
roof, and all. And well they might be, for all the falling
stars and Fourth-of-July fireworks of a generation, put to-
gether and rained down simultaneously out of heaven in one
brilliant shower upon one helpless roof, would not have any
advantage of the pyrotechnic display that was making my house
so magnificently conspicuous in the general gloom of the storm.
By actual count, the lightning struck at my establishment seven
hundred and sixty-four times in forty minutes, but tripped on
one of those faithful rods every time, and slid down the spiral
-twist and shot into the earth before it probably had time to
be surprised at the way the thing was done. And through all
that bombardment only one patch of slates was ripped up, and
that was because, for a single instant, the rods in the vici-
nity were transporting all the lightning they could possibly
accommodate. Well, nothing was ever seen like it since the
world began. For one whole day and night not a member of my
family stuck his head out of the window but he got the hair
snatched off it as smooth as a billiard-ball; and, if the
reader will believe me, not one of us ever dreamt of stir-
ring abroad. But at last the awful siege came to an end--
because there was absolutely no more electricity left in
the clouds above us within grappling distance of my insa-
tiable rods. Then I sallied forth, and gathered daring
workmen together, and not a bite or a nap did we take
till the premises were utterly stripped of all their ter-
rific armament except just three rods on the house, one
on the kitchen, and one on the barn--and, behold, these
remain there even unto this day. And then, and not till
then, the people ventured to use our street again. I
will remark here, in passing, that during that fearful
time I did not continue my essay upon political economy.
I am not even yet settled enough in nerve and brain to
resume it.

TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN Parties having need of three
thousand two hundretl and eleven feet of best quality zinc-
plated spiral-twist lightning-rod stuff, and sixteen hundred
and thirty-one silver-tipped points, still in tolerable repair
(and, although much worn by use, still equal to any ordinary
emergency), can hear of a bargain by addressing the publisher.

　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　1870



Science vs. Luck



At that time, in Kentucky (said the Hon. Mr. K ), the law
was very strict ugainst what is termed "games of chance."
About a dozen ot the boys were detected playing "seven-up"
or "old sledge" tor money, and the grand jury found a tiue
bill against them, Jim Sturgis was retained to defend them
when the case came up, of course. The more he studied over
the matter, and looked into the evidence, the plainer it was
that he must lose a case at last--there was no getting around
that painful fact, Tliose boys had certainly been betting
money on a game of chance. Even public sympathy was
roused in behalf of Sturgis. People said it was a pity to see
him mar his successful career with a big prominent case like
this, which must go against him.

But after several restless nights an inspired idea flashed
Upon Sturgis, and he sprang out of bed delighted. He thought
he saw his way through. The next day he whispered around
a little among his clients and a few friends, and then when
the case came up in court he acknowledged the seven-up and
the betting, and, as his sole defense, had the astounding
effrontery to put in the plea that old sledge was not a game
of chance! There was the broadest sort of a smile all over the
faces of that sophisticated audience. The judge smiled with
the rest. But Sturgis maintained a countenance whose earnest-
ness was even severe. The opposite counsel tried to ridicule
him out of his position, and did not succeed. The judge
jested in a ponderous judicial way about the thing, but did
not move him. The matter was becoming grave. The judge
lost a little of his patience, and said the joke had gone far
enough. Jim Sturgis said he knew of no joke in the matter--
his clients could not be punished for indulging in what some
people chose to consider a game of chance until it was proven
that it was a game of chance. Judge and counsel said that
would be an easy matter, and forthwith called Deacons Job,
Peters, Burke, and Johnson, and Dominies Wirt and Miggles,
to testify; and they unanimously and with strong feeling put
down the legal quibble of Sturgis by pronouncing that old
sledge was a game of chance.

"What do you call it now?" said the judge.

"I call it a game of science!" retorted Sturgis; "and I'll
prove it, too!"

They saw his little game.

He brought in a cloud of witnesses, and produced an over-
whelming mass of testimony, to show that old sledge was not
a game of chance but a game of science.

Instead of being the simplest case in the world, it had
somehow turned out to be an excessively knotty one. The
judge scratched his head over it awhile, and said there was
no way of coming to a determination, because just as many
men could be brought into court who would testify on one
side as could be found to testify on the other. But he said he
was willing to do the fair thing by all parties, and would act
upon any suggestion Mr. Sturgis would make for the solution
of the difficulty.

Mr. Sturgis was on his feet in a second.

"Impanel a jury of six of each. Luck versus Science. Give
them candles and a couple of decks of cards. Send them into
the jury-room, and just abide by the result!"

There was no disputing the fairness of the proposition. The
four deacons and the two dominies were sworn in as the
"chance" jurymen, and six inveterate old seven-up professors
were chosen to represent the "science" side of the issue. They
retired to the jury-room.

In about two hours Deacon Peters sent into court to bor-
row three dollars from a friend. [Sensation.] In about two
hours more Dominie Miggles sent into a court to borrow a
"stake" from a friend. [Sensation.] During the next three of
four hours the other dominie and the other deacons sent into
court for small loans. And still the packed audience waited,
for it was a prodigious occasion in Bull's corners, and one in
which every father of a family was necessarily interested.
The rest of the story can be told briefly. About daylight the
jury came in, and Deacon Job. the foreman, read the following

　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　VERDICT

We, the jury in the case of the Commonwealth of Kentucky
vs. John Wheeler et al., have carefully considered the points
of the case, and tested the merits of the several theories
advanced, and do hereby unanimously decide that the game
commonly known as old sledge or seven-up is eminently a
game of science and not of chance. In demonstration whereof
it is hereby and herein stated, iterated, reiterated, set forth,
and made manifest that, during the entire night, the "chance"
men never won a game or turned a jack, although both feats
were common and frequent to the opposition; and furthermore,
in support of this our verdict, we call attention to the
significant fact that the "chance" men are all busted, and the
"science" men have got the money. It is the deliberate opinion
of this jury, that the "chance" theory concerning sevenup
is a pernicious doctrine, and calculated to inflict untold
suffering and pecuniary loss upon any community that takes
stock in it.

"That is the way that seven-up came to be set apart and
particularlized in the statute-books of Kentucky as being a
game not of chance but of science, and therefore not punishable
under the law," said Mr. K . "That verdict is of　record, and holds
good to this day."

1870



The Story of the Good Little Boy



Once there was a good little boy by the name of Jacob Bli-
vens. He always obeyed his parents, no matter how absurd
and unreasonable their demands were; and he always learned
his book, and never was late at Sabbath-school. He would not
play hookey, even when his sober judgment told him it was
the most profitable thing he could do. None of the other
boys could ever make that boy out, he acted so strangely. He
wouldn't lie, no matter how convenient it was. He just said
it was wrong to lie, and that was sufficient for him. And he
was so honest that he was simply ridiculous. The curious ways
that that Jacob had, surpassed everything. He wouldn't play
marbles on Sunday, he wouldn't rob birds' nests, he wouldn't
give hot pennies to organ-grinders' monkeys; he didn't seem
to take any interest in any kind of rational amusement. So the
other boys used to try to reason it out and come to an under'
standing of him, but they couldn't arrive at any satisfactory
conclusion. As I said before, they could only figure out a sort
of vague idea that he was "afflicted," and so they took him
under their protection, and never allowed any harm to come
to him.

This good little boy read all the Sunday-school books; they
were his greatest delight. This was the whole secret of it.
He believed in the good little boys they put in the Sunday-
school books; he had every confidence in them. He longed to
come across one of them alive once; but he never did. They
all died before his time, maybe. Whenever he read, about a
particularly good one he turned over quickly to the end to
see what became of him, because he wanted to travel thou-
sands of miles and gaze on him; but it wasn't any use; that
good little boy always died in the last chapter, and there was
a picture of the funeral, with all his relations and the Sun-
day-school children standing arouid the grave in pantaloons
that were too short, and bonnets that were too large, and ev-
erybody crying into handkerchiefs that had as much as a yard
and a half of stuff in them. He was always headed off in this
way. He never could see one of those good little boys on ac-
count of his always dying in the last chapter.

Jacob had a noble ambition to be put in a Sunday-school
book. He wanted to be put in, with pictures representing him
gloriously declining to lie to his mother, and her weeping
for joy about it; and pictures representing him standing on
the doorstep giving a penny to a poor beggar-woman with six
children, and telling her to spend it freely, but not to be
extravagant, because extravagance is a sin; and pictures of
him magnanimously refusing to tell on the bad boy who al-
ways lay in wait for him around the corner as he came from
school, and welted him over the head with a lath, and then
chased him home, saying, "Hi! hi!" as he proceeded. That
was the ambition of young Jacob Blivens. He wished to be
put in a Sunday-school book. It made him feel a little un-
comfortable sometimes when he reflected that the good little
boys always died. He loved to live, you know, and this was
tbe most unpleasant feature about being a Sunday-school-book
boy. He knew it was not healthy to be good. He knew it was
more fatal than consumption to be so supematurally good as
the boys in tbe books were; he knew that none of them had
ever been able to stand it long, and it pained him to think
that if they put him in a book he wouldn't ever see it, or
even if they did get the book out before he died it wouldn't
be popular without any picture of his funeral in tbe back
part of it. It couldn't be much of a Sunday-school book
that couldn't tell about the advice he gave to the community
when he was dying. So at last, of course, he had to make up
his mind to do the best he could under the circumstances--
to live right, and hang on as long as he could, and have his
dying speech all ready when his time came.

But somehow nothing ever went right with this good little
boy; nothing ever turned out with him the way it turned out
with the good little boys in the books. They always had a
good time, and the bad boys had the broken legs; but in his
case there was a screw loose somewhere, and it all happened
just the other way. When he found Jim Blake stealing apples,
and went under the tree to read to him about the bad little
boy who fell out of a neighbor's apple tree and broke his
arm, Jim fell out of the tree, too, but he fell on him and
broke his arm, and Jim wasn't hurt at all. Jacob couldn't
understand that. There wasn't anything in the books like it.

And once, when some bad boys pushed a blind man over in
the mud, and Jacob ran to help him up and receive his
blessing, the blind man did not give him any blessing at
all, but whacked him over the head with his stick and said
he would like to catch him shoving him again, and then
pretending to help him up. This was not in accordance with
any of the books. Jacob looked them all over to see.

One thing that Jacob wanted to do was to find a lame dog
that hadn't any place to stay, and was hungry and persecuted,
and bring him home and pet him and have that dog's imperish-
able gratitude. And at last he found one and was happy; and he
brought him home and fed him, but when he was going to pet
him the dog flew at him and tore all the clothes off hiin ex-
cept those that were in front, and made a spectacle of him
that was astonishing. He examined authorities, but he could
not understand the matter. It was of the same breed of dogs
that was in the books, but it acted very differently. Whatever
this boy did he got into trouble. Tbe very things the boys in
the books got rewarded for turned out to be about the most
unprofitable things he could invest in.

Once, when he was on his way to Sunday-school, he saw
some bad boys starting off pleasuring in a sailboat. He
was filled with consternation, because he knew from his
reading that boys who went sailing on Sunday invariably
got drowned. So he ran out on a raft to warn them, but a
log turned with him and slid him into the river. A man got
him out pretty soon, and the doctor pumped the water out of
him, and gave him a fresh start with his bellows, but he
caught cold and lay sick abed nine weeks. But the most un-
accountable thing about it was that the bad boys in the boat
had a good time all day, and then reached home alive and well
in the most surprising manner. Jacob Blivens said there was
nothing like these things in the books. He was perfectly
dumfounded.

When he got well he was a little discouraged, but he resolv-
ed to keep on trying anyhow. He knew that so far his experi-
ences wouldn't do to go in a book, but he hadn't yet reached
the allotted term of life for good little boys, and he hoped
to be able to make a record yet if he could bold on till his
time was fully up. If everything else failed he had his dying
speech to fall back on.

He examined his authorities, and found that it was now time
for him to go to sea as a cabin-boy. He called on a shipcap-
tain and made his application, and when the captain asked
for his recommendations he proudly drew out a tract and point-
ed to the word, "To Jacob Blivens, from his affectionate
teacher." But the captain was a coarse, vulgar man, and he
said, "Oh, that be blowed! that wasn't any proof that he
knew how to wash dishes or handle a slush-bucket, and he
guessed he didn't want him." This was altogether the most
extraordinary thing that ever happened to Jacob in all his
life. A compliment from a teacher, on a tract, had never
failed to move the tenderest emotions of ship-captains, and
open the way to all offices of honor and profit in their gift
--it never had in any book that ever he had read. He could
hardly believe his senses.

This boy always had a hard time of it. Nothing ever came
out according to the authorities with him. At last, one day,
when he was around hunting up bad little boys to admonish,
he found a lot of them in the old iron-foundry fixing up a
little joke on fourteen or fifteen dogs, which they had tied
together in long procession, and were going to ornament with
empty nitroglycerin cans made fast to their tails. Jacob's
heart was touched. He sat down on one of those cans (for he
never minded grease when duty was before him), and he took
hold of the foremost dog by the collar, and turned his re-
proving eye upon wicked Tom Jones. But just at that moment
Alderman McWelter, full of wrath, stepped in. All the bad
boys ran away, but Jacob Blivens rose in conscious innocence
and began one of those stately little Sunday-school-book
speeches which always commence with '‘Oh, sir!" in dead op-
position to the fact that no boy, good or bad, ever starts a
remark with '‘Oh, sir." But the alderman never waited to hear
the rest. He took Jacob Blivens by the ear and turned him
around, and hit him a whack in the rear with the flat of his
hand; and in an instant that good little boy shot out through
the roof and soared away toward the sun, with the fragments
of those fifteen dogs stringing after him like the tail of a
kite. And there wasn't a sign of that alderman or that old
ironfoundry left on the face of the earth; and, as for young
Jacob Blivens, he never got a chance to make his last dying
speech after all his trouble fixing it up, unless he made it
to the birds; because, although the bulk of him came down all
right in a tree-top in an adjoining county, the rest of him
was apportioned around among four townships, and so they had
to hold five inquests on him to find out whether he was dead
or not, and how it occurred. You never saw a boy scattered so.

Thus perished the good little boy who did the best he could,
but didn't come out according to the books. Every boy who
ever did as he did prospered except him. His case is truly
remarkable. It will probably never be accounted for.

This glycerin catastrophe is borrowed from a floating newspa-
per item, whose author's name I would give if I knew it. M.T.

1870



Buck Fanshaw's Funeral



Somebody has said that in order to know a community,
one must observe the style of its funerals and know what
manner of men they bury with most ceremony. I cannot say
which class we buried with most ￡clat in pur "flush times,"
the distinguished public benefactor or the distinguished
rough--possibly the two chief grades or grand divisions of
society honored their illustrious dead about equally; and
hence, no doubt, the philosopher I have quoted from would
have needed to see two representative funerals in Virginia
before forming his estimate of the people.

There was a grand time over Buck Fanshaw when he died. He
was a representative citizen. He had "killed his man"--not
in his own quarrel, it is true, but in defense of a stranger
unfairly beset by numbers. He had kept a sumptuous saloon.
He had been the proprietor of a dashing helpmeet whom he
could have discarded without the formality of a divorce,
He had held a high position in the fire department and been
a very Warwick in politics. When he died there was great
lamentation throughout the town, but especially in the vast
bottom-stratum of society.

On the inquest it was shown that Buck Fanshaw, in the deli-
rium of a wasting typhoid fever, had taken arsenic, shot
himself through the body, cut his throat, and jumped out of
a four-story window and broken his neck--and after due
(.leliberation, the jury, sad and tearful, but with intel-
ligence unblinded by its sorrow, brought in a verdict of
death "by the visitation of God." What could the world do
without juries?

Prodigious preparations were made for the funeral. All the
vehicles in town were hired, all the saloons put in mourning,
all the municipal and fire-company flags hung at half-mast,
and all the firemen ordered to muster in uniform and bring
their machines duly draped in black. Now--let us remark in
parentheses--as all the peoples of the earth had represen-
tative adventures in the Silverland, and as each adventurer
had brought the slang of his nation or his locality with him,
the combination made the slang of Nevada the richest and
the most infinitely varied and copious that had ever existed
anywhere in the world, perhaps, except in the mines of Cali-
fornia in the "early days." Slang was the language of Nevada.
It was hard to preach a sermon without it, and be understood.
Such phrases as "You bet!" "Oh, no, I reckon not!" "No Irish
need apply," and a hundred others, became so common as to
fall from the lips of a speaker unconsciously--and very often
when they did not touch the subject under discussion and
consequently failed to mean anything.

After Buck Fanshaw's inquest, a meeting of the shorthaired
brotherhood was held, for nothing can be done on the Pacific
coast without a public meeting and an expression of sentiment.
Regretful resolutions were passed and various committees ap-
pointed; among others, a committee of one was deputed to call
on the minister, a fragile, gentle, spirituel new fledgling
from an Eastern theological seminary, and as yet unacquainted
with the ways of the mines. The committeeman, "Scotty" Briggs,
made his visit; and in after days it was worth something to
hear the minister tell about it. Scotty was a stalwart rough,
whose customary suit, when on weighty official like committee
work, was a fire-helmet, flaming red flannel shirt, patent-
leather belt with spanner and revolver attached, coat hung
over arm, and pants stuffed into boot-tops. He formed some-
thing of a contrast to the pale theological student It is
fair to say of Scotty, however, in passing, that he had a
warm heart, and a strong love for his friends, and never
entered into a quarrel when he could reasonably keep out of
it. Indeed, it was commonly said that whenever one of Scot-
ty's fights was investigated, it always turned out that it
had originally been no affair of his, but that out of native
good-heartedness he had dropped in of his own accord to help
the man who was getting the worst of it. He and Buck Fanshaw
were bosom friends, for years, and had often taken adventurous
"pot-luck" together. On one occasion, they had thrown off
their coats and taken the weaker side in a fight among stran-
gers, and after gaining a hard-earned victory, turned and
found that the men they were helping had deserted early, and
not only that, but had stolen their coats and made off with
them. But to return to Scotty's visit to the minister. He
was on a sorrowful mission, now, and his face was the picture
of woe. Being admitted to the presence he sat down before
the clergyman, placed his fire-hat on an unfinished manuscript
sermon under the minister's nose, took from it a red silk
handkerchief, wiped his brow and heaved a sigh of dismal
impressiveness, explanatory of his business. He choked,
and even shed tears; but with an effort he mastered his
voice and said in lugubrious tones:

"Are you the duck that runs the gospel-mill next door?"

"Am I the--pardon me, I believe I do not understand?"

With another sigh and a half-sob, Scotty rejoined:

"Why you see we are in a bit of trouble, and the boys
thought maybe you would give us a lift, if we'd tackle you
--that is, if I've got the rights of it and you are the
head clerk of the doxology-works next door."

"I am the shepherd in charge of the flock whose fold is next
door."

"The which?"

"The spiritual adviser of the little company of believers
whose sanctuary adjoins these premises."

Scatty scratched his head, reflected a moment, and then
said:

"You ruther hold over me, pard. I reckon I can't call that
hand. Ante and pass the buck."

"How? I beg pardon. What did I understand you to say?"

"Well, you've ruther got the bulge on me. Or maybe we've
both got the bulge, somehow. You don't smoke me and I
don't smoke you. You see, one of the boys has passed in his
checks, and we want to give him a good send-off, and so the
thing I'm on now is to roust out somebody to jerk a little
chin-music for us and waltz him through handsome."

"My friend, I seem to grow more and more bewildered. Your
observations are wholly incomprehensible to me. Cannot
you simplify them in some way? At first I thought perhaps
I understood you, but I grope now. Would it not expedite
matters if you restricted yourself to categorical state-
ments of fact unencumbered with obstructing accumulations
of metaphor and allegory?"

Another pause, and more reflection. Then, said Scotty:

"I'll have to pass, I judge."

"How?"

"You've raised me out, pard."

"I still fail to catch your meaning."

"Why, that last lead of youm is too many for me--that's
the idea. I can't neither trump nor follow suit."

The clergyman sank back in his chair perplexed. Scotty
leaned his head on his hand and gave himself up to thought
Presently his face came up, sorrowful but confident
"I've got it now, so's you can savvy," he said. "What we
want is a gospel-sharp. See?"

"A what?"

"Gospel-sharp. Parson."

"Oh! Why did you not say so before? I am a clergyman--
a parson."

"Now you talk! You see my blind and straddle it like a
man. Put it there!"--extending a brawny paw, which closed
over the minister's small hand and gave it a shake indicative
of fraternal sympathy and fervent gratification.

"Now we're all right, pard. Let's start fresh. Don't you mind
my snuffling a little--becuz we're in a power of trouble. You
see, one of the boys has gone up the flume--"

"Gone where?"

"Up the flume--throwed up the sponge, you understand."

"Thrown up the sponge?"

"Yes--kicked the bucket--"

"Ah--has departed to that mysterious country from
whose bourne no traveler returns."

"Return! I reckon not Why, pard, he's dead!"

"Yes, I understand."

"Oh, you do? Well I thought maybe you might be getting
tangled some more. Yes, you see he's dead again--"

"Again! Why, has he ever been dead before?"

"Dead before? No! Do you reckon a man has got as many
lives as a cat? But you bet you that you he's awful dead now,
poor old boy, and I wish I'd never seen this day. I don't want
no better friend than Buck Fanshaw. I knowed him by the back;
and when I know a man and like him, I freeze to him--you
bear me. Take him all round, pard, there never was a bul-
lier man in the mines. No man ever knowed Buck Fanshaw to
go back on a friend. But it's all up, you know, it's all up.
It ain't no use. They've scooped him."

"Scooped him?"

"Yes--death has. Well, well, well, we've got to give him up.
Yes, indeed. It's a kind of a hard world, after all, ain't it?
But pard, he was a rustler! You ought to seen him get started
once. He was a bully boy with a glass eye! Just spit in his
face and give him room according to his strength, and it was
just beautiful to see him peel and go in. He was the worst son
of a thief that ever drawed breath. Pard, he was on it! He was
on it bigger than an Injun!"

"On it? On what?"

"On the shoot. On the shoulder. On the fight, you understand.
He didn't give a continental for anybody. Beg your pardon,
friend, for coming so near saying a cuss-word--but you see
I'm on an awful strain, in this palaver, on account of hav-
ing to cramp down and draw everything so mild. But we've got
to give him up. There ain't any getting around that, I don't
reckon. Now if we can get you to help plant him--"

"Preach the funeral discourse? Assist at the obsequies?"

"Obs'quies is good. Yes. That's it--that's our little game.
We are going to get the thing up regardless, you know. He
was always nifty himself, and so you bet you his funeral ain't
going to be no slouch--solid-silver door-plate on his coffin,
six plumes on the hearse, and a nigger on the box in a biled
shirt and a plug hat--how's that for high? And we'll take care
of you, pard. Well fix you all right. There'll be a kerridge
for you; and whatever you want, you just 'scape out and we'll
'tend to it. We've got a shebang fixed up for you to stand be-
hind, in No. 1's house, and don't you be afraid. Just go in
and toot your horn, if you don't sell a clam. Put Buck through
as bully as you can, pard, for anybody that knowed him will
tell you that he was one of the whitest men that was ever in
the mines. You can't draw it too strong. He never could stand
it to see things going wrong. He's done more to make this
town quiet and peaceable than any man in it. I've seen
him lick four Greasers in eleven minutes, myself. If a thing
wanted regulating, he warn't a man to go browsing around
after somebody to do it, but he would prance in and regulate
it himself. He warn't a Catholic. Scasely. He was down on
'em. His word was, 'No Irish need apply!' But it didn't make
no difference about that when it came down to what a man's
lights was--and so, when some roughs jumped the Catholic
boneyard and started in to stake out town lots in it he went
for 'em! And he cleaned 'em, too! I was there, pard, and I
seen it myself,"

"That was very well indeed--at least the impulse was--
whether the act was strictly defensible or not. Had deceased
any religious convictions? That is to say, did he feel a
dependence upon, or acknowledge allegiance to a higher power?"

More reflection.

"I reckon you've stumped me again, pard. Could you say it
over once more, and say it slow?"

"Well, to simplify it somewhat, was he, or rather had he
ever been connected with any organization sequestered from
secular concerns and devoted to self-sacrifice in the inter-
ests of morality?"

"All down but nine--set 'em up on the other alley, pard."

"What did I understand you to say?"

"Why, you're most too many for me, you know. When you get
in with your left I himt grass every time. Every time you
draw, you fill; but I don't seem to have any luck. Let's
have a new deal."

"How? Begin again?"

"That's it"

"Very well. Was he a good man, and--"

"There--I see that; don't put up another chip till I look
at my hand. A good man, says you? Pard, it ain't no name
for it He was the best man that ever--pard, you would have
doted on that man. He could lam any galoot of his inches in
America. It was him that put down the riot last election be-
fore it got a start; and everybody said he was the only man
that could have done it He waltzed in with a spanner in one
hand and a trumpet in the other, and sent fourteen men home
on a shutter in less than three minutes. He had that riot
all broke up and prevented nice before anybody ever got a
chance to strike a blow. He was always for peace, and he
would have peace--he could not stand disturbances. Pard
he was a great loss to this town. It would please the teys
if you could chip in something like that and do him justice.
Here once when the Micks got to throwing stones through the
Methodis' Sunday-school windows. Buck Fanshaw, all of own
notion, shut up his saloon and took a couple of sixshooters
and mount guard over the Sunday-school. Says he, ‘No Irish
need apply!' And they didn't. He was the bulliest man in the
mountains, pard! He could run faster, jump higher, hit hard-
er, and hold more tanglefoot whisky without spilling it than
any man in seventeen counties. Put that in pard--it'll please
the boys more than anything you could say. And you can say,
pard, that he never shook his mother."

"Never shook his mother?"

"That's it--any of the boys will tell you so."

"Well, but why should he shake her?"

"Tbat's what I say--but some pecle does."

"Not people of any repute?"

"Well, some that averages pretty so-so."

"In my opinion the man that would offer personal violence
to his own mother, ought to--"

"Cheese it, pard; you've banked your ball clean outside the
string. What I was a drivin' at, was, that he never throwed
off on his mother--don't you see? No indeedy. He give her
a house to live in, and town lots, and plenty of money; and he
looked after her and took care of her all the time; and when
she was down with the smallpox I'm d--d if he didn't set up
nights and nuss her himself! Beg your pardon for saying it,
but it hopped out too quick for yours truly. You've treated
me like a gentleman, pard, and I ain't the man to hurt your
feelings intentional. I think you're white. I think you're a
square man, pard. I like you, and I'll lick any man that don't.
I'll lick him till he can't tell himself from a last year's
corpse! Put it there!" [Another fraternal handshake--and
exit.]

The obsequies were all that "the boys" could desire. Such a
marvel of funeral pomp had never been seen in Virginia. The
plumed hearse, the dirge-breathing brass-bands, the closed
marts of business, the flags drooping at half-mast, the long,
plodding procession of uniformed secret societies, military
battalions and fire companies, draped engines, carriages of
officials, and citizens in vehicles and on foot, attracted
multitudes of spectators to the sidewalks, roofs, and windows;
and for years afterward, the degree of grandeur attained by [........]

Scotty Briggs, as a pall-bearer and a mourner, occupied a
funeral, and when the sermon was mM the last sentence of the
prayer for the dead s soul ascended, he responded, in a low
voice, but with feeling:

"Amen. No Irish need apply."

As the bulk of the response was without apparent relevance
it was probably nothing more than a humble tribute to the mem-
ory of the fnend that was gone; for, as Scotty had once said,
it was "his word."

Scotty Briggs, in after days, achieved the distinction of
becoming the only convert to religion that was ever gathered
from the Virginia roughs; and it transpired that the man who
had it in him to espouse the quarrel of the weak out of in-
born nobility of spirit was no mean timber whereof to con-
struct a Christian. The making him one did not warp his gen-
erosity or diminish his courage; on the contrary it gave in-
telligent direction to the one and a broader field to the
other. If his Sunday-school class progressed faster than the
other classes, was it matter for wonder? I think not He talk-
ed to his pioneer small-fry in a language they understood!
It was my large privilege, a month before he died, to hear
him tell the beautiful story of Joseph and his brethren to
his class "without looking at the book." I leave it to the
reader to fancy what it was like, as it fell, riddled with
slang, from the lips of that grave, earnest teacher, and was
listened to by his little learners with a consuming interest
that showed that they were as unconscious as be was that
any violence was being done to the sacred proprieties!

From ROUGHING IT, 1872



The Story of the Old Ram



Every now and then, in these days, the boys used to tell me
I ought to get one Jim Blaine to tell me the stirring story
of his grandfather's old ram--but they always added that I
must not mention the matter unless Jim was drunk at the time
--just comfortably and sociably drunk. They kept this up
until my curiosity was on the rack to hear the story. I got
to haunting Blaine; but it was of no use, the boys always
found fault with his condition; he was often moderately but
never satisfactorily drunk. I never watched a man's condi-
tion with such absorbing interest, such anxious solicitude;
I never so pined to see a man uncompromisingly drunk before.
At last, one evening I hurried to his cabin, for I learned
that this time his situation was such that even the most fast-
idious ould find no fault with it--he was tranquilly, serene-
ly, symmetrically drunk--not a hiccup to mar his voice, not a
cloud upon his brain thick enough to obscure his memory. As
I entered, he was sitting upon an empty powder-keg, with a
clay pipe in one hand and the other raised to command sil-
ence. His face was round, red, and very serious; his throat
was bare and his hair tumbled; in general appearance and
costume he was a stalwart miner of the period. On the pine
table stood a candle, and its dim light revealed "the boys"
sitting here and there on bunks, candle-boxes, powder-kegs,
etc. They said:

"Sh--! Don't speak--he's going to commence."

I found a seat at once, and Blaine said:

"I don't reckon them times will ever come again. There
never was a more bullier old ram than what he was. Grand-
father fetched him from Illinois--got him of a man by the
name of Yates--Bill Yates--maybe you might have heard of
him; his father was a deacon--Baptist--and he was a rustler,
too; a man had to get up ruther early to get the start of
old Thankful Yates; it was him that put the Greens up to
joining teams with my grandfather when he moved west Seth
Green was prob'ly the pick of the flock; he married a Wil-
kerson--Sarah Wilkerson--good cretur, she was--one of the
likeliest heifers that was ever raised in old Stoddard,
everybody said that knowed her. She could heft a bar'l of
flour as easy as I can flirt a flapjack. And spin? Don't
mention itf Independent? Humph! When Sile Hawkins come a-
browsing around her, she let him know that for all his tin
he couldn't trot in harness alongside of her. You see, Sile
Hawkins was--no, it warn't Sile Hawkins, after all--it was a
galoot by the name of Filkins--I disremember his first name;
but he was a stump--come into pra'r-meeting drunk, one night,
hooraying for Nixon, becuz he thought it was a primary; and
old Deacon Ferguson up and scooted him through the window
and he lit on old Miss Jefferson's head, poor old filly. She was
a good soul--had a glass eye and used to lend it to old Miss
Wagner, that hadn't any, to receive company in; it warn't big
enough, and when Miss Wagner warn't noticing, it would get
twisted around in the socket, and look up, maybe, or out to
one side, and every which way, while t'other one was looking
as straight ahead as a spy-glass. Grown people didn't mind
it, but it 'most always made the children cry, it was so sort
of scary. She tried packing it in raw cotton, but it wouldn't
work, somehow--the cotton would get loose and stick out
and look so kind of awful that the children couldn't stand
it no way. She was always dropping it out, and turning up
her old deadlight on the company empty, and making them
oncomfortable, becuz she never could tell when it hopped
out, being blind on that side, you see. So somebody would
have to hunch her and say, ‘Your game eye has fetched
loose, Miss Wagner, dear'--and then all of them would have
to sit and wait till she jammed it in again--wrong side be-
fore, as a general thing, and green as a bird's egg, being a
bashful cretur and easy sot back before company. But being
wrong side before warn't much difference, anyway, becuz her
own eye was sky-blue and the glass one was yaller on the
front side, so whichever way she turned it it didn't match
nohow. Old Miss Wagner was considerable on the borrow,
she was. When she had a quilting, or Dorcas S'iety at her
house she gen'ally borrowed Miss Higgins's wooden leg to
stump around on; it was considerable shorter than her other
pin, but much she minded that. She said she couldn't abide
crutches when she had company, becuz they were so slow;
said when she had company and things had to be done, she
wanted to get up and hump herself. She was as bald as a jug,
and so she used to borrow Miss Jacops's wig--Miss Jacops
was the coffin-peddler's wife--a ratty old buzzard, he was,
that used to go roosting around where people was sick, wait-
ing for 'em; and there that old rip would sit all day, in
the shade, on a coffin that he judged would fit the can'idate;
and if it was a slow customer and kind of uncertain, he'd
fetch his rations and a blanket along and sleep in the coffin
nights. He was anchored out that way, in frosty weather, for
about three weeks, once, before old Robbins's place, waiting
for him; and after that, for as much as two years, Jacops
was not on speaking terms with the old man, on account of
his disapp'inting him. He got one of his feet froze, and
lost money, too, becuz old Robbins took a favorable turn and
got well. The next time Robbins got sick, Jacops tried to
make up with him, and varnished up the same old coffin
and fetched jt along; but old Robbins was too many for him;
he had him in, and 'peared to be powerful weak; he bought
the coffin for ten dollars and Jacops was to pay it back and
twenty-five more besides if Robbins didn't like the coffin
after he'd tried it. And then Robbins died, and at the funeral
he bursted off the lid and riz up in his shroud and told the
parson to let up on the performances, becuz he could not
stand such a coffin as that. You see he had been in a trance
once before, when he was young, and he took the chances on
another, cal'lating that if he made the trip it was money in
his pocket, and if he missed fire he couldn't lose a cent.
And, by George, he sued Jacops for the rhino and got judgment;
and he set up the coffin in his back parlor and said he 'lowed
to take his time, now. It was always an aggravation to Jacops,
the way that miserable old thing acted. He moved back to
Indiany pretty soon--went to Wellsville--Wellsville was the
place the Hogadoms was from. Mighty fine family. Old Mary-
land stock. Old Squire Hogadorn could carry around more
mixed licker, and cuss better than 'most any man I ever see.
His second wife was the Widder Billings--she that was Becky
Martin; her dam was Deacon Dunlap's first wife. Her oldest
child, Maria, married a missionary and died in grace--et up
by the savages. They et him, too, poor feller--biled him.
It warn't the custom, so they say, but they explained to
friends of his'n that went down there to bring away his
things, that they'd tried missionaries every other way and
never could get any good out of 'em--and so it annoyed all
his relations to find out that that man's life was fooled
away just out of a dern'd experiment, so to speak. But mind
you, there ain't anything ever reely lost; everything that
people can't understand and don't see the reason of does
good if you only hold on and give it a fair shake; Prov'dence
don't fire no blank ca'tridges, boys. That there missionary's
substance, unbeknowns to himself, actu'ly converted every
last one of them heathens that took a chance at the barbecue.
Nothing ever fetched them but that. Don't tell me it was an
accident that he was biled. There ain't no such a thing as an
accident. When my Uncle Lem was leaning up agin a scaffold-
ing once, sick, or drunk, or suthin, an Irishman with a hod
full of bricks fell on him out of the third story and broke
the old man's back in two places. People said it was an ac-
cident. Much accident there was about that. He didn't know
what he was there for, but he was there for a good object.
If he hadn't been there the Irishman would have been kill-
ed. Nobody can ever make me believe anything different
from that. Uncle Lem's dog was there. Why didn't the Ir-
ishman fall on the dog? Becuz the dog would 'a' seen
him a-coming and stood from under. That's the reason the
dog warn't app'inted, A dog can't be depended on to carry
out a special prov'dence. Mark my words, it was a put-up
thing. Accidents don't happen, boys. Uncle Lem's dog--
I wish you could 'a' seen that dog. He was a reg'lar shep-
herd --or ruthcr he was part bull and part shepherd--splen-
did animal; belonged to Parson Hagar before Uncle Lem got
him. Parson Hagar belonged to the Western Reserve Hagars;
prime family; his mother was a Watson; one of his sisters
married a Wheeler; they settled in Morgan County, and he
got nipped by the machinery in a carpet factory and went
tlnough in less than a quarter of a minute; his widder bought
the piece of carpel that had his remains wove in, and people
come a hundred mile to 'tend the funeral. There was fourteen
yards in the piece. She wouldn't let them roll bim up, but
planted him just so--full length. The church was middling
small where they preached the funeral, and they had to let
one end of the coffin stick out of the window. They didn't
bury him--they planted one end, and let him stand up, same
as a monument. And they nailed a sign on it and put--put
on--put on it sacred to--the m-e-m-o-r-y--of fourteen
v-a-r-d-s--of three-ply--car - - - pet--containing all that
was--m-o-r-t-a-l--of--of--W-i-l-l-i-a-m--W-h-e--"

Jim Blaine had been growing gradually drowsy and drowsier
--his head nodded, once, twice, three times--dropped peace-
fully upon his breast, and he fell tranquilly asleep. The
tears were running down the boys' cheeks--they were suffo-
cating with suppressed laughter--and had been from the
start, though I had never noticed it. I perceived that I
was "sold." I learned then that Jim Blaine's peculiarity was
that whenever he reached a certain stage of intoxication, no
human power could keep him from setting out, with impressive
unction, to tell about a wonderful adventure which he had
once had with his grandfather's old ram--and the mention
of the ram in the first sentence was as far as any man
had ever heard him get, concerning it He always maundered
off, interminably, from one thing to another, till his whisky
got the best of him, and he fell asleep. What the thing was
that happened to him and his grandfather's old ram is a
dark mystery to this day, for nobody has ever yet found out.

From ROUGHING IT, 1872



Tom Quartz



One of my comrades there--another of those victims of eight-
een years of unrequited toil and blighted hopes--was one of
the gentlest spirits that ever bore its patient cross in a weary
exile: grave and simple Dick Baker, pocket-miner of Dead-Horse
Gulch. He was forty-six, gray as a rat, earnest, thoughtful, slen-
derly educated, slouchily dressed, and clay-soiled, but his heart
was finer metal than any gold his shovel ever brought to light
--than any, indeed, that ever was mined or minted.

Whenever he was out of luck and a little downhearted, he
would fall to mourning over the loss of a wonderful cat
he used to own (for where women and children are not, men
of kindly impulses take up with pets, for they must love
something). And he always spoke of the strange sagacity
of that cat with the air of a man who believed in his se-
cret heart that there was something human about it--maybe
even supernatural.

I heard him talking about this animal once. He said:
"Gentlemen, I used to have a cat here, by the name of
Tom Quartz, which you'd 'a' took an interest in, I reckon
--most anybody would. I had him here eight year--and he
was the remarkablest cat I ever see. He was a large gray
one of the Tom specie, an' he had more hard, natchral
sense than any man in this camp--'n' a power of dignity--
he wouldn't let the Gov'ner of Californy be familiar with
him. He never ketched a rat in his life--'peared to be above
it. He never cared for nothing but mining. He knowed more
about mining, that cat did, than any man I ever, ever see.
You couldn't tell him noth'n' 'bout placer-diggin's--'n as
for pocket-mining, why he was just born for it. He would dig
out after me an' Jim when we went over the hills prospect'n',
and he would trot along behind us for as much as five mile,
if we went so fur. An' he had the best judgment about mining-
ground --why you never see anything like it. When we went
to work, he'd scatter a glance around, 'n' if he didn't think
much of the indications, he would give a look as much as
to say, ‘Well, I'll have to get you to excuse me' 'n' without
another word he'd hyste his nose into the air 'n' shove for
home. But if the ground suited him, he would lay low 'n'
keep dark till the first pan was washed, 'n' then he would
sidle up 'n' take a look, an' if there was about six or seven
grains of gold he was satisfied--he didn't want no better
prospect 'n' that--'n' then he would lay down on our coats
and snore like a steamboat till we'd struck the pocket, an'
then get up 'n' superintend. He was nearly lightnin' on
superintending.

"Well, by an' by, up comes this yer quartz excitement.
Everybody was into it--everybody was pick'n' 'n' blast'n
instead of shovelin' dirt on the hillside--everybody was
put'n' down a shaft instead of scrapin' the surface. Noth'n'
would do Jim, but we must tackle the ledges, too, 'n' so we
did. We commenced putt'n' down a shaft, 'n' Tom Quartz he
begin to wonder what in the Dickens it was all about. He
hadn't ever seen any mining like that before, 'n' he was
all upset, as you may say--he couldn't come to a right un-
derstanding of it no way--it was too many for him. He was
~down on it, too, you bet you--he was down on it powerful
'n' always appeared to consider it the cussedest foolishness
out. But that cat, you know, was always agin new-fangled
arrangements--somehow he never could abide 'em. You know
how it is with old habits. But by an' by Tom Quartz begin
to git sort of reconciled a little, though he never could
altogether understand that eternal stakin' of a shaft an'
never pannin' out anything. At last he got to comin' down
in the shaft, hisself, to try to cipher it out. An' when he'd
git the blues, 'n' feel kind o' scruffy, 'n' aggravated 'n'
disgusted --knowin' as he did, that the bills was runnin' up
all the time an' we warn't makin' a cent--he would curl up on
a gunny-sack in the corner an' go to sleep. Well, one day when
the shaft was down about eight foot, the rock got so hard
that we had to put in a blast--the first blast'n' we'd ever
done since Tom Quartz was born. An' then we lit the fuse 'n'
dumb out 'n' got off 'bout fifty yards--'n' forgot 'n' left
Tom Quartz sound asleep on the gunny-sack. In 'bout a
minute we seen a puff of smoke bust up out of the hole, 'n'
then everything let go with an awful crash, 'n' about four
million ton of rocks 'n' dirt 'n' smoke 'n' splinters shot up
'bout a mile an' a half into the air, an' by George, right in
the dead center of it was old Tom Quartz a-goin' end over
end, an' a-snortin' an' a-sneez'n', an' a-clawin' an' a-reach-
in' for things like all possessed. But it warn't no use, you
know, it warn't no use. An' that was the last we see of him
for about two minutes 'n' a half, an' then all of a sudden it
begin to rain rocks and rubbage, an' directly he come down
ker-whop about ten foot off f'm where we stood. Well, I reckon
he was p'raps the orneriest-lookin' beast you ever see. One
ear was sot back on his neck, 'n' his tail was stove up, 'n'
his eye-winkers was swinged off, 'n' he was all blacked up
with powder an' smoke, an' all sloppy with mud 'n' slush f'm
one end to the other. Well, sir, it warn't no use to try to
apologize--we couldn't say a word. He took a sort of a dis-
gusted look at hisself, 'n' then he looked at us --an' it was
just exactly the same as if he had said--‘Gents, maybe you
think it's smart to take advantage of a cat that ain't had no
experience of quartz-minin', but I think different'--an' then
he turned on his heel 'n' marched off home without ever saying
another word.

"That was jest his style. An' maybe you won't believe it,
but after that you never see a cat so prejudiced agin quartz-
mining as what he was. An' by an' by when he did get to goin'
down in the shaft ag'in, you'd 'a' been astonished at his sag-
acity. The minute we'd tetch off a blast 'n' the fuse'd begin
to sizzle, he'd give a look as much as to say, ‘Well, I'll
have to git you to excuse me,' an' it was surpris'n' the
way he'd shin out of that hole 'n' go f'r a tree. Sagacity?
It ain't no name for it, 'Twas inspiration!"

I said, "Well, Mr. Baker, his prejudice against quartz-mining
was remarkable, considering how he came by it Couldn't you
ever cure him of it?"

"Cure him! No! When Tom Quartz was sot once, he was always
sot--and you might 'a' blowed him up as much as three mill-
ion times 'n' you'd never 'a' broken him of his cussed pre-
judice agin quartz-mining."

The affection and the pride that lit up Baker's face when he
delivered this tribute to the firmness of his humble friend
of other days, will always be a vivid memory with me.

From ROUGHING IT, 1872



A Trial



Capt. Ned Blakely--that name will answer as well as any
other fictitious one (for he was still with the living at
last accounts, and may not desire to be famous)--sailed
ships out of the harbor of San Francisco for many years. He
was a stalwart, warm-hearted, eagle-eyed veteran, who had
been a sailor nearly fifty years--a sailor from early boyhood.
He was a rough, honest creature, full of pluck, and just as
full of hard-headed simplicity, too. He hated trifling conven-
tionalities --"business" was the word, with him. He had all
a sailor's vindictiveness against the quips and quirks of the
law, and steadfastly believed that the first and last aim and
object of the law and lawyers was to defeat justice.

He sailed for the Chincha Islands in command of a guano-ship.
He had a fine crew, but his negro mate was his pet--on him
he had for years lavished his admiration and esteem. It was
Capt. Ned's first voyage to the Chinchas, but his fame had
gone before him--the fame of being a man who would fight at
the dropping of a handkerchief, when imposed upon, and would
stand no nonsense. It was a fame well earned, iived in the
islands, he found that the staple of conversation was the ex-
ploits of one Bill Noakes, a bully, the mate of a trading-ship.
This man had created a small reign of terror there. At nine
o'clock at night, Capt. Ned, all alone, was pacing his deck
in the starlight. A form ascended the side, and approached
him. Capt Ned said:

"Who goes there?"

"I'm Bill Noakes, the best man on the islands."

"What do you want aboard this ship?"

"I've heard of Capt. Ned Blakely, and one of us is a better
man than 'tother--I'll know which, before I go ashore."

"You have come to the right shop--I'm your man. I'll
learn you to come aboard this ship without an invite,"

He seized Noakes, backed him against the mainmast, pounded
his face to a pulp, and then threw him overboard.

Noakes was not convinced. He returned the next night, got
the pulp renewed, and went overboard head first, as before.
He was satisfied,

A week after this, while Noakes was carousing with a
sailor crowd on shore, at noonday, Capt. Ned's colored mate
came along, and Noakes tried to pick a quarrel with him.
The negro evaded the trap, and tried to get away, Noakes
followed him up; the negro began to run; Noakes fired on
him with a revolver and killed him. Half a dozen sea-cap-
tains witnessed the whole affair. Noakes retreated to the
small after-cabin of his ship, with two other bullies, and
gave out that death would be the portion of any man that
intruded there. There was no attempt made to follow the
villains; there was no disposition to do it, and indeed very
little thought of such an enterprise. There were no courts
and no officers; there was no government; the islands be-
longed to Peru, and Peru was far away; she had no official
representative on the ground; and neither had any other
nation.

However, Capt. Ned was not perplexing his head about
such things. They concerned him not. He was boiling with
rage and furious for justice. At nine o'clock at night he
loaded a double-barreled gun with slugs, fished out a pair of
handcuffs, got a ship's lantern, summoned his quartermaster,
and went ashore. He said:

"Do you see that ship there at the dock?"

"Ay-ay, sir."

"It's the Venus."

"Ay-ay, sir."

"You--you know me."

"Ay-ay, sir."

Very well, then. Take the lantern. Carry it just under
your chin. I'll walk behind you and rest this gun-barrel on
your shoulder, p'inting forward--so. Keep your lantern well
up, so s I can see things ahead of you good. I'm going to
inarch in on Noakes--and take him--and jug the other
chaps. If you flinch--well, you know me."

"Ay-ay, sir."

In this order they filed aboard softly, arrived at Noakes's
den, the quartermaster pushed the door open, and the lantern
revealed the three desperadoes sitting on the floor. Capt.
Ned said:

"I'm Ned Blakely. I've got you under fire. Don't you move.
Don't you move without orders--any of you. You two kneel
down in the corner; faces to the wall --now. Bill Noakes,
put these handcuffs on; now come up close. Quar¬termaster,
fasten 'em. All right. Don't stir, sir. Quartermaster, put
the key in the outside of the door. Now, men, I'm going to
lock you two in, and if you try to burst through this
door--well, you've heard of me. Bill Noakes, fall in ahead,
and march. All set. Quartermaster, lock the door."

Noakes spent the night on board Blakely's ship, a prisoner
under strict guard. Early in the morning Capt. Ned called in
all the sea-captains in the harbor and invited them, with
nautical ceremony, to be present on board his ship at nine
o'clock to witness the hanging of Noakes at the yard-arm!

"What! The man has not been tried."

"Of course he hasn't. But didn't he kill the nigger?"

"Certainly he did; but you are not thinking of hanging
him without a trial?"

"Triall What do I want to try him for, if he killed the nig-
ger?"

"Oh, Capt. Ned, this will never do. Think how it will sound."

"Sound be hanged! Didn't he kill the nigger?"

"Certainly, certainly, Capt. Ned--nobody denies that--but--"

"Then I'm going to hang him, that's all. Everybody I've talked
to talks just the same way you do. Everybody says he killed the
nigger everybody knows he killed the nigger, and yet every lub-
ber of you wants him tried for it. I don't understand such
bloody foolishness as that. Tried! Mind you, I don't object to
trying him if it's got to be done to give satisfaction; and
I'll be there, and chip in and help, too; but put it off till
afternoon--put it off till afternoon, for I'll have my hands
middling full till after the burying--"

"Why, what do you mean? Are you going to hang him anyhow--
and try him afterward?"

"Didn't I say I was going to hang him? I never saw such people
as you. What's the difference? You ask a favor, and then you ain't
satisfied when you get it. Before or after's all one--you know
how the trial will go. He killed the nigger. Say--I must be go-
ing. If your mate would like to come to the hanging, fetch him
along. I like him."

There was a stir in the camp. The captains came in a body and
pleaded with Capt. Ned not to do this rash thing. They promised
that they would create a court composed of captains of the best
character; they would impanel a jury; they would conduct every-
thing in a way becoming the serious nature of the business in
hand, and give the case an impartial hearing and the accused a
fair trial. And they said it would be murder, and punishable by
the American courts if he persisted and hung the accused on his
ship. They pleaded hard. Capt. Ned said:

"Gentlemen, I'm not stubborn and I'm not unreasonable. I'm al-
ways willing to do just as near right as I can. How long will
it take?"

"Probably only a little while."

"And can I take him up the shore and hang him as soon as you
are done?"

"If he is proven guilty he shall be hanged without unnecessary
delay."

"If he's proven guilty. Great Neptune, ain't he guilty? This
beats my time. Why you all know he's guilty."

But at last they satisfied him that they were projecting nothing
underhanded. Then he said:

"Well, all right. You go on and try him and I'll go down and
overhaul his conscience and prepare him to go--like enough he
needs it, and I don't want to send him off without a show for
hereafter."

This was another obstacle. They finally convinced him that it
was a neccessary to have the accused in court. Then they said
they would send a guard to bring him.

"No, sir. I prefer to fetch him myself--he don't get out of my
hands. Besides, I've got to go to the ship to get a rope, anyway.

The court assembled with due ceremony, impaneled a jury, and pres-
ntly Capt. Ned entered, leading the prisoner with one hand and
carrying a Bible and a rope in the other. He seated himself by
the side of his captive and told the court to "up anchor and
make sail." Then he turned a searching eye on the jury, and
detected Noake's friends, the two bullies. He strode over and
said to them confidentially:

"You're here to interfere, you see. Now you vote right, doe you
hear--or else there'll be a double-barreled inquest here when
this trial's off and your remainders will go home in a couple
of baskets."

The caution was not without fruit. The jury was a unit--the ver-
dict, "Guilty."

Capt. Ned sprung to his feet and said:

"Come along you're my meat now, my lad, anyway. Gentlemen, you've
done yourselves proud. I invite you all to come and see that I
do it all straight. Follow me to the canon, a mile above here."

The court informed him that a sheriff had been appointed to do the
hanging, and-

Capt Ned's patience was at an end. His wrath was boundless.
The subject of a sheriff was judiciously dropped.

When the crowd arrived at the canon, Capt. Ned climbed
a tree and arranged the halter, then came down and noosed
his man. He opened his Bible, and laid aside his hat. Selecting
a chapter at random, he read it through, in a deep bass
voice and with sincere solemnity. Then he said:

"Lad, you are about to go aloft and give an account of your-
self; and the lighter a man's manifest is, as far as sin's
concerned, the better for him. Make a clean breast, man,
and carry a log with you that'll bear inspection. You killed
the nigger?"

No reply. A long pause.

The captain read another chapter, pausing, from time to time,
to impress the effect. Then he talked an earnest, persuasive
sermon to him, and ended by repeating the question:

"Did you kill the nigger?"

No reply--other than a malignant scowl. The captain now
read the first and second chapters of Genesis, with deep
feeling, paused a moment, closed the book reverently, and
said with a perceptible savor of satisfaction:

"There. Four chapters. There's few that would have took
the pains with you that I have."

Then he swung up the condemned, and made the rope fast;
stood by and timed him half an hour with his watch and
then delivered the body to the court A little after, as he
stood contemplating the motionless figure, a doubt came
into his face; evidently he felt a twinge of conscience--
a misgiving--and he said with a sigh:

"Well, p'raps I ought to burnt him, maybe. But I was trying
to do for the best."

When the history of this affair reached California (it was in
the "early days") it made a deal of talk, but did not diminish
the captain's popularity in any degree. It increased it indeed.
California had a population then that "inflicted" justice after
a fashion that was simplicity and primitiveness it self, and
could therefore admire appreciatively when the same fashion
was followed elsewhere.

From ROUGHING IT, 1872



The Trials of Simon Erickson



We stopped some time at one of the plantations, to rest our-
selves and refresh the horses. We had a chatty conversation
with several gentlemen present; but there was one person, a
middle-aged man, with an absent look in his face, who simply
glanced up, gave us good-day and lapsed again into the medi-
tations which our coming had interrupted. The planters
whispered us not to mind him--crazy. They said he was in
the Islands for his health; was a preacher; his home, Michi-
gan. They said that if be woke up presently and fell to talk-
ing about a correspondence which he had some time held with
Mr. Greeley about a trifle of some kind, we must humor him
and listen with interest; and we must humor his fancy that
this correspondence was the talk of the world.

It was easy to see that he was a gentle creature and that his
madness bad nothing vicious in it He looked pale, and a little
worn, as if with perplexing thought and anxiety of mind. He
sat a long time, looking at the floor, and at intervals mutter-
ing to himself and nodding his head acquiescingly or shaking
it in mild protest He was lost in his thought, or in his mem-
ories. We continued our talk with the planters, branching
from subject to subject. But at last the word "circumstance,"
casually dropped, in the course of conversation, attracted his
attention and brought an eager look into his countenance. He
faced about in his chair and said:

"Circumstance? What circumstance? Ah, I know-- know too
well. So you have heard of it too." [With a sigh.] "Well,
no matter--all the world has heard of it All the world. The
whole world. It is a large world, too, for a thing to travel
so far in--now, isn't it? Yes, yes--the Greeley correspondence
with Erickson has created the saddest and bitterest contro-
versy on both sides of the ocean--and still they keep it upl
It makes us famous, but at what a sorrowful sacrifice! I was
so sorry when I heard that it had caused that bloody and dis-
tressful war over there in Italy. It was little comfort to me,
after so much bloodshed, to know that the victors sided with
me, and the vanquished with Greeley. It is little comfort to
know that Horace Greeley is responsible for the battle of
Sadowa, and not me. Queen Victoria wrote me that she felt
just as I did about it--she said that as much as she was op-
posed to Greeley and the spirit he showed in the correspond-
ence with me, she would not have had Sadowa happen for hun-
dreds of dollars. I can show you her letter, if you would
like to see it. But, gentlemen, much as you may think you
know about that unhappy correspondence, you cannot know the
straight of it till you hear it from my lips. It has always
been garbled in the journals, and even in history. Yes, even
in history--think of itl Let me--please let me, give you the
matter, exactly as it occurred. I truly will not abuse your
confidence."

Then he leaned forward, all interest, all earnestness, and
told his story--and told it appealingly, too, and yet in the
simplest and most unpretentious way; indeed, in such a way
as to suggest to one, all the time, that this was a faithful,
honorable witness, giving evidence in the sacred interest of
justice, and under oath. He said:


Mrs. Beazeley--Mrs. Jackson Beazeley, widow, of the vill-
age of Campbellton, Kansas--wrote me about a matter which
was near her heart--a matter which many might think trivial,
but to her it was a thing of deep concern. I was living in
Michigan, then--serving in the ministry. She was, and is,
an estimable woman--a woman to whom poverty and hardship
have proven incentives to industry, in place of discourage-
ments. Her only treasure was her son William, a youth just
verging upon manhood; religious, amiable, and sincerely at-
tached to agriculture. He was the widow's comfort and her
pride. And so, moved by her love for him, she wrote me about
a matter, as I have said before, which lay near her heart--
because it lay near her boy's. She desired me to confer with
Mr. Greeley about turnips. Turnips were the dream of her
child's young ambition. While other youths were frittering
away in frivolous amusements the precious years of budding
vigor which God had given them for useful preparation,
this boy was patiently enriching his mind with information
concerning turnips. The sentiment which he felt toward the
turnip was akin to adoration. He could not think of the
turnip without emotion; he could not speak of it calmly; he
could not conternplate it without exaltation; he could not
eat it without shedding tears. All the poetry in his sensi-
tive nature was in sympathy with the gracious vegetable. With
the earliest pipe of dawn he sought his patch, and when the
curtaining night drove him from it he shut hipiself up with
his bewks and garnered statistics till sleep overcame him. On
rainy days he sat and talked hours together with his mother
about turnips. When company came, he made it his loving
duty to put aside everything else and converse with them all
the day long of his great joy in the turnip. And yet, was this
joy rounded and complete? Was there no secret alloy of unhap-
piness in it? Alas, there was. There was a canker gnawing
at his heart; the noblest inspiration of his soul eluded
his endeavor--viz., he could not make of the turnip a climb-
ing vine. Months went by; the bloom forsook his cheek, the
hre faded out of his eye; sighings and abstractions usurped
the place of smiles and cheerful converse. But a watchful eye
noted these things, and in time a motherly sympathy unsealed
the secret. Hence the letter to me. She pleaded for attention--
she said her boy was dying by inches.

I was a stranger to Mr. Greeley, but what of that? The matter
was urgent. I wrote and begged him to solve the difficult
problem if possible, and save the student's life. My interest
grew, until it partook of the anxiety of the mother. I waited
in much suspense. At last the answer came.

I found that I could not read it readily, the handwriting be-
ing unfamiliar and my emotions somewhat wrought up. It seemed
to refer in part to the boy's case, but chiefly to other and
irrelevant matters--such as paving-stones, electricity, oys-
ters, and something which I took to be "absolution" or "agra-
rianism," I could not be certain which; still, these appeared
to be simply casual mentions, nothing more; friendly in spirit,
without doubt, but lacking the connection or coherence nece-
ssary to make them useful. I judged that my understanding was
affected by my feelings, and so laid the letter away till morn-
ing.

In the morning I read it again, but with difliculty and uncer-
tainty still, for I had lost some little rest and my mental
vision seemed clouded. The note was more connected, now,
but did not meet the emergency it was expected to meet. It
was too discursive. It appeared to read as follows, though I
was not certain of some of the words:

Polygamy dissembles majesty; extracts redeem polarity;
causes hitherto exist. Ovations pursue wisdom, or warts in-
herit and condemn. Boston, botany, cakes, folony undertakes,
but who shall allay? We fear not. Yrxwly,
　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　Hevace Eveeloj

But there did not seem to be a word about turnips. There
seemed to be no suggestion as to how they might be made to
grow like vines. There was not even a reference to the Bea-
zeleys. I slept upon the matter; I ate no supper, neither
any breakfast next morning. So I resumed my work with a brain
refreshed, and was very hopeful. Now the letter took a differ-
ent aspect--all save the signature, which latter I judged to
be only a harmless affectation of Hebrew. The epistle was nec-
essarily from Mr. Greeley, for it bore the printed heading of
The Tribune, and I had written to no one else there. The
letter, I say, had taken a different aspect, but still its lang-
uage was eccentric and avoided the issue. It now appeared
to say:

Bolivia extemporizes mackerel; borax esteems polygamy;
sausages wither in the east. Creation perdu, is done; for
woes inherent one can damn. Buttons, buttons, corks, geo-
logy underrates but we shall allay. My beer's out. Yrxwly,
　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　 　　　Hevace Eveeloj

I was evidently overworked. My comprehension was impaired.
Therefore I gave two days to recreation, and then returned
to my task greatly refreshed. The letter now took this
form:

Poultices do sometimes choke swine; tulips reduce poster-
ity; causes leather to resist. Our notions empower wisdom,
her let's afford while we can. Butter but any cakes, fill
any undertaker, we'll wean him from his filly. We feel hot.
Yrxwly,
　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　Hevace Eveeloj

I was still not satisfied. These generalities did not meet the
question. They were crisp, and vigorous, and delivered with a
confidence that almost compelled conviction; but at such a time
as this, with a human life at stake, they seemed inappropriate,
worldly, and in bad taste. At any other time I would have been
not only glad, but proud, to receive from a man like Mr. Gree-
ley a letter of this kind, and would have studied it earnestly
and tried to improve myself all I could; but now, with that
poor boy in his far home languishing for relief, I had no heart
for learning.

Three days passed by, and I read the note again. Again its
tenor had changed. It now appeared to say;

Potations do sometimes wake wines; turnips restrain passion;
causes necessary to state. Infest the poor widow; her lord's
effects will be void. But dirt, bathing, etc., etc., followed
unfairly, will worm him from his folly--so swear not,
Yrxwly,
　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　Hevace Eveeloj

This was more like it. But I was unable to proceed. I was
too much worn. The word ‘turnips" brought temporary joy
and encouragement, but my strength was so much impaired
and the delay might be so perilous for the boy, that I re-
linquished the idea of pursuing the translation further,
and resolved to do what I ought to have done at first. I
sat down and wrote Mr. Greeley as follows:

Dear Sir: I fear I do not entirely comprehend your kind
note. It cannot be possible, Sir, that "turnips restrain
passion" --at least the study or contemplation of turnips
cannot--for it is this very employment that has scorched
our poor friends mind and sapped his bodily strength.--But
if they do restrain it, will you bear with us a little fur-
ther and explain how they should be prepared? I observe that
you say "causes necessary to state," but you have omitted
to state them.

Under a misapprehension, you seem to attribute to me in-
terested motives in this matter--to call it by no harsher
term. But I assure you, dear sir, that if I seem to be "in-
festing the widow," it is all seeming, and void of reality.
It is from no seeking of mine that I am in this position.
She asked me, herself, to write to you. I never have in-
fested her--indeed I scarcely know her. I do not infest an-
ybody. I try to go along, in my humble way, doing as near
right as I can, never harming anybody, and never throwing
out insinuations. As for "her lord and his effects," they
are of no interest to me. I trust I have effects enough of
my own--shall endeavor to get along with them, at any rate,
and not go mousing around to get hold of somebody's that
are "void." But do you not see? --this woman is a widow--
she has no "lord." He is dead--or pretended to be, when
they buried him. Therefore, no amount of "dirt, bathing,
etc., etc.," howsoever "unfairly followed" will be likely
to "worm him from his folly"--if being dead and a ghost
is "folly." Your closing remark is as unkind as it was
uncalled for; and if report says true you might have ap-
plied it to yourself, sir, with more point and less im-
propriety.
　　　　　　　　　　　Very Truly Yours,
　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　Simon Erickson

In the course of a few days, Mr. Greeley did what would
have saved a world of trouble and much mental and bodily
suffering and misunderstanding, if he had done it sooner.
To wit, he sent an intelligible rescript or translation of
his original note, made in a plain hand by his clerk. Then
the mystery cleared, and I saw that his heart had been
right, all the time. I will recite the note in its clari-
fied form:

　　　　　　　　　 　　　　[Translation]
Potatoes do sometimes make vines', turnips remain pas-
sive: cause unnecessary to state. Inform the poor widow
her lad's efforts will be vain. But diet, bathing, etc., etc.,
followed uniformly, will wean him from his folly--so fear
not. Yours,
　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　Horace Greeley

But alas, it was too late, gentlemen--too late. The crim-
inal delay had done its work--young Beazeley was no more.
His spirit had taken its flight to a land where all anxie-
ties shall be charmed away, all desires gratified, all am-
bitions realized. Poor lad, they laid him to his rest with
a turnip in each hand.

So ended Erickson, and lapsed again into nodding, mumbling,
and abstraction. The company broke up, and left him
so. . . . But they did not say what drove him crazy. In the
momentary confusion, I forgot to ask.

From ROUGHING IT, 1872



A True Story

REPEATED WORD FOR WORD AS I HEARD IT



It was summer-time, and twilight. We were sitting on the
porch of the farmhouse, on the summit of the hill, and "Aunt
Rachel" was sitting respectfully below our level, on the steps
--for she was our servant, and colored. She was of mighty
frame and stature; she was sixty years old, but her eye was
undimmed and her strength unabated. She was a cheerful,
hearty soul, and it was no more trouble for her to laugh than
it is for a bird to sing. She was under fire now, as usual when
the day was done. That is to say, she was being chaffed with-
out mercy, and was enjoying it. She would let off peal after
peal of laughter, and then sit with her face in her hands and
shake with throes of enjoyment which she could no longer get
breath enough to express. At such a moment as this a thought
occurred to me, and I said:

"Aunt Rachel, how is it that you've lived sixty years and
never had any trouble?"

She stopped quaking. She paused and there was a moment
of silence. She turned her face over her shoulder toward
me, and said, without even a smile in her voice:

"Misto C--, is you in 'arnest?"

It surprised me a good deal; and it sobered my manner
and my speech, too. I said:

"Why, I thought--that is, I meant--why, you can't have
had any trouble. I've never heard you sigh, and never seen
your eye when there wasn't a laugh in it."

She faced fairly around now, and was full of earnestness,

"Has I had any trouble? Misto C--, I's gwyne to tell you,
den I leave it to you. I was bawn down 'mongst de slaves; I
knows all 'bout slavery, 'case I ben one of 'em my own se'f.
Well, sah, my ole man--dat's my husban'--he was lovin' an'
kind to me, jist as kind as you is to yo' own wife. An' we
had chil'en--seven chil'en--an' we loved dem chil'en just de
same as you loves yo' chil'en. Dey was black, but de Lord
can't make no chil'en so black but what dey mother loves 'em
an' wouldn't give 'em up, no, not for anything dat's in dis
whole world.

"Well, sah, I was raised in ole Fo'ginny, but my mother she
was raised in Maryland; an' my souls! she was turrible when
she'd git started! My lan'! but she'd make de fur fly! When
she'd git into dem tantrums, she always had one word dat she
said. She'd straighten herse'f up an' put her fists in her hips
an' say, ‘I want you to understan' dat I wa'n't bawn in the
mash to be fool' by trash! I's one o' de ole Blue Hen's Chick-
ens, I is!' 'Ca'se, you see, dat's what folks dat's bawn in
Maryland calls deyselves, an' dey's proud of it. Well, dat was
her word. I don't ever forgit it, beca'se she said it so much, an'
beca'se she said it one day when my little Henry tore his wris'
awful, and most busted his head, right up at de top of his
forehead, an' de niggers didn't fly aroun' fas' enough to 'tend
to him. An' when dey talk' back at her, she up an' she says,
‘Look-a-heahl' she says, ‘I want you niggers to understan' dat
I wa'n'yt bawn in de mash to be fool' by trash! I's one o' de
ole Blue Hen's Chickens, I is!' an' den she clar' dat kitchen
an' bandage' up de chile herse'f. So I says dat word, too,
when I's riled.

"Well, bymeby my ole mistis say she's broke, an' she got
to sell all de niggers on de place. An' when I heah dat dey
gwyne to sell us all off at oction in Richmon', oh, de good
gracious! I know what dat mean!"

Aunt Rachel had gradually risen, while she warmed to her
subject, and now she towered above us, black against the
stars.

"Dey put chains on us an' put us on a stan' as high as dis
po'ch--twenty foot high--an' all de people stood aroun',
crowds an' crowds. An' dey'd come up dah an' look at us all
roun', an' squeeze our arm, an' make us git up an' walk, an'
den say, ‘Dis one too ole,' or ‘Dis one lame,' or ‘Dis one
don't 'mount to much.' An' dey sole my ole man, an' took him
away, an' dey begin to sell my chil'en an' take dem away, an'
I begin to cry; an' de man say, ‘Shet up yo' damn blubberin','
an' hit me on de mouf wid his han'. An' when de las' one was
gone but my little Henry, I grab' him clost up to my breas'
so, an' I ris up an' says, ‘You sha'n't take him away,' I says;
'I'll kill de man dat tetches him!' I says. But my little Henry
whisper an' say, ‘I gwyne to run away, an' den I work an'
buy yo' freedom.' Oh, bless de chile, he always so good! But
dey got him--dey got him, de men did; but I took and tear
de clo'es mos' off of 'em an' beat 'em over de head wid my
chain; an' dey give it to me, too, but I didn't mine dat.

"Well, dah was my ole man gone, an' all my chil'en, all my
seven chil'en--an' six of 'em I hain't set eyes on ag'in to
this day, an' dat's twenty-two years, ago las' Easter. De man
dat bought me b'long' in Newbem, an' he took me dah. Well,
bymeby de years roll on an' de waw come. My marster he was
a Confedrit colonel, an' I was his family's cook. So when de
Unions took dat town, dey all run away an' lef' me all by
myse'f wid de other niggers in dat mons'us big house. So de
big Union officers move in dah, an' dey ask me would I cook
for dem, ‘Lord bless you,' says I, ‘dat's what I's for.'

"Dey wa'n't no small-fry officers, mine you, dey was de
biggest dey is; an' de way dey made dem sojers mosey roun'!
De Gen'l he tole me to boss dat kitchen; an' he say, ‘If
anybody come meddlin' wid you, you just make 'em walk chalk;
don't you be afeared,' he say; ‘you's 'mong frens now.'

"Well, I thinks to myse'f, if my little Henry ever got a
chance to run away, he'd make to de Norf, o' course. So one
day I comes in dah whar de big officers was, in de parlor, an'
I drops a kurtchy, so, an' I up an' tole 'em 'bout my Henry,
dey a-listenin' to my troubles jist de same as if I was white
folks; an' I says, ‘What I come for is beca'se if he got away
and got up Norf whar you gemmen comes from, you might've
seen him, maybe, an' could tell me so as I could fine him ag'in;
he was very little, an' he had a sk-yar on his lef wris' an'
at de top of his forehead.' Den dey look mournful, an' de
Cen'l says, ‘How long sence you los' him?' an' I say, ‘Thir-
teen year.' Den de Gen'l say, ‘He wouldn't be little no mo'
now--he's a man!"

"I never thought o' dat befo'! He was only dat little feller
to me yit. I never thought 'bout him growin' up an' bein' big.
But I see it den. None o' de gemmen had run acrost him, so
dey couldn't do nothin' for me. But all dat time, do' I didn't
know it, my Henry was run off to de Norf, years an' years,
an' he was a barber, too, an' worked for hisse'f. An' bymeby,
when de waw come he ups an' he says: ‘I's done barberin','
he says, ‘I's gwyne to fine my ole mammy, less'n she's dead.'
So he sole out an' went to whar dey was recruitin', an' hired
hisse'f out to de colonel for his servant; an' den he went all
froo de battles everywhah, huntin' for his ole mammy; yes, ind-
eedy, he'd hire to fust one officer an' den another, tell he'd
ransacked de whole Souf; but you see I didn't know nuffin
'bout dis. How was I gwyne to know it?

"Well, one night we had a big sojer ball; de sojers dah at
Newbern was always havin' balls an' carryin' on. Dey had 'em
in my kitchen, heaps o' times, 'ca'se it was so big. Mine you,
I was down on sich doin's; beca'se my place was wid de offi-
cers, an' it rasp me to have dem common sojers cavortin'
foun' my kitchen like dat. But I alway' stood aroun' an' kep'
things straight, I did; an' sometimes dey'd git my dander up,
an' den I'd make 'em clar dat kitchen, mine I tell you!

"Well, one night--it was a Friday night--dey comes a whole
platoon f'm a nigger ridgment dat was on guard at de house--de
house was headquarters, you know--an' den I was just a-bilin'!
Mad? I was just a-boomin'! I swelled aroun', an' swelled aroun';
I just was a-itchin' for 'em to do somefin for to start me. An'
dey was a-waltzin' an' a-dancin'! my! but dey was havin' a time!
an' I jist a-swellin' an' a-swellin' up! Pooty soon, 'long comes
sich a spruce young nigger a-sailin' down de room wid a yaller
wench roun' de wais'; an' roun' an' roun' an' roun' dey went,
enough to make a body drunk to look at 'em; an' when dey got
abreas' o' me, dey went to kin' o' balancin' aroun' fust on
one leg an' den on t'other, an' smilin' at my big red turban,
an' makin' fun, an' I ups an' says 'Git along wid you!--rubbage!'
De young man's face kin' o' changed, all of a sudden, for 'bout
a second, but den he went to smilin' ag'in, same as he was befo'.
Well, 'bout dis time, in comes some niggers dat played music
and b'long' to de ban', an' dey never could git along widout
puttin' on airs. An' de very fust air dey put on dat night, I
lit into 'em! Dey laughed, an' dat made me wuss. De res' o'
de niggers got to laughin', an' den my soul alive but I was
hot! My eye was just a-blazin'! I jist straightened myself up
so--jist as I is now, plum to de ceilin' mos'--an' I digs my
fists into my hips, an' I says, ‘Look-a-heah!' I says, ‘I
want you niggers to understan' dat I wa'n't bawn in de mash
to be fool' by trash! I's one o' de ole Blue Hen's Chickens,
I is!' an' den I see dat young man stan' a-starin' an' stiff,
lookin' kin' o' up at de ceilin' like he fo'got somefin, an'
couldn't 'member it no mo'. Well, I list march' on dem nig-
gers--so lookin' like a gen'l --an' dey jist cave' away befo'
me an' out at de do'. An' as dis young man was a-goin' out,
I heah him say to another nigger, ‘Jim,' he says, ‘you go
'long an' tell de cap'n I be on han' 'bout eight o'clock in
de mawnin'; dey's somefin on my mine,' he says; ‘I don't
sleep no mo' dis night. You go 'long,' he says, ‘an' leave
me by my own se'f.'

"Dis was 'bout one o'clock in de mawnin'. Well, 'bout
seven, I was up an' on han', gittin' de officers' breakfast. I
was a-stoopin' down by de stove--just so, same as if yo' foot
was de stove--an' I'd opened de stove do' wid my right han'
--so, pushin' it back, just as I pushes yo' foot--an' I'd jist
got de pan o' hot biscuits in my han' an' was 'bout to raise up,
when I see a black face come aroun' under mine, an' de eyes
a-lookin' up into mine, just as I's a-lookin' up close under yo'
face now; an' I just stopped right dah, an' never budged! jist
gazed an' gazed so; an' de pan begin to tremble, an' all of a
sudden I knowed! De pan op' on de flo' an' I grab his lef
ban' an' shove back his sleeve--jist so, as I's doin' to you--an'
den I goes for his forehead an' push de hair back so, an' ‘Boy!'
I says, ‘if you ain't my Henry, what is you doin' wid dis welt
on yo' wris' an' dat sk-yar on yo' forehead? De Lord God ob
heaven be praise', I got my own ag'ini'

"Oh no, Misto O---, I hain't had no trouble. An' no joy!"

　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　1874



Experience of the McWilliamses
with Membranous Croup



As related to the author of this book by Mr, McWilliams a
pleasant New York gentleman whom the said author met by
chance on a journey.


Well, to go back to where I was before I digressed to explain
to you how that frightful and incurable disease, membranous
croup, was ravaging the town and driving all mothers mad with
terror, I called Mrs. McWilliams's attention to little
Penelope, and said:

"Darling, I wouldn't let that child be chewing that pine
stick if I were you."

"Precious, where is the harm in it?"" said she, but at the
same time preparing to take away the stick--for women cannot
receive even the most palpably judicious suggestion without
arguing it; that is, married women.

I replied:

"Love, it is notorious that pine is the least nutritious wood
that a child can eat."

My wife's hand paused, in the act of taking the stick, and
returned itself to her lap. She bridled perceptibly, and said:

"Hubby, you know better than that. You know you do. Doctors
all say that the turpentine in pine wood is good for weak back
and the kidneys."

"Ah--I was under a misapprehension. I did not know that the
child's kidneys and spine were affected, and that the family
physician had recommended--"

"Who said the child's spine and kidneys were affected?"

"My love, you intimated it."

"The idea! I never intimated anything of the kind."

"Why, my dear, it hasn't been two minutes since you
said--"

"Bother what I said! I don't care what I did say. There isn't
any harm in the child's chewing a bit of pine stick if she
wants to, and you know it perfectly well. And she shall chew
it, too. So there, now!"

"Say no more, my dear. I now see the force of your reasoning,
and I will go and order two or three cords of the best
pine wood to-day. No child of mine shall want while I--

"Oh, please go along to your office and let me have some
peace. A body can never make the simplest remark but you
must take it up and go to arguing and arguing and arguing
till you don't know what you are talking about, and you
never do."

"Very well, it shall be as you say. But there is a want of
logic in your last remark which--"

However, she was gone with a flourish before I could finish,
and had taken the child with her. That night at dinner
she confronted me with a face as white as a sheet:

"Oh, Mortimer, there's another! Little Georgie Gordon is
taken."

"Membranous croup?"

"Membranous croup."

"Is there any hope for him?"

"None in the wide world. Oh, what is to become of us!"

By and by a nurse brought in our Penelope to say good night
and offer the customary prayer at the mother's knee. In
the midst of "Now I lay me down to sleep," she gave a slight
cough! My wife fell back like one stricken with death. But
the next moment she was up and brimming with the activities
which terror inspires.

She commanded that the child's crib be removed from the
nursery to our bedroom; and she went along to see the order
executed. She took me with her, of course. We got matters
arranged with speed. A cot-bed was put up in my wife's dress-
ing-room for the nurse. But now Mrs. McWilliams said we
were too far away from the other baby, and what if he were
to have the symptoms in the night--and she blanched again,
poor thing.

We then restored the crib and the nurse to the nursery and
put up a bed for ourselves in a room adjoining.

Presently, however, Mrs. McWilliams said suppose the baby
should catch it from Penelope? This thought struck a new
panic to her heart, and the tribe of us could not get the
crib out of the nursery again fast enough to satisfy my wife,
though she assisted in her own person and well-nigh pulled
the crib to pieces in her frantic hurry.

We moved downstairs; but there was no place there to stow
the nurse, and Mrs. McWilliams said the nurse's experience
would be an inestimable help. So we returned, bag and bag-
gage, to our own bedroom once more, and felt a great glad-
ness, like storm-buffeted birds that have found their nest
again.

Mrs. McWilliams sped to the nursery to see how things
were going on there. She was back in a moment with a new
dread. She said:

"What can make Baby sleep so?"

I said:

"Why, my darling, Baby always sleeps like a graven
image."

"I know. I know; but there's something peculiar about his
sleep now. He seems to--to--he seems to breathe so regularly,
Oh, this is dreadful."

"But, my dear, he always breathes regularly."

"Oh, I know it, but there's something frightful about it
now. His nurse is too young and inexperienced. Maria shall
stay there with her, and be on band if anything happens."

"That is a good idea, but who will help you?"

"You can help me all I want. I wouldn't allow anybody to
do anything but myself, anyhow, at such a time as this."

I said I would feel mean to lie abed and sleep, and leave
her to watch and toil over our little patient all the weary
night. But she reconciled me to it. So old Maria departed and
took up her ancient quarters in the nursery.

Penelope coughed twice in her sleep.

"Oh, why don't that doctor come! Mortimer, this room is
too warm. This room is certainly too warm. Turn off the reg"
ister--quick!"

I shut it off, glancing at the thermometer at the same time,
and wondering to myself if 70 was too warm for a sick child.

The coachman arrived from down-town now with the news that
our physician was ill and confined to his bed. Mrs, McWil-
liams turned a dead eye upon me, and said in a dead voice:

"There is a Providence in it. It is foreordained. He never
was sick before. Never. We have not been living as we
ought to live, Mortimer. Time and time again I have told you
so. Now you see the result Our child will never get well. Be
thankful if you can forgive yourself; I never can forgive my-
self."

I said, without intent to hurt, but with heedless choice of
words, that I could not see that we had been living such an
abandoned life.

""Mortimer! Do you want to bring the judgment upon Baby,
too!"

Then she began to cry, but suddenly exclaimed:

"The doctor must have sent medicines!"

I said:

"Certainly. They are here. I was only waiting for you to
give me a chance."

"Well do give them to me! Don't you know that every moment
is precious now? But what was the use in sending medicines,
when he knows that the disease is incurable?"

I said that while there was life there was hope.

"Hope! Mortimer, you know no more what you are talking
about than the child unborn. If you would-- As I live,
the directions say give one teaspoonful once an hour! Once
an hour!--as if we had a whole year before us to save the
child in! Mortimer, please hurry. Give the poor perishing
thing a tablespoonful, and try to be quick!"

"Why, my dear, a tablespoonful might--"

'"Don't drive me frantic! . . . There, there, there, my
precious, my own; it's nasty bitter stuff, but it's good
for Nelly --good for mother's precious darling; and it
will make her well. There, there, there, put the little
head on mamma's breast and go to sleep, and pretty soon
--oh, I know she can't live till morning! Mortimer, a
tablespoonful every halfhour will-- Oh, the child needs
belladonna, too; I know she does--and aconite. Get them,
Mortimer. Now do let me have my way. You know nothing
about these things."

We now went to bed, placing the crib close to my wife's
pillow. All this turmoil had worn upon me, and within two
minutes I was something more than half asleep. Mrs. Mc-
Williams roused me:

"Darling, is that register turned on?"

"No."

"I thought as much. Please turn it on at once. This room
is cold."

I turned it on, and presently fell asleep again. I was aroused
once more:

"Dearie, would you mind moving the crib to your side of
the bed? It is nearer the register."

I moved it, but had a collision with the rug and woke up
the child. I dozed off once more, while my wife quieted the
sufferer. But in a little while these words came murmuring
remotely through the fog of my drowsiness:

"Mortimer, if we only had some goose grease--will you
ring?"

I climbed dreamily out, and stepped on a cat, which responded
with a protest and would have got a convincing kick for it
if a chair had not got it instead.

"Now, Mortimer, why do you want to turn up the gas and
wake up the child again?"

"Because I want to see how much I am hurt, Caroline."

"Well, look at the chair, too--I have no doubt it is ruined.
Poor cat; suppose you had--"

"Now I am not going to suppose anything about the cat. It
never would have occurred if Maria had been allowed to re-
main here and attend to these duties, which are in her line
and are not in mine."

"Now, Mortimer, I should think you would be ashamed to
make a remark like that. It is a pity if you cannot do the
few little things I ask of you at such an awful time as this
when our child--"

"There, there, I will do anything you want. But I can't
raise anybody with this bell. They're gone to bed. Where
is the goose grease?"

"On the mantelpiece in the nursery. If you'll step there
and speak to Maria--"

I fetched the goose grease and went to sleep again. Once
more I was called:

"Mortimer, I so hate to disturb you, but the room is still
too told for me to try to apply this stuff. Would you mind
lighting the fire? It is all ready to touch a match to."

I dragged myself out and lit the fire, and then sat down dis-
consolate.

"Mortimer, don't sit there and catch your death of cold.
Come to bed."

As I was stepping in she said:

"Wait a moment. Please give the child some more of
the medicine."

Which I did. It was a medicine which made a child more or
less lively; so my wife made use of its waking interval to
strip it and grease it all over with the goose oil. I was
soon asleep once more, but once more I had to get up.

"Mortimer, I feel a draft. I feel it distinctly. There is
nothing so bad for this disease as a draft. Please move the
crib in front of the fire."

I did it; and collided with the rug again, which I threw in
the fire. Mrs. McWilliams sprang out of bed and rescued it
and we had some words. I had another trifling interval of
sleep, and then got up, by request, and constructed a flax-
seed poultice. This was placed upon the child's breast and
left there to do its healing work.

A wood-fire is not a permanent thing. I got up every twenty
minutes and renewed ours, and this gave Mrs. McWilliams
the opportunity to shorten the times of giving the medicines
by ten minutes, which was a great satisfaction to her. Now
and then, between times, I reorganized the flax-seed poul-
tices, and applied sinapisms and other sorts of blisters
where unoccupied places could be found upon the child. Well,
toward morning the wood gave out and my wife wanted me to
go down cellar and get some more. I said:

"My dear, it is a laborious job, and the child must be
nearly warm enough, with her extra clothing. Now mightn't
we put on another layer of poultices and--"

I did not finish, because I was interrupted. I lugged wood
up from below for some little time, and then turned in and
fell to snoring as only a man can whose strength is all gone
and whose soul is worn out. Just at broad daylight I felt a
grip on my shoulder that brought me to my senses suddenly.
My wife was glaring down upon me and gasping. As soon as
she could command her tongue she said:

"It is all over! All over! The child's perspiringl What shall
we do?"

"Mercy, how you terrify me! I don't know what we ought
to do. Maybe if we scraped her and put her in the draft
again--"

"Oh, idiot! There is not a moment to lose! Go for the doctor.
Go yourself. Tell him he must come, dead or alive."

I dragged that poor sick man from his bed and brought
him. He looked at the child and said she was not dying.
This was joy unspeakable to me, but it made my wife as mad
as if he had offered her a personal affront. Then he said
the child's cough was only caused by some trifling irrita-
tion or other in the throat. At this I thought my wife had
a mind to show him the door. Now the doctor said he would
make the child cough harder and dislodge the trouble. So he
gave her something that sent her into a spasm of coughing,
and presently up came a little wood splinter or so.

"This child has no membranous croup," said he. "She has been
chewing a bit of pine shingle or something of the kind, and
got some little slivers in her throat. They won't do her any
hurt."

"No," said I, "I can well believe that. Indeed, the turpentine
that is in them is very good for certain sorts of diseases
that are peculiar to children. My wife will tell you so."

But she did not. She turned away in disdain and left the
room; and since that time there is one episode in our life
which we never refer to. Hence the tide of our days flows
by in deep and untroubled serenity.

Very few married men have such an experience as McWilliams's,
and so the author of this book thought that maybe the novel-
ty of it would give it a passing interest to the reader.

　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　1875



Some Learned Fables
for Good Old Boys and Girls


IN THREE PARTS


PART FIRST HOW THE ANIMALS OF THE WOOD
SENT OUT A SCIENTIFIC EXPEDITION


Once the creatures of the forest held a great convention
and appointed a commission consisting of the most illustrious
scientists among them to go forth, clear beyond the forest
and out into the unknown and unexplored world, to verify the
truth of the matters already taught in their schools and coll-
eges and also to make discoveries. It was the most imposing
enterprise of the kind the nation had ever embarked in. True,
the government had once sent Dr. Bull Frog, with a picked
crew, to hunt for a northwesterly passage through the swamp
to the right-hand corner of the wood, and had since sent out
many expeditions to hunt for Dr Bull Frog; but they never
could find him, and so government finally gave him up and
ennobled his mother to show its gratitude for the services
her son had rendered to science. And once government sent Sir
Grass Hopper to hunt for the sources of the rill that emptied
into the swamp; and afterward sent out many expeditions to
hunt for Sir Grass, and at last they were successful--they
found his body, but if he had discovered the sources meantime,
he did not let on. So government acted handsomely by deceas-
ed, and many envied his funeral.

But these expeditions were trifles compared with the present
one; for this one comprised among its servants the very great-
est among the learned; and besides it was to go to the utter-
ly unvisited regions believed to lie beyond the mighty forest
--as we have remarked before. How the members were banqueted,
and glorified, and talked about! Everywhere that one of them
showed himself, straightway there was a crowd to gape and
stare at him.

Finally they set off, and it was a sight to see the long pro-
cession of dry-land Tortoises heavily laden with savants,
scientific instruments, Glow-Worms and Fire-Flies for signal
service, provisions. Ants and Tumble-Bugs to fetch and car-
ry and delve. Spiders to carry the surveying chain and do
other engineering duty, and so forth and so on; and after the
Tortoises came another long train of ironclads--stately and
spacious Mud Turtles for marine transportation service; and
from every Tortoise and every Turtle flaunted a flaming glad-
iolus or other splendid banner; at the head of the column
a great band of Bumble-Bees, Mosquitoes, Katy-Dids, and
Crickets discoursed martial music; and the entire train
was under the escort and protection of twelve picked regi-
ments of the Army Worm.

At the end of three weeks the expedition emerged from the
forest and looked upon the great Unknown World. Their eyes
were greeted with an impressive spectacle. A vast level plain
stretched before them, watered by a sinuous stream; and bey-
ond there towered up against the sky a long and lofty barrier
of some kind, they did not know what. The Tumble-Bug said he
believed it was simply land tilted up on its edge, because
he knew he could see trees on it. But Professor Snail and
the others said:

"You are hired to dig, sir--that is all. We need your muscle,
not your brains, vien we want your opinion on scientific mat-
ters, we will hasten to let you know. Your coolness is intol-
erable, too--loafing about here meddling with august matters
of learning, when the other laborers are pitching camp. Go
along and help handle the baggage."

The Tumble-Bug turned on his heel uncrushed, unabashed,
observing to himself, "If it isn't land tilted up, let
me die the death of the unrighteous."

Professor Bull Frog (nephew of the late explorer) said he
believed the ridge was the wail that inclosed the earth. He
continued:

"Our fathers have left us much learning, but they had not
traveled far, and so we may count this a noble new discove-
ry. e are safe for renown now, even though our labors begsm
and ended with this single achievement. I wonder what this
wall is built of? Can it be fungus? Fungus is an honorable
good thing to build a wall of."

Professor Snail adjusted his field-glass and examined the
rampart critically. Finally he said:

"The fact that it is not diaphanous convinces me that it is
a dense vapor formed by the calorification of ascending
moisture dephlogisticated by refraction. A few endiometrical
experiments would confirm this, but it is not necessary. The
thing is obvious."

So he shut up his glass and went into his shell to make a
note of the discovery of the world's end, and the nature
of it.

"Profound mind!" said Professor Angle-Worm to Professor
Field-Mouse; "profound mind! nothing can long remain a
mystery to that august brain."

Night drew on apace, the sentinel crickets were posted,
the Glow-Worm and Fire-Fly lamps were lighted, and the camp
rank to silence and sleep. After breakfast in the morning,
the expedition moved on. About noon a great avenue was
reached, which had in it two endless parallel bars of some
kind of hard black substance, raised the height of the tall-
estmBull Frog above the general level. The scientists climb-
ed up these and examined and tested them in various ways.
They walked along them for a great distance, but found no
end and no break in them. They could arrive at no decision.
There was nothing in the records of science that mentioned
anything of this kind. But at last the bald and venerable
geographer, Professor Mud Turtle, a person who, born poor,
and of a drudging low family, had, by his own native force
raised himself to the headship of the geographers of his
generation, said:

"'My friends, we have indeed made a discovery here. We have
found in a palpable, compact, and imperishable state what
the wisest of our fathers always regarded as a mere thing
of the imagination. Humble yourselves, my friends, for we
stand in a majestic presence. These are parallels of lati-
tude!"

Every heart and every head was bowed, so awful, so sublime
was the magnitude of the discovery. Many shed tears.

The camp was pitched and the rest of the day given up to
writing voluminous accounts of the marvel, and correcting
astronomical tables to fit it Toward midnight a denumiacal
shriek was heard, then a clattering and rumbling noise,
and the next instant a vast terrific eye shot by, with a long
tail attached, and disappeared in the gloom, still uttering
triumphant shrieks.

The poor camp laborers were stricken to the heart with
fright, and stampeded for the high ass in a body. But not
the scientists, lliey had no superstitions. They calmly pro-
ceeded to exchange theories. The ancient geographer's op-
inion was asked. He went into his shell and deliberated long
and profoundly. When he came out at last, they all knew by
his worshiping countenance that he brought light Said he:

"Give thanks for this stupendous thing which we have
been permitted to witness. It is the Vernal Equinox!"

There were shoutings and great rejoicings.

"But," said the Angle-Worm, uncoiling after reflection,
"this is dead summer-time."

"Very well," said the Turtle, "we are far from our region;
the season differs with the difference of time between the
two points."

"Ah, true. True enough. But it is night How should the sun
pass in the night?"

"In these distant rons be doubtless passes always in
the night at this hour."

"Yes, doubtless that is true. But it being night, how is it
that we could see him?"

"It is a great mystery. I grant that But I am persuaded
that the humidity of the atmosphere in these remote regions
is such that particles of daylight adhere to the disk and it
was by aid of these that we were enabled to see the sun in
the dark."

This was deemed satisfactory, and due entry was made of
the decision.

But about this moment those dreadful shriekings were heard
again; again the rumbling and thundering came speeding up
out of the night; and once more a flaming great eye flashed
by and lost itself in gloom and distance.

The camp laborers gave themselves up for lost The savants
were sorely perplexed. Here was a marvel hard to account
for. They bought and they talked, they talked and they
thought Finally the learned and aged Lord Grand-Daddy-
Longlegs, who had been sitting in deep study, with his
slender limbs crossed and his stemmy arms folded, said:

"Deliver your opinions, brethren, and then I will tell my
thought--for I think I have solved this problem."

"So be it, good your lordship," piped the weak treble of
the wrinkled and withered Professor Woodlouse, "for we
shall hear from your lordship's lips naught but wisdom."
[Here the speaker threw in a mess of trite, threadbare,
exasperating quotations from the ancient poets and phil-
osophers, delivering them with unction in the sounding
grandeurs of the original tongues, they being from the
Mastodon, the Dodo, and other dead languages.] "Perhaps I
ought not to presume to meddle with matters pertaining to
astronomy at all, in such a presence as this, I who have
made it the business of my life to delve only among the
riches of the extinct languages and unearth the opulence of
their ancient lore; but still, as unacquainted as I am with
the noble science of astronomy, I beg with deference and
humility to suggest that inasmuch as the last of these won-
derful apparitions proceeded in exactly the opposite dir-
ection from that pursued by the first, which you decide to
be the Vernal Equinox, and greatly resembled it in all par-
ticulars, is it not possible, nay certain, that this last
is the Autumnal Equi--"

"O-o-o!" "O-o-o! go to bed! go to bed!" with annoyed deri-
sion from everybody. So the poor old Woodlouse retreated
out of sight, consumed with shame.

Further discussion followed, and then the united voice of
the commission begged Lord Longlegs to speak. He said:

"Fellow-scientists, it is my belief that we have witnessed
a thing which has occurred in perfection but once before in
the knowledge of created beings. It is a phenomenon of incon-
ceivable importance and interest, view it as one may, but
its interest to us is vastly heightened by an added knowledge
of its nature which no scholar has heretofore possessed or
even suspected. This great marvel which we have just wit-
nessed, fellow-savants (it almost takes my breath away), is
nothing less than the transit of Venus!"

Every scholar sprang to his feet pale with astonishment.
Then ensued tears, hand shakings, frenzied embraces,
and the most extravagant jubilations of every sort. But by
and by, as emotion began to retire within bounds, and reflection
to return to the front, the accomplished Chief Inspector
Lizard observed:

But how is this? Venus should traverse the sun's surface,
not the earth's."

The arrow went home. It carried sorrow to the breast of
every apostle of learning there, for none could deny that
this was a formidable criticism. But tranquilly the venerable
Duke crossed his limbs behind his ears and said:

"My friend has touched the marrow of our mighty discovery.
Yes--all that have lived before us thought a transit of
Venus consisted of a flight across the sun's face; they
thought it, they maintained it, they honestly believed it,
simple hearts, and were justified in it by the limitations
of their knowledge; but to us has been granted the inesti-
mable boon of proving that the transit occurs across the
earth's face, for we have seen it!"

The assembled wisdom sat in speechless adoration of this
imperial intellect. All doubts had instantly departed, like
night before the lightning.

The Tumble-Bug had just intruded, unnoticed. He now came
reeling forward among the scholars, familiarly slapping
first one and then another on the shoulder, saying "Nice
('ic!) nice old boy!" and smiling a smile of elaborate content
Arrived at a good position for speaking, he put his left arm
akimbo with his knuckles planted in his hip just under the
edge of his cut-away coat, bent his right leg, placing his toe
on the ground and resting his heel with easy grace against
his left shin, puffed out his aldermanic stomach, opened his
lips, leaned his right elbow on Inspector Lizard's shoulder,
and--

But the shoulder was indignantly withdrawn and the hardhanded
son of toil went to earth. He floundered a bit, but came up
smiling, arranged his attitude with the same careful detail
as before, only choosing Professor Dogtick's shoulder for a
support, opened his lips and--

Went to earth again. He presently scrambled up once more,
still smiling, made a loose effort to brush the dust off
his coat and legs, but a smart pass of his hand missed en-
tirely, and the force of the unchecked impulse slewed him
suddenly around, twisted his legs together, and projected
him, limber and sprawling, into the lap of the Lord Longlegs.
Two or three scholars sprang forward, flung the low creature
head over heels into a corner, and reinstated the patrician,
smoothing his ruffled dignity with many soothing and regret-
ful speeches. Professor Bull Frog roared out:

"No more of this, sirrah Tumble-Bug! Say your say and
then get you about your business with speed! Quick--what
is your errand? Come--move off a trifle; you smell like a
stable; what have you been at?"

"Please ('ic!) please your worship I chanced to light upon a
find. But no m (e-uck!) matter 'bout that. There's b ('ic!)
been another find which--beg pardon, your honors, what was
that th ('ic!) thing that ripped by here first?"

"It was the Vernal Equinox."

"Inf ('ic!) fernal equinox. 'At's all right. D ('ic) Dunno
him. What's other one?"

"The transit of Venus."

"G ('id) Got me again. No matter. Las' one dropped something."

"Ah, indeed! Good luck! Good news! Quick--what is it?"

"M ('id) Mosey out 'n' see. It'll pay."

No more votes were taken for four-and-twenty hours. Then
the following entry was made:

"The commission went in a body to view the find. It was
found to consist of a hard, smooth, huge object with a
rounded summit surmounted by a short upright projection
resembling a section of a cabbage stalk divided transvers-
ely. This projection was not solid, but was a hollow cyl-
inder plugged with a soft woody substance unknown to our
region--that is, it had been so plugged, but unfortunately
this obstruction had been heedlessly removed by Norway
Rat, Chief of the Sappers and Miners, before our arrival.
The vast object before us, so mysteriously conveyed from
the glittering domains of space, was found to be hollow and
nearly filled with a pungent liquid of a brownish hue, like
rain water that has stood for some time. And such a specta-
cle as met our view! Norway Rat was perched upon the summit
engaged in thrusting his tail into the cylindrical projection,
drawing it out dripping, permitting the struggling multitude
of laborers to suck the end of it, then straightway reinserting
it and delivering the fluid to the mob as before. Evidently
this liquor had strangely potent qualities; for all that par-
took of it were immediately exalted with great and pleasurable
emotions, and went staggering about singing ribald songs, em-
bracing, fighting, dancing, discharging irruptions of profan-
ity, and defying all authority. Around us struggled a massed
and uncontrolled mob--uncontrolled and likewise uncontrollable,
for the whole army, down to the very sentinels, were mad like
the rest, by reason of the drink. We were seized upon by these
reckless creatures, and within the hour we, even we, were un-
distinguishable from the rest--the demoralization was complete
and universal. In time the camp wore itself out with its or-
gies and sank into a stolid and pitiable stupor, in whose
mysterious bonds rank was forgotten and strange bedfellows
made, our eyes, at the resurrection, being blasted and our
souls petrified with the incredible spectacle of that intol-
erable stinking scavenger, the Tumble-Bug, and the illustri-
ous patrician my Lord Grand Daddy, Duke of Longlegs, lying
soundly steeped in sleep, and clasped lovingly in each other's
arms, the like whereof hath not been seen in all the ages
that tradition compasseth, and doubtless none shall ever in
this world find faith to master the belief of it save only
we that have beheld the damnable and unholy vision. Thus
inscrutable be the ways of God, whose will be done!

"This day, by order, did the engineer-in-chief, Herr Spider,
rig the necessary tackle for the overturning of the vast
reservoir, and so its calamitous contents were discharged
in a torrent upon the thirsty earth, which drank it up, and
now there is no more danger, we reserving but a few drops
for experiment and scrutiny, and to exhibit to the king and
subsequently preserve among the wonders of the museum.
What this liquid is has been determined. It is without ques-
tion that fierce and most destructive fluid called lightning. It
was wrested, in its container, from its storehouse in the
clouds, by the resistless might of the flying planet, and hurl-
ed at our feet as she sped by. An interesting discovery
here results. Which is, that lightning, kept to itself, is
quiescent; it is the assaulting contact of the thunderbolt
that releases it from captivity, ignites its awful fires, and
so produces an instantaneous combustion and explosion
which spread disaster and desolation far and wide in the
earth."

After another day devoted to rest and recovery, the expe-
dition proceeded upon its way. Some days later it went into
camp in a pleasant part of the plain, and the savants sallied
forth to see what they might find. Their reward was at hand.
Professor Bull Frog discovered a strange tree, and called his
comrades. They inspected it with profound interest It was
very tall and straight, and wholly devoid of bark, limbs, or
foliage. By triangulation Lord Longlegs determined its alti-
tude; Herr Spider measured its circumference at the base and
computed the circumference at its top by a mathematical
demonstration based upon the warrant furnished by the uniform
degree of its taper upward. It was considered a very extra-
ordinary find; and since it was a tree of hitherto unknown
species. Professor Woodlouse gave it a name of a learned
sound, being none other than that of Professor Bull Frog
translated into the ancient Mastodon language, for it had
always been the custom with discoverers to perpetuate their
names and honor themselves by this sort of connection with
their discoveries.

Now Professor Field-Mouse having placed his sensitive ear
to the tree, detected a rich, harmonious sound issuing from
it. This surprising thing was tested and enjoyed by each
scholar in turn, and great was the gladness and astonishment
ot all. Professor Woodlouse was requested to add to and ex-
tend the tree's name so as to make it suggest the musical
quality it possessed--which he did, furnishing the addition
Anthem Singer, done into the Mastodon tongue.

By this time Professor Snail was making some telescopic
inspections. He discovered a great number of these trees,
extending in a single rank, with wide intervals between, as
far as his instrument would carry, both southward and north-
ward. He also presently discovered that all these trees were
bound together, near their tops, by fourteen great ropes,
one above another, which ropes were continuous, from tree to
tree, as far as his vision could reach. This was surprising.
Chief Engineer Spider ran aloft and soon reported that these
ropes were simply a web hung there by some colossal member
of his own species, for he could see its prey dangling here
and there from the strands, in the shape of mighty shreds
and rags that had a woven look about their texture and were
no doubt the discarded skins of prodigious insects which had
been caught and eaten. And then he ran along one of the
ropes to make a closer inspection, but felt a smart sudden
burn on the soles of his feet, accompanied by a paralyzing
shock, wherefore he let go and swung himself to the earth by
a thread of his own spinning, and advised all to hurry at
once to camp, lest the monster should appear and get as
much interested in the savants as they were in him and his
works. So they departed with speed., nuiking notes about the
gigantic web as they went. And that evening the naturalist
of the expedition built a beautiful model of the colossal
spider, having no need to see it in order to do this, because
he had picked up a fragment of its vertebrae by te tree, and
so knew exactly what the creature looked like and what its
habits and its preferences were by this simple evidence alone.
He built it with a tail, teeth, fourteen legs, and a snout, and
said it ale grass, cattle, pebbles, and dirt with equal enthu-
siasm. This animal was regarded as a very precious addition
to science. It was hoped a dead one might be found to stuff.
Professor Woodlouse thought that he and his brother scholars,
by lying hid and being quiet, might maybe catch a live
one. He was advised to try it. Which was all the attention
that was paid ter his suggestion. The conference ended with
the naming the monster after the naturalist, since he, after
God, had created it.

"And improved it, mayhap," muttered the Tumble-Bug,
who was intruding again, according to his idle custom and
his unappeasable curiosity.


PART SECOND HOW THE ANIMALLS OF THE WOOD COMPLETED
THEIR SCIENTIFIC LABORS


A week later the expedition camped in the midst of a co-
llection of wonderful curiosities. These were a sort of vast
caverns of stone that rose singly and in bunches out of the
plain by the side of the river which they had first seen when
they emerged from the forest. These caverns stood in long,
straight rows on opposite sides of broad aisles that were
bordered with single ranks of trees. The summit of each
cavern sloped sharply both ways. Several horizontal rows of
great square holes, obstructed by a thin, shiny, transparent
substance, pierced the frontage of each cavern. Inside were
caverns within caverns; and one might ascend and visit
these minor compartments by means of curious winding
ways consisting of continuous regular terraces raised one
above another. There were many huge, shapeless objects in
each compartment which were considered to have been
living creatures at one time, though now the thin brown
skin was shrunken and loose, and rattled when disturbed.
Spiders were here in great number, and their cobwebs,
stretched in all directions and wreathing the great skinny
dead together, were a pleasant spectacle, since they in-
spired with life and wholesome cheer a scene which would
otherwise have brought to the mind only a sense of for-
sakenness and desolation. Information was sought of these
spiders, but in vain. They were of a different nationality
from those with the expedition, and their language seemed
but a musical, meaningless jargon. They were a timid, gen-
tle race, but ignorant, and heathenish worshipers of unknown
gods. The expedition detailed a great detachment of mission-
aries to teach them the true religion, and in a week's time
a precious work had been wrought among those darkened crea-
tures, not three families being by that time at peace with
each other or having a settled belief in any system of re-
ligion whatever. This encouraged the expedition to establish
a colony of missionaries there permanently, that the work
of grace might go on.

But let us not outrun our narrative. After close examina-
tion of the fronts of the caverns, and much thinking and
exchanging of theories, the scientists determined the nature
of these singular formations. They said that each belonged
mainly to the Old Red Sandstone period; that the cavern
fronts rose in innumerable and wonderfully regular strata
high in the air, each stratum about five frog-spans thick,
and that in the present discovery lay an overpowering refu-
tation of all received geology; for between every two lay
ers of Old Red Sandstone reposed a thin layer of decomposed
limestone; so instead of there having been but one Old Red
Sandstone period there had certainly been not less than a
hundred and seventy-five! And by the same token it was
plain that there had also been a hundred and seventy-five
floodings of the earth and depositings of limestone strata!
The unavoidable deduction from which pair of facts was the
overwhelming truth that the world, instead of being only
two hundred thousand years old, was older by millions upon
millions of years! And there was another curious thing:
every stratum of Old Red Sandstone was pierced and divided
at mathematically regular intervals by vertical strata of
limestone. Up-shootings of igneous rock through fractures
in water formations were common; but here was the first
instance where water-formed rock had been so projected. It
was a great and noble discovery, and its value to science
was considered to be inestimable.

A critical examination of some of the lower strata demon-
strated the presence of fossil ants and tumble-bugs (the
latter accompanied by their peculiar goods), and with high
gratification the fact was enrolled upon the scientific re-
cord; for this was proof that these vulgar laborers belonged
to the first and lowest orders of created beings, though at
the same time there was something repulsive in the reflec-
tion that the perfect and exquisite creature of the modern
uppermost order owed its origin to such ignominious beings
through the mysterious law of Development of Species.

The Tumble-Bug, overhearing this discussion, said he
was willing that the parvenus of these new times should find
what comfort they might in their wise-drawn theories, since
as far as he was concerned he was content to be of the old
first families and proud to point back to his place among
the old original aristocracy of the land.

"Enjoy your mushroom dignity, stinking of the varnish of
yesterday's veneering, since you like it," said he; "suffice
it for the Tumble-Bugs that they come of a race that rolled
their fragrant spheres down the solemn aisles of antiquity,
and left their imperishable words embalmed in the Old Red
Sandstone to proclaim it to the wasting centuries as they
file along the highway of Time!"

"Oh, take a walk!" said the chief of the expedition, with
derision.

The summer passed, and winter approached. In and about
many of the caverns were what seemed to be inscriptions.
Most of the scientists said they were inscriptions, a few
said they were not. The chief philologist. Professor Wood-
louse, maintained that they were writings, done in a char-
acter

Utterly unknown to scholars, and in a language equally un-
known. He had early ordered his artists and draftsmen to
make facsimiles of all that were discovered; and had set
himself about finding the key to the hidden tongue. In
this work he had followed the method which had always been
used by decipherers previously. That is to say, he placed
a umber of copies of inscriptions before him and studied
them both collectively and in detail. To begin with, he
placed the following copies together:

THE AMERICAN HOTEL　　　MEALS AT ALL HOURS
THE SHADES　　　　　　　　　　NO SMOKING
BOATS FOR HIRE CHEAP　　UNION PRAYER MEETING, 4 P.M.
BILLIARDS　　　　　　　　　　　　THE WATERSIDE JOURNAL
THE AI BARBER SHOP　　　 TELEGRAPH OFFICE
KEEP OFF THE GRASS　　　　TRY BRANDRETH'S PILLS
COTTAGES FOR RENT　　　　DURING THE WATERING SEASON
FOR SALE CHEAP　　　　　　　FOR SALE CHEAP
FOR SALE CHEAP　　　　　　　FOR SALE CHEAP

At first it seemed to the professor that this was a sign-
language, and that each word was represented by a distinct
sign; further examination convinced him that it was a writ-
ten language, and that every letter of its alphabet was
represented by a character of its own; and finally he decided
that it was a language which conveyed itself partly by letters,
and partly by signs or hieroglyphics. This conclusion
was forced upon him by the discovery of several specimens
of the following nature:

He observed that certain inscriptions were met with in
greater frequency than others. Such as "For Sale Cheap";
"Billiards"; "S. T,--1860--X"; "Keno"; "Ale on Draug
Naturally, then, these must be religious maxims.

But this idea was cast aside by and by, as the mystery of
the strange alphabet began to clear itself. In time, the pro-
fessor was enabled to translate several of the inscriptions
with considerable plausibility, though not to the perfect satis-
faction of all the scholars. Still, he made constant and
encouraging progress.

Finally a cavern was discovered with these inscriptions
upon it;

WATERSIDE MUSEUM
Open at all Hours--Admission 50 Cents
WONDERFUL COLLECTIONS OF
wax-works, ANCIENT FOSSILS, ETC.

Professor Woodlouse affirmed that the word "Museum"
was equivalent to the phrase "lumgath molo," or "Burial
Place." Upon entering, the scientists were well astonished.
But what they saw may be best conveyed in the language of
their own official report:

"Erect, in a row, were a sort of rigid great figures which
struck us instantly as belonging to the long extinct species
of reptile called Man, described in our ancient records. This
was a peculiarly gratifying discovery, because of late times
it has become fashionable to regard this creature as a myth
and a superstition, a work of the inventive imaginations of
our remote ancestors. But here, indeed, was Man, perfectly
preserved, in a fossil state. And this was his burial place,
as already ascertained by the inscription. And now it began
to be suspected that the caverns we had been inspecting had
been his ancient haunts in that old time that he roamed the
earth--for upon the breast of each of these tall fossils was
an inscription in the character heretofore noticed. One read,
CAPTAIN KIDD THE PIRATE'; another, "QUEEN VICTORIA'; an-
other, "ABE LINCOLN'; another, "GEORGE WASHINGTON' etc.
"With feverish interest we called for our ancient scientific rec-
ords to discover if perchance the description of Man there set
down would tally with the fossils before us. Professor
Woodlouse read it aloud in its quaint and musty phraseology,
to wit:

"In ye time of our fathers Man still walked ye earth, as
by tradition we know. It was a creature of exceeding great
size, being compassed about with a loose skin, sometimes of
one color, sometimes of many, the which it was able to cast
at will; which being done, the hind legs were discovered to
be armed with short claws like to a mole's but broader, and
ye forelegs with fingers of a curious slimness and a length
much more prodigious than a frog's, armed also with broad
talons for scratching in ye earth for its food. It had a sort
of feathers upon its head such as hath a rat, but longer,
and a beak suitable for seeking its food by smell thereof.
When it was stirred w'ith happiness, it leaked water from
its eyes; and when it suffered or was sad, it manifested it
with a horrible hellish cackling clamor that was exceeding
dreadful to hear and made one long that it might rend itself
and perish, and so end its troubles. Two Mans being together,
they uttered noises at each other like this: "Haw-haw-haw--
dam good, dam good," together with other sounds of more or
less likeness to these, wherefore ye poets conceived that
they talked, but poets be alw'ays ready to catch at any fran-
tic folly, God he knows. Sometimes this creature goeth about
with a long stick ye which it putteth to its face and bloweth
fire and smoke through ye same with a sudden and most damn-
able bruit and noise that doth fright its prey to death, and so
seizeth it in its talons and walked away to its habitat, consumed
with a most fierce and devlish joy.'

"Now was the description set forth by our ancestors wonder-
fully indorsed and confirmed by the fossils before us, as
shall be seen. The specimen marked Captain Kidd' was exam-
ined in detail. Upon its head and part of its face was a
sort of fur like that upon the tail of a horse. With great
labor its loose skin was removed, whereupon its body was
discovered to be of a polished white texture, thoroughly
petrified. The straw it had eaten, so many ages gone by,
was still in its body, undigested--and even in its legs.

'Surrounding these fossils were objects that would mean
nothing to the ignorant, but to the eye of science they were
a revelation. They laid bare the secrets of dead ages. These
musty Memorials told us when Man lived, and what were his
habits. For here, side by side with Man, were the evidences
that he had lived in the earliest ages of creation, the com-
panion of the other low orders of life that belonged to that
forgotten time. Here was the fossil nautilus that sailed the
primeval seas; here was the skeleton of the mastodon, the
ichthyosaurus, the cave-bear, the prodigious elk. Here, also,
were the charred bones of some of these extinct animals and
of the young of Man's own species, split lengthwise, showing
that to his taste the marrow was a toothsome luxury. It
was plain that Man had robbed those bones of their contents,
since no toothmark of any beast was upon them--albeit
the Tumble-Bug intruded the remark that "no beast could
mark a bone with its teeth, anyway.' Here were proofs that
Man had vague, groveling notions of art; for this fact was
conveyed by certain things marked with the untranslatable
words, "Flint Hatchets, Knives, Arrow-Heads, and Bone
Ornaments of Primeval Man.' Some of these seemed to be
rude weapons chipped out of flint, and in a secret place was
found some more in process of construction, with this un-
translatable legend, on a thin, flimsy material, lying by:

"'Jones, if you don't want to be discharged from the Mus-
seum, make the next primeaveal weppons more careful--you
couldn't even fool one of these sleapy old syentiffic gran-
nys from the Coledge with the last ones. And mind you the
animles you carved on some of the Bone Ornaments is a
Marne sight too good for any primeaveal man that was ever
fooled.--Varnum, Manager'

"Back of the burial place was a mass of ashes, showing
that Man always had a feast at a funeral--else why the
ashes in such a place; and showing, also, that he believed
in God and the immortality of the soul--else why these
solemn ceremonies?

"To sum Up. We believe that Man had a written language.
We know that he indeed existed at one time, and is not a
myth; also, that he was the companion of the cave-bear, the
mastodon, and other extinct species; that he cooked and ate
them and likewise the young of his own kind; also, that he
bore rude weapons, and knew nothing of art; that he imagined
he had a soul, and pleased himself with the fancy that it
was immortal. But let us not laugh; there may be creatures
in existence to whom we and our vanities and profundities
may seem as ludicrous."


　　　　　　　　　　　　　　PART THIRD


Near the margin of the great river the scientists presently
found a huge, shapely stone, with this inscription:

"In 1847, in the spring, the river overflowed its banks and
covered the whole township. The depth was from two to six
feet. More than 900 head of cattle were lost, and many
homes destroyed. The Mayor ordered this memorial to be
erected to perpetuate the event. God spare us the repetition
of it!"

With infinite trouble, Professor Woodlouse succeeded in
making a translation of this inscription, which was sent
home, and straightway an enormous excitement was created
about it. It confirmed, in a remarkable way, certain treasured
traditions of the ancients. The translation was slightly
marred by one or two untranslatable words, but these did not
impair the general clearness of the meaning. It is here
presented:

"One thousand eight hundred and forty-seven years ago,
the (fires?) descended and consumed the whole city.
Only some nine hundred souls were saved, all others des-
troyed. The (king?) commanded this stone to be set up to...
(untranslatable) . . , repetition of it."

This was the first successful and satisfactory translation
that had been made of the mysterious character left behind
him by extinct man, and it gave Professor Woodlouse such
reputation that at once every seat of learning in his native
limd conferred a deee of the most illustrious grade upon
him, and it was believed that if he had been a soldier and
had turned his splendid talents to the extermination of a
remote tribe of reptiles, the king would have ennobled him
and made him rich. And this, too, was the origin of that
school of scientists called Manologists, whose specialty is
the deciphering of the ancient records of the extinct bird
termed Man. [For it is now decided that Man was a bird and
not a reptile.] But Professor Woodlouse began and remained
chief of these, for it was granted that no translations were
ever so free from error as his. Others made mistakes--he
seemed incapable of it. Many a memorial of the lost race
was afterward found, but none ever attained to the renown
and veneration achieved by the "Mayoritish Stone"--it being
so called from the word "Mayor" in it, which, being
translated "King," "Mayoritish Stone" was but another way
of saying "King Stone."

Another time the expedition made a great '"find." It was a
vast round flattish mass, ten frog-spans in diameter and five
or six high. Professor Snail put on his spectacles and exam-
ined it all around, and then climbed up and inspected the
top. He said:

"The result of my perlustration and perscontation of this
isoperimetrical protuberance is a belief that it is one of
those rare and wonderful creations left by the Mound Builders.
The fact that this one is lamel-libranchiate in its formation,
simply adds to its interest as being possibly of a different
kind from any we read of in the records of science, but yet
in no manner marring its authenticity. Let the megalophonous
grasshopper sound a blast and summon hither the perfunctory
and circumforaneous Tumble-Bug, to the end that excavations
may be made and learning gather new treasures."

Not a Tumble-Bug could be found on duty, so the Mound was
excavated by a working party of Ants. Nothing was discov-
ered. This would have been a great disappointment, had
not the venerable Longlegs explained the matter. He said:

"It is now plain to me that the mysterious and forgotten
race of Mound Builders did not always erect these edifices
as mausoleums, else in this case, as in all previous cases,
their skeletons would be found here, along with the rude
implements which the creatures used in life. Is not this
manifest?"

"True! true!" from everybody.

"Then we have made a discovery of peculiar value here; a
discovery which greatly extends our knowledge of this crea-
ture in place of diminishing it; a discovery which will add
luster to the achievements of this expedition and win for us
the commendations of scholars everywhere. For the absence
of the customary relics here means nothing less than this;
The Mound Builder, instead of being the ignorant, savage
reptile we have been taught to consider him, was a creature
of cultivation and high intelligence, capable of not only
appreciating worthy achievements of the great and noble of
his species, but of commemorating them! Fellow-scholars,
this stately Mound is not a sepulcher, it is a monument!"

A profound impression was produced by this.

But it was interrupted by rude and derisive laughter--and
the Tumble-Bug appeared.

"A monument!" quoth he. "A monument set up by a Mound
Builder! Aye, so it is! So it is, indeed, to the shrewd
keen eye of science; but to an ignorant poor devil who has
never seen a college, it is not a Monument, strictly speaking,
but is yet a most rich and noble property; and with your
worship's good permission I will proceed to manufacture it
into spheres of exceedings grace and--"

The Tumble-Bug was driven away with stripes, and the draft-
smen of the expedition were set to making views of the Mon-
ument from different standpoints, while Professor Woodlouse,
in a frenzy of scientific zeal, traveled all over it and
all around it hoping to find an inscription. But if there
had ever been one, it had decayed or been removed by some
vandal as a relic.

The views having been completed, it was now considered
safe to load the precious Monument itself upon the
backs of four of the largest Tortoises and send it home to
the king's museum, which was done; and when it arrived it
was received with enormous clat and escorted to its future
abiding-place by thousands of enthusiastic citizens, King
Bullfrog XVI. himself attending and condescending to sit
enthroned upon it throughout the progress.

The growing rigor of the weather was now admonishing he
scientists to close their labors for the present, so they
made preparations to journey homeward. But even their last
day among the Caverns bore fruit; for one of the scholars
found in an out-of-the-way corner of the Museum or "Burial
Place" a most strange and extraordinary thing. It was nothing
less than a double Man-Bird lashed together breast to breast
by a natural ligament, and labeled with the untranslatable
words, "Siamese Twins" The ofiScial report concerning
this thing closed thus:

"Wherefore it appears that there were in old times two dis-
tinct species of this majestic fowl, the one being single and
the other double. Nature has a reason for all things. It is
plain to the eye of science that the Double-Man originally
inhabited a region where dangers abounded; hence he was
paired together to the end that while one part slept the
other might watch; and likewise that, danger being discov-
ered, there might always be a double instead of a single
power to oppose it. All honor to the mystery-dispelling eye
of godlike Science!"

And near the Double Man-Bird was found what was plainly
an ancient record of his, marked upon numberless sheets of
a thin white substance and bound together. Almost the first
glance that Professor Woodlouse threw into it revealed
this follovng sentence, which he instantly translated
and laid before the scientists, in a tremble, and it up-
lifted every soul there with exultation and astonishment:

"In truth it is believed by many that the lower animals
reason and talk together."

When the great official report of the expedition appeared
the above sentence bore this comment:

"Then there are lower animals than Man! This remarkable
passage can mean nothing else. Man himself is extinct, but
they may still exist What can they be? Where do they inhab-
it? One's enthusiasm bursts all bounds in the contemplation
of the brilliant field of discovery and investigation here
thrown open to science. We close our labors with the humble
prayer that your Majesty will immediately appoint a commis-
sion and command it to rest not nor spare expense until
the search for this hitherto unsuspected race of the crea-
tures of God shall be crowned with success."

The expedition then journeyed homeward after its long
absence and its faithful endeavors, and was received with
a mighty ovation by the whole grateful country. There were
vulgar, ignorant carpers, of course, as there always are and
always will be; and naturally one of these was the obscene
Tumble-Bug. He said that all he had learned by his travels
was that science only needed a spoonful of supposition to
build a mountain of demonstrated fact out of; and that for
the future he meant to be content with the knowledge that
nature had made free to all creatures and not go prying into
the august secrets of the Deity.

　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　1875



The Canvasser's Tale



Poor, sad-eyed stranger! There was that about his humble
mien, his tired look, his decayed-gentility clothes, that
almost reached the mustard-seed of charity that still re-
mained, remote and lonely, in the empty vastness of my heart,
notwithstanding I observed a portfolio under his arm, and said
to myself, Behold, Providence hath delivered his servant into
the hands of another canvasser.

Well, these people always get one interested. Before I well
knew how it came about, this one was telling me his history,
and I was all attention and sympathy. He told it something
like this:


My parents died, alas, when I was a little, sinless child.
My uncle Ithuriel took me to his heart and reared me as
his own. He was my only relative in the wide world; but he
was good and rich and generous. He reared me in the lap
of luxury. I knew no want that money could satisfy.

In the fullness of time I was graduated, and went with two
of my servants--my chamberlain and my valet--to travel in
foreign countries. During four years I flitted upon careless
wing amid the beauteous gardens of the distant strand, if you
will permit this form of speech in one whose tongue was ever
attuned to poesy; and indeed I so speak with confidence, as
one unto his kind, for I perceive by your eyes that you too,
sir, are gifted with the divine inflation. In those far lands
I reveled in the ambrosial food that fructifies the soul, the
mind, the heart. But of all things, that which most appealed
to my inborn esthetic taste was the prevailing custom there,
among the rich, of making collections of elegant and costly
rarities, dainty ohjets de vertu, and in an evil hour I tried
to uplift my uncle Ithuriel to a plane of sympathy with this
exquisite employment.

I wrote and told him of one gentleman's vast collection of
shells; another's noble collection of meerschaum pipes; an-
other's elevating and refining collection of undecipherable
autographs; another's priceless collection of old china; an-
other's enchanting collection of postage-stamps--and so forth
and so on. Soon my letters yielded fruit. My uncle began to
look about for something to make a collection of. You may
know, perhaps, how fleetly a taste like this dilates. His soon
became a raging fever, though I knew it not. He began to
neglect his great pork business; presently he wholly retired
and turned an elegant leisure into a rabid search for curious
things. His wealth was vast, and he spared it not. First
he tried cow-bells. He made a collection which filled five
large salons, and comprehended all the different sorts of
cow-bells that ever had been contrived, save one. That one
--an antique, and the only specimen extant--was possessed by
another collector. My uncle offered enormous sums for it,
but the gentleman would not sell. Doubtless you know what
necessarily resulted. A true collector attaches no value to a
collection that is not complete. His great heart breaks, he
sells his hoard, he turns his mind to some field that seems
unoccupied.

Thus did my uncle. He next tried brickbats. After piling up
a vast and intensely interesting collection, the former diffi'
culty supervened; his great heart broke again; he sold out his
soul's idol to the retired brewer who possessed the missing
brick. Then he tried flint hatchets and other implements of
Primeval Man, but by and by discovered that the factory
where they were made was supplying other collectors as well
as himself. He tried Aztec inscriptions and stuffed whales--
another failure, after incredible labor and expense. When his
collection seemed at last perfect, a stuffed whale arrived
from Greenland and an Aztec inscription from the Cundurango
regions of Central America that made all former specimens
insignificant. My uncle hastened to secure these noble
gems. He got the stuffed whale, but another collector got the
inscription. A real Cundurango, as possibly you know, is a
possession of such supreme value that, when once a collector
gets it, he will rather part with his family than with it. So
my uncle sold out, and saw his darlings go forth, never more
to return; and his coal-black hair turned white as snow in a
single night.

Now he waited, and thought. He knew another disappointment
might kill him. He was resolved that he would choose things
next time that no other man was collecting. He carefully
made up his mind, and once more entered the field--this time
to make a collection of echoes.

"Of what?" said I.

Echoes, sir. His first purchase was an echo in Georgia that
repeated four times; his next was a six-repeater in Maryland;
his next was a thirteen-repeater in Maine; his next was
a nine-repeater in Kansas; his next was a twelve-repeater in
Tennessee, which he got cheap, so to speak, because it was out
of repair, a portion of the crag which reflected it having
tumbled down. He believed he could repair it at a cost of a
few thousand dollars, and, by increasing the elevation with
masonry, treble the repeating capacity; but the architect who
undertook the job had never built an echo before, and so
he utterly spoiled this one. Before he meddled with it, it
used to talk back like a mother-in-law, but now it was only
fit for the deaf-and-dumb asylum. Well, next he bought a lot
of cheap little double-barreled echoes, scattered around over
various states and territories; he got them at twenty per cent
off by taking the lot Next he bought a perfect Gatling-gun
of an echo in Oregon, and it cost a fortune, I can tell you.
You may know, sir, that in the echo market the scales of
prices is cumulative, like the carat-scale in diamonds; in fact,
the same phraseology is used. A single-carat echo is worth
but ten dollars over and above the value of the land it is on;
a two-carat or double-barreled echo is worth thirty dollars; a
five-carat is worth nine hundred and fifty; a ten-carat is
worth thirteen thousand. My uncle's Oregon echo, which he
called the Great Pitt Echo, was a twenty-two carat gem, and
cost two hundred and sixteen thousand dollars--they threw
the land in, for it was four hundred miles from a settlement.

Well, in the mean time my path was a path of roses. I was
the accepted suitor of the only and lovely daughter of an
English earl, and was beloved to distraction. In that dear
presence I swam in seas of bliss. The family were content,
for it was known that I was sole heir to an uncle held to be
worth five millions of dollars. However, none of us knew that
my uncle had become a collector, at least in anything more
than a small way, for asthetic amusement.

Now gathered the clouds above my unconscious head. That
divine echo, since known throughout the world as the Great
Koh-i-noor, or Mountain of Repetitions, was discovered.
It was a sixty-five-carat gem. You could utter a word and
it would talk back at you for fifteen minutes, when the day
was otherwise quiet. But behold, another fact came to light
at the same time: another echo-collector was in the field.
The two rushed to make the peerless purchase. The property
consisted of a couple of small hills with a shallow swale
between, out yonder among the back settlements of New York
State. Both men arrived on the ground at the same time, and
neither knew the other was there. The echo was not all own-
ed by one man; a person by the name of Williamson Bolivar
Jarvis owned the east hill, and a person by the name of
Harbison J. Bledso owned the west hill; the swale between
was the dividing-line. So while my uncle was buying Jarvis's
hill for three million two hundred and eighty-five thousand
dollars, the other party was buying Bledso's hill for a shade
over three million.

Now, do you perceive the natural result? Why, the noblest
collection of echoes on earth was forever and ever incom-
plete, since it possessed but the one-half of the king echo
of the universe. Neither man was content with this divided
ownership, yet neither would sell to the other. There were
jawings, bickerings, heart-burnings. And at last that other
collector, with a malignity which only a collector can ever
feel toward a man and a brother, proceeded to cut down his
hill!

You see, as long as he could not have the echo, he was re-
solved that nobody should have it. He would remove his hill,
and then there would be nothing to reflect my uncle's echo.
My uncle remonstrated with him, but the man said, "I own.
one end of this echo; I choose to kill my end; you must take
care of your own end yourself."

Well, my uncle got an injunction put on him. The other man
appealed and fought it in a higher court. They carried it
on up, clear to the Supreme Court of the United States. It
made no end of trouble there. Two of the judges believed that
an echo was personal property, because it was impalable to
sight and touch, and yet was purchasable, salable, and con-
sequently taxable; two others believed that an echo was real
estate, because it was manifestly attached to the land, and
was not removable from place to place; other of the judges
contended that an echo was not property at all.

It was finally decided that the echo was property; that the
hills were property; that the two men were separate and in-
dependent owners of the two hills, but tenants in common in
the echo; therefore defendant was at full liberty to cut down
his hill, since it belonged solely to him, but must give bonds
in three million dollars as indemnity for damages which might
result to my uncle's half of the echo. This decision also
debarred my uncle from using defendant's hill to reflect his
part of the echo, without defendant's consent; he must use
only his own hill; if his part of the echo would not go, under
these circumstances, it was sad, of course, but the court
could find no remedy. The court also debarred defendant from
using my uncle's hill to reflect his end of the echo, without
consent. You see the grand resultl Neither man would give
consent, and so that astonishing and most noble echo had to
cease from its great powers; and since that day that magni-
ficent property is tied up and unsalable.

A week before my wedding-day, while I was still swimming
in bliss and the nobility were gathering from far and
near to honor our espousals, came news of my uncle's death,
and also a copy of his will, making me his sole heir. He was
gone; alas, my dear benefactor was no more. The thought
surcharges my heart even at this remote day. I handed the
will to the earl; I could not read it for the blinding tears.
The earl read it; then he sternly said, "Sir, do you call this
wealth?--but doubtless you do in your inflated country. Sir,
you are left sole heir to a vast collection of echoes--if a
thing can be called a collection that is scattered far and wide
over the huge length and breadth of the American continent;
sir, this is not all; you are head and ears in debt; there is
not an echo in the lot but has a mortgage on it; sir, I am not
a hard man, but I must look to my child's interest; if you had
but one echo which you could honestly call your own, if you
had but one echo which was free from incumbrance, so that
you could retire to it with my child, and by humble, pain-
staking industry cultivate and improve it, and thus wrest
from it a maintenance, I would not say you nay; but I cannot
marry my child to a beggar. Leave his side, my darling; go.
sir, take your mortgage-ridden echoes and quit my sight for-
ever."

My noble Celestine clung to me in tears, with loving arms,
and swore she would willingly, nay gladly, marry me, though
I had not an echo in the world. But it could not be. We were
torn asunder, she to pine and die within the twelve-month, I to
toil life's long journey sad and alone, praying daily, hourly,
for that release which shall join us together again in that
dear realm where the wicked cease from troubling and the
weary are at rest. Now, sir, if you will be so kind as to look
at these maps and plans in my portfolio, I am sure I can sell
you an echo for less money than any man in the trade. Now
this one, which cost my uncle ten dollars, thirty years ago,
and is one of the sweetest things in Texas, I will let you have
for--

"Let me interrupt you," I said. "My friend, I have not had
a moment's respite from canvassers this day. I have bought a
sewing-machine which I did not want; I have bought a map
which is mistaken in all its details; I have bought a clock
which will not go; I have bought a moth poison which the
moths prefer to any other beverage; I have bought no end
of useless inventions, and now I have had enough of this
foolishness. I would not have one of your echoes if you were
even to give it to me. I would not let it stay on the place. I
always hate a man that tries to sell me echoes. You see this
gun? Now take your collection and move on; let us not have
bloodshed."

But he only smiled a sad, sweet smile, and got out some
more diagrams. You know the result perfectly well, because
you know that when you have once opened the door to a can-
vasser, the trouble is done and you have got to suffer defeat.

I compromised with this man at the end of an intolerable
hour. I bought two double-barreled echoes in good condition,
and he threw in another, which he said was not salable because
it only spoke German. He said, "She was a perfect polyglot
once, but somehow her palate got down."

1876



The Loves of Alonzo Fitz Clarence
and Rosannah Ethelton


I


It was well along in the forenoon of a bitter winter's day.
The town of Eastport, in the state of Maine, lay buried under
a deep snow that was newly fallen. The customary bustle in
the streets was wanting. One could look long distances down
itiem and see nothing but a dead-white emptiness, with si-
lence to match. Of course I do not mean that you could see
the silence--no, you could only hear it. The sidewalks were
merely long, deep ditches, with steep snow walls on either
Side. Here and there you might hear the faint, far scrape of
a wooden shovel, and if you were quick enough you might catch
a glimpse of a distant black figure stooping and disappearing
in one of those ditches, and reappearing the next moment
with a motion which you would know meant the heaving
out of a shovelful of snow. But you needed to be quick,
lor that black figure would not linger, but would soon drop
that shovel and scud for the house, thra.shing itself with its
arms to warm them. Yes, it was too venomously cold for
snow-shovelers or anybody else to stay out long.

Presently the sky darkened; then the wind rose and began
to blow in fitful, vigorous gusts, which sent clouds of
powdery snow aloft, and straight ahead, and everywhere. Un-
der the impulse of one of these gusts, great white drifts
banked themselves like graves across the streets; a moment
later another gust shifted them around the other way, driv-
ing a fine spray of snow from their sharp crests, as the
gale drives the spume flakes from wave-crests at sea; a
third gust swept that place as clean as your hand, if it
saw fit. This was fooling, this was play; but each and all
of the gusts dumped some snow into the sidewalk ditches,
for that was business.

Alonzo Fitz Clarence was sitting in his snug and elegant
little parlor, in a lovely blue silk dressing-gown, with
cuffs and facings of crimson satin, elaborately quilted.
The remains of his breakfast were before him, and the dainty
and costly little table service added a harmonious charm
to the grace, beauty, and richness of the fixed appoint-
ments of the room. A cheery fire was blazing on the hearth.

A furious gust of wind shook the windows, and a great
wave of snow washed against them with a drenching sound,
so to speak. The handsome young bachelor murmured:

"That means, no going out to-day. Well, I am content. But
what to do for company? Mother is well enough, Aunt Susan
is well enough; but these, like the poor, I have with me
always. On so grim a day as this, one needs a new interest,
a fresh element, to whet the dull edge of captivity. That was
very neatly said, but it doesn't mean anything. One doesn't
want the edge ol captivity sharpened up, you know, but just
the reverse."

He glanced at his pretty French mantel-clock.

"That clock's wrong again. That clock hardly ever knows
what time it is; and when it docs know, it lies about it
--which amounts to the same thing. Alfred!"

There was no answer.

"Alfred! . . . Good servant, but as uncertain as the clock."
Alonzo touched an electric bell button in the wall. He
waited a moment, then touched it again; waited a few moments
more, and said:

"Battery out of order, no doubt. But now that I have started,
I will find out what time it is," He stepped to a speaking-
tube in the wall, blew its whistle, and called, "Mother!"
and repeated it twice.

"Well, that's no use. Mother's battery is out of order, too.
Can't raise anybody down-stairs--that is plain."

He sat down at a rosewood desk, leaned his chin on the
left-hand edge of it and spoke, as if to the Hckm : "Aunt
Susan!"

A low, pleasant voice answered, "Is that you. Alonzo?"

"Yes. I'm too lazy and comfortable to go dowm-stairs; I
am in extremity, and I can't seem to scare up any help."

"Dear me, what is the matter?"

"Matter enough, I can tell you!"

"Oh, don't keep me in suspense, dear! What is it?"

"I w'ant to know what time it is."

"You abominable boy, what a turn you did give me! Is
that all?"

"All--on my honor. Calm yourself. Tell me the time, and
receive my blessing."

"Just five minutes after nine. No charge--keep your
blessing."

"Thanks. It wouldn't have impoverished me, aunty, nor so
enriched you that you could live without other means."

He got up, murmuring, "Just five minutes after nine," and
faced his clock. "Ah," said he, "you are doing better than
usual. You arc only thirty-four minutes wrong. Let me see
...let me see...Thirty-three and twenty-one are fifty-four;
lour times fifty-four are two hundred and thirty-six. One off,
leaves two hundred and thirty-five. That's right."

He turned the hands of his clock forward till they marked
twenty-five minutes to one, and said, '"Now see if you can't
Keep right for a while . , . else I'll raffle you!"

He sat down at the desk again, and said, "Aunt Susan!"

"Yes, dear."

"Had breakfast?"

"Yes, indeed, an hour ago."

"Busy?"

"No--except sewing. Why?"

"Got any company?"

"No, but I expect some at half past nine."

"I wish I did. I'm lonesome. I want to talk to somebody."

"Very well, talk to me."

"But this is very private."

"Don't be afraid--talk right along, there's nobody here but
me."

"I hardly know whether to venture or not, but--"

"But what? Oh, don't stop there! You know you can trust
me, Alonzo--you know you can."

"I feel it, aunt, but this is very serious. It affects me
deeply --me, and all the family--even the whole community."

"Oh, Alonzo, tell me! I will never breathe a word of it.
What is it?"

"Aunt, if I might dare--"

"Oh, please go on! I love you, and feel for you. Tell me
all. Confide in me. What is it?"

"The weather!"

"Plague take the weather! I don't see how you can have
the heart to serve me so, Lon."

"There, there, aunty dear, I'm soiTy; I am, on my honor. I
won't do it again. Do you forgive me?"

"Yes, since you seem so sincere about it, though I know I
oughtn't to. You will fool me again as soon as I have for-
gotten this time."

"No, I won't, honor bright. But such weather, oh, such wea-
ther! You've got to keep your spirits up artificially. It
is snowy, and blowy, and gusty, and bitter cold! How is the
weather with you?"

"Warm and rainy and melancholy. The mourners go about
the streets with their umbrellas running streams from the end
of every whalebone. There's an elevated double pavement of
umbrellas stretching down the sides of the streets as far as I
can see. I've got a fire for cheerfulness, and the windows open
to keep cool. But it is vain, it is useless: nothing comes in
but the balmy breath of December, with its burden of mock-
ing odors from the flowers that possess the realm outside, and
rejoice in their lawless profusion whilst the spirit of man is
low, and flaunt their gaudy splendors in his face while his
soul is clothed in sackcloth and ashes and his heart breaketh."

Alonzo opened his lips to say, "You ought to print that,
and get it framed," but checked himself, for he heard his
aunt speaking to some one else. He went and stood at the
window and looked out upon the wintry prospect. The storm
was driving the snow before it more furiously than ever;
window-shutters were slamming and banging; a forlorn dog,
with bowed head and tail withdrawn from service, was pressing
his quaking body against a windward wall for shelter
and protection; a young girl was plowing knee-deep through
the drifts, with her face turned from the blast, and the cape
of her waterproof blowing straight rearward over her head.
Alonzo shuddered, and said with a sigh, "Better the slop,
and the sultry rain, and even the insolent flowers, than this!"

He turned from the window, moved a step, and stopped in
a listening attitude. The faint, sweet notes of a familiar song
caught his ear. He remained there, with his head unconsc-
iously bent forward, drinking in the melody, stirring neither
hand nor foot, hardly breathing. There was a blemish in
the execution of the song, hut to Alonzo it seemed an added
charm instead of a defect. This blemish consisted of a
marked flatting of the third, fourth, fifth, sixth, and seventh
notes of the refrain or chorus of the piece. When the music
ended, Alonzo drew a deep breath, and said, "Ah, I never
have heard in the Sweet By-and-By' sung like that before!"

He stepped quickly to the desk, listened a moment, and said
in a guarded, confidential voice, "Aunty, who is this divine
singer?"

"She is the company I was expecting. Stays with me a
month or two. I will introduce you. Miss--"

"For goodness' sake, wait a moment. Aunt Susan! You
never stop to think what you are about!"

He flew to his bedchamber, and returned in a moment percep-
tibly changed in his outward appearance, and remarking,
snappishly:

"Hang it, she would have introduced me to this angel in
that sky-blue dressing-gown with red-hot lapels! Women
never think, when they get a-going."

He hastened and stood by the desk, and said eagerly,
"Now, Aunty, I am ready," and fell to smiling and bowing
with all the persuasiveness and elegance that were in him.

"Very well. Miss Rosannah Ethelton, let me introduce to
you my favorite nephew, Mr. Alonzo Fitz Clarence. There!
You are both good people, and I like you; so I am going to
trust you together while I attend to a few household affairs.
Sit down, Rosannah; sit down, Alonzo. Good-by; I sha'n't
be gone long."

Alonzo had been bowing and smiling all the while, and
motioning imaginary young ladies to sit down in imaginary
chairs, but now he took a seat himself, mentally saying,
"Oh, this is luck! Let the winds blow now, and the snow
drive, and the heavens frown! Little I care!"

While these young people chat themselves into an acquaint-
anceship, let us take the liberty of inspecting the sweeter
and fairer of the two. She sat alone, at her graceful ease,
in a richly furnished apartment which was manifestly the pri-
vate parlor of a refined and sensible lady, if signs and sym-
bols may go for anything. For instance, by a low, comfortable
chair stood a dainty, top-heavy workstand, whose summit was
a fancifully embroidered shallow basket, with varicolored
crewels, and other strings and odds and ends protruding from
under the gaping lid and hanging down in negligent profusion.
On the floor lay bright shreds of Turkey red, Prussian blue,
and kindred fabrics, bits of ribbon, a spool or two, a pair
of scissors, and a roll or so of tinted silken stuffs. On a
luxurious sofa, upholstered with some sort of soft Indian
goods wrought in black and gold threads interwebbed with
other threads not so pronounced in color, lay a great square
of coarse white stuff, upon whose surface a rich bouquet of
flowers was growing, under the deft cultivation of the cro-
chet-needle. The household cat was asleep on this work of
art. In a bay-window stood an easel with an unfinished pic-
ture on it, and a palette and brushes on a chair beside it.
There were books everywhere: Robertson's Sermons, Tennyson,
Moody and Sankey, Hawthorne, Rab and his Friends, cook-
books, prayer-books, pattern-books--and books about all
kinds of odious and exasperating pottery, of course. There
was a piano, with a deck-load of music, and more in a tender.
There was a great plenty of pictures on the walls, on the
shelves of the mantelpiece and around generally; where
coigns of vantage offered were statuettes, and quaint and
pretty gimcracks, and rare and costly specimens of peculiarly
devilish china. The bay-window gave upon a garden that
was ablaze with foreign and domestic flowers and flowering
shrubs.

But the sweet young girl was the daintiest thing these pre-
mises, within or without, could offer for contemplation:
delicately chiseled features, of Grecian cast; her complex-
ion the pure snow of a japonica that is receiving a faint
reflected enrichment from some scarlet neighbor of the garden;
great, soft blue eyes fringed with long, curving lashes; an
expression made up of the trustfulness of a child and the
gentleness of a fawn; a beautiful head crowned with its own
prodigal gold; a lithe and rounded figure, whose every atti-
tude and movement was instinct with native grace.

Her dress and adornment were marked by that exquisite
harmony that can come only of a fine natural taste perfected
by culture. Her gown was of a simple magenta tulle, cut bias,
traversed by three rows of light-blue flounces, with the sel-
vage edges turned up with ashes-of-roses chenille; over-dress
of dark bay tarlatan with scarlet satin lambrequins; corn-
colored polonaise, en panier, looped with mother-of-pearl
buttons and silver cord, and hauled aft and made fast by
buff velvet lashings; basque of lavender reps, picked out with
valenciennes; low neck, short sleeves; maroon velvet necktie
edged with delicate pink silk; inside handkerchief of some
simple three-ply ingrain fabric of a soft saffron tint; coral
bracelets and locket-chain; coiffure of forget-me-nots and
lilies-of-the-valley massed around a noble calla.

This was all; yet even in this subdued attire she was divinely
beautiful. Then what must she have been when adorned for the
festival or the ball?

All this time she had been busily chatting with Alonzo, un-
conscious of our inspection. The minutes still sped, and still
she talked. But by and by she happened to look up, and saw
the clock. A crimson blush sent its rich flood through her
cheeks, and she exclaimed:

"There, good-by, Mr. Fitz Clarence; I must go now!"

She sprang from her chair with such haste that she hardly
heard the young man's answering good-by. She stood radiant,
graceful, beautiful, and gazed, wondering, upon the accusing
clock. Presently her pouting lips parted, and she said:
"Five minutes after eleven! Nearly two hours, and it did
not seem twenty minutes! Oh, dear, what will he think of
me!"

At the self-same moment Alonzo was staring at his clock.
And presently he said:

"Twenty-five minutes to three! Nearly two hours, and I
didn't believe it was two minutes! Is it possible that this
clock is humbugging again? Miss EtheltonI Just one moment,
please. Are you there yet?"

"Yes, but be quick; I'm going right away."

"Would you be so kind as to tell me what time it is?"

The girl blushed again, murmured to herself, "It's right
down cruel of him to ask me!" and then spoke up and answered
with admirably counterfeited unconcern, "Five minutes
after eleven."

"Oh, thank you! You have to go, now, have you?"

"Yes."

"I'm sorry."

No reply.

"Miss Ethelton!"

"Well?"

"You--you're there yet, ain't you?"

"Yes; but please hurry. What did you want to say?"

"Well, I--well, nothing in particular. It's very lonesome
here. It's asking a great deal, I know, but would you mind
talking with me again by and by--that is, if it will not
trouble you too much?"

"I don't know--but I'll think about it. I'll try."

"Oh, thanks! Miss EtheltonI . . . Ah, me, she's gone, and
here are the black clouds and the whirling snow and the rag-
ing winds come again! But she said good-by. She didn't say
good morning. She said good-by! . . . The clock was right,
after all. What a lightning-winged two hours it was!"

He sat down, and gazed dreamily into his fire for a while,
then heaved a sigh and said:

"How wonderful it is! Two little hours ago I was a free
man, and now my heart's in San Francisco!"

About that time Rosannah Ethelton, propped in the window
seat of her bedchamber, book in hand, was gazing vacantly
out over the rainy seas that washed the Golden Gate,
and whispered to herself, "How different he is from poor
Burley, with his empty head and his single little antic
talent of mimicry!"


2


Four weeks later Mr. Sidney Algernon Burley was entertain-
ing a gay luncheon company, in a sumptuous drawingroom
on Telegraph Hill, with some capital imitations of the
voices and gestures of certain popular actors an San Fran-
ciscan literary people and Bonanza grandees. He was elegantly
upholstered, and was a handsome fellow, barring a trifling
cast in his eye. He seemed very jovial, but nevertheless he
kept his eye on the door with an expectant and uneasy watch-
fulness. By and by a nobby lackey appeared,' and delivered a
message to the mistress, who nodded her head understandingly.
That seemed to settle the thing for Mr. Burley; his vivacity
decreased little by little, and a dejected look began to
creep into one of his eyes and a sinister one into the other.

The rest of the company departed in due time, leaving him
with the mistress, to whom he said;

"There is no longer any question about it. She avoids me.
She continually excuses herself. If I could see her, if I
could speak to her only a moment--but this suspense--

"Perhaps her seeming avoidance is mere accident, Mr. Burley.
Go to the small drawing-room up-stairs and amuse yourself
a moment. I will despatch a household order that is on
my mind, and then I will go to her room. Without doubt she
will be persuaded to see you."

Mr. Burley went up-stairs, intending to go to the small
drawing-room, but as he was passing "Aunt Susan's" private
parlor, the door of which stood slightly ajar, he heard a
joyous laugh which he recognized; so without knock or an-
nouncement he stepped confidently in. But before he could
make his presence known he heard words that harrowed up
his soul and chilled his young blood. He beard a voice say:

"Darling, it has come!"

Then he heard Rosannah Ethelton, whose back was toward
him, say:

"So has yours, dearest!"

He saw her bowed form bend lower; he heard her kiss some-
thing--not merely once, but again and again! His soul
raged within him. The heart-breaking conversation went on:

"Rosannah, I knew you must be beautiful, but this is dazzl-
ing, this is blinding, this is intoxicating!"

"Alonzo, it is such happiness to hear you say it, I know it
is not true, but I am so grateful to have you think it is,
nevertheless! I knew you must have a noble face, but the grace
and majesty of the reality beggar the poor creation of my
fancy."

Burley heard that rattling shower of kisses again.

"Thank you, my Rosannah! The photograph flatters me, but
you must not allow yourself to think of that. Sweetheart?"

"Yes, Alonzo."

"I am so happy, Rosannah."

"Oh, Alonzo, none that have gone before me knew what love
was, none that come after me will ever know what happiness
is. I float in a gorgeous cloudland, a boundless firmament
of enchanted and bewildering ecstasy!"

"Oh, my Rosannah!--for you are mine, are you not?"

"Wholly, oh, wholly yours, Alonzo, now and forever! All
the day long, and all through my nightly dreams, one song
sings itself, and its sweet burden is, "Alonzo Fitz Clarence,
Alonzo Fitz Clarence, Eastport, state of Maine!' "

"Curse him, I've got his address, anyway!" roared Burley,
inwardly, and rushed from the place.

Just behind the unconscious Alonzo stood his mother, a
picture of astonishment. She was so muffled from head to
heel in furs that nothing of herself was visible but her eyes
and nose. She was a good allegory of winter, for she was pow-
dered all over with snow.

Behind the unconscious Rosannah stood "Aunt Susan," another
picture of astonishment. She was a good allegory of summer,
for she was lightly clad, and was vigorously cooling the
perspiration on her face with a fan.

Both of these women had tears of joy in their eyes.

"So ho!" exclaimed Mrs. Fitz Clarence, "this explains why
nobody has been able to drag you out of your room for six
weeks, Alonzo!"

"So ho!" exclaimed Aunt Susan, "this explains why you
have been a hermit for the past six weeks, Rosannah!"

The young couple were on their feet in an instant, abashed,
and standing like detected dealers in stolen goods awaiting
Judge Lynch's doom.

"Bless you, my son! I am happy in your happiness. Come
to your mother's arms, Alonzo!"

"Bless you, Rosannah, for my dear nephew's sake! Come
to my arms!"

Then was there a mingling of hearts and of tears of rejoicing
on Telegraph Hill and in Eastport Square.

Servants were called by the elders, in both places. Unto one
was given the order, "Pile this fire high with hickory wood,
and bring me a roasting-hot lemonade."

Unto the other was given the order, "Put out this fire,
and bring me two palm-leaf fans and a pitcher of ice-water."

Then the young people were dismissed, and the elders sat
down to talk the sweet surprise over and make the wedding
plans.


Some minutes before this Mr. Burley rushed from the mansion
on Telegraph Hill without meeting or taking formal leave of
anybody. He hissed through his teeth, in unconscious imita-
tion of a popular favorite in melodrama, "Him shall she never
wed! I have sworn it! Ere great Nature shall have doffed her
winter's ermine to don the emerald gauds of spring, she shall
be mine!"


3


Two weeks later. Every few hours, during some three or four
days, a very prim and devout-looking Episcopal clergyman,
with a cast in his eye, had visited Alonzo. According to
his x:ard, he was the Rev. Melton Hargrave, of Cincinnati.
He said he had retired from the ministry on account of his
health. If he had said on account of ill-health, he would prob-
ably have erred, to judge by his wholesome looks and firm
build. He was the inventor of an improvement m telephones,
and hoped to make his bread by selling the privilege of using
it "At present," he continued, "a man may go and tap a tele-
graph wire which is conveying a song or a concert from one
state to another, and he can attach his private telephone and
steal a hearing of that music as it passes along. My invention
will stop all that"

"Well," answered Alonzo, "if the owner of the music could
not miss what was stolen, why should he care?"

"He shouldn't care," said the Reverend.

"Well?" said Alonzo, inquiringly.

"Suppose," replied the Reverend, "suppose that, instead of
music that was passing along and being stolen, the burden of
the wire was loving endearments of the most private and sacred
nature?"

Alonzo shuddered from head to heel. "Sir, it is a priceless
invention," said he; "I must have it at any cost."

But the invention was delayed somewhere on the road from
Cincinnati, most unaccountably. The impatient Alonzo
could hardly wait. The thought of Rosannah's sweet words
being shared with him by some ribald thief was galling to
him. The Reverend came frequently and lamented the delay,
and told of measures he had ten to hurry things up. This
was some little comfort to Alonzo.

One forenoon the Reverend ascended the stairs and knocked
at Alonzo's door. There was no response. He entered, glanced
eagerly around, closed the door softly, then ran to the tele-
phone. The exquisitely soft and remote strains of the "Sweet
By-and-By" came floating through tlie instrument. The singer
was flatting, as usual, the five notes that follow the first
two in the chorus, when the Reverend interrupted her with this
word, in a voice which was an exact imitation of Alonzo's,
with just the faintest flavor of impatience added:

"Sweetheart?"

"Yes, Alonzo?"

"Please don't sing that any more this week--try something
modern."

The agile step that goes with a happy heart was heard on
the stairs, and the Reverend, smiling diabolically, sought
sudden refuge behind the heavy folds of the velvet window-
curtains. Alonzo entered and flew to the telephone. Said he:

"Rosannah, dear, shall we sing something together?"

"Something modern?" asked she, with sarcastic bitterness.

"Yes, if you prefer."

"Sing it yourself, if you like!"

This snappishness amazed and wounded the young man.
He said:

"Rosannah, that was not like you."

"I suppose it becomes me as much as your very polite
speech became you, Mr. Fitz Clarence."

"Mister Fitz Charence! Rosannah, there was nothing impolite
about my speech."

"Oh, indeedl Of course, then, I misunderstood you, and I
most humbly beg your pardon, ha-ha-ba! No doubt you said,
"Don't sing it any more to-day'"

"Sing what any more to-day?"

"The song you mentioned, of course. How very obtuse we are,
all of a sudden!"

"I never mentioned any song."

"Oh, you didn't?"

"No, I didn't!"

"I am compelled to remark that you did."

"And I am obliged to reiterate that I didn't."

"A second rudeness! That is sufficient, sir. I will never
forgive you. All is over between us."

Then came a muthed sound of crying. Alonzo hastened to say:

"Oh, Rosannah, unsay those words! There is some dreadful
mystery here, some hideous mistake. I am utterly earnest
and sincere when I say I never said anything about any song.
I would not hurt you for the whole world. . . . Rosannah,
dear! . . . Oh, speak to me, won't you?"

There was a pause; then Alonzo heard the girl's sobbings
retreating, and knew she had gone from the telephone. He
rose with a heavy sigh, and hastened from the room, saying
to himself, "I will ransack the charity missions and the
haunts of the poor for my mother. She will persuade her
that I never meant to wound her."

A minute later the Reverend was crouching over the telephone
like a cat that knoweth the ways of the prey. He had not very
many minutes to wait A soft, repentant voice, tremulous with
tears, said:

"Alonzo, dear, I have been wrong. You could not have said so
cruel a thing. It must have been some one who imitated your
voice in malice or in jest"

The Reverend coldly answered, in Alonzo's tones:

"You have said all was over between us. So let it be. I spurn
your proffered repentance, and despise it!"

Then he departed, radiant with fiendish triumph, to return
no more with his imaginary telephonic invention forever.

Four hours afterward Alonzo arrived with his mother from
her favorite haunts of poverty and vice. They summoned
the San Francisco household; but there was no reply. They
waited, and continued to wait, upon the voiceless telephone.

At length, when it was sunset in San Francisco, and three
hours and a half after dark in Eastport, an answer to the
oft-repeated cry of "Rosannah!"

But, alas, it was Aunt Susan's voice that spake. She said:
have been out all day; just got in. I will go and find her."

The watchers waited two minutes--five minutes--ten minutes.
Then came these fatal works, in a frightened tone:

"She is gone, and her baggage with her. To visit another
friend, she told the servants. But I found this note on the
table in her room. Listen: T am gone; seek not to trace me
out; my heart is broken; you will never see me more. Tell
him I shall always think of him when I sing my poor "Sweet
By-and-By," but never of the unkind words he said about it.'
That is her note. Alonzo, Alonzo, what does it mean? What
has happened?"

But Alonzo sat white and cold as the dead. His mother threw
back the velvet curtains and opened a window. The cold air
refreshed the sufferer, and he told his aunt his dismal
story. Meantime his mother was inspecting a card which had
disclosed itself upon the floor when she cast the curtains
back. It read, "Mr. Sidney Algernon Burlev, San Francisco."

"The miscreant!" shouted Alonzo, and rushed forth to seek
the false Reverend and destroy him; for the card explained
everything, since in the course of the lovers' mutual confes-
sions they had told each other all about all the sweethearts
they had ever had, and thrown no end of mud at their failings
and foibles--for lovers always do that. It has a fascination
that ranks next after billing and cooing.


4


During the next two months many things happened. It had
early transpired that Rosannah, poor suffering orphan, had
neither returned to her grandmother in Portland, Oregon, nor
sent any word to her save a duplicate of the woeful note she
had left in the mansion on Telegraph Hill. Whosoever was
sheltering her--if she was still alive--had been persuaded
not to betray her whereabouts, without doubt; for all efforts
to find trace of her had failed.

Did Alonzo give her up? Not he. He said to himself, "She
will sing that sweet song when she is sad; I shall find her."
So he took his carpet-sack and a portable telephone, and shook
the snow of his native city from his arctics, and went forth
into the world. He wandered far and wide and in many states.
Time and again, strangers were astounded to see a wasted,
pale, and woe-worn man laboriously climb a telegraph-pole
in wintry and lonely places, perch sadly there an hour,
with his ear at a little box, then come sighing down, and
wander wearily away. Sometimes they shot at him, as peasants
do at aeronauts, thinking him mad and dangerous. Thus his
clothes were much shredded by bullets and his person grie-
vously lacerated. But he bore it all patiently.

In the beginning of his pilgrimage he used often to say, "Ah,
if I could but hear the "Sweet By-and ByT' But toward the
end of it he used to shed tears of anguish and say, "Ah,
if I could but hear something else!"

Thus a month and three weeks drifted by, and at last some
humane people seized him and confined him in a private mad-
house in New York. He made no moan, for his stren was all
gone, and with it all heart and all hope. The superintendent,
in pity, gave up his own comfortable parlor and bedchamber
to him and nursed him with affectionate devotion.

At the end of a week the patient was able to leave his bed
for the first time. He was lying, comfortably pillowed, on a
sofa, listening to the plaintive Miserere of the bleak March
winds and the muffled sound of tramping feet in the street
below--for it was about six in the evening, and New York
was going home from work. He had a bright fire and the
added cheer of a couple of student-lamps. So it was warm
and snug within, though bleak and raw without; it was light
and bright within, though outside it was as dark and dreary
as if the world had been lit with Hartford gas. Alonzo smiled
feebly to think how his loving vagaries had made him a
maniac in the eyes of the world, and was proceeding to pursue
his line of thought further, when a faint, sweet strain,
the very ghost of sound, so remote and attenuated it seemed,
struck upon his ear. His pulses stood still; he listened with
parted lips and bated breath. The song flowed on--he waiting,
listening, rising slowly and unconsciously from his recumbent
position. At last he exclaimed:

"It is! it is she! Oh, the divine flatted notes!"

He dragged himself eagerly to the corner whence the sounds
proceeded, tore aside a curtain, and discovered a telephone.
He bent over, and as the last note died away he burst forth
with the exclamation:

"Oh, thank Heaven, found at last! Speak to me, Rosannah, dear-
est! The cruel mystery has been unraveled; it was the villain
Burley who mimicked my voice and wounded you with insolent
speech!"

There was a breathless pause, a waiting age to Alonzo; then
a faint sound came, framing itself into language:

"Oh, say those precious words again, Alonzo!"

"They are the truth, the veritable truth, my Rosannah, and
you shall have the proof, ample and abundant proof!"

"Oh, Alonzo, stay by me! Leave me not for a moment! Let me
feel that you are near me! Tell me we shall never be parted
more! Oh, this happy hour, this blessed hour, this memorable
hour!"

"We will make record of it, my Rosannah; every year, as this
dear hour chimes from the clock, we will celebrate it with
thanksgivings, all the years of our life."

"We will, we will, Alonzo!"

"Four minutes after six, in the evening, my Rosannah, shall
henceforth--
"
"Twenty-three minutes after twelve, afternoon, shall--"

"Why, Rosannah, darling, where are you?"

"In Honolulu, Sandwich Islands. And where are you? Stay
by me; do not leave me for a moment. I cannot bear it. Are
you at home?"

"No, dear, I am in New York--a patie.nt in the doctor's
hands."

An agonizing shriek came buzzing to Alonzo's ear, like the
sharp buzzing of a hurt gnat; it lost power in traveling
five thousand miles. Alonzo hastened to say:

"Calm yourself, my child. It is nothing. Already I am getting
well under the sweet healing of your presence. Rosannah?"

"Yes, Alonzo? Oh, how you terrified me! Say on."

"Name the happy day, Rosannah!"

There was a little pause. Then a diffident small voice replied,
"I blush--but it is with pleasure, it is with happiness. Would
--would you like to have it soon?"

"This very night, Rosannah! Oh, let us risk no more delays.
Let it be now!--this very night, this very moment!"

"Oh, you impatient creature! I have nobody here but my good
old uncle, a missionary for a generation, and now retired
from service--nobody but him and his wife. I would so dearly
like it if your mother and your Aunt Susan--"

"Our mother and our Aunt Susan, my Rosannah."

"Yes, our mother and our Aunt Susan--I am content to word it
so if it pleases you; I would so like to have them present." ~

"So would I. Suppose you telegraph Aunt Susan. How long would
it take her to come?"

"The steamer leaves San Francisco day after tomorrow. The pas-
sage is eight days. She would be here the 31st of March."

"Then name the 1st of April; do, Rosannah, dear."

"Mercy, it would make us April fools, Alonzo!"

"So we be the happiest ones that that day's sun looks down
upon in the whole broad expanse of the globe, why need we
care? Call it the 1st of April, dear."

"Then the 1st of April it shall be, with all my heart!"

"Oh, happiness! Name the hour, too, Rosannah."

"I like the morning, it is so blithe. Will eight in the morning
do, Alonzo?"

"The loveliest hour in the day--since it will make you mine."

There was a feeble but frantic sound for some little time,
as if , wool-lipped, disembodied spirits were exchanging
kisses; then Rosannah said, "Excuse me just a moment, dear;
I have an appointment, and am called to meet it."

The young girl sought a large parlor and took her place at
a window which looked out upon a beautiful scene. To the
left one could view the charming Nullana Valley, fringed
with its ruddy flush of tropical flowers and its plumed and
graceful cocoa palms; its rising foothills clothed in the
shining green of lemon, citron, and orange groves; its stor-
ied precipice beyond, where the first Kamehameha drove his
defeated foes over to their destruction--a spot that had for-
gotten its grim history, no doubt, for now it was smiling,
as almost always at noonday, under the glowing arches of a
succession of rainbows. In front of the window one could
see the quaint town, and here and there a picturesque group
of dusky natives, enjoying the blistering weather; and far
to the right lay the restless ocean, tossing its white mane
in the sunshine.

Rosannah stood there, in her filmy white raiment, fanning
her flushed and heated face, waiting. A Kanaka boy, clothed
in a damaged blue necktie and part of a silk hat, thrust his
head in at the door, and announced, "'Frisco haole!"

"Show him in," said the girl, straightening herself up and
assuming a meaning dignity. Mr. Sidney Algernon Burley en-
tered, clad from head to heel in dazzling snow--that is to
say, in the lightest and whitest of Irish linen. He moved
eagerly forward, but the girl made a gesture and gave him a
look which checked him suddenly. She said, coldly, "I am
here, as I promised, I believed your assertions, I yielded
to your importunities, and said I would name the day. I name
the 1st of April--eight in the morning. Now go!"

"Oh, my dearest, if the gratitude of a lifetime--"

"Not a word. Spare me all sight of you, all communication
with you, until that hour. No--no supplications; I will have
it so
"
When he was gone, she sank exhausted in a chair, for the
long siege of troubles she had undergone had wasted her
strength. Presently she said, "What a narrow escape! If the
hour appointed had been an hour earlier--Oh, horror, what
an escape I have made! And to think I had come to imagine
I was loving this beguiling, this truthless, this treacherous
monster! Oh, he shall repent his villainy!"


Let us now draw this history to a close, for little more
needs to be told. On the 2d of the ensuing April, the Honolulu
Advertiser contained this notice:

MARRIED In this city, by telephone, yesterday morning, at
eight o'clock, hy Rev. Nathan Hays, assisted by Rev. Nathaniel
Davis, of New York, Mr. Alonzo Fitz Clarence, of Eastport,
Maine, U.S., and Miss Rosannah Ethelton, of Portland, Oregon,
US. Mrs. Susan Howland, of San Francisco, a friend of the bride,
was present, she being the guest of the Rev. Mr. Hays and wife,
uncle and aunt of the bride. Mr. Sidney Algernon Burley, of San
Francisco, was also present but did not remain till the con-
clusion of the marriage service. Captain Hawthorne's beautiful
yacht, tastefully decorated, was in waiting, and the happy
bride and her friends immediately departed on a bridal trip
to Lahaina and Haleakala.

The New York papers of the same date contained this notice:

MARRIED In this city, yesterday, hy telephone, at half-past
two in the morning, hy Rev. Nathaniel Davis, assisted by
Rev. Nathan Hays, of Honolulu, Mr. Alonzo Fitz Clarence,
of Eastport, Maine, and Miss Rosannah Ethelton, of Portland,
Oregon. The parents and several friends of the bridegroom
were present, and enjoyed a sumptuous breakfast and
much festivity until nearly sunrise, and then departed on a
bridal trip to the Aquarium, the bridegroom's state of health
not admitting of a more extended journey.

Toward the close of that memorable day Mr. and Mrs. Alonzo
Fitz Clarence were buried in sweet converse concerning the
pleasures of their several bridal tours, when suddenly the
young wife exclaimed: "Oh, Lonny, I forgot! I did what I
said I would."

"Did you, dear?"

"Indeed, I did' I made him the April fool! And I told him
so, too! Ah, it was a charming surprise! There he stood,
sweltering in a black dress-suit, with the mercury leaking
out of the top of the thermometer, waiting to be married. You
should have seen the look he gave when I whispered it in his
ear. Ah, his wickedness cost me many a heartache and many
a tear, but the score was all squared up, then. So the vengeful
feeling went right out of my heart, and I begged him to stay#
and said I forgave him everhing. But he wouldn't. He said
he would live to be avenged; said he would make our lives a
curse to us. But he can't, can he, dear?"

"Never in this world, my Rosannah!"


Aunt Susan, the Oregonian grandmother, and the young couple
and their Eastport parents, are all happy at this writing,
and likely to remain so. Aunt Susan brought the bride from
the islands, accompanied her across our continent, and had
the happiness of witnessing the rapturous meeting between
an adoring husband and wife who had never seen
each other until that moment.

A word about the wretched Burley, whose wicked machinations
came so near wrecking the hearts and lives of our poor young
friends, will be sufficient. In a murderous attempt to seize
a crippled and helpless artisan who he fancied had done him
some small offense, he fell into a caldron of boiling oil
and expired before he could be extinguished.

1878



Edward Mills and George Benton:
A Tale



These two were distantly related to each other--seventh cou-
sins, or something of that sort. While still babies they be-
came orphans, and were adopted by the Brants, a childless
couple, who quickly grew very fond of them. The Brants were
always saying: "Be pure, honest, sober, industrious, and con-
siderate of others, and success in life is assured." The
children heard this repeated some thousands of times before
they understood it; they could repeat it themselves long be
fore they could say the Lord's Prayer; it was painted over the
nursery door, and was about the first thing they learned to
read. It was destined to become the unswerving rule of Edward
Mills's life. Sometimes the Brants changed the wording a lit-
tle, and said: "Be pure, honest, sober, industrious, consid-
erate, and you will never lack friends."

Baby Mills was a comfort to everybody about him. When be
wanted candy and could not have it, he listened to reason,
and contented himself without it. When Baby Benton wanted
candy, he cried for it until he got it. Baby Mills took
care of his toys; Baby Benton always destroyed his in a
very brief time, and then made himself so insistently dis-
agreeable that, in order to have peace in the house, little
Edward was persuaded to yield up his playthings to him.

When the children were a little older, Georgie became a
heavy expense in one respect: he took no care of his clothes;
consequently, he shone frequently in new ones, which was
not the dase with Eddie. The boys grew apace. Eddie was an
increasing comfort, Georgie an increasing solicitude. It was
always sufficient to say, in answer to Eddie's petitions,
"I would rather you would not do it"--meaning swimming,
skating, picnicking, berrying, circusing, and all sorts of
things which boys delight in. But no answer was sufficient
for Georgie; he had to be humored in his desires, or he would
carry them with a high hand. Naturally, no boy got more
swimming, skating, berrying, and so forth than he; no boy
ever had a better time. The good Brants did not allow the
hoys to play out after nine in summer evenings; they were
sent to bed at that hour; Eddie honorably remained, but
Georgie usually slipped out of the window towird ten, and
enjoyed himself till midnight. It seemed impossible to break
Georgie of this bad habit, hut the Brants managed it at last
by hiring him, with apples and marbles, to stay in. The good
Brants gave all their time and attention to vain endeavors to
regulate Georgie: they said, with grateful tears in their eyes,
that Eddie needed no efforts of theirs, he was so good, so
considerate, and in all ways so perfect.

By and by the boys were big enough to work, so they were
apprenticed to a trade: Edward went voluntarily; George was
coaxed and bribed. Edward worked hard and faithfully, and
ceased to be an expense to the good Brants: they praised him,
so did his master; but George ran away, and it cost Mr. Brant
both money and trouble to hunt him up and get him back. By
and by he ran away again--more money and more trouble. He
ran away a third time--and stole a few little things to car-
ry with him. Trouble and expense for Mr. Brant once more,
and besides, it was with the greatest difficulty that he
succeeded in persuading the master to let the youth go un-
prosecuted for the theft.

Edward worked steadily along, and in time became a full
partner in his master's business. George did not improve; he
kept the loving hearts of his aged benefactors full of trouble,
and their hands full of inventive activities to protect him
liom ruin. Edward, as a boy, had interested himself in Sun-
day-schools, debating societies, penny missionary affairs,
anti-tobacco organizations, anti-profanity associations, and
all such things; as a man, he was a quiet but steady and re-
liable helper in the church, the temperance societies, and
in all movements looking to the aiding and uplifting of men.
This t'xcited no remark, attracted no attention--for it was
his "natural bent."

Finally, the old people died. The will testified their loving
pride in Edward, and left their little property to George--
because he "needed it"; whereas, "owing to a bountiful Prov-
idence," such was not the case with Edward. The property
left to George conditionally: he must buy out Edward's part-
ner with it; else it must go to a benevolent organization
called the Prisoner's Friend Society. The old people left a
letter, in which they begged their dear son Edward to take
their place and watch over George, and help and shield him
as they had done.

Edward dutifully acquiesced, and George became his partner
in the business. He was not a valuable partner: he had
been meddling with drink before; he soon developed into a
constant tippler now, and his flesh and eyes showed the fact
unpleasantly. Edward had been courting a sweet and kindly
spirited girl for some time. They loved each other dearly,
and -- But about this period George began to haunt her tear-
fully and imploringly, and at last she went crying to Edward,
and said her high and holy duty was plain before her--she
must not let her own selfish desires interfere with it: she
must marry "poor George" and "reform him." It would break her
heart, she knew it would, and so on; but duty was duty. So
she married George, and Edward's heart came very near break-
ing, as well as her own. However, Edward recovered, and mar-
ried another girl--a very excellent one she was, too.

Children came to both families. Mary did her honest best
to reform her husband, but the contract was too large. George
went on drinking, and by and by he fell to misusing her and
the little one sadly. A great many good people strove with
George--they were always at it, in fact--but he calmly took
such efforts as his due and their duty, and did not mend his
ways. He added a vice, presently--that of secret gambling.
He got deeply in debt; he borrowed money on the firm's cre-
dit, as quietly as he could, and carried this system so far
and so successfully that one morning the sheriff took posses-
sion of the establishment, and the two cousins found them-
selves penniless.

Times were hard, now, and they grew worse. Edward moved
his family into a garret, and walked the streets day and
night, seeking work. He begged for it, but it was really
not to be had. He was astonished to see how soon his face
became unwelcome; he was astonished and hurt to see how
quickly the ancient interest which people had had in him
faded out and disappeared. Still, he must get work; so he
swallowed his chagrin, and toiled on in search of it. At
last he got a job of carrying bricks up a ladder in a hod,
and was a grateful man in consequence; but after that no-
body knew him or cared anything about him. He was not able
to keep up his dues in the various moral organizations to
which he belonged, and had to endure the sharp pain of
seeing himself brought under the disgrace of suspension.

But the faster Edward died out of public knowledge and in-
terest, the faster George rose in them. He was found lying,
ragged and drunk, in the gutter one morning. A member of
the Ladies' Temperance Refuge fished him out, took him in
hand, got up a subscription for him, kept him sober a whole
week, then got a situation for him. An account of it was
published.

General attention was thus drawn to the poor fellow, and
a great many people came forward, and helped him toward
reform with their countenance and encouragement. He did
not drink a drop for two months, and meantime was the pet
of the good. Then he fell--in the gutter; and there was gen-
eral sorrow and lamentation. But the noble sisterhood res-
cued him again. They cleaned him up, they fed him, they
listened to the mournful music of his repentances, they got
him his situation again. An account of this, also, was pub-
lished, and the town was drowned in happy tears over the
rerestoration of the poor beast and struggling victim of the
fatal bowl. A grand temperance revival was got up, and after
some rousing speeches had been made the chairman said, im-
pressively; "We are now about to call for signers; and I
think there is a spectacle in store for you which not many
in this house will be able to view with dry eyes." There was
an eloquent pause, and then George Benton, escorted by a
redsashed detachment of the Ladies of the Refuge, stepped
forward upon the platform and signed the pledge. The air was
rent with applause, and everybody cried for joy. Everybody
wrung the hand of the new convert when the meeting was
over; his salary was enlarged next day; he was the talk of
the town, and its hero. An account of it was published.

George Benton fell, regularly, every three months, but was
faithfully rescued and wrought with, every time, and good
situations were found for him. Finally, he was taken around
the country lecturing, as a reformed drunkard, and he had
great houses and did an immense amount of good.

He was so popular at home, and so trusted--during his
sober interval--that he was enabled to use the name of a
principal citizen, and get a large sum of money at the bank.
A mighty pressure was brought to bear to save him from the
consequences of his forgery, and it was partially successful
--he was "sent up" for only two years. When, at the end of a
year, the tireless efforts of the benevolent were crowned
with success, and he emerged from the penitentiary with a
pardon in his pocket, the Prisoner's Friend Society met him
at the door with a situation and a comfortable salary, and all
the other benevolent people came forward and gave him advice,
encouragement, and help. Edward Mills had once applied
to the Prisoner's Friend Society for a situation, when in
dire need, but the question, "Have you been a prisoner?"
made brief work of his case.

While all these things were going on, Edward Mills had been
quietly making head against adversity. He was still poor,
but was in receipt of a steady and sufficient salary, as the
respected and trusted cashier of a bank. George Benton never
came near him, and was never heard to inquire about him.
George got to indulging in long absences from the town;
there were ill reports about him, but nothing definite.

One winter's night some masked burglars forced their way
into the bank, and found Edward Mills there alone. They
commanded him to reveal the "combination," so that they
could get into the safe. He refused. They threatened his life.
He said his employers trusted him, and he could not be traitor
to that trust. He could die, if he must, but while he lived
he would be faithful; he would not yield up the "combination."
The burglars killed him.

The detectives hunted down the criminals; the chief one
proved to be George Benton. A wide sympathy was felt for the
widow and orphans of the dead man, and all the newspapers
in the land begged that all the banks in the land would
testify their appreciation of the fidelity and heroism of the
murdered cashier by coming forward with a generous contri-
bution of money in aid of his family, now bereft of support.
The result was a mass of solid cash amounting to upward
of five hundred dollars--an average of nearly three eighths
of a cent for each bank of the Union. The cashier's own bank
testified its gratitude by endeavoring to show (but humili-
atingly failed in it) that the peerless servant's accounts
were not square, and that he himself had knocked his brains
out with a bludgeon to escape detection and punishment.

George Benton was arraigned for trial. Then everybody
seemed to forget the widow and orphans in their solicitude
for poor George. Everything that money and influence could
do was done to save him, but it all failed; he was sentenced
to death. Straightway the Governor was besieged with peti-
tions for commutation or pardon; they were brought by tearful
young girls; by sorrowful old maids; by deputations of path-
etic widows; by shoals of impressive orphans. But no, the
Governor--for once--would not yield.

Now George Benton experienced religion. The glad news flew
all around. From that time forth his cell was always full
of girls and women and fresh flowers; all the day long there
was prayer, and hymn-singing, and thanksgivings, and homilies,
and tears, with never an interruption, except an occasional
five-minute intermission for refreshments.

This sort of thing continued up the very gallows, and
George Benton went proudly home, in the black cap, before
a wailing audience of the sweetest and best that the region
could produce. His grave had fresh flowers on it every day,
for a while, and the head-stone bore these words, under a
hand pointing aloft: "He has fought the good fight."
The brave cashier's head-stone has this inscription: "Be
pure, honest, sober, industrious, considerate, and you will
never--"

Nobody knows who gave the order to leave it that way,
but it was so given.

The cashier's family are in stringent circumstances, now,
it is said; but no matter; a lot of appreciative people, who
were not willing that an act so brave and true as his should
go unrewarded, have collected forty-two thousand dollars
--and built a Memorial Church with it.

1880



The Man Who Put Up at Gadsby's



When my odd friend Riley and I were newspaper correspon-
dents in Washington, in the winter of '67, we were coming
down Pennsylvania Avenue one night, near midnight, in
a driving storm of snow, when the flash of a street-lamp fell
upon a man who was eagerly tearing along in the opposite di-
rection. This man instantly stopped and exclaimed:

"This is lucky! You are Mr. Riley, ain't you?"

Riley was the most self-possessed and solemnly deliberate
person in the republic. He stopped, looked his man over from
head to foot, and finally said :

"I am Mr. Riley. Did you happen to be looking for me?"

"That's just what I was doing," said the man, joyously,
"and it's the biggest luck in the world that I've found you.
My name is Lykins. I'm one of the teachers of the high
school--San Francisco. As soon as I heard the San Francisco
postmastership was vacant, I made up my mind to get it
--and here I am."

"Yes," said Riley, slowly, "as you have remarked . . .Mr. Lykins
. . . here you are. And have you got it?"

"Well, not exactly got it, but the next thing to it. I've
brought a petition, signed by the Superintendent of Public
Instruction, and all the teachers, and by more than two hundred
other people. Now I want you, if you'll be so good, to
go around with me to the Pacific delegation, for I want to
rush this thing through and get along home."

"If the matter is so pressing, you will prefer that we visit
the delegation to-night," said Riley, in a voice which had
nothing mocking in it--to an unaccustomed ear.

"Oh, to-night, by all means! I haven't got any time to fool
around, I want their promise before I go to bed--I ain't the
talking kind. I'm the doing kind!"

"Yes . . . you've come to the right place for that. When did
you arrive?"

"Just an hour ago."

"When are you intending to leave?"

"For New York to-morrow evening--for San Francisco next morn-
ing."

"Just so. . . . What are you going to do to-morrow?"

"Do.' Why, I've got to go to the President with the petition
and the delegation, and get the appointment, haven't 1?"

"Yes . . . very true . . . that is correct. And then what?"

"Executive session of the Senate at 2 p.m.--got to get
the appointment confirmed--I reckon you'll grant that?"

"Yes . . . yes," said Riley, meditatively, "you are right
again. Then you take the train for New York in the evening,
and the steamer for San Francisco next morning?"

"That's it--that's the way I map it out!"

Riley considered a while, and then said:

"You couldn't stay ... a day . . . well, say two days long-
er?"

"Bless your soul, no! It's not my style. I ain't a man to go
fooling around--I'm a man that does things, I tell you."

The storm was raging, the thick snow blowing in gusts.
Riley stood silent, apparently deep in a reverie, during a
minute or more, then he looked up and said:

"Have you ever heard about that man who put up at Gadsby's,
once? . . . But I see you haven't."

He backed Mr. Lykins against an iron fence, buttonholed
him, fastened him with his eye, like the Ancient Mariner,
and proceeded to unfold his narrative as placidly and
peacefully as if we were all stretched comfortably in a
blossomy ummer meadow instead of being persecuted by a
wintry midnight tempest:

"I will tell you about that man. It was in Jackson's time.
Gadsby's was the principal hotel, then. Well, this man ar-
rived from Tennessee about nine o'clock, one morning, with
a black coachman and a splendid four-horse carriage and
an elegant dog, which he was evidently fond and proud
of; he drove up before Gadsby's, and the clerk and the land-
lord and everybody rushed out to take charge of him, but he
said, ‘Never mind,' and jumped out and told the coachman
to wait--said he hadn't time to take anything to eat, he only
had a little claim against the government to collect, would
run across the way, to the Treasury, and fetch the money,
and then get right along back to Tennessee, for he was in
considerable of a hurry.

"Well, about eleven o'clock that night he came back and
ordered a bed and told them to put the horses up--said he
would collect the claim in the morning. This was in January,
you understand--January, 1834--the 3d of January--Wednesday,

‘Well, on the 5th of February, he sold the fine carriage,
and bought a cheap second-hand one--said it would answer
just as well to take the monSy home in, and he didn't
care for style.

"On the 11th of August he sold a pair of the fine horses
--said he'd often thought a pair was better than four, to go
over the rough mountain roads with where a body had to be
careful about his driving--and there wasn't so much of his
claim but he could lug the money home with a pair easy
enough.

On the 13th of December he sold another horse--said two
warn t necessary to drag that old light vehicle with--in fact,
one could snatch it along faster than was absolutely necessary,
now that it was good solid winter weather and the roads in
splendid condition.

On the 17th of February, 1835, he sold the old carriage
and bought a cheap second-hand buggy--said a buggy was
just the trick to skim along mushy, slushy early spring roads
with, and he had always wanted to try a buggy on those
mountain roads, anyway.

"On the 1st of August he sold the buggy and bought the
remains of an old sulky--said he just wanted to see those
green Tennesseans stare and gawk when they saw him come
a-ripping along in a sulky--didn't believe they'd ever heard
of a sulky in their lives.

"Well, on the 29th of August he sold his colored coachman
--said he didn't need a coachman for a sulky--wouldn't be
room enough for two in it anyway--and, besides, it wasn't
every day that Providence sent a man a fool who was willing
to pay nine hundred dollars for such a third-rate negro
as that--been wanting to get rid of the creature for years,
but didn't like to throw him away.

"Eighteen months later--that is to say, on the 15th of February,
1837--he sold the sulky and bought a saddle--said horseback-
riding was what the doctor had always recommended him to
take, and dog'd if he wanted to risk his neck going over
those mountain roads on wheels in the dead of winter, not
if he knew himself.

"On the 9th of April he sold the saddle--said he wasn't
going to risk his life with any perishable saddle-girth that
ever was made, over a rainy, miry April road, while he could
ride bareback and know and feel he was safe--always had
despised to ride on a saddle, anyway.

"On the 24th of April he sold his horse--said I'm just
fifty-seven today, hale and hearty--it would be a pretty
howdy-do for me to be wasting such a trip as that and such
weather as this, on a horse, when there ain't anything in the
world so splendid as a tramp on foot through the fresh spring
woods and over the cheery mountains, to a man that is a
man--and I can make my dog carry my claim in a little
bundle, anyway, when it's collected. So to-morrow I'll be up
bright and early, make my little old collection, and mosey off
to Tennessee, on my own hind legs, with a rousing good-by
to Gadsby's.'

"On the 22d of June he sold his dog--said ‘Dern a dog,
anyway, where you're just starting off on a rattling bully
pleasure tramp through the summer woods and hills--perfect
nuisance--chases the squirrels, barks at everything, goes
a-capering and splattering around in the fords--man can't get
any chance to reflect and enjoy nature--and I'd a blamed
sight ruther carry the claim myself, it's a mighty sight safer;
a dog's mighty uncertain in a financial way--always noticed
it--well, good-by boys--last call--I'm off for Tennessee with
a good leg and a gay heart, early in the morning,'"

There was a pause and a silence--except the noise of the
wind and the pelting snow. Mr. Lykins said, impatiently:

"Well?"

Riley said:

"Well--that was thirty years ago."

"Very well, very well--what of it?"

"I'm great friends with that old patriarch. He comes every
evening to tell me good-by. I saw him an hour ago--he's off
for Tennessee early to-morrow morning--as usual; said he
calculated to get his claim through and be off before nightowls
like me have turned out of bed. The tears were in his
eyes, he was so glad he was going to see his old Tennessee
and his friends once more."

Another silent pause. The stranger broke it:

"Is that all?"

"That is all."

"Well, for the time of night, and the kind of night, it seems
to me the story was full long enough. But what's it all for?"

"Oh, nothing in particular."

"Well, where's the point of it?"

"Oh, there isn't any particular point to it. Only, if you are
not in too much of a hurry to rush off to San Francisco with
that post-office appointment, Mr. Lykins, I'd advise you to
‘put up at Gadsby's' for a spelt, and take it easy. Good-by.
God bless you!"

So saying, Riley blandly turned on his heel and left the
tonisbed schoolteacher standing there, a musing and motionless
snow image shining in the broad glow of the streetlamp.
He never got that post-office.


From A TRAMP ABROAD, 1880



Mrs. McWilliams and the Lightning



Well, sir--continued Mr. McWilliams, for this was not the
beginning of his talk--the fear of lightning is one of the most
distressing infirmities a human being can be afflicted with. It
is mostly confined to women; but now and then you find it in
a little dog, and sometimes in a man. It is a particularly distres-
sing infirmity, for the reason that it takes the sand out of
a person to an extent which no other fear can, and it canH be
reasoned with, and neither can it be shamed out of a person*
A woman who could face the very devil himself--or a mouse
--loses her grip and goes all to pieces in front of a flash of
lightning. Her fright is something pitiful to see.

Well, as I was teling you, I woke up, with that smothered
and unlocatable cry of "Mortimerl Mortimer!" wailing in
my ears; and as soon as I could scrape my faculties to-
gether I reached over in the dark and then said;

"Evangeline, is that you calling? What is the matter?
Where are you?"

"Shut up in the boot-closet. You ought to be ashamed to
lie there and sleep so, and such an awful storm going on."
"Why, how can one be ashamed when he is asleep? It is
unreasonable; a man can't be ashamed when he is asleep,
Evangeline."

"You never try, Mortimer--you know very well you never
try."

I caught the sound of muffled sobs.

That sound smote dead the sharp speech that was on my
lips, and I changed it to--

"I'm sorry, dear--I'm truly sorry. I never meant to act so.
Come back and--"

"Mortimer!"

"Heavens what is the matter, my love?"

"Do you mean to say you are in that bed yet?"

"Why, of course."

"Come out of it instantly. I should think you would take
some little care of your life, for my sake and the child-
ren's, if you will not for your own."

"But, my love--"

"Don't talk to me, Mortimer. You know there is no place
so dangerous as a bed in such a thunder-storm as this--all
the books say that; yet there you would lie, and deliberately
throw away your life--for goodness knows what, unless for
the sake of arguing, and arguing, and--"

"But, confound it, Evangeline, I'm not in the bed now. I'm--"

[Sentence interrupted by a sudden glare of lightning, followed
by a terrified little scream from Mrs. McWilliams and a tremen-
dous blast of thunder.]

"There! You see the result. Oh, Mortimer, how can you be
so profligate as to swear at such a time as this?"

"I didn't swear. And that wasn't a result of it, anyway. It
would have come, just the same, if I hadn't said a word; and
you know very well, Evangeline--at least, you ought to know
--that when the atmosphere is charged with electricity--"

"Oh, yes; now argue it, and argue it, and argue it!--I don't
see how you can act so, when you know there is not a light-
ning-rod on the place, and your poor wife and children are
absolutely at the mercy of Providence. What are you doing?--
lighting a match at such a time as this! Are you stark mad?"

"Hang it, woman, where's the harm? The place is as dark
as the inside of an infidel, and--"

"Put it out! put it out instantly! Are you determined to
sacrifice us all? You know there is nothing attracts light-
ning like a light. [Fzt!--crash! boom--boloom-boom-boom!] Oh,
just hear it! Now you see what you've done!"

"No, I don't see what I've done. A match may attract lightning,
for all I know, but it don't cause lightning--I'll go odds on
that. And it didn't attract it worth a cent this time; for if
that shot was leveled at my match, it was blessed poor mark-
smanship--about an average of none out of a possible million,
I should say. Why, at Dollymount such marksmanship as that--"

"For shame, Mortimer! Here we are standing right in the
very presence of death, and yet in so solemn a moment you
are capable of using such language as that. If you have no
desire to--Mortimer!"

"Well?"

"Did you say your prayers to-night?"

"I--I--meant to, but I got to trying to cipher out how
much twelve times thirteen is, and--"

{Fzt!--boom-berroom-boom! bumble-umble bang-SMASH!]

"Oh, we are lost, beyond all help! How could you neglect
.such a thing at such a time as this?"

"But it wasn't such a time as this.' There wasn't a cloud in
the sky. How could I know there was going to be all this
rumpus and pow-wow about a little slip like that? And I
don't think it's just fair for you to make so much out of it,
anyway, seeing it happens so seldom; I haven't missed before
since I brought on that earthquake, four years ago."

"Mortimer! How you talk! Have you forgotten the yellowfever?"

"My dear, you are always throwing up the yellow-fever to
me, and I think it is perfectly unreasonable. You can't even
send a telegraphic message as far as Memphis without relays,
so how is a little devotional slip of mine going to carry so
far? I'll stand the earthquake, because it was in the neigh-
borhood; but ril be hanged if I'm going to be responsible for
every blamed--"

[Fit!--BOOM beroom-boom! boom.--BANG!]

"Oh, dear, dear, dearl I know it struck something, Mortimer.
We never shall see the light of another day; and if it
will do you any good to remember, when we are gone, that
your dreadful language--Mortimer!"

"Well! What now?"

"Your voice sounds as if-- Mortimer, are you actually
standing in front of that open fireplace?"

"That is the very crime I am committing."

"Get away from it this moment! You do seem determined
to bring destruction on us all. Don't you know that there
is no better conductor for lightning than an open chimney?
Now where have you got to?"

"I'm here by the window."

"Oh, for pity's sake! have you lost your mind? Clear out
from there, this moment! The very children in arms know it
is fatal to stand near a window in a thunder-storm. Dear,
dear, I know I shall never see the light of another day!
Mortimer!"

"Yes."

"What is that rustling?"

"It's me."

"What are you doing?"

"Trying to find the upper end of my pantaloons."

"Quick! throw those things away! I do believe you would
deliberately put on those clothes at such a time as this; yet
you know perfectly well that all authorities agree that woolen
stuffs attract lightning. Oh, dear, dear, it isn't sufficient that
one's life must be in peril from natural causes, but you must
do everything you can possibly think of to augment the danger.
Oh, don't sing! What can you be thinking of?"

"Now where's the harm in it?"

"Mortimer, if I have told you once, I have told you a hundred
times, that singing causes vibrations in the atmosphere
which interrupt the flow of the electric fluid, and-- What on
earth are you opening that door for?"

"Goodness gracious, woman, is there any harm in that?"

"Harm? There's death in it. Anybody that has given this sub-
ject any attention knows that to create a draught is to invite
the lightning. You haven't half shut it; shut it tight--and
do hurry, or we are all destroyed. Oh, it is an awful thing to
be shut up with a lunatic at such a time as this. Mortimer,
what are you doing?"

"Nothing. Just turning on the water. This room is smothering
hot and close, I want to bathe my face and hands,"

"You have certainly parted with the remnant of your mind!
Where lightning strikes any other substance once, it strikes
water fifty times. Do turn it off. Oh, dear, I am sure that
nothing in this world can save us. It does seem to me that--
Mortimer, what was that?"

"It was a da--it was a picture. Knocked it down."

"Then you are close to the wall! I never heard of such
imprudence! Don't you know that there's no better conductor
for lightning than a wall? Come away from there! And you
came as near as anything to swearing, too. Oh, how can you
be so desperately wicked, and your family in such peril?
Mortimer, did you order a feather bed, as I asked you to
do?"

"No. Forgot it."

"Forgot it! It may cost you your life. If you had a feather
bed now, and could spread it in the middle of the room and
lie on it, you would be perfectly safe. Come in here--come
quick, before you have a chance to commit any more frantic
indiscretions."

I tried, but the little closet would not hold us both with
the door shut, unless we could be content to smother. I gasped
awhile, then forced my way out. My-. wife called out:

"Mortimer, something must be done for your preservation.
Give me that German book that is on the end of the mantel-
piece, and a candle; but don't light it; give me a match; I
will light it in here. That book has some directions in it."

I got the book--at cost of a vase and some other brittle
things; and the madam shut herself up with her candle. I
had a moment's peace; then she called out:

"Mortimer, what was that?"

"Nothing but the cat."

"The cat! Oh, destruction! Catch her, and shut her up in
the washstand. Do be quick, love; cats are full of electricity.
I just know my hair will turn white with this night's awful
perils."

I heard the muffled sobbings again. But for that, I should
not have moved hand or foot in such a wild enterprise in
the dark.

However, I went at my task--over chairs, and against all
sorts of obstructions, all of them hard ones, too, and most
of them with sharp edges--and at last I got kitty cooped
up in the commode, at an expense of over four hundred dollars
in broken furniture and shins. Then these muffled words
came from the closet:

"It says the safest thing is to stand on a chair in the
middle of the room, Mortimer; and the legs of the chair must
be insulated with non-conductors. That is, you must set the
legs of the chair in glass tumblers. [Fzt!--boom--bang!--smash!]
Oh, hear that! Do hurry, Mortimer, before you are struck."

I managed to find and secure the tumblers. I got the last
four--broke all the rest I insulated the chair legs, and called
for further instructions.

"Mortimer, it says, ‘Wahrend eines Gewitters entfeme man
Metalle, wie z. B., Ringe, Uhren, Schliissel, etc., von
sich und halte sich auch nicht an solchen Stellen auf, wo
viele Metalle bei einander liegen, oder mit andern Korpern
verbunden sind, wie an Herden, Oefen, Eisengittem u. dgl.'
What does that mean, Mortimer? Does it mean that you must
keep metals about you, or keep them away from you?"

"Well, I hardly know. It appears to be a little mixed. All
German advise is more or less mixed. However, I think
that that sentence is mostly in the dative case, with a little
genitive and accusative sifted in, here and there, for luck;
so I reckon it means that you must keep some metals about
you."

"Yes, that must be it. It stands to reason that it is. They
are in the nature of lightning-rods, you know. Put on your
fireman's helmet, Mortimer; that is mostly metal."

I got it, and put it on--a very heavy and clumsy and uncom-
fortable thing on a hot night in a close room. Even my night-
dress seemed to be more clothing than I strictly needed.

"Mortimer, I think your middle ought to be protected.
Won't you buckle on your militia saber, please?"

I complied.

"Now, Mortimer, you ought to have some way to protect
your feet. Do please put on your spurs."

I did it--in silence--and kept my temper as well as I could.

"Mortimer, it says, ‘Das Gewitter lauten ist sehr gefahr-
lich, weil die Glocke selbst, sowie der durch das Lauten
veranlasste Luftzug und die Hohe des Thurmes den Blitz
anziehen konnten.' Mortimer, does that mean that it is
dangerous not to ring the church bells during a thunder-
storm?"

"Yes, it seems to mean that--if that is the past participle
of the nominative case singular, and I reckon it is. Yes, I
think it means that on account of the height of the church
tower and the absence of Luftzug it would be very dangerous
{sehr gefdhrlich) not to ring the bells in time of a storm;
and, moreover, don't you see, the very wording--
"
"Never mind that, Mortimer; don't waste the precious time in
talk. Get the large dinner-bell; it is right there in the halL
Quick, Mortimer, dear; we are almost safe. Oh, dear, I do be-
lieve we are going to be saved, at last!"

Our little summer establishment stands on top of a high
range of hills, overlooking a valley. Several farm-houses are
in our neighborhood--the nearest some three or four hundred
yards away.

When I, mounted on the chair, had been clanging that
dreadful bell a matter of seven or eight minutes, our shutters
were suddenly tom open from without, and a brilliant
bull's-eye lantern was thrust in at the window, followed by
a hoarse inquiry:

"What in the nation is the matter here?"

The window was full of men's heads, and the heads were
full of eyes that stared wildly at my night-dress and my warlike
accoutrements.

I dropped the bell, skipped down from the chair in confusion,
and said:

"There is nothing the matter, friends--only a little discomfort
on account of the thunder-storm. I was trying to keep off the
lightning."

"Thunder-storm? Lightning? Why, Mr. McWilliams, have you lost
your mind? It is a beautiful starlight night: there has been
no storm."

I looked out, and I was so astonished I could hardly speak
for a while. Then I said:

"I do not understand this. We distinctly saw the glow of
the flashes through the curtains and shutters, and heard the
thunder."

One after another of those people lay down on the ground
to laugh--and two of them died. One of the survivors remarked:
"Pity you didn't think to open your blinds and look over
to the top of the high hill yonder. What you heard was cannon;
what you saw was the flash. You see, the telegraph brought
some news, just at midnight; Garfield's nominated--and that's
what's the matter!"

Yes. Mr. Twain, as I was saying in the beginning (said Mr.
McWilliams), the rules for preserving people against lightning
are so excellent and so innumerable that the most incomprehensible
thing in the world to me is how anybody ever manages to get struck.
So saying, he gathered up his satchel and umbrella, and
departed; for the train bad reached his town.

1880



What Stumped the Bluejays



Animals talk to each other, of course. There can be no ques-
tion about that; but I suppose there are very few people who
can understand them. I never knew but one man who could.
I knew he could, however, because he told me so himself.
He was a middle-aged, simple-hearted miner who had lived
in a lonely corner of California, among the woods and moun-
tains, a good many years, and had studied the ways of his
only neighbors, the beasts and the birds, until he believed
he could accurately translate any remark which they made.
This was Jim Baker. According to Jim Baker, some animals
have only a limited education, and use only very simple
words, and scarcely ever a comparison or a flowery figure;
whereas, certain other animals have a large vocabulary, a
fine command of language and a ready and fluent delivery;
consequently these latter talk a great deal; they like it;
they are conscious of their talent, and they enjoy "showing
off." Baker said, that after long and careful observation,
he had come to the conclusion that the bluejays were the
best talkers he had found among birds and beasts. Said be:

There's more to a bluejay than any other creature. He has
got more moods, and more different kinds of feelings than
other creatures; and, mind you, whatever a bluejay feels,
he can put into language. And no mere commonplace language,
either, but rattling, out-and-out book-talk--and bristling
with metaphor, too--just bristling! And as for command of
language--why you never see a bluejay get stuck for a word.
No man ever did. They just boil out of him! And another
thing: I've noticed a good deal, and there's no bird, or cow,
or anything that uses as good grammar as a bluejay. You may
say a cat uses good grammar. Well, a cat does--but you let a
cat get excited once; you let a cat get to pulling fur with
another cat on a shed, nights, and you'll hear grammar that
will give you the lockjaw. Ignorant people think it's the noise
which fighting cats make that is so aggravating, but it ain't
so; it's the sickening grammar they use. Now I've never heard
a jay use bad grammar but very seldom; and when they do,
they are as ashamed as a human; they shut right down and
leave.

You may call a jay a bird. Well, so he is, in a measure--
because he's got feathers on him, and don't belong to no
church, perhaps; but otherwise he is just as much a human
as you be. And I'll tell you for why. A jay's gifts, and
instincts, and feelings, and interests, cover the whole
ground. A jay hasn't got any more principle than a Congress-
man. A jay will lie, a jay will steal, a jay will deceive,
a jay will betray; and four times out of five, a jay will
go back on his solemnest promise. The sacredness of an
obligation is a thing which you can't cram into no blue-
jay's head. Now, on top of ah this, there's another thing;
a jay can out-swear any gentleman in the mines. You think
a cat can swear. Well, a cat can; but you give a bluejay a
subject that calls for his reserve-powers, and where is
your cat? Don't talk to me--I know too much about this thing.
And there's yet another thing; in the one little particular
of scolding--just good, clean, out-and-out scolding--a
bluejay can lay over anything, human or divine. Yes, sir,
a jay is everything that a man is. A jay can cry, a jay can
laugh, a jay can feel shame, a jay can reason and plan and
discuss, a jay likes gossip and scandal, a jay has got a
sense of humor, a jay know's when he is an ass just as well
as you do--maybe better. If a jay ain't human, he better
take in his sign, that's all. Now I'm going to tell you a
perfectly true fact about some bluejays. When I first begun
to understand jay language correctly, there was a little
incident happened here. Seven years ago, the last man in
this region but me moved away. There stands his house-been
empty ever since; a log house, with a plank roof--just one
big room, and no more; no ceiling--nothing between the raft-
ers and the floor. Well, one Sunday morning I was sitting out
here in front of my cabin, with my cat, taking the sun, and
looking at the blue hills, and listening to the leaves rust-
ling so lonely in the trees, and thinking of the home aw'ay
yonder in the states, that I hadn't heard from in thirteen
years, when a bluejay lit on that house, with an acorn in
his mouth, and says, "Hello, I reckon I've struck something."
When he spoke, the acorn dropped out of his mouth and rolled
down the roof, of course, but he didn't care; his mind was
all on the thing he had struck. It was a knot-hole in the
roof. He cocked his head to one side, shut one eye and put
the other one to the hole, like a possum looking down a jug;
then he glanced up with his bright eyes, gave a wink or two
with his wings --which signifies gratification, you under-
stand--and says, "It looks like a hole, it's located like
a hole--blamed if I don't believe it is a hole!"

Then he cocked his head down and took another look; he
glances up perfectly joyful, this time; winks his wings and
his tail both, and says, "Oh, no, this ain't no fat thing, I
reckon! If I ain't in luck!--why it's a perfectly elegant hole!"
So he flew down and got that acorn, and fetched it up and
dropped it in, and was just tilting his head back, with the
heavenliest smile on his face, when all of a sudden he was
paralyzed into a listening attitude and that smile faded grad-
ually out of his countenance like breath off'n a razor, and
the queerest look of surprise took its place. Then he says,
"Why, I didn't hear it fall!" He cocked his eye at the hole
again, and took a long look; raised up and shook his head;
stepped around to the other side of the hole and took another
look from that side; shook his head again. He studied a while,
then he just went into the details--walked round and round
the hole and spied into it from every point of the compass.
No use. Now he took a thinking attitude on the comb of the
roof and scratched the back of his head with his right foot
a minute, and finally says, "Well, it's too many for me,
that's certain; must be a mighty long hole: however, I ain't
got no time to fool around here, I got to 'tend to business;
I reckon it's all right--chance it, anyway."

So he flew off and fetched another acorn and dropped it in,
and tried to flirt his eye to the hole quick enough to see
what become of it, hut he was too late. He held his eye there
as much as a minute; then he raised up and sighed, and says,
"Confound it, I don't seem to understand this thing, no way;
however. I'll tackle her again." He fetched another acorn,
and done his level best to see what become of it, but he
couldn't. He says, "Well, I never struck no .such hole as this
before: I'm of the opinion it's a totally new kind of a hole."
Then he begun to get mad. He held in for a spell, walking
up and down the comb of the roof and shaking his head and
muttering to himself: hut his feelings got the upper hand of
him, presently, and he broke loose and cussed himself black
in the face. I never see a bird take on so about a little
thing. When he got through he walks to the hole and looks in
again for half a minute; then he says, "Well, you're a long
hole, and a deep hole, and a mighty singular hole altogether--
but I've started in to fill you, and I'm d--d if I don't fill you,
if it takes a hundred vears!"

And with that, away he went. You never see a bird work
so since you was born. He laid into his work like a nigger,
and the way he hove acorns into that hole for about two
hours and a half was one of the most exciting and astonishing
spectacles I ever struck. He never stopped to take a look
any more--he just hove 'em in and went for more. Well, at
last he could hardly flop his wings, he was so tuckered out.
He comes a-drooping down, once more, sweating like an ice-
pitcher, drops his acorn in and says, "Now I guess I've got
the bulge on you by this time!" So he bent down for a look.
If you'll believe me, when his head come up again he was
just pale with rage. He says, "I've shoveled acorns enough in
there to keep the family thirty years, and if I can see a sign
of one of 'em I wish I may land in a museum with a belly
full of sawdust in two minutes!''

He just had strength enough to crawl up on to the comb
and lean his back agin the chimbly, and then he collected his
impressions and begun to free his mind. I see in a second that
what I had mistook for profanity in the mines was only just
the rudiments, as you may say.

Another jay was going by, and heard him doing his devotions,
and stops to inquire what was up. The sufferer told him
the whole circumstance, and says, "Now yonder's the hole,
and if you don't believe me, go and look for yourself." So
this fellow went and looked, and comes back and says; "How
many did you say you put in there?" "Not any less than two
tons," says the sufferer. The other jay went and looked again.
He couldn't seem to make it out, so he raised a yell, and three
more jays come. They all examined the hole, they all made the
sufferer tell it over again, then they all discussed it, and
got off as many leather-headed opinions about it as an average
crowd of humans could have done.

They called in more jays; then more and more, till pretty
soon this whole region 'peared to have blue flush about it
There must have been five thousand of them; and such another
jawing and disputing and ripping and cussing, you never heard.
Every jay in the whole lot put his eye to the hole and del-
ivered a more chuckle-headed opinion about the mystery than
the jay that went there before him. They examined the house
all over, too. The door was standing half open, and at last
one old jay happened to go and light on it and look in. Of
course, that knocked the mystery galley-west in a second.
There lay the acorns, scattered all over the floor. He flop-
ped his wings and raised a whoop. "Come here!" he says,
"Come here, everybody; hang'd if this fool hasn't been try-
ing to fill up a house with acorns!" They all came a-swooping
down like a blue cloud, and as each fellow lit on the door
and took a glance, the whole absurdity of the contract that
that first jay had tackled hit him home and he fell over
backward suffocating with laughter, and the next jay took
his place and done the same.

Well, sir, they roosted around here on the housetop and
the trees for an hour, and guffawed over that thing like hu-
man beings. It ain't any use to tell me a bluejay hasn't got
a sense of humor, because I know better. And memory, too.
They brought jays here from all over the United States to
look down that hole, every summer for three years. Other
birds, too. And they could all see the point, except an owl
that come from Nova Scotia to visit the Yo Semite, and he
took this thing in on his way back. He said he couldn't see
anything funny in it. But then he was a good deal disap*
pointed about Yo Semite, too.

From A TRAMP ABROAD, 1880



A Curious Experience



This is the story which the Major told me, as nearly as I
can recall it:

In the winter of 1862-63 I was commandant of Fort Trumbull,
at New London, Conn. Maybe our life there was not so brisk
as life at "the front"; still it was brisk enough, in its
way--one's brains didn't cake together there for lack of
something to keep them stirring. For one thing, all the
Northern atmosphere at that time was thick with mysterious
rumors--rumors to the effect that rebel spies were flitting
everywhere, and getting ready to blow up our Northern forts,
burn our hotels, send infected clothing into our towns, and
all that sort of thing. You remember it. All this had a ten-
dency to keep us awake, and knock the traditional dullness
out of garrison life. Besides, ours was a recruiting station
--which is the same as saying we hadn't any time to waste
in dozing, or dreaming, or fooling around. Why, with all our
watchfulness, fifty per cent, of a day's recruits would leak
out of our hands and give us the slip the same night. The
bounties were so prodigious that a recruit could pay a senti-
nel three or four hundred dollars to let him escape, and still
have enough of his bounty-money left to constitute a fortune
for a poor man. Yes, as I said before, our life was not drowsy.

Well, one day I was in my quarters alone, doing some writing,
when a pale and ragged lad of fourteen or fifteen entered,
made a neat bow, and said:

"I believe recruits are received here?"

"Yes."

"Will you please enlist me, sir?"

"Dear me, no! You are too young, my boy, and too small."

A disappointed look came into his face, and quickly deepmed
into an expression of despondency. He turned slowly away,
as if to go; hesitated, then faced me again, and said, in
a tone that went to my heart:

"I have no home, and not a friend in the world. If you
could only enlist me!"

But of course the thing was out of the question, and I said
so as gently as I could. Then I told him to sit down by the
stove and warm himself, and added:

"You shall have something to eat, presently. You are hung-
ry?"

He did not answer; he did not need to; the gratitude in
his big, soft eyes was more eloquent than any words could
have been. He sat down by the stove, and I went on writing.
Occasionally I took a furtive glance at him. I noticed that
his clothes and shoes, although soiled and damaged, were of
good style and material. This fact was suggestive. To it I
added the facts that his voice was low and musical; his eyes
deep and melancholy; his carriage and address gentlemanly;
evidently the poor chap was in trouble. As a result, I was
interested.

However, I became absorbed in my work by and by, and forgot
all about the boy. I don't know how long this lasted; but
at length I happened to look up. The boy's back was toward
me, but his face was turned in such a way that I could' see
one of his cheeks--and down that cheek a rill of noiseless
tears was flowing.

"God bless my soul!" I said to myself; "I forgot the poor
rat was starving." Then I made amends for my brutality by
saying to him, "Come along, my lad; you shall dine with me;
I am alone to-day."

He gave me another of those grateful looks, and happy light
broke in his face. At the table he stood with his hand on
his chair-back until I was seated, then seated himself. I
took up my knife and fork and--well, I simply held them,
and kept still; for the boy had inclined his head and was
saying a silent grace. A thousand hallowed memories of
home and my childhood poured in upon me, and I sighed to
think how far I had drifted from religion and its balm for
hurt minds, its comfort and solace and support.

As our meal progressed I observed that young Wicklow--
Robert Wicklow was his full name--knew what to do with
his napkin; and--well, in a word, I observed that he was a
boy of good breeding; never mind the details. He had a sim-
ple frankness, too, which won upon me. We talked mainly a-
bout himself, and I had no difficulty in getting his his-
tory out of him. When he spoke of his having been born and
reared in Louisiana, I wanned to him decidedly, for I had
spent some time down there. I knew all the "'coast" region
of this Mississippi, and loved it, and had not been long e-
nough away from it for my interest in it to begin to pale.
The very names that fell from his lips sounded good to me
--so good that I steered the talk in directions that would
bring tfiem out: Baton Rouge, Plaquemine, Donaldsonville,
Sixty-mile Point, Bonnet-Carr6, the Stock Landing, Carrol-
lton, the Steamship Landing, the Steamboat Landing, New
Orleans, Tchoupitoulas Street, the Esplanade, the Rue des
Bons Enfants, the St. Charles Hotel, the Tivoli Circle, the
Shell Road, Lake Pontchartrain; and it was particularly
delightful to me to hear once more of the JR. E. Lee, the
Natchez, the Eclipse, the General Quitman, the Duncan F.
Kenner, and other old familiar steamboats. It was almost
as good as being back there, these names so vividly re-
produced in my mind the look of the things they stood for.
Briefly, this was little Wicklow's history:

When the war broke out, he and his invalid aunt and his
father were living near Baton Rouge, on a great and rich
plantation which had been in the family for fifty years.
The father was a Union man. He was persecuted in all sorts
of ways, but clung to his principles. At last one night
masked men burned his mansion down, and the family had to
fly for their lives. They were hunted from place to place,
and learned all there was to know about poverty, hunger,
and distress. The invalid aunt found relief at last: mis-
ery and exposure killed her; she died in an open field,
like a tramp, the rain beating upon her and the thunder
booming overhead. Not long afterward the father was cap-
tured by an armed band; and while the son begged and
pleaded the victim was strung up before his face. [At
this point a baleful light shone in the youth's eyes and
he said with the manner of one who talks to himself: "If
I cannot be enlisted, no matter--I shall find a way--I
shall find a way."] As soon as the father was pronounced
dead, the son was told that if he was not out of that re-
gion within twenty-four hours it would go hard with him.
That night he crept to the riverside and hid himself near
a plantation landing. By and by the Duncan F. Kenner stop-
ped there, and he swam out and concealed himself in the
yawl that was dragging at her stern. Before daylight the
boat reached the Stock Landing and he slipped ashore. He
walked the. three miles which lay between that point and
the house of an uncle of his in Good-Children Street, in
New Orleans, and then his troubles were ovet for the time
being. But this uncle was a Union man, too, and before very
long be concluded that he had better leave the South. So
he and young Wicklow slipped out of the country on board
a sailing-vessel, and in due time reached New York, They
put up at the Astor House. Young Wicklow had a good time
of it for a while, strolling up and down Broadway, and ob-
serving the strange Northern sights; but in the end a change
came--and not for the better. The uncle had been cheerful
at first, but now he began to look troubled and despondent;
moreoever, he became moody and irritable; talked of money
giving out, and no way to get more--"not enough left for
one, let alone two." Then, one morning, he was missing--did
not come to breakfast. The boy inquired at the office, and
was told that the uncle had paid his bill the night before
and gone away--to Boston, the clerk believed, but was not
certain.

The lad was alone and friendless. He did not know what to
do, but concluded he had better try to follow and find his
uncle. He went down to the steamboat landing: learned that
the trifle of money in his pocket would not carry him to
Boston; however, it would carry him to New London; so he
took passage for that port, resolving to trust to Provi-
dence to furnish him means to travel the rest of the way.
He had now been wandering about the streets of New London
three days and nights, getting a bite and a nap here and
there for charity's sake. But he had given up at last;
courage and hope were both gone. If he could enlist, no-
body could be more thankful; if he could not get in as a
soldier, couldn't he be a drummer-boy? Ah, he would work
so hard to please, and would be so grateful!

Well, there's the history of young Wicklow, just as he
told it to me, barring details. I said:

"My boy, you are among friends now--don't you be troubl-
ed any more." How his eyes glistened! I called in Sergeant
John Rayburn--he was from Hartford; lives in Hartford yet;
maybe you know him--and said, "Rayburn, quarter this boy
with the musicians. I am going to enroll him as a drummer-
boy, and I want you to look after him and see that he is
well treated."

Well, of course, intercourse between the commandant of the
post and the drummer-boy came to an end now; but the poor
little friendless chap lay heavy on my heart just the same.
I kept on the lookout, hoping to see him brighten up and
begin to be cheery and gay; but no, the days went by, and
there was no change. He associated with nobody; he was al-
ways absent-minded, always thinking; his face was always
sad. One morning Rayburn asked leave to speak to me priv-
ately. Said he:

"I hope I don't offend, sir; but the truth is, the musicians
are in such a sweat it seems as if somebody's got to speak."

"Why, what is the trouble?"

"It's the Wicklow boy, sir. The musicians are down on him
to an extent you can't imagine."

"Well, go on, go on. What has he been doing?"

"Prayin', sir."

"Praying!"

"Yes, sir; the musicians haven't any peace in their life for
that boy's prayin'. First thing in the momin' he's at it;
noons he's at it; and nights--well, nights he just lays into
'em like all possessed! Sleep? Bless you, they can't sleep:
he's got the floor, as the sayin' is, and then when he once
gets his supplication-mill agoin' there just simply ain't
any let-up to him. He starts in with the band-master, and
he prays for him; next he takes the head bugler, and he
prays for him; next the bass drum, and he scoops him in;
and so on, right straight through the band, givin' them
all a show, and takin' that amount of interest in it which
would make you think he thought he warn't but a little
while for this world, and believed he couldn't be happy
in heaven without he had a brass-band along, and wanted
to pick 'em out for himself, so he could depend on 'em to
do up the national tunes in a style suitin' to the place.
Well, sir, heavin' boots at him don't have no effect;
it's dark in there; and, besides, he don't pray fair, an-
yway, but kneels down behind the big drum; so it don't
make no difference if they rain boots at him, he don't
give a dern--warbles right along, same as if it was ap-
plause. They sing out, ‘Oh, dry up!' ‘Give us a rest!'
"Shoot him!' ‘Oh, take a walk!' and all sorts of such
things. But what of it? It on't faze him. He don't mind
it." After a pause: "Kind of a good little fool, too; gits
up in the mornin' and carts all that stock of boots back,
and sorts 'em out and sets each man's pair where they be-
long. And they've been throwed at him so much now that he
knows every boot in the band--can sort 'em out with his
eyes shut."

After another pause, which I forebore to interrupt:

"But the roughest thing about it is that when he's done
prayin'--when he ever does get done--he pipes up and be-
gins to sing. Well, you know what a honey kind of a voice
he's got when he talks; you know how it would persuade a
cast-iron dog to come down off of a door-step and lick his
hand. Now if you'll take my word for it, sir, it ain't a
circumstance to his singin'! Flute music is harsh to that
boy's singin'. Oh, he just gurgles it out so soft and
sweet and low, there in the dark, that it makes you think
you are in heaven."

"What is there ‘rough' about that?"

"Ah, that's just it, sir. You hear him sing

'Just as I am--poor, wretched, blinds'--

just you hear him sing that once, and see if you don't melt
all up and the water come into your eyes! I don't care
what he sings, it goes plum straight home to you--it goes
deep down to where you live--and it fetches you every time!
Just you hear him sing

'Child of sin and sorrow, filled with dismay.
Wait not till to-morrow, yield thee to-day;
"Grieve not that love
Which, from above'--

and so on. It makes a body feel like the wickedest, un-
gratefulest brute that walks. And when he sings them songs
of about home, and mother, and childhood, and old memories,
and things that's vanished, and old friends dead and gone,
it fetches everything before your face that you've ever
loved and lost in all your life--and it's just beautiful,
it's just divine to listen to, sir--but. Lord, Lord, the
heartbreak of it! The band--well, they all cry--every rascal
of them blubbers, and don't try to hide it, either; and
first you know, that very gang that's been slammin' boots
at that boy will skip out of their bunks all of a sudden,
and rush over in the dark and hug him! Yes, they do--and
slobber all over him and call him pet names, and beg him to
forgive them. And just at that time, if a regiment was to
offer to hurt a hair of that cub's head, they'd go for that
regiment, if it was a whole army corps!"

Another pause.

"Is that all?" said I.

"Yes, sir."

"Well, dear me, what is the complaint? What do they want
done?"

"Done? Why, bless you, sir, they want you to stop him
from singin'."

"What an idea! You said his music was divine."

"That's just it. It's too divine. Mortal man can't stand it.
It stirs a body up so; it turns a body inside out; it racks
his feelin's all to rags; it makes him feel bad and wicked,
and not fit for any place but perdition. It keeps a body in
such an cverlastin' state of repentin', that nothin' don't
taste good and there ain't no comfort in life. And then the
cryin', you see--every mornin' they are ashamed to look one
another in the face."

"Well, this is an odd case, and a singular complaint. So
they really want the singing stopped?"

"Yes, sir, that is the idea. They don't wish to ask too much;
they would like powerful well to have the prayin' shut down
on, or leastways trimmed off around the edges; but the main
thing's the sin'. If they can only t the singin' choked of
they think they can stand the prayin', rough as it is to bo
bullyragged so mudi that way."

I told the sergeant I would take the matter undo' consid-
eration. That night I crept into the musicians' quarters and
listened. The sergeant had not overstated the case. I heard
the praying voice pleading in the dark; I heard the execra-
tions of the harassed men; I heard the rain of boots whiz
through the air, and bang and thump around the big drum.
The thing touched me, but it amused me, too. By and by, af-
ter an impressive silence, came the singing. Lord the pathos
of it, the enchantment of it! Nothing in the world was ever
so sweet, so gracious, so tender, so holy, so moving. I made
my stay very brief; I was beginning to experience emotions
of a sort not proper to the commandant of a fortress.

Next day I issued orders which stopped the praying and sing-
ing. Then followed three or four days which were so full
of bounty-jumping excitements and irritations that I never
once thought of my drummer-boy. But now comes Sergeant
Rayburn, one morning, and says:

"That new boy acts mighty strange, sir."

"How?"

"Well, sir, he's all the time writin'."

"Writing? What does he write--letters?"

"I don't know, sir; but whenever he's off duty, he is always
pokin' and nosin' around the fort, all by himself--blest if
I think there's a bole or corner in it he hasn't been into--
and every little while he outs with pencil and paper and
scribbles somethin' down."

This gave me a most unpleasant sensation. I wanted to scoff
at it, but it was not a time to scoff at anything that had
the least suspicious tinge about it Things were happening all
around us in the North then that wam us to be always on the
alert, and always suspecting. I recalled to mind the sugges-
tive fact that this boy was from the South--the extreme
South, Louisiana--and the thought was not of a reassuring
nature, under the circumstances. Nevertheless, it cost me a
pang to give the orders which I now gave to Rayburn. I felt
like a father who plots to expose his own child to shame ai
injury. I told Rayburn to keep quiet, bide his time, and get
me some of those writings whenever he could manage it without
the boy's finding it out And I charged him not to do anything
which might let the boy discover that he was being watched.
I also ordered that he allow the lad his usual liberties,
but that he be followed at a distance when he went out
into the town.

During the next two days Rayburn reported to me several
times. No success. The boy was still writing, but he always
pocketed his paper with a careless air whenever Rayburn ap-
peared in the vicinity. He bad gone twice to an old deserted
stable in the town, remained a minute or two, and come out
again. One could not pooh-pooh these things--they had an evil
look. I was obliged to confess to myself that I was getting
uneasy. I went into my private quarters and sent for my se-
cond in command--an officer of intelligence and judgment,
son of General James Watson Webb. He was surprised and trou-
bled. We had a long talk over the matter, and came to the
conclusion that it would be worth while to institute a se-
cret search. I determined to take charge of that myself. So
I had myself called at two in the morning; and pretty soon
after I was in the musicians' quarters, crawling along the
floor on my stomach among the snorers. I reached my slumber-
ing waifs bunk at last, without disturbing anybody, captured
his clothes and kit, and crawled stealthily back again. When
I got to my own quarters, I found Webb there, waiting and
eager to know the result. We made search immediately. The
clothes were a disappointment. In the pockets we found blank
paper and a pencil; nothing else, except a jackknife and
such queer odds and ends and useless trifles as boys hoard
and value. We turned to the kit hopefully. Nothing there
but a rebuke for us!--a little Bible with this written
on the fly-leaf: "Stranger, be kind to my boy, for his
mother's sake."

I looked at Webb--he dropped his eyes; he looked at me
--I dropped mine. Neither spoke. I put the book reverent-
ly back in its place. Presently Webb got up and went away,
without remark. After a little I nerved myself up to my
unpalatable job, and took the plunder back to where it
belonged, crawling on my stomach as before. It seemed
the peculiarly appropriate attitude for the business I
was in.

I was most honestly glad when it was over and done with.
About noon next day Rayburn came, as usual, to report. I
cut him short. I said:

"Let this nonsense be dropped. We are making a bugaboo
out of a poor little cub who has got no more harm in him
than a hymn-book."

The sergeant looked surprised, and said:

"Well, you know it was your orders, sir, and I've got some
of the writin'."

"And what does it amount to? How did you get it?"

"I peeped through the keyhole, and see him writin'. So,
when I judged he was about done, I made a sort of a little
cough, and I see him crumple it up and throw it in the fire
and look all around to see if anybody was comin'. Then he
setlled back as comfortable and careless as anything. Then
I comes in, and passes the time of day pleasantly, and sends
him on an errand. He never looked uneasy, but went right
along. It was a coal fire and new built; the writin' had
gone over behind a chunk, out of sight; but I got it out;
there it is; it ain't hardly scorched, you see."

I glanced at the paper and took in a sentence or two. Then
I dismissed the sergeant and told him to send Webb to me.
Here is the paper in full:

FORT TRUMBULL, the 8th.
COLONEL I was mistaken as to the caliber of the three
guns I ended my list with. They are 18-pounders; all the
rest of the armament is as I stated. The garrison remains as
before reported, except that the two light infantry companies
that were to be detached for service at the front are to stay
here for the present--can't find out for how long, fust now,
but will soon. We are satisfied that, all things considered,
matters had better be postponed un--

There it broke--there is where Rayburn coughed and inter-
rupted the writer. All my affection for the boy, all my
respect for him and charity for his forlorn condition, with-
ered in a moment under the blight of this revelation of cold-
blooded baseness.

But never mind about that Here was business--business
that required profound and immediate attentiem, too. Webb
and I turned die subject over and over, and examined it aU
around. Webb said:

"What a pity he was interrupted! Something is going to be
postponed until--whm? And vhat is the something? Possibly
he would have mentioned it, the pious little reptile!"

"Yes," I said, "we have missed a trick. And who is "we" in
the letter? Is it conspirators inside the fort or outside?"

That "we" was uncomfortably suggestive. However, it was
not worth while to be guessing around that, so we proceeded
to matters more practical. In the first pla we decided to
double the sffltries and keep the strictest possible watch.
Next, we thought of calling Wicklow in and making him di-
vulge everything; but that did not seem wisest until other
methods should fail. We must have some more of the writ-
ings; so we began to plan to that end. And now we had an
idea: Wicklow never went to the post-office--perhaps the
deserted stable was his post-office. We sent for my confi-
dential clerk--a young German named Sterne, who was a sort
of natural detective--and told him all about the case, and
ordered him to go to work on it. Within the hour we got
word that Wicklow was writing again. Shortly afterward word
came that he had asked leave to go out into the town. He
was detained awhile and meantime Sterne hurried off and
concealed himself in the stable. By and by he saw Wicklow
saunter in, look about him, then hide something under some
rubbish in a corner, and take leisurely leave again. Sterne
pounced upon the hidden article--a letter--and brought it
to us. It had no superscription and no signature. It re-
peated what we had already read, and then went on to say:

We think it best to postpone till the two companies are
gone. I mean the four inside think so; have not communi-
cated with the others--afraid of attracting attention. I say
four because we have lost two; they had hardly enlisted and
got inside when they were shipped off to the front. It will
be absolutely necessary to have two in their places. The two
that went were the brothers from Thirty-mile Point. I have
something of the greatest importance to reveal but must not
trust it to this method of communication; will try the other.

The little scoundrel!" said Webb; "who could have sup-
posed he was a spy? However, never mind about that; let us
add up our particulars, such as they are, and see how the
case stands to date. First, we've got a rebel spy in our
midst, whom we know; secondly, we've got three more in our
midst whom we don't know; thirdly, these spies have been
introduced among us throu the simple and easy process
of enlisting as soldiers in the Union army--and evidently
two of them have got sold at it, and been shipped off to the
front; fourthly, there are assistant spies ‘outside'--number
indefinite; fifthly, Wicklow has very important matter which
he is afraid to communicate by the ‘present method'--will
'try the other.' That is the case, as it now stands. Shall
we collar Wicklow and make him confess? Or shall we catch
the person who removes the letters from the stable and make
him tell? Or shall we keep still and find out more?"

We decided upon the last course. We judged that we did not
need to proceed to summary measures now, since it was evi-
dent that the conspirators were likely to wait till those
two light infantry companies were out of the way. We fort-
ified Sterne with pretty ample powers, and told him to use
his best endeavors to find out Wicklow's "other method" of
communication. We meant to play a bold game; and to this end
we proposed to keep the spies in an nnsuspecdng state as long
as possible. So we ordered Sterne to return to the stable im-
mediately, and, if he found the coast clear, to conceal Wick-
low's letter where it was before, and leave it there for the
conspirators to get.

The night closed down without further event It was cold
and dark and sleety, with a raw wind blowing; still I
turned out of my warm bed several times during night end
went the rounds in person, to see that all was right and
that every sentry was on the alert I always found them
wide awake and watchful; evidently whispers of mysterious
dangers had been floating about, and the doubling of the
guards had been a kind of indorsement of those rumors.
Once, toward morning, I encountered Webb, breasting his
way against the bitter wind, and learned then tiiat he,
also, had been the rounds several times to see that all
was going right

Next day's events hurried things up somewhat Wicklow
wrote another letter; Sterne ceded him to the stable and
saw him deposit it; captured it as soon as Wicklow was out
of the way, then slipped out and followed the little spy at a
distance, with a detective in plain clothes at his own heels,
for we thought it judicious to have the law's assistance handy
in case of need. Wicklow went to the railway station, and
waited around till the train from New York came in, then
stood scanning the faces of the crowd as they poured out of
the cars. Presently an aged gentleman, with green goggles
and a cane, came limping along, stopped in Wicklow's neigh-
borhood, and began to look about him expectantly. In an
instant Wicklow darted forward, thrust an envelope into his
hand, then glided away and disappeared in the throng. The
next instant Sterne had snatched the letter; and as be hur-
ried past the detective, he said: "Follow the old gentleman--
don't lose sight of him." Then Sterne skurried out with the
crowd, and came straight to the fort.

We sat with closed doors, and instructed the guard outside
to allow no interruption.

First we opened the letter captured at the stable. It read
as follows:

HOLY ALLIANCE Found, in the usual gun, commands from the
Master, left there last night, which set aside the instruc-
tions heretofore received from the subordinate quarter. Have
left in the gun the usual indication that the commands reach-
ed the proper hand--

Webb, interrupting: "Isn't the boy under constant surveillance
now?"

I said yes; he had been under strict surveillance ever
since the capturing of his former letter.

"'Then how could he put anything into a gun, or take anything
out of it, and not get caught?'"

"Well," I said, "I don't like the look of that very well."

"I don't either," said Webb. "It simply means that there
are conspirators among the very sentinels. Without their
connivance in some way or other, the thing couldn't have
been done."

I sent for Rayburn, and ordered him to examine the batteries
and see what he could find. The reading of the letter was
then resumed:

The new commands are peremptory, and require that the MMMM
shall be FFFFF at 3 o'clock to-morrow morning. Two hundred
will arrive, in small parties, by train and otherwise, from
various directions, and will be at appointed place at right
time. I will distribute the sign to-day. Success is appar-
ently sure, though something must have got out, for the
sentries have been doubled, and the chiefs went the rounds
last night several times. W. W. comes from southerly to-day
and will receive secret orders--by the other method. All six
of you must be in 166 at sharp 2 A.M. You will find B. B.
there, who will give you detailed instructions. Password
same as last time, only reversed--put first syllable last
and last syllable first, remember XXXX. Do not forget. Be
of good heart: before the next sun rises you will be heroes;
your fame will be permanent; you will have added a deathless
page to history, AMEN.

"Thunder and Mars," said Webb, "but we are getting into
mighty hot quarters, as I look at it!"

I said there was no questipn but that things were beginning
to wear a most serious aspect. Said I:

"A desperate enterprise is on foot, that is plain enough.
To-night is the time set for it--that, also, is plain. The
exact nature of the enterprise--I mean the manner of it--is
hidden away under those blind bunches of M's and F's, but
the end and aim, I judge, is the surprise and capture of
the post. We must move quick and sharp now. I think nothing
can be gained by continuing our clandestine policy as re-
gards Wicklow. We must know, and as soon as possible, too,
where '166' is located, so that we can make a descent upon
the gang there at 2 a.m. and doubtless the quickest way to
get that information will be to force it out of that boy. But
first of all, and before we make any important move, I must
lay the facts before the War Department, and ask for plenary
powers."

The despatch was prepared in cipher to go over the wires;
I read it, approved it, and sent it along.

We presently finished discussing the letter which was under
consideration, and then opened the one which had been snatch-
ed from the lame gentleman. It contained nothing but a cou-
ple of perfectly blank sheets of note-paper! It was a chill-
y check to our hot eagerness and expectancy. We felt as
blank as the paper, for a moment, and twice as foolish.
But it was for a moment only; for, of course, we immediat-
ely afterward thought of "sympathetic ink." We held the
paper close to the fire and watched for the characters to
come out, under the influence of the heat; but nothing ap-
peared but some faint tracings, which we could make nothing
of. We then called in the surgeon, and sent him off with
orders to apply every test he was acquainted with till he got
the right one, and report the contents of the letter to me
the instant he brought them to the surface. This check was
a confounded annoyance, and we naturally chafed under the
delay; for we had fully expected to get out of that letter
some of the most important secrets of the plot.

Now appeared Sergeant Rayburn, and drew from his pocket a
piece of twine string about a foot long, with three knots
tied in it, and held it up.

"I got it out of a gun on the water-front," said he. "I
took the tompions out of all the guns and examined close;
this string was the only thing that was in any gun."

So this bit of string was Wicklow's "sign" to signify that
the "Master's" commands had not miscarried. I ordered that
every sentinel who had served near that gun during the past
twenty-four hours be put in confinement at once and separately,
and not allowed to communicate with any one without my pri-
vity and consent.

A telegram now came from the Secretary of War. It read
as follows:

SUSPEND HABEAS CORPUS. PUT TOWN IWDER MARTIAL LAW.
MAKE NECESSARY ARRESTS. ACT WITH VIGOR AND PROMPTNESS.
KEEP THE DEPARTMENT INFORMED.

We were now in shape to go to work. I sent out and had
the lame gentleman quietly arrested and as quietly brought
into the fort; I placed him under guard, and forbade speech
to him or from him. He was inclined to bluster at first, but
he soon dropped that.

Next came word that Wicklow had been seen to give some-
thing to a couple of our new recruits; and that, as soon as
his back was turned, these had been seized and confined.
Upon each was found a small bit of paper, bearing these
words and signs in pencil:

Eagle's Third Flight
Remember xxxx
166

In accordance with instructions, I telegraphed to the De-
partment, in cipher, the progress made, and also described
the above ticket. We seemed to be in a strong enough position
now to venture to throw off the mask as regarded Wicklow;
so I sent for him. I also sent for and received back the
letter written in sympathetic ink, the surgeon accompanying
it with the information that thus far it had resisted his
tests, but that there were others he could apply when I
should be ready for him to do so.

Presently Wicklow entered. He had a somewhat worn and
anxious look, but he was composed and easy, and if he sus-
pected anything it did not appear in his face or manner. I
allowed him to stand there a moment or two; then I said,
pleasantly:

"My boy, why do you go to that old stable so much?"

He answered, with simple demeanor and without embarrassment:

"Well, I hardly know, sir; there isn't any particular reason,
except that I like to be alone, and I amuse myself there."

"You amuse yourself there, do you?"

"Yes, sir," he replied, as innocently and simply as before.

"Is that all you do there?"

"Yes, sir," he said, looking up with childlike wonderment
in his big, soft eyes.

"You are sure?"

"Yes, sir, sure."

After a pause I said:

"Wicklow, why do you write so much?"

"I? I do not write much, sir."

"You don't?"

"No, sir. Oh, if you mean scribbling, I do scribble some,
for amusement."

"What do you do with your scribblings?"

"Nothing, sir--throw them away."

"Never send them to anybody?"

"No, sir."

I suddenly thrust before him the letter to the "Colonel "
He started slightly, but immediately composed himself. A
slight tinge spread itself over his cheek.

"How came you to send this piece of scribbling, then?"

"I nev--never meant any harm, sir!"

"Never meant any harm! You betray the armament and
condition of the post, and mean no harm by it?"

He hung his head and was silent.

"Come, speak up, and stop lying. Whom was this letter
intended for?"

He showed signs of distress now; but quickly collected
himself, and replied, in a tone of deep earnestness:

"I will tell you the truth, sir--the whole truth. The letter
was never intended for anybody at all. I wrote it only to
amuse myself, I see the error and foolishness of it now; but
it is the only offense, sir, upon my honor."

"Ah, I am glad of that. It is dangerous to be writing such
letters. I hope you are sure this is the only one you wrote?"

"Yes, sir, perfectly sure."

His hardihood was stupefying. He told that lie with as
sincere a countenance as any creature ever wore. I waited a
moment to soothe down my rising temper, and then said:

"Wicklow, jog your memory now, and see if you can help
me with two or three little matters which I wish to inquire
about."

"I will do my very best, sir."

"Then, to begin with--who is ‘the Master'?"

It betrayed him into darting a startled glance at our faces,
but that was all. He was serene again in a moment, and tranquilly
answered:

"I do not know, sir."

"You do not know?"

"I do not know."

"You are sure you do not know?"

He tried hard to keep his eyes on mine, but the strain was
too great; his chin sunk slowly toward his breast and he was
silent; he stood there nervously fumbling with a button, an
object to command one's pity, in spite of his base acts.
Presently I broke the stillness with the question:

"Who are the ‘Holy Alliance'?"

His body shook visibly, and he made a slight random ges-
ture with his hands, which to me was like the appeal of a
despairing creature for compassion. But he made no sound.
He continued to stand with his face bent toward the ground.
As we sat gazing at him, waiting for him to speak, we saw
the big tears begin to roll down his cheeks. But he remained
silent. After a little, I said:

"You must answer me, my boy, and you must tell me the
truth. Who are the Holy Alliance?"

He wept on in silence. Presently I said, somewhat sharply:

"Answer the question!"

He struggled to get command of his voice; and then, look-
ing up appealingly, forced the words out between his sobs:

"Oh, have pity on me, sirl I cannot answer it, for I do
not know."

"What!"

"Indeed, sir, I am telling the truth. I never have heard of
the Holy Alliance till this moment On my honor, sir, this
is so."

"Good heavens! Look at this second letter of yours; there,
do you see those words, ‘Holy Alliance'? What do you say
now?"

He gazed up into my face with the hurt look of one upon
whom a great wrong had been wrought then said, feelingly:

"This is some cruel joke, sir; and how could they play it
upon me, who have tried all I could to do right, and have
never done harm to anybody? Some one has counterfeited
my hand; I never wrote a line of this; I have never seen this
letter before!"

"Oh, you unspeakable liar! Here, what do you say to this?"
--and I snatched the sympathetic-ink letter from my
pocket and thrust it before his eyes.

His face turned white--as white as a dead person's. He
wavered slightly in his tracks, and put his hand against the
wall to steady himself. After a moment he asked, in so faint
a voice that it was hardly audible:

"Have you--read it?"

Our faces must have answered the truth before my Ups could
get out a false "yes," for I distinctly saw the courage
come back into that boy's eyes. I waited for him to say
something, but he kept sUent. So at last I said:

"Well, what have you to say as to the revelations in this
letter?"

He answered, with perfect composure:

"Nothing, except that they are entirely harmless and innocent;
they can hurt nobody."

I was in something of a corner now, as I couldn't disprove
his assertion. I did not know exactly how to proceed.
However, an idea came to my relief, and I said:

"You are sure you know nothing about the Master and the
Holy Alliance, and did not write the letter which you say
is a forgery?"

"Yes, sir--sure."

I slowly drew out the knotted twine string and held it up
without speaking. He gazed at it indifferently, then looked
at me inquiringly. My patience was sorely taxed. However, I
kept my temper down, and said, in my usual voice:

"Wicklow, do you see this?"

"Yes, sir."

"What is it?"

"It seems to be a piece of string."

"Seems? It is a piece of string. Do you recognize it?"

"No, sir," he replied, as calmly as the words could be
uttered.

His coolness was perfectly wonderful! I paused now for sev-
eral seconds, in order that the silence might add impress-
iveness to what I was about to say; then I rose and laid my
hand on his shoulder, and said, gravely:

"It will do you no good, poor boy, none in the world. This
sign to the ‘Master,' this knotted string, found in one of
the guns on the waterfront--
"
"Found in the gun! Oh, no, no, no! do not say in the gun,
but in a crack in the tompion!--it must have been in the
crack!" and down he went on his knees and clasped his hands
and lifted up a face that was pitiful to see, so ashy it was,
and wild with terror.

"No, it was in the gun."

"Oh, something has gone wrong! My God, I am lost!" and
he sprang up and darted this way and that, dodging the
hands that were put out to catch him, and doing his best to
escape from the place. But of course escape was impossible.
Then he flung himself on his knees again, crying with
all his might, and clasped me around the legs; and so he clung
to me and begged and pleaded, saying, "Oh, have pity on me!
Oh, be merciful to me! Do not betray me; they would not
spare my life a moment! Protect me, save me. I will confess
everything!"

It took us some time to quiet him down and modify his
fright, and get him into something like a rational frame of
mind. Then I began to question him, he answering humbly,
with downcast eyes, and from time to time swabbing away
his constantly flowing tears:

"So you are at heart a rebel?"

"Yes, sir."

"And a spy?"

"Yes, sir."

"And have been acting under distinct orders from outside?"

"Yes, sir."

"Willingly?"

"Yes, sir."

"Gladly, perhaps?"

"Yes, sir; it would do no good to deny it The South is my
country; my heart is Southern, and it is all in her cause."
"Then the taJe you told me of your wrongs and the persecution
of your family was made up for the occasion?"

"They--they told me to say it, sir."

"And you would betray and destroy those who pitied and
sheltered you. Do you comprehend how base you are, you
poor misguided thing?"

He replied with sobs only.

"Well, let that pass. To business. Who is the ‘Colonel,' and
where is he?"

He began to cry hard, and tried to beg off from answering.
He said he would be killed if he told. I Su-eatened to put him
in the dark cell and lock him up if he did not come out with
the information. At the same time I promised to protect him
from all harm if he made a clean breast. For all answer, he
closed his mouth firmly and put on a stubborn air which I
could not bring him out of. At last I started with him; but
a single glance into the dark cell converted him. He broke
into a pa.ssion of weeping and supplicating, and declared he
would tell everything.

So I brought him back, and he named the "Colonel," and
described him particularly. Said he would be found at the
principal hotel in the town, in citizen's dress. I had to
threaten him again, before he would describe and name the
"Master." Said the Master would be found at No. 15 Bond
Street, New York, passing under the name of R. F. Gaylord.
I telegraphed name and description to the chief of police of
the metropolis, and asked that Gaylord be arrested and held
till I could send for him.

"Now," said I, "it seems that there are several of the con-
spirators ‘outside,' presumably in New London. Name and
describe them."

He named and described three men and two women--all stop-
ping at the principal hotel. I sent out quietly, and had them
and the "Colonel" arrested and confined in the fort.

"Next, I want to know all about your three fellow-conspirators
who are here in the fort."

He was about to dodge me with a falsehood, I thought; but
I produced the mysterious bits of paper which had been
found upon two of them, and this had a salutary effect upon
him. I said we had possession of two of the men, and he must
point out the third. This frightened him badly, and he cried
out:

"Oh, please don't make me; he would kill me on the spot!"

I said that that was all nonsense; I would have somebody near
by to protect him, and, besides, the men should be assembled
without arms. I ordered all the raw recruits to be mustered,
and then the poor, trembling little wretch went out and step-
ped along down the line, rying to look as indifferent as
possible. Finally he spoke a single word to one of the men,
and before he had gone five steps the man was under arrest.

As soon as Wicklow was with us again, I had those three
men brought in. I made one of them stand forward, and
said:

"Now, Wicklow, mind, not a shade's divergence from the
exact truth. Who is this man, and what do you know about
him?"

Being "in for it," he cast consequences aside, fastened his
eyes on the man's face, and spoke straight along without hes-
itation--to the following effect:

"His real name is George Bristow. He is from New Orleans;
was second mate of the coast-packet Capitol two years ago;
is a desperate character, and has served two terms for man-
slaughter--one for killing a deck-hand named Hyde with a
capstan-bar, and one for killing a roustabout for refusing to
heave the lead, which is no part of a roustabout's business.
He is a spy, and was sent here by the Colonel to act in that
capacity. He was third mate of the St. Nicholas when she
blew up in the neighborhood of Memphis, in '58, and came
near being lynched for robbing the dead and wounded while
they were being taken ashore in an empty wood-boat."

And so forth and so on--he gave the man's biography in
full. When he had finished, I said to the man:

"What have you to say to this?"

"Barring your presence, sir, it is the infemalist lie that
ever was spoke!"

I sent him back into confinement, and called the others
forward in turn. Same result. The boy gave a detailed history
of each, without ever hesitating for a word or a fact; but all
I could get out of either rascal was the indignant assertion
that it was all a lie. They would confess nothing. I returned
them to captivity, and brought out the rest of my prisoners,
one by one. Wicklow told all about them--what towns in the
South they were from, and every detail of their connection
with the conspiracy.

But they all denied his facts, and not one of them con'
fessed a thing. The men raged, the women cried. According
to their stories, they were all innocent people from out West,
and loved the Union above all things in tUs world. I locked
the gang up, in disgust, and fell to catechizing Wicklow
once more.

"Where is No. 166, and who is B. B.?"

But there he was determined to draw the line. Neithor coax-
ing nor threats had any effect upon him. Time was flying--
it was necessary to institute sharp measures. So I tied him
up a-tiptoe by the thumbs. As the pain increased, it wrung
screams frmn him which were almost more ffian I could bear.
But I held my ground, and pretty soon he shrieked out:

"Oh, please let me down, and I will tell!"

"No--you'll tell before I let you down."

Every instant was agony to him now, so out it came:

"No. 166, Eagle Hotel!"--naming a wretched tavern down
by the water, a resort common laborers, 'longshoremen,
and less reputable folk.

So I relied him, and then demanded to know the object
of the conspiracy.

"To take the fort to-nit," said he, doggedly and sobbing.

"Have I got all the chiefs of the conspiracy?"

"No. You've got all except those that are to meet at 166."

"What does ‘Remember XXXX' mean?"

No reply.

"What is the password to No. 166?"

No reply.

"What do those bunches of letters mean--‘FFFFP and
'MMMM7 Answer! or you will catch it again."

"I never will answer! I will die first Now do what you
please."

"Think what you are saving, Wicklow. Is it final?"

He answered steadily, and without a quiver in his voice:
"It is final. As sure as I love my wronged country and hate
evetything this Northern sun shines on, I will die before I
will reveal those things."

I tied him up by the thumbs again. When the agony was
full upon him it was heartbreaking to hear the poor thing's
shrieks, but we got nothing else out of him. To every question
he screamed the same reply: "I can die, and I will die; but
I will never tell."

Well, we had to give it up. We were convinced that he certain-
ly would die rather than ccmfess. So we took him down, and
imprisoned him under strict guard.

Then for some hours we busied ourselves with sending
telegrams to the War Department, and with making prepmr
tions for a descent upon No. 166.

It was stirring times, that black and bitter night Things
had leaked out, and the whole garrison was on the alert. The
sentinels were trebled, and nobody could move, outside or in,
without being brought to a stand with a musket leveled at his
head. However, Webb and I were less concerned now than we had
previously been, because of the fact that tihe conspiracy must
necessarily be in a pretty crippled condition, since so many
of its principals were in our clutches.

I determined to be at No. 166 in good season, capture and
gag B. B., and be on hand for the rest when they arrived. At
about a quarter past one in the morning I crept out of the
fortress with half a dozen stalwart and gamy U. S. regulars
at my heels, and the boy Wicklow, with his hands tied behind
him. I told him we were going to No. 166, and that if I
found he had lied again and was misleading us, he would
have to show us the right place or suffer the consequences.

We approached the tavern stealthily and reconnoitered. A
light was burning in the small barroom, the rest of the house
was dark. I tried the front door; it yielded, and we softly
entered, closing the door behind us. Then we removed our
shoes, and I led the way to the barroom. The German landlord
sat there, asleep in his chair. I woke him gently, and
told him to take off his boots and precede us, warning him
at the same time to utter no sound. He obeyed without a
murmur, but evidently he was badly frightened. I ordered
him to lead the way to 166. We ascended two or three flights
of stairs as softly as a file of cats; and then, having arrived
near the farther end of a long ball, we came to a door
through the glazed transom of which we could discern the
glow of a dim light from within. The landlord felt for me in
the dark and whispered to me that that was 166. I tried the
door--it was locked on the inside. I whispered an order to
one of my biggest soldiers; we set our ample shoulders to the
door, and with one heave we burst it from its hinges. I caught
a half-glimpse of a figure in a bed--saw its head dart toward
the candle; out went the light and we were in pitch darkness.
With one big bound I lit on that bed and pinned its occupant
down with my knees. My prisoner struggled fiercely, but
I got a grip on his throat with my left hand, and that was a
good assistance to my knees in holding him down. Then
straightway I snatched out my revolver, cocked it, and laid
the cold barrel warningly against his cheek.

"Now somebody strike a light!" said I. "I've got him safe."

It was done. The flame of the match burst up. I looked at
my captive, and, by George, it was a young woman!

I let go and got off the bed, feeling pretty sheepish. Every-
body stared stupidly at his neighbor. Nobody bad any wit or
sense left, so sadden and overwhelming had been the surprise.
The young woman began to cry, and covered her face witb the
sheet The landlord said, meekley:

'‘My daughter, she has been doing something that is not
lit, nlcht wahr

"Your daughter? Is she your daughter?"

"Oh, yes, she is my daughter. She is just to-night come
home from Cincinnati a little bit sick."

"Confound it, that boy has lied again. This is not the right
166; this is not B. B. Now, Wicklow, you will find the correct
166 for us, or--hellot where is that boy?"

Gone, as sure as guns! And, what is more, we failed to find
a trace of him. Here was an awful predicament. I cursed my
stupidity in not tying him to one of the men; but it was
of no use to bother about that now. What should I do in the
present circumstances?--that was the question. That girl
might be B. B., after all. I did not believe it, but still it
would not answer to take unbelief for proof. So I finally put
my men in a vacant room across the hall from 166, and told them
to capture anybody and everybody that approached the girl's
room, and to keep the landlord with them, and under strict
watch, until further orders. Then I hurried back to the fort
to see if all was right there yet.

Yes, all was right. And all remained right I stayed up all
night to make sure of that Nothing happened. I was unspeakably
glad to see the dawn come again, and be able to telegraph the
Department that the Stars and Stripes still floated over Fort
Trumbull.

An immense pressure was lifted from my breast. Still I did
not relax vigilance, of course, nor effort, either; the case
was too grave for that I had up my prisoners, one by one, and
harried them by the hour, trying to get them to confess, but
it was a failure. They only gnashed their teeth and tore their
hair, and revealed nothing.

About noon came tidings of my missing boy. He had been
seen on the road, tramping westward, some eight miles out
at six in the morning. I started a cavalry lieutenant and
a private on his track at once. They came in sight of him
twenty miles out. He had climbed a fence and was wearily
dragging himself across a slushy field toward a large old-
fashion mansion in the edge of a village. They rode through
a bit of woods, made a detour, and closed upon the house
from the opposite side; then dismounted and skurried into
the kitchen. Nobody there. They slipped into the next
room, which was also unoccupied; the door from that room
into the front or sitting room was open. They were about to
step through it when they heard a low voice; it was some'
body praying. So they halted reverently, and the lieutenant
put his head in and saw an old man and an old woman kneeling
in a corner of that sitting-room. It was the old man that
was praying, and just as he was finishing his prayer, the
Wicklow boy opened the front door and stepped in. Botii of
those old people sprang at him and smothered him with em-
braces, shouting:

"Our boy! Our darling!,God be praised. The lost is found!
He that was dead is alive again!"

Well, sir, what do you think? That young imp was born and
reared on that homestead, and had never been five miles
away from it in all his life till the fortnight before he
loafed into my quarters and gulled me with that maudlin yarn
of his! It's as true as gospel. That old man was his father--
a learned old retired clergyman; and that old lady was his
mother.

Let me throw in a word or two of explanation concerning
that boy and his performances. It turned out that he was a
ravenous devourer of dime novels and sensation-story papers
--therefore, dark mysteries and gaudy heroisms were just in
his line. Then he had read newspaper reports of the stealthy
goings and comings of rebel spies in oiff midst, and of their
Imid purposes and their two or three startling achievements,
till his imagination was all aflame on that subject. His
constant comrade for some months had been a Yankee youth
of much tongue and lively fancy, who had served for a
couple of years as "Mud clerk" (that is, subordinate purser)
on certain of the packet-boats plying between New Orleans
and points two or three hundred miles up the Mississippi--
hence his easy facility in handling the names and other de-
tails pertaining to that region. Now I had spent two or three
months in that part of the country before the war; and I
knew just enough about it to be easily taken in by that boy,
whereas a bora Louisianian would probably have caught him
tripping before he had talked fifteen minutes. Do you know
the reas(Hi he said he would rather die than explain certain
of his treasonable enigmas? Simply because he couldn't
explain them!--they had no meaning; he had fired them out
of his imagination without forethought or afterthought; and
so, upon sudden call, he wasn't able to invent an explanation
of them. For instance, he couldn't reveal what was hidden
in the "sympathetic ink" letter, for the ample reason that
there wasn't anything hidden in it; it was blank paper only.
He hadn't put anything into a gun, and had never intended
to--for his letters were all written to imaginary persons, and
when be hid one in the stable he always removed the one he
had put there the day before; so he was not acquainted with
that knotted string, since he was seeing it for the first time
when I showed it to him; but as soon as I had let him find
out where it came from, he straightway adopted it, in his
romantic fashion, and got some fine effects out of it. He
invented Mr. "Gaylord"; there wasn't any 15 Bond Street,
just then--it had been pulled down three months before. He
invented the "Colonel"; he invented the glib histories of
those unfortunates whom I captured and confronted him with;
he invented "B. B."; he even invented No. 166, one may say,
for he didn't know there was such a number in the Eagle Hotel
until we went there. He stood ready to invent anybody or
anything whenever it was wanted. If I called for "outside"
spies, he promptly described strangers whom he had seen at
the hotel, and whose names he had happened to hear. Ah, he
lived in a gorgeous, mysterious, romantic world during those
few stirring days, and I think it was real to him, and that
he enjoyed it clear down to the bottom of his heart.

But he made trouble enough for us, and just no end of hum-
iliation. You see, on account of him we had fifteen or twenty
people under arrest and confinement in the fort, with senti-
nels before their doors. A lot of the captives were soldiers
and such, and to them I didn't have to apologize; but the
rest were first-class citizens, from all over the country,
and no amount of apologies was sufficient to satisfy them.
They just fumed and raged and made no end of trouble! And
those two ladies--one was an Ohio Congressman's wife, the
other a Western bishop's sister--well, the scorn and ridi-
cule and angry tears they poured out on me made up a keepsake
that was likely to make me remember them for a considerable
time--and I shall. That old lame gentleman with the goggles
was a college president from Philadelphia, who had come up
to attend his nephew's funeral. He had never seen young
Wicklow before, of course. Well, he not only missed the
funeral, and got jailed as a rebel spy, but Wicklow had
stood up there in my quarters and coldly described him
as a counterfeiter, nigger-trader, horse-thief, and firebug
from the most notorious rascal-nest in Galveston; and this
was a thing which that poor old gentleman couldn't seem to
get over at all.

And the War Department! But, oh, my soul, let's draw the
curtain over that part!

NOTE I showed my manuscript to the Major, and he said: "Your
unfamiliarity with military matters has betrayed you into some
little tie mistakes. Still, they are picturesque ones--Let them
go; military men will smile at them, the rest won't detect them.
You have got the main facts of the history rit, and have set
them down just about as they occumd." m.t.

1881



The Invalid's Story



I seem sixty and married, but these effects are due to my
condititm and sufferings, for I am a bachelor, and only forty'
one. It will be hard for you to believe that I, who am now
but a shadow, was a hale, hearty man two short years ago--a
man of iron, a very athlete!--yet such is the simple truth.
But stranger still than this fact is the way in which I lost my
health. I lost it through helping to take care of a box of guns
on a two-hundred-mile railway journey one winter's night. It
is the actual truth, and I will tell you about it.

I belong in Cleveland, Ohio. One winter's nit, two years
ago, I reached home just after dark, in a driving snow-storm,
and the first thing I heard when I entered the house was that
my dearest boyhood friend and schoolmate, Jcdm B. Hackett,
had died the day before, and that his last utterance had been
a desire that I would take his remains home to his poor old
father and mother in Wisconsin. I was greatly shocked and
grieved, but there was no time to waste in emotions; I must
start at once. I took the card, marked 'Deacon Levi Hackett,
Bethlehem, Wisconsin," and hurried off through the whistling
storm to the railway-station. Arrived there I found the long
white-pine box which had been described to me; I fastened
the card to it with some tacks, saw it put safely aboard the
express-car, and then ran into the eating-room to provide
myself with a sandwich and some cigars. When I returned pre-
sently, there was my coffin-box backagain, apparently, and
a young fellow examining around it, with a card in his hands,
and some tacks and a hammer! I was astonished and puzzled.
He began to nail on his card, and I rushed out to the express-
car, in a good deal of a state of mind, to ask for an explan-
ation. But no--there was my box, all right, in the express-car;
it hadn't been disturbed. [The fact is that without my suspect-
ing it a prodigious mistake had been made. I was carrying off
a box of guns which that young fellow had come to the station
to ship to a rifie company in Peoria, Illinois, and he had got
my corpse!] Just then the conductor sang out "All aboard,"
and I jumped into the express-car and got a comfortable seat
on a bale of buckets. The expressman was there, hard at work
--a plain man of fifty, with a simple, honest, good-natured
face, and a breezy, practical heartiness in his general style.
As the train moved off a stranger skipped into the car and
set a package of peculiarly mature and capable Limburger
cheese on one end of my coffin-box--I mean my box of guns.
That is to say, I know now that it was Limburger cheese,
but at that time I never had heard of the article in my life,
and of course was wholly ignorant of its character. Well, we
sped through the wild night, the bitter storm raged on, a
cheerless misery stole over me, my heart went down, down,
down! The old expressman made a brisk remark or two about
the tempest and the arctic weather, slammed his sliding doors
to, and bolted them, closed his window down tight, and then
went bustling around, here and there and yonder, setting
things to rights, and all the time contentedly humming
"Sweet By and By," in a low tone, and flatting a good deal.
Presently I began to detect a most evil and searching odor
stealing about on the frozen air. This depressed my spirits
still more, because of course I attributed it to my poor
departed friend. There was something infinitely saddening
about his calling himself to my remembrance in this dumb,
pathetic way, so it was hard to keep the tears back. More-
over, it distressed me on account of the old expressman,
who, I was afraid, might notice it. However, he went hum-
ming tranquilly on, and gave no sign; and for this I was
grateful. Grateful, yes, but still uneasy; and soon I began
to feel more and more uneasy every minute, for every minute
that went by that odor thickened up the more, and got to
be more and more gamy and hard to stand. Presently, having
got things arranged to his satisfaction, the expressman got
some wood and made up a tremendous fire in his stove.
This distressed me more than I can tell, for I could not but
feel that it was a mistake. I was sure that the effect would be
deleterious upon my poor departed friend. Thompson--the
expressman's name was Thompson, as I found out in the
course of the night--now went poking around his car, stopping
up whatever stray cracks he could find, remarking that
It didn't make any difference what kind of a night it was
outside, he calculated to make us comfortable, anyway. I
said nothing, but I believed he was not choosing the right
way. Meantime he was humming to himself just as before;
and meantime, too, the stove was getting hotter and hotter,
and the place closer and closer. I felt myself growing pale
and qualmish, but grieved in silence and said nothing. Soon
I noticed that the "Sweet By and By" was gradually fading
out; next it ceased altogether, and there was an ominous
stillness. After a few moments Thompson said--

"Pfew! I reckon it ain't no cinnamon 't I've loaded up
thish-yer stove with!"

He gasped once or twice, then moved toward the coffin-
box, stood over that Limburger cheese part of a moment,
then came back and sat down near me, looking a good deal
impressed. After a contemplative pause, he said, indicating
the box with a gesture--

"Friend of yourn?"

"Yes," I said with a sigh.

"He's pretty ripe, ain't he!"

Nothing further was said for perhaps a couple of each
being busy with his own thoughts; then Thompson said,
in a low, awed voice--

"Sometimes it's uncertain whether they're really gone or
not--seem gone, you know--body warm, joints limber--and
so, although you think they're gone, you don't really know.
I've had cases in my car. It's perfectly awful, becuz you
don't know what minute they'll rise up and look at you!"
Then, after a pause, and slightly lifting his elbow toward the
box,--"But he ain't in no trance! No, sir, I go bail for him!"

We sat some time, in meditative silence, listening to the
wind and the roar of the train; then Thompson said, with a
good deal of feeling:

"Well-a-well, we've all got to go, they ain't no getting
around" it Man that is born of woman is of few days and far
between, as Scriptur' says. Yes, you look at it any way you
want to, it's awful solemn and cur'us: they ain't nobody can
get around it; all's got to go--just everybody, as you may
say. One day you're hearty and strong"--here he scrambled
to his feet and broke a pane and stretched his nose out at it
a moment or two, then sat down again while I struggled up
and thrust my nose out at the same place, and this we kept
on doing every now and then--"and next day he's cut down
like the grass, and the places which knowed him then knows
him no more forever, as Scriptur' says. Yes'ndeedy, it's awful
solemn and cur'us; but we've all got to go, one time or another;
they ain't no getting around it,"

There was another long pause; then--

"What did he die of?"

I said I didn't know.

"How long has he been dead?"

It seemed judicious to enlarge the facts to fit the probabi-
lities; so I said:

"Two or three days."

But it did no good; for Thompson received it with an injured
look which plainly said, "Two or three years, you mean." Then
he went right along, placidly ignoring my statement, and gave
his views at considerable length upon the unwisdom of putting
off burials too long. Then he lounged off toward the box,
stood a moment, then came back on a sharp trot and visited
the broken pane, observing:

"Twould 'a' ben a dum sight better, all around, if they'd
started him along last summer."

Thompson sat down and buried his face in his red silk
handkerchief, and began to slowly sway and rock his body
like one who is doing his best to endure the almost unen-
durable. By this time the fragrance--if you may call it
fragrance--was just about suffocating, as near as you can
come at it Thompson's face was turning gray; I knew mine
hadn't any color left in it. By and by Thompson rested his
forehead in his left hand, with his elbow on his knee, and
sort of waved his red handkerchief toward the box with his
other hand, and said:

"I've carried a many a one of 'em--some of 'em considerable
overdue, too--but, lordy, he just lays over 'em all!--and
does it easy. Cap, they was heliotrope to him!"

This recognition of my poor friend gratified me, in spite
of the sad circumstances, because it had so much the sound
of a compliment.

Pretty soon it was plain that something had got to be done.
I suggested cigars. Thompson thought it was a good idea. He
said:

"Likely it'll modify him some."

We puffed gingerly along for a while, and tried hard to
imagine that things were improved. But it wasn't any use.
Before very long, and without any consultation, both cigars
were quietly dropped from our nerveless fingers at the same
moment. Thompson said, with a sigh:

"No, Cap, it don't modify him worth a cent. Fact is, it
makes him worse, becuz it appears to stir up his ambition.
What do you reckon we better do, now?"

I was not able to suggest anything; indeed, I had to be
swallowing and swallowing all the time, and did not like to
trust myself to speak. Thompson fell to maundering, in a de-
sultory and low-spirited way, about the miserable experiences
of this night; and he got to referring to my poor friend by
various titles--sometimes military ones, sometimes civil ones;
and I noticed that as fast as my poor friend's effectiveness
grew, Thompson promoted him accordingly--gave him a bigger
title. Finally he said:

"I've got an idea. Suppos'n' we buckle down to it and give
the Colonel a bit of a shove toward t'other end of the car?
--about ten foot, say. He wouldn't have so much influence
then, don't you reckon?"

I said it was a good scheme. So we took in a good fresh
breath at the broken pane, calculating to hold it till we
got through; then we went there and bent over that deadly
cheese and took a grip on the box. Thompson nodded "All
ready," and then we threw ourselves forward with all our
might; but Thompson slipped, and slumped down with his
nose on the cheese, and his breath got loose. He gagged and
gasped, and floundered up and made a break for the door,
pawing the air and saying hoarsely, "Don't hender me!
--gimme the road! I'm a-dying; gimme the road!" Out on the
cold platform I sat down and held his head awhile, and he
revived. Presently he said:

"Do you reckon we started the Gen'rul any?"

I said no; we hadn't budged him.

"Well, then, that idea's up the flume. We got to think up
something else. He's suited wher' he is, I reckon; and if
that's the way he feels about it, and has made up his mind
that he don't wish to be disturbed, you bet he's a-going to
have his own way in the business. Yes, better leave him right
wher' he is, long as he wants it so; becuz he holds all the
trumps, don't you know, and so it stands to reason that the
man that lays out to alter his plans for him is going to get left."

But we couldn't stay out there in that mad storm; we should
have frozen to death. SIo we went in again and shut the door,
and began to suffer once more and take turns at the break
in the window. By and by, as we were starting away from a
station where we had stopped a moment Thompson pranced in
cheerily, and exclaimed:

"We're all right, now! I reckon we've got the Commodore this
time. I judge I've got the stuff here that'll take the tuck
out of him."

It was carbolic acid. He had a carboy of it. He sprinkled it
all around everywhere; in fact he drenched everything with
it, rifle-box, cheese and all. Then we sat down, feeling pret-
ty hopeful. But it wasn't for long. You see the two perfumes
began to mix, and then--well, pretty soon we made a break for
the door; and out there Thompson swabbed his face with his
bandanna and said in a kind of disheartened way:

"It ain't no use. We can't buck agin him. He just utilizes
everything we put up to modify him with, and gives it his
own flavor and plays it back on us. Why, Cap, don't you
know, its as much as a hundred times worse in there now
than it was when he first got a-gmng. I never did see one
of 'em warm up to his work so, and take such a dumnation in-
terest in it. No, sir, I never did, as long as I've ben on the
road; and I've carried a many a one of 'em, as I was telling
you."

We went in again after we were frozen pretty stiff; but my,
we couldn't stay in, now. So we just waltzed back and forth,
freezing, and thawing, and stifling, by turns. In about an
hour we stopped at another station; and as we left it Thomp-
son came in with a bag, and said--

"Cap, Fm a-going to chance him once more--just this once;
and if we don't fetch him this time, the thing for us to
do, is to just throw up the sponge and withdraw from the
canvass. That's the way I put it up."

He had brought a lot of chicken feathers, and dried apples,
and leaf tobacco, and rags, and old shoes, and sulphur, and
asafetida, and one thing or another; and he piled them on
a breadth of sheet iron in the middle of the floor, and set
fire to them.

When they got well started, I couldn't see, myself, how
even the corpse could stand it. All that went before was
just simply poetry to that smell--but mind you, the original
smell stood up out of it just as sublime as ever--fact is,
these other smells just seemed to give it a better hold; and
my, how rich it was! I didn't make these reflections there
--there wasn't time--made them on the platform. And breaking
for the platform, Thompson got suffocated and fell; and
before I got him dragged out, which I did by the collar, I
was mighty near gone myself. When we revived, Thompson
said dejectedly:

"We got to stay out here. Cap. We got to do it. They ain't
no other way. The Governor wants to travel alone, and he's
fixed so he can out-vote us."

And presently he added:

"And don't you know, we're pisoned. It's our last trip, you
can make up your mind to it. Typhoid fever is what's going
to come of this. I feel it a-coming right now. Yes, sir, we're
elected, just as sure as you're born."

We were taken from the platform an hour later, frozen and
insensible, at the next station, and I went straight off into
a virulent fever, and never knew anything again for three
weeks. I found out, then, that I had spent that awful night
with a harmless box of rifles and a lot of innocent cheese;
but the news was too late to save me; imagination had done
its work, and my health was permanently shattered; neither
Bemuda nor any other land can ever bring it back to me.
This is my last trip; I am on my way home to die.

1882



The McWilliamses and the Burglar Alarm



The conversation drifted smoothly and pleasantly along from
weather to crops, from crops to literature, from literature
to scandal, from scandal to religion; then took a random
jump, and landed on the subject of burglar alarms. And now
for the first time Mr. McWilliams showed feeling. Whenever
I perceive this sign on this man's dial, I comprehend it.
and lapse into silence, and give him opportunity to unload
his heart. Said he, with but ill-controlled emotion:

I do not go one single cent on burglar alarms, Mr. Twain
--not a single cent--and I will tell you why. When we were
finishing our house, we found we had a little cash left over,
on acrount of the plumber not knowing it. I was for enlight-
ening the heathen with it, for I was always unaccountably
down on the heathen somehow; but Mrs. McWilliams said no,
let's have a burglar alarm. I agreed to this compromise.
I will explain that whenever I want a thing, and Mrs.
McWilliams wants another thing, and we decide upon the
thing that Mrs. McWilliams wants--as we always do--she
calls that a compromise. Very well: the man came up from
New York and put in the alarm, and charged three hundred
and twenty-five dollars for it, and said we could sleep
without uneasiness now. So we did for awhile--say a month.
Then one night we smelled smoke, and I was advised to get
up and see what the matter was, I lit a candle, and started
toward the stairs, and met a burglar coming out of a room
with a basket of tinware, which he had mistaken for solid
silver in the dark. He was smoking a pipe. I said, "My friend,
we do not allow smoking in this room." He said he was a
stranger, and could not be expected to know the rules of the
house: said he had been in many houses just as good as
this one, and it had never been objected to before. He added
that as far as his experience went, such rules had never been
considered to apply to burglars, anyway.

I said: "Smoke along, then, if it is the custom, though I
think that the conceding of a privilege to a burglar which
is denied to a bishop is a conspicuous sign of the looseness
of the times. But waiving all that, what business have you
to be entering this house in this furtive and clandestine
way, without ringing the burglar alarm?"

He looked confused and ashamed, and said, with embarrass-
ment: "I beg a thousand pardons. I did not know you had
a burglar alarm, else I would have rung it. I beg you will
not mention it where my parents may hear of it, for they
are old and feeble, and such a seemingly wanton breach of
the hallowed conventionalities of our Christian civilization
might all too rudely sunder the frail bridge which hangs
darkling between the pale and evanescent present and the
solemn great deeps of the eternities. May I trouble you for
a match?"

I said: "Your sentiments do you honor, but if you will
allow me to say it, metaphor is not your best hold. Spare
your thigh; this kind light only on the box, and seldom there,
in fact, if my experience may be trusted. But to return to
business: how did you get in here?"

"Through a second-story window."

It was even so. I redeemed the tinware at pawnbroker's
rates, less cost of advertising, bade the burglar good-night,
closed the window after him, and retired to headquarters to
report. Next morning we sent for the burglar-alarm man, and
he came up and explained that the reason the alarm did not
"go off' was that no part of the house but the first floor was
attached to the alarm. This was simply idiotic; one might as
well have no armor on at all in battle as to have it only on
his legs. The expert now put the whole second story on the
alarm, charged three hundred dollars for it, and went his
way. By and by, one night, I found a burglar in the third
story, about to start down a ladder with a lot of miscel-
laneous property. My first impulse was to crack his head
with a billiard cue; but my second was to refrain from this
attention, because he was between me and the cue rack. The
second impulse was plainly the soundest, so I refrained, and
proceeded to compromise. I redeemed the property at former
rates, after deducting ten per cent, for use of ladder, it
being my ladder, and next day we sent down for the expert
once more, and had the third story attached to the alarm,
for three hundred dollars.

By this time the "annunciator" had grown to formidable
dimensions. It had forty-seven tags on it, marked with the
names of the various rooms and chimneys, and it occupied
the space of an ordinary wardrobe. The gong was the size of
a wash-bowl, and was placed above the head of our bed.
There was a wire from the house to the coachman's quarters
in the stable, and a noble gong alongside his pillow.

We should have been comfortabie now but for one defect
Every morning at five the cook opened the kitchen door, in
the way of business, and rip went that gong! The first time
this happened I thought the last day was come sure. I didn't
think it in bed--no, but out of it--for the first effect of
that frightful gong is to hurl you across the house, and slam
you against the wall, and then curl you up, and squirm you
like a spider on a stove lid, till somebody shuts the kitchen
door--In solid fact, there is no clamor that is even remote-
ly comparable to the dire clamor which that gong makes.
Well, this catastrophe happened every morning regularly at
five o'clock, and lost us three hours sleep; for, mind you,
when that thing wakes you, it doesn't merely wake you in
spots; it wakes you all over, conscience and all, and you
are good for eighteen hours of wide-awakeness subsequently
--eighteen hours of the very most inconceivable wide-awake-
ness that you ever experienced in your life. A stranger died
on our hands one time, and we vacated and left him in our
room overnight. Did that stranger wait for the general judg-
ment? No, sir; he got up at five the next morning in the
most prompt and unostentatious way. I knew he would; I knew
it mighty well. He collected his life-insurance, and lived
happy ever after, for there was plenty of proof as to the
perfect squareness of his death.

Well, we were gradually fading toward a better land, on
account of the daily loss of sleep; so we finally had the
expert up again, and he ran a wire to the outside of the
door, and placed a switch there, whereby Thomas, the butler,
always made one little mistake--he switched the alarm off at
night when he went to bed, and switched it on again at day-
break in the morning, just in time for the cook to open the
kitchen door, and enable that gong to slam us across the
house, sometimes breaking a window with one or the other
of us. At the end of a week we recognized that this switch
business was a delusion and a snare. We also discovered that
a band of burglars had been lodging in the house the whole
time--not exactly to steal, for there wasn't much left now,
but to hide from the police, for they were hot pressed, and
they shrewdly judged that the detectives would never think
of a tribe of burglars taking sanctuary in a house notorious-
ly protected by the most imposing and elaborate burglar alarm
in America.

Sent down for the expert again, and this time he struck a
most dazzling idea--he fixed the, thing so that opening the
kitchen door would take off the alarm. It was a noble idea,
and he charged accordingly. But you already foresee the re-
sult. I switched on the alarm every night at bed-time, no
longer trusting on Thomas's frail memory; and as soon as the
lights were out the burglars walked in at the kitchen door,
thus taking the alarm off without waiting for the cook to do
it in the morning. You see how aggravatingly we were situat-
ed. For months we couldn't have any company. Not a spare bed
in the house; all occupied by burglars.

Finally, I got up a cure of my own. The expert answered the
call, and ran another ground wire to thie stable, and estab-
lished a switch there, so that the coachman could put on
and take off the alarm. That worked first rate, and a season
of peace ensued, during which we got to inviting company
once more and enjoying life.

But by and by the irrepressible alarm invented a new
kink. One winter's night we were flung out of bed by the
sudden music of that awful gong, and when we hobbled
to the annunciator, turned up the gas, and saw the word
"Nursery" exposed, Mrs. McWilliams fainted dead away,
and I came precious near doing the same thing myself. I
seized my shotgun, and stood timing the coaclman whilst
that appalling buzzing went on. I knew that his gong had
flung h out, too, and that he would be along with his gun
as soon as he could jump into his clothes, en I judged
that the'time was ripe, I crept to tte romn next the nursery,
glanced through the window, and saw the dim outline of the
coaclunan in the yard below, standing at present-arms and
waiting for a chance. Then I hopped into the nursery and
fired, and in the same instant the coachman fired at the red
flash of my gun. Both of us were successful; I crippled a
nurse, and he shot off all my back hair. We turned up the
gas, and telephoned for a surgeon. There was not a sign of
a burglar, and no window had been raised. One glass was
absent, but that was where the coachman's charge had come
through. Here was a fine mystery--a burglar alarm "going
off" at midnight of its own accord, and not a burglar in
the neighborhood!

The expert answered the usual call, and explained that it
was a "False alarm." Said it was easily fixed. So he over-
hauled the nursery window, charged a remunerative figure
for it, and departed.

What we suffered from false alarms for the next three
years no stylographic pen can describe. During the next
three months I always flew with my gun to the room indicated,
and the coachman always sallied forth with his battery to
support me. But there was never anyTHung to shoot at win-
dows all tight and secure. We always sent down for the expert
next day, and he fixed those particular windows so they
would keep qwet a week or so, and always remembered to
send us a bill about like this:



At length a perfectly natural thing came about--after we
had answered three or four hundred false alarms--to wit,
we stopped answering them. Yes, I simply rose up calmly,
when slammed across the house by the alarm, calmly in-
spected the annunciator, took note of the room indicated,
and then calmly disconnected that room from the alarm,
and went back to bed as if nothing had happened. Moreover,
I left that room off permanently, and did not send for
the expert. Well, it goes without saying that in the course
of time all the rooms were taken off, and the entire machine
was out of service.

It was at this unprotected time that the heaviest calamity
of all happened. The burglars walked in one night and carried
off the burglar alarm! yes, sir, every hide and hair of it:
ripped it out, tooth and nail; springs, bells, gongs, battery,
and all; they took a hundred and fifty miles of copper wire;
they just cleaned her out, bag and baggage, and never left us
a vestige of her to swear at--swear by, I mean.

We had a time of it to get her back; but we accomplished
it finally, for money. The alarm firm said that what we
needed now was to have her put in right--with their new
patent springs in the windows to make false alarms imposs-
ible, and their new patent clock attached to take off and
put on the alarm morning and night without human assis-
tance. That seemed a good scheme. They promised to have
the whole thing finished in ten days. They began work,
and we left for the summer. They worked a couple of days;
then they left for the summer. After which the burglars
moved in, and began their summer vacation. When we returm-
ed in the fall, the house was as empty as a beer closet
in premises where painters have been at work. We refur-
nished, and then sent down to hurry up the expert He came
up and finished the job, and said: "Now this clock is set
to put on the alarm every night at 10, and take it off ev-
ery morning at 5:45. All you've got to do is to wind her up
every week, and then leave her alone--she will take care of
the alarm herself."

After that we had a most tranquil season during three
months. The bill was prodigious, of course, and I had said I
would not pay it until the new machinery had proved itself
to be fiawless. The time stipulated was three months. So I
paid the bill, and the very next day the alarm went to buzzing
like ten thousand bee swarms at ten o'clock in the morning.
I turned the hands around twelve hours, according to in-
structions, and this took off the alarm; but there was another
hitch at night, and I had to set her ahead twelve hours once
more to get her to put the alarm on again. That sort of
nonsense went on a week or two, then the expert came up
and put in a new clock. He came up every three montlu
during the next three years, and put in a new clock. But it
was always a failure. His clocks all had the same perverse
defect: they would put the alarm on in the daytime, and they
would not put it on at night; and if you forced it on yourself,
they would take it off again the minute your back was turned.

Now there is the history of that burglar alarm--everything
just as it happened; nothing extenuated, and naught set
down in malice. Yes, sir,--and when I had slept nine years
with burglars, and maintained an expensive burglar alarm
the whole time, for their protection, not mine, and at my
sole cost--for not a d--d cent could I ever get them to
contribute---I just said to Mrs. McWilliams that I had had
enough of that kind of pie; so with her full consent I took
the whole thing out and traded it off for a dog, and shot
the dog. I don't know what you think about it, Mr. Twain;
but I think those things are made solely in the interest of
the burglars. Yes, sir, a burglar alarm combines in its person
all that is objectionable about a fire, a riot, and a harem,
and at the same time had none of the compensating advan-
tages, of one sort or another, that customarily belong with
that combination. Good-by: I get off here.

1882



The Stolen White Elephant


('Left out of A Tramp Abroad, because it was feared that
some of the particulars had been exaggerated, and that o-
thers were not true. Before these suspicions had been pro-
ven groundless, the book had gone to press, M.T.)


The following curious history was related to me by a
chance railway acquaintance. He was a gentleman more than
seventy years of age, and his thoroughly good and gentle
face and earnest and sincere manner imprinted the unmistak'
able stamp of truth upon every statement which fell from
his lips. He said:

You know in what reverence the royal white elephant of
Siam is held by the people of that country. You know it is
sacred to kings, only kings may possess it, and that it is,
indeed, in a measure even superior to kings, since it receives
not merely honor but worship. Very well; five years ago,
when the troubles concerning the frontier line arose between
Great Britain and Siam, it was presently manifest that Siam
had been in the wrong. Therefore every reparation was
quickly made, and the British representative stated that he
was satisfied and the past should be forgotten. This greatly
relieved the King of Siam, and partly as a token of gratitude,
but partly also, perhaps, to wipe out any little remaining
vestige of unpleasantness which England might feel
toward him, he wished to send the Queen a present--the
sole sure way of propitiating an enemy, according to Oriental
ideas. This present ought not only to be a royal one, but
transcendently royal. Wherefore, what offering could be so
meet as that of a white elephant? My position in the Indian
civil service was such that I was deemed peculiarly worthy
of the honor of conveying the present to her Majesty. A ship
was fitted out for me and my servants and the officers and
attendants of the elephant, and in due time I arrived in New
York harbor and placed my royal charge in admirable quarters
in Jersey City. It was necessary to remain awhile in order
to recruit the animal's health before resuming the voyage.

All went well during a fortnight--then my calamities began.
The white elephant was stolen! I was called up at dead
of night and informed of this fearful misfortune. For some
moments I was beside myself with terror and anxiety; I
was helpless. Then I grew calmer and collected my faculties.
I soon saw my course--for, indeed, there was but the one
course for an intelligent man to pursue. Late as it was, 1
flew to New York and got a policeman to conduct me to the
headquarters of the detective force. Fortunately I arrived
in time, though the chief of the force, the celebrated Inspec'
tor Blunt, was just on the point of leaving for his home. He
was a man of middle size and compact frame, and when he
was thinking deeply he had a way of knitting his brows
and tapping his forehead reflectively with his finger, which
impressed you at once with the conviction that you stood in
the presence of a person of no common order. The very sight
of him gave me confidence and made me hopeful. I stated
my errand. It did not flurry him in the least; it had no more
visible effect upon his iron self-possession than if I had told
him somebody had stolen my dog. He motioned me to a seat,
and said, calmly:

"Allow me to think a moment, please."

So saying, he sat down at his office table and leaned
his head upon his hand. Several clerks were at work at the
other end of the room; the scratching of their pens was all
the sound I heard during the next six or seven minutes.
Meantime the inspector sat there, buried in thought. Finally
he raised his head, and there was that in the firm lines of
his face which showed me that his brain had done its work
and his plan was made. Said he--and his voice was low and
impressive:

"This is no ordinary case. Every step must be warily taken;
each step must be made sure before the next is ventured.
And secrecy must be observed--secrecy profound and
absolute. Speak to no one about the matter, not even the
reporters. I will take care of them; I will see that they get
only what it may suit my ends to let them know." He touched
a bell; a youth appeared. "Alaric, tell the reporters to remain
for the present." The boy retired. "Now let us proceed
to business--and systematically. Nothing can be accomplished
in this trade of mine without strict and minute
method."

He took a pen and some paper. "Now--name of the elephant?"

"Hassan Ben Ali Ben Selim Abdallah Mohammed Moise Al
hammal Jamsetjejeebhoy Dhuleep Sultan Ebu Bhudpoor."

"Very well. Given name?"

"Jumbo."

"Very well. Place of birth?"

"The capital city of Siam."

"Parents living?"

"No--dead,"

"Had they any other issue besides this one?"

"None. He was an only child."

"Very well. These matters are sufficient under that head.
Now please describe the elephant, and leave out no particu-
lar, however insignificant--that is, insignificant from your
point of view. To men in my profession there are no insig'
nificant particulars; they do not exist."

I described--he wrote. When I was done, he said:

"Now listen. If I have made any mistakes, correct me."

He read as follows:

"Height, 19 feet; length from apex of forehead to insertion
of tail, 26 feet; length of trunk, 16 feet; length of tail,
6 feet; total length, including trunk and tail, 48 feet; length
of tusks, 91/2 feet; ears in keeping with these dimensions;
footprint resembles the mark left when one upends a barrel
in the snow; color of the elephant, a dull white; has a hole
the size of a plate in each ear for the insertion of jewelry,
and possesses the habit in a remarkable degree of squirting
water upon spectators and of maltreating with his trunk not
only such persons as he is acquainted with, but even entire
strangers; limps slightly with his right hind leg, and has a
small scar in his left armpit caused by a former boil; had
on, when stolen, a castle containing seats for fifteen persons,
and a gold-cloth saddle-blanket the size of an ordinary
carpet."

There were no mistakes. The inspector touched the bell,
banded the description to Alaric, and said:

"Have fifty thousand copies of this printed at once and
mailed to every detective office and pawnbroker's shop on
the continent." Alaric retired. "There--so far, so good. Next,
I must have a photograph of the property."

I gave him one. He examined it critically, and said:

"It must do, since we can do no better; but he has his
trunk curled up and tucked into his mouth. That is unfor-
tunate, and is calculated to mislead, for of course he does
not usually have it in that position." He touched his bell.
"Alaric, have fifty thousand copies of this photograph
made the first thing in the morning, and mail them with the
descriptive circulars."

Alaric retired to execute his orders. The inspector said:
"It will be necessary to offer a reward, of course. Now as
to the amount?"

"What sum would you suggest?"

"To begin with, I should say--well, twenty-five thousand
dollars. It is an intricate and difficult business; there are a
thousand avenues of escape and opportunities of conceal
ment These thieves have friends and pab everywhere--"

"Bless me, do you know who they are?"

The wary face, practised in concealing the thouts and
feelings within, gave me no token, nor yet the replying
words, so quietly uttered:

"Never mind about that. I may, and I may not. We generally
gather a pretty shrewd inkling of who our man is by
the manner of his work and the size of the game he goes
after. We are not dealing with a pickpocket or a hall Aief
now, make up your mind to that. This property was not
‘lifted' by a novice. But, as I was saying, considering the
amount of travel which will have to be done, and the diligence
with which the thieves will cover up their traces as
they move along, twenty-five thousand may be too small a
sum to offer, yet I think it worth while to start with that."

So we determined upon that figure as a beginning. Then
this man, whom nothing escaped which could by any possibility
be made to serve as a clue, said:

"There are cases in detective history to show that criminals
have been detected through peculiarities in their appetites.
Now, what does this elephant eat, and how much?"

"Well, as to what he eats--he will eat anything. He will
eat a man, he will eat a Bible--he will eat anything between
a man and a Bible."

"Good--very good, indeed, but too general. Details are
necessary--details are the only valuable things in our trade.
Very well--as to men. At one meal--or, if you prefer, during
one day--how many men will he eat, if fresh?"

"He would not care whether they were fresh or not; at a
single meal he would eat five ordinary men."

"Very good; five men; we will put that down. What nationalities
would he prefer?"

"He is indifferent about nationalities. He prefers acquaintances,
but is not prejudiced against strangers."

"Very good. Now, as to Bibles. How many Bibles would
he eat at a meal?"

"He would eat an entire edition."

"It is hardly succinct enough. Do you mean the ordinary
octavo, or the family illustrated?"

"I think he would be indifferent to illustrations; that is,
I think he would not value illustrations above simple letterpress."

"No, you do not get my idea. I refer to bulk. The ordinary
octavo Bible weighs about two pounds and a half, while the
great quarto with the illustrations weighs ten or twelve.
How many Dore Bibles would he eat at a meal?"

"If you knew this elephant, you could not ask. He would
take what they had."

"Well, put it in dollars and cents, then. We must get at it
somehow. The Dore costs a hundred dollars a copy, Russia
leather, beveled."

"He would require about fifty thousand dollars' worth--say
an edition of five hundred copies."

"Now that is more exact. I will put that down. Very well;
he likes men and Bibles; so far, so good. What else will he
eat? I want particulars."

"He will leave Bibles to eat bricks, he will leave bricks to
eat bottles, he will leave bottles to eat clothing, he will leave
clothing to eat cats, he will leave cats to eat oysters, he will
leave oysters to eat ham, he will leave ham to eat sugar, he
will leave sugar to eat pie, he will leave pie to eat potatoes,
he will leave potatoes to eat bran, he will leave bran to eat
hay, be will leave hay to eat oats, be will leave oats to eat rice,
for he was mainly raised on it. There is nothing whatever that
he will not eat but European butter, and he would eat that
if be could taste it"

"Very good. General quantity at a meal--say about--"

"Well, anywhere from a quarter to half a ton."

"And he drinks--"

"Everything that is fluid. Milk, water, whisky, molasses,
castor oil, camphene, carbolic acid--it is no use to go into
particulars; whatever fluid occurs to you set it down. He will
drink anything that is fluid, except European coffee."

"Very good. As to quantity?"

"Put it dovm five to fifteen barrels--his thirst varies; his
other appetites do not"

"These things are unusual They ought to furnish quite good
clues toward tracing him."

He touched the bell.

"Alaric, summon captain Burns."

Burns appeared. Inspector Blunt unfolded the whole matter
to him, detail by detail. Then he said in the clear, decisive
tones of a man whose plans are clearly defined in his head
and who is accustomed to command:

"Captain Bums, detail Detective Jones, Davis, Halsey,
Bates, and Hackett to shadow the elephant"

"Yes, sir."

"Detail Detectives Moses, Dakin, Murphy, Rogers, Topper,
Higgins, and Batholomew to shadow the thieves."

"Yes, sir."

"Place a strong guard--a guard of thirty picked men, with
a relief of thirty--over the place from whence the elephant
was stolen, to keep strict watch there night and day, and
allow none to approach--except reporters--without written
authority from me."

"Yes, sir."

"Place detectives in plain clothes in the rmlway, steamship,
and ferry depots, and upon all roadways leading out of Jer-
sey City, with orders to search all suspicious persons."

"Yes, sir."

"Furnish all these men with photograph and accompanying
description of the elephant, and instruct them to search
all trains and outgoing ferryboats and other vessels."

"Yes, sir."

"If the elephant should be found, let him be seized, and
the information forwarded to me by telegraph."

"Yes, sir."

"Let me be informed at once if any clues should be found
--footprints of the animal, or anything of that kind."

"Yes, sir."

"Get an order commanding the harbor police to patrol
the frontages vigilantly."

"Yes, sir."

"Despatch detectives in plain clothes over all the railways,
north as far as Canada, west as far as Ohio, south as far as
Washington."

"Yes, sir."

"Place experts in all the telegraph offices to listen to all
messages; and let them require that all cipher despatches be
interpreted to them."

"Yes, sir."

"Let all these things be done with the utmost secrecy--mind,
the most impenetrable secrecy."

"Yes, sir."

"Report to me promptly at the usual hour."

"Yes, sir."

"Go!"

"Yes, sir."

He was gone.

Inspector Blunt was silent and thoughtful a moment, while
the fire in his eye cooled down and faded out. Then he turned
to me and said in a placid voice:

"I am not given to boasting, it is not my habit; but--
we shall find the elephant."

I shook him warmly by the hand and thanked him; and I felt
my thanks, too. The more I had seen of the man the more
I liked him and the more I admired him and marveled over
the mysterious wonders of his profession. Then we parted
for the night, and I went home with a far happier heart than
I had carried with me to his office.


2


Next morning it was all in the newspapers, in the minutest
detail. It even had additions--consisting of Detective This,
Detective That, and Detective The Other's "Theory" as to
how the robbery was done, who the robbers were, and whither
they had flown with their booty. There were eleven of these
theories, and they covered all the possibilities; and this single
fact shows what independent thinkers detectives are. No two
theories were alike, or even much resembled each other, save
in one striking particular, and in that one all the other eleven
theories were absolutely agreed. That was, that although the
rear of my building was torn out and the only door remained
locked, the elephant had not been removed through the rent,
but by some other (undiscovered) outlet All agreed that the
robbers had made that rent only to mislead the detectives'
That never would have occurred to me or to any other
layman, perhaps, but it had not deceived the detectives for
a moment. Thus, what I had supposed was the only thing that
had no mystery about it was in fact the very thing I had gone
furthest astray in. The eleven theories all named file supposed
robbers, but no two named the same robbers; the total number
of suspected persons was thirty-seven. The various newspaper
accounts all closed with the most important opinion of all--
that of Chief Inspector Blunt. A portion of this statement
read as follows:

The chief knows who the two principals are, namely, "Brick"
Duffy and ‘'Red" McFadden. Ten days before the robbery was
achieved he was already aware that it was to be attempted,
and had quietly proceeded to shadow these two noted villains;
but unfortunately on the night in question their track were
lost, and before it could be found again the bird was flown
--that is, the elephant.

Duffy and McFadden are the boldest scoundrels in the profes-
sion; the chief has reasons for believing that they are the
men who stole the stove out of the detective headquarters on
a hitter night last winter--in consequence of which the chief
and every detective present were in the hands of the physicians
before morning, some with frozen feet, others with frozen
fingers, ears, and other members.

WTien I read the first half of that I was more astonished
than ever at the wonderful sagacity of this strange man. He
not only saw everything in the present with a clear eye, but
even the future could not be hidden from him. I was soon at
his office, and said I could not help wishing he had had those
men arrested, and so prevented the trouble and loss; but his
reply was simple and unanswerable:

"It is not our province to prevent crime, but to punish it.
We cannot punish it until it is committed."

I remarked that the secrecy with which he had begun had
been marred by the newspapers; not only all our facts but
all our plans and purposes had been revealed; even all the
suspected persons had been named; these would doubtless
disguise themselves now, or go into hiding.

"Let them. They will find that when I am ready for them
my hand will descend upon them, in their secret places, as
unerringly as the hand of fate. As to the newspapers, we
must keep in with them. Fame, reputation, constant public
mention--these are the detective's bread and butter. He must
publish his facts, else he will be supposed to have none; he
must publish his theory, for nothing is so strange or striking
as a detective's theory, or brings him so much wonderful res-
pect; we must publish our plans, for these the journals insist
upon having, and we could not deny them without offending.
We must constantly show the public what we are doing, or they
will believe we are doing nothing. It is much pleasanter to
have a newspaper say, ‘Inspector Blunt's ingenious and ex-
traordinary theory is as follows,' than to have it say some
harsh thing, or, worse still, some sarcastic one."

"I see the force of what you say. But I noticed that in one
part of your remarks in the papers this morning you refused
to reveal your opinion upon a certain minor point."

"Yes, we always do that; it has a good effect. Besides, I
had not formed any opinion on that point, anyway."

I deposited a considerable sum of money with the inspector,
to meet current expenses, and sat down to wait for news.
We were expecting the telegrams to begin to arrive at any
moment now. Meantime I reread the newspapers and also
our descriptive circular, and observed that our twenty-five
thousand dollars reward seemed to be offered only to detectives.
I said I thought it ought to be offered to anybody who
would catch the elephant. The inspector said:

"It is the detectives who will find the elephant, hence the
reward will go to the right place. If other people found the
animal, it would only be by watching the detectives and tak-
ing advantage of clues and indications stolen from them, and
that would entitle the detectives to the reward, after all.
The proper office of a reward is to stimulate the men who
deliver up their time and their trained sagacities to this
sort of work, and not to confer benefits, upon chance citi-
zens who stumble upon a capture without having earned the
benefits by their own merits and labors."

This was reasonable enough, certainly. Now the telegraphic
machine in the corner began to click, and the following
despatch was the result:

FLOWER STATION, N. Y., 7.30 A.M.
HAVE GOT A CLUE. FOUND A SUCCESSION OF DEEP TRACKS
ACROSS A FARM NEAR HERE. FOLLOWED THEM TWO MILES
EAST WITHOUT RESULT; THINR ELEPHANT WENT WEST. SHALL
NOW SHADOW HIM IN THAT DIRECTION.............

DARLEY, DETECTIVE

"Darley's one of the best men on the force," said the in-
spector. "We shall hear from him again before long."

Telegram No. 2 came:

BARKERS, N. J., 7.40 A.M.
JUST ARRIVED. GLASS FACTORY BROKEN OPEN HERE DURING
NIGHT, AND EIGHT HUNDRED BOTTLES TAKEN. ONLY WATER IN
LARGE QUANTITY NEAR HERE IS FIVE MILES DISTANT. SHALL
STRIKE FOR THERE. ELEPHANT WILL BE THIRSTY. BOTTLES
WERE EMPTY.

BAKER, DETECTIVE

"That promises well, too," said the inspector. "I told you
the creature's appetites would not be bad clues."

Telegram No. 3:

TAYLORVILLE, L. I., 8.15 A.M.
A HAYSTACK NEAR HERE DISAPPEARED DURING NIGHT. PROBABLY
EATEN. HAVE GOT A CLUE, AND AM OFF.

HUBBARD, DETECTIVE

"How he does move around!" said the inspector. "I knew
we had a difficult job on hand, but we shall catch him yet."

FLOWER STATION, N. Y., 9 A.M.
SHADOWED THE TRACKS THREE MILES WESTWARD. LARGE,
DEEP AND RAGGED. HAVE JUST MET A FARMER WHO SAYS THEY
ARE NOT ELEPHANT TRACKS. SAYS THEY ARE HOLES WHERE HE
DUG UP SAPLINGS FOR SHADETREES WHEN GROUND WAS FROZEN
LAST WINTER. GIVE ME ORDERS HOW TO PROCEED.

DARLEY, DETECTIVE

"Aha! a confederate of the thieves! The thing grows warm,"
said the inspector.

He dictated the following telegram to Darley:

ARREST THE MAN AND FORCE HIM TO NAME HIS PALS. CONTINUE
TO FOLLOW THE TRACKS--TO THE PACIFIC IF NECESSARY.

CHIEF BLUNT

Next telegram:

CONEY POINT, PA., 8.45 A.M.
GAS OFFICE BROKEN OPEN HERE DURING NIGHT AND THREE
MONTHS' UNPAID GAS BILLS TAKEN. HAVE GOT A CLUE AND AM
AWAY.

MURPHY, DETECTIVE

"Heavens!" said the inspector; "would he eat gas bills?"

"Through ignorance--yes; but they cannot support life.
At least, unassisted."

Now pame this exciting telegram:

IRONVILLE, N. Y., 9.30 A.M.
JUST ARRIVED. THIS VILLAGE IN CONSTERNATION. ELEPHANT
PASSED THROUGH HERE AT FIVE THIS MORNING. SOME SAY HE
WENT EAST, SOME SAY WEST, SOME NORTH, SOME SOUTH--BUT
ALL SAY THEY DID NOT WAIT TO NOTICE PARTICULARLY. HE
KILLED A HORSE; HAVE SECURED A PIECE OF IT FOR A CLUE.
KILLED IT WITH HIS TRUNK; FROM STYLE OF BLOW, THINK
HE STRUCK IT LEFT-HANDED. FROM POSITION IN WHICH HORSE
LIES, THINK ELEPHANT TRAVELED NORTHWARD ALONG LINE OF
BERKLEY RAILWAY. HAS FOUR AND A HALF HOURS' START, BUT I
MOVE ON HIS TRACK AT ONCE.

HAWES, DETECTIVE

I uttered exclamations of joy. The inspector was as self-
contained as a graven image. He calmly touched his bell.

"Alaric, send Captain Burns here."

Burns appeared.

"How many men are ready for instant orders?"

"Ninety-six, sir."

"Send them north at once. Let them concentrate along
the line of the Berkley road north of Ironville."

"Yes, sir."

"Let them conduct their movements with the utmost secrecy.
As fast as others are at liberty, hold them for orders."

"Yes, sir."

"Go!"

"Yes, sir."

Presently came another telegram:

SAGE CORNERS, N. Y., 10.30.
JUST ARRIVED, ELEPHANT PASSED THROUGH HERE AT 8.15.
ALL ESCAPED FROM THE TOWN BUT A POLICEMAN. APPARENTLY
ELEPHANT DID NOT STRIKE AT POLICEMAN, BUT AT THE LAMPPOST.
GOT BOTH. I HAVE SECURED A PORTION OF THE POLICEMAN
AS CLUE.

STUMM, DETECTIVE

"So the elepbint has turned westward," said the inspector.
"However, he will not escape, for my men are scattered all
over that region."

The next telegram said:

GLOVER'S, 11.15.
JUST ARRIVED. VILLAGE DESERTED, EXCEPT SICK AND AGED.
ELEPHANT PASSED THROUGH THREE-QUARTERS OF AN HOUR AGO.
THE ANTITEMPERANCE MASS-MEETING WAS IN SESSION; HE PUT
HIS TRUNK IN AT A WINDOW AND WASHED IT OUT WITH WATER
FROM CISTERN. SOME SWALLOWED IT--SINCE DEAD; SEVERAL
DROWNED. DETECTIVES CROSS AND O'SHAUGHNESSY WERE PASSING
THROUGH TOWN, BUT GOING SOUTH SO MISSED ELEPHANT.
WHOLE REGION FOR MANY MILES AROUND IN TERROR--PEOPLE
FLYING FROM THEIR HOMES. WHEREVER THEY TURN MEET
ELEPHANT, AND MANY ARE KILLED.

BRANT, DETECTIVE

I could have shed tears, this havoc so distressed me. But
the inspector only said:

"You see--we are closing in on him. He feels our presence;
he has turned eastward again."

Yet further troublous news was in store for us. The telegraph
brought this:

HOGANSPORT, 12. 19.
JUST ARRIVED. ELEPHANT PASSED THROUGH HALF AN HOUR
AGO. CREATING WILDEST FRIGHT AND EXCITEMENT. ELEPHANT
RAGED AROUND STREETS: TWO PLUMBERS GOING BY, KILLED
ONE.--OTHER ESCAPED. REGRET GENERAL.

O'FLAHERTY, DETECTIVE

"Now he is right in the midst of My men," said the inspector.
"Nothing can save him."

A succession of telegrams came from detectives who were
scattered through New Jersey and Pennsylvania, and who
were following clues consisting of ravaged barns, factories,
and Sunday-school libraries, with high hopes--hopes amounting
to certainties, indeed. The inspector said:

"I wish I could communicate with them and order them north,
but that is impossible. A detective only visits a telegraph
office to send his report; then he is off again, and you
don't know where to put your hand on him."

Now came this despatch;

BRIDGEPORT, CT., 12.15.
BARNUM OFFERS RATE OF $4,000 A YEAR FOR EXCLUSIVE
PRIVELEGE OF USING ELEPHANT AS TRAVELING ADVERTISING
MEDIUM FROM NOW TILL DETECTIVES FIND HIM. WANTS TO
PASTE CIRCUS-POSTERS ON HIM. DESIRES IMMEDIATE ANSWER.

BOGGS, DETECTIVE

"That is perfectly absurd!" I exclaimed.

"Of course it is," said the inspector. "Evidently Mr. Barnum,
who thinks he is so sharp, does not know me--but I know him."

Then be dictated this answer to the despatch:

MR. BARNUM'S OFFER DECLINED. MAKE IT $7,000 OR NOTHING.

CHIEF BLUNT

"There. We shall not have to wait long for an answer. Mr.
Bamum is not at home; he is in the telegraph office--it is his
way when he has business on hand. Inside of three--"

DONE.

--P. T. BARNUM

So interrupted the clicking telegraphic instrument Before I
could make a comment upon this extraordinary episode, the
following despatch carried my thoughts into another very
distressing channel:

BOLIVIA, N. Y., 12.50.
ELEPHANT ARRIVED HERE FROM THE SOUTH AND PASSED
THROUGH TOWARD THE FOREST AT 11.50, DISPERSING A FUNERAL
ON THE WAY, AND DIMINISHING THE MOURNERS BY TWO.
CITIZENS FIRED SOME SMALL CANNON-BALLS INTO HIM, AND
THEN FLED. DETECTIVE BURKE AND I ARRIVED TEN MINUTES
LATER, FROM THE NORTH, BUT MISTOOK SOME EXCAVATIONS
FOR FOOTPRINTS, AND SO LOST A GOOD DEAL OF TIME; BUT AT
LAST WE STRUCK THE RIGHT TRAIL AND FOLLOWED IT TO THE
WOODS. WE THEN GOT DOWN ON OUR HANDS AND KNEES AND
CONTINUED TO KEEP A SHARP EYE ON THE TRACK, AND SO
SHADOWED IT INTO THE BRUSH. BURKE WAS IN ADVANCE.
UNFORTUNATELY THE ANIMAL HAD STOPPED TO REST; THERE-
FORE, BURKE HAVING HIS HEAD DOWN, INTENT UPON THE TRACK,
BUTTED UP AGAINST THE ELEPHANT'S HIND LEGS BEFORE HE
WAS AWARE OF HIS VICINITY. BURKE INSTANTLY AROSE TO HIS
FEET, SEIZED THE TAIL, AND EXCLAIMED JOYFULLY, "l CLAIM
THE RE--" BUT GOT NO FURTHER, FOR A SINGLE BLOW OF
THE HUGE TRUNK LAID THE BRAVE FELLOW'S FRAGMENTS LOW
IN DEATH. I FLED REARWARD, AND THE ELEPHANT TURNED
AND SHADOWED ME TO THE EDGE OF THE WOOD, MAKING TRE-
MENDOUS SPEED AND I SHOULD INEVITABLY HAVE BEEN LOST,
BUT THAT THE REMAINS OF THE FUNERAL PROVIDENTIALLY
INTERVENED AND DIVERTED HIS ATTENTION. I HAVE JUST
LEARNED THAT NOTHING OF THAT FUNERAL IS NOW LEFT;
BUT THIS IS NO LOSS, FOR THERE IS ABUNDANCE OF MATERIAL
FOR ANOTHER. MEANTIME, THE ELEPHANT HAS DISAPPEARED
AGAIN.

MULROONEY, DETECTIVE

We heard no news except from the diligent and confident
detectives scattered about New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Dela'
ware, and Virginia--who were all following fresh and encouraging
clues--until shortly after 2 p.m., when this telegram
came:

BAXTER CENTER, 2.15,
ELEPHANT BEEN HERE, PLASTERED OVER WITH CIRCUS-BILLS,
AND BROKE UP A REVIVAL, STRIKING DOWN AND DAMAGING
MANY WHO WERE ON THE POINT OF ENTERING UPON A BETTER
LIFE. CITIZENS PENNED UP AND ESTABLISHED A GUARD.
WHEN DETECTIVE BROWN AND I ARRIVED, SOME TIME AFTER,
WE ENTERED INCLOSURE AND PROCEEDED TO IDENTIFY ELEPHANT
BY PHOTOGRAPHS AND DESCRIPTION. ALL MARKS TALLIED
EXACTLY EXCEPT ONE, WHICH WE COULD NOT SEE--THE
BOIL-SCAR UNDER ARMPIT. TO MAKE SURE, BROWN CREPT
UNDER TO LOOK, AND WAS IMMEDIATELY BRAINED--THAT IS,
HEAD CRUSHED AND DESTROYED, THOUGH NOTHING ISSUED
FROM DEBRIS, ALL FLED; SO DID ELEPHANT, STRIKING RIGHT
AND LEFT WITH MUCH EFFECT. HAS ESCAPED, BUT LEFT BOLD
BLOOD-TRACK FROM CANNON-WOUNDS. REDISCOVERY CERTAIN.
HE BROKE SOUTHWARD, THROUGH A DENSE FOREST.

BRENT, DETECTIVE

That was the last telegram. At nightfall a fog shut down
which was so dense that objects but three feet away could not
be discerned. This lasted all night. The ferryboats and even
the omnibuses had to stop running.

Next morning the papers were as full of detective theories
as before; they had all our tragic facts in detail also, and a
great many more which they had received from their telegraphic
correspondents. Column after column was occupied, a third
of its way down, with glaring head-lines, which it made my
heart sick to read. Their general tone was like this:

THE WHITE ELEPHANT AT LARGE! HE MOVES UPON HIS FATAL
MARCH! WHOLE VILLAGES DESERTED BY THEIR FRIGHT-STRICK-
EN OCCUPANTS! PALE TERROR GOES BEFORE HIM, DEATH AND
DEVASTATION FOLLOW AFTER! AFTER THESE, THE DETECTIVES!
BARNS DESTROYED, FACTORIES GUTTED, HARVESTS DEVOURED.
PUBLIC ASSEMBLAGES DISPERSED, ACCOMPANIED BY SCENES OF
CARNAGE IMPOSSIBLE TO DESCRIBE! THEORIES OF THIRTY-FOUR
OF THE MOST DISTINGUISHEO DETECTIVES ON THE FORCE!
THEORY OF CHIEF BLUNT!

"There!" said Inspector Blunt, almost betrayed into excite-
ment, "this is magnificent! This is the greatest windfall
that any detective organization ever had. The fame of it will
travel to the ends of the earth, and endure to the end of
time, and my name with it."

But there was no joy for me. I felt as if I had committed
all those red crimes, and that the elephant was only my
irresponsible agent And how the list had grown! In one place
he had "interfered with an election and killed five repeat-
ers." He had followed this act with the destruction of two
poor fellows, named O'Donohue and McFlannigan, who had
"found a refuge in the home of the oppressed of all lands
only the day before, and were in the act of exercising for the
first time the noble right of American citizens at the polls,
when stricken down by the relentless hand of the Scourge of
Siam." In another, he had "found a crazy sensation-preacher
preparing his next season's heroic attacks on the dance, the
theater, and other things which can't strike back, and had
stepped on him." And in still another place he had "killed a
lightning-rod agent." And so the list went on, growing redder
and redder, and more and more heartbreaking. Sixty persons
bad been killed, and two hundred and forty wounded. All the
accounts bore just testimony to the activity and devotion of
the detectives, and all closed with the remark that "three
hundred thousand citizens and four detectives saw the dread
creature, and two of the latter he destroyed."

I dreaded to hear the telegraphic instrument begin to click
again. By and by the messages began to pour in, but I was
happily disappointed in their nature. It was soon apparent
that all trace of the elephant was lost The fog had enabled
him to search out a good hiding-place unobserved. Telegrams
from the most absurdly distant points reported that a dim
vast mass had been glimpsed there through the fog at such
and such an hour, and was "undoubtedly the elephant." This
dim vast mass had been glimpsed in New Haven, in New Jersey,
in Pennsylvania, in interior New York, in Brooklyn, and even
in the city of New York itself! But in all cases the dim vast
mass had vanished quickly and left no trace. Every detective
of the large force scattered over this huge extent of country
sent his hourly report, and each and every one of them had
a clue, and was shadowing something, and was hot upon the
heels of it.

But the day passed without other result.

The next day the same.

The next just the same.

The newspaper reports began to grow monotonous with facts
that amounted to nothing, clues which led to nothing, and
theories which had nearly exhausted the elements which
surprise and delight and dazzle.

By advice of the inspector I doubled the reward.

Four more dull days followed. Then came a bitter blow to
the poor, hard-working detectives--the journalists decline-
d to print their theories, and coldly said, "Give us a rest."

Two weeks after the elephant's disappearance I raised the
reward to seventy-five thousand dollars by the inspector's
advice. It was a great sum, but I felt that I would rather
sacrifice my whole private fortune than lose my credit with
my government. Now that the detectives were in adversity,
the newspapers turned upon them, and began to fling the
most stinging sarcasms at them. This gave the minstrels an
idea, and they dressed themselves as detectives and hunted
the elephant on the stage in the most extravagant way. The
caricaturists made pictures of detectives scanning the country
with spyglasses, while the elephant, at their backs, stole
apples out of their pockets. And they made all sorts of rid-
iculous pictures of the detective badge--you have seen that
badge printed in gold on the back of detective novels, no
doubt--it is a wide-staring eye, with the legend, "We Never
Sleep." When detectives called for a drink, the would-be
facetious barkeeper resurrected an obsolete form of expres-
sion and said, "Will you have an eye-opener?" All the air
was thick with sarcasms.

But there was one man who moved calm, untouched, unaffec-
ted, through it all. It was that heart of oak, the chief inspect-
or. His brave eye never dropped, his serene confidence
never wavered. He always said:

"Let them rail on; he laughs best who laughs last."

My admiration for the man grew into a species of worship.
I was at his side always. His office had become an unplea-
sant place to me, and now became daily more and more so.
Yet if he could endure it I meant to do so also--at least,
as long as I could. So I came regularly, and stayed--the
only outsider who seemed to be capable of it. Everybody won
dered how I could; and often it seemed to me that I must de-
sert, but at such times I looked into that calm and apparent-
ly unconscious face, and held my ground.

About three weeks after the elephant's disappearance I was
about to say, one morning, that I should have to strike my
colors and retire, when the great detective arrested the
thought by proposing one more superb and masterly move.

This was to compromise with the robbers. The fertility of
this man's invention exceeded anything I have ever seen,
and I have had a wide intercourse with the world's finest
minds. He said he was confident he could compromise for
one hundred thousand dollars and recover the elephant. I
said I believed I could scrape the amount together, but
what would become of the poor detectives who had worked
so faithfully? He said:

"In compromises they always get half."

This removed my oy objection. So the inspector wrote
two notes, in this form:

DEAR MADAME--YOUR HUSBAND CAN MAKE A LARGE SUM OP
MONEY (AND BE ENTIRELY PROTECTED FROM THE LAW) BY
MAKmO AN IMMEDUTB APPOINTMENT WITH ME.

CHIEF BLUNT

He sent one of these by his confidential messenger to the
"reputed wife" of Brick Dufiy, and the other to the reputed
wife of Red McFadden.

Within the hour these offensive answers came:

YE OWLD FOOL: BRICK DUFFYS BIN DED 2 YERE.

BRIDGET MAHONEY

CHIEF BAT--RED MCFADDEN IS HUNG AND IN HEVING 18
MONTH. ANY ASS BUT A DETECTIVE KNOSE THAT.

MARY O'HOOLIGAN

"I had long suspected these facts," said the inspector;
"this testimony proves the unerring accuracy of my instinct."

The moment one resource failed him he was ready with
another. He immediately wrote an advertisement for the
morning papers, and I kept a copy of it:

A.--xwblv. 242 N. Tjnd--&328n'mlg. Ozpo,--; 2 ml ogw.
Mum.

He said that if the thief was alive this would bring him to
the usual rendezvous. He further explained that the usual
rendezvous was a place where all business affairs between
detectives and criminals were conducted. This meeting would
take place at twelve the next night.

We could do nothing till then, and I lost no time in get-
ting out of the office, and was grateful indeed for the pri-
vilege. At eleven the next night I brought one hundred thou-
sand dollars in bank-notes and put them into the chiefs hands,
and shortly afterward he took his leave, with the brave old
undimmed confidence in his eye. An almost intolerable hour
dragged to a close; then I heard his welcome tread, and
rose gasping and tottered to meet him. How his fine eyes
flamed with triumph! He said:

"We've compromised! The jokers will sing a different tune
to-morrow! Follow me!"

He took a lighted candle and strode down into the vast
vaulted basement where sixty detectives always slept, and
where a score were now playing cards to while the time. I
followed close after him. He walked swiftly down to the dim
and remote end of the place, and just as I succumbed to the
pangs of suffocation and was swooning away he stumbled
and fell over the outlying members of a mighty object, and
I heard him exclaim as he went down:

"Our noble profession is vindicated. Here is your elephant!"

I was carried to the office above and restored with carbolic
acid. The whole detective force swarmed in, and such another
season of triumphant rejoicing ensued as I had never witness-
ed before. The reporters were called, baskets of champagne
were opened, toasts were drunk, the handshakings and congra-
tulations were continuous and enthusastic. Naturally the
chief was the hero of the hour, and his happiness was so
complete and had been so patiently and worthily and brave-
ly won that it made me happy to see it, though I stood
there a homeless beggar, my priceless charge dead, and my
position in my country's service lost to me through what
would always seem my fatally careless execution of a great
trust. Many an eloquent eye testified its deep admiration for
the chief, and many a detective's voice murmured, "Look at
him--just the king of the profession; only give him a clue,
it's all he wants, and there ain't anything hid that he can't
find." The dividing of the fifty thousand dollars made great
pleasure; when it was finished the chief made a little speech
while he put his share in his pocket, in which he said, "Enjoy
it, boys, for you've earned it; and, more than that, you've
earned for the detective profession undying fame."

A telegram arrived, which read:

MONROE, MICH., 10 P.M.
FIRST TIME IVE STRUCK A TELEGRAPH OFFICE IN OVER
THREE WEEKS. HAVE FOLLOWED THOSE FOOTPRINTS, HORSE-
BACK, THROUGH THE WOODS, A THOUSAND MILES TO HERE,
AND THEY GET STRONGER AND BIGGER AND FRESHER EVERY
DAY. DON'T WORRY--INSIDE OF ANOTHER WEEK I'LL HAVE
THE ELEPHANT. THIS IS DEAD SURE.

DARLEY, DETECTIVE

The chief ordered three cheers for "Darley, one of the
finest minds on the force," and then commanded that he be
telegraphed to come home and receive his share of the re-
ward.

So ended that marvelous episode of the stolen elephant.
The newspapers were pleasant with praises once more, the
next day, with one contemptible exception. This sheet said,
"Great is the detective! He may be a little slow in finding
a little thing like a mislaid elephant--he may hunt him all
day and sleep with his rotting carcass all night for three
weeks, but he will find him at last--if he can get the man
who mislaid him to show him the place!"

Poor Hassan was lost to me forever. The cannon-shots
had wounded him fatally, he had crept to that unfriendly
place in the fog, and there, surrounded by his enemies and
in constant danger of detection, he had wasted away with
hunger and suffering till death gave him peace.

The compromise cost me one hundred thousand dollars; my
detective expenses were forty-two thousand dollars more;
I never applied for a place again under my government;
I am a ruined man and a wanderer on the earth--but my
admiration for that man, whom I believe to be the greatest
detective the world has ever produced, remains undimmed
to this day, and will so remain unto the end.

1882



A Burning Brand



I wish to reveal a secret which I have carried with me nine
years and which has become burdensome.

Upon a certain occasion, nine years ago, I had said, with
strong feeling, "If ever I see St. Louis again, I will seek out
Mr. Brown, the great grain merchant, and ask him the privilege
of shaking him by the hand."

The occasion and the circumstances were as follows. A
friend of mine, a clergyman, came one evening and said:

I have a most remarkable letter here, which I want to read
to you, if I can do it without breaking down. I must preface
it with some explanations, however. The letter is written by
an ex-thief and ex-vagabond of the lowest origin and basest
rearing, a man all stained with crime and steeped in ig-
norance; but, thank God! with a mine of pure gold hidden
away in him, as you shall see. His letter is written to a
burglar named Williams, who is serving a nine-year term in a
certain state prison, for burglary. Williams was a particu-
larly daring burglar and plied that trade during a number of
years; but he was caught at last and jailed, to await trial
in a town where he had broken into a house at night, pistol
in hand and forced the owner to hand over to him eight thou-
sand dollars in government bonds. Williams was not a common
sort of person, by any means; he was a graduate of Harvard
College and came of good New England stock. His father was
a clergyman. While lying in jail, his health began to fail,
and he was threatened with consumption. This fact, together
with the opportunity for reflection afforded by solitary con-
finement, had its effect--its natural effect. He fell into
serious thought; his early training asserted itself with pow
er, and wrought with strong influence upon his mind and heart.
He put his old life behind him and became an earnest Christian.
Some ladies in the town heard of this, visited him, and by
their encouraging words supported him in his good resolutions
and strengthened him to continue in his new life. The trial
ended in his conviction and sentence to the stale prison
for the term of nine years, as I have before said. In the
prison he became acquainted with the poor wretch referred
to in the beginning of my talk. Jack Hunt, the writer of the
letter which I am going to read. You will see that the ac-
quaintanceship bore fruit for Hunt. When Hunt's time was
out, he wandered to St. Louis; and from that place he wrote
his letter to Williams. The letter got no further than the
office of the prison warden, of course; prisoners are not often
allowed to receive letters from outside. The prison authorities
read this letter, but did not destroy it. They had not the
heart to do it. They read it to several persons, and eventually
it fell into the hands of those ladies of whom I spoke a while
ago. The other day I came across an old friend of mine --a,
clergyman--who had seen this letter, and was full of it. The
mere remembrance of it so moved him that he could not talk
of it without his voice breaking. He promised to get a copy
of it for me; and here it is--an exact copy, with all the
imperfections of the original preserved. It has many slang
expressions in it--thieves' argot--but their meaning has
been interlined, in parentheses, by the prison authorities:

St. Louis, June 9th, 1872
Mr. W friend Charlie if i may call you so: i no you
are surprised to get a letter from me, but i hppe you won't
be mad at my writing to you. i want to tell you my thanks
for the way you talked to me when i was in prison--it has
led me to try and be a better man; i guess you thought i did
not cair for what you said, & at the first go off i didn't, but i
noed you was a man who had don big work with good men d
want no sucker, nor want gasing & all the boys knod it.

I used to think at nite what you said, d for it i nocked
off swearing 5 months before my time was up, for i saw it
want no good, nohow--the day my time was up you told me if
I would shake the cross (quit stealing), & live on the square
for 3 months, it would be the best job i ever done in my
life. The state agent give me a ticket to here, d on the car
i thought more of what you said to me, but didn't make up
my mind. When we got to Chicago on the cars from there to
here, I pulled off an old woman's leather (robbed her of her
pocket-book); i hadn't no more than got off when i wished i
hadn't done it, for a while before that i made up my mind
40 be a square bloke, for 3 months on your word, but i for
got it when i saw the leather was a grip (easy to get)--but
I kept clos to her d when she got out of the cars at a way
place i said, marm have you lost anything? d she tumbled
(discovered) her leather was of (gone)--is this it says i,
giving it to her--well if you aint honest, says she, but i
hadn't got cheak enough to stand that sort of talk, so i
left her in a hurry. When i got here i had $I and 25 cents
left d i didn't get no work for 3 days as i aint strong e-
nough for roust about on a steam bote (for a deck-hand)
--The afternoon of the 3d day I spent my last 10 cents for
2 moons (large, round seabiscuit) d cheese d I felt pretty
rough d was thinking i would have to go on the dipe (pick-
ing pockets) again, when i thought of what you once said
about a fellows calling on the Lord when he was in hard
luck d i thought i would try it once anyhow, but when i
tryed it i got stuck on the start, d dll i could get off
wos, Lord give a poor fellow a chance to square it for 3
months for Christ's sake, amen; d i kept a thinking it over
and over as i went along--about an hour after that I was
in 4th St. d this is what happened d this is the cause of
my being where i am now d about which i will tell you be-
fore i get done writing. As i was walking along i herd a
big noise & saw a horse running away with a carriage with
2 children in it, and i grabed up a peace of box cover from
the sidewalk d run in the middle of the street, & when the
horse came up i smashed him over the head as hard as i could
drive--the bord split to peces d the horse checked up a lit-
tle & I grabbed the reigns & pulled his head down until he
stopped--the gentleman what owned him came running up &
soon as he saw the children were all rite, he shook haruds
with me & gave me a $50 green back, & my asking the Lord
to help me come into my head, dt i was so thunderstruck i
couldn't drop the reigns nor say nothing--he saw something
was up, & coming back to me said, my boy are you hurt? &
the thought come into my head just then to ask him for
work; & i asked him to take back the bill and give me a job
--says he, jump in here lets talk about it, but keep the
money--he asked me if i could take care of horses di i said
yes, for i used to hang round livery stables & often would
help clean & drive horses, he told me he wanted a man for
that work, & would give me $16. a month & bord me. You
bet I took that chance at once, that nite in my little room
over the stable i sat a long time thinking over my past life
dc. of what had just happened & i just got down on my nees
& thanked the Lord for the job & to help me to square it, dt
to bless you for putting me up to it, & the next morning i
done it again & got me some new togs (clothes) & a bible for
i made up my mind after what the Lord had done for me i
would read the bible every nite and morning, & ask him to
keep an eye on me. When I had been there about a week Mr.
Brown (that's his name) came in my room one nite & saw
me reading the bible--he asked me if i was a Christian & i
told him no--he asked me how it was i read the bible instead
of papers & books--Well Charlie i thought i had better give
him a square deal in the start, so i told him all about my
being in prison di about you, & how i had almost done give
up looking for work & how the Lord got me the job when i
asked him; & the only way i had to pay him back was to read
the bible & square it, & i asked him to give me a chance
for 3 months--he talked to me like a father for a long time,
dc told me i could stay & then i felt better than ever i had
done in my life, for i had given Mr. Brown a fair start with
me & now i didn't fear no one giving me a back cap (exposing
his past life) & running me off the job--the next morn-
ing he called me into the library & gave me another square
talk, & advised me to study some every day, & he would
help me one or 2 hours every nite, dc. he gave me a Arith
metic, a spelling book, a Geography dt and a writing book,
dc he hers me every nite--he lets me come into the house to
prayers every morning, & got me put in a bible class in the
Sunday School which i likes very much for it helps me to
understand my bible better.

Now, Charlie the 3 months on the square are up 2 months
ago, & as you said, it is the best job i ever did in my life.
& i commenced another of the same sort right away, only it
is to God helping me to last a lifetime Charlie--i wrote
this letter to tell you i do think God has forgiven my sins &
herd your prayers, for you told me you should pray for me~
i no i love to read his word & tell him all my troubles & he
helps me i know for i have plenty of chances to steal but i
don't feel to as i once did & now i take more pleasure in
going to church than to the theatre & that wasn't so once--
our ministers and others often talk with me & a month ago
they wanted me to join the church, but i said no, not now, i
may be mistaken in my feelings, i will wait awhile, but now i
feel that God has called me & on the first Sunday in July
i will join the church--dear friend i wish i could write to
you as I feel, but i cant do it yet--you no i learned to read
and write while in prisons & i aint got well enough along to
write as i would talk; i no i aint spelled all the words rite
in this lots of other mistakes but you will excuse it i no,
for you no i was brought up in a poor house until i run away,
& that i never new who my father and mother was i don't no
my rite name, Sc i hope you wont be mad at me, but i have
as much rite to one name as another Sc i have taken your
name, for you wont use it when you get out i no, cfe you
are the man i think most of in the world; so i hope you
wont be mad--I am doing well, i put $10 a month in bank
with $25 of the $50--if you ever want any or all of it let
me know, & it is yours, i wish you would let me send you some
now. I send you with this a receipt for a year of Littles
Living Age, i didn't no what you would like & i told Mr.
Brown he said he thought you would like it-- i wish i was
nere you so i could send you chuck (refreshments) on holi-
days; it would spoil this weather from here, but i will send
you a box next thanksgiving any way--next week Mr. Brown
takes me into his store as lite porter Sc will advance me as
soon as i know a little more--he keeps a big granary store,
wholesale--i forgot to tell you of my mission school, Sunday
school class--the school is in the Sunday afternoon, i went
out two Sunday afternoons, and picked up seven kids (little
boys) Sl got them to come in. Two of them new as much as
i did Sl i had them put in a class where they could learn
something, i don't no much myself, but as these kids cant
read i get on nicely with them, i make sure of them by going
after them every Sunday hour before school time, i also
got 4 girls to come, tell Mack and Harry about me, if they
will come out here when their time is up i will get them jobs
at once, i hope you will excuse this long letter di all mistakes,
i wish i could see you for i cant write as i would talk-- i
hope the warm weather is doing your lungs good-- i was afraid
when you was bleeding you would die--give my respects to
all the boys and tell them how i am doing--i am doing well
and every one here treats me as kind as they can--Mr. Brown
is going to write to you sometime--i hope some day you will
write to me, this letter is from your very true friend

C--W--

who you know as Jack Hunt'
I send you Mr. Brown's card. Send my letter to him.

Here was true eloquence; irresistible eloquence; and with-
out a single grace or ornament to help it out. I have seldom
been so deeply stirred by any piece of writing. The reader
of it halted, all the way through, on a lame and broken
voice; yet he had tried to fortify his feelings by several
private readings of the letter before venturing into company
with it. He was practising upon me to see if theife was any
hope of his being able to read the document to his prayer'
meeting with anything like a decent command over his feelings.
The result was not promising. However, he determined lo risk
it; and did. He got through tolerably well; but his audience
broke dovm early, and stayed in that condition to the end.

The fame of the letter spread through the town. A brother
minister came and borrowed the manuscript, put it bodily
into a sermon, preached the sermon to twelve hundred people
on a Sunday morning, and the letter drowned them in their
own tears. Then my friend put it into a sermon and went
before his Sunday morning congregation with it. It scored
another triumph. The house wept as one individual.

My friend went on summer vacation up into the fishing reg-
ions of our northern British neighbors, and carried this
sermon with him, since he might possibly chance to need a
sermon. He was asked to preach one day. The little church
was full. Among the people present were the late Dr. J. G.
Holland, the late Mr. Seymour of the New York Times, Mr.
Page, the philanthropist and temperance advocate, and, I
think, Senator Frye of Maine. The marvelous letter did its
wonted work; all the people were moved, all the people wept;
the tears flowed in a steady stream down Dr. Holland's
cheeks, and nearly the same can be said with regard to all
who were there. Mr. Page was so full of enthusiasm over the
letter that he said he would not rest until he made pilgri-
mage to that prison, and had speech with the man who had
been able to inspire a fellow-unfortunate to write so price-
less a tract.

Ah, that unlucky Page!--and another man. If they had only
been in Jericho, the letter would have rung through the
world and stirred all the hearts of all the nations for a
thousand years to come, and nobody might ever have found out
that it was the confoundedest, brazenest, ingeniousest piece
of fraud and humbuggery that was ever concocted to fool
poor confiding mortals with!

The letter was a pure swindle, and that is the truth. And
take it by and large, it was without a compeer among swind-
les. It was perfect, it was rounded, symmetrical, complete,
colossall

The reader learns it at this point; but we didn't learn it
till some miles and weeks beyond this stage of the affair.
My friend came back from the woods, and he and other clerg-
ymen and lay missionaries began once more to inundate audi-
ences with their tears and the tears of said audiences; I
begged hard for permission to print the letter in a magazine
and tell the watery story of its triumphs; numbers of people
got copies of the letter, with permission to circulate them
in writing, but not in print; copies were sent to the Sand-
wich Islands and other far regions.

Charles Dudley Warner was at church, one day, when the worn
letter was read and wept over. At the church door, afterward,
he dropped a peculiarly cold iceberg down the clergyman's
back with the question:

"Do you know that letter to be genuine?"

It was the first suspicion that had ever been voiced; but it
had that sickening effect which first-uttered suspicions a-
gainst one's idol always have. Some talk followed:

"Why--what should make you suspect that isn't genuine?"

"Nothing that I know of, except that it is too neat, and
compact, and fluent, and nicely put together for an ignorant
person, and unpractised hand. I think it was done by an educated
man."

The literary artist had detected the literary machinery. If
you will look at the letter now, you will detect it yourself
--it is observable in every line.

Straightway the clergyman went off with this seed of suspicion
sprouting in him, and wrote to a minister residing in that town
where Williams had been jailed and converted; asked for light;
and also asked if a person in the literary line (meaning me)
might be allowed to print the letter and tell its history. He
presently received this answer:

Rev--,
My dear Friend: In regard to that "convict's letter" there
can be no doubt as to its genuineness. Williams," to whom
it written, lay in our jail and professed to have been con-
verted, and Rev. Mr. , the chaplain had great faith in the
genuineness of the change--as much as one can have in any
such case.

The letter was sent to one of our ladies, who is a Sunday'
school teacher--sent either by Williams himself, or the chap
lain of the state's prison, probably. She has been greatly
annoyed in having so much publicity, lest it might seem a
breach of confidence, or be an injury to Williafns. In regard
to its publication, I can give no permission; though, if the
names and places were omitted, and expecially if sent out of
the country, I think you might take the responsibility arid
do it.

It is a wonderful letter, which no Christian genius, much
Jess one unsanctified, could ever have written. As showing
the work of grace in a human heart, and in a very degraded
and wicked one, it proves its own origin and reproves our
weak faith in its power to cope with any form of wicked-
ness,.

"Mr. Brown" of St. Louis, some one said, was a Hartford
man. Do all whom you send from Hartford serve their Master
as well?

P. S.--Williams is still in the state's prison, serving out
a long sentence--of nine years, I think. He has been sick and
threatened with consumption, but I have not inquired after
him lately. This lady that I speak of corresponds with him,
I presume, and will be quite sure to look after him.

This letter arrived a few days after it was written--and
up went Mr, Williams's stock again. Mr. Warner's low-down
suspicion was laid in the cold, cold grave, where it appar-
ently belonged. It was a suspicion based upon mere internal
evidence, anyway; and when you come to internal evidence,
it's a big field and a game that two can play at: as witness
this other internal evidence, discovered by the writer of the
note above quoted, that ‘It is a wonderful letter--which no
Christian genius, much less one unsanctified, could ever have
written."

I had permission now to print--provided I suppressed names
and places and sent my narrative out of the country. So I
chose an Australian magazine for vehicle, as being far e-
nough out of the country, and set myself to work on my art-
icle. And the ministers set the pumps going again, with the
letter to work the handles.

But meantime Brother Page had been agitating. He had not
visited the penitentiary, but he had sent a copy of the il-
lustrious letter to the chaplain of that institution, and
accompanied it with--apparently--inquiries. He got an answer,
dated four days later than that other brother's reassuring
epistle; and before my article was complete, it wandered
into my hands. The original is before me now, and I here
append it. It is pretty well loaded with internal evidence
of the most solid description:

State's Prison, Chaplain's Office, July 11, 1873

Dear Bro, Page:

Herewith please find the letter kindly loaned me. I am a-
fraid its genuineness cannot be established. It purports to be
addressed to some prisoner here. No such letter ever came to
a prisoner here. All letters received are carefully read by
officers of the prison before they go into the hands of the
convicts, and any such letter could not be forgotten. Again,
Charles Williams is not a Christian man, but a dissolute,
cunning prodigal, whose father is a minister of the gospel.
His name is an assumed one, I am glad to have made your ac-
quaintance. I am preparing a lecture upon life seen through
prison bars, and should like to deliver the same in your
vicinity.

And so ended that little drama. My poor article went into
the fire; for whereas the materials for it were now more ab-
undant and infinitely richer than they had previously been,
there were parties all around me who, although longing for
the publication before, were a unit for suppression at this
stage and complexion of the game. They said, "Wait--the wound
is too fresh, yet." All the copies of the famous letter, ex-
cept mine, disappeared suddenly; and from that time onward,
the aforetime same old drought set in, in the churches. As
a rule, the town was on a spacious grin for a while, but
there were places in it where the grin did not appear, and
where it was dangerous to refer to the ex-convict's letter.

A word of explanation: "Jack Hunt," the professed writer
of the letter, was an imaginary person. The burglar Williams
Harvard graduate, son of a minister--wrote the letter himself,
to himself: got it smuggled out of the prison; got it convey-
ed to persons who had supported and encouraged him in his
conversion--where he knew two things would happen: the genu-
ineness of the letter would not be doubted or inquired into;
and the nub of it would be noticed, and would have valuable
effect--the effect, indeed, of starting a movement to get
Mr. Williams pardoned out of prison.

That "nub" is so ingeniously, so casually, flung in, and
immediately left there in the tail of the letter, undwelt
upon, that an indifferent reader would never suspect that
it was the heart and core of the epistle, if he even took
note of it at ail. This is the "nub":

i hope the warm weather is doing your lungs good--i was
afraid when you was bleeding you would die--give my re
spects, etc.

That is all there is of it--simply touch and go--no dwelling
upon it. Nevertheless it was intended for an eye that would
he swift to see it; and it was meant to move a kind heart to
try to effect the liberation of a poor reformed and purified
fellow lying in the fell grip of consumption.

When I for the first time heard that letter read, nine years
ago, I felt that it was the most remarkable one I had ever
encountered. And it so warmed me toward Mr. Brown of St Louis
that I said that if ever I visited that city again, I would
seek out that excellent man and kiss the hem of his garment,
if it was a new one. Well, I visited St. Louis, but I did not
hunt for Mr. Brown; for alas! the investigations of long ago
had proved that the benevolent Brown, like "Jack Hunt," was
not a real person, but a sheer invention of that gifted rascal,
Williams--burglar, Harvard graduate, son of a clergyman.

From LIFE ON the Mississippi, 1883



A Dying Man's Confession



We were approaching Napoleon, Arkansas. So I began to think
about my errand there. Time, noonday; and bright and sunny.
This was bad--not best, anyway; for mine was not (preferably)
a noonday kind of errand. The more I thought, the more that
fact pushed itself upon me--now in one form, now in another.
Finally, it took the form of a distinct question: Is it good
common sense to do the errand in daytime, when by a little
sacrifice of comfort and inclination you can have night for
it, and no inquisitive eyes around? This settled it. Plain
question and plain answer make the shortest road out of most
perplexities.

I got my friends into my stateroom, and said I was sorry to
create annoyance and disappointment, but that upon reflec-
tion it really seemed best that we put our luggage ashore
and stop over at Napoleon. Their disapproval was prompt and
loud; tbdr language mutinous. Thdr mmn argument was one which
has always been the first to come to the surface, in such
cases, since the beginning of time: "But you decided and a-
greed to stick to this boat," etc.; as if, having determined
to do an unwise thing, one is thereby bound to go ahead and
make two unwise things of it, by canymg out that determina-
tion. I tried various mollifying tactics upon them, with
reasonably good success: under which encouragement I in-
creased my efforts; and, to show them that I had not created
t annoying errand, and was in no way to blame for it, I pres-
ently drifted into its history--substantially as follows:

Toward the end of last year I spent a few months in Munich,
Bavaria. In November I was living in Fraulein Dahlweiner's
pension, la, Karlsrasse; but my working quarters were a
mile from there, in the bouse of a widow who supported
herself by taking lodgers. She and her two young children
used to drop in every morning and talk German to me--by
request. One day, during a ramble about the city, I visi-
ted one of the two establishments where the government
keeps and watches corpses until the doctors decide that
they are permanently dead, and not in a trance state. It
was a grisly place, that spacious room. There were thirty-
six corpses of adults in sight, stretched on their backs
on slightly slanted boards, in three long rows--all of
them with waxwhite, rigid faces, and all of them wrapped
in white shrouds. Along the sides of the room were deep
alcoves, like baywindows; and in each of these lay seve-
ral marble-visaged babes, utterly hidden and buried under
banks of fresh flowers, all but their faces and crossed
hands. Around a finger of each of these fifty still forms,
both great and small, was a ring; and from the ring a wire
led to the ceiling, and thence to a bell in a watch-room
yonder, where, day and night, a watchman sits always alert
and ready to spring to the aid of any of that pallid comp-
any who, waking out of death, shall make a movement--for
any, even the slightest, movement will twitch the wire and
ring that fearful bell. I imagined myself a death-sentinel
drowsing there alone, far in the dragging watches of some
wailing, gusty night, and having in a twinkling all my body
stricken to quivering jelly by the sudden clamor of that
awful summons! I inquired about this thing; asked what
resulted usually? if the watchman died, and the restored
corpse came and did what it could to make his last moments
easy? But I was rebuked for trying to feed an idle and fri-
volous curiosity in so solemn and so mournful a place; and
went my way with a humbled crest

Next morning I was telling the widow my adventure when
she exclaimed:

"Come with me! I have a lodger who shall tell you all you
want to know. He has been a night watchman there."

He was a living man, but he did not look it. He was abed
and had his head propped high on pillows; his face was
wasted and colorless, his deep-sunken eyes were shut; his
hand, lying on his breast, was talon-like, it was so bony
and long-fingered. The widow began her introduction of me.
The man's eyes opened slowly, and glittered wickedly out
from the twilight of their caverns; he frowned a black
frown; he lifted his lean hand and waved us peremptorily
away. But the widow kept straight on, till she had got out
the fact that I was a stranger and an American. The man's
face changed at once, brightened, became even eager--and
the next moment he and I were alone together.

I opened up in cast-iron German; he responded in quite
flexible English; thereafter we gave the German language a
permanent rest.

This consumptive and I became good friends. I visited
him every day, and we talked about everything. At least,
about everything but wives and children. Let anybody's wife
or anybody's child be mentioned and three things always
followed: the most gracious and loving and tender light
glimmered in the man's eyes for a moment; faded out the
next, and in its place came that deadly look which had
flamed there the first time I ever saw his lids unclose;
thirdly, he ceased from speech there and then for that
day, lay silent, abstracted, and absorbed, apparently
heard nothing that I said, took no notice of my good-bys,
and plainly did not know by either sight or hearing when
I left the room.

When I had been this Karl Ritter's daily and sole intimate
during two months, he one day said abruptly:

w"I ill tell you my story."

Then he went on as follows:

I have never given up until now. But now I have given up.
I am going to die. I made up my mind last night that it must
be, and very soon, too. You say you are going to revisit your
river by and by, when you find opportunity. Very well; that,
together with a certain strange experience which fell to my
lot last night, determines me to tell you my history--for you
will see Napoleon, Arkansas, and for my sake you will stop
there and do a certain thing for me--a thing which you will
willingly undertake after you shall have heard my narrative.

Let us shorten the story wherever we can, for it will need
it, being long. You already know how I came to go to Amer-
ica, and how I came to settle in that lonely region in
the South. But you do not know that I had a wife. My wife
was young, beautiful, loving, and oh, so divinely good and
blameless and gentle! And our little girl was her mother in
miniature. It was the happiest of happy househdds.

One night--it was toward the close of the war--I woke up
out of a sodden lethargy, and found myself bound and
gagged, and the air tainted with chloroform! I saw two men
in the room, and one was saying to the other in a hoarse
whisper; 'I told her I would, if she made a noise, and as
for the child--"

The other man interrupted in a low, half-crying voice:

"You said we'd only gag them and rob them, not hurt
them, or I wouldn't have come."

"Shut up your whining; had to change the plan when they
waked up. You done all you could to protect them, now let
that satisfy you. Come, help rummage."

Both men were masked and wore coarse, ragged "nigger"
clothes; they had a bull's-eye lantern, and by its light I
noticed that the gentler robber had no thumb on his right
hand. They rummaged around my poor cabin for a moment;
the head bandit then said in his stage whisper:

"It's a waste of time--he shall tell where it's hid. Undo
his gag and revive him up."

The other said:

"All right--provided no clubbing."

"No clubbing it is, then--provided he keeps still."

They approached me. Just then there was a sound outside,
a sound of voices and trampling hoofs; the robbers held
their breath and listened; the sounds came slowly nearer
and nearer, then came a shout;

"Hello, the house! Show a light, we want water."

"The captain's voice, by G !" said the stage-whispering
ruffian, and both robbers fled by the way of the back
door, shutting off their bull's-eye as they ran.

The stranger shouted several times more then rode by
--there seemed to be a dozen of the horses--and I heard
nothing more.

I struggled, but could not free myself from my bonds. I
tried to speak, but the gag was effective, I could not make
a sound. I listened for my wife's voice and my child's--
listened long and intently, but no sound came from the other
end of the room where their bed was. This silence became
more and more awful, more and more ominous, every moment.
Could you have endured an hour of it, do you think? Pity
me, then, who had to endure three. Three hours? it was
three ages! Whenever the clock struck it seemed as if years
had gone by since I had heard it last. All this time I was
struggling in my bonds, and at last, about dawn, I got myA
self free and rose up and stretched my stiff limbs. I was
able to distinguish details pretty well. The floor was lit-
tered with things thrown there by the robbers during their
search for my savings. The first object that caught my par-
ticular attention was a document of mine which I had seen
the rougher of the two ruffians glance at and then cast a-
way. It had blood on it! I staggered to the other end of
the room. Oh, poor unoffending, helpless ones, there they
lay; their troubles ended, mine begun!

Did I appeal to the law--I? Does it quench the pauper's
thirst if the king drink for him? Oh, no, no, no! I wanted
no impertinent interference of the law. Laws and the gallows
could not pay the debt that was owing to me! Let the laws
leave the latter in my hands, and have no fears: I would find
the debtor and collect the debt. How accomplish this, do you
say? How accomplish it and feel so sure about it, when I had
neither seen the robbers' faces, nor heard their natural
voices, nor had any idea who they might be? Nevertheless, I
was sure--quite sure, quite confident. I had a clue--a clue
which you would not have valued--a clue which would not have
greatly helped even a detective, since he would lack the se-
cret of how to apply it. I shall come to that presently--you
shall see. Let us go on now, taking things in their due order.
There was one circumstance which gave me a slant in a definite
direction to begin with: Those two robbers were manifestly
soldiers in tramp disguise, and not new to military service,
but old in it--regulars, perhaps; they did not acquire their
soldierly attitude, gestures, carriage, in a day, nor a month,
nor yet in a year. So I thought, but said nothing. And one of
them had said, "The captain's voice, by G--!" --the one whose
life I would have. Two miles away several regiments were in
camp, and two companies of U. S. cavalry. When I learned that
Captain Blakely of Company C had passed our way that night
with an escort I said nothing, but in that company I resolved
to seek my man. In conversation I studiously and persistently
described the robbers as tramps, camp followers; and among
this class the people made useless search, none suspecting
the soldiers but me.

Working patiently by night in my desolated home, I made
a disguise for myself out of various odds and ends of clo-
thing; in the nearest village I bought a pair of blue gog-
gles. By and by, when the military camp broke up, and Company
C was ordered a hundred miles north, to Napoleon, I secreted
my small hoard of money in my belt and took my departure in
the night. When Company C arrived in Napoleon I was already
there. Yes, I was there, with a new trade--fortune-teller.
Not to seem partial, I made friends and told fortunes among
aU the companies garrisoned there, but I gave Company C the
great bulk of my attentions. I made myself limitlessly ob-
liging to these particular men; they could ask me no favor,
put on me no risk which I would decline. I became the will-
ing butt of their jokes; this perfected my popularity; I
became a favorite.

I early found a private who lacked a thumb--what joy it
was to me! And when I found that he alone, of all the com-
pany, had lost a thumb, my last misgiving vanished; I was
sure I was on the right track. This man's name was Kruger,
a German. There were nine Germans in the company. I watched
to see who might be his intimates, but be seemed to have no
especial intimates. But I was his intimate, and I took care
to make the intimacy grow. Sometimes I so hungered for my re-
venge that I could hardly restrain myself from going on my
knees and begging him to point out the man who had murdered
my wife and child, but I managed to bridle my tongue. I bid-
ed my time and went on telling fortunes, as opportunity
offered.

My apparatus was simple: a little red paint and a bit of
white paper. I painted the ball of the client's thumb, took a
print of it on the paper, studied it that night, and revealed
his fortune to him next day. What was my idea in this nonsense?
It was this: When I was a youth, I knew an old Frenchman who
had been a prison-keeper for thirty years, and he told me that
there was one thing about a person which never changed, from
the cradle to the grave--the lines in the ball of the thumb;
and he said that these lines were never exactly alike in the
thumbs of any two human beings. In these days, we photograph
the new criminal, and hang his picture in the Roses' Gallery
for future reference; but that Frenchman, in his day, used
to take a print of the ball of a new prisoner's thumb and put
that away for future reference. He always said that pictures
were no good--future disguises could made them useless. "The
thumb's the only sure thing," said he; "you can't disguise
that." And he used to prove his theory, too, on my friends
and acquaintances; it always succeeded..

I went on telling fortunes. Every night I shut myself in, all
alone, and studied the day's thumb-prints with a magnifying-
glass. Imagine the devouring eagerness with which I pour over
those mazy red spirals, with that document by my side which
bore the right-hand thumb and finger-marks of that unknown
murderer, printed with the dearest blood--to me--that was
ever shed on this earth! And many and many a time I had to
repeat the same old disappointed remark, "Will they never
correspond!"

But my reward came at last. It was the print of the thumb
of the forty-third man of Company C whom I had experimented
on--Private Franz Adler. An hour before I did not know the
murderer's name, or voice, or figure, or face, or nationality;
but now I knew all these thingsl I believed I might feel
sure; the Frenchman's repeated demonstrations being so go
a warranty. Still, there was a way to make sure. I had an
impression of Kruger's left thumb. In the morning I took
him aside when he was off duty; and when we were out of
sight and hearing of witnesses, I said impressively:

"A part of your fortune is so grave that I thought it would
be better for you if I did not tell it in public. You and
another man, whose fortune I was studying last night--Private
Adler--have been murdering a woman and childl You are being
dogged. Within five days both of you will be assassinated."

He dropped on his knees, frightened out of his wits; and
for five minutes he kept pouring out the same set of words,
like a demented person, and in the same half-crying way
which was one of my memories of that murderous night in
my cabin:

"I didn't do it; upon my soul I didn't do it; and I tried to
keep him from doing it, I did, as God is my witness. He did
it alone."

This was all I wanted. And I tried to get rid of the fool;
but no, he clung to me, imploring me to save him from the
assassin. He said:

"I have money--ten thousand dollars--hid away, the fruit
of loot and thievery; save me--tell me what to do, and you
shall have it, every penny. Two-thirds of it is my cousin
Adler's; but you can take it all. We hid it when we first
came here. But I hid it in a new place yesterday, and have not
told him--shall not tell him. I was going to desert, and get
away with it all. It is gold, and too heavy to carry when one
is running and dodging; but a woman who has been gone
over the river two days to prepare my way for me is going
to follow me with it; and if I got no chance to describe the
hiding-place to her I was going to slip my silver watch into
her hand, or send it to her, and she would understand.
There's a piece of paper in the back of the case which tells
it all. Here, take the watch--tell me what to do!"

He was trying to press his watch upon me, and was exposing
the paper and explaining it to me, when Adler appeared
on the scene, about a dozen yards away. I said to
poor Kruger:

"Put up your watch, I don't want it. You sha'n't come to
any harm. Go, now, I must tell Adler his fortune. Presently
I win ten you how to escape the assassin; meantime I shall
have to examine your thumbmark again. &y nothing to Ad>
ler about this thing--say nothing to anybody."

He went away filled with frit and gratitude, poor devill
I told Adler a long fortune--purposely so long that I could
not finish it; promised to come to him on guard, that night,
and tell him the really important part of it--the tragical
part of it, I said--so must out of reach of eavesdroppers.
They always kept a picket-watch outside the town--mere
discipline and ceremony--no occasion for it, no enemy
around.

Toward midnight I set out, equipped with the countersign,
and picked my way toward the lonely region where Adler
was to keep his watch. It was so dark that I stumbled right
on a dim figure almost before I could get out a protecting
word. The sentinel hailed and a I answered, both at the
same moment I added, "It's only me--the fortune-teller."
Then I slipped to the poor devil's side, and without a word
I drove my dirk into his heart! "Ja wohl," laughed I, "It was
the tragedy part of his fortune, indeed!" As he fell from
his horse he clutched at me, and my blue goggles remained
in his hand; and away plunged the beast dragging him with
his foot in the stirrup.

I fled through the woods and made good my escape, leaving
the accusing goggles behind me in that dead man's hand.

This was fifteen or sixteen years ago. Since then I have
wandered aimlessly about the earth, smnetimes at work,
sometimes idle; sometimes with money, sometimes with
none; but always tired of life, and wishing it was done, for
my mission here was finished with the act of that night; and
the only pleasure, solace, satisfaction I had, in all those
tedious years, was in the daily reflection, "I have killed him!"

Four years ago my health began to fail. I had wandered
into Munich, in my purposeless way. Being out of money 1
sought work, and got it; did my du faithfully about a year,
and was then given the berth of night watchman yonder in
that dead-house which you visited lately. The place suited
my mood. I liked it I liked being with the dead--liked
being alone with them. I used to wander among those rigid
corpses, and peer into their austere faces, by the hour. The
later the time, the more impressive it was; I preferred the
late time. Sometimes I turned the lights low; this gave per-
spective, you see; and the imagination could play; always,
the dim, reccing ranks of the dead inspired one with weird
and fascinating fancies. Two years ago--I had been there a
year then--I was sitting all alone in the watch-room, one
gusty winter's night, chilled, numb, comfortless; drowsing
gradually into unconsciousness; the sobbing of the wind and
the slamming of distant shutters falling fainter and fainter
upon my dulling ear each moment, when sharp and suddenly
that dead-bell rang out a blood-curdling alarum over my head!
The shock of it nearly paralyzed me; for it was the first
time I had ever heard it.

I gathered myself together and flew to the corpse-room.
About midway down the outside rank, a shrouded figure
was sitting uprit, wagging its head slowly from one side to
the other--a grisly spectacle! Its side was toward me. I
hurried to it and peered into its face. Heavens, it was
Adler!

Can you divine what my first thought was? Put into words,
it was this: "It seems, then, you escaped me once: there will
be a different result this time!"

Evidently this creature was suffering unimaginable terrors.
Think what it must have been to wake up in the midst of
that voiceless hush, and look out over that grim congrega-
tion of the dead! What gratitude shone in his skinny white
face when he saw a living form before him! And how the fer-
vency of this mute gratitude was augmented when his eyes
fell upon the life-giving cordials which I carried in my
hands! Then imagine the horror which came into his pinched
face when I put the cordials behind me, and said mockingly:

"Speak up, Franz Adler--call upon these dead! Doubtless
they will listen and have pity; but here there is none else
that will."

He tried to speak, but that part of the shroud which bound
his jaws held firm, and would not let him. He tried to lift
imploring hands, but they were crossed upon his breast and
tied. I said:

"Shout, Franz Adler; make the sleepers in the distant
streets hear you and bring help. Shout--and lose no time,
for there is little to lose. What, you cannot? That is a
pity; but it is no matter--it does not always bring help.
When you and your cousin murdered a helpless woman and
child In a cabin in Arkansas--my wife, it was, and my
child!--they shrieked for help, you remember; but it did
no good; you remember that it did no good, is it not so?
Your teeth chatter--then why cannot you shout? Loosen the
bandages with your hands--then you can. Ah, I see--your
hands are tied, they cannot aid yoll How strangely things
repeat themselves, after long years; for my hands were
tied, that night, you remember? Yes, tied much as yours
are now--how odd that is! I could not pull free. It did
not occur to you to untie me; it does not occur to me to
untie yoll 'Sh--! there's a late footstep. It is coming
this way. Hark, how near it is! One can count the foot-
falls--one--two--three. There--it is just outside. Now
is the time! Shout, man, shout! it is the one sole chance
between you and etcmityl Ah, you see you have delayed too
long--it is gone by. There--it is dying out. It is gone!
Think of it--reflect upon it--you have heard a human foot-
step for the last time. How curious it must be, to listen
to so common a sound as that and know that one will never
hear the fellow to it again."


Oh, my friend, the agony in that shrouded face was ecstasy
to see! I thought of a new torture, and applied it--assist-
ing myself with a trifle of lying invention:

"That poor Kruger tried to save my wife and child, and I
did him a grateful good turn for it when the time came. I
persuaded him to rob you; and I and a woman helped him to
desert, and got him away in safety."

A look as of surprise and triumph shone out dimly through
the anguish in my victim's face. I was disturbed, disquieted.
I said:

"What, then--didn't he escape?"

A negative shake of the head.

"No? What happened, then?"

The satisfaction in the shrouded face was still plainer.
The man tried to mumble out some words--could not suc-
ceed; tried to express something with his obstructed hands
--failed; paused a moment, then feebly tilted his head,
in a meaning way, toward the corpse that lay nearest him.

"Dead?" I asked. "Failed to escape? Caught in the act and
shot?"

Negative shake of the head.

"How, then?"

Again the man tried to do something with his hands. I
watched closely, but could not guess the intent. I bent
over and watched still more intently. He had twisted a
thumb around and was weakly punching at his breast with
it.

"Ah--stabbed, do you mean?"

Affirmative nod, accompanied by a spectral smile of such
devilishness that it struck an awakening light through
my dull brain, and I cried:

"Did I stab him, mistaking him for you? for that stroke
was meant for none but yol!"

The affirmative nod of the re-dying rascal was as joyous as
his failing strength was able to put into its expression.
"Oh, miserable, miserable me, to slaughter the pitying soul
that stood a friend to my darlings when they were helpless,
and would have saved them if he could! miserable, oh, miser-
able, miserable me!"

I fancied I heard the muffled gurgle of a mocking laugh. I
took my face out of my hands, and saw my enemy sinking
back upon his inclined board.

He was a satisfactory long time dying. He had a wonderful
vitality, an astonishing constitution. Yes, he was a pleasant
long time at it. I got a chair and a newspaper, and sat
down by him and read. Occasionally I took a sip of brandy.
This was necessary, on account of the cold. But I did it partly
because Tsaw that, along at first, whenever I reached for the
bottle, he thought I was going to give him some. I read
aloud: mainly imaginary accounts of people snatched from
the grave's threshold and restored to life and vigor by a few
spoonfuls of liquor and a warm bath. Yes, he had a long,
hard death of it--three hours and six minutes, from the time
he rang his bell.

It is believed that in all these eighteen years that have
elapsed since the institution of the corpse-watch, no shrouded
occupant of the Bavarian dead-houses has ever rung its bell.
Well, it is a harmless belief. Let it stand at that.

The chill of that death-room had penetrated my bones. It re-
vived and fastened upon me the disease which had bwn rfflict-
ing me, but which, up to that night, had been steadily disap-
pearing. That man murdered my wife and my child; and in three
days hence he will have added me to his list No matter--God!
how delicious the memory of it! I caught him escaping from
his grave, and thrust him back into it!

After that night I was confined to my bed for a week; but
as soon as I could get about I went to the dead-house books
and got the number of the house which Adler had died in. A
wretched lodging-house it was. It was my idea that he would
naturally have gotten hold of Kruger's effects, being his
cousin; and I wanted to get Kruger's watch, if I could. But
while I was sick, Alder's things had been sold and scattered,
all except a few old letters, and some odds and ends of no
value. However, through those letters I traced out a son of
Kruger's, the only relative he left He is a man of thirty, now,
a shoemaker by trade, and living at No. 14 KSnigstrasse,
Mannheim--widower, with several small children. Without
explaining to him why, I have furnished two-thirds of his
support ever since.

Now, as to that watch--see how strangely things happen!
I traced it around and about Germany for more than a year,
at considerable cost in money and vexation; and at last I got
it. Got it, and was unspeakably glad; opened it, and found
nothing in it! Why, I might have known that that bit of paper
was not going to stay there all this time. Of course I gave up
that ten thousand dollars then; gave it up, and dropped it out
of my mind; and most sorrowfully, for I had wanted it for
Kruger's son.

Last night, when I consented at last that I must die, I began
to make ready. I proceeded to burn all useless papers; and sure
enough, from a batch of Adler's, not previously examined with
thoroughness, out dropped that long-desired scrap! I recogniz-
ed it in a moment. Here it is--I will translate it:

Brick livery stable, stone foundation, middle of town, corner
of Orleans and Market, Corner toward Court-house, Third stone,
fourth row. Stick notice there, saying how many are to come.

There--take it, and preserve it! Kruger explained that that
stone was removable; and that it was in the north wall of
the foundation, fourth row from the top, and third stone
from the west. The money is secreted behind it. He said the
closing sentence was a blind, to mislead in case the paper
should fall into wrong hands. It probably performed that of-
fice for Adler.

Now I want to beg that when you make your intended jour-
ney down the river, you will hunt out that hidden money,
and send it to Adam Kniger, care of the Mannheim address
which I have mentioned. It will make a rich man of him, and
I shall sleep the sounder in my grave for knowing that I
have done what I could for the son of the man who tried to
save my wife and child--albeit my hand ignorantly struck
him down, whereas the impulse of my heart would have been
to shield and serve him.


"Such was Ritter's narrative," said I to my two friends.
There was a profound and impressive silence, which lasted
a considerable time; then both men broke into a fusillade of
excited and admiring ejaculations over the strange incidents
of the tale: and this, along with a rattling fire of questions,
was kept up until all hands were about out of breath. Then
my friends began to cool down, and draw off, under shelter
of occasional volleys, into silence and abysmal revery. For
ten minutes, now, there was stillness. Then Rogers said
dreamily:

"Ten thousand dollars!" Adding, after a considerable
pause:

"Ten thousand. It is a heap of money,"

Presently the poet inquired:

"Are you going to send it to him right away?"

"Yes I said. "It is a queer question."

No reply. After a little Rogers asked hesitatingly:

"All of it? That is--I mean--"

"Certainly, all of it."

I was going to say more, but stopped--was stopped by a
train of thought which started up in me. Thompson spoke,
but my mind was absent and I did not catch what he said.
But I heard Rogers answer:

"Yes, it seems so to me. It ought to be quite sufficient; for
I don't see that he has done anything."

Presently the poet said;

"When you come to look at it, it is more than sufficient. Just
look at it--five thousand dollars! Why, he couldn't spend it
in a lifetime! And it would injure him, too; perhaps ruin him
--you want to look at that. In a little while he would throw
his last away, shut up his shop, maybe take to drinking, mal-
treat his motherless children, drift into other evil courses,
go steadily from bad to worse--"

"Yes, that's it," interrupted Rogers fervently, "I've seen
it a hundred times--yes, more than a hundred. You put money
into the hands of a man like that, if you want to destroy
him, that's all. Just put money into his hands, it's all
you've got to do; and if it don't pull him down, and take
all the usefulness out of him, and all the self-respect and
everything, then I don't know human nature--ain't that so,
Thompson? And even if we were to give him a third of it;
why, in less than six months--"

"Less that six weeks, you'd better say!" said I, warming up
and breaking in. "Unless be had that three thousand dollars
in safe hands where he couldn't touch it, he would no more
last you six weeks than--
"
"Of course he wouldn't!" said Thompson. "I've edited books
for that kind of people; and the moment they get their
hands on the royalty--maybe it's three thousand, maybe it's
two thousand--
"
"What business has that shoemaker with two thousand dollars,
I should like to know?" broke in Rogers earnestly. "A man
perhaps perfectly contented now, there in Mannheim, sur-
rounded by his own class, eating his bread with the appetite
which laborious industry alone can give, enjoying his humble
life, honest, upright, pure in heart, and blest!--yes, I say
blest! above all the myriads that go in silk attire and
walk the empty, artificial round of social folly--but just
you put that temptation before him once! just you lay fif-
teen hundred dollars before a man like that, and say--
"
"Fifteen hundred devils!" cried I. "Five hundred would rot
his principles, paralyze his industry, drag him to the rum-
shop thence to the gutter, thence to the almshouse, thence
to--"

"Why put upon ourselves this crime, gentlemen?" inter-
rupted the poet earnestly and appealingly. "He is happy
where he is, and as he is. Every sentiment of honor, every
sentiment of charity, every sentiment of high and sacred
benevolence warns us, beseeches us, commands us to leave
him undisturbed. That is real friendship, that is true friend-
ship. We could follow other courses that would be more showy;
but none that would be so truly kind and wise, depend upon
it."

After some further talk, it became evident that each of us,
down in his heart, felt some misgivings over this settlement
of the matter. It was manifest that we all felt that we ought
to send the poor shoemaker something. There was long and
thoughtful discussion of this point, and we finally decided
to send him a chromo.

Well, now that everything seemed to be arranged satisfacto-
rily to everybody concerned, a new trouble broke out: it
transpired that these two men were expecting to share equally
in the money with me. That was not my idea. I said that if
they got half of it between them they might consider them-
selves lucky. Rogers said:

"Who would have had any luck if it hadn't been for me? I
flung out the first hint--but for that it would all have
gone to the shoemaker."

Thompson said that he was thinking of the thing himself at
the very moment that Rogers had originally spoken.

I retorted that the idea would have occurred to me plenty
soon enough, and without anybody's help. I was slow about
thinking, maybe, but I was sure.

This matter warmed up into a quarrel; then into a fight; and
each man got pretty badly battered. As soon as I got myself
mended up after a fashion, I ascended to the hurricanedeck
in a pretty sour humor. I found Captain McCord there,
and said, as pleasantly as my humor would permit:

"I have come to say good-by, captain. I wish to go ashore
at Napoleon."

"Go ashore where?"

"Napoleon."

The captain laughed; but seeing that I was not in a jovial
mood, stopped that and said:

"But are you serious?"

"Serious? I certainly am."

The captain glanced up at the pilot-house and said:

"He wants to get off at Napoleon!"

"Napoleon?"

"That's What he says."

"Great Caesar's ghost!"

Uncle Mumford approached along the deck. The captain said:
"Uncle, here's a friend of yours wants to get off at Napol-
eon!"

"Well by--!"

I said:

"Come, what is all this about? Can't a man go ashore at
Napoleon, if he wants to?"

"Why, hang it, don't you know? There isn't any Napoleon any
more. Hasn't been for years and years. The Arkansas River
burst through it, tore it all to rags, and emptied it into
the Mississippi!"

"Carried the whole town away? Banks, churches, jails, news-
paper offices, court-house, theater, fire department, livery
stable--everything?"

"Everything! Just a fifteen-minute job, or such a matter.
Didn't leave hide nor hair, shred nor shingle of it, except
the fag-end of a shanty and one brick chimney. This boat is
paddling along right now where the dead-center of that town
used to be; yonder is the brick chimney--all that's left of
Napoleon. These dense woods on the right used to be a mile
back of the town. Take a look behind you--up-stream--now
you begin to recognize this country, don't you?"

"Yes, I do recognize it now. It is the most wonderful thing
I ever heard of; by a long shot the most wonderful--and un-
expected."

Mr. Thompson and Mr. Rogers had arrived, meantime, with
satchels and umbrellas, and had silently listened to the
captain's news. Thompson put a half-dollar in my hand and
said softly:

"For my share of the chromo."

Rogers followed suit.

Yes, it was an astonishing thing to see the Mississippi
rolling between unpeopled shores and straight over the spot
where I used to see a good big self-complacent town twenty
years ago. Town that was county-seat of a great and impor-
tant county; town with a big United States marine hospital;
town of innumerable fights--an inquest every day; town
where I had used to know the prettiest girl, and the most
accomplished, in the whole Mississippi valley; town where
we were handed the first printed news of the Pennsylvanians
mournful diaster a quarter of a century ago; a town no more
--swallowed up, vanished, gone to feed the fishes; nothing
left but a fragment of a shanty and a crumbling brick
chimney!

From LIFE ON THE MISSISSIPPI, 1883



The Professor's Yarn



It was in the early days. I was not a college professor then.
I was a humble-minded young land-surveyor, with the world
before me--to survey, in case anybody wanted it done.
I had a contract to survey a route for a great mining ditch in
California, and I was on my way thither, by sea--a three or
four weeks' voyage. There were a good many passengers,
but I had very little to say to them; reading and dreaming
were my passions, and I avoided conversation in order to in-
dulge these appetites. There were three professional gamblers
on board--rough, repulsive fellows. I never had any talk
with them, yet I could not help seeing them with some fre-
quency, for they gambled in an upper-deck stateroom every
day and night, and in my promenades I often had glimpses
of them through their door, which stood a little ajar to let
out the surplus tobacco-smoke and profanity. They were an
evil and hateful presence, but I had to put up with it, of
course.

There was one other passenger who fell under my eye a
good deal, for he seemed determined to be friendly with me,
and I could not have gotten rid of him without running
some chance of hurting his feelings, and I was far from wishing
to do that. Besides, there was something engaging in his
countrified simplicity and his beaming good nature. The first
time I saw this Mr. John Backus, I guessed, from his clothes
and his looks, that he was a grazier or farmer from the back-
woods of some Western state--doubtless Ohio--and afterward,
when he dropped into his personal history, and I discovered
that he was a cattle-raiser from interior Ohio, I was so
pleased with my own penetration that I warmed toward him
for verifying my instinct.

He got to dropping alongside me every day, after breakfast,
to help me make my promenade; and so, in the course of
time, his easy-working jaw had told me everything about his
business, his prospects, his family, his relatives, his pol-
itics --in fact, everything that concerned Backus, living
or dead. And meantime I think he had managed to get out of
me everything I knew about my trade, my tribe, my purposes,
my prospects, and myself. He was a gentle and persuasive
genius, and this thing showed it; for I was not given to
talking about my matters. I said something about triangulation,
once; the stately word pleased his ear; he inquired what it
meant; I explained. After that he quietly and inoffensively
ignored my name, and always called me Triangle.

What an enthusiast he was in cattle! At the bare name of a
bull or a cow, his eye would light and his eloquent tongue
would turn itself loose. As long as I would walk and listen,
he would walk and talk; he knew all breeds, he loved all
breeds, he caressed them all with his affectionate tongue.
I tramped along in voiceless misery while the cattle question
was up. When I could endure it no longer, I used to deftly
insert a scientific topic into the conversation; then my eye
fired and his faded; my tongue fluttered, his stopped; life
was a joy to me, and a sadness to him.

One day he said, a little hestiatingly, and with somewhat
of diffidence:

"Triangle, would you mind coming down to my stateroom
a minute and have a little talk on a certain matter?"

I went with him at once. Arrived there, he put his head
out, glanced up and down the saloon warily, then closed
the door and locked it. We sat down on the sofa and he said:

"I'm a-going to make a little proposition to you, and if it
strikes you favorable, it'll be a middling good thing for
both of us. You ain't a-going out to Califomy for fun, nuther
am I--it's business, ain't that so? Well, you can do me a good
turn, and so can I you, if we see fit. I've raked and scraped
and saved a considerable many years, and I've got it all here."
He unlocked an old hair trunk, tumbled a chaos of shabby
clothes aside, and drew a short, stout bag into view for a
moment, then buried it again and relocked the trunk. Dropping
his voice to a cautious, low tone, he continued: "She's
all there--a round ten thousand dollars in yellow-boys; now,
this is my little idea: What I don't know about raising cattle
ain't worth knowing. There's mints of money in it in Californy.
Well, I know, and you know, that all along a line that's being
surveyed, there's little dabs of land that they call ‘gores,'
that fall to the survey free gratis for nothing. All you've
got to do on your side is to survey in such a way that the
'gores' will fall on good fat land, then you turn 'em over
to me, I stock 'em with cattle, in rolls the cash, I plank
out your share of the dollars regular right along, and--
"
I was sorry to wither his blooming enthusiasm, but it could
not be helped. I interrupted and said severely;

"I am not that kind of a surveyor. Let us change the subject,
Mr. Backus."

It was pitiful to see his confusion and hear his awkward
and shame-faccd apologies. I was as much distressed as he
was--especially as he seemed so far from having suspected
that there was anything improper in his proposition. So I
hastened to console him and lead him on to forget his mishap
in a conversational orgy about cattle and butchery. We
were lying at Acapulco, and as we went on deck it happened
luckily that the crew were just beginning to hoist some beeves
aboard in slings. Backus's melancholy vanished instantly, and
with it the memory of his late mistake.

"Now, only look at that!" cried he. "My goodness. Triangle,
what would they say to it in Ohio? Wouldn't their eyes bug
out to see 'em handled like that?--wouldn't they, though?"

All the passengers were on deck to look--even the gamblers--
and Backus knew them all, and had afflicted them all with
his pet topic. As I moved away I saw one of the gamblers
approach and accost him; then another of them; then the
third. I halted, waited, watched; the conversation continued
between the four men; it grew earnest; Backus drew gradual-
ly away; the gamblers followed and kept at his elbow. I
was uncomfortable. However, as they passed me presently,
I beard Backus say with a tone of persecuted annoyance:

"But it ain't any use, gentlemen; I tell you again, as I've
told you a half a dozen times before, I warn't raised to it,
and I ain't a-going to resk it."

I felt relieved. "His level head will be his sufficient protec
tion," I said to myself.

During the fortnight's run from Acapulco to San Francisco
I several times saw the gamblers talking earnestly with
Backus, and once I threw out a gentle warning to him. He
chuckled comfortably and said:

"Oh, yes! they tag around after me considerable--want
me to play a little, just for amusement, they say--but lawsa-
me, if my folks have told me once to look out for that sort
of live stock, they've told me a thousand times, I reckon."

By and by, in due course, we were approaching San Fran-
cisco. It was an ugly, black night, with a strong wind blowing,
but there was not much sea. I was on deck alone. Toward
ten I started below. A figure issued from the gamblers'
den and disappeared in the darkness. I experienced a shock,
for I was sure it was Backus. I flew down the companionway,
looked about for him, could not find him, then returned to
the deck just in time to catch a glimpse of him as he re-
entered that confounded nest of rascality. Had he yielded at
last? I feared it. What had he gone below for? His bag of
coin? Possibly. I drew near the door, full of bodings. It was
a-crack, and I glanced in and saw a sight that made me bitterly
wish I had given my attention to saving my poor cattlefriend,
instead of reading and dreaming my foolish time away. He was
gambling. Worse still, he was being plied with champagne,
and was already showing some effect from it. He praised the
"cider," as he called it, and said now that he had got a
taste of it he almost believed he would drink it if it was
spirits, it was so good and so ahead of anything he had ever
run across before. Surreptitious smiles at this passed from
one rascal to another, and they filled all the glasses, and
while Backus honestly drained his to the bottom they pre-
tended to do the same, but threw the wine over their shoul-
ders.

I could not bear the scene, so I wandered forward and tried
to interest myself in the sea and the voices of the wind. But
no, my uneasy spirit kept dragging me back at quarter-hour
intervals, and always I saw Backus drinking his wine--fairly
and squarely, and the others throwing theirs away. It was
the painfulest night I ever spent.

The only hope I had was that we might reach our anchorage
with speed--that would break up the game. I helped the ship
along all I could with my prayers. At last we went booming
through the Golden Gate, and my pulses leaped for joy.

I hurried back to that door and glanced in. Alas! there was
small room for hope--Backus's eyes were heavy and bloodshot,
his sweaty face was crimson, his speech maudlin and thick,
his body sawed drunkenly about with the weaving motion
of the ship. He drained another glass to the dregs, while
the cards were being dealt.

He took his hand, glanced at it, and his dull eyes lit up
for a moment. The gamblers observed it, and showed their
gratification by hardly perceptible signs.

"How many cards?"

"None!" said Backus.

One villain--named Hank Wiley--discarded one card, the
others three each. The betting began. Heretofore the bets
had been trifling--a dollar or two; but Backus started off with
an eagle now, Wiley hesitated a moment, then "saw it," and
"went ten dollars better." The other two threw up their hands.
Backus went twenty better. Wiley said:

"I see that, and go you a hundred better!" then smiled
and reached for the money.

"Let it alone," said Backus, with drunken gravity.

"What! you mean to say you're going to cover it?"

"Cover it? Well, I reckon I am--and lay another hundred
on top of it, too."

He reached down inside his overcoat and produced the
required sum.

"Oh, that's your little game, is it? I see your raise, and
raise it five hundred!" said Wiley.

"Five hundred better!" said the foolish bull-driver, and
pulled out the amount and showered it on the pile. The
three conspirators hardly tried to conceal their exultation.
Ail diplomacy and pretense were dropped now, and the sharp
exclamations came thick and fast, and the yellow pyramid
grew higher and higher. At last ten thousand dollars lay
in view. Wiley cast a bag of coin on the table, and said
with mocking gentleness:

"Five thousand dollars better, my friend from the rural
districts--what do you say now?"

"I call you!" said Backus, heaving his golden shot-bag on
the pile. "What have you got?"

"Four kings, you d--d fool!" and Wiley threw down his
cards and surrounded the stakes with his arms.

"Four aces, you ass!" thundered Backus, covering his
man with a cocked revolver. "I am a professional gambler
myself, and I've been laying for you duffers all this voyage!"

Down went the anchor, rumbledy-dum-dum! and the trip
was ended.

Well, well--it is a sad world. One of the three gamblers
was Backus's "pal." It was he that dealt the fateful hands.
According to an understanding with the two victims, he was
to have given Backus four queens, but alas! he didn't.

A week later I stumbled upon Backus--arrayed in the
height of fashion--in Montgomery street. He said cheerily,
as we were parting:

"Ah, by the way, you needn't mind about those gores. I
don't really know anything about cattle, except what I was
able to pick up in a week's apprenticeship over in Jersey, just
before we sailed. My cattle culture and cattle enthusiasm
have served their turn--I sha'n't need them any more."

From LIFE ON THE MISSISSIPPI, 1883



A Ghost Story



I took a large room, far up Broadway, in a huge old build-
ing whose upper stories had been wholly unoccupied for years
until I came. The place had long been given up to dust and
cobwebs, to solitude and silence. I seemed groping among
the tombs and invading the privacy of the dead, that first
night I climbed up to my quarters. For the first time in my
life a superstitious dread came over me; and as I turned a
dark angle of the stairway and an invisible cobweb swung its
slazy woof in my face and clung there, I shuddered as one
who had encountered a phantom.

I was glad enough when I reached my room and locked out
the mold and the darkness. A cheery fire was burning in
the grate, and I sat down before it with a comforting sense
of relief. For two hours I sat there, thinking of bygone
times; recalling old scenes, and summoning half-forgotten
faces out of the mists of the past; listening, in fancy, to
voices that long ago grew silent for all time, and to once
familiar songs that nobody sings now. And as my reverie
softened down to a sadder and sadder pathos, the shrieking
of the winds outside softened to a wail, the angry beating
of the rain against the panes diminished to a tranquil pat-
ter, and one by one the noises in the street subsided, un-
til the hurrying footsteps of the last belated straggler
died away in the distance and left no sound behind.

The fire had burned low. A sense of loneliness crept over
me. I arose and undressed, moving on tiptoe about the room,
doing stealthily what I had to do, as if I were environed by
sleeping enemies whose slumbers it would be fatal to break.
I covered up in bed, and lay listening to the rain and wind
and the faint creaking of distant shutters, till they lull-
ed me to sleep.

I slept profoundly, but how long I do not know. All at once
I found myself awake, and filled with a shuddering expect-
ancy. All was still. All but my own heart--I could hear
it beat. Presently the bedclothes began to slip away slowly
toward the foot of the bed, as if some one were pulling
themi I could not stir; I could not speak. Still the blankets
slipped deliberately away, till my breast was uncovered.
Then with a great effort I seized them and drew them over
my head. I waited, listened, waited. Once more that steady
pull began, and once more I lay torpid a century of dragging
seconds till my breast was naked again. At last I roused my
energies and snatched the covers back to their place and
held them with a strong grip. I waited. By and by I felt a
faint tug, and took a fresh grip. The tug strengthened to a
steady strain--it grew stronger and stronger. My hold parted,
and for the third time the blankets slid away. I groaned.
An answering groan came from the foot of the bed! Beaded
drops of sweat stood upon my forehead. I was more dead
than alive. Presently I heard a heavy footstep in my room
--the step of an elephant, it seemed to me--it was not like
anything human. But it was moving from me--there was relief
in that. I heard it approach the door--pass out without mov-
ing bolt or lock--and wander away among the dismal corri-
dors, straining the floors and joists till they creaked
again as it passed--and then silence reigned once more.

When my excitement had calmed, I said to myself, "This
is a dream--simply a hideous dream." And so I lay thinking
it over until I convinced myself that it was a dream, and
then a comforting laugh relaxed my lips and I was happy
again. I got up and struck a light; and when I found that
the locks and bolts were just as I had left them, another
soothing laugh welled in my heart and rippled from my lips.
I took my pipe and lit it, and was just sitting down before
the fire, when--down went the pipe out of my nerveless fin-
gers, the blood forsook my cheeks, and my placid breathing
was cut short with a gasp! In the ashes on the hearth, side
by side with my own bare footprint, was another, so vast
that in comparison mine was but an infant's! Then I had
had a visitor, and the elephant tread was explained.

I put out the light and returned to bed, palsied with fear.
I lay a long time, peering into the darkness, and listening.
Then I heard a grating noise overhead, like the dragging of
a heavy body across the floor; then the throwing down of the
body, and the shaking of my windows in response to the con-
cussion. In distant parts of the building I heard the muffled
slamming of doors. I heard, at intervals, stealthy footsteps
creeping in and out among the corridors, and up and down
the stairs. Sometimes these noises approached my door, hes-
itated, and went away again. I heard the clanking of chains
faintly, in remote passages, and listened while the clank-
ing grew nearer--while it wearily climbed the stairways,
marking each move by the loose surplus of chain that fell
with an accented rattle upon each succeeding step as the
goblin that bore it advanced. I heard muttered sentences;
half-uttered screams that seemed smothered violently; and
the swish of invisible garments, the rush of invisible wings.
Then I became conscious that my chamber was invaded--that
I was not alone. I heard sighs and breathings about my bed,
and mysterious whisperings. Three little spheres of soft
phosphorescent light appeared on the ceiling directly over
my head, clung and glowed there a moment, and then dropped
--two of them upon my face and one upon the pillow. They
spattered, liquidly, and felt warm. Intuition told me they
had turned to gouts of blood as they fell--I needed no
light to satisfy myself of that. Then I saw pallid faces,
dimly luminous, and white uplifted hands, floating bodiless
in the air--floating a moment and then disappearing. The
whispering ceased, and the voices and the sounds, and a sol-
emn stillness followed. I waited and listened. I felt that I
must have light or die. I was weak with fear. I slowly raised
myself toward a sitting posture, and my face came in contact
with a clammy hand! All strength went from me apparently,
and I fell back like a stricken invalid. Then I heard the
rustle of a garment--it seemed to pass to the door and go
out.

When everything was still once more, I crept out of bed,
sick and feeble, and lit the gas with a hand that trembled
as if it were aged with a hundred years. The light brought
some little cheer to my spirits. I sat down and fell into a
dreamy contemplation of that great footprint in the ashes.
By and by its outlines began to waver and grow dim. I glanc-
ed up and the broad gas-flame was slowly wilting away. In
the same moment I heard the elephantine tread again. I noted
its approach, nearer and nearer, along the musty halls, and
dimmer and dimmer the light waned. The tread reached my very
door and paused--the light had dwindled to a sickly blue,
and all things about me lay in a spectral twilight. The door
did not open, and yet I felt a faint gust of air fan my cheek,
and presently was conscious of a huge, cloudy presence before
me. I watched it with fascinated eyes. A pale glow stole
over the Thing; gradually its cloudy folds took shape--an
arm appeared, then legs, then a body, and last a great sad
face looked out of the vapor. Stripped of its filmy hous-
ings, naked, muscular and comely, the majestic Cardiff Giant
loomed above me!

All my misery vanished--for a child might know that no harm
could come with that benignant countenance. My cheerful spi-
rits returned at once, and in sympathy with them the gas
flamed up brightly again. Never a lonely outcast was so
glad to welcome company as I was to greet the friendly
giant. I said:

"Why, is it nobody but you? Do you know, I have been
scared to death for last two or three hours? I am most
scared to death for last two or three hours? I am most
honestly glad to see you. I wish I had a chair--Here,
here, don’t try to sit down in that thing--”

But it was too late. He was in it before I could stop
him and down he went--I never saw a chair shivered so
in my life.

“Stop, stop, you’ll ruin ev--”

Too late again. There was another crash, and another
chair was resolved into its original elements.

“Confound it, haven’t you got any judgment at all? Do
you want to ruin all the furniture in the place? Here,
here, you petrified fool--”

But it was no use. Before I could arrest him he had sat
down on the bed, and it was a melancholy ruin.

“Now what sort of a way is that to do? First you come
lumbering about the place bringing a legion of vagabond
goblins along with you to worry me to death, and then
when I overlook an indelicacy of costume which would not
be tolerated anywhere by cultivated people except in a
respectable theater, and not even there if the nudity
were of your sex, you repay me by wrecking all the furn-
iture you can find to sit down on. And why will you? You
damage yourself as much as you do me. You have broken
off the end of your spinal column, and littered up the
floor with chips of your hams till the place looks like
a marble yard. You ought to be ashamed of yourself--you
are big enough to know better.”

“Well, I will not break any more furniture. But what am
I to do? I have not had a chance to sit down for a cen-
tury.” And the tears came into his eyes.

“Poor devil,” I said, “I should not have been so harsh
with you. And you are an orphan, too, no doubt. But sit
down on the floor here--nothing else can stand your weight
--and besides, we cannot be sociable with you away up
there above me; I want you down where I can perch on this
high countinghouse stool and gossip with you face to face.”

So he sat down on the floor, and lit a pipe which I gave
him, threw one of my red blankets over his shoulders,
inverted my sitzbath on his head, helmet fashion, and
made himself picturesque and comfortable. Then he crossed
his ankles, while I renewed the fire, and exposed the flat,
honeycombed bottoms of his prodigious feet to the grateful
warmth.

“What is the matter with the bottom of your feet and the
back of your legs, that they are gouged up so?”

“Infernal chilblains--I caught them clear up to the back
of my head, roosting out there under Newell’s farm. But I
love the place; I love it as one loves his old home. There
is no peace for me like the peace I feel when I am there.”

We talked along for half an hour, and then I noticed that
he looked tired, and spoke of it.

“Tired?” he said. “Well, I should think so. And now I
will tell you all about it, since you have treated me so
well. I am the spirit of the Petrified Man that lies across
the street there in the museum. I am the ghost of the Car-
diff Giant. I can have no rest, no peace, till they have
given that poor body burial again. Now what was the most
natural thing for me to do, to make men satisfy this wish?
Terrify them into it! haunt the place where the body lay!
So I haunted the museum night after night. I even got other
spirits to help me. But it did no good, for nobody ever
came to the museum at midnight. Then it occurred to me to
come over the way and haunt this place a little. I felt
that if I ever got a hearing I must succeed, for I had the
most efficient company that perdition could furnish. Night
after night we have shivered around through these mildewed
halls, dragging chains, groaning, whispering, tramping up
and down stairs, till, to tell you the truth, I am almost
worn out. But when I saw a light in your room tonight I
roused my energies again and went at it with a deal of the
old freshness. But I am tired out--entirely fagged out.
Give me, I beseech you, give me some hope!”

I lit off my perch in a burst of excitement, and exclaimed:

“This transcends everything! Everything that ever did occur!
Why you poor blundering old fossil, you have had all your
trouble for nothing--you have been haunting a plaster cast
of yourself--the real Cardiff Giant is in Albany! Confound it,
don’t you know your own remains?”

I never saw such an eloquent look of shame, of pitiable hum-
iliation, overspread a countenance before.

The Petrified Man rose slowly to his feet, and said:

“Honestly, is that true?”

“As true as I am sitting here.”

He took the pipe from his mouth and laid it on the mantel,
then stood irresolute a moment (unconsciously, from old habit,
thrusting his hands where his pantaloons pockets should have
been, and meditatively dropping his chin on his breast); and
finally said:


"Well-- never felt so absurd before. The Petrified Man has
sold everybody else, and now the mean fraud has ended by
selling its own ghost! My son, if there is any charity
left in your heart for a poor friendless phantom like me,
don't let this get out. Think how you would feel if you had
made such an ass of yourself."

I heard his stately tramp die away, step by step down the
stairs and out into the deserted street, and felt sorry that
he was gone, poor fellow--and sorrier still that he had car-
ried off my red blanket and my bathtub.

1888



Luck



It was at a banquet in London in honor of one of the two
or three conspicuously illustrious English military names
of this generation. For reasons which will presently appear,
I will withhold his real name and titles and call him Lieu-
tenant-General Lord Arthur Scoresby, Y.C., K.C.B., etc.,
etc., etc. What a fascination there is in a renowned name!
There sat the man, in actual flesh, whom I had heard of so
many thousands of times since that day, thirty years before,
when his name shot suddenly to the zenith from a Crimean
battlefield, to remain forever celebrated. It was food and
drink to me to look, and look, and look at that demi-god;
scanning, searching, noting: the quietness, the reserve, the
noble gravity of his countenance; the simple honesty that
expressed itself all over him; the sweet unconsciousness of
his greatness--unconsciousness of the hundreds of admiring
eyes fastened upon him, unconsciousness of the deep, loving,
sincere worship welling out of the breasts of those people
and flowing toward him.

The clergyman at my left was an old acquaintance of mine
--clergyman now, but had spent the first half of his life in
the camp and field and as an instructor in the military school
at Woolwich. Just at the moment I have been talking about a
veiled and singular light glimmered in his eyes and he leaned
down and muttered confidentially to me--indicating the hero
of the banquet with a gesture:

"Privately--he's an absolute fool."

This verdict was a great surprise to me. If its subject
had been Napolecm, or Socrates, or Solomon, my astonishment
could not have been greater. Two things I was well aware
of: that the Reverend was a man of strict veracity and that
his judgment of men was good. Therefore I knew, beyond
doubt or question, that the world was mistaken about this
hero: he was a fool. So I meant to find out, at a convenient
moment, how the Reverend, all solitary and alone, had dis-
covered the secret.


Some days later the opportunity came, and this is what the
Reverend told me:

About forty years ago I was an instructor in the military
academy at Woolwich. I was present in one of the sections
when young Scoresby underwent his preliminary examination.
I was touched to the quick with pity, for the rest of the
class answered up brightly and handsomely, while he--why,
dear me, he didn't know anything, so to speak. He was evi-
dently good, and sweet, and lovable, and guileless; and so
it was exceedingly painful to see him stand there, as serene
as a graven image, and deliver himself of answers which were
veritably miraculous for stupidity and ignorance. All the
compassion in me was aroused in his behalf. I said to myself,
when he comes to be examined again he will be flung over,
of course; so it will be simply a harmless act of charity
to ease his fall as much as I can. I took him aside and found
that he knew a little of Caesar's history; and as he didn't
know anything else, I went to work and drilled him like a
galley-slave on a certain line of stock questions concerning
Caesar which I knew would be used. If you'll believe me, he
went through with flying colors on examination day! He went
through on that purely superficial "cram," and got compli-
ments too, while others, who knew a thousand times more
than he, got plucked. By some strangely lucky accident--
an accident not likely to happen twice in a century--he
was asked no question outside of the narrow limits of his
drill

It was stupefying. Well, all through his course I stood by
him, with something of the sentiment which a mother feels
for a crippled child; and he always saved himself--just by
miracle, apparently.

Now, of course, the thing that would expose him and kill
him at last was mathematics. I resolved to make his death
as easy as I could; so I drilled him and crammed him, and
crammed him and drilled him, just on the line of questions
which the examiners would be most likely to use, and then
launched him on his fate. Well, sir, try to conceive of the
result to my consternation, he took the first prize! And
with it be got a peifect ovation in the way of compliments.

Sleep? There was no more sleep for me for a week. My
conscience tortured me day and night. What I had done I
had done purely through charity, and only to ease the poor
youth's fall. I never had dreamed of any such preposterous
results as the thing that had happened. I felt as guilty and
miserable as Frankenstein. Here was a wooden-head whom I
had put in the way of glittering promotions and prodigious
responsibilities, and but one thing could happen: he and his
responsibilities would all go to ruin together at the first
opportunity.

The Crimean War had just broken out. Of course there
had to be a war, I said to myself. We couldn't have peace
and give this donkey a chance to die before he is found out.
I waited for the earthquake. It came. And it made me reel
when it did come. He was actually gazetted to a captaincy
in a marching regiment! Better men grow old and gray in
the service before they climb to a sublimity like that. And
who could ever have foreseen that they would go and put
such a load of responsibility on such green and inadequate
shoulders? I could just barely have stood it if they had made
him a cornet; but a captain--think of it! I thought my hair
would turn white.

Consider what I did--I who so loved repose and inaction.
I said to myself, I am responsible to the country for this,
and I must go along with him and protect the country against
him as far as I can. So I took my poor little capital that I
had saved up through years of work and grinding economy,
and went with a sigh and bought a cornetcy in his regiment,
and away we went to the field.

And there--oh, dear, it was awful. Blunders?--why he never
did anything but blunder. But, you see, nobody was in the
fellow's secret. Everybody had him focused wrong, and nec-
essarily misinterpreted his performance every time. Conse-
quently they took his idiotic blunders for inspirations of
genius. They did, honestly! His mildest blunders were
enough to make a man in his right mind cry; and they did
me me cry--and rage and rave, too, privately. And the thing
that kept me always in a sweat of apprehension was the fact
that every fresh blunder he made increased the luster of
his reputation! I kept saying to myself, he'll get so high
that when discovery does finally come it will be like the
sun falling out of the sky.

He went right along, up from grade to grade, over the dead
bodies of his superiors, until at last, in the hottest mo-
ment of the battle of down went our colonel, and my heart
jumped into my mouth, for Scoresby was next in rank! Now
for it, said I; we'll all land in Sheol in ten minutes,
sure'

The battle was awfully hot; the allies were steadily giving
way all over the field. Our regiment occupied a position
that was vital; a blunder now must be destruction. At this
crucial moment, what does this immortal fool do but detach
the regiment from its place and order a charge over a neigh-
boring hill where there wasn't a suggestion of an enemy!
"There you go!" I said to myself; "this is the end at last."

And away we did go, and were over the shoulder of the
hill before the insane movement could be discovered and
stopped. And what did we find? An entire and unsuspected
Russian army in reserve! And what happened? We were eaten
up? That is necessarily what would have happened in ninety-
nine cases out of a hundred. But no; those Russians argued
that no single regiment would come browsing around there at
such a time. It must be the entire English army, and that the
sly Russian game was detected and blocked; so they turned
tail, and away they went, pell-mell, over the hill and down
into the field, in wild confusion, and we after them; they
themselves broke the solid Russian center in the field, and
tore through, and in no time there was the most tremendous
rout you ever saw, and the defeat of the allies was turned
into a sweeping and splendid victory! Marshal Canrobert look-
ed on, dizzy with astonishment, admiration, and delight; and
sent right off for Scoresby, and hugged him, and decorated
him on the field in presence of all the armies!

And what was Scoresby's blunder that time? Merely the mis-
taking his right hand for his left--that was all. An order
had come to him to fall back and support our right; and,
instead, he fell forward and went over the hill to the left
But the name he won that day as a marvelous military genius
filled the world with his glory, and that glory will never
fade while history books last.

He is just as good and sweet and lovable and unpretending
as a man can be, but he doesn't know enough to come in
when it rains. Now that is absolutely true. He is the su-
premest ass in the universe; and until half an hour ago no-
body knew it but himself and me. He has been pursued, day
by day and year by year, by a most phenomenal and astonish-
ing luckiness. He has been a shining soldier in all our wars
for a generation; he has littered his whole military life with
blunders, and yet has never committed one that didn't make
him a knight or a baronet or a lord or something. Look at
his breast; why, he is just clothed in domestic and foreign
decorations. Well, sir, every one of them is the record of
some shouting stupidity or other; and, taken together, they
are proof that the very best thing in all this world that can
befall a man is to be born lucky. I say again, as I said at
the banquet, Scoresby's an absolute fooL

[This is not a fancy sketch. I got it from a clergyman who was
an instructor at Woolwich forty years ago, and who vouched
for its truth. M.T.]

1891



Playing Courier



A time would come when we must go from Aix-les-Bains to
Geneva, and from thence, by a series of day-long and tangl-
ed journeys, to Bayreuth in Bavaria. I should have to have
a courier, of course, to take care of so considerable a
party as mine.

But I procrastinated. The time slipped along, and at last
I woke up one day to the fact that we were ready to move
and had no courier. I then resolved upon what I felt was
a foolhardy thing, but I was in the humor of it. I said I
would make the first stage without help--I did it.

I brought the party from Aix to Geneva by myself--four
people. The distance was two hours and more, and there was
one change of cars. There was not an accident of any kind,
except leaving a valise and some other matters on the plat -
form--a thing which can hardly be called an accident, it is
so common. So I offered to conduct the party all the way to
Bayreuth.

This was a blunder, though it did not seem so at the time.
There was more detail than I thought there would be: 1,
two persons whom we had left in a Genevan pension some
weeks before must be collected and brought to the hotel;
2, I must notify the people on the Grand Quay who store
trunks to bring seven of our stored trunks to the hotel and
carry back seven which they would find piled in the lobby;
3, I must find out what part of Europe Bayreuth was in and
buy seven railway tickets for that point; 4, I must send a
telegram to a friend in the Netherlands; 5, it was now two
in the afternoon, and we must look sharp and be ready for
the first night train and make sure of sleeping-car tick-
ets; 6, I must draw money at the bank.

It seemed to me that the sleeping-car tickets must be the
most important thing, so I went to the station myself to make
sure; hotel messengers are not always brisk people. It was a
hot day, and I ought to have driven, but it seemed better
economy to walk. It did not turn out so, because I lost my
way and trebled the distance. I applied for the tickets, and
ihey asked me which route I wanted to go by, and that embar-
rassed me and made me lose my head, there were so many
people standing around, and I not knowing anything about
the routes and not supposing there were going to be two; so
I judged it best to go back and map out the road and come
again.

I took a cab this time, but on my way up-stairs at the
hotel I remembered that I was out of cigars, so I thought
it would be well to get some while the matter was in my
mind. It was only round the corner, and I didn't need the
cab. I asked the cabman to wait where he was. Thinking of
the telegram and trying to word it in my head, I forgot the
cigars and the cab, and walked on indefinitely. I was going to
have the hotel people send the telegram, but as I could not be
far from the post-office by this time, I thought I would do it
myself. But it was further than I had supposed. I found the
place at last and wrote the telegram and handed it in. The
clerk was a severe-looking, fidgety man, and he began to fire
French questions at me in such a liquid form that I could
not detect the joints between his words, and this made me
lose my head again. But an Englishman stepped up and said
the clerk wanted to know where he was to send the telegram.
I could not tell him, because it was not my telegram, and I
explained that I was merely sending it for a member of my
party. But nothing would pacify the clerk but the address;
so I said that if he was so particular I would go back and
get it.

However, I thought I would go and collect those lacking
two persons first, for it would be best to do everything
systematically and in order, and one detail at a time. Then
I remembered the cab was eating up my substance down at
the hotel yonder; so I called another cab and told the man
to go down and fetch it to the post-office and wait till I
came.

I had a long, hot walk to collect those people, and when
I got there they couldn't come with me because they had
heavy satchels and must have a cab. I went away to find one,
but before I ran across any I noticed that I had reached
the neighborhood of the Grand Quay--at least I thought I
had--so I judged I could save time by stepping around and
arranging about the trunks,. I stepped around about a mile,
and though I did not d the Grand Quay, I found a cigar
shop, and remembered about the cigars. I said I was going
to Bayreuth, and wanted enough for the journey. The man
asked me which route I was going to take. I said I did
not know. He said he would recommend me to go by Zurich
and various other places which he named, and offered to sell
me seven second-class through tickets for twenty-two doUarii
apiece, which would be throwing off the discount which the
railroads allowed him. I was already tired of riding second-
class on first-class tickets, so I took him up.

By and by I found Natural & Co.'s storage office, and told
them to send seven of our trunks to the hotel and pile thcn
up in the lobby. It seemed to me that I was not delivering
the whole of the message, still it was all I could find in my
head.

Next I found the bank and asked for some money, but I
had left my letter of credit somewhere and was not able to
draw. I remembered now that I must have left it lying on
the table where I wrote my telegram; so I got a cab and
drove to the post-office and went up-stairs, and they said
that a letter of credit had indeed been left on the table,
but that it was now in the hands of the police authorities,
and it would be necessary for me to go there and prove pro-
perty. They sent a boy with me, and we went out the back way
and walked a couple of miles and found the place; and then I
remembered about my cabs, and asked the boy to send them to
me when he got back to the post-office. It was nightfall now,
and the Mayor had gone to dinner. I thought I would go to din-
ner myself, but the officer on duty thought differently, and I
stayed. The Mayor dropped in at half past ten, but said it
was too late to do anything to-night--come at 9.30 in the
morning. The officer wanted to keep me all night, and said I
was a suspicious-looking person, and probably did not own
the letter of credit, and didn't know what a letter of credit
was, but merely saw the real owner leave it lying on the
table, and wanted to get it because I was probably a person
that would want anything he could get, whether it was valu-
able or not. But the Mayor said he saw nothing suspicious
about me, and that I seemed a harmless person and nothing
the matter with me but a wandering mind, and not much of
that. So I thanked him and he set me free, and I went
home in my three cabs.

As I was dog-tired and in no condition to answer questions
with discretion, I thought I would not disturb the Expedition
at that time of night, as there was a vacant room I knew of
at the other end of the hall; but I did not quite arrive there,
as a watch had been set, the Expedition being anxious about
me, I was placed in a galling situation. The Expedition sat
stiff and forbidding on four chairs in a row, with shawls and
things all on, satchels and guide-books in lap. They had been
sitting like that for four hours, and the glass going down all
the time. Yes, and they were waiting--waiting for me. It
seemed to me that nothing but a sudden, happily contrived,
and brilliant tour de force could break this iron front and
make a diversion in my favor; so I shied my hat into the
arena and followed it with a skip and a jump, shouting
blithely:

"Ha, ha, here we all are, Mr. Merryman!"

Nothing could be deeper or stiller than the absence of ap-
plause which followed. But I kept on; there seemed no other
way, though my confidence, poor enough before, had got a
deadly check and was in effect gone.

I tried to be jocund out of a heavy heart, I tried to touch
the other hearts there and soften the bitter resentment in
those faces by throwing off bright and airy fun and making
of the whole ghastly thing a joyously humorous incident, but
this idea was not well conceived. It was not the right atmo-
sphere for it. I got not one smile; not one line in those
offended faces relaxed; I thawed nothing of the winter that
looked out of those frosty eyes. I started one more breezy,
pwr effort, but the head of the Expedition cut into the cen--
ter of it and said:

"Where have you been?"

I saw by the manner of this that the idea was to get down
to cold business now. So I began my travels, but was cut
short again.

"Where are the two others? We have been in frightful anxiety
about them."

"Oh, they're all right I was to fetch a cab. I will go straight
off, and--"

"Sit down! Don't you know it is eleven o'clock? Where did
you leave them?"

"At the pension."

"Why didn't you bring them?"

"Because we couldn't carry the satchels. And so I
thought--"

"Thought! You should not try to think. One cannot think
without the proper machinery. It is two miles to that pension.
Did you go there without a cab?"

"I--well, I didn't intend to; it only happened so,"
"How did it happen so?"

"Because I was at the post-office and I remembered that I
had left a cab waiting here, and so, to stop that expense, I
sent another cab to--to--"

"To what?"

"Well, I don't remember now, but I think the new cab was
to have the hotel pay the old cab, and send it away."

"What good would that do?"

"What good would it do? It would stop the expense,
wouldn't it?"

"By putting the new cab in its place to continue the expense?"

I didn't say anything.

"Why didn't you have the new cab come back for you?"

"Oh, that is what I did. I remember now. Yes, that is what
I did. Because I recollect that when I--"

"Well, then why didn't it come back for you?"

"To the post-office? Why, it did."

"Very well, then, how did you come to walk to the pension?"

"I--I don't quite remember how that happened. Oh, yes,
I do remember now. I wrote the despatch to send to the
Netherlands, and--"

"Oh, thank goodness, you did accomplish something! I
wouldn't have had you fail to send--what makes you look
like that! You are trying to avoid my eye. That despatch is
the most important thing that-- You haven't sent that des-
patch!"

"I haven't said I didn't send it."

"You don't need to. Oh, dear, I wouldn't have had that
telegram fail for anything. Why didn't you send it?"

"Well, you see, with so many things to do and think of, I
--they're very particular there, and after I had written the
telegram--"

"Oh, never mind, let it go, explanations can't help the
matter now--what will he think of us?"

"Oh, that's all right, that's all right, he'll think we gave
the telegram to the hotel people, and that they--"

"Why, certainly! Why didn't you do that? There was no
other rational way."

"Yes, I know, but then I had it on my mind that I must
be sure and get to the bank and draw some money--"

"Well, you are entitled to some credit, after all, for think-
ing of that, and I don't wish to be too hard on you, though
you must acknowledge yourself that you have cost us all a
good deal of trouble, and some of it not necessary. How much
did you draw?"

"Well, I--I had an idea that--that--"

"That what?"

"That--well, it seems to me that in the circumstances
--so many of us, you know, and--and--"

"What are you mooning about? Do turn your face this way
and let me--why, you haven't drawn any money!"

"Well, the banker said--"

"Never mind what the banker said. You must have had a
reason of your own. Not a reason, exactly, but something
which--"

"Well, then, the simple fact was that I hadn't my letter of
credit."

"Hadn't your letter of credit?"

"Hadn't my letter of credit."

"Don't repeat me like that. Where was it?"

"At the post-office."

"What was it doing there?"

"Well, I forgot and left it there."

"Upon my word, I've seen a good many couriers, but of
all the couriers that ever I--"

"I've done the best I could."

"Well, so you have, poor thing, and I'm wrong to abuse you
so when you've been working yourself to death while we've
been sitting here only thinking of our vexations instead
of feeling grateful for what you were trying to do for us.
It will all come out right. We can take the 7.30 train in
the morning just as well. You've bought the tickets?"

"I have--and it's a bargain, too. Second class."

"I'm glad of it. Everybody else travels second class, and
we might just as well save that ruinous extra charge. What
did you pay?"

"Twenty-two dollars apiece--through to Bayreuth."

"Why, I didn't know you could buy through tickets anywhere
but in London and Paris."

"Some people can't, maybe; but some people can--of whom
I am one of which, it appears."

"It seems a rather high price."

"On the contrary, the dealer knocked off his commission."

"Dealer?"

"Yes--I bought them at a cigar shop."

"That reminds me. We shall have to get up pretty early,
and so there should be no packing to do. Your umbrella, your
rubbers, your cigars--what is the matter?"

"Hang it, i've left the cigars at the bank."

"Just think of it! Well, your umbrella?"

"I'll have that all right. There's no hurry."

"What do you mean by that?"

"Oh, that's all right; I'll take care of--"

"Where is that umbrella?"

"It's just the merest step--it won't take me--"

"Where is it?"

"Well, I think I left it at the cigar shop; but anyway--"

"Take your feet out from under that thing. It's just as I
expected! Where are your rubbers?"

"They--well--"

"Where are your rubbers?"

"It's got so dry now--well, everybody says there's not going
to be another drop of--"

"Where--are--your--rubbers?"

"Well, you see--well, it was this way. First, the officer
said--"

"What officer?"

"Police officer; but the Mayor, he--"

"What Mayor?"

"Mayor of Geneva; but I said--"

"Wait. What is the matter with you?"

"Who, me? Nothing. They both tried to persuade me to
stay, and--"

"Stay where?"

"Well, the fact is--"

"Where have you been? What's kept you out till half past
ten at night?"

"Oh, you see, after I lost my letter of credit, I--"

"You are beating around the bush a good deal. Now, answer
the question in just one straightforward word. Where
are those rubbers?"

"They--well, they're in the county jail."

I started a placating smile, but it petrified. The climate
was unsuitable. Spending three or four hours in jail did not
seem to the Expedition humorous. Neither did it to me, at
bottom.

I had to explain the whole thing, and, of course, it came
out then that we couldn't take the early train, because that
would leave my letter of credit in hock still. It did look as
if we had all got to go to bed estranged and unhappy, but by
good luck that was prevented. There happened to be mention
of the trunks, and I was able to say I had attended to that
feature.

"There, you are just as good and thoughtful and painstaking
and intelligent as you can be, and it's a shame to find so
much fault with you, and there sha'n't be another word of
it. You've done beautifully, admirably, and I'm sorry I ever
said one ungrateful word to you."

This hit deeper than some of the other things and made
me uncomfortable, because I wasn't feeling as solid about
that trunk errand as I wanted to. There seemed somehow to
be a defect about it somewhere, though I couldn't put my
finger on it, and didn't like to stir the matter just now,
it being late and maybe well enough to let well enough alone.
Of course there was music in the morning, when it was found
that we couldn't leave by the early train. But I had no time
to wait; I got only the opening bars of the overture and
then started out to get my letter of credit.

It seemed a good time to look into the trunk business and
rectify it if it needed it, and I had a suspicion that it did.
I was too late. The concierge said he had shipped the trunks
to Zurich the evening before. I asked him how he could do
that without exhibiting passage tickets.

"Not necessary in Switzerland. You pay for your trunks
and send them where you please. Nothing goes free but your
hand-baggage."

"How much did you pay on them?"

"A hundred and forty francs."

"Twenty-eight dollars. There's something wrong about that
trunk business, sure."

Next I met the porter. He said:

"You have not slept well, is it not? You have a worn look.
If you would like a courier, a good one has arrived last night,
and is not engaged for five days already, by the name of
Ludi. We recommend him; das heisst, the Grand Hotel Beau
Rivage recommends him."

I declined with coldness. My spirit was not broken yet.
And I did not like having my condition taken notice of in
this way. I was at the county jail by nine o'clock, hoping
that the Mayor might chance to come before his regular
hour; but he didn't. It was dull there. Every time I offered
to touch anything, or look at anything, or do anything, or
refrain from doing anything, the policeman said it was
"defendu" I thought I would practise my French on him, but
he wouldn't have that either. It seemed to make him par-
ticularly bitter to hear his own tongue.

The Mayor came at last, and then there was no trouble;
for the minute he had convened the Supreme Court--they
always do whenever there is valuable property in dispute
--and got everything shipshape and sentries posted, and had
prayer by the chaplain, my unsealed letter was brought and
opened, and there wasn't anything in it but some photographs;
because, as I remembered now, I had taken out the letter of
credit so as to make room for the photographs, and had put
the letter in my other pocket, which I proved to everybody's
satisfaction by fetching it out and showing it with a good deal
of exultation. So then the court looked at each other in a
vacant kind of way, and then at me, and then at each other,
again, and finally let me go, but said it was imprudent for
me to be at large, and asked me what my profession was. I
said I was a courier. They lifted up their eyes in a kind of
reverent way and said, "Du lieber Gott!" and I said a word
of courteous thanks for their apparent admiration and hurried
off to the bank.

However, being a courier was already making me a great
stickler for order and system and one thing at a time and
each thing in its own proper turn; so I passed by the bank
and branched off and started for the two lacking members
of the Expedition, A cab lazied by, and I took it upon per-
suasion. I gained no speed by this, but it was a reposeful
turnout and I liked reposefulness. The week-long jubilations
over the six hundredth anniversary of the birth of Swiss
liberty and the Signing of the Compact was at flood-tide,
and all the streets were clothed in fluttering flags.

The horse and the driver had been drunk three days and
nights, and had known no stall nor bed meantime. They
looked as I felt--dreamy and seedy. But we arrived in course
of time. I went in and rang, and asked a housemaid to rush
out the lacking members. She said something which I did not
understand, and I returned to the chariot. The girl had pro-
bably told me that those people did not belong on her floor,
and that it would be judicious for me to go higher, and ring
from floor to floor till I found them; for in those Swiss flats
there does not seem to be any way to find the right family
but to be patient and guess your way along up. I calculated
that I must wait fifteen minutes, there being three details
inseparable from an occasion of this sort: 1, put on hats and
come down and climb in; 2, return of one to get "my other
glove"; 3, presently, return of the other one to fetch "my
French Verbs at a Glance" I would muse during the fifteen
minutes and take it easy.

A very still and blank interval ensued, and then I felt a
hand on my shoulder and started. The intruder was a police-
man. I glanced up and perceived that there was new scenery.
There was a good deal of a crowd, and they had that pleased
and interested look which such a crowd wears when they see
that somebody is out of luck. The horse was asleep, and so
was the driver, and some boys had hung them and me full
of gaudy decorations stolen from the innumerable banner-
poles. It was a scandalous spectacle. The officer said:

"I'm sorry, but we can't have you sleeping here all day."

I was wounded, and said with dignity:

"I beg your pardon, I was not sleeping; I was thinking."

"Well, you can think if you want to, but you've got to
think to yourself; you disturb the whole neighborhood."

It was a poor joke, and it made the crowd laugh. I snore at
night sometimes, but it is not likely that I would do such a
thing in the daytime and in such a place. The officer un-
decorated us, and seemed sorry for our friendlessness, and
really tried to be humane, but he said we mustn't stop there
any longer or he would have to charge us rent--it was the
law, he said, and he went on to say in a sociable way that I
was looking pretty moldy, and he wished he knew--

I shut him off pretty austerely, and said I hoped one might
celebrate a little these days, especially when one was per-
sonally concerned,

"Personally?" he asked. "How?"

"Because six hundred years ago an ancestor of mine
signed the compact."

He reflected a moment, then looked me over and said:

"Ancestor! It's my opinion you signed it yourself. For of
all the old ancient relics that ever I--but never mind about
that. What is it you are waiting here for so long?"

I said:

"I'm not waiting here so long at all. I'm waiting fifteen
minutes till they forget a glove and a book and go back and
get them." Then I told him who they were that I had come
for.

He was very obliging, and began to shout inquiries to the
tiers of heads and shoulders projecting from the windows
above us. Then a woman away up there sang out:

"Oh, they? Why, I got them a cab and they left here long
ago--half past eight, I should say."

It was annoying. I glanced at my watch, but didn't say
anything. The officer said:

"It is a quarter of twelve, you see. You should have inquired
better. You have been asleep three-quarters of an hour, and
in such a sun as this. You are baked--baked black. It is won-
derful. And you will miss your train, perhaps. You interest
me greatly. What is your occupation?"

I said I was a courier. It seemed to stun him, and before
he could come to we were gone.

When I arrived in the third story of the hotel I found our
quarters vacant. I was not surprised. The moment a courier
takes his eye off his tribe they go shopping. The nearer it is
to train-time the surer they are to go. I sat down to try and
think out what I had best do next, but presently the hall-boy
found me there, and said the Expedition had gone to the station
half an hour before. It was the first time I had known
them to do a rational thing, and it was very confusing. This
is one of the things that make a courier's life so difficult and
uncertain. Just as matters are going the smoothest, his people
will strike a lucid interval, and down go all his arrangements
to wreck and ruin.

The train was to leave at twelve noon sharp. It was now ten
minutes after twelve. I could be at the station in ten minutes.
I saw I had no great amount of leeway, for this was the light-
ning express, and on the Continent the lightning expresses
are pretty fastidious about getting away some time during
the advertised day. My people were the only ones remaining
in the waiting-room; everybody else had passed through and
"mounted the train," as they say in those regions. They were
exhausted with nervousness and fret, but I comforted them
and heartened them up, and we made our rush.

But no; we were out of luck again. The doorkeeper was not
satisfied with the tickets. He examined them cautiously,
deliberately, suspiciously; then glared at me awhile, and
after that he called another official. The two examined the
tickets and called another official. These called others, and
the convention discussed and discussed, and gesticulated and
carried on, until I begged that they would consider how time
was flying, and just pass a few resolutions and let us go.
Then they said very courteously that there was a defect in
the tickets, and asked me where I got them.

I judged I saw what the trouble was now. You see, I had
bought the tickets in a cigar shop, and, of course, the to-
bacco smell was on them; without doubt, the thing they were
up to was to work the tickets through the Custom House and
to collect duty on that smell. So I resolved to be perfectly
frank; it is sometimes the best way. I said:

"Gentlemen, I will not deceive you. These railway tickets--"

"Ah, pardon, monsieur! These are not railway tickets."

"Oh," I said, "is that the defect?"

"Ah, truly yes, monsieur. These are lottery tickets, yes;
and it is a lottery which has been drawn two years ago."

I affected to be greatly amused; it is all one can do in
such circumstances; it is all one can do, and yet there is
no value in it; it deceives nobody, and you can see that
everybody around pities you and is ashamed of you. One of the
hardest situations in life, I think, is to be full of grief
and a sense of defeat and shabbiness that way, and yet have to
put on an outside of archness and gaiety, while all the time
you know that your own Expedition, the treasures of your heart,
and whose love and reverence you are by the custom of our civ-
ilization entitled to, are being consumed with humiliation
before strangers to see you earning and getting a compassion
which is a stigma, a brand--a brand which certifies you to
be--oh, anything and everything which is fatal to human
respect.

I said, cheerily, it was all right, just one of those little
accidents that was likely to happen to anybody-- would have
the right tickets in two minutes, and we would catch the
train yet, and, moreover, have something to laugh about all
throu the journey. I did get the tickets in time, all stamped
and complete, but then it turned out that I couldn't take
them, because in taking so much pains about the two missing
members I had skipped the bank and hadn't the money.
So then the train left, and there didn't seem to be anything
to do but go back to the hotel, which we did; but it was kind
of melancholy and not much said. I tried to start a few sub-
jects, like scenery and transubstantiation, and those sorts
of things, but they didn't seem to hit the weather right.

We had lost our good rooms, but we got some others
which were pretty scattering, but would answer. I judged
things would brighten now, but the Head of the Expedition
said, "Send up the trunks." It made me feel pretty cold.
There was a doubtful something about that trunk business.
I was almost sure of it. I was going to suggest--

But a wave of his hand sufficiently restrained me, and I
was informed that we would now camp for three days and
see if we could rest up.

I said all right, never mind ringing; I would go down and
attend to the trunks myself. I got a cab and went straight to
Mr. Charles Natural's place, and asked what order it was I
had left there.

‘To send seven trunks to the hotel."

"And were you to bring any back?"

"No."

"You are sure I didn't tell you to bring back seven that
would be found piled in the lobby?"

"Absolutely sure you didn't."

"Then the whole fourteen are gone to Zurich or Jericho
or somewhere, and there is going to be more debris around
that hotel when the Expedition--"

I didn't finish, because my mind was getting to be in a
good deal of a whirl, and when you are that way you think
you have finished a sentence when you haven't, and you go
mooning and dreaming away, and the first thing you know
you get run over by a dray or a cow or something.

I left the cab there--I forgot it--and on my way back I
thought it all out and concluded to resign, because other-
wise I should be nearly sure to be discharged. But I didn't
believe it would be a good idea to resign in person; I could
do it by message. So I sent for Mr. Ludi and explained that
there was a courier going to resign on account of incompat-
ibility or fatigue or something, and as he had four or five
vacant days, I would like to insert him into that vacancy
if he thought he could fill it When everything was arranged
I got him to go up and say to the Expedition that owing to
an error made by Mr. Natural's people, we were out of trunks
here, but would have plenty in Zurich, and we'd better take
the first train, freight gravel, or construction, and move
right along.

He attended to that and came down with an invitation for
me to go up--yes, certainly; and, while we walked along
over to the bank to get money, and collect my cigars and
tobacco, and to the cigar shop to trade back the lottery
tickets and get my umbella, and to Mr. Natural's to pay
that cab and send it away, and to the county jail to get
my rubbers and leave p. p. c. cards for the Mayor and Supreme
Court, he described the weather to me that was prevailing
on the upper levels there with the Expedition, and I saw that
I was doing very well where I was.

I stayed out in the woods till 4 p.m., to let the weather
moderate, and then turned up at the station just in time to
take the three-o'clock express for Zurich along with the Ex-
pedition, now in the hands of Ludi, who conducted its complex
affairs with little apparent effort or inconvenience.

Well, I had worked like a slave while I was in office, and
done the very best I knew how; yet all that these people
dwelt upon or seemed to care to remember were the defects
of my administration, not its creditable features. They would
skip over a thousand creditable features to remark upon and
reiterate and fuss about just one fact, till it seemed to me
they would wear it out; and not much of a fact, either, taken
by itself--the fact that I elected myself courier in Geneva,
and put in work enough to carry a circus to Jerusalem, and
yet never even got my gang out of the town. I finally said I
didn't wish to hear any more about the subject, it made me
tired. And I told them to their faces that I would never be
a courier again to save anybody's life. And if I live long
enough I'll prove it. I think it's a difficult, brain-racking,
overworked, and thoroughly ungrateful office, and the main
bulk of its wages is a sore heart and a bruised spirit.

1891



The Californian's Tale



Thirty-five years ago I was out prospecting on the Stani-
slaus, tramping all day long with pick and pan and horn,
and washing a hatful of dirt here and there, always expect-
ing to make a rich strike, and never doing it It was a love-
ly region, woodsy, balmy, delicious, and had once been popu-
lous, long years before, but now the people had vanished
and the charming paradise was a solitude. They went away
when the surface diggings gave out. In one place, where a
busy little city with banks and newspapers and fire comp-
anies and a mayor and aldermen had been, was nothing but a
wide expanse of emerald turf, with not even the faintest sign
that human life had ever been present there. This was down
toward Tuttletown. In the country neighborhood thereabouts,
along the dusty roads, one found at intervals the prettiest
little cottage homes, snug and cozy, and so cobwebb with
vines snowed thick with roses that the doms and windows
were wholly hidden from sight--sign that these were desert-
ed homes, forsaken years ago by defeated and disappointed
families who could neither sell them nor give than away. Now
and then, half an hour apart, one came across solitary log
cabins of the earliest mining days, built by the first gold-
miners, the predecessors of the cottage-builders. In some
few cases these cabins were still occupied; and when
this was so, you could depend upon it that the occupant
was the very pioneer who had built the cabin; and you could
depend on another thing, too--that he was there because he
had once bad his opportunity to go home to the States rich,
and bad not done it; bad rather lost his wealth, and had then
in his humiliation resolved to sever all communication with
his home relatives and friends, and be to them thenceforth
as one dead. Round about Caomia in that day were scattered
a host of these living dead men--pride-smitten poor fel-
lows, grizzled and old at forty, whose secret tbouts were
made all of regrets and longings--regrets for their was
lives, and longings to be out of the struggle and done with
it all

It was a lonesome land! Not a sound in all those peaceful
expanses of grass and woods but the drowsy hum of insects;
no glimpse of man or beast; nothing to keep up your spirits
and make you glad to be alive. And so, at last, in the early
part of the afternoon, when I caught sight of a human crea-
ture, I felt a most grateful uplift This person was a man
about forty-five years old, and he was standing at the gate
of one of those cozy little rose-clad cottages of the sort
already referred to. However, this one hadn't a deserted look;
it had the kxdc of being lived in and petted and cared for
and looked after; and so had its front yard, which was a
garden of flowers, abundant, gay, and flourishing. I was in-
vited in, of course, and requir to make myself at home--it
was the custom of the country.

It was delightful to be in such a place, after long weeks
of daily and nightly familiarity with miners' cabins--with
all which this implies of dirt floor, never-made beds, tin
plates and cups, bacon and beans and black coffee, and
nothing of ornament but war pictures from the Eastern il-
lustrate papers tacked to the log walls. That was all hard,
cheerless, materialistic desolation, but here was a nest
which had aspe to rest the tired eye and refiresh that some-
thing in one's nature which, after long fasting, recognizes,
when confronted by the belongings of art, howsoever cheap and
modest they may be, that it has unconsciously been famisbi
and now has found nourishment I could not have believed
that a rag carpet could feast me so, and so content me; or
that there could be such solace to the soul in wallpaper
and framed lithographs, and bright-colored tidies and
lamp-mats, and Windsor chairs, and varnished whatnots,
with sea-shells and books and china vases on them, and
the score of little unclassiflable tricks and touches that
a woman's hand distributes about a home, which one sees
without knowing be sees them, yet would miss in a moment
if they were taken away. The delight that was in my heart
show in my face, and the man saw it and was pleased; saw
it so plainly that he answered it as if it had been spoken.

"All her work," he said, caressingly; "she did it all herself
--every bit," and he took the room in with a glance which
was full of affectionate worship. One of those soft Japanese
fabrics with which women drape with careful negligence the
upper part of a picture-frame was out of adjustment. He no-
ticed it, and rearranged it with cautious pains, stepping back
several times to gauge the effect before be got it to suit him.
Then he gave it a light finishing pat or two with his hand,
and said; "She always does that. You can't tell just what it
lacks, but it does lack something until you've done that--you
can see it yourself after it's done, but that is all you know;
you can't find out the law of it. It's like the finishing pats
a mtNher gives the child's hair after she's got it combed and
brushed, I reckon. I've seen her fix all these tgs so much
that I can do them all just her way, though I don't know
the law of any of them. But she knows the law. She knows
the why and the how both; but I don't know the why; I only
know the how."

He took me into a bedroom so that I might wash my hands;
such a bedroom as I had not seen for years; white count-
erpane, white pillows, carpeted floor, papered walls,
pictures, dressing-table, with mirror and pin-cushion and
dainty toilet things; and in the corner a wash-stand, with
real china-ware bowl and pitcher, and with soap in a china
dish, and on a rack more than a dozen towels--towels too
clean and white for one out of practice to use without some
vague sense of profanation. So my face spoke again, and he
answered with gratified words:

"All her work; she did it all herself--every bit. Nothing
here that hasn't felt the touch of her hand. Now you would
think-- But I mustn't talk so much."

By this time I was wiping my hands and glancing from de-
tail to detail of the room's belongings, as one is apt to
do when he is in a new place, where everything he sees is a
comfort to his eye and his spirit; and I became conscious,
in one of those unaccountable ways, you know, that there
was something there somewhere that the man wanted me to
discover for myself. I knew it perfectly, and I knew he was
trying to help me by furtive indications with his eye, so I
tried hard to get on the right track, being eager to gratify
him. I failed several times, as I could see out of the corner
of my eye without being told; but at last I knew I must be
looking straight at the thing--knew it from the pleasure
issuing in invisible waves from him. He broke into a happy
laugh, and rubbed his hands together, and cried out:

"That's it! You've found it. I knew you would. It's her
picture."

I went to the little black-walnut bracket on the farther
wall, and did find there what I had not yet noticed--a daguer-
reotype-case. It contained the sweetest girlish face, and
the most beautiful, as it seemed to me, that I had ever seen.
The man drank the admiration from my face, and was fully
satisfied.

"Nineteen her last birthday," he said, as he put the picture
back; "and that was the day we were married. When you see her
--ah, just wait till you see her!"

"Where is she? When will she be in?"

"Oh, she's away now. She's gone to see her people. They live
forty or fifty miles from here. She's been gone two weeks
to-day."

"When do you expect her back?"

"This is Wednesday. She'll be back Saturday, in the evening--
about nine o'clock, likely."

I felt a sharp sense of disappointment.

T'm sorry, because I'll be gone then," I said, regretfully.

"Gone? No--why should you go? Don't go. She'll be so
disappointed."

She would be disappointed--that beautiful creature! If she
had said the words herself they could hardly have blessed me
more. I was feeling a deep, strong longing to see her--a
longing so supplicating, so insistent, that it made me afraid.
I said to myself: "I will go straight away from this place,
for my peace of mind's sake."

"You see, she likes to have people come and stop with us
--people who know things, and can talk--people like you.
She delights in it; for she knows--oh, she knows nearly
everything herself, and can talk, oh, like a bird--and the
books she reads, why, you would be astonished. Don't go;
it's only a little while, you know, and she'll be so disap-
pointed." I heard the words, but hardly noticed them, I was
so deep in my thinkings and strugglings. He left me, but I
didn't know. Presently he was back, with the picture-case
in his hand, and he held it open before me and said:

"There, now, tell her to her face you could have stayed
to see her, and you wouldn't."

That second glimpse broke down my good resolution. I would
stay and take the risk. That night we smoked the tranquil
pipe, and talked till late about various things, but mainly
about her; and certainly I had had no such pleasant and
restful time for many a day. The Thursday followed and
slipped comfortably away. Toward twilight a big miner from
three miles away came--one of the grizzled, stranded pio-
neers--and gave us warm salutation, clothed in grave and
sober speech. Then he said:

"I only just dropped over to ask about the little madam,
and when is she coming home. Any news from her?"

"Oh yes, a letter. Would you like to hear it, Tom?"

"Well, I should think I would, if you don't mind, Henry!"

Henry got the letter out of his wallet, and said he would
skip some of the private phrases, if we were willing; then
he went on and read the bulk of it--a loving, sedate, and
altogether charming and gracious piece of handiwork, with a
postscript full of affectionate regards and messages to Tom,
and Joe, and Charley, and other close friends and neighbors.
As the reader finished, he glanced at Tom, and cried out:

"Oho, you're at it again! Take your hands away, and let
me see your eyes. You always do that when I read a letter
from her. I will write and tell her."

"Oh no, you mustn't, Henry. I'm getting old, you know,
and any little disappointment makes me want to cry. I
thought she'd be here herself, and now you've got only a
letter."

"Well, now, what put that in your head? I thought everybody
knew she wasn't coming till Saturday."

"Saturday! Why, come to think, I did know it. I wonder
what's the matter with me lately? Certainly I knew it. Ain't
we all getting ready for her? Well, I must be going now.
But I'll be on hand when she comes, old man!"

Late Friday afternoon another gray veteran tramped over
from his cabin a mile or so away, and said the boys wanted
to have a little gaiety and a good time Saturday night, if
Henry thought she wouldn't be too tired after her journey
to be kept up.

"Tired? She tired! Oh, hear the man! Joe, you know she'd
sit up six weeks to please any one of you!"

When Joe heard that there was a letter, he asked to have
it read, and the loving messages in it for him broke the old
fellow all up; but he said he was such an old wreck that that
would happen to him if she only just mentioned his name.

"Lord, we miss her so!" he said.

Saturday afternoon I found I was taking out my watch pret-
ty often. Henry noticed it, and said, with a startled look:

"You don't think she ought to be here so soon, do you?"

I felt caught, and a little embarrassed; but I laughed,
and said it was a habit of mine when I was in a state of
expectancy. But he didn't seem quite satisfied; and from
that time on he began to show uneasiness. Four times he
walked me up the road to a point whence we could see a
long distance; and there he would stand, shading his eyes
with his hand, and looking. Several times be said:

"I'm getting worried. I'm getting right down worried. I
know she's not due till about nine o'clock, and yet some-
thing seems to be trying to warn me that something's hap-
pened. You don't think anything has happened, do you?"

I began to get pretty thoroughly ashamed of him for his
childishness; and at last, when he repeated that imploring
question still another time, I lost my patience for the
moment, and spoke pretty brutally to him. It seemed to
shrivel him up and cow him; and he looked so wounded and
so humble after that, that I detested myself for having done
the cruel and unnecessary thing. And so I was glad when
Charley, another veteran, arrived toward the edge of the
evening, and nestled up to Henry to hear the letter read,
and talked over the preparations for the welcome. Charley
fetched out one hearty speech after another, and did his
best to drive away his friend's bodings and apprehensions.

"Anything happened to her? Henry, that's pure nonsense.
There isn't anything going to happen to her; just make your
mind easy as to that. What did the letter say? Said she was
well, didn't it? And said she'd be here by nine o'clock,
didn't it? Did you ever know her to fail of her word? Why,
you know you never did. Well, then, don't you fret; she'll
be here, and that's absolutely certain, and as sure as you
are born. Come, now, let's get to decorating--not much time
left."

Pretty soon Tom and Joe arrived, and then all hands set
about adorning the house with flowers. Toward nine the
three miners said that as they had brought their instruments
they might as well tune up, for the boys and girls would
soon be arriving now, and hungry for a good, old-fashioned
break-down. A fiddle, a banjo, and a clarinet--these were
the instruments. The trio took their places side by side, and
began to play some rattling dance-music, and beat time with
their big boots.

It was getting very close to nine. Henry was standing in
the door with his eyes directed up the road, his body swaying
to the torture of his mental distress. He had been made
to drink his wife's health and safety several times, and now
Tom shouted:

"All hands stand by! One more drink, and she's here!"

Joe brought the glasses on a waiter, and served the party.
I reached for one of the two remaining glasses, but Joe
growled, under his breath:

"Drop that! Take the other."

Which I did. Henry was served last. He had hardly swallowed
his drink when the clock began to strike. He listened till
it finished, his face growing pale and paler; then he said:

"Boys, I'm sick with fear. Help me--I want to lie down!"

They helped him to the sofa. He began to nestle and drowse,
but presently spoke like one talking in his sleep, and said:

"Did I hear horses' feet? Have they come?"

One of the veterans answered, close to his ear: "It was
Jimmy Parrish come to say the party got delayed, but they're
right up the road a piece, and coming along. Her horse is
lame, but shell be here in half an hour."

"Oh, I'm so thankful nothing has happened!"

He was asleep almost before the words were out of his
mouth. In a moment those handy men had his clothes off,
and had tucked him into his bed in tbe chamber where I had
washed my hands. They closed the door and came back.
Then they seemed preparing to leave; but I said: "Please
don't go, gentlemen. She won't know me; I am a stranger."

They glanced at each other. Then Joe said:

"She? Poor thing, she's been dead nineteen years!"

"Dead?"

"That or worse. She went to see her folks half a year after
she was married, and on her way back, on a Saturday evening,
the Indians captured her within five miles of this place,
and she's never been heard of since."

"And he lost his mind in consequence?"

"Never has been sane an hour since. But he only gets bad
when that time of the year comes round. Then we begin to
drop in here, three days before she's due, to encourage him
up, and ask if he's heard from her, and Saturday we all come
and fix up the house with flowers, and get everything ready
for a dance. We've done it every year for nineteen years.
The first Saturday there was twenty-seven of us, without
counting the girls; there's only three of us now, and the
girls are all gone. We drug him to sleep, or he would go
wild; then he's all right for another year--thinks she's
with him till the last three or four days come round; then
he begins to look for her, and gets out his poor old letter,
and we come and ask him to read it to us. Lord, she was a
darling!"

1893



The Diary of Adam and Eve


PART I--EXTRACTS FROM ADAM'S DIARY


Monday This new creature with the long hair is a good deal
in the way. It is always hanging around and following me
about. I don't like this; I am not used to company. I wish
it would stay with the other animals.... Cloudy today, wind
in the east; think we shall have rain.... We? Where did I
get that word?--I remember now--the new creature uses it.

Tuesday Been examining the great waterfall. It is the fin-
est thing on the estate, I think. The new creature calls it
Niagara Falls--why, I am sure I do not know. Says it looks
like Niagara Falls. That is not a reason, it is mere wayward-
ness and imbecility. I get no chance to name anything myself.
The new creature names everything that comes along, before
I can get in a protest And always that same pretext is of-
fered--it looks like the thing. There is the dodo, for in-
stance. Says the moment one looks at it one sees at a glance
that it "looks like a dodo." It will have to keep that name,
no doubt. It wearies me to fret about it, and it does no
good, anyway. Dodo! It looks no more like a dodo than I
do.

Wednesday Built me a shelter against the rain, but could
not have it to myself in peace. The new creature intruded.
When I tried to put it out it shed water out of the holes
it looks with, and wiped it away with the back of its paws,
and made a noise such as some of the other animals make
when they are in distress. I wish it would not talk; it is
always talking. That sounds like a cheap fling at the poor
creature, a slur; but I do not mean it so. I have never
heard the human voice before, and any new and strange sound
intruding itself here upon the solemn hush of these dreaming
solitudes offends my ear and seems a false note. And this
new sound is so close to me; it is right at my shoulder,
right at my ear, first on one side and then on the other,
and I am used only to sounds that are more or less distant
from me.

Friday The naming goes recklessly on, in spite of anything
I can do. I had a very good name for the estate, and it
was musical and pretty--Garden of Eden. Privately, I con-
tinue to call it that, but not any longer publicly. The new
creature says it is all woods and rocks and scenery, and
therefore has no resemblance to a garden. Says it looks like
a park, and does not look like anything but a park. Conse-
quently, without consulting me, it has been new-named--
NIAGARA FALLS PARK. This is sufficiently high-handed, it
seems to me. And already there is a sign up:

　　　　　　　　　　　KEEP OFF
　　　　　　　　　　　THE GRASS

My life is not as happy as it was.

Saturday The new creature eats too much fruit. We are going
to run short, most likely. "We" again--that is its word;
mine, too, now, from hearing it so much. Good deal of fog
this morning. I do not go out in the fog myself. The new
creature does. It goes out in all weathers, and stumps right
in with its muddy feet. And talks. It used to be so pleasant
and quiet here.

Sunday Pulled through. This day is getting to be more and
more trying. It was selected and set apart last November
as a day of rest. I had already six of them per week before.
This morning found the new creature trying to clod apples
out of that forbidden tree.

Monday The new creature says its name is Eve. That is all
right, I have no objections. Says it is to call it by, when
I want it to come. I said it was superfluous, then. The word
evidently raised me in its respect; and indeed it is a large,
good word and will bear repetition. It says it is not an It, it
is a She. This is probably doubtful; yet it is all one to me;
what she is were nothing to me if she would but go by herself
and not talk.

Tuesday She has littered the whole estate with execrable
names and offensive signs:

　　　　　THIS WAY TO THE WHIRLPOOL
　　　　　THIS WAY TO GOAT ISLAND
　　　　　CAVE OF THE WINDS THIS WAY

She says this park would make a tidy summer resort if there
was any custom for it. Summer resort--another invention
of hers--just words, without any meaning. What is a summer
resort? But it is best not to ask her, she has such a rage
for explaining.

Friday She has taken to beseeching me to stop going over the
Falls. What harm does it do? Says it makes her shudder. I
wonder why; I have always done it--always liked the plunge,
and coolness. I supposed it was what the Falls were for. They
have no other use that I can see, and they must have been
made for something. She says they were only made for
scenery--like the rhinoceros and the mastodon.

I went over the Falls in a barrel--not satisfactory to her.
Went over in a tub--still not satisfactory. Swam the Whirl-
pool and the Rapids in a fig-leaf suit. It got much damaged.
Hence, tedious complaints about my extravagance. I am too
much hampered here. What I need is change of scene.

Saturday I escaped last Tuesday night, and traveled two
days, and built me another shelter in a secluded place, and
obliterated my tracks as well as I could, but she hunted me
out hy means of a beast which she has tamed and calls a
wolf, and came making that pitiful noise again, and shedding
that water out of the places she looks with. I was obliged
to return with her, but will presently emigrate again when
occasion offers. She engages herself in many foolish things;
among others, to study out why the animals called lions and
tigers live on grass and flowers, when, as she says, the sort
of teeth they wear would indicate that they were intended
to eat each other. This is foolish, because to do that would
be to kill each other, and that would introduce what, as I
understand it, is called "death"; and death, as I have been
told, has not yet entered the Park. Which is a pity, on some
accounts.

Sunday Pulled through.

Monday I believe I see what the week is for: it is to give
time to rest up from the weariness of Sunday. It seems a
good idea.... She has been climbing that tree again. Clod-
ded her out of it. She said nobody was looking. Seems to
consider that a sufficient justification for chancing any
dangerous thing. Told her that. The word justification moved
her admiration--and envy, too, I thought It is a good word.

Tuesday She told me she was made out of a rib taken from
my body. This is at least doubtful, if not more than that
I have not missed any rib....She is in much trouble about
the buzzard; says grass does not agree with it; is afraid she
can't raise it; thinks it was intended to live on decayed
flesh. The buzzard must get along the best it can with what
it is provided. We cannot overturn the whole scheme to ac-
commodate the buzzard.

Saturday She fell in the pond yesterday when she was look-
ing at herself in it, which she is always doing. She nearly
strangled, and said it was most uncomfortable. This made her
sorry for the creatures which live in there, which she calls
fish, for she continues to fasten names on to things that
don't need them and don't come when they are called by
them, which is a matter of no consequence to her, she is
such a numskull, anyway; so she got a lot of them out and
brought them in last night and put them in my bed to keep
warm, but I have noticed them now and then all day and I
don't see that they are any happier there than they were
before, only quieter. When night comes I shall throw them
outdoors. I will not sleep with them again, for I find them
clammy and unpleasant to lie among when a person hasn't
anything on.

Sunday Pulled through.

Tuesday She has taken up with a snake now. The other an-
imals are glad, for she was always experimenting with them
and bothering them; and I am glad because the snake talks,
and this enables me to get a rest.

Friday She says the snake advises her to try the fruit of
that tree, and says the result will be a great and fine and
noble education. I told her there would be another result,
too--it would introduce death into the world. That was a
mistake--it had been better to keep the remark to myself;
it only gave her an idea--she could save the sick buzzard,
and furnish fresh meat to the despondent lions and tigers.
I advised her to keep away from the tree. She said she
wouldn't. I foresee trouble. Will emigrate.

Wednesday I have had a variegated time. I escaped last
night, and re a horse all night as fast as he could go,
hoping to get clear out of the Park and hide in some other
country before the trouble should begin; but it was not to
be. About an hour after sun-up, as I was riding through a
flowery plain where thousands of animals were grazing,
slumbering, or playing with each other, according to their
wont, all of a sudden they broke into a tempest of frightful
noises, and in one moment the plain was a frantic commotion
and every beast was destroying its neighbor. I knew what it
meant--Eve had eaten that fruit, and death was come into
the world....The tigers ate my horse, paying no attention
when I ordered them to desist, and they would have eaten me
if I had stayed--which I didn't, but went away in much
haste....I found this place, outside the Park, and was
fairly comfortable for a few days, but she has found me out.
Found me out, and has named the place Tonawanda--says it
looks like that. In fact I was not sorry she came, for there
are but meager pickings here, and she brought some of those
apples. I was obliged to eat them, I was so hungry. It was
against my principles, but I find that principles have no
real force except when one is well fed.... She came cur-
tained in boughs and bunches of leaves, and when I asked
her what she meant by such nonsense, and snatched them away
and threw them down, she tittered and blushed. I had never
seen a person titter and blush before, and to me it seemed
unbecoming and idiotic. She said I would soon know how it
was myself. This was correct. Hungry as I was, I laid down
the apple half-eaten--certainly the best one I ever saw,
considering the lateness of the season--and arrayed myself
in the discarded boughs and branches, and then spoke to her
with some severity and ordered her to go and get some more
and not make such a spectacle of herself. She did it, and
after this we crept down to where the wild-beast battle
had been, and collected some skins, and I made her patch
together a couple of suits proper for public occasions.
They are uncomfortable, it is true, but stylish, and that
is the main point about clothes. ... I find she is a good
deal of a companion. I see I should be lonesome and depres-
sed without her, now that I have lost my property. Another
thing, she says it is ordered that we work for our living
hereafter. She will be useful. I will superintend.

Ten Days Later She accuses me of being the cause of our dis-
aster! She says, with apparent sincerity and truth, that the
Serpent assured her that the forbiddra fruit was not apples,
it was chestnuts. I said I was innocent, then, for I had not
eaten any chestnuts. She said the Serpent informed her that
"chestnut" was a figurative term meaning an aged and moldy
joke. I turned pale at that, for I have made many jokes to
pass the weary time, and some of them could have been of
that sort, though I had honestly supposed that they were new
whra I made them. She asked me if I had made one just at the
time of die catastrophe. I was obliged to admit that I had
made one to myself, though not aloud. It was this. I was
thinking about the Falls, and I said to myself, "How wonder-
ful it is to see that vast body of water tumble down there!"
Then in an instant a bright thought flashed into my head,
and I let it fly, saying, "It would be a deal more wonderful
to see it tumble up there!"--and I was just about to kill
myself with laughing at it when all nature broke loose in
war and death and I had to flee for my life. "There," she
stud, with triumph, "that is just it; the Serpent mentioned
that very jest, and called it the First Chestnut, and said
it was coeval with the creation." Alas, I am indeed to blame.
Would that I were not witty; oh, that I had never had that
radiant thought!

Next Year We have named it Cain. She caught it while
I was up country-trapping on the North Shore of the Erie;
caught it in the timber a couple of miles from our dug-out
--or it might have been four, she isn't certain which. It
resembles us in some ways, and may be a relation. That is
what she thinks, but this is an error, in my judgment. The
difference in size warrants the conclusion that it is a dif-
ferent and new kind of animal--a fish, perhaps, though when
I put it in the water to see, it sank, and she plunged in
and snatched it out before there was opportunity for the
experiment to determine the matter. I still think it is a
fish, but she is indifferent about what it is, and will not
let me have it to try. I do not understand this. The coming
of the creature seems to have changed her whole nature and
made her unreasonable about experiments. She thinks more
of it than she does of any of the other animals, but is not
able to explain why. Her mind is disordered--everything
shows it. Sometimes she carries the fish in her arms half
the night when it complains and wants to get to the water.
At such times the water comes out of the places in her face
that she looks out of, and she pats the fish on the back
and makes soft sounds with her mouth to soothe it, and be-
trays sorrow and solicitude in a hundred ways. I have never
seen her do like this with any other fish, and it troubles
me greatly. She used to carry the young tigers around so,
and play with them, before we lost our property. but it
was only play; she never took on about them like this when
their dinner disagreed with them.

Sunday She doesn't work, Sundays, but lies around all tired
out, and likes to have the fish wallow over her; and she
makes fool noises to amuse it, and pretends to chew its paws,
and that makes it laugh. I have not seen a fish before that
could laugh. This makes me doubt. ... I have come to like
Sunday myself. Superintending all the week tires a body so.
There ought to be more Sundays. In the old days they were
tough, but now they come handy.

Wednesday It isn't a fish. I cannot quite make out what it
is. It makes curious devilish noises when not satisfied,
and says "goo-goo" when it is. It is not one of us, for it
doesn't walk; it is not a bird, for it doesn't fly; it is
not a frog, for it doesn't hop; it is not a snake, for it
doesn't crawl, I feel sure it is not a fish, though I can-
not get a chance to find out whether it can swim or not.
It merely lies around, and mostly on its back, with its
feet up. I have not seen any other animal do that before.
I said I believed it was an enigma; but she only admired
the word without understanding it. In my judgment it is
either an enigma or some kind of a bug. If it dies, I
will take it apart and see what its arrangements are. I
never had a thing perplex me so.

Three Months Later The perplexity augments instead of
diminishing. I sleep but little. It has ceased from ly-
ing around, and goes about on its four legs now. Yet it
differs from the other four-legged animals, in that its
front legs are unusually short, consequently this causes
the main part of its person to stick up uncomfortably
high in the air, and this is not attractive. It is built
much as we are, but its method of traveling shows that
it is not of our breed. The short front legs and long
hind ones indicate that it is of the kangaroo family,
but it is a marked variation of the species, since the
true kangaroo hops, whereas this one never does. Still
it is a curious and interesting variety, and has not
been catalogued before. As I discovered it, I have felt
justified in securing the credit of the discovery by
attaching my name to it, and hence have called it Kang-
aroorum Adamiensis....It must have been a young one when
it came, for it has grown exceedingly since. It must be
five times as big, now, as it was then, and when discon-
tented it is able to make from twenty-two to thirty-eight
times the noise it made at first. Coercion does not mod-
ify this, but has the contrary effect. For this reason I
discontinued the system. She reconciles it by persuasion,
and by giving it things which she had previously told me
she wouldn't giye it As already observed, I was not at
home when it first came, and she told me she found it in
the woods. It seems odd that it should be the only one,
yet it must be so, for I have worn myself out these many
weeks trying to find another one to add to my collection,
and for this one to play with; for surely then it would
be quieter and we could tame it more easily. But I find
none, nor any vestige of any; and strangest of all, no
tracks. It has to live on the ground, it cannot help it-
self; therefore, how does it get about without leaving a
track? I have set a dozen traps, but they do no good. I
catch all small animals except hat one; animals that
merely go into the trap out of curiosity, I think, to
see what the milk is there for. They never drink it.

Three Months Later The Kangaroo still continues to grow,
which is very strange and perplexing. I never knew one
to be so long getting its growth. It has fur on its head
now; not like kangaroo fur, but exactly like our hair ex-
cept that it is much finer and softer, and instead of be-
ing black is red. I am like to lose my mind over the cap-
ricious and harassing developments of this unclassifiable
zoological freak. If I could catch another one--but that
is hopeless; it is a new variety, and the only sample;
this is plain. But I caught a true kangaroo and brought
it in, thinking that this one, being lonesome, would ra-
ther have that for company than have no kin at all, or
any animal it could feel a nearness to or get sympathy
from in its forlorn condition here among strangers who
do not know its ways or habits, or what to do to make it
feel that it is among friends; but it was a mistake--it
went into such fits at the sight of the kangaroo that I
was convinced it had never seen one before. I pity the
poor noisy little animal, but there is nothing I can do
to make it happy. If I could tame it--but that is out of
the question; the more I try the worse I seem to make it.
It grieves me to the heart to see it in its little storms
of sorrow and passion. I wanted to let it go, but she
wouldn't hear of it. That seemed cruel and not like her;
and yet she may be right. It might be lonelier than ever;
for since I cannot find another one, how could it?

Five Months Later It is not a kangaroo. No, for it supports
itself by holding to her finger, and thus goes a few steps
on its hind legs, and then falls down. It is probably some
kind of a bear; and yet it has no tail--as yet--and no fur,
except on its head. It still keeps on growing--that is a
curious circumstance, for bears get their growth earlier
than this. Bears are dangerous--since our catastrophe--and
I shall not be satisfied to have this one prowling about
the place much longer without a muzzle on. I have offered
to get her a kangaroo if she would let this one go, but it
did no good--she is determined to run us into all sorts of
foolish risks, I think. She was not like this before she
lost her mind.

A Fortnight Later I examined its mouth. There is no danger
yet: it has only one tooth. It has no tail yet. It makes
more noise now than it ever did before--and mainly at night
I have moved out. But I shall go over, mornings, to break-
fast, and see if it has more teeth. If it gets a mouthful
of teeth it will be time for it to go, tail or no tail,
for a bear does not need a tail in order to be dangerous.

Four Months Later I have been off hunting and fishing a
month, up in the region that she calls Buffalo; I don't know
why, unless it is because there are not any buffaloes there.
Meantime the bear has learned to paddle around all by itself
on its hind legs, and says "poppa" and "momma." It is cer-
tainly a new species. This resemblance to words may be purely
accidental, of course, and may have no purpose or meaning;
but even in that case it is still extraordinary, and is a
thing which no other bear can do. This imitation of speech,
taken together with general absence of fur and entire ab-
sence of tail, sufficiently indicates that this is a new
kind of bear. The further study of it will be exceedingly
interesting, Meantime I will go off on a far expedition
among the forests of the north and make an exhaustive search.
There must certainly be another one somewhere, and this one
will be less dangerous when it has company of its own spe-
cies. I will go straightway; but I will muzzle this one first.

Three Months Later It has been a weary, weary hunt, yet I
have had no success. In the mean time, without stirring
from the home estate, she has caught another one! I never
saw such luck. I might have hunted these woods a hundred
years, I never would have run across that thing.

Next Day I have been comparing the new one with the old
one, and it is perfectly plain that they are the same
breed. I was going to stuff one of them for my collection,
but she is prejudiced against it for some reason or other;
so I have relinquished the idea, though I think it is a
mistake. It would be an irreparable loss to science if
they should get away. The old one is tamer than it was and
can laugh and talk like the parrot, having learned this,
no doubt, from being with the parrot so much, and having
the imitative faculty in a highly developed degree. I
shall be astonished if it turns out to be a new kind par-
rot; and yet I ought not to be astonished, for it has
already been everything else it could think of since those
first days when it was a fish. The new one is as ugly now
as the old one was at first; has the same sulphur-and-
raw-meat complexion and the same singular head without
any fur on it. She calls it Abel.

Ten Years Later They are boys; we found it out long ago.
It was their coming in that small, immature shape that puz-
zled us; we were not used to it. There are some girls now.
Abel is a good boy, but if Cain had stayed a bear it would
have improved him. After all these years, I see that I was
mistaken about Eve in the beginning; it is better to live
outside the Garden with her than inside it without her. At
first I thought she talked too much; but now I should be
sorry to have that voice fall silent and pass out of my life.
Blessed be the chestnut that brought us near together and
taught me to know the goodness of her heart and the sweet-
ness of her spirit!


PART II EVE'S DIARY
(Translated from the original)


Saturday I am almost a whole day old, now. I arrived yes-
terday. That is as it seems to me. And it must be so, for
if there was a day-before-yesterday I was not there when it
happened, or I should remember it. It could be, of course,
that it did happen, and that I was not noticing. Very well;
I will be very watchful now, and if any day-before-yesterdays
happen I will make a note of it. It will be best to start
right and not let the record get confused, for some instinct
tells me that these details are going to be important to the
historian some day. For I feel like an experiment, I feel
exactly like an experiment; it would be impossible for a
person to feel more like an experiment than I do, and so I
am coming to feel convinced that that is what I am--an ex-
periment; just an experiment, and nothing more.

Then if I am an experiment, am I the whole of it? No, I
think not; I think the rest of it is part of it. I am the
main part of it, but I think the rest of it has its share
in the matter. Is my position assured, or do I have to
watch it and take care of it? The latter, perhaps. Some
instinct tells me that eternal vigilance is the price of
supremacy. [That is a good phrase, I think, for one so
young.]

Everything looks better to-day than it did yesterday. In
the rush of finishing up yesterday, the mountains were left
in a ragged condition, and some of the plains were so clut-
tered with rubbish and remnants that the aspects were quite
distressing. Noble and beautiful works of art should not be
subjected to haste; and this majestic new world is indeed a
most noble and beautiful work. And certainly marvelously
near to being perfect, notwithstanding the shortness of the
time. There are too many stars in some places and not enough
in others, but that can be remedied presently, no doubt. The
moon got loose last night, and slid down and fell out of the
scheme--a very great loss; it breaks my heart to think of it
There isn't another thing among the ornaments and decora-
tions that is comparable to it for beauty and finish. It should
have been fastened better. If we can only get it back again--

But of course there is no telling where it went to. And
besides, whoever gets it will hide it; I know it because I
would do it myself. I believe I can be honest in all othor
matters, but I already begin to realize that the core and
center of my nature is love of the beautiful, a passion for
the beautiful, and that it would not be safe to trust me
with a moon that belonged to another person and that person
didn't know I had it. I could give up a moon that I found in
the daytime, because I should be afraid some one was look-
ing; but if I found it in the dark, I am sure I should find
some kind of an excuse for not saying anything about it.
For I do love moons, they are so pretty and so romantic. I
wish we had five or six; I would never go to bed; I should
never get tired lying on the moss-bank and looking up at
them.

Stars are good, too. I wish I could get some to put in my
hair. But I suppose I never can. You would be surprised to
find how far off they are, for they do not look it When
they first showed, last night, I tried to knock some down
with a pole, but it didn't reach, which astonished me; then
I tried clods till I was all tired out, but I never got one.
It was because I am left-handed and cannot throw good. E-
ven when I aimed at the one I wasn't after I couldn't hit the
other one, though I did make some close shots, for I saw the
black blot of the clod sail right into the midst of the gold-
en clusters forty or fifty times, just barely missing them,
and if I could have held out a little longer maybe I could
have got one.

So I cried a little, which was natural, I suppose, for one
of my age, and after I was rested I got a basket and started
for a place on the extreme rim of the circle, where the stars
were close to the ground and I could get them with my hands,
which would be better, anyway, because I could gather them
tenderly then, and not break them. But it was farther than I
thought, and at last I had to give it up; I was so tired I
couldn't drag my feet another step; and besides, they were
sore and hurt me very much.

I couldn't get back home; it was too far and turning cold;
but I found some tigers and nestled in among them and was
most adorably comfortable, and their breath was sweet and
pleasant, because they live on strawberries. I had never seen
a tiger before, but I knew them in a minute by the stripes.
If I could have one of those skins, it would make a lovely
gown.

To-day I am getting better ideas about distances. I was so
eager to get hold of every pretty thing that I giddily grab-
bed for it, sometimes when it was too far off, and sometimes
when it was but six inches away but seemed a foot--alas, with
thorns between! I learned a lesson; also I made an axiom, all
out of my own head--my very first one: The scratched Experi-
ment shuns the thorn. I think it is a very good one for one
so young.

I followed the other experiment around, yesterday afternoon,
at a distance, to see what it might be for, if I could. But
I was not able to make out. I think it is a man. I had never
seen a man, but it looked like one, and I feel sure that that
is what it is. I realize that I feel more curiosity about it
than about any of the other reptiles. If it is a reptile, and
I suppose it is; for it has frowsy hair and blue eyes, and
looks like a reptile. It has no hips; it tapers like a carrot;
when it stands, it spreads itself apart like a derrick; so I
think it is a reptile, though it may be architecture.

I was afraid of it at first, and started to run every time
it turned around, for I thought it was going to chase me; but
by and by I found it was only trying to get away, so after
that I was not timid any more, but tracked it along, several
hours, about twenty yards behind, which made it nervous and
unhappy. At last it was a good deal worried, and climbed a
tree. I waited a good while, then gave it up and went home.

To-day the same thing over. I've got it up the tree again.

Sunday It is up there yet. Resting, apparently. But that
is a subterfuge; Sunday isn't the day of rest; Saturday is
appointed for that. It looks to me like a creature that is
more interested in resting than in anything else. It would
tire me to rest so much. It tires me just to sit around and
watch the tree. I do wonder what it is for; I never see it
do anything.

They returned the moon last night, and I was so happy! I
think it is very honest of them. It slid down and fell off
again, but I was not distressed; there is no need to worry
when one has that kind of neighbors; they will fetch it
back. I wish I could do something to show my appreciation.
I would like to send them some stars, for we have more
than we can use. I mean I, not we, for I can see that
the reptile cares nothing for such things.

It has low tastes, and is not kind. When I went there yes-
terday evening in the gloaming it had crept down and was
trying to catch the little speckled fishes that play in the
pool, and I had to clod it to make it go up the tree again
and let them alone. I wonder if that is what it is for?
Hasn't it any heart? Hasn't it any compassion for those lit-
tle creatures? Can it be that it was designed and manufact-
ured for such ungentle work? It has the look of it. One of
the clods took it back of the ear, and it used language. It
gave me a thrill, for it was the first time I had ever beard
speech, except my own. I did not understand the words, but
they seemed expressive.

When I found it could talk I felt a new interest in it, for
I love to talk; I talk, all day, and in my sleep, too, and
I am very interesting, but if I had another to talk to I could
be twice as interesting, and would never stop, if desired.

If this reptile is a man, it isn't an it, is it? That wouldn't
be grammatical, would it? I think it would be he. I think so.
In that case one would parse it thus: nominative, he; dative,
him: possessive, his'n. Well, I will consider it a man and
call it he until it turns out to be something else. This will
be handier than having so many uncertainties.

Next week Sunday All the week I tagged around after him and
tried to get acquainted. I had to do the talking, because
he was shy, but I didn't mind it. He seemed pleased to have
me around, and I used the sociable "we" a good deal, because
it seemed to fiatter him to be included.

Wednesday We are getting along very well indeed, now, and
getting better and better acquainted. He does not try to
avoid me any more, which is a good sign, and shows that he
likes to have me with him. That pleases me, and I study to
be useful to him in every way I can, so as to increase his
regard. During the last day or two I have taken all the work
of naming things off his hands, and this has been a great
relief to him, for he has not gift in that line, and is evi-
dently very grateful. He can't think of a rational name to
save him, but I do not let him see that I am aware of his
defect. Whenever a new creature comes along I name it before
he has time to expose himself by an awkward silence. In this
way I have saved him many embarassments. I have no defect
like his. The minute I set eyes on an animal I know what it
is. I don't have to reflect a moment; the right name comes
out instantly, just as if it were an inspiration, as no doubt
it is, for I am sure it wasn't in me half a minute before.
I seem to know just by the shape of the creature and the
way it acts what animal it is.

When the dodo came along he thought it was a wildcat--I
saw it in his eye. But I saved him. And I was careful not
to do it in a way that could hurt his pride. I just spoke
up in a quite natural way of pleased surprise, and not as if
I was dreaming of conveying information, and said, "Well,
I do declare, if there isn't the dodo!" I explained--without
seeming to be explaining--how I knew it for a dodo, and al-
though I thought maybe he was a little piqued that I knew
the creature when he didn't, it was quite evident that he
admired me. That was very agreeable, and I thought of it
nore than once with gratification before I slept How little
a thing can make us happy when we feel that we have
earned it!

Thursday My first sorrow. Yesterday he avoided me and
seemed to wish I would not talk to him. I could not believe
it, and thought there was some mistake, for I loved to be
with him, and loved to hear him talk, and so how could it
be that he could feel unkind toward me when I had not done
anything? But at last it seemed true, so I went away and sat
lonely in the place where I first saw him the morning that
we were made and I did not know what he was and was indif-
ferent about him; but now it was a mournful place, and ev-
ery little thing spoke of him, and my heart was very sore.
I did not know why very clearly, for it was a new feeling;
I had not experienced it before, and it was all a mystery,
and I could not make it out.

But when night came I could not bear the lonesomeness,
and went to the new shelter which he has built, to ask him
what I had done that was wrong and how I could mend it and
get back his kindness again; but he put me out in the rain,
and it was my first sorrow.

Sunday It is pleasant again, now, and I am happy; but
those were heavy days; I do not think of them when I can
help it.

I tried to get him some of those apples, but I cannot learn
to throw straight. I failed, but I think the good intention
pleased him. They are forbidden, and he says I shall come to
harm; but so I come to harm through pleasing him, why shall
I care for that harm?

Monday This morning I told him my name, hoping it would in-
terest him. But he did not care for it. It is strange. If
he should tell me his name, I would care. I think it would
be pleasanter in my ears than any other sound.

He talks very little. Perhaps it is because he is not bright,
and is sensitive about it and wishes to conceal it. It is
such a pity that he should feel so, for brightness is nothing;
it is in the heart that the values lie. I wish I could make
him understand that a loving good heart is riches, and riches
enough, and that without it intellect is poverty.

Although he talks so little, he has quite a considerable
vocabulary. This morning he used a surprisingly good word.
He evidently recognized, himself, that it was a good one, for
he worked it in twice afterward, casually. It was not good
casual art, still it showed that he possesses a certain quality
of perception. Without a doubt that seed can be made to
grow, if cultivated.

Where did he get that word? I do not think I have ever used
it.

No, he took no interest in my name. I tried to hide my dis-
appointment, but I suppose I did not succeed. I went away
and sat on the moss-bank with my feet in the water. It is
where I go when I hunger for companionship, some one to
look at, some one to talk to. It is not enough--that lovely
white body painted there in the pool--but it is something,
and something is better than utter loneliness. It talks when
I talk; it is sad when I am sad; it comforts me with its sym-
pathy; it says, "Do not be downhearted, you poor friendless
girl; I will be your friend." It is a good friend to me, and
my only one; it is my sister.

That first time that she forsook me! ah, I shall never forget
that--never, never. My heart was lead in my body! I said,
"She was all I had, and now she is gone!" In my despair I
said, "Break, my heart; I cannot bear my life any more!" and
hid my face in my hands, and there was no solace for me.
And when I took them away, after a little, there she was
again, white and shining and beautiful, and I sprang into her
arms!

That was perfect happiness; I had known happiness bofore,
but it was not like this, which was ecstasy. I never doubt-
ed her afterward. Sometimes she stayed away--maybe an hour,
maybe almost the whole day, but I waited and did not doubt;
I said, "She is busy, or she is gone a journey, but she will
come." And it was so: she always did. At night she would
not come if it was dark, for she was a timid little thing;
but if there was a moon she would come. I am not afraid of
the dark, but she is younger than I am; she was born after I
was. Many and many are the visits I have paid her; she is
my comfort and my refuge when my life is hard--and it is
mainly that.

Tuesday All the morning I was at work improving the estate;
and I purposely kept away from him in the hope that he would
get lonely and come. But he did not.

At noon I stopped for the day and took my recreation by flit-
ting all about with the bees and the butterflies and reveling
in the flowers, those beautiful creatures that catch the
smile of God out of the sky and preserve it! I gathered them,
and made them into wreaths and garlands and clothed myself
in them while I ate my luncheon--apples, of course; then I
sat in the shade and wished and waited. But he did not come.

But no matter. Nothing would have come of it, for he does
not care for flowers. He calls them rubbish, and cannot tell
one from another, and thinks it is superior to feel like that.
He does not care for me, he does not care for flowers, he
does not care for the painted sky at eventide--is there any-
thing he does care for, except building shacks to coop him-
self up in from the good clean rain, and thumping the melons,
and sampling the grapes, and Angering the iit on the trees,
to see how those properties are coming along?

I laid a dry stick on the ground and tried to bore a hole in
it with another one, in order to carry out a scheme that I
had, and soon I got an awful fright. A thin, transparent blu-
ish film rose out of the hole, and I dropped everything and
ran! I thought it was a spirit, and I was so frightened! But
I looked back, and it was not coming; so I leaned against a
rock and rested and panted, and let my limbs go on trembling
until they got steady again; then I crept warily back,
alert, watching, and ready to fly if there was occasion; and
when I was come near, I parted the branches of a rose-bush
and peeped through--wishing the man was about, I was looking
so cunning and pretty--but the sprite was gone. I went
there, and there was a pinch of delicate pink dust in the hole.
I put my finger in, to feel it, and said ouch! and took it out
again. It was a cruel pain. I put my finger in my mouth; and
by standing first on one foot and then the other, and grunt-
ing, I presently eased my misery; then I was full of interest,
and began to examine.

I was curious to know what the pink dust was. Suddenly the
name of it occurred to me, though I had never heard of it be-
fore. It was fire! I was as certain of it as a person could
be of anything in the world. So without hesitation I named it
that--fire.

I had created something that didn't exist before; I had add-
ed a new thing to the world's uncountable properties; I real-
ized this, and was proud of my achievement, and was going
to run and find him and tell him about it, thinking to raise
myself in his esteem--but I reflected, and did not do it.
No---he would not care for it. He would ask what it was good
for, and what could I answer? for if it was not good for
something, but only beautiful, merely beautiful--

So I sighed, and did not go. For it wasn't good for anything;
it could not build a shack, it could not improve melons, it
could not hurry a fruit crop; it was useless, it was a fool-
ishness and a vanity; he would despise it and say cutting
words. But to me it was not despicable; I said, "Oh, you
fire, I love you, you dainty pink creature, for you are
beautiful--and that is enoughI" and was going to gather it
to my breast. But refrained. Then I made another maxim
out of my own head, though it was so nearly like the first
one that I was afraid it was only a plagiarism: "The burnt
Experiment shuns the fire."

I wrought again; and when I had made a good deal of fire-
dust I emptied it into a handful of dry brown grass, intend-
ing to carry it home and keep it always and play with it;
but the wind struck it and it sprayed up and spat out at me
fiercely, and I dropped it and ran. When I looked back the
blue spirit was towering up and stretching and rolling away
like a cloud, and instantly I thought of the name of it--
smoke!--though, upon my word, I had never heard of smoke
before.

Soon, brilliant yellow and red flares shot up through the
smoke, and I named them in an instant--flames--and I was
right, too, though these were the very first flames that had
ever been in the world. They climbed the trees, they flashed
splendidly in and out of the vast and increasing volume of
tumbling smoke, and I had to clap my hands and laugh
and dance in my rapture, it was so new and strange and so
wonderful and so beautiful!

He came running, and stopped and gazed, and said not a
word for many minutes. Then he asked what it was. Ah, it
w'as too bad that he should ask such a direct question. I had
to answer it, of course, and I did. I said it was fire. If
it annoyed him that I should know and he must ask, that was
not my fault; I had no desire to annoy him. After a pause
be asked:

"How did it come?"

Another direct question, and it also had to have a direct
answer.

"I made it."

The fire was traveling farther and farther off. He went to
the edge of the burned place and stood looking down, and
said:

"What are these?"

"Fire-coals."

He picked up one to examine it, but changed his mind and
put it down again. Then he went away. Nothing interests
him.

But I was interested. There were ashes, gray and soft and
delicate and pretty--I knew what they were at once. And
the embers; I knew the embers, too. I found my apples, and
raked them out, and was glad; for I am very young and my
appetite is active. But I was disappointed; they were all
burst open and spoiled. Spoiled apparently; but it was not
so; they were better than raw ones. Fire is beautiful; some
day it will be useful, I think.

Friday I saw him again, for a moment, last Monday at night-
fall, but only for a moment. I was hoping he would praise
me for trying to improve the estate, for I had meant well
and had worked hard. But he was not pleased, and turned
away and left me. He was also displeased on another ac-
count: I tried once more to persuade him to stop going
over the Falls. That was because the fire had revealed to
me a new passion--quite new, and distinctly different from
love, grief, and those others which I had already discovered
--fear. And it is horrible!--I wish I had never discovered
it; it gives me dark moments, it spoils my happiness, it
makes me shiver and tremble and shudder But I could not
persuade him, for he has not discovered fear yet, and so
he could not understand me.


Extract from Adam's Diary


Perhaps I ought to remember that she is very young, a mere
girl, and make allowances. She is all interest, eagerness,
vivacity, the world is to her a charm, a wonder, a mystery,
a joy: she can't speak for delight when she finds a new flow-
er, she must pet it and caress it and smell it and talk to
it, and pour out endearing names upon it. And she is color-
mad: brown rocks, yellow sand, gray moss, green foliage,
blue sky; the pearl of the dawn, the purple shadows on the
mountains, the golden islands floating in crimson seas at
sunset, the pallid moon sailing through the shredded cloud-
rack, the star-jewels glittering in the wastes of space--none
of them is of any practical value, so far as I can see, but
because they have color and majesty, that is enough for her,
and she loses her mind over them. If she could quiet down
and keep still a couple of minutes at a time, it would be a
reposeful spectacle. In that case I think I could enjoy look-
ing at her; indeed I am sure I could, for I am coming to real-
ize that she is a quite remarkably comely creature--lithe,
slender, trim, rounded, shapely, nimble, graceful; and once
when she was standing marble-white and sun-drenched on a
boulder, with her young head tilted back and her hand shading
her eyes, watching the flight of a bird in the sky, I recog-
nized that she was beautiful.

Monday noon If there is anything on the planet that she is
not interested in it is not in my list. There are animals
that I am indifferent to, but it is not so with her. She has
no discrimination, she takes to all of them, she thinks they
are all treasures, every new one is welcome.

When the mighty brontosaurus came striding into camp,
she regarded it as an acquisition, I considered it a calamity;
that is a good sample of the lack of harmony that prevails in
our views of things. She wanted to domesticate it, I wanted
to make it a present of the homestead and move out. She
believed it could be tamed by kind treatment and would be
a good pet; I said a pet twenty-one feet high and eighty-four
feet long would be no proper thing to have about the place,
because, even with the best intentions and without meaning
any harm, it could sit down on the house and mash it, for
any one could see by the look of its eye that it was absent-
minded.

Still, her heart was set upon having that monster, and she
couldn't give it up. She thought we could start a dairy with
it, and wanted me to help her milk it; but I wouldn't; it was
too risky. The sex wasn't right, and we hadn't any ladder
anyway. Then she wanted to ride it, and look at the scenery.
Thirty or forty feet of its tail was lying on the ground, like
a fallen tree, and she thought she could climb it, but she
was mistaken; when she got to the steep place it was too slick
and down she came, and would have hurt herself but for me.

Was she satisfied now? No. Nothing ever satisfies her but
demonstration; untested theories are not in her line, and she
won't have them. It is the right spirit, I concede it; it at-
tracts me; I feel the influence of it; if I were with her more
I think I should take it up myself. Well, she had one theory
remaining about this colossus: she thought that if we could
tame him and make him friendly we could stand him in the river
and use him for a bridge. It turned out that he was already
plenty tame enough--at least as far as she was concerned--
so she tried her theory, but it failed: every time she got him
properly placed in the river and went ashore to cross over on
him, he came out and followed her around like a pet mountain.
Like the other animals. They all do that.

Friday Tuesday--Wednesday--Thursday--and to-day: all
without seeing him. It is a long time to be alone; still, it
is better to be alone than unwelcome.

I had to have company--was made for it, I think--so I
made friends with the animals. They are just charming,
and they have the kindest disposition and the politest ways;
they never look sour, they never let you feel that you are
intruding, they smile at you and wag their tail, if they've
got one, and they are always ready for a romp or an excursion
or anything you want to propose. I think they are perfect
gentlemen. All these days we have had such good times,
and it hasn't been lonesome for me, ever. Lonesome! No,
I should say not. Why, there's always a swarm of them a-
round--sometimes as much as four or five acres--you can't
count them; and when you stand on a rock in the midst and
look out over the furry expanse it is so mottled and splashed
and gay with color and frisking sheen and sun-flash, and so
rippled with stripes, that you might think it was a lake, only
you know it isn't; and there's storms of sociable birds, and
hurricanes of whirring wings; and when the sun strikes all
that feathery commotion, you have a blazing up of all the
colors you can think of, enough to put your eyes out.

We have made long excursions, and I have seen a great deal
of the world; almost all of it, I think; and so I am the
first traveler, and the only one. When we are on the march,
it is an imposing sight--there's nothing like it anywhere.
For comfort I ride a tiger or a leopard, because it is soft
and has a round back that fits me, and because they are such
pretty animals; but for long distance or for scenery I ride
the elephant He hoists me up with his trunk, but I can get
off myself; when we are ready to camp, he sits and I slide
down the back way.

The birds and animals are all friendly to each other, and
there are no disputes about anything. They all talk, and they
all talk to me, but it must be a foreign language, for I
cannot make out a word they say; yet they often understand
me when I talk back, particularly the dog and the elephant.
It makes me ashamed. It shows that they are brighter than I
am, and are therefore my superiors. It annoys me, for I want
to be the principal Experiment myself--and I intend to be,
too.

I have learned a number of things, and am educated, now, but
I wasn't at first. I was ignorant at first. At first it used
to vex me because, with all my watching, I was never smart
enough to be around when the water was running uphill; but
now I do not mind it. I have experimented and experimented
until now I know it never does run uphill, except in the dark.
I know it does in the dark, because the pool! never goes dry,
which it would, of course, if the water didn't come back in
the night. It is best to prove things by actual experiment;
then you know; whereas if you depend on guessing and
supposing and conjecturing, you will never get educated.

Some things you can't find out; but you will never know
you can't by guessing and supposing: no, you have to be
patient and go on experimenting until you find out that you
can't find out. And it is delightful to have it that way, it
makes the world so interesting. If there wasn't anything to
find out, it would be dull. Even trying to find out and not
finding out is just as interesting as trying to find out and
finding out, and I don't know but more so. The secret of the
water was a treasure until I got it; then the excitement all
went away, and I recognized a sense of loss.

By experiment I know that wood swims, and dry leaves,
and feathers, and plenty of other things; therefore by all
that cumulative evidence you know that a rock will swim;
but you have to put up with simply knowing it, for there
isn't any way to prove it--up to now. But I shall find a
way--then that excitement will go. Such things make me sad;
because by and by when I have found out everything there
won't be any more excitements, and I do love excitements
so! The other night I couldn't sleep for thinking about it.

At first I couldn't make out what I was made for, but now
I think it was to search out the secrets of this wonderful
world and be happy and thank the Giver of it all for devi-
sing it. I think there are many things to learn yet --hope
so; and by economizing and not hurrying too fast I think
they will last weeks and weeks. I hope so. When you cast
up a feather it sails away on the air and goes out of sight;
then you throw up a clod and it doesn't. It comes down, ev-
ery time. I have tried it and tried it, and it is always so.
I wonder why it is? Of course it doesn't come down, but why
should it seem to? I suppose it is an optical illusion. I
mean, one of them is. I don't know which one. It may be the
feather, it may be the clod; I can't prove which it is, I can
only demonstrate that one or the other is a fake, and let a
person take his choice.

By watching, I know that the stars are not going to last. I
have seen some of the best ones melt and run down the sky.
Since one can melt, they can all melt; since they can all melt,
they can all melt the same night. That sorrow will come--I
know it, I mean to sit up every night and look at them as
long as I can keep awake; and I will impress those sparkling
fields on my memory, so that by and by when they are taken
away I can by my fancy restore those lovely myriads to the
black sky and make them sparkle again, and double them by
the blur of my tears.


AFTER THE FALL


When I look back, the Garden is a dream to me. It was
beautiful, surpassingly beautiful, enchantingly beautiful;
and now it is lost, and I shall not see it any more.

The Garden is lost, but I have found him, and am content.
He loves me as well as he can; I love him with all the
strength of my passionate nature, and this, I think, is pro-
per to my youth and sex. If I ask myself why I love him, I
find I do not know, and do not really much care to know; so
I suppose that this kind of love is not a product of reawning
and sfatistics, like one's love for other reptiles and ani-
mals. I think that this must be so. I love certain birds bme
of their song; but I do not love Adam on account of his singing
--no, it is not that; the more he sings the more I do not get
reconciled to it. Yet I ask him to sing, because I wish to
learn to like everything he is interested in. I am sure I can
learn, because at first I could not stand it, but now I can. It
sours the milk, but it doesn't matter; I can get used to that
kind of milk.

It is not on account of his brightness that I love him--no,
it is not that. He is not to blame for his brightness, such as
it is, for he did not make it himself; he is as God made
him, and that is sufficient There was a wise purpose in it,
that I know. In time it will develop, though I think it will
not be sudden; and besides, there is no hurry; he is well
enough just as he is.

It is not on account of his gracious and considerate ways
and his delicacy that I love him. No, he has lacks in these
regards, but he is well enough just so, and is improving.

It is not on account of his industry that I love him--no,
it is not that. I think he has it in him, and I do not know
why he conceals it from me. It is my only pain. Otherwise
he is frank and open with me, now. I am sure he keeps nothing
from me but this. It grieves me that he should have a secret
from me, and sometimes it spoils my sleep, thinking of it,
but I will put it out of my mind; it shall not trouble my
happiness, which is otherwise full to overflowing.

It is not on account of his education that I love him--no,
it is not that He is self-educated, and does really know a
multitude of things, but they are not so.

It is not on account of his chivalry that I love him--no,
it is not that. He told on me, but I do not blame him; it is
a peculiarity of sex, I think, and he did not make his sex.
Of course I would not have told on him, I would have per-
ished first; but that is a peculiarity of sex, too, and I do not
take credit for it, for I did not make my sex.

Then why is it that I love him? Merely because he is
masculine, I think.

At bottom he is good, and I love him for that, but I could
love him without it. If he should beat me and abuse me, I
should go on loving him. I know it. It is a matter of sex,
I think.

He is strong and handsome, and I love him for that, and I
admire him and am proud of him, but I could love him with-
out those qualities. If he were plain, I should love him;
if he were a wreck, I should love him; and I would work
for him, and slave over him, and pray for him, and watdi
by his bedside until I died.

Yes, I think I love him merely because he is mine and is
masculine. There is no other reason, I suppose. And so I
think it is as I first said: that this kind of love is not a
product of reasonings and statistics. It just comes--none
kmows whence--and cannot explain itself. And doesn't need
to.
It is what I think. But I am only a girl, and the first
that has examined this matter, and it may turn out that
in my ignorance and inexperience I have not got it right


FORTY YEARS LATER


It is my prayer, it is my longing, that we may pass from
this life together--a longing which shall never perish from
the earth, but shall have place in the heart of every wife
that loves, until the end of time; and it shall be called by
my name.

But if one of us must go first, it is my prayer that it shall
be I; for he is strong, I am weak, I am not so necessary to
him as he is to me--life without him would not be life;
how could I endure it? This prayer is also immortal, and will
not cease from being offered up while my race continues.
I am the first wife; and in the last wife I shall be repeated.

AT EVE'S GRAVE

ADAM: Wheresoever she was, there was Eden.

1893, 1905



The Esquimau Maiden's Romance



"Yes, I will tell you anything about my life that you would
like to know. Mr. Twain," she said, in her soft voice, and
letting her honest eyes rest placidly upon my face, "for it
is kind and good of you to like me and care to know about
me."

She had been absently scraping blubber-grease from her cheeks
with a small bone-knife and transferring it to her fur sleeve,
while she watched the Aurora Borealis swing its flaming stream-
ers out of the sky and wash the lonely snow-plain and the temp-
led icebergs with the rich hues of the prism, a spectacle of
almost intolerable splendour and beauty; but now she shook off
her reverie and prepared to give me the humble little history
I had asked for.

She settled herself comfortably on the block of ice which
we were using as a sofa, and I made ready to listen.

She was a beautiful creature. I speak from the Esquimau
point of view. Others would have thought her a trifle over-
plump. She was just twenty years old, and was held to be
by far the most bewitching girl in her tribe. Even now, in
the open air, with her cumbersome and shapeless fur coat
and trousers and boots and vast hood, the beauty of her face
at least was apparent; but her figure had to be taken on
trust. Among tdl the guests who came and went, I had seen
no girl at her father's hospitable trough who could be called
her equal. Yet she was not spoiled. She was sweet and natural
and sincere, and if she was aware that she was a belle, there
was nothing about her ways to show that she possessed that
knowledge.

She had been my daily comrade for a week now, and the bet-
ter I knew her the better I liked her. She had been tender-
ly and carefully brought up, in an atmosphere of singularly
rare refinement for the polar regions, for her father was
the most important man of his tribe and ranked at the top
of Esquimau cultivation. I made long dog-sledge trips across
the mighty ice-floes with Lasca--that was her name--and
found her company always pleasant and her conversation
agreeable. I went fishing with her, but not in her perilous
boat: I merely followed along on the ice and watched her
strike her game with her fatally accurate spear. We went
sealing together; several times I stood by while she and
the family dug blubber from a stranded whe, and once I
went part of the way when she was hunting a bear, but
turned back before the finish, because at bottom I am a-
fraid of bears.

However, she was ready to begin her story now, and this
is what she said:

"Our tribe had always been used to wander about from place
to place over the frozen seas, like the other tribes, but
my father got tired of that two years ago, and built this
great mansion of frozen snow-blocks--look at it; it is se-
ven feet high and three or four times as long as any of the
others--and here we have stayed ever since. He was very
proud of his house, and that was reasonable; for if you
have examined it with care you must have noticed how much
finer and completer it is than houses usually are. But if
you have not, you must, for you will find it has luxurious
appointments that are quite beyond the common. For instance,
in that end of it which you have called the 'parlor,' the
raised platform for the accommodation of guests and the fam-
ily at meals is the largest you have ever seen in any house
--is it not so?"

"Yes, you are quite right, Lasca; it is the largest; we have
nothing resembling it in even the finest houses in the United
States." This admission made her eyes sparkle with pride and
pleasure. I noted that, and took my cue.

"I thought it must have surprised you," she said. "And ano-
ther thing: it is bedded far deeper in furs than is usual;
all kinds of furs--seal, sea-otter, silver-gray fox, bear,
marten, sable--every kind of fur in profusion; and the same
with the ice-block sleeping-benches along the walls, which
you call ‘beds.' Are your platforms and sleeping-benches
better provided at home?"

"Indeed, they are not, Lasca--they do not begin to be."
That pleased her again. All she was thinking of was the
number of furs her esthetic father took the trouble to keep
on hand, not their value. I could have told her that those
masses of rich furs constituted wealth--or would in my coun-
try--but she would not have understood that; those were not
the kind of things that ranked as riches with her people.
I could have told her that the clothes she had on, or the
every-day clothes of the commonest person about her, were
worth twelve or fifteen hundred dollars, and that I was not
acquainted with anybody at home who wore twelve-hundred-
dollar toilets to go fishing in; but she would not have
understood it, so I said nothing. She resumed:

"And then the slop-tubs. We have two in the parlor, and
two in the rest of the house. It is very seldom that one
has two in the parlor. Have you two in the parlor at home?"

The memory of those tubs made me gasp, but I recovered
myself before she noticed, and said with effusion:

"Why, Lasca, it is a shame of me to expose my country, and
you must not let it go further, for I am speaking to you
in confidence; but I give you my word of honor that not
even the richest man in the city of New York has two slop-
tubs in his drawing-room."

She clapped her fur-clad hands in innocent delight, and
exclaimed:

"Oh, but you cannot mean it, you cannot mean it!"

"Indeed, I am in earnest, dear. There is Vanderbilt.
Vanderbilt is almost the richest man in the whole world.
Now, if I were on my dying bed, I could say to you that
not even be has two in his drawing-room. Why, he hasn't
even one--I wish I may die in my tracks if it isn't true."

Her lovely eyes stood wide with amazement, and she said,
slowly, and with a sort of awe in her voice:

"How strange--how incredible--one is not able to realize
it. Is he penurious?"

"No--it isn't that. It isn't the expense he minds, but--er
--well, you know, it would look like showing off. Yes, that
is it, that is the idea; he is a plain man in his way, and
shrinks from display."

"Why, that humility is right enough," said Lasca, "if one
does not carry it too far--but what does the place look
like?"

"Well, necessarily it looks pretty barren and unfinished,
but--"

"I should think so! I never heard anything like it. Is it
a fine house--that is, otherwise?"

"Pretty fine, yes. It is very well thought of."

The girl was silent awhile, and sat dreamily gnawing a
candle-end, apparently trying to think the thing out. At
last she gave her head a little toss and spoke out her
opinion with decision:

"Well, to my mind there's a breed of humility which is
itself a species of showing-off, when you get down to the
marrow of it; and when a man is able to afford two slop-tubs
in his parlor, and don't do it, it may be that he is truly
humble-minded, but it's a hundred times more likely that he
is just trying to strike the public eye. In my judgment,
your Mr. Vanderbilt knows what he is about."

I tried to modify this verdict, feeling that a double slop-
tub standard was not a fair one to try everybody by, although
a sound enough one in its own habitat; but the girl's head
was set, and she was not to be persuaded. Presently she said:

"Do the rich people, with you, have as good sleeping-benches
as ours, and made out of as nice broad ice-blocks?"

"Well, they are pretty good--good enough--but they are
not made of ice-blocks."

"I want to know! Why aren't they made of ice-blocks?"

I explained the difficulties in the way, and the expensive-
ness of ice in a country where you have to keep a sharp eye
on your ice-man or your ice bill will weigh more than your
ice. Then she cried out:

"Dear me, do you buy your ice?"

"We most surely do, dear."

She burst into a gale of guileless laughter, and said:

"Oh, I never heard of anything so silly! My, there's plenty
of it--it isn't worth anything. Why, there is a hundred miles
of it in sight, right now. I wouldn't give a fish-bladder for
the whole of it."

"Well, it's because you don't know how to value it, you lit-
tle provincial muggins. If you had it in New York in midsum-
mer, you could buy all the whales in the market with it"

She looked at me doubtfully, and said:

"Are you speaking true?"

"Absolutely. I take my oath to it"

This made her thoughtful. Presently she said, with a little
sigh:

"I wish I could live there."

I had merely meant to furnish her a standard of values
which she could understand; but my purpose bad miscarried
I had only given her the impression that whales were cheap
and plenty in New York, and set her mouth to watering far
them. It seemed best to try to mitigate the evil which I
had done, so I said:

"But you wouldn't care for whale-meat if you lived there.
Nobody does."

"What!"

"Indeed they don't."

"Why don't they?"

"Wel-l-I, I hardly know. It's prejudice, I think. Yes, that
is it--just prejudice. I reckon somebody that hadn't anything
better to do started a prejudice against it, some time at other,
and once you get a caprice like that fairly going, you know,
it will last no end of time."

"That is true--perfectly true," said the girl, reflectively.
"Like our prejudice against soap, here--our tribes bad a
prejudice against soap at first, you know."

I glanced at her to see if she was in earnest Evidently she
was. I hesitated, then said, cautiously:

"But pardon me. They had a prejudice against soap? Had?"
--with falling inflection.

"Yes--but that was only at first; nobody would eat it."

"Oh--I understand. I didn't get your idea before."

She resumed:

"It was just a prejudice. The first time soap came here
from the foreigners, nobody liked it; but as soon as it got
to be fashionable, everybody liked it and now everybody has
it that can afford it Are you fond of it?"

"Yes, indeed! I should die if I couldn't have it--especially
here. Do you like it?"

"I just adore it! Do you like candles?"

"I regard them as an absolute necessity. Are you fond of
them?"

Her eyes fairly danced, and she exclaimed:

"Oh! Don't mention it! Candles!--and soap!--"

"And fish-interiors!--"

"And train-oil!--"

"And slush!--"

"And whale-blubber!--"

"And carrion! and sour-krout! and beeswax! and tar! and
turpentine! and molasses! and--"

"Don't---oh, don't--I shall expire with ecstasy!--"

"And then serve it all up in a slush-bucket, and invite the
neighbors and sail in!"

But this vision of an ideal feast was too much for her,
and she swooned away, poor thing. I rubbed snow in her
face and brought her to, and after a while got her excite-
ment cooled down. By and by she drifted into her story
again:

"So we began to live here, in the fine house. But I was not
happy. The reason was this: I was born for love; for me
there could be no true happiness without it. I wanted to be
loved for myself alone. I wanted an idol, and I wanted to
be my idol's idol; nothing less than mutual idolatry would
satisfy my fervent nature. I had suitors in plenty--in over-
plenty, indeed--but in each and every case they had a fatal
defect; sooner or later I discovered that defect--not one of
them failed to betray it--it was not me they wanted, but
my wealth."

"Your wealth?"

"Yes; for my father is much the richest man in this tribe
--or in any tribe in these regions."

I wondered what her father's wealth consisted of. It couldn't
be the house--anybody could build its mate. It couldn't be
the furs--they were not valued. It couldn't be the sledge,
the dogs, the harpoons, the boat, the bone fish-hooks and
needles, and such things--no, these were not wealth. Then
what could it be that made this man so rich and brought this
swarm of sordid suitors to his house? It seemed to me, final-
ly, that the best way to find out would be to ask. So I did
it. The girl was so manifestly gratified by the question that
I saw she had been aching to have me ask it. She was suffering
fully as much to tell as I was to know. She snuggled confiden-
tially up to me and said:

"Guess how much he is worth--you never can!"

I pretended to consider the matter deeply, she watching
my anxious and laboring countenance with a devouring and
delighted interest; and when, at last, I gave it up and begg-
ed her to appease my longing by telling me herself how much
this polar Vanderbilt was worth, she put her mouth close to
my ear and whispered, impressively:

"Twenty-two fish-hooks--not bone, but foreign--made out
of real iron!"

Then she sprang back dramatically, to observe the effect I
did my level best not to disappoint her.

I turned pale and murmured:

"Great Scott!"

"It's as true as you live, Mr. Twain!"

"Lasca, you are deceiving me--you cannot mean it."

She was frightened and troubled. She exclaimed:

"Mr, Twain, every word of it is true--every word. You
believe me--you do believe me, now don't you? Say you be
lieve me--do say you believe me!"

"I--well, yes, I do--I am trying to. But it was all so sud-
den. So sudden and prostrating. You shouldn't do such a
thing in that sudden way. It--"

"Oh, I'm so sorry! If I had only thought--"

"Well, it's all right, and I don't blame you any more, for
you are young and thoughtless, and of course you couldn't
foresee what an effect--"

"But oh, dear, I ought certainly to have known better.
Why--"

"You see, Lasca, if you had said five or six hooks, to start
with, and then gradually--"

"Oh, I see, I see--then gradually added one, and then two,
and then--ah, why couldn't I have thought of that!"

"Never mind, child, it's all right--I am better now--I shall
be over it in a little while. But--to spring the whole twentytwo
on a person unprepared and not very strong anyway--"

"Oh, it was a crime! But you forgive me--say you forgive
me. Do!"

After harvesting a good deal of very pleasant coaxing and
petting and persuading, I forgave her and she was happy
again, and by and by she got under way with her narrative
once more. I presently discovered that the family treasury
contained still another feature--a jewel of some sort, appa-
rently--and that she was trying to get around speaking
squarely about it, lest I get paralyzed again. But I wanted to
know about that thing, too, and urged her to tell me what it
was. She was afraid. But I insisted, and said I would brace
myself this time and be prepared, then the shock would not
hurt me. She was full of misgivings, but the temptation to
reveal that marvel to me and enjoy my astonishment and admi-
ration was too strong for her, and she confessed that she
had it on her person, and said that if I was sure I was pre-
pared--and so on and so on--and with that she reached into
her bosom and brought out a battered square of brass, watch-
ing my eye anxiously the while. I fell over against her in a
quite well-acted faint, which delighted her heart and nearly
frightened it out of her, too, at the same time. When I came
to and got calm, she was eager to know what I thought of
her jewel.

"What do I think of it? I think it is the most exquisite
thing I ever saw."

"Do you really? How nice of you to say that! But it is a
love, now isn't it?"

"Well, I should say so! I'd rather own it than the equator."

"I thought you would admire it," she said. "I think it is so
lovely. And there isn't another one in all these latitudes.
People have come all the way from the Open Polar Sea to look
at it. Did you ever see one before?"

I said no, this was the first one I had ever seen. It cost me
a pang to tell that generous lie, for I had seen a million of
them in tny time, this humble jewel of hers being nothing but
a battered old New York Central baggage-check.

"Land!" said I, "you don't go about with it on your person
this way, alone and with no protection, not even a dog?"

"Ssh! not so loud," she said. "Nobody knows I carry it
with me. They think it is in papa's treasury. That is
where it generally is."

"Where is the treasury?"

It was a blunt question, and for a moment she looked
startled and a little suspicious, but I said:

"Oh, come, don't you be afraid about me. At home we have
seventy millions of people, and although I say it myself
that shouldn't, there is not one person among them all but
would trust me with untold fish-hooks."

This reassured her, and she told me where the hooks were
hidden in the house. Then she wandered from her course to
brag a little about the size of the sheets of transparent
ice that formed the windows of the mansion, and asked me if I
had ever seen their like at home, and I came right out frankly
and confessed that I hadn't, which pleased her more than
she could find words to dress her gratification in. It was so
easy to please her, and such a pleasure to do it, that I went
on and said:

"Ah, Lasca, you are a fortunate girl!--this beautiful house,
this dainty jewel, that rich treasure, all this elegant snow,
and sumptuous icebergs and limitless sterility, and public bears
and walruses, and noble freedom and largeness, and everybody's
admiring eyes upon you, and everybody's homage and respect at
your command without the asking; young, rich, beautiful, sought,
courted, envied, not a requirement unsatisfied, not a desire
ungratified, nothing to wish for that you cannot have--it is
immeasurable good fortune! I have seen myriads of girls, but
none of whom these extraordinary things could be truthfully
said but you alone. And you are worthy--worthy of it all,
Lasca--I believe it in my heart."

It made her infinitely proud and happy to hear me say
this, and she thanked me over and over again for that closing
remark, and her voice and eyes showed that she was touched.
Presently she said:

"Still, it is not all sunshine--there is a cloudy side. The
burden of wealth is a heavy one to bear. Sometimes I have
doubted if it were not better to be poor--at least not in-
ordinately rich. It pains me to see neighboring tribesmen
stare as they pass by, and overhear them say, reverently, one
to another, ‘There--that is she--the millionaire's daughter!"
And sometimes they say sorrowfully, ‘She is rolling in fish-
hooks, and I--I have nothing.' It breaks my heart. When I was
a child and we were poor, we slept with the door open, if we
chose, but now--now we have to have a night watchman. In
those days my father was gentle and courteous to all; but
now he is austere and haughty, and cannot abide familiarity.
Once his family were his sole thought, but now he goes about
thinking of his fish-hooks all the time. And his wealth makes
everybody cringing and obsequious to him. Formerly nobody
laughed at his jokes, they being always stale and far-fetched
and poor, and destitute of the one element that can really
justify a joke--the element of humor; but now everybody
laughs and cackles at those dismal things, and if any fails to
do it my father is deeply displeased, and shows it. Formerly
his opinion was not sought upon any matter and was not valu-
able when he volunteered it; it has that infirmity yet, but
nevertheless it is sought by all and applauded by all--and
he helps do the applauding himself, having no true delicacy
and a plentiful want of tact. He has lowered the tone of ail
our tribe. Once they were a frank and manly race, now they
are measly hypocrites, and sodden with servility. In my
heart of hearts I hate all the ways of millionaires! Our tribe
was once plain, simple folk, and content with the bone fish-
hooks of their fathers; now they are eaten up with avarice
and would sacrifice every sentiment of honor and honesty to
possess themselves of the debasing iron fish-hooks of the
foreigner. However, I must not dwell on these sad things.
As I have said, it was my dream to be loved for myself alone.

"At last, this dream seemed about to be fulfilled. A stranger
came by, one day, who said his name was Kalula. I told him
my name, and he said he loved me. My heart gave a great
bound of gratitude and pleasure, for I had loved him at
sight, and now I said so. He took me to his breast and said
he would not wish to be happier than he was now. We went
strolling together far over the ice-floes, telling all about
each other, and planning, oh, the loveliest future! When we
were tired at last we sat down and ate, for he had soap and
candles and I had brought along some blubber. We were hungry,
and nothing was ever so good.

"He belonged to a tribe whose haunts were far to the north,
and I found that he had never heard of my father, which rejoiced
me exceedingly. I mean he had heard of the millionaire,
but had never heard his name--so, you see, he could
not know that I was the heiress. You may be sure that I did
not tell him. I was loved for myself at last, and was satis'
fied. I was so happy--oh, happier than you can think!

"By and by it was toward supper-time, and I led him
home. As we approached our house he was amazed, and
cried out :

"'How splendid! Is that your father's?'

"It gave me a pang to hear that tone and see that admiring
lit in his eye, but the feeling quickly passed away, for
I loved him so, and he looked so handsome and noble. All
my family of aunts and uncles and cousins were pleased
with him, and many guests were called in, and the house was
shut up tight and the rag-lamps lighted, and when every-
thing was hot and comfortable and suffocating, we began a
joyous feast in celebration of my betrothal.

"When the feast was over, my father's vanity overcame him,
and he could not resist the temptation to show off his
riches and let Kalula see what good fortune he had stumbled
into--and mainly, of course, he wanted to enjoy the poor
man's amazement. I could have cried--but it would have
done no good to try to dissuade my father, so I said no-
thing, but merely sat there and suffered.

"My father went straight to the hiding-place, in full sight
of everybody, and got out the fish-hooks and brought them
and flung them scatteringly over my head, so that they fell
in glittering confusion on the platform at my lover's knee.

"Of course, the astounding spectacle took the poor lad's
breath away. He could only stare in stupid astonishment,
and wonder how a single individual could possess such in-
credible riches. Then presently he glanced brilliantly up
and exclaimed:

"'Ah, it is you who are the renowned millionaire!'

"My father and all the rest burst into shouts of happy
laughter, and when my father gathered the treasure care-
lessly up as if it might be mere rubbish and of no con-
sequence, and carried it back to its place, poor Kalula's
surprise was a study. He said:

"'Is it possible that you put such things away without
counting them?'

"My father delivered a vainglorious horse-laugh, and said:

"'Well, truly, a body may know you have never been rich,
since a mere matter of a fish-hook or two is such a mighty
matter in your eyes.'

"Kalula was confused, and hung his head, but said:

"'Ah, indeed, sir, I was never worth the value of the barb
of one of those precious things, and I have never seen any
man before who was so rich in them as to render the counting
of his hoard worth while, since the wealthiest man I have
ever known, till now, was possessed of but three.'

"My foolish father roared again with jejune delight, and
allowed the impression to remain that be was not accustomed
to count his books and keep sharp watch over them. He was
showing off, you see. Count them? Why, he counted them
every day!

"I had met and got acquainted with my darling just at
dawn; I had brought him home just at dark, three hours
afterward--for the days were shortening toward the six-
months' night at that time. We kept up the festivities many
hours; then, at last, the guests departed and the rest of us
distributed ourselves along the walls on sleeping-benches,
and soon all were steeped in dreams but me. I was too happy,
too excited, to sleep. After I had lain quiet a long, long
time, a dim form passed by me and was swallowed up in the
gloom that pervaded the farther end of the house. I could
not make out who it was, or whether it was man or woman.
Presently that figure or another one passed me going the
other way. I wondered what it all meant, but wondering did
no good; and while I was still wondering, I fell asleep.

"I do not know how long I slept, but at last I came sud-
denly broad awake and heard my father say in a terrible
voice, ‘By the great Snow God, there's a fish-hook gone!'
Something told me that that meant sorrow for me, and the
blood in my veins turned cold. The presentiment was con-
firmed in the same instant: my father shouted, ‘Up, ev-
erybody, and seize the stranger!' Then there was an out-
burst of cries and curses from all sides, and a wild rush
of dim forms through the obscurity. I flew to my beloved's
help, but what could I do but wait and wring my hands?---he
was already fenced away from me by a living wall, he was
being bound hand and foot. Not until he was secured would
they let me get to him. I flung myself upon his poor insulted
form and cried my grief out upon his breast, while my father
and all my family scoffed at me and heaped threats and
shameful epithets upon him. He bore his ill usage with a
tranquil dignity which endeared him to me more than ever,
and made me proud and happy to suffer with him and for
him. I heard my father order that the elders of the tribe be
called together to try my Kalula for his life.

"'What?' I said, ‘before any search has been made for the
lost hook?'

"'Lost hook!' they all shouted, in derison; and my father
added, mockingly, ‘Stand back, everybody, and be properly
serious--she is going to hunt up that lost hook; oh, without
doubt she will find it!'--whereat they all laughed again.

"I was not disturbed--I had no fears, no doubts. I said:

"'It is for you to laugh now; it is your turn. But ours is
coming; wait and see.'

"I got a rag-lamp. I thought I should find that miserable
thing in one little moment; and I set about the matter with
such confidence that those people grew grave, beginning to
suspect that perhaps they had been too hasty. But, alas and
alas!--oh, the bitterness of that search! There was deep
silence while one might count his fingers ten or twelve
times, then my heart began to sink, and around me the mock-
ings began again, and grew steadily louder and more assured,
until at last, when I gave up, they burst into volley after
volley of cruel laughter.

"None will ever know what I suffered then. But my love
was my support and my strength, and I took my rightful
place at my Kalula's side, and put my arm about his neck,
and whispered in his ear, saying:

"'You are innocent, my own--that I know; but say it to me
yourself, for my comfort, then I can bear whatever is in
store for us.'

"He answered:

"'As surely as I stand upon the brink of death at this mo-
ment, I am innocent. Be comforted, then, O bruised heart;
be at peace, O thou breath of my nostrils, life of my life!'

"'Now, then, let the elders come!'--and as I said the
words there was a gathering sound of crunching snow out-
--side, and then a vision of stooping forms filing in at
the door the ciders.

"My father formally accused the prisoner, and detailed
the happenings of the night. He said that the watchman was
outside the door, and that in the house were none but the
family and the stranger. ‘Would the family steal their own
property?'

"He paused. The elders sat silent many minutes; at last,
one after another said to his neighbor, ‘This looks bad
for the stranger'--sorrowful words for me to hear. Then my
father sat down. O miserable, miserable me! at that very
moment I could have proved my darling innocent, but I
did not know it!

"The chief of the court asked:

"Is there any here to defend the prisoner?'

"I rose and said:

"'Why should he steal that hook, or any or all of them?
In another day he would have been heir to the whole!'

"I stood waiting. There was a long silence, the steam from
the many breaths rising about me like a fog. At last, one
elder after another nodded his head slowly several times, and
muttered, There is force in what the child has said.' Oh,
the heartlift that was in those words!--so transient, but oh,
so precious! I sat down.

"'If any would say further, let him speak now, or after
hold his peace,' said the chief of the court.

"My father rose and said:

"‘In the night a form passed by me in the gloom, going
toward the treasury, and presently returned. I think, now, it
was the stranger.'

"Oh, I was like to swoon! I had supposed that that was
my secret; not the grip of the great Ice God himself could
have dragged it out of my heart.

"The chief of the court said sternly to my poor Kalula:

"'Speak!'

"Kalula hesitated, then answered:

"'It was I. I could not sleep for thinking of the beautiful
hooks. I went there and kissed them and fondled them, to
appease my spirit and drown it in a harmless joy, then I put
them back. I may have dropped one, but I stole none.'

"Oh, a fatal admission to make in such a place! There was
an awful hush. I knew he had pronounced his own doom, and
that all was over. On every face you could see the words
hieroglyphed: ‘It is a confession !--and paltry, lame, and
thin.'

"I sat drawing in my breath in faint gasps--and waiting.
Presently, I heard the solemn words I knew were coming;
and each word, as it came, was a knife in my heart:

"'It is the command of the court that the accused be sub-
jected to the trial by water'

"Oh, curses be upon the head of him who brought ‘trial
by water' to our land! It came, generations ago, from some
far country, that lies none knows where. Before that, our
fathers used augury and other unsure methods of trial, and
doubtless some poor, guilty creatures escaped with their lives
sometimes; but it is not so with trial by water, which is an
invention by wiser men than we poor, ignorant savages are.
By it the innocent are proved innocent, without doubt or
question, for they drown; and the guilty are proven guilty
with the same certainty, for they do not drown. My heart
was breaking in my bosom, for I said, ‘He is innocent, and
be will go down under the waves and I shall never see him
more.'

"I never left his side after that. I mourned in his arms all
the precious hours, and he poured out the deep stream of
his love upon me, and oh, I was so miserable and so happy!
At last, they tore him from me, and I followed sobbing after
them, and saw them fling him into the sea--then I covered
my face with my hands. Agony? Oh, I know the deepest deeps
of that word!

"The next moment the people burst into a shout of malicious
joy, and I took away my hands, startled. Oh, bitter sight--
he was swimming!

"My heart turned instantly to stone, to ice. I said, ‘He
was guilty, and he lied to me!'

"I turned my back in scorn and went my way homeward.

"They took him far out to sea and set him on an iceberg
that was drifting southward in the great waters. Then my
family came home, and my father said to me:

"'Your thief sent his dying message to you, saying, "Tell
her I am innocent, and that all the days and all the hours
and all the minutes while I starve and perish I shall love her
and think of her and bless the day that gave me sight of her
sweet face." Quite pretty, even poeticall'

"I said, ‘He is dirt--let me never hear mention of him
again.' And oh, to think--he was innocent all the time!

"Nine months--nine dull, sad months--went by, and at
last came the day of the Great Annual Sacrifice, when all
the maidens of the tribe wash their faces and comb their
hair. With the first sweep of my comb, out came the fatal
fish hook from where it had been all those months nestling,
and I fell fainting into the arms of my remorseful father!
Groaning, he said, ‘We murdered him, and I shall never
smile again!' He has kept his word. Listen: from that day to
this not a month goes by that I do not comb my hair. But
oh, where is the good of it all now!"

So ended the poor maid's humble little tale--whereby we
learn that, since a hundred million dollars in New York and
twenty-two fish-hooks on the border of the Arctic Circle
represent the same financial supremacy, a man in straitened
circumstances is a fool to stay in New York when he can
buy ten cents' worth of fish-hooks and emigrate.

1893



Is He Living or Is He Dead?



I was spending the month of March, 1892, at Mentone, in
the Riviera. At this retired spot one has all the advantages,
privately, which are to be had at Monte Carlo and Nice, a
few miles farther along, publicly. That is to say, one has
the flooding sunshine, the balmy air, and the brilliant blue
sea, without the marring additions of human powwow and fuss
and feathers and display. Mentone is quiet, simple, restful,
unpretentious; the rich and the gaudy do not come there.
As a rule, I mean, the rich do not come there. Now and then
a rich man comes, and I presently got acquainted with one
of these. Partially to disguise him I will call him Smith.
One day, in the Hdtel des Anglais, at the second breakfast,
he exclaimed:

"Quick! Cast your eye on the man going out at the door.
Take in every detail of him."

"Why?"

"Do you know who he is?"

"Yes. He spent several days here before you came. He is
an old, retired, and very rich silk manufacturer from Lyons,
they say, and I guess he is alone in the world, for he always
looks sad and dreamy, and doesn't talk with anybody. His
name is Theophile Magnan."

I supposed that Smith would now proceed to justify the
large interest which he had shown in Monsieur Magnan; but
instead he dropped into a brown study, and was apparently
lost to me and to the rest of the world during some minutes.
Now and then he passed his fingers through his flossy white
hair, to assist his thinking, and meantime he allowed his
breakfast to go on cooling. At last he said:

"No, it's gone; I can't call it back."

"Can't call what back?"

"It's one of Hans Andersen's beautiful little stories. But
it's gone from me. Part of it is like this: A child has a caged
bird, which it loves, but thoughtlessly neglects. The bird
pours out its song unheard and unheeded; but in time, hunger
and thirst assail the creature, and its song grows plaintive
and feeble and finally ceases--the bird dies. The child comes,
and is smitten to the heart with remorse; then, with bitter
tears and lamentations, it calls its mates, and they bury
the bird with elaborate pomp and the tenderest grief, with-
out knowing, poor things, that it isn't children only who
starve poets to death and then spend enough on their funerals
and monuments to have kept them alive and made them easy and
comfortable. Now--"

But here we were interrupted. About ten that evening I
ran across Smith, and he asked me up to his parlor to help
him smoke and drink hot Scotch. It was a cozy place, with
its comfortable chairs, its cheerful lamps, and its friendly
open fire of seasoned olive-wood. To make everything perfect,
there was the muffled booming of the surf outside. After
the second Scotch and much lazy and contented chat, Smith
said:

"Now we are properly primed--I to tell a curious history,
and you to listen to it. It has been a secret for many years
--a secret between me and three others; but I am going to
break the seal now. Are you comfortable?"

"Perfectly. Go on."

Here follows what he told me:


A long time ago I was a young artist--a very young artist,
in fact--and I wandered about the country parts of France,
sketching here and sketching there, and was presently join-
ed by a couple of darling young Frenchmen who were at the
same kind of thing that I was doing. We were as happy as
we were poor, or as poor as we were happy--phrase it to
suit yourself. Claude Frfere and Carl Boulanger--these are
the names of those boys; dear, dear fellows, and the sunniest
spirits that ever laughed at poverty and had a noble good
time in all weathers

At last we ran hard aground in a Breton village, and an
artist as poor as ourselves took us in and literally saved
us from starving--Francois Millet--

"What! the great Francois Millet?"

Great? He wasn't any greater than we were, then. He hadn't
any fame, even in his own village; and he was so poor that
he hadn't anything to feed us on but turnips, and even the
turnips failed us sometimes. We four became fast friends,
doting friends, inseparables. We painted away together with
all our might, piling up stock, piling up stock, but very
seldom getting rid of any of it. We had lovely times together;
but, O my soul! how we were pinched now and then!

For a little over two years this went on. At last, one day,
Claude said:

"Boys, we've come to the end. Do you understand that? --ab-
solutely to the end. Everybody has struck--there's a league
formed against us. I've been all around the village and it's
just as I tell you. They refuse to credit us for another cen-
time until all the odds and ends are paid up."

This struck us cold. Every face was blank with dismay.
We realized that our circumstances were desperate, now.
There was a long silence. Finally, Millet said with a sigh:

"Nothing occurs to me--nothing. Suggest something, lads."
There was no response, unless a mournful silence may be
called a response. Carl got up, and walked nervously up
and down awhile, then said:

"It's a shame! Look at these canvases: stacks and stacks
of as good pictures as anybody in Europe paints-- don't
care who he is. Yes, and plenty of lounging strangers have
said the same--or nearly that, anyway."

"But didn't buy," Millet said.

"Np matter, they said it; and it's true, too. Look at your
‘Angelus' there! Will anybody tell me--"

"Pah, Carl--my ‘Angelus'! I was offered five francs for it."

"When?"

"Who offered it?"

"Where is he?"

"Why didn't you take it?"

"Come--don't all speak at once. I thought he would give
more--I was sure of it--he looked it--so I asked him eight."

"Well--and then?"

"He said he would call again."

"Thunder and lightning! Why, Francois--"

"Oh, I know--I know! It was a mistake, and I was a fool.
Boys, I meant for the best; you'll grant me that, and I--"

"Why, certainly, we know that, bless your dear heart; but
don't you be a fool again."

"I? I wish somebody would come along and offer us a
cabbage for it--you'd see!"

"A cabbage! Oh, don't name it--it makes my mouth water.
Talk of things less trying."

"Boys," said Carl, "do these pictures lack merit? Answer
me that."

"No!"

"Aren't they of very great and high merit? Answer me
that."

"Yes."

"Of such great and high merit that, if an illustrious
name were attached to them, they would sell at splendid
prices. Isn't it so?"

"Certainly it is. Nobody doubts that."

"But--I'm not joking--isn't it so?"

"Why, of course it's so--and we are not joking. But what
of it? What of it? How does that concern us?"

"In this way, comrades--we'll attach an illustrious name
to them!"

The lively conversation stopped. The faces were turned
inquiringly upon Carl, What sort of riddle might this be?
Where was an illustrious name to be borrowed? And who
was to borrow it?

Carl sat down, and said:

"Now, I have a perfectly serious thing to propose. I think
it is the only way to keep us out of the almshouse, and I
believe it to be a perfectly sure way. I base this opinion
upon certain multitudinous and long-established facts in
human history. I believe my project will make us all rich."

"Rich! You've lost your mind."

"No, I haven't."

"Yes, you have--you've lost your mind. What do you call
rich?"

"A hundred thousand francs apiece."

"He has lost his mind. I knew it."

"Yes, he has. Carl, privation has been too much for you,
and--"

"Carl, you want to take a pill and get right to bed."

"Bandage him first--bandage his head, and then--"

"No, bandage his heels; his brains have been settling for
weeks--I've noticed it."

"Shut up!" said Millet, with ostensible severity, "and let
the boy say his say. Now, then--come out with your project,
Carl. What is it?"

"Well, then, by way of preamble I will ask you to note
this fact in human history: that the merit of many a great
artist has never been acknowledged until after he was starv-
ed and dead. This has happened so often that I make bold to
found a law upon it. This law: that the merit of every great
unknown and neglected artist must and will be recognized,
and his pictures climb to high prices after his death. My
project is this: we must cast lots--one of us must die."

The remark fell so calmly and so unexpectedly that we almost
forgot to jump. Then there was a wild chorus of advice
again--medical advice--for the help of Carl's brain;
but he waited patiently for the hilarity to calm down, then
went on again with his project:

"Yes, one of us must die, to save the others--and himself.
We will cast lots. The one chosen shall be illustrious, all
of us shall be rich. Hold still, now--hold still; don't in-
terrupt --I tell you I know what I am talking about. Here is
the idea. During the next three months the one who is to die
shall paint with all his might, enlarge his stock all he can--
not pictures, no! skeleton sketches, studies, parts of stud-
ies, fragments of studies, a dozen dabs of the brush on each-
-meaningless, of course, but his with his cipher on them;
turn out fifty a day, each to contain some peculiarity or
mannerism, easily detectable as his--they're the things that
sell you know, and are collected at fabulous prices for the
world's museums, after the great man is gone; we'll have a
ton of them ready-- a ton! And all that time the rest of us will
be busy supporting the moribund, and working Paris and the
dealers--preparations for the coming event, you know; and
when everything is hot and just right, we'll spring the death
on them and have the notorious funeral. You get the idea?"

"N-o; at least, not qu--
"
"Not quite? Don't you see? The man doesn't really die; he
changes his name and vanishes; we bury a dummy, and cry
over it, with all the world to help. And I--"

But he wasn't allowed to finish. Everybody broke out into a
rousing hurrah of applause; and all jumped up and capered
about the room and fell on each other's necks in transports
of gratitude and joy. For hours we talked over the great
plan, without ever feeling hungry; and at last, when all the
details had been arranged satisfactorily, we cast lots and
Millet was elected--elected to die, as we called it. Then we
scraped together those things which one never parts with
until he is betting them against future wealth--keepsake
trinkets and such like--and these we pawned for enough to
furnish us a frugal farewell supper and breakfast, and leave
us a few francs over for travel, and a stake of turnips and
such for Millet to live on for a few days.

Next morning, early, the three of us cleared out, straightway
after breakfast--on foot, of course. Each of us carried
a dozen of Millet's small pictures, purposing to market them.
Carl struck for Paris, where he would start the work of
building up Millet's fame against the coming great day.
Claude and I were to separate, and scatter abroad over
France.

Now, it will surprise you to know what an easy and comfort-
able thing we had. I walked two days before I began business.
Then I began to sketch a villa in the outskirts of a big
town--because I saw the proprietor standing on an upper
veranda. He came down to look on--I thought he would. I
worked swiftly, intending to keep him interested. Occasion-
ally he fired off a little ejaculation of approbation, and
by and by he spoke up with enthusiasm, and said I was a
master!

I put down my brush, reached into my satchel, fetched out
a Millet, and pointed to the cipher in the corner. I said,
proudly;

"I suppose you recognize that? Well, he taught me! I should
think I ought to know my trade!"

The man looked guiltily embarrassed, and was silent. I
said, sorrowfully:

"You don't mean to intimate that you don't know the
cipher of Francois Millet!"

Of course he didn't know that cipher; but he was the
gratefulest man you ever saw, just the same, for being let
out of an uncomfortable place on such easy terms. He said:
"No! Why, it is Millet's, sure enough! I don't know what

I could have been thinking of. Of course I recognize it now."
Next, he wanted to buy it; but I said that although I wasn't
rich I wasn't that poor. However, at last, I let him have it
for eight hundred francs.

"Eight hundred!"

Yes. Millet would have sold it for a pork-chop. Yes, I got
eight hundred francs for that little thing. I wish I could
get it back for eighty thousand. But that time's gone by. I
made a very nice picture of that man's house, and I wanted
to offer it to him for ten francs, but that wouldn't answer,
seeing I was the pupil of such a maMer, so I sold it to him
for a hundred. I sent the eight hundred francs straight
back to Millet from that town and struck out again next day.
But I didn't walk--no. I rode. I have ridden ever since. I
sold one picture every day, and never tried to sell two. I
always said to my customer:

"I am a fool to sell a picture of Francois Millet's at all,
for that man is not going to live three months, and when he
dies his pictures can't be had for love or money."

I took care to spread that little fact as far as I could, and
prepare the world for the event.

I take credit to myself for our plan of selling the pictures
--it was mine. I suggested it that last evening when we were
laying out our campaign, and all three of us agreed to give
it a good fair trial before giving it up for some other. It
succeeded with all of us. I walked only two days, Claude
walked two--both of us afraid to make Millet celebrated too
close to home--but Carl walked only half a day, the bright,
conscienceless rascal, and after that he traveled like a duke.

Every now and then we got in with a country editor and start-
ed an item around through the press; not an item announcing
that a new painter had been discovered, but an item which
let on that everybody knew Francois Millet; not an item prais-
ing him in any way, but merely a word concerning the present
condition of the "master"--sometimes hopeful, sometimes des-
pondent, but always tinged with fears for the worst We always
marked these paragraphs, and sent the papers to all the people
who had bought pictures of us.

Carl was soon in Paris, and he worked things with a high hand.
He made friends with the correspondents, and got Millet's con-
dition reported to England and all over the continent, and
America, and everywhere.

At the end of six weeks from the start, we three met in
Paris and called a halt, and stopped sending back to Millet for
additional pictures. The boom was so high, and everything
so ripe, that we saw that it would be a mistake not to strike
now, right away, without waiting any longer. So we wrote
Millet to go to bed and begin to waste away pretty fast,
for we should like him to die in ten days if he could get
ready.

Then we figured up and found that among us we had sold
eighty-five small pictures and studies, and had sixtynine
thousand francs to show for it. Carl had made the last sale
and the most brilliant one of all. He sold the "Angelus"
for twenty-two hundred francs. How we did glorify him!--
not foreseeing that a day was coming by and by when France
would struggle to own it and a stranger would capture it for
five hundred and fifty thousand, cash.

We had a wind-up champagne supper that night, and next
day Claude and I packed up and went off to nurse MiUet
through his last days and keep busybodies out of the house
and send daily bulletins to Carl in Paris for publication in
the papers of several continents for the information of a
waiting world. The sad end came at last, and Carl was there
in time to help in the final mournful rites.

You remember that great funeral, and what a stir it made
all over the globe, and how the illustrious of two worlds
came to attend it and testify their sorrow. We four--still
inseparable--carried the coffin, and would allow none to help.
And we were right about that, because it hadn't anything
in it but a wax figure, and any other coffin-bearers would
have found fault with the weight. Yes, we same old four,
who had lovingly shared privation together in the old hard
times now gone forever, carried the cof--


"Which four?"

"We four--for Millet helped to carry his own coffin. In
disguise, you know. Disguised as a relative--distant relative."

"Astonishing!"

"But true, just the same. Well, you remember bow the pic
tures went up. Money? We didn't know what to do with it
There's a man in Paris to-day who owns seventy Millet pic-
tures. He paid us two million francs for them. And as for
tbe bushels of sketches and studies which Millet shoveled
out during the six weeks that we were on the road, well, it
would astonish you to know the figure we sell them at nowa-
days--that is, when we consent to let one go!"

"It is a wonderful history, perfectly wonderful!"

"Yes--it amounts to that."

"Whatever became of Millet?"

"Can you keep a secret?"

"I can."

"Do you remember the man I called your attention to in
the dining-room to-day? That was Frangois Millet."

"Great--"

"Scott! Yes. For once they didn't starve a genius to death
and then put into other pockets the rewards he should have
had himself. This songbird was not allowed to pipe out its
heart unheard and then be paid with the cold pomp of a
big funeral. We looked out for that"

1893



The ￡1,000,000 Bank-Note



When I was twenty-seven years old, I was a mining-broker's
clerk in San Francisco, and an expert in all the details of
stock traffic. I was alone in the world, and had nothing to
depend upon but my wits and a clean reputation; but these
were setting my feet in the road to eventual fortune, and I
was content with the prospect.

My time was my own after the afternoon board, Saturdays,
and I was accustomed to put it in on a little sail-boat on the
bay. One day I ventured too far, and was carried out to sea.
Just at nightfall, when hope was about gone, I was picked up
by a small brig which was bound for London. It was a long
and stormy voyage, and they made me work my passage
without pay, as a common sailor. When I stepped ashore
in London my clothes were ragged and shabby, and I had
only a dollar in my pocket. This money fed and sheltered
me twenty-four hours. During the next twenty-four I went
without food and shelter.

About ten o'clock on the following morning, seedy and hun-
gry, I was dragging myself along Portland Place, when a
child that was passing, towed by a nurse-maid, tossed a
luscious big pear--minus one bite--into the gutter. I stop-
ped, of course, and fastened my desiring eye on that muddy
treasure. My mouth watered for it, my stomach craved it, my
whole being begged for it. But every time I made a move to
get it some passing eye detected my purpose, and of course
I straightened up then, and looked indifferent, and pre-
tended that I hadn't been thinking about the pear at all.
This same thing kept happening and happening, and I couldn't
get the pear. I was just getting desperate enough to brave
all the shame, and to seize it, when a window behind me
was raised, and a gentleman spoke out of it, saying;

"Step in here, please."

I was admitted by a gorgeous flunkey, and shown into a
sumptuous room where a couple of elderly gentlemen were
sitting. They sent away the servant, and made me sit down.
They had just finished their breakfast, and the sight of the
remains of it almost overpowered me. I could hardly keep
my wits together in the presence of that food, but as I was
not asked to sample it, I had to bear my trouble as best I
could.

Now, something had been happening there a little before,
which I did not know anything about until a good many
days afterward, but I will tell you about it now. Those two
old brothers had been having a pretty hot argument a couple
of days before, and had ended by agreeing to decide it by a
bet, which is the English way of settling everything.

You will remember that the Bank of England once issued
two notes of a million pounds each, to be used for a spe-
cial purpose connected with some public transaction with a
foreign country. For some reason or other only one of these
had been used and canceled; the other still lay in the vaults
of the Bank. Well, the brothers, chatting along, happened to
get to wondering what might be the fate of a perfectly honest
and intelligent stranger who should be turned adrift in Lon-
don without a friend, and with no money but that million-
pound bank-note, and no way to account for his being in
possession of it. Brother A said he would starve to death;
Brother B said he wouldn't. Brother A said he couldn't offer
it at a bank or anywhere else, because he would be arrested
on the spot. So they went on disputing till Brother B said he
would bet twenty thousand pounds that the man would live
thirty days, anyway, on that million, and keep out of jail,
too. Brother A took him up. Brother B went down to the
Bank and bought that note. Just like an Englishman, you
see; pluck to the backbone. Then he dictated a letter, which
one of his clerks wrote out in a beautiful round hand, and
then the two brothers sat at the window a whole day watching
for the right man to give it to.

They saw many honest faces go by that were not intelligent
enough; many that were intelligent, but not honest enough;
many that were both, but the possessors were not poor enough,
or, if poor enough, were not strangers. There was always a
defect, until I came along; but they agreed that I filled
the bill all around; so they elected me unanimously, and
there I was now waiting to know why I was called in. They
began to ask me questions about myself, and pretty soon
they had my story. Finally they told me I would answer their
purpose. I said I was sincerely glad, and asked what it was.
Then one of them handed me an envelope, and said I would
find the explanation inside. I was going to open it, but he
said no; take it to my lodgings, and look it over carefully,
and not be hasty or rash. I was puzzled, and wanted to dis-
cuss the matter a little further, but they didn't; so I took
my leave, feeling hurt and insulted to be made the butt of
what was apparently some kind of a practical joke, and yet
obliged to put up with it, not being in circumstances to
resent affronts from rich and strong folk.

I would have picked up the pear now and eaten it before
all the world, but it was gone; so I had lost that by this
unlucky business, and the thought of it did not soften my
feeling toward those men. As soon as I was out of sight of
that house I opened ray envelope, and saw that it contained
money! My opinion of those people changed, I can tell you!
I lost not a moment, but shoved note and money into my
vest pocket, and broke for the nearest cheap eating-house.
Well, how I did eat! When at last I couldn't hold any more,
I took out my money and unfolded it, took one glimpse and
nearly fainted. Five millions of dollars! Why, it made my
head swim.

I must have sat there stunned and blinking at the note as
much as a minute before I came rightly to myself again. The
first thing I noticed, then, was the landlord. His eye was on
the note, and he was petrified. He was worshiping, with all
his body and soul, but he looked as if he couldn't stir hand
or foot. I took my cue in a moment, and did the only rational
thing there was to do. I reached the note toward him, and
said, carelessly:

"Give me the change, please."

Then he was restored to his normal condition, and made a
thousand apologies for not being able to break the bill, and
I couldn't get him to touch it. He wanted to look at it, and
keep on looking at it; he couldn't seem to get enough of it
to quench the thirst of his eye, but he shrank from touching
it as if it had been something too sacred for poor common
clay to handle. I said:

"I am sorry if it is an inconvenience, but I must insist
Please change it; I haven't anything else."

But he said that wasn't any matter; he was quite willing to
let the trifle stand over till another time. I said I might
not be in his neighborhood again for a good while; but he
said it was of no consequence, he could wait, and, moreover,
I could have anything I wanted, any time I chose, and let
the account run as long as I pleased. He said he hoped he
wasn't afraid to trust as rich a gentleman as I was, merely
because I was of a merry disposition, and chose to play
larks on the public in the matter of dress. By this time
another customer was entering, and the landlord hinted to
me to put the monster out of sight; then he bowed me all
the way to the door, and I started straight for that house
and those brothers, to correct the mistake which had been
made before the police should hunt me up, and help me do
it. I was pretty nervous; in fact, pretty badly frightened,
though, of course, I was no way in fault; but I knew men
well enough to know that when they find they've given a
tramp a million-pound bill when they thought it was a one-
pounder, they are in a frantic rage against him instead of
quarreling with their own near-sightedness, as they ought.
As I approached the house my excitement began to abate,
for all was quiet there, which made me feel pretty sure
the blunder was not discovered yet. I rang. The same ser-
vant appeared. I asked for those gentlemen.

"They are gone." This in the lofty, cold way of that
fellow's tribe.

"Gone? Gone where?"

"On a journey."

"But whereabouts?"

"To the Continent, I think."

"The Continent?"

"Yes, sir."

"Which way--by what route?"

"I can't say, sir."

"When will they be back?"

"In a month, they said."

"A month! Oh, this is awful! Give me some sort of idea of
how to get a word to them. It s of the last importance."

"I can't, indeed. I've no idea where they've gone, sir."

"Then I must see some member of the family."

"Family's away, too; been abroad months--in Egypt and
India, I think."

"Man, there's been an immense mistake made. They'll be back
before night. Will you tell them I've been here, and that I
will keep coming till it's all made right, and they needn't
be afraid?"

"I'll tell them, if they come back, but I am not expecting
them. They said you would be here in an hour to make inqui-
ries, but I must tell you it's all right, they'll be here on
time and expect you."

So I had to give it up and go away. What a riddle it all
wasi I was like to lose my mind. They would, be here "on
time." What could that mean? Oh the letter would explain,
maybe. I had forgotten the letter; I got it out and read it.
This is what it said:

You are an intelligent and honest man, as one may see by
your face. We conceive you to he poor and a stranger, Enc-
losed you will find a sum of money. It is lent to you for
thirty days, without interest. Report at this house at the
end of that time. I have a bet on you. If I win it you shall
have any situation that is in my gift--any, that is, that
you shall be able to prove yourself familiar with and compe-
tent to fill.

No signature, no address, no date.

Well, here was a coil to be in! You are posted on what had
preceded all this, but I was not. It was just a deep, dark
puzzle to me. I hadn't the least idea what the game was, nor
whether harm was meant me or a kindness. I went into a
park, and sat down to try to think it out, and to consider
what I had best do.

At the end of an hour my reasonings had crystallized into
this verdict.

Maybe those men mean me well, maybe they mean me ill; no
way to decide that--let it go. They've got a game, or a
scheme, or an experiment, of some kind on hand; no way to
determine what it is-- let it go. There's a bet on me; no
way to find out what it is--let it go. That disposes of the
indeterminable quantities: the remainder of the matter is
tangible, solid, and may be classed and labeled with cer-
tainty. If I ask the Bank of England to place this bill
to the credit of the man it belongs to, they'll do it, for
they know him, although I don't; but they will ask me how
I came in possession of it, and if I tell the truth they'll
put me in the asylum, naturally, and a lie will land me in
jail. The same result would follow if I tried to bank the
bill anywhere or to borrow money on it. I have got to carry
this immense burden around until those men come back, whe-
ther I want to or not. It is useless to me, as useless as
a handful of ashes, and yet I must take care of it, and
watch over it, while I beg my living. I couldn't give it
away, if I should try, for neither honest citizen nor high-
wayman would accept it or meddle with it for anything.
Those brothers are safe. Even if I lose their bill, or burn
it, they are still safe, because they can stop payment, and
the bank will make them whole; but meantime I've got to do a
month's suffering without wages or profit--unless I help win
that bet, whatever it may be, and get that situation that I
am promised. I should like to get that; men of their sort
have situations in their gift that are worth having.

I got to thinking a good deal about that situation. My hopes
began to rise high. Without doubt the salary would be large.
It would begin in a month; after that I should be all right.
Pretty soon I was feeling first rate. By this time I was
tramping the streets again. The sight of a tailorshop gave
me a sharp longing to shed my rags, and to clothe myself de-
cently once more. Could I afford it? No; I had nothing in the
world but a million pounds. So I forced myself to go on by.
But soon I was drifting back again. The temptation persecuted
me cruelly. I must have passed that shop back and forth six
times during that manful struggle. At last I gave in; I had
to. I asked if they had a misfit suit that had been thrown
on their hands. The fellow I spoke to nodded his head toward
another fellow, and gave me no answer. I went to the indicat-
ed fellow, and he indicated another fellow with his head,
and no words. I went to him, and he said:

"Tend to you presently."

I waited till he was done with what he was at, then he took
me into a back room, and overhauled a pile of rejected suits,
and selected the rattiest one for me. I put it on. It didn't
fit, and wasn't in any way attractive, but it was new, and I
was anxious to have it; so I didn't find any fault, but said,
with some diffidence:

"It would be an accommodation to me if you could wait
some days for the money. I haven't any small change about
me."

The fellow worked up a most sarcastic expression of count-
enance, and said:

"Oh, you haven't? Well, of course, I didn't expect it. I'd
only expect gentlemen like you to carry large change."

I was nettled, and said:

"My friend, you shouldn't judge a stranger always by the
clothes he wears. I am quite able to pay for this suit; I
simply didn't wish to put you to the trouble of changing a
large note."

He modified his style a little at that, and said, though
still with something of an air:

"I didn't mean any particular harm, but as long as rebukes
are going, I might say it wasn't quite your affair to jump
to the conclusion that we couldn't change any note that you
might happen to be carrying around. On the contrary, we can"

I handed the note to him, and said:

"Oh, very well; I apologize."

He received it with a smile, one of those large smiles which
go all around over, and have folds in them, and wrinkles,
and spirals, and look like the place where you have thrown
a brick in a pond; and then in the act of his taking a
glimpse of the bill this smile froze solid, and turned yel-
low, and looked like those wavy, wormy spreads of lava which
you find hardened on little levels on the side of Vesuvius. I
never before saw a smile caught like that, and perpetuated.
The man stood there holding the bill, and looking like that,
and the proprietor bustled up to see what was the matter,
and said, briskly:

"Well, what's up? what's the trouble? what's wanting?"

I said: "There isn't any trouble. I'm waiting for my
change."

"Come, come; get him his change, Tod; get him his
change."

Tod retorted: "Get him his change! It's easy to say, sir;
but look at the bill yourself."

The proprietor took a look, gave a low, eloquent whistle,
then made a dive for the pile of rejected clothing, and be-
gan to snatch it this way and that, talking all the time
excitedly, and as if to himself:

"Sell an eccentric millionaire such an unspeakable suit as
that! Tod's a fool--a born fool. Always doing something
like this. Drives every millionaire away from this place,
because he can't tell a millionaire from a tramp, and never
could. Ah, here's the thing I am after. Please get those
things off, sir, and throw them in the fire. Do me the favor
to put on this shirt and this suit; it's just the thing,
the very thing --plain, rich, modest, and just ducally nob-
by; made to order for a foreign prince--you may know him,
sir, his Serene Highness the Hospodar of Halifax; had to
leave it with us and take a mourning-suit because his mo-
ther was going to die--which she didn't. But that's all
right; we can't always have things the way we--that is,
the way they--there! trousers all right, they fit you to
a charm, sir; now the waistcoat; aha, right again! now the
coat--lord! look at that, now! Perfect --the whole thing!
I never saw such a triumph in all my experience."

I expressed my satisfaction.

"Quite right, sir, quite right; it'll do for a makeshift,
I'm bound to say. But wait till you see what we'll get up for
you on your own measure. Come, Tod, book and pen; get at it
Length of leg, 32"--and so on. Before I could get in a word
he had measured me, and was giving orders for dress-suits,
morning suits, shirts, and all sorts of things. When I got a
chance I said:

"But, my dear sir, I can't give these orders, unless you
can wait indefinitely, or change the bill."

"Indefinitely! It's a weak word, sir, a weak word. Eternally--
that's the word, sir. Tod, rush these things through, and
send them to the gentleman's address without any waste of
time. Let the minor customers wait. Set down the gentleman's
address and--"

"I'm changing my quarters. I will drop in and leave the
new address."

"Quite right, sir, quite right. One moment--let me show
you out, sir. There--good day, sir, good day."

Well, don't you see what was bound to happen? I drifted
naturally into buying whatever I wanted, and asking for
change. Within a week I was sumptuously equipped with all
needful comforts and luxuries, and was housed in an expen-
sive private hotel in Hanover Square. I took my dinners
there, but for breakfast I stuck by Harris's humble feed-
ing-house, where I had got my first meal on my million-
pound bill. I was the making of Harris. The fact had gone
all abroad that the foreign crank who carried million-pound
bills in his vest pocket was the patron saint of the place.
That was enough. From being a poor, struggling, little
hand-to-mouth enterprise, it had become celebrated, and
overcrowded with customers. Harris was so grateful that he
forced loans upon me, and would not be denied; and so,
pauper as I was, I had money to spend, and was living like
the rich and the great. I judged that there was going to
be a crash by and by, but I was in now and must swim across
or drown. You see there was just that element of impending
disaster to give a serious side, a sober side, yes, a trag-
ic side, to a state of things which would otherwise have
been purely ridiculous. In the night, in the dark, the
tragedy part was always to the front, and always warning,
always threatening; and so I moaned and tossed, and sleep
was hard to find. But in the cheerful daylight the tragedy
element faded out and disappeared, and I walked on air,
and was happy to giddiness, to intoxication, you may say.

And it was natural; for I had become one of the notorieties
of the metropolis of the world, and it turned my head, not
just a little, but a good deal. You could not take up a news-
paper, English, Scotch, or Irish, without finding in it one
or more references to the "vest-pocket million-pounder" and
his latest doings and sayings. At first, in these mentions, I
was at the bottom of the personal-gossip column; next, I was
listed above the knights, next above the baronets, next above
the barons, and so on, and so on, climbing steadily, as my
notoriety augmented, until I reached the highest altitude po-
ssible, and there I remained, taking precedence of all dukes
not royal, and of all ecclesiastics except the primate of all
England. But mind, this was not fame; as yet I had achieved
only notoriety. Then came the climaxing stroke--the accolade,
so to speak--which in a single instant transmuted the perish-
able dross of notoriety into the enduring gold of fame: Punch
caricatured me! Yes, I was a made man now; my place was esta-
blished. I might be joked about still, but reverently, not
hilariously, not rudely; I could be smiled at, but not laugh-
ed at. The time for that had gone by. Punch pictured me all
a-flutter with rags, dickering with a beef-eater for the Tow-
er of London. Well, you can imagine how it was with a young
fellow who had never been taken notice of before, and now
all of a sudden couldn't say a thing that wasn't taken up
and repeated everywhere; couldn't stir abroad without con-
stantly overhearing the remark flying from lip to lip,
"There he goes; that's him!" couldn't take his breakfast
without a crowd to look on; couldn't appear in an opera-box
without concentrating there the fire of a thousand lorgn-
ettes. Why, I just swam in glory all day long--that is the
amount of it.

You know, I even kept my old suit of rags, and every now
and then appeared in them, so as to have the old pleasure
of buying trifles, and being insulted, and then shooting the
scoffer dead with the million-pound bill. But I couldn't keep
that up. The illustrated papers made the outfit so familiar
that when I went out in it I was at once recognized and fol-
lowed by a crowd, and if I attempted a purchase the man
would offer me his whole shop on credit before I could pull
my note on him.

About the tenth day of my fame I went to fulfil my duty
to my flag by paying my respects to the American minister.
He received me with the enthusiasm proper in my case, up-
braided me for being so tardy in my duty, and said that
there was only one way to get his forgiveness, and that was
to take the seat at his dinner-party that night made vacant
by the illness of one of his guests. I said I would, and we
got to talking. It turned out that he and my father had been
schoolmates in boyhood, Yale students together later, and
always warm friends up to my father's death. So then he re-
quired me to put in at his house ah the odd time I might
have to spare, and I was very willing, of course.

In fact, I was more than willing; I was glad. When the
crash should come, he might somehow be able to save me
from total destruction; I didn't know how, but he might
think of a way, maybe. I couldn't venture to unbosom myself
to him at this late date, a thing which I would have been
quick to do in the beginning of this awful career of mine in
London. No, I couldn't venture it now; I was in too deep;
that is, too deep for me to be risking revelations to so new
a friend, though not clear beyond my depth, as I looked at
it. Because, you see, with all my borrowing, I was carefully
keeping within my means--I mean within my salary. Of course,
I couldn't know what my salary was going to be, but I had a
good enough basis for an estimate in the fact that if I won
the bet I was to have choice of any situation in that rich
old gentleman's gift provided I was competent--and I should
certainly prove competent; I hadn't any doubt about that.
And as to the bet, I wasn't worrying about that; I had
always been lucky. Now my estimate of the salary was six
hundred to a thousand a year; say, six hundred for the first
year, and so on up year by year, till I struck the upper
figure by proved merit. At present I was only in debt for my
first year's salary. Everybody had been trying to lend me
money, but I had fought off the most of them on one pretext
or another; so this indebtedness represented only ￡300
borrowed money, the other ￡300 represented my keep and
my purchases. I believed my second year's salary would carry
me through the rest of the month if I went on being cautious
and economical, and I intended to look sharply out for that.
My month ended, my employer back from his journey, I should
be all right once more, for I should at once divide the two
years' salary among my creditors by assignment, and get right
down to my work.

It was a lovely dinner-party of fourteen. The Duke and
Duchess of Shoreditch, and their daughter the Lady Anne-
Grace-Eleanor-Celeste-and-so-forth-and-so-forth-de-Bohun,
the Earl and Countess of Newgate, Viscount Cheapside,
Lord and Lady Blatherskite, some untitled people of both
sexes, the minister and his wife and daughter, and his
daughter's visiting friend, an English girl of twenty-two,
named Portia Langham, whom I fell in love with in two min-
utes, and she with me--I could see it without glasses. There
was still another guest, an American--but I am a little a-
head of my story. While the people were still in the drawing-
room, whetting up for dinner, and coldly inspecting the late
comers, the servant announced;

"Mr. Lloyd Hastings."

The moment the usual civilities were over, Hastings caught
sight of me, and came straight with cordially outstretched
hand; then stopped short when about to shake, and said, with
an embarrassed look:

"I beg your pardon, sir, I thought I knew you."

"Why, you do know me, old fellow."

"No. Are you the--the--"

"Vest-pocket monster? I am, indeed. Don't be afraid to
call me by my nickname; I'm used to it"

"Well, well, well, this is a surprise. Once or twice I've
seen your own name coupled with the nickname, but it never
occurred to me that you could be the Henry Adams referred
to. Why, it isn't six months since you were clerking away
for Blake Hopkins in Frisco on a salary, and sitting up nights
on an extra allowance, helping me arrange and verify the Gould
and Curry Extension papers and statistics. The idea of your
being in London, and a vast millionaire, and a colossal cel-
ebrity! Why, it's the Arabian Nights come again. Man, I can't
take it in at all; can't realize it; give me time to settle
the whirl in my head."

"The fact is, Lloyd, you are no worse off than I am. I
can't realize it myself."

"Dear me, it is stunning, now isn't it? Why, it's just three
months today since we went to the Miners' restaurant--
"
"No; the What Cheer."

"Right, it was the What Cheer; went there at two in the
morning, and had a chop and coffee after a hard six-hours
grind over those Extension papers, and I tried to persuade
you to come to London with me, and offered to get leave of
absence for you and pay all your expenses, and give you
something over if I succeeded in making the sale; and you
would not listen to me, said I wouldn't succeed, and you
couldn't afford to lose the run of business and be no end
of time getting the hang of things again when you got back
home. And yet here you are. How odd it all is! How did
you happen to come, and whatever did ve you this incredible
start?"

"Oh, just an accident. It's a long story--a romance, a
body may say. I'll tell you all about it, but not now."

"When?"

"The end of this month."

"That's more than a fortnight yet. It's too much of a strain
on a person's curiosity. Make it a week."

"I can't You'll know why, by and by. But how's the
trade getting along?"

His cheerfulness vanished like a breath, and he said with
a sigh:

"You were a true prophet, Hal, a true prophet I wish I
hadn't come. I don't want to talk about it."

"But you must. You must come and stop with me to-night,
when we leave here, and tell me all about it."

"Oh, may I? Are you in earnest?" and the water showed
in his eyes.

"Yes; I want to hear the whole story, every word."

"I'm so grateful! Just to find a human interest once more,
in some voice and in some eye, in me and affairs of mine,
after what I've been through here--lord! I could go down
on my knees for it!"

He gripped my hand hard, and braced up, and was all
right and lively after that for the dinner--which didn't
come off. No; the usual thing happened, the thing that is
always happening under the vicious and aggravating English
system--the matter of precedence couldn't be settled,
and so there was no dinner. Englishmen always eat dinner
before they go out to dinner, because they know the risks
they are running; but nobody ever warns the stranger, and
so he walks placidly into the trap. Of course, nobody was
hurt this time, because we had all been to dinner, none of
us being novices excepting Hastings, and he having been in-
formed by the minister at the time that he invited him that
in deference to the English custom he had not provided any
dinner. Everybody took a lady and processioned down to the
dining-room because it is usual to go through the motions;
but there the dispute began. The Duke of Shoreditch wanted
to take precedence, and sit at the head of the table, holding
that he outranked a minister who represented merely a nation
and not a monarch; but I stood for my rights, and refused
to yield. In the gossip column I ranked all dukes not royal,
and said so, and claimed precedence of this one. It couldn't
be settled, of course, struggle as we might and did, he
finally (and injudiciously) trying to play birth and anti-
quity, and I "seeing" his Conqueror and "raising" him with
Adam, whose direct posterity I was, as shown by my name,
while he was of a collateral branch, as shown by his, and by
his recent Norman origin; so we all processioned back to the
drawing-room again and had a perpendicular lunch--plate
of sardines and a strawberry, and you group yourself and
stand up and eat it. Here the religion of precedence is not
so strenuous; the two persons of highest rank chuck up a
shilling, the one that wins has first go at his strawberry,
and the loser gets the shilling. The next two chuck up.
then the next two, and so on. After refreshment, tables were
brout, and we all played cribbage, sixpence a game. The
English never play any game for amusement. If they can't
make something or lose something--they don't care which--
they won't play.

We had a lovely time; certainly two of us had, Miss Langham
and I. I was so bewitched with her that I couldn't count
my hands if they went above a double sequence; and when
I struck home I never discovered it, and started up the
outside row again, and would have lost the game every time,
only the girl did the same, she being in just my condition,
you see; and consequently neither of us ever got out, or
cared to wonder why we didn't; we only just knew we were
happy, and didn't wish to know anything else, and didn't
want to be interrupted. And I told her--I did, indeed--told
her I loved her; and she--well, she blushed till her hair
turned red, but she liked it; she said she did. Oh, there was
never such an evening! Every time I pegged I put on a post-
script; every time she pegged she acknowledged receipt of it,
counting the hands the same. Why, I couldn't even say "Two
for his heels" without adding "My, how sweet you do look!"
and she would say, "Fifteen two, fifteen four, fifteen six,
and a pair are eight, and eight are sixteen--do you think
so?"--peeping out aslant from under her lashes, you know,
so sweet and cunning. Oh, it was just too-too!

Well, I was perfectly honest and square with her; told her
I hadn't a cent in the world but just the million-pound note
she'd heard so much talk about, and it didn't belong to me,
and that started her curiosity; and then I talked low, and
told her the whole history right from the start, and it nearly
killed her laughing. What in the nation she could find to
laugh about I couldn't see, but there it was; every half-
minute some new detail would fetch her, and I would have to
stop as much as a minute and a half to give her a chance to
settle down again. Why, she laughed herself lame--she did,
indeed; I never saw anything like it. I mean I never saw a
painful story--a story of a person's troubles and worries
and fears--produce just that kind of effect before. So I loved
her all the more, seeing she could be so cheerful when there
wasn't anything to be cheerful about; for I might soon need
that kind of wife, you know, the way things looked. Of
course, I told her we should have to wait a couple of years,
till I could catch up on my salary; but she didn't mind that,
only she hoped I would be as careful as possible in the matter
of expenses, and not let them run the least risk of trenching
on our third year's pay. Then she began to get a little wor-
ried, and wondered if we were making any mistake, and start-
ing the salary on a higher figure for the first year than I
would get. This was good sense, and it made me feel a little
less confident than I had been feeling before; but it gave me
a good business idea, and I brought it frankly out.

"Portia, dear, would you mind going with me that day, when
I confront those old gentlemen?"

She shrank a little, but said:

"N-o; if my being with you would help hearten you. But--
would it be quite proper, do you think?"

"No, I don't know that it would--in fact, I'm afraid it
wouldn't; but, you see, there's so much dependent upon it
that--"

"Then I'll go anyway, proper or improper," she said, with
a beautiful and generous enthusiasm. "Oh, I shall be so
happy to think I'm helping!"

"Helping, dear? Why, you'll be doing it all. You're so beau-
tiful and so lovely and so winning, that with you there
I can pile our salary up till I break those good old fellows,
and they'll never have the heart to struggle."

Sho! you should have seen the rich blood mount, and her
happy eyes shine!

"You wicked flatterer! There isn't a word of truth in what
you say, but still I'll go with you. Maybe it will teach you
not to expect other people to look with your eyes."

Were my doubts dissipated? Was my confidence restored?
You may judge by this fact: privately I raised my salary to
twelve hundred the first year on the spot. But I didn't tell
her: I saved it for a surprise.

All the way home I was in the clouds. Hastings talking, I
not hearing a word. When he and I entered my parlor, he
brought me to myself with his fervent appreciations of my
manifold comforts and luxuries.

"Let me just stand here a little and look my fill. Dear me!
it's a palace--it's just a palace! And in it everything a
body could desire, including cozy coal fire and supper
standing ready. Henry, it doesn't merely make me realize
how rich you are; it makes me realize, to the bone, to the
marrow, how poor I am--how poor I am, and how miserable,
how defeated, routed, annihilated!"

Plague take it! this language gave me the cold shudders.
It scared me broad awake, and made me comprehend that I
was standing on a half-inch crust, with a crater underneath.
I didn't know I had been dreaming--that is, I hadn't been
allowing myself to know it for a while back; but now--oh,
dear! Deep in debt, not a cent in the world, a lovely girl's
happiness or woe in my hands, and nothing in front of me
but a salary which might never--oh, would never--material-
ize! Oh, oh, oh! I am ruined past hope! nothing can save me!

"Henry, the mere unconsidered drippings of your daily
income would--"

"Oh, my daily income! Here, down with this hot Scotch,
and cheer up your soul. Here's with you! Or, no--you're
hungry; sit down and--"

"Not a bite for me; I'm past it. I can't eat, these days; but
I'll drink with you till I drop. Come!"

"Barrel for barrel. I'm with you! Ready? Here we go! Now,
then, Lloyd, unreel your story while I brew."

"Unreel it? What, again?"

"Again? What do you mean by that?"

"Why, I mean do you want to hear it over again?"

"Do I want to hear it over again? This is a puzzler. Wait;
don't take any more of that liquid. You don't need it"

"Look here, Henry, you alarm me. Didn't I tell you the
whole story on the way here?"

"You?"

"Yes, I."

"I'll be hanged if I heard a word of it"

"Henry, this is a serious thing. It troubles me. What did
you take up yonder at the minister's?"

Then it all flashed on me, and I owned up like a man.
"I took the dearest girl in this world--prisoner!"

So then he came with a rush, and we shook, and shook,
and shook till our hands ached; and he didn't blame me for
not having heard a word of a story which had lasted while
we walked three miles. He just sat down then, like the pa-
tient, good fellow he was, and told it all over again. Syn-
opsized, it amounted to this: He had come to England with
what he thought was a grand opportunity; he had an "option"
to sell the Gould and Curry Extension for the "locators"
of it, and keep all he could get over a million dollars.
He had worked hard, had pulled every wire he knew of,
had left no honest expedient untried, had spent nearly
all the money he had in the world, bad not been able to
get a solitary capitalist to listen to him, and his option
would run out at the end of the month. In a word, he was
ruined. Then he jumped up and cried out:

"Henry, you can save me! You can save me, and you're the
only man in the universe that can. Will you do it? Won't
you do it?"

"Tell me how. Speak out, my boy."

"Give me a million and my passage home for my ‘optitm'l
Don't, don't refuse!"

I was in a kind of agony. I was right on the point of com-
ing out with the words, "Lloyd, I'm a pauper myself--abso-
lately penniless, and in debt" But a white-hot idea came
flaming through my head, and I gripped my jaws together,
and calmed myself down till I was as cold as a capitalist.
Then I said, in a commercial and self-possessed way:

"I will save you, Lloyd--"

"Then I'm already saved! God be merciful to you forever!
If ever I--"

"Let me finish, Lloyd. I will save you, but not in that way;
for that would not be fair to you, after your hard work, and
the risks you've run. I don't need to buy mines; I can keep
my capital moving, in a commercial center like London, wit-
hout that; it's what I'm at, all the time; but here is what
I'lll do. I know all about that mine, of course; I know its
immense value, and can swear to it if anybody wishes it. You
shall sell out inside of the fortnight for three millions cash,
using my name freely, and we'll divide, share and share alike."

Do you know, he would have danced the furniture to kindling-
wood in his insane joy, and broken everything on the place,
if I hadn't tripped him up and tied him.

Then he lay there, perfectly happy, saying:

"I may use your name! Your name--think of it! Man, they'll
flock in droves, these rich Londoners; they'll fight for
that stock! I'm a made man. I'm a made man forever, and I'll
never forget you as long as I live!"

In less than twenty-four hours London was abuzz! I hadn't any-
thing to do, day after day, but sit at home, and say to all
comers:

"Yes; I told him to refer to me. I know the man, and I
know the mine. His character is above reproach, and the
mine is worth far more than he asks for it."

Meantime I spent all my evenings at the minister's with Por-
tia. I didn't say a word to her about the mine; I saved it
for a surprise. We talked salary; never anything but salary
and love; sometimes love, sometimes salary, sometimes love
and salary together. And my! the interest the minister's wife
and daughter took in our little affair, and the endless ingen-
uities they invented to save us from interruption, and to
keep the minister in the dark and unsuspicious--well, it was
just lovely of them!

When the month was up at last, I had a million dollars to
my credit in the London and County Bank, and Hastings
was fixed in the same way. Dressed at my level best, I drove
by the house in Portland Place, judged by the look of things
that my birds were home again, went on toward the minister's
and got my precious, and we started back, talking salary
with all our might. She was so excited and anxious that it
made her just intolerably beautiful. I said:

"Dearie, the way you're looking it's a crime to strike for
a salary a single penny under tee thousand a year."

"Henry, Henry, you'll ruin us!"

"Don't you be afraid. Just keep up those looks and trust
to me. It 'll all come out right."

So, as it turned out, I had to keep bolstering up her courage
all the way. She kept pleading with me, and saying:

"Oh, please remember that if we ask for too much we may
get no salary at all; and then what will become of us, with
no way in the world to earn our living?"

We were ushered in by that same servant, and there they
were, the two old gentlemen. Of course, they were surprised
to see that wonderful creature with me, but I said:

"It's all right, gentlemen; she is my future stay and helpmate."

And I introduced them to her, and called them by name. It
didn't surprise them; they knew I would know enough to consult
the directory. They seated us, and were very polite to me, and
very solicitous to relieve her from embarrassment, and put her
as much at her ease as they could. Then I said: "Gentlemen, I
am ready to report."

"We are glad to hear it," said my man, "For now we can decide
the bet which my brother Abel and I made. If you have won for
me, you shall have any situation in my gift. -
Have you the million-pound note?"

"Here it is, sir," and I banded it to him.

"I've won!" he shouted, and slapped Abel on the back.

"Now what do you say, brother?"

"I say he did survive, and I've lost twenty thousand pounds.
I never would have believed it."

"I've a further report to make," I said, "and a pretty long
one. I want you to let me come soon, and detail my whole
month's history; and I promise you it's worth hearing. Mean-
time, take a look at that."

"What, man! Certificate of deposit for 200,000. Is it yours?"

"Mine. I earned it by thirty days' judicious use of that
little loan you let me have. And the only use I made of it
was to buy trifles and offer the bill in change."

"Come, this is astonishing! It's incredible, man!"

"Never mind, I'll prove it. Don't take my word unsupported."

But now Portia's turn was come to be surprised. Her eyes
were spread wide, and she said:

"Henry, is that really your money? Have you been fibbing
to me?"

"I have, indeed, dearie. But you'll forgive me, I know."

She put up an arch pout, and said:

"Don't you be so sure: You are a naughty thing to deceive
me so!"

"Oh, you'll get over it, sweetheart, you'll get over it; it
was only fun, you know. Come, let's be going."

"But wait, wait! The situation, you know. I want to give
you the situation," said my man.

"Well," I said, "I'm just as grateful as I can be, but really
I don't want one."

"But you can have the very choicest one in my gift."

"Thanks again, with all my heart; but I don't even want
that one."

"Henry, I'm ashamed of you. You don't half thank the
good gentleman. May I do it for you?"

"Indeed, you shall, dear, if you can improve it. Let us see
you try."

She walked to my man, got up in his lap, put her arm round
his neck, and kissed him right on the mouth. Then the two old
gentlemen shouted with laughter, but I was dumbfounded, just
petrified, as you may say. Portia said:

"Papa, he has said you haven't a situation in your gift
that he'd take; and I feel just as hurt as--"

"My darling, is that your papa?"

"Yes; he's my step-papa, and the dearest one that ever was.
You understand now, don't you, why I was able to laugh when
you told me at the minister's, not knowing my relationships,
what trouble and worry papa's and Uncle Abel's scheme was
giving you?"

Of course, I spoke right up now, without any fooling, and
went straight to the point.

"Oh, my dearest dear sir, I want to take back what I said.
You have got a situation open that I want."

"Name it."

"Son-in-law."

"Well, well, well! But you know, if you haven't ever served
in that capacity, you, of course, can't furnish recommendations
of a sort to satisfy the conditions of the contract, and
so--"

"Try me--oh, do, I beg of you! Only just try me thirty or
forty years, and if--"

"Oh, well, all right; it's but a little thing to ask, take her
along."

Happy, we two? There are not words enough in the unabridged
to describe it. And when London got the whole history, a
day or two later, of my month's adventures with that bank-
note, and how they ended, did London talk, and have a good
time? Yes.

My Portia's papa took that friendly and hospitable bill
back to the Bank of England and cashed it; then the Bank
canceled it and made him a present of it, and he gave it to
us at our wedding, and it has always hung in its frame in
the sacredest place in our home ever since. For it gave me
my Portia. But for it I could not have remained in London,
would not have appeared at the minister's, never should have
met her. And so I always say, "Yes, it's a million-pounder,
as you see; but it never made but one purchase in its life,
and then got the article for only about a tenth part of its
value."

1893



Cecil Rhodes and the Shark



The shark is the swiftest fish that swims. The speed of the
fastest steamer afloat is poor compared to his. And he is a
great gad-about, and roams far and wide in the oceans, and
visits the shores of all of them, ultimately, in the course of
his restless excursions. I have a tale to tell now, which has
not as yet been in print. In 1870 a young stranger arrived
in Sydney, and set about finding something to do; but he
knew no one, and brought no recommendations, and the result
was that he got no employment. He had aimed high, at first,
but as time and his money wasted away he grew less and less
exacting, until at last he was willing to serve in the hum-
blest capacities if so he might get bread and shelter. But
luck was still against him; he could find no opening of any
sort. Finally his money was all gone. He walked the streets
all day, thinking; he walked them all night, thinking, think-
ing, and growing hungrier and hungrier. At dawn be found
himself well away from the town and drifting aimlessly
along the harbor shore. As he was passing by a nodding
shark-fisher the man looked up and said;

"Say, young fellow, take my line a spell, and change my
luck for me."

"How do you know I won't make it worse?"

"Because you can't. It has been at its worst all night. If
you can't change it, no harm's done; if you do change it,
it's for the better, erf course. Come."

"All right, what will you give?"

"I'll give you the shark, if you catch one,"

"And I will eat it, bones and all. Give me the line."

"Here you are. I will get away, now, for a while, so that
my luck won't spoil yours; for many and many a time I've
noticed that if--there, pull in, pull in, man, you've got
a bite! I knew how it would be, why, I knew you for a born
son of luck the minute I saw you. All right--he's landed,"

It was an unusually large shark--"a full nineteen-footer,"
the fisherman said, as he laid the creature open with his
knife.

"Now you rob him, young man, while I step to my hamper for
a fresh bait. There's generally something in them worth
going for. You've changed my luck, you see. But, my goodness,
I hope you haven't changed your own."

"Oh, it wouldn't matter; don't worry about that. Get your
bait. I'll rob him."

When the fisherman got back the young man had just finished
washing his hands in the bay and was starting away.

"What! you are not going?"

"Yes. Good-by."

"But what about your shark?"

"The shark? Why, what use is he to me?"

"What use is he? I like that. Don't you know that we can
go and report him to Government, and you'll get a clean
solid eighty shilling bounty? Hard cash, you know. What
do you think about it now?"

"Oh, well, you can collect it."

"And keep it? Is that what you mean?"

"Yes."

"Well, this is odd. You're one of those sort they call ec-
centrics, I judge. The saying is, you mustn't judge a man
by his clothes, and I'm believing it now. Why yours are
looking just ratty, don't you know; and yet you must be
rich."

"I am."

The young man walked slowly back to the town, deeply mus-
ing as he went. He halted a moment in front of the best
restaurant, then glanced at his clothes and passed on, and
got his breakfast at a "stand-up." There was a good deal of
it, and it cost five shillings. He tendered a sovereign, got
his change, glanced at his silver, muttered to himself,
"There isn't enough to buy clothes with," and went his way.

At half past nine the richest wool-broker in Sydney was
sitting in his morning-room at home, settling his breakfast
with the morning paper. A servant put his head in and said:

"There's a sundowner at the door wants to see you, sir,"

"What do you bring that kind of a message here for? Send
him about his business."

"He won't go, sir. I've tried."

"He won't go? That's--why, that's unusual. He's one of two
things, then: he's a remarkable person, or he's crazy. Is
he crazy?"

"No, sir. He don't look it."

"Then he's remarkable. What does he say he wants?"

"‘He won't tell, sir; only says it's very important."

"And won't go. Does he say he won't go?"

"Says he'll stand there till he sees you, sir, if it's all
day."

"And yet isn't crazy. Show him up."

The sundowner was shown in. The broker said to himself, "No,
he's not crazy; that is easy to see; so he must be the other
thing."

Then aloud, "Well, my good fellow, be quick about it;

don't waste any words; what is it you want?"

"I want to borrow a hundred thousand pounds."

"Scott! (It's a mistake; he is crazy.... No--he can't be
--not with that eye.) Why, you take my breath away. Come,
who are you?"

"Nobody that you know."

"What is your name?"

"Cecil Rhodes."

"No, I don't remember hearing the name before. Now then--
just for curiosity's sake--what has sent you to me on this
extraordinary errand?"

"The intention to make a hundred thousand pounds for you
and as much for myself within the next sixty days."

"Well, well, well. It is the most extraordinary idea that I--
sit down--you interest me. And somehow you--well, you fas-
cinate me, I think that that is about the word. And it isn't
your proposition--no, that doesn't fascinate me; it's somet-
hing else, I don't quite know what; something that's born in
you and oozes out of you, I suppose. Now then--just for cur-
iosity's sake again, nothing more: as I understand it, it is
your desire to bor--"

"I said intention."

"Pardon, so you did. I thought it was an unheedful use
of the word--an unheedful valuing of its strength, you
know."

"I knew its strength."

"Well, I must say--but look here, let me walk the floor a
little, my mind is getting into a sort of whirl, though you
don't seem disturbed any. (Plainly this young fellow isn't
crazy; but as to his being remarkable--well, really he
amounts to that, and something over.) Now then, I believe
I am beyond the reach of further astonishment. Strike, and
spare not. What is your scheme?"

"To buy the wool crop--deliverable in sixty days."

"What, the whole of it?"

"The whole of it."

"No, I was not quite out of the reach of surprises, after
all. Why, how you talk. Do you know what our crop is
going to foot up?"

"Two and a half million sterling--maybe a little more."

"Well, you've got your statistics right, anyway. Now then,
do you know what the margins would foot up, to buy it at
sixty days?"

"The hundred thousand pounds I came here to get."

"Right, once more. Well, dear me, just to see what would
happen, I wish you had the money. And if you had it, what
would you do with it?"

"I shall make two hundred thousand pounds out of it in
sixty days."

"You mean, of course, that you might make it if--"

"I said, 'shall.'"

"Yes, by George, you did say ‘shall'! You are the most
definite devil I ever saw, in the matter of language. Dear,
dear, dear, look here! Definite speech means clarity of mind.
Upon my word I believe you've got what you believe to be a
rational reason for venturing into this house, an entire
stranger, on this wild scheme of buying the wool crop of an
entire colony on speculation. Bring it out--I am prepared
--acclimatized, if I may use the word. Why would you buy
the crop, and why would you make that sum out of it?
That is to say, what makes you think you--"

"I don't think--I know."

"Definite again. How do you know?"

"Because France has declared war against Germany, and
wool has gone up fourteen per cent, in London and is still
rising."

"Oh, in-deed? Now then, I've got you! Such a thunderbolt as
you have just let fly ought to have made me jump out of my
chair, but it didn't stir me the least little bit, you see.
And for a very simple reason: I have read the morning paper.
You can look at it if you want to. The fastest ship in the
service arrived at eleven o'clock last night, fifty days out
from London. All her news is printed here. There are no war-
clouds anywhere; and as for wool, why, it is the low-spirit-
edest commodity in the English market. It is your turn to
jump, now.... Well, why don't you jump? Why do you sit there
in that placid fashion, when--"

"Because I have later news."

"Later news? Oh, come--later news than fifty days, brought
steaming hot from London by the--"

"My news is only ten days old."

"Oh, Mun-chausen, hear the maniac talk! Where did you
get it?"

"Got it out of a shark."

"Oh, oh, oh, this is too much! Front! call the police--
bring the gun--raise the town! All the asylums in Christ-
endom have broken loose in the single person of--"

"Sit down! And collect yourself. Where is the use in getting
excited? Am I excited? There is nothing to get excited
about. When I make a statement which I cannot prove, it
will be time enough for you to begin to offer hospitality
to damaging fancies about me and my sanity."

"Oh, a thousand thousand pardons! I ought to be ashamed
of myself, and I am ashamed of myself for thinking that a
little bit of a circumstance like sending a shark to England
to fetch back a market report--"

"What does your middle initial stand for, sir?"

"Andrew, What are you writing?"

"Wait a moment. Proof about the shark--and another matter.
Only ten lines. There--now it is done. Sign it."

"Many thanks--many. Let me see; it says--it says--oh,
come, this is interesting! Why--why--look here! prove what
you say here, and I'll put up the money, and double as
much, if necessary, and divide the winnings with you, half
and half. There, now--I've signed; make your promise good
if you can. Show me a copy of the London Times only ten
days old."

"Here it is--and with it these buttons and a memorandum-
book that belonged to the man the shark swallowed. Swal-
lowed him in the Thames, without a doubt; for you will notice
that the last entry in the book is dated ‘London,' and is
of the same date as the Times, and says 'Ber confequentz
der Kreigeseflarun, reife ich heute nach Deutchland ab, aur
bak ich mein leben auf dem Ultar meines Landes legen mag'
--as clean native German as anybody can put upon paper, and
means that in consequence of the declaration of war, this
loyal soul is leaving for home to-day, to fight. And he did
leave, too, but the shark had him before the day was done,
poor fellow."

"And a pity, too. But there are times for mourning, and
we will attend to this case further on; other matters are
pressing, now. I will go down and set the machinery in motion
in a quiet way and buy the crop. It will cheer the drooping
spirits of the boys, in a transitory way. Everything is
transitory in this world. Sixty days hence, when they are
caUed to deliver the goods, they will think they've been
struck by lightning. But there is a time for mourning, and
we will attend to that case along with the other one. Come
along, I'll take you to my tailor. What did you say your
name is?"

"Cecil Rhodes."

"It is hard to remember. However, I think you will make
it easier by and by, if you live. There are three kinds of
people--Commonplace Men, Remarkable Men, and Lunatics.
I'll classify you with the Remarkables, and take the chances."

The deal went through, and secured to the young stranger
the first fortune he ever pocketed.

From FOLLOWING THE EQUATOR, 1897



The Joke That Made Ed's Fortune



Let us be thankful for the fools. But for them the rest of
us could not succeed. --Pudd'nhead Wilson's New Calendar


A few years before the outbreak of the Civil War it began
to appear that Memphis, Tennessee, was going to be a great
tobacco entrepot--the wise could see the signs of it. At that
time Memphis had a wharfboat, of course. There was a
paved sloping wharf, for the accommodation of freight, but
the steamers landed on the outside of the wharfboat, and all
loading and unloading was done across it, between steamer
and shore. A number of wharfboat clerks were needed, and
part of the time, every day, they were very busy, and part
of the time tediously idle. They were boiling over with youth
and spirits, and they had to make the intervals of idleness
endurable in some way; and as a rule, they did it by contriving
practical jokes and playing them upon each other.

The favorite butt for the jokes was Ed Jackson, because he
played none himself, and was easy game for other people's--
for he always believed whatever was told him.

One day he told the others his scheme for his holiday. He
was not going fishing or hunting this time--no, he had
thought out a better plan. Out of his forty dollars a month
he had saved enough for his purpose, in an economical way,
and he was going to have a look at New York.

It was a great and surprising idea. It meant travel--immense
travel--in those days it meant seeing the world; it was the
equivalent of a voyage around it in ours. At first the other
youths thought h mind was affected, but when they found that
he was in earnest, the next thing to be thought of was, what
sort of opportunity this venture might afford for a practical
joke.

The young men studied over the matter, then held a secret
consultation and made a plan. The idea was, that one of the
conspirators should offer Ed a letter of introduction to Com-
modore Vanderbilt, and trick him into delivering it. It would
be easy to do this. But what would Ed do when he got back
to Memphis? That was a serious matter. He was good-hearted,
and had always taken the jokes patiently; but they had been
jokes which did not humiliate him, did not bring him to
shame; whereas, this would be a cruel one in that way, and
to play it was to meddle with fire; for with all his good
nature, Ed was a Southerner--and the English of that was,
that when he came back he would kill as many of the conspi-
rators as he could before falling himself. However, the
chances must be taken--it wouldn't do to waste such a joke
as that.

So the letter was prepared with great care and elaboration.
It was signed Alfred Fairchild, and was written in an easy
and friendly spirit. It stated that the bearer was the bosom
friend of the writer's son, and was of good parts and sterling
character, and it begged the Commodore to be kind to the
young stranger for the writer's sake. It went on to say, "You
may have forgotten me, in this long stretch of time, but you
will easily call me back out of your boyhood memories when
I remind you of how we robbed old Stevenson's orchard that
night; and how, while he was chasing down the road after
us, we cut across the field and doubled back and sold his
own apples to his own cook for a hatful of doughnuts; and
the time that we--" and so forth and so on, bringing in
names of imaginary comrades, and detailing all sorts of wild
and absurd and, of course, wholly imaginary school-boy
pranks and adventures, but putting them into lively and
telling shape.

With all gravity Ed was asked if he would like to have
letter to Commodore Vanderbilt, the great millionaire. It
was expected that the question would astonish Ed, and it
did.

"What? Do you know that extraordinary man?"

"No; but my father does. They were schoolboys together.
And if you like, I'll write and ask father. I know he'll
be glad to give it to you for my sake."

Ed could not find words capable of expressing his grati-
tude and delight. The three days passed, and the letter was
put into his hands. He started on his trip, still pouring out
his thanks while he shook good-by all around. And when he
was out of sight his comrades let fly their laughter in a
storm of happy satisfaction--and then quieted down, and were
less happy, less satisfied. For the old doubts as to the wis-
dom of this deception began to intrude again.

Arrived in New York, Ed found his way to Commodore Vander-
bilt's business quarters, and was ushered into a large ante-
room, where a score of people were patiently awaiting their
turn for a two-minute interview with the millionaire in his
private office. A servant asked for Ed's card, and got the
letter instead. Ed was sent for a moment later, and found
Mr. Vanderbilt alone, with the letter--open--in his hand.

"Pray sit down, Mr.--er--"

"Jackson."

"Ah--sit down, Mr. Jackson. By the opening sentences it
seems to be a letter from an old friend. Allow me--I will
run my eye through it. He says--he says--why, who is it?"
He turned the sheet and found the signature. "Alfred Fair-
child--h'm--Fairchild--I don't recall the name. But that
is nothing--a thousand names have gone from me. He says
he says--h'm--h'm--oh, dear, but it's good! Oh, it's rare!
I don't quite remember it, but I seem to--it'll all come back
to me presently. He says--he says--h'm--h'm--oh, but that
was a game! Oh, spl-endid! How it carries me back! It's all
dim, of course--it's a long time ago--and the names--some
of the names are wavery and indistinct--but sho', I know
it happened--I can feel it! and lord, how it warms my heart,
and brings back my lost youth! Well, well, well. I've got
to come back into this workaday world now--business presses
and people are waiting--I'll keep the rest for bed to-night,
and live my youth over again. And you'll thank Fairchild for
me when you see him--I used to call him Alf, I think--and
you'll give him my gratitude for what this letter has done
for the tired spirit of a hard-worked man; and tell him
there isn't anything that I can do for him or any friend
of his that I won't do. And as for you, my lad, you are my
guest; you can't stop at any hotel in New York. Sit where
you are a little while, till I get through with these people,
then we'll go home. I'll take care of you, my boy--make
yourself easy as to that."

Ed stayed a week, and had an immense time--and never
suspected that the Commodore's shrewd eyes were on him,
and that he was daily being weighed and measured and
analyzed and tried and tested.

Yes, he had an immense time; and never wrote home, but
saved it all up to tell when he should get back. Twice,
with proper modesty and decency, he proposed to end his
visit, but the Commodore said, "No--wait; leave it to me;
I'll tell you when to go."

In those days the Commodore was making some of those
vast combinations of his--consolidations of warring odds and
ends of railroads into harmonious systems, and concentrations
of floating and rudderless commerce in effective centers--and
among other things his far-seeing eye had detected the con-
vergence of that huge tobacco-commerce, already spoken of,
toward Memphis, and he had resolved to set his grasp upon it
and make it his own.

The week came to an end. Then the Commodore said:

"Now you can start home. But first we will have some more
talk about that tobacco matter. I know you now. I know your
abilities as well as you know them yourself--perhaps better.
You understand that tobacco matter; you understand that I
am going to take possession of it, and you also understand
the plans which I have matured for doing it. What I want
is a man who knows ray mind, and is qualified to represent
me in Memphis, and be in supreme command of that important
business--and I appoint you."

"Me!"

"Yes. Your salary will be high--of course--for you are rep-
resenting me. Later you will earn increases of it, and will
get them. You will need a small army of assistants; choose
ftem yourself--and carefully. Take no man for friendship's
sake; but, all things being equal, take the man you know,
take your friend, in preference to the stranger."

After some further talk under this head, the Commodore
said: "Good-by, my boy, and thank Alf for me, for sending
you to me."

When Ed reached Memphis he rushed down to the wharf in a
fever to tell his great news and thank the boys over and
over again for thinking to give him the letter to Mr. Van-
derbilt. It happened to be one of those idle times. Blazing
hot noonday, and no sign of life on the wharf. But as Ed
threaded his way among the freight-piles, he saw a white
linen figure stretched in slumber upon a pile of grain-sacks
under an awning, and said to himself, "That's one of them,"
and hastened his step; next, he said, "It's Charley--it's
Fairchild--good"; and the next moment laid an affectionate
hand on the sleeper's shoulder. The eyes opened lazily, took
one glance, the face blanched, the form whirled itself from
the sack-pile, and in an instant Ed was alone and Fairchild
was flying for the wharfboat like the wind!

Ed was dazed, stupefied. Was Fairchild crazy? What could
be the meaning of this? He started slow and dreamily down
toward the wharfboat; turned the corner of a freightpile
and came suddenly upon two of the boys. They were lightly
laughing over some pleasant matter; they heard his step,
and glanced up just as he discovered them; the laugh died
abruptly; and before Ed could speak they were off, and
sailing over barrels and bales like hunted deer. Again Ed
was paralyzed. Had the boys all gone mad? What could be
the explanation of this extraordinary conduct? And so,
dreaming along, he reached the wharfboat, and stepped
aboard--nothing but silence there, and vacancy. He crossed
the deck, turned the corner to go down the outer guard,
heard a fervent--

"O Lord!" and saw a white linen form plunge overboard.

The youth came up coughing and strangling, and cried out:
"Go 'way from here! You let me alone. I didn't do it, I
swear I didn't!"

"Didn't do what?"

"Give you the--"

"Never mind what you didn't do--come out of that! What
makes you all act so? What have I done?"

"You? Why, you haven't done anything. But--"

"Well, then, what have you got against me? What do you
all treat me so for?"

"I--er--but haven't you got anything against us?"

"Of course not. What put such a thing into your head?"

"Honor bright--you haven't?"

"Honor bright."

"Swear it!"

"I don't know what in the world you mean, but I swear it,
anyway."

"And you'll shake hands with me?"

"Goodness knows I'll be glad to! Why, I'm just starving to
shake hands with somebody!"

The swimmer muttered, "Hang him, he smelt a rat and never
delivered the letter!--but it's all right, I'm not going
to fetch up the subject." And he crawled out and came drip-
ping and draining to shake hands. First one and then another
of the conspirators showed up cautiously--armed to the teeth
--took in the amicable situation, then ventured warily for-
ward and joined the love-feast.

And to Ed's eager inquiry as to what made them act as they
had been acting, they answered evasively and pretended
that they had put it up as a joke, to see what he would do.
It was the best explanation they could invent at such short
notice. And each said to himself, "He never delivered that
letter, and the joke is on us, if he only knew it or we
were dull enough to come out and tell."

Then, of course, they wanted to know all about the trip;
and he said:

"Come right up on the boiler deck and order the drinks--
it's my treat. I'm going to tell you all about it. And to-
night it's my treat again--and we'll have oysters and a
time!"

When the drinks were brought and cigars lighted, Ed said:

"Well, when I delivered the letter to Mr. Vanderbilt--"

"Great Scott!"

"Gracious, how you scared me. What's the matter?"

"Oh--er--nothing. Nothing--it was a tack in the chairseat,"
said one.

"But you all said it. However, no matter. When I delivered
the letter--"

"Did you deliver it?" And they looked at each other as
people might who thought that maybe they were dreaming.

Then they settled to listening; and as the story deepened
and its marvels grew, the amazement of it made them dumb,
and the interest of it took their breath. They hardly uttered
a whisper during two hours, but sat like petrifactions and
drank in the immortal romance. At last the tale was ended,
and Ed said:

"And it's all owing to you, boys, and you'll never find me
ungrateful--bless your hearts, the best friends a fellow ever
had! You'll all have places; I want every one of you. I know
you--I know you ‘by the back,' as the gamblers say. You're
jokers, and all that, but you're sterling, with the hallmark
on. And Charley Fairchild, you shall be my first assistant
and right hand, because of your first-class ability, and be-
cause you got me the letter, and for your father's sake who
wrote it for me, and to please Mr. Vanderbilt, who said it
would! And here's to that great man--drink hearty!"

Yes, when the Moment comes, the Man appears--even if he is
a thousand miles away, and has to be discovered by a prac-
tical joke.

From FOLLOWING THE EQUATOR, 1897



A Story Without an End



We had one game in the ship which was a good time-passer--
at least it was at night in the smoking-room when the men
were getting freshened up from the day's monotonies and
dullnesses. It was the completing of non-complete Stories.
That is to say, a man would tell all of a story except
the finish, then the others would try to supply the ending
out of their own invention. When every one who wanted a
chance had had it, the man who had introduced the story
would give it its original ending--then you could take your
choice. Sometimes the new endings turned out to be better
than the old one. But the story which called out the most
persistent and determined and ambitious effort was one
which had no ending, and so there was nothing to compare
the new-made endings with. The man who told it said he
could furnish the particulars up to a certain point only,
because that was as much of the tale as he knew. He had read
it in a volume of sketches twenty-five years ago, and was
interrupted before the end was reached. He would give any
one fifty dollars who would finish the story to the satis-
faction of a jury to be appointed by ourselves. We appointed
a jury and wrestled with the tale. We invented plenty of end-
ings, but the jury voted them all down. The jury was right.
It was a tale which the author of it may possibly have com-
pleted satisfactorily, and if he really had that good fortune
I would like to know what the ending was. Any ordinary man
will find that the story's strength is in its middle, and that
there is apparently no way to transfer it to the close, where
of course it ought to be. In substance the storiette was as
follows:


John Brown, aged thirty-one, good, gentle, bashful, timid,
lived in a quiet village in Missouri. He was superintendent
of the Presbyterian Sunday-school. It was but a humble dis-
tinction; still, it was his only official one, and he was
modestly proud of it and was devoted to its work and its
interests. The extreme kindliness of his nature was recog-
nized by all; in fact, people said th he was made entirely
out of good impulses and bashfulness; that he could always
be counted upon for help when it was needed, and for bash-
fulness both when it was needed, and when it wasn't.

Mary Taylor, twenty-three, modest, sweet, winning, and in
character and person beautiful, was all in all to him. And
he was very nearly all in all to her. She was wavering, his
hopes were high. Her mother had been in opposition from
the first. But she was wavering, too; he could see it. She
was being touched by his warm interest in her two charity
proteges and by his contributions toward their support. These
were two forlorn and aged sisters who lived in a log hut in
a lonely place up a cross-road four miles from Mrs. Taylor's
farm. One of the sisters was crazy, and sometimes a little
violent, but not often.

At last the time seemed ripe for a final advance, and
Brown gathered his courage together and resolved to make
it. He would take along a contribution of double the usual
size, and win the mother over; with her opposition annul-
led, the rest of the conquest would be sure and prompt.

He took to the road in the middle of a placid Sunday aft-
ernoon in the soft Missourian summer, and he was equipped
properly for his mission. He was clothed all in white linen,
with a blue ribbon for a necktie, and he had on dressy tight
boots. His horse and buggy were the finest that the livery-
stable could furnish. The lap-robe was of white linen, it
was new, and it had a hand-worked border that could not be
rivaled in that region for beauty and elaboration.

When he was four miles out on the lonely road and was
walking his horse over a wooden bridge, his straw hat
blew off and fell in the creek, and floated down and lodged
against a bar. He did not quite know what to do. He must
have the hat, that was manifest; but how was he to get it?

Then he had an idea. The roads were empty, nobody was stir-
ring. Yes, he would risk it. He led the horse to the roadside
and set it to cropping the grass; then he undressed and put
his clothes in the buggy, petted the horse a moment to secure
its compassion and its loyalty, then hurried to the stream.
He swam out and soon had the hat. When he got to the top of
the bank the horse was gone!

His legs almost gave way under him. The horse was walking
leisurely along the road. Brown trotted after it, saying,
"Whoa, whoa, there's a good fellow"; but whenever he got
near enough to chance a jump for the buggy, the horse quick-
ened its pace a little and defeated him. And so this went on,
the naked man perishing with anxiety, and expecting every
ihoment to see people come in sight. He tagged on and on,
imploring the horse, beseeching the horse, till he had left
a mile behind him, and was closing up on the Taylor premises;
then at last he was successful, and got into the buggy.
He flung on his shirt, his necktie, and his coat; then reached
for--but he was too late; he sat suddenly down and pulled
up the lap-robe, for he saw some one coming out of the gate
--a woman, he thought. He wheeled the horse to the left,
and struck briskly up the cross-road. It was perfectly
straight, and exposed on both sides; but there were woods
and a sharp turn three miles ahead, and he was very grateful
when he got there. As he passed around the turn he
slowed down to a walk, and reached for his tr--too late
again.

He had come upon Mrs. Enderby, Mrs. Glossop, Mrs. Taylor
and Mary. They were on foot, and seemed tired and ex-
cited. They came at once to the buggy and shook hands, and
all spoke at once, and said, eagerly and earnestly, how
glad they were that he was come, and bow fortunate it was.
And Mrs. Enderby said, impressively:

"lt looks like an accident, his coming at such a time; but
let no one profane it with such a name; he was sent--sent
from on high."

They were all moved, and Mrs. Glossop said in an awed
voice:

"Sarah Enderby, you never said a truer word in your life.
This is no accident, it is a special Providence. He was sent.
He is an angel--an angel as truly as ever angel was--an
angel of deliverance. I say angel, Sarah Enderby, and will
have no other word. Don't let any one ever say to me again,
that there's no such thing as special Providences; for if
this isn't one, let them account for it that can."

"I know it's so," said Mrs. Taylor, fervently. "John Brown,
I could worship you; I could go down on my knees to you.
Didn't something tell you--didn't you feel that you were
sent? I could kiss the hem of your lap-robe."

He was not able to speak; he was helpless with shame and
fright. Mrs. Taylor went on;

"Why, just look at it all around, Julia Glossop. Any person
can see the hand of Providence in it. Here at noon what
do we see? We see the smoke rising. I speak up and say.
That's the Old People's cabin afire.' Didn't I, Julia Glossop?"
"The very words you said, Nancy Taylor. I was as close to
you as I am now, and I heard them. You may have said hut
instead of cabin, but in substance it's the same. And you
were looking pale, too."

"Pale? I was that pale that if--why, you just compare it
with this lap-robe. Then the next thing I said was, ‘Mary
Taylor, tell the hired man to rig up the team--we'll go to
the rescue.' And she said, ‘Mother, don't you know you told
him he could drive to see his people, and stay over Sunday?'
And it was just so. I declare for it, I had forgotten it
Then,' said I, ‘we'll go afoot' And go we did. And found
Sarah Enderby on the road."

"And we all went together," said Mrs. Enderby. "And
found the cabin set fire and burnt down by the crazy one,
and the poor old things so old and feeble that they couldn't
go afoot. And we got them to a shady place and made them
as comfortable as we could, and began to wonder which way
to turn to find some way to get them conveyed to Nancy
Taylor's house. And I spoke up and said--now what did I
say? Didn't I say, ‘Providence will provide'?"

"Why sure as you live, so you did! I had forgotten it"

"So had I," said Mrs. Glossop and Mrs. Taylor; "but you
certainly said it. Now wasn't that remarkable?"

"Yes, I said it. And then we went to Mr. Moseley's, two
miles, and all of them were gone to the camp-meeting over
on Stony Fork; and then we came all the way back, two
miles, and then here, another mile--and Providence has
provided. You see it yourselves."

They gazed at each other awe-struck, and lifted their
hands and said in unison:

"It's per-fectly wonderful."

"And then," said Mrs. Glossop, "what do you think we
had better do--let Mr. Brown drive the Old People to
Nancy Taylor's one at a time, or put both of them in
the buggy, and him lead the horse?"

Brown gasped.

"Now, then, that's a question," said Mrs. Enderby. "You
see, we are all tired out, and any way we fix it it's going
to be difficult. For if Mr. Brown takes both of them, at
least one of us must go back to help him, for he can't load
them into the buggy by himself, and they so helpless."

"That is so," said Mrs. Taylor. "It doesn't look--oh, how
would this do!--one of us drive there with Mr. Brown, and
the rest of you go along to my house and get things ready.
I'll go with him. He and I together can lift one of the Old
People into the buggy; then drive her to my house and--"

"But who will take care of the other one?" said Mrs. End-
erby. "We mustn't leave her there in the woods alone, you
know--especially the crazy one. There and back is eight
miles, you see."

They had all been sitting on the grass beside the buggy for
a while, now, trying to rest their weary bodies. They fell
silent a moment or two, and struggled in thought over the
baffling situation; then Mrs. Enderby brightened and said:

"I think I've got the idea, now. You see, we can't walk any
more. Think what we've done; four miles there, two to Mps-
eley's, is six, then back to here--nine miles since noon, and
not a bite to eat: I declare I don't see how we've done it;
and as for me, I am just famishing. Now, somebody's got to
go back, to help Mr. Brown--there's no getting around that;
but whoever goes has got to ride, not walk. So my idea is
this: one of us to ride back with Mr. Brown, then ride to
Nancy Taylor's house with one of the Old People, leaving Mr.
Brown to keep the other old one company, you all to go now
to Nancy's and rest and wait; then one of you drive back and
get the other one and drive her to Nancy's, and Mr. Brown
walk."

"Splendid!" they all cried. "Oh, that will do--that will
answer perfectly." And they all said that Mrs. Enderby had
the best head for planning in the company; and they said
that they wondered that they hadn't thought of this simple
plan themselves. They hadn't meant to take back the comp-
liment, good simple souls, and didn't know they had done it.
After a consultation it was decided that Mrs. Enderby should
drive back with Brown, she being entitled to the distinction
because she had invented the plan. Everything now being
satisfactorily arranged and settled, the ladies rose, re-
lieved and happy, and brushed down their gowns, and three
of them started homeward; Mrs. Enderby set her foot on the
buggy step and was about to climb in, when Brown found a
remnant of his voice and gasped out--

"Please, Mrs. Enderby, call them back--I am very weak;
I can't walk, I can't indeed."

"Why, dear Mr. Brown! You do look pale; I am ashamed of
myself that I didn't notice it sooner. Come back--all of
you! Mr. Brown is not well. Is there anything I can do
for you, Mr. Brown--I'm real sorry. Are you in pain?"
"No, madam, only weak; I am not sick, but only just
weak--lately; not long, but just lately."

The others came back, and poured out their sympathies
and commiserations, and were full of self-reproaches for
not having noticed how pale he was. And they at once struck
out a new plan, and soon agreed that it was by far the best
of all. They would all go to Nancy Taylor's house and see
to Brown's needs first. He could lie on the sofa in the par-
lor, and while Mrs, Taylor and Mary took care of him the
other two ladies would take the buggy and go and get one
of the Old People, and leave one of themselves with the
other one, and--

By this time, without any solicitation, they were at the
horse's head and were beginning to turn him around. The
danger was imminent, but Brown found his voice again and
saved himself. He said--

"But, ladies, you are overlooking something which makes
the plan impracticable. You see, if you bring one of them
home, and one remains behind with the other, there will be
three persons there when one of you comes back for that
other, for some one must drive the buggy back, and three
can't come home in it."

They all exclaimed, "Why, sure-ly, that is so!" and they
were all perplexed again.

"Dear, dear, what can we do?" said Mrs. Glossop; "it is
the most mixed-up thing that ever was. The fox and the
goose and the com and things--oh, dear, they are nothing
to it."

They sat wearily down once more, to further torture their
tormented heads for a plan that would work. Presently Mary
offered a plan; it was her first effort. She said:

"I am young and strong, and am refreshed, now. Take
Mr. Brown to our house, and give him help--you see how
plainly he needs it I will go back and take care of the Old
People; I can be there in twenty minutes. You can go on and
do what you first started to do--wait on the main road at
our house until somebody comes along with a wagon; then
send and bring away the three of us. You won't have to wait
long; the farmers will soon be coming back from town now.
I will keep old Polly patient and cheered up--the crazy one
doesn't need it."

This plan was discussed and accepted; it seemed the best
that could be done, in the circumstances, and the Old People
must be getting discouraged by this time.

Brown felt relieved, and was deeply thankful. Let him
once get to the main road and he would find a way to
escape.

Then Mrs. Taylor said:

"The evening chill will be coming on, pretty soon, and those
poor old burnt-out things will need some kind of covering.
Take the lap-robe with you, dear."

"Very well. Mother, I will."

She stepped to the buggy and put out her hand to take it--

That was the end of the tale. The passenger who told it
said that when he read the story twenty-five years ago in a
train he was interrupted at that point--the train jumped off
a bridge.

At first we thought we could finish the story quite easily,
and we set to work with confidence; but it soon began to
appear that it was not a simple thing, but difficult and baf-
fling. This was on account of Brown's character--great gener-
osity and kindliness, but complicated with unusual shyness
and diffidence, particularly in the presence of ladies. There
was his love for Mary, in a hopeful state but not yet secure
--just in a condition, indeed, where its affair must be handl-
ed with great tact, and no mistakes made, no offense given.
And there was the mother--wavering, half willing--by adroit
and flawless diplomacy to be won over, now, or perhaps never
at all. Also, there were the helpless Old People yonder in
the woods waiting--their fate and Brown's happiness to be
determined by what Brown should do within the next two sec-
onds. Mary was reaching for the lap'robe; Brown must decide
--there was no time to be lost.

Of course none but a happy ending of the story would be
accepted by the jury; the finish must find Brown in high
credit with the ladies, his behavior without blemish, his
modesty unwounded, his character for self-sacrifice main-
tained, the Old People rescued through him, their benefactor,
all the party proud of him, happy in him, his praises on
all their tongues.

We tried to arrange this, but it was beset with persistent
and irreconcilable difficulties. We saw that Brown's shyness
would not allow him to give up the lap-robe. This would of-
fend Mary and her mother; and it would surprise the other
ladies, partly because this stinginess toward the suffering
Old People would be out of character with Brown, and partly
because he was a special Providence and could not properly
act so. If asked to explain his conduct, his shyness would
not allow him to tell the truth, and lack of invention and
practice would find him incapable of contriving a lie that
would wash. We worked at the troublesome problem until
three in the morning.

Meantime Mary was still reaching for the lap-robe. We gave
it up, and decided to let her continue to reach. It is the
reader's privilege to determine for himself how the thing
came out.

From FOLLOWING THE EQUATOR, 1897



The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg



It was many years ago. Hadleyburg was the most honest
and upright town in all the region around about. It had kept
that reputation unsmirched during three generations, and
was prouder of it than of any other of its possessions. It was
so proud of it, and so anxious to insure its perpetuation,
that it began to teach the principles of honest dealing to its
babies in the cradle, and made the like teachings the staple
of their culture thenceforward through all the years devoted
to their education. Also, throughout the formative years
temptations were kept out of the way of the young people.
so that their honesty could have every chance to harden and
solidify, and become a part of their very bone. The neighboring
towns were jealous of this honorable supremacy, and
affected to sneer at Hadleyburg's pride in it and call it vanity;
but all the same they were obliged to acknowledge that
Hadleyburg was in reality an incorruptible town; and if
pressed they would also acknowledge that the mere fact that
a young man hailed from Hadleyburg was all the recommendation
he needed when he went forth from his natal town to seek for
responsible employment.

But at last, in the drift of time, Hadleyburg had the ill
luck to offend a passing stranger--possibly without knowing
it, certainly without caring, for Hadleyburg was sufficient
unto itself, and cared not a rap for strangers or their opinions.
Still, it would have been well to make an exception in
this one's case, for he was a bitter man and revengeful. All
through his wanderings during a whole year he kept his injury
in mind, and gave all his leisure moments to trying to
invent a compensating satisfaction for it. He contrived many
plans, and all of them were good, but none of them was
quite sweeping enough; the poorest of them would hurt a
great many individuals, but what he wanted was a plan which
would comprehend the entire town, and not let so much as
one person escape unhurt. At last he had a fortunate idea,
and when it fell into his brain it lit up his whole head
with an evil joy. He began to form a plan at once, saying to
himself, "That is the thing to do--I will corrupt the town."

Six months later he went to Hadleyburg, and arrived in a
buggy at the bouse of the old cashier of the bank about ten
at night. He got a sack out of the buggy, shouldered it, and
staggered with it through the cottage yard, and knocked at
the door. A woman's voice said "Come in," and he entered,
and set his sack behind the stove in the parlor, saying politely
to the old lady who sat reading the Missionary Herald
by the lamp:

"Pray keep your seat, madam, I will not disturb you.
There--now it is pretty well concealed; one would hardly
know it was there. Can I see your husband a moment,
madam?"

No, he was gone to Brixton, and might not return before
morning.

"Very well, madam, it is no matter. I merely wanted to
leave that sack in his care, to be delivered to the rightful
owner when he shall be found. I am a stranger; he does not
know me; I am merely passing through the town to-night to
discharge a matter which has been long in my mind. My errand
is now completed, and I go pleased and a little proud.
and you will never see me again. There is a paper attached
to the sack which will explain everything. Good night,
madam."

The old lady was afraid of the mysterious big stranger,
and was glad to see him go. But her curiosity was roused,
and she went straight to the sack and brought away the paper.
It began as follows:

TO BE PUBLISHED; or, the right man sought out by private
inquiry--either will answer. This sack contains gold coin
weighing a hundred and sixty pounds four ounces--

"Mercy on us, and the door not locked!"

Mrs. Richards flew to it all in a tremble and locked it,
then pulled down the window-shades and stood frightened,
worried, and wondering if there was anything else she could
do toward making herself and the money more safe. She
listened awhile for burglars, then surrendered to curiosity
and went back to the lamp and finished reading the paper:

I am a foreigner, and am presently going back to my own
country, to remain there permanently. I am grateful to
America for what I have received at her hands during my
long stay under her flag; and to one of her citizens--a
citizen of Hadleyburg--I am especially grateful for a great
kindness done me a year or two ago. Two great kindnesses,
in fact. I will explain. I was a gambler, I say I WAS.
I was a ruined gambler. I arrived in this village at night,
hungry and without a penny. I asked for help--in the dark;
I was ashamed to beg in the light, I begged of the right man.
He gave me twenty dollars--that is to say, he gave me life,
as I considered it. He also gave me fortune; for out of that
money I have made myself rich at the gaming-table. And
finally, a remark which he made to me has remained with
me to this day, and has at last conquered me; and in con-
quering has saved the remnant of my morals; I shall gamble
no more. Now I have no idea who that man was, but I want
him found, and I want him to have this money, to give away,
throw away, or keep, as he pleases. It is merely my way of
testifying my gratitude to him. If I could stay, I would
find him myself; but no matter, he will he found. This is
an honest town, an incorruptible town, and I know I can
trust it without fear. This man can be identified by the
remark which he made to me; I feel persuaded that he will
remember it.

And now my plan is this: If you prefer to conduct the inquiry
privately, do so. Tell the contents of this present writ-
ing to any one who is likely to be the right man. If he shall
answer, 'I am the man; the remark I made was sond-so,'
apply the test--to wit: open the sack, and in it you will find
a sealed envelope containing that remark. If the remark
mentioned by the candidate tallies with it, give him the
money, and ask no further questions, for he is certainly the
right man.

But if you shall prefer a public inquiry, then publish this
present writing in the local paper--with these instructions
added, to wit: Thirty days from now, let the candidate appear
at the town-hall at eight in the evening {Friday), and
hand his remark, in a sealed envelope, to the Rev. Mr. Burgess
{if he will be kind enough to act); and let Mr. Burgess
there and then destroy the seals of the sack, open it, and see
if the remark is correct; if correct, let the money be delivered
with my sincere gratitude, to my benefactor thus identified.

Mrs. Richards sat down, gently quivering with excitement,
and was soon lost in thinkings--after this pattern: "What a
strange thing it is! . . . And what a fortune for that kind
man who set his bread afloat upon the waters! ... If it had
only been my husband that did it!--for we are so poor, so
old and poor! . . Then, with a sigh--"But it was not my
Edward; no, it was not he that gave a stranger twenty dol-
lars. It is pity, too; I see it now. . . "Then, with a shudder
--"But it is gambler's money! the wages of sin: we couldn't
take it; we couldn't touch it. I don't like to be near it;
it seems a defilement." She moved to a farther chair....
"I wish Edward would come and take it to the bank; a burglar
might come at any moment; it is dreadful to be here all
ione with it."

At eleven Mr. Richards arrived, and while his wife was
saying, "I am so glad you've come!" he was saying, "I'm so
tired--tired clear out; it is dreadful to be poor, and have
to make these dismal journeys at my time of life. Always at
the grind, grind, grind, on a salary--another man's slave,
and he sitting at home in his slippers, rich and comfort-
able." "I am so sorry for you, Edward, you know that; but
be comforted: we have our livelihood; we have our good
name--"

"Yes, Mary, and that is everything. Don't mind my talk--
it's just a moment's irritation and doesn't mean anything.
Kiss me--there, it's all gone now, and I am not complaining
any more. What have you been getting? What's in the
sack?"

Then his wife told him the great secret. It dazed him
for a moment; then he said:

"It weighs a hundred and sixty pounds? Why, Mary, it's
forty thousand dollars--think of it--a whole fortunel Not
ten men in this village are worth that much. Give me the
paper."

He skimmed through it and said:

"Isn't it an adventure! Why, it's a romance; it's like the
impossible things one reads about in books, and never sees
in life." He was well stirred up now; cheerful, even gleefuL
He tapped his old wife on the cheek, and said, humorously,
"Why, we're rich, Mary, rich; all we've got to do is to bury
the money and burn the papers. If the gambler ever comes
to inquire, we'll merely look coldly upon him and say: ‘What
is this nonsense you are talking! We have never heard of you
and your sack of gold before'; and then he would look foolish,
and--"

"And in the mean time, while you are running on with your
jokes, the money is still here, and it is fast getting along
toward burglar-time."

"True. Very well, what shall we do--make the inquiry private?
No, not that; it would spoil the romance. The public method
is better. Think what a noise it will make! And it will make
all the other towns jealous; for no stranger would trust such
a thing to any town but Hadleyburg, and they know it. It's a
great card for us. I must get to the printing-office now, or
I shall be too late."

"But stop--stop--don't leave me here alone with it, Edward!"
But he was gone. For only a little while, however. Not far
from his own house he met the editor-proprietor of the paper,
and gave him the document, and said, "Here is a good thing
for you, Cox--put it in."

"It may be too late, Mr. Richards, but I'll see."

At home again he and his wife sat down to talk the charming
mystery over; they were in no condition for sleep. The first
questiem was. Who could the citizen have been who gave the
stranger the twenty dollars? It seemed a simple one; both
answered it in the same breath:

"Barclay Goodson."

"Yes," said Richards, "he could have done it, and it would
have been like him, but there's not another in the town."

"Everybody will grant that, Edward--grant it privately,
anyway. For six months, now, the village has been its own
proper self once more--honest, narrow, self-righteous, and
stingy,"

"It is what he always called it, to the day of his death--
said it right out publicly, too."

"Yes, and he was hated for it."

"Oh, of course; but he didn't care. I reckon he was the
best-hated man among us, except the Reverend Burgess."

"Well, Burgess deserves it--he will never get another con-
gregation here. Mean as the town is, it knows how to estimate
him. Edward, doesn't it seem odd that the stranger should
appoint Burgess to deliver the money?"

"Well, yes--it does. That is--that is--"

"Why so much that-is-ing? Would you select him?"

"Mary, maybe the stranger knows him better than this village
does."

"Much that would help Burgess!"

The husband seemed perplexed for an answer; the wife kept
a steady eye upon him, and waited. Finally Richards said,
with the hesitancy of one who is making a statement which
is likely to encounter doubt:

"Mary, Burgess is not a bad man."

His wife was certainly surprised.

"Nonsense!" she exclaimed.

"He is not a bad man. I know. The whole of his unpopularity
had its foundation in that one thing--the thing that made
so much noise."

"That 'one thing,' indeed! As if that 'one thing' wasn't
enough, all by itself."

"Plenty. Plenty. Only he wasn't guilty of it."

"How you talk! Not guilty of it! Everybody knows he was
guilty."

"Mary, I give you my word--he was innocent,"

"I can't believe it, and I don't. How do you know?"

"It is a confession. I am ashamed, but I will make it. I was the
only man who knew he was innocent. I could have saved him,
and--and--well, you know how the town was wrought up--I hadn't
the pluck to do it. It would have turned everybody against me.
I felt mean, ever so mean; but I didn't dare; I hadn't the man-
liness to face that."

Mary looked troubled, and for a while was silent. Then she
said, stammeringly:

"I--I don't think it would have done for you to--to-- One
mustn't--er--public opinion---one has to be so careful--so--"
It was a difficult road, and she got mired; but after a little
she got started again. "It was a great pity, but-- Why, we
couldn't afford it, Edward--we couldn't indeed. Oh, I wouldn't
have had you do it for anything!"

"It would have lost us the good will of so many people,
Mary; and then--and then--"

"What troubles me now is, what he thinks of us, Edward."

"He? He doesn't suspect that I could have saved him."

"Oh," exclaimed the wife, in a tone of relief, "I am glad
of that! As long as he doesn't know that you could have
saved him, he--he--well, that makes it a great deal better.
Why, I might have known he didn't know, because he is always
trying to be friendly with us, as little encouragement as
we give him. More than once people have twitted me with it.
There's the Wilsons, and the Wilcoxes, and the Harknesses,
they take a mean pleasure in saying, 'Your friend Burgess,'
because they know it pesters me. I wish he wouldn't persist
in liking us so; I can't think why he keeps it up."

"I can explain it. It's another confession. When the thing
was new and hot, and the town made a plan to ride him on a
rail, my conscience hurt me so that I couldn't stand it, and
I went privately and gave him notice, and he got out of the
town and staid out till it was safe to come back,"

"Edward! If the town had found it out--"

"Don't! It scares me yet, to think of it. I repented of it
the minute it was done; and I was even afraid to tell you,
lest your face might betray it to somebody. I didn't sleep
any that night, for worrying. But after a few days I saw that
no one was going to suspect me, and after that I got to feel-
ing glad I did it. And I feel glad yet, Mary--glad through and
through."

"So do I, now, for it would have been a dreadful way to
treat him. Yes, I'm glad; for really you did owe him that,
you know. But, Edward, suppose it should come out yet,
some day!"

"It won't."

"Why?"

"Because everybody thinks it was Goodson."

"Of course they would!"

"Certainly. And of course he didn't care. They persuaded
poor old Sawlsberry to go and charge it on him, and he went
blustering over there and did it. Goodson looked him over,
like as if he was hunting for a place on him that he could
despise the most, then he says, ‘So you are the Committee
of Inquiry, are you?' Sawlsberry said that was about what he
was. ‘Hm. Do they require particulars, or do you reckon a
kind of a general answer will do?' ‘If they require particu-
lars, I will come back, Mr. Goodson; I will take the general
answer first.' ‘Very well, then, tell them to go to hell--I
reckon that's general enough. And I'll give you some advice,
Sawlsberry; when you come back for the particulars, fetch a
basket to carry the relics of yourself home in.'"

"Just like Goodson; it's got all the marks. He had only
one vanity: he thought he could give advice better than any
other person."

It settled the business, and saved us, Mary. The subject
was dropped."

"Bless you. I'm not doubting that."

Then they took up the gold-sack mystery again, with strong
interest. Soon the conversation began to suffer breaks--
interruptions caused by absorbed thinkings. The breaks grew
more and more frequent. At last Richards lost himself wholly
in thought. He sat long, gazing vacantly at the floor, and by
and by he began to punctuate his thoughts with little nervous
movements of his hands that seemed to indicate vexation.
Meantime his wife too had relapsed into a thoughtful silence,
and her movements were beginning to show a troubled discom-
fort. Finally Richards got up and strode aimlessly about
the room, plowing his hands through his hair, much as a
somnambulist might do who was having a bad dream. Then he
seemed to arrive at a definite purpose; and without a word
he put on his hat and passed quickly out of the house. His
wife sat brooding, with a drawn face, and did not seem to
be aware that she was alone. Now and then she murmured,
"Lead us not into t--. . . but--but--we are so poor, so poor!
. . . Lead us not into . . . Ah, who would be hurt by it?--and
no one would ever know, . . . Lead us . . ." The voice died
out in mumblings. After a little she glanced up and muttered
in a half-frightened, half-glad way:

"He is gone! But, oh dear, he may be too late--too late...
Maybe not--maybe there is still time." She rose and stood
thinking, nervously clasping and unclasping her hands. A
slight shudder shook her frame, and she said, out of a dry
throat, "God forgive me--it's awful to think such things
--but . . . Lord, how we are made--how strangely we are
made!"

She turned the light low, and slipped stealthily over and
kneeled down by the sack and felt of its ridgy sides with her
hands, and fondled them lovingly; and there was a gloating
light in her poor old eyes. She fell into fits of absence;
and came half out of them at times to mutter, "If we had
only waited!--oh, if we had only waited a little, and not
been n such a hurry!"

Meantime Cox had gone home from his office and told his
wife all about the strange thing that had happened, and they
had talked it over eagerly, and guessed that the late Goodson
was the only man in the town who could have helped a suffering
stranger with so noble a sum as twenty dollars. Then there
was a pause, and the two became thoughtful and silent And by
and by nervous and fidgety. At last the wife said, as if to
herself:

'Nobody knows this secret but the Richardses...and
us...nobody."

The husband came out of his thinkings with a slight start,
and gazed wistfully at his wife, whose face was become very
pale; then he hesitatingly rose, and glanced furtively at his
hat, then at his wife--a sort of mute inquiry. Mrs. Cox swal-
lowed once or twice, with her hand at her throat, then in
place of speech she nodded her head. In a moment she was
alone, and mumbling to herself.

And now Richards and Cox were hurrying through the deserted
streets, from opposite directions. They met, panting, at the
foot of the printing-office stairs; by the night light there
they read each other's face. Cox whispered:

"Nobody knows about this but us?"

The whispered answer was,

"Not a soul--on honor, not a soul!"

"If it isn't too late to--"

The men were starting up-stairs; at this moment they were
overtaken by a boy, and Cox asked:

"Is that you, Johnny?"

"Yes, sir."

"You needn't ship the early mail--nor any mail; wait till
I tell you."

"It's already gone, sir."

"Gone?" It had the sound of an unspeakable disappointment
in it.

"Yes, sir. Time-table for Brixton and all the towns beyond
changed to-day, sir--had to get the papers in twenty minutes
earlier than common. I had to rush; if I had been two minutes
later--"

The men turned and walked slowly away, not waiting to
hear the rest. Neither of them spoke during ten minutes;
then Cox said, in a vexed tone:

"What possessed you to be in such a hurry, I can't make
out."

The answer was humble enough:

"I see it now, but somehow I never thought, you know, until
it was too late. But the next time--"

"Next time be hanged! It won't come in a thousand years."

Then the friends separated without a good night, and
dragged themselves home with the gait of mortally stricken
men. At their homes their wives sprang up with an eager
"Well?"--then saw the answer with their eyes and sank down
sorrowing, without waiting for it to come in words. In both
houses a discussion followed of a heated sort--a new thing;
there had been discussions before, but not heated ones, not
ungentle ones. The discussions to-night were a sort of seeming
plagiarisms of each other. Mrs. Richards said,

"If you had only waited, Edward--if you had only stopped to
think; but no, you must run straight to the printing-office
and Spread it all over the world.'"

"It said publish it."

"That is nothing; it also said do it privately, if you liked.
There, now--is that true, or not?"

"Why, yes--yes, it is true; but when I thought what stir
it would make, and what a compliment it was to Hadleyburg
that a stranger should trust it so--"

"Oh, certainly, I know all that; but if you had only stopped
to think, you would have seen that you couldn't find the right
man, because he is in his grave, and hasn't left chick nor
child nor relation behind him; and as long as the money went
to somebody that awfully needed it, and nobody would be hurt
by it, and--and--"

She broke down, crying. Her husband tried to think of
some comforting thing to say, and presently came out with
this:

"But after all, Mary, it must be for the best--it must be;
we know that. And we must remember that it was so ordered
--"

"Ordered! Oh, everything's ordered, when a person has to find
some way out when he has been stupid. Just the same, it was
ordered that the money should come to us in this special way,
and it was you that must take it on yourself to go meddling
with the designs of Providence--and who gave you the right?
It was wicked, that is what it was--just blasphemous presump-
tion, and no more becoming to a meek and humble professor of--"

"But, Mary, you know how we have been trained all our lives
long, like the whole village, till it is absolutely second
nature to us to stop not a single moment to think when there's
an honest thing to be done--"

"Oh, I know it, I know it--it's been one everlasting training
and training and training in honesty--honesty shielded, from
the very cradle, against every possible temptation, and so
it's artificial honesty, and weak as water when temptation
comes, as we have seen this night. God knows I never had shade
nor shadow of a doubt of my petrified and indestructible honesty
until now--and now, under the very first big and real temptation,
I--Edward, it is my belief that his town's honesty is as rotten
as mine is; as rotten as yours is. It is a mean town, a hard,
stingy town, and hasn't a virtue in the world but this honesty
it is so celebrated for and so conceited about; and so help me,
I do believe that if ever the day comes that its honesty falls
under great temptation, its grand reputation will go to ruin
like a house of cards. There, now, I've made confession, and I
feel better; I am a humbug, and I've been one all my life, with-
out knowing it Let no man call me honest again--I will not have
it"

"I--well, Mary, I feel a good deal as you do; I certainly
do. It seems strange, too, so strange. I never could have be-
lieved it--never."

A long silence followed; both were sunk in thought At last the
wife looked up and said:

"I know what you are thinking, Edward."

Richards had the embarrassed look of a person who is
caught.

"I am ashamed to confess it, Mary, but--"

"It's no matter, Edward, I was thinking the same question
myself."

"I hope so. State it."

"You were thinking, if a body could only guess out what
the remark was that Goodson made to the stranger."

"It's perfectly true. I feel guilty and ashamed. And you?"

"I'm past it. Let us make a pallet here; we've got to stand
watch tUl the bank vault opens in the morning and admits
the sack. ... Oh dear, oh dear--if we hadn't made the
mistake!"

The pallet was made, and Mary said:

"The open sesame--what could it have been? I do wonder
what that remark could have been? But come; we will get to
bed now."

"And sleep?"

"No: think."

"Yes, think."

By this time the Coxes too had completed their spat and their
reconciliation, and were turning in--to think, to think, and
toss, and fret, and worry over what the remark could possibly
have been which Goodson made to the stranded derelict; that
golden remark; that remark worth forty thousand dollars, cash.

The reason that the village telegraph-office was open later
than usual that night was this: The foreman of Cox's paper
was the local representative of the Associated Press. One
might say its honorary representative, for it wasn't four
times a year that he could furnish thirty words that would
be accepted. But this time it was different. His despatch
stating what he had caught got an instant answer:

Send the whole thing--all the details--twelve-hundred words.

A colossal order! The foreman filled the bill; and he was
the proudest man in the State. By breakfast-time the next
morning the name of Hadleyburg the Incorruptible was on
every lip in America, from Montreal to the Oulf, from the
glaciers of Alaska to the orange-groves of Florida; and mill-
ions and millions of people were discussing the stranger
and his money-sack, and wondering if the rit man would
be found, and hoping some more news about the matter
would come soon--right away.


2


Hadleyburg village woke up world-celebrated--astonished
--happy--vain. Vain beyond imagination. Its nineteen principal
citizens and their wives went about shaking hands with each
other, and beaming, and smiling, and congratulating, and
saying this thing adds a new word to the dictionary--Had-
leyburg, synonym for incorruptible--to live in dictionaries
forever! And the minor and unimportant citizens and their
wives went around acting in much the same way. Everybody
ran to the bank to see the gold-sack; and before noon
grieved and envious crowds began to flock in from Brixton
and all neighboring towns; and that afternoon and next day
reporters began to arrive from everywhere to verify the
sack and its history and write the whole thing up anew,
and make dashing free-hand pictures of the sack, and of
Richards's house, and the bank, and the Presbyterian
church, and the Baptist church, and the public square, and
the town-hall where the test would be applied and the money
delivered; and damnable portraits of the Richardses, and
Pinkerton the banker, and Cox, and the foreman, and Reverend
Burgess, and the postmaster--and even of Jack Halliday,
who was the loafing, good-natured, no-account, irreverent
fisherman, hunter, boys' friend, stray-dogs' friend, typical
"Sam Lawson" of the town. The little mean, smirking,
oily Pinkerton showed the sack to all comers, and rubbed
his sleek palms together pleasantly, and enlarged upon the
town's fine old reputation for honesty and upon this wonderful
indorsement of it, and hoped and believed that the example
would now spread far and wide over the American world,
and be epoch-making in the matter of moral regeneration.
And so on, and so on.

By the end of a week things had quieted down again;
the wild intoxication of pride and joy had sobered to a soft,
sweet, silent delight--a sort of deep, nameless, unutterable
content. All faces bore a look of peaceful, holy happiness.

Then a change came. It was a gradual change: so gradual
that its beginnings were hardly noticed; maybe were not
noticed at all, except by Jack Halliday, who always noticed
everything; and always made fun of it, too, no matter what
it was. He began to throw out chaffing remarks about peo-
pie not looking quite so happy as they did a day or two
ago; and next he claimed that the new aspect was deepening
to positive sadness; next, that it was taking on a sick look;
and finally he said that everybody was become so moody,
thoughtful, and absentminded that he could rob the meanest
man in town of a cent out of the bottom of his breeches
pocket and not disturb his revery.

At this stage--or at about this stage--a saying like this
was dropped at bedtime--with a sigh, usually--by the head
of each of the nineteen principal households: "Ah, what
could have been the remark that Goodson made?"

And straightway--with a shudder--came this, from the
man's wife:

"Oh, don't! What horrible thing are you mulling in your
mind? Put it away from you, for God's sake!"

But that question was wrung from those men again the
next night--and got the same retort. But weaker.

And the third night the men uttered the question yet again--
with anguish, and absently. This time--and the following
night--the wives fidgeted feebly, and tried to say something.
But didn't.

And the night after that they found their tongues and res-
ponded--longingly:

"Oh, if we could only guess!"

Halliday's comments grew daily more and more sparklingly
disagreeable and disparaging. He went diligently about,
laughing at the town, individually and in mass. But his laugh
was the only one left in the village: it fell upon a hollow
and mournful vacancy and emptiness. Not even a smile was
findable anywhere. Halliday carried a cigar-box around on a
tripod, playing that it was a camera, and baited all passers
and aimed the thing and said, "Ready!--now look pleasant,
please," but not even this capital joke could surprise the
dreary faces into any softening.

So three weeks passed--one week was left. It was Saturday
evening--after supper. Instead of the aforetime Saturday-
evening flutter and bustle and shopping and larking, the
streets were empty and desolate. Richards and his old wife
sat apart in their little parlor--miserable and thinking.
This was become their evening habit now: the lifelong habit
which had preceded it, of reading, knitting, and contented
chat, or receiving or paying neighborly calls, was dead and
gone and forgotten, ages ago--two or three weeks ago; nobody
talked now, nobody read, nobody visited--the whole village
sat at home, sighing, worrying, silent. Trying to guess out
that remark.

The postman left a letter. Richards glanced listlessly at
the superscription and the postmark--unfamiliar, both--
and tossed the letter on the table and resumed his might-
have-beens and his hopeless dull miseries where he had left
them off. Two or three hours later his wife got wearily up
and was going away to bed without a good night--custom
now--but she stopped near the letter and eyed it awhile
with a dead interest, then broke it open, and began to skim
it over. Richards, sitting there with his chair tilted back
against the wall and his chin between his knees, heard
something fall. It was his wife. He sprang to her side, but
she cried out:

"Leave me alone, I am too happy. Read the letter--read
it!"

He did. He devoured it, his brain reeling. The letter was
from a distant state, and it said:

I am a stranger to you, but no matter: I have something
to tell. I have just arrived home from Mexico and learned
about that episode. Of course you do not know who made
that remark, but I know, and I am the only person living
who does know. It was Goodson. I knew him well, many years
ago. I passed through your village that very night, and
was his guest till the midnight train came along. I overheard
him make that remark to the stranger in the dark--it was in
Hale Alley. He and I talked of it the rest of the way home,
and while smoking in his house. He mentioned many of your
villagers in the course of his talk--most of them in a
very uncomplimentary way, but two or three favorably;
among these latter yourself. I say ‘favorably"--nothing
stronger. I remember his saying he did not actually like any
person in the town--not one; but that you--I think he
said you--am almost sure--had done him a very great service
once, possibly without knowing the full value of it, and
he wished he had a fortune, he would leave it to you when
he died, and a curse apiece for the rest of the citizens. Now,
then, if it was you that did him that service, you are his
legitimate heir, and entitled to the sack of gold. I know that
I can trust to your honor and honesty, for in a citizen of
Hadleyburg these virtues are an unfailing inheritance, and
so I am going to reveal to you the remark, well satisfied that
if you are not the right man you will seek and find the right
one and see that poor Goodsons debt of gratitude for the
service referred to is paid. This is the remark: '‘YOU ARE FAR
FROM BEING A BAD MAN: GO, AND REFORM!'

HOWARD L. STEPHENSON

"Oh, Edward, the money is ours, and I am so grateful, oh,
so grateful--kiss me, dear, it's forever since we kissed--
and we needed it so--the money--and now you are free of
Pinkerton and his bank, and nobody's slave any more; it
seems to me I could fly for joy."

It was a happy half-hour that the couple spent there on
the settee caressing each other; it was the old days come
again--days that had begun with their courtship and lasted
without a break till the stranger brought the deadly money.
By and by the wife said:

"Oh, Edward, how lucky it was you did him that grand
service, poor Goodson! I never liked him, but I love him
now. And it was fine and beautiful of you never to mention
it or brag about it" Then, with a touch of reproach, "But
you ought to have told me, Edward, you ought to have told
your wife, you know."

"Well, I--er--well, Mary, you see--"

"Now stop hemming and hawing, and tell me about it,
Edward, I always loved you, and now I'm proud of you.
Everybody believes there was only one good generous soul
in this village, and now it turns out that you--Edward,
why don't you tell me?"

"Well--er--er--Why, Mary, I can't!"

"You can't? Why can't you?"

"You see, he--well, he--he made me promise I wouldn't"

The wife looked him over, and said, very slowly:

"Made--you--promise? Edward, what do you tell me that
for?"

"Mary, do you think I would lie?"

She was troubled and silent for a moment, then she laid
her hand within his and said:

"No...no. We have wandered far enough from our bearings--
God spare us that! In all your life you have never uttered
a lie. But now--now that the foundations of things
seem to be crumbling from under us, we--we--" She lost her
voice for a moment, then said, brokenly, "Lead us not into
temptation, ... I think you made the promise, Edward. Let
it rest so. Let us keep away from that ground. Now--that
is all gone by; let us be happy again; it is no time for
clouds."

Edward found it something of an effort to comply, for his
mind kept wandering--trying to remember what the service
was that he had done Goodson.

The couple lay awake the most of the night, Mary happy
and busy, Edward busy but not so happy. Mary was planning
what she would do with the money. Edward was trying to
recall that service. At first his conscience was sore on
account of the lie he had told Mary--if it was a lie. Af-
ter much reflection--suppose it was a lie? What then? Was
it such a great matter? Aren't we always acting lies? Then
why not tell them? Look at Mary--look what she had done.
While be was hurrying off on his honest errand, what was
she doing? Lamenting because the papers hadn't been des-
troyed and the money kept! Is theft better than lying?

That point lost its sting--the lie dropped into the back-
ground and left comfort behind it. The next point came to
the front: Had he rendered that service? Well, here was
Goodson's own evidence as reported in Stephenson's letter;
there could be no better evidence than that--it was even
proof that he had rendered it. Of course. So that point was
settled.... No, not quite. He recalled with a wince that
this unknown Mr. Stephenson was just a trifle unsure as to
whether the performer of it was Richards or some other
and, oh dear, he had put Richards on his honor! He must
himself decide whither that money must go--and Mr. Steph-
enson was not doubting that if he was the wrong man he
would go honorably and find the right one. Oh, it was odious
to put a man in such a situation-- why couldn't Stephenson
have left out that doubt! What did he want to intrude
that for?

Further reflection. How did it happen that Richards's name
remained in Stephenson's mind as indicating the right man,
and not some other man's name? That looked good. Yes, that
looked very good. In fact, it went on looking better and bet-
ter, straight along--until by and by it grew into positive
proof. And then Richards put the matter at once out of his
mind, for he had a private instinct that a proof once es-
tablished is better left so.

He was feeling reasonably comfortable now, but there was
still one other detail that kept pushing itself on his no-
tice: of course he had done that service--that was settled;
but what was that service? He must recall it--he would not
go to sleep till he had recalled it; it would make his peace
of mind perfect. And so be thought and thought He thought of
a dozen things--possible services, even probable services
--but none of them seemed adequate, none of them seemed
large enough, none of them seemed worth the money--worth
the fortune Goodson had wished he could leave in his will.
And besides, he couldn't remember having done them, anyway.
Now, then--now, then--What kind of a service would it be
that would make a man so inordinately grateful? Ah--the
saving of his soul! That must be it. Yes, he could remem-
ber, now, how he once set himself the task of converting
Goodson, and labored at it as much as--he was going
to say three months; but upon closer examination it
shrunk to a month, then to a week, then to a day, then
to nothing. Yes, he remembered now, and with unwelcome
vividness, that Goodson had told him to go to thunder and
mind his own business--he wasn't hankering to follow Had-
leyburg to heaven!

So that solution was a failure--he hadn't saved Goodson's
soul. Richards was discouraged. Then after a little came
another idea: had he saved Goodson's property? No, that
wouldn't do--he hadn't any. His life? That is it! Of course.
Why, he might have thought of it before. This time he was
on the right track, sure. His imagination-mill was hard at
work in a minute, now.

Thereafter during a stretch of two exhausting hours he
was busy saving Goodson's life. He saved it in all kinds of
difficult and perilous ways. In every case he got it saved
satisfactorily up to a certain point; then, just as he was
beginning to get well persuaded that it had really happened,
a troublesome detail would turn up which made the whole
thing impossible. As in the matter of drowning, for instance.
In that case he had swum out and tugged Goodson ashore in
an unconscious state with a great crowd looking on and
applauding, but when he had got it all thought out and was
just beginning to remember all about it, a whole swarm of
disqualifying details arrived on the ground: the town would
have known of the circumstance, Mary would have known of
it, it would glare like a limelight in his own memory instead
of being an inconspicuous service which he had possibly ren-
dered "without knowing its full value." And at this point
he remembered that he couldn't swim, anyway.

Ah--there was a point which he had been overlooking from
the start: it had to be a service which he had rendered
"possibly without knowing the full value of it." Why, real-
ly, that ought to be an easy hunt--much easier than those
others. And sure enough, by and by he found it. Goodson,
years and years ago, came near marrying a very sweet and
pretty girl, named Nancy Hewitt, but in some way or other the
match bad been broken off; the girl died, Goodson remained
a bachelor, and by and by became a soured one and a frank
despiser of the human species. Soon after the girl's death the
village found out, or thought it had found out, that she car-
ried a spoonful of negro blood in her veins. Richards worked
at these details a go while, and in the end he thought he
remembered things concerning them which must have gotten
mislaid in his memory through long neglect. He seemed to
dimly remember that it was he that found out about the
negro blood; that it was he that told the village; that the
village told Goodson where they got it; that he thus saved
Goodson from marrying the tainted girl; that he had done
him this great service "without knowing the full value of it,"
in fact without knowing that he was doing it; but that Goodson
knew the value of it, and what a narrow escape he had had,
and so went to his grave grateful to his benefactor and
wishing he had a fortune to leave him. It was all clear and
simple now, and the more he went over it the more luminous
and certain it grew; and at last, when he nestled to sleep
satisfied and happy, he remembered the whole thing just as
if it had been yesterday. In fact, he dimly remembered Good-
son's telling him his gratitude once. Meantime Mary had
spent six thousand dollars on a new house for herself and a
pair of slippers for her pastor, and then had fallen peacefully
to rest.

That same Saturday evening the postman had delivered a let-
ter to each of the other principal citizens--nineteen letters
in all. No two of the envelopes were alike, and no two of the
superscriptions were in the same hand, but the letters inside
were just like each other in every detail but one. They were
exact copies of the letter received by Richards--handwriting
and all--and were all signed by Stephenson, but in place of
Richard's name each receiver's own name appeared.

All night long eighteen principal citizens did what their
caste-brother Richards was doing at the same time--they
put in their energies trying to remember what notable service
it was that they had unconsciously done Barclay Goodson.
In no case was it a holiday job; still they succeeded.

And while they were at this work, which was difficult, their
wives put in the night spending the money, which was easy.
During that one night the nineteen wives spent an average of
seven thousand dollars each out of the forty thousand in the
sack--a hundred and thirty-three thousand altogether.

Next day there was a surprise for Jack Halliday. He notice-
d that the faces of the nineteen chief citizens and their
wives bore that expression of peaceful and holy happiness
again. He could not understand it, neither was he able to
invent any remarks about it that could damage it or disturb
it. And so it was his turn to be dissatisfied with life. His
private guesses at the reasons for the happiness failed in
all instances, upon examination. When he met Mrs. Wilcox and
noticed the placid ecstasy in her face, he said to himself,
'Her cat has had kittens"--and went and asked the cook: it
was not so; the cook had detected thie happiness, but did not
know the cause. When Halliday found the duplicate ecstasy
in the face of "Shadbelly" Billson (village nickname), he was
sure some neighbor of Billson's had broken his leg, but in-
quiry showed that this had not happened. The subdued ecstasy
in Gregory Yates's face could mean but one thing---he was a
mother-in-law short: it was another mistake. "And Pinkerton
--Pinkerton--he has collected ten cents that he thought he
was going to lose." And so on, and so on. In some cases the
guesses had to remain in doubt, in the others they proved
distinct errors. In the end Halliday said to himself, "Any-
way it foots up that there's nineteen Hadleyburg families
temporarily in heaven: I don't know how it happened; I
only know Providence is off duty to-day."

An architect and builder from the next state had lately
ventured to set up a small business in this unpromising
village, and his sign had now been hanging out a week. Not
a customer yet; he was a discouraged man, and sorry he had
come. But his weather changed suddenly now. First one and
then another chief citizen's wife said to him privately:

"Come to my house Monday week--but say nothing about it
for the present. We think of building."

He got eleven invitations that day. That night he wrote his
daughter and broke off her match with her student. He said
she could marry a mile higher than that.

Pinkerton the banker and two or three other well-to-do
men planned country-seats--but waited. That kind don't
count their chickens until they are hatched.

The Wilsons devised a grand new thing--a fancy-dress ball.
They made no actual promises, but told all their acquaint-
anceship in confidence that they were thinking the matter
over and thought they should give it--"and if we do, you
will be invited, of course." People were surprised, and
said, one to another, "Why, they are crazy, those poor Wil-
sons, they can't afford it." Several among the nineteen
said privately to their husbands, "It is a good idea: we
will keep still till their cheap thing is over, then we
will give one that will make it sick."

The days drifted along, and the bill of future squanderings
rose higher and higher, wilder and wilder, more and more
foolish and reckless. It began to look as if every member of
the nineteen would not only spend his whole forty thousand
dollars before receiving-day, but be actually in debt by the
time he got the money. In some cases light-headed people
did not stop with planning to spend, they really spent--on
credit. They bought land, mortgages, farms, speculative stocks,
fine clothes, horses, and various other things, paid down
the bonus, and made themselves liable for the rest--at ten
days. Presently the sober second thought came, and Halliday
noticed that a ghastly anxiety was beginning to show up in
a good many faces. Again he was puzzled, and didn't know
what to make of it. "The Wilcox kittens aren't dead, for
they weren't born; nobody's broken a leg; there's no shrin-
kage in mother-in-laws; nothing has happened--it is an un-
solvable mystery."

There was another puzzled man, too--the Rev. Mr. Burgess.
For days, wherever he went, people seemed to follow him or
to be watching out for him; and if he ever found himself
in a retired spot, a member of the nineteen would be sure
to appear, thrust an envelope privately into his hand,
whisper "To be opened at the town-hall Friday evening,"
then vanish away like a guilty thing. He was expecting
that there might be one claimant for the sack--doubtful,
however, Goodson being dead--but it never occurred to him
that all this crowd might be claimants. When the great
Friday came at last, be found that he had nineteen enve-
lopes.


3


The town-hall had never looked finer. The platform at the
end of it was backed by a showy draping of flags; at intervals
along the walls were festoons of flags; the gallery fronts
were clothed in flags; the supporting columns were swathed in
flags; all this was to impress the stranger, for he would be
there in considerable force, and in a large degree he would
be connected with the press. The house was full. The 412
fixed seats were occupied; also the 68 extra chairs which had
been packed into the aisles; the steps of the platform were
occupied; some distinguished strangers were given seats on
the platform; at the horseshoe of tables which fenced the
front and sides of the platform sat a strong force of special
correspondents who had come from everywhere. It was the
best-dressed house the town had ever produced. There were
some tolerably expensive toilets there, and in several cases
the ladies who wore them had the look of being unfamiliar
with that kind of clothes. At least the town thout they had
that look, but the notion could have arisen from the town's
knowledge of the fact that these ladies had never inhabited
such clothes before.

The gold-sack stood on a little table at the front of the
platform where all the house could see it The bulk of the
house gazed at it with a burning interest, a mouth-watering
interest, a wistful and pathetic interest; a minority of nine-
teen couples gazed at it tenderly, lovingly, proprietarily, and
the male half of this minority kept saying over to themselves
the moving little impromptu speeches of thankfulness for the
audience's applause and congratulations which they were pre-
sently going to get up and deliver. Every now and then one of
these got a piece of paper out of his vest pocket and privately
glanced at it to refresh his memory.

Of course there was a buzz of conversation going on--there
always is; but at last when the Rev. Mr. Burgess rose and
laid his hand on the sack he could hear his microbes gnaw,
the place was so still. He related the curious history of
the sack, then went on to speak in warm terms of Hadleyburg's
old and well-earned reputation for spotless honesty, and of
the town's just pride in this reputation. He said that this
reputation was a treasure of priceless value; that under
Providence its value had now become inestimably enhanced,
for the recent episode had spread this fame far and wide,
and thus had focused the eyes of the American world upon
this village, and made its name for all time, as he hoped
and believed, a synonym for commercial incorruptibility.
[Applause.] "And who is to be the guardian of this noble
treasure--the community as a whole? No! The responsibility
is individual, not communal. From this day forth each and
every one of you is in his own person its special guardian,
and individually responsible that no harm shall come to it
Do you--does each of you--accept this great trust? [Tumul-
tuous assent,] Then all is well. Transmit it to your children and
to your children's children. To-day your purity is beyond
reproach--see to it that it shall remain so. To-day there
is not a person in your community who could be beguiled to
touch a penny not his own--see to it that you abide in this
grace. ["We will! we will!"] This is not the place to make
comparisons between ourselves and other communities--some
of them ungracious toward us; they have their ways, we have
ours; let us be content [Applause,] I am done. Under my hand,
my friends, rests a stranger's eloquent recognition of what
we are; through him the world will always henceforth know what
we are. We do not know who he is, but in your name I utter
your gratitude, and ask you to raise your voices in indorse-
ment"

The house rose in a body and made the walls quake with the
thunders of its thankfulness for the space of a long minute.
Then it sat down, and Mr. Burgess took an envelope out of his
pocket. The house held its breath while he slit the envelope
open and took from it a slip of paper. He read its contents--
slowly and impressively--the audience listening with tranced
attention to this magic document, each of whose words stood
for an ingot of gold:

"'The remark which I made to the distressed stranger was this.
"You are very far from being a bad man: go, and reform."'"
Then he continued:

"We shall know in a moment now whether the remark here quoted
corresponds willi the one concealed in the sack; and if that
shall prove to be so--and it undoubtedly will--this sack of
gold belongs to a fellow-citizen who will henceforth stand
before the nation as the symbol of the special virtue which
has made our town famous throughout the land--Mr. Billson!"

The house had gotten itself all ready to burst into the pro-
per tornado of applause; but instead of doing it, it seemed
stricken with a paralysis; there was a deep hush for a moment
or two, then a wave of whispered murmurs swept the place--of
about this tenor: "Billson! oh, come, this is too thin! Twenty
dollars to a stranger--or anybody--Billson! tell it to the
marines!" And now at this point the house caught its breath
all of a sudden in a new access of astonishment, for it dis-
covered that whereas in one part of the hall Deacon Billson
was standing up with his head meekly bowed, in another part
of it Lawyer Wilson was doing the same. There was a wondering
silence now for a while.

Everybody was puzzled, and nineteen couples were surprised
and indignant

Billson and Wilson turned and stared at each other. Billson
asked, bitingly:

"Why do you rise, Mr. Wilson?"

"Because I have a right to. Perhaps you will be good
enough to explain to the house why you rise?"

"With great pleasure. Because I wrote that paper."

"It is an impudent falsity! I wrote it myself."

It was Burgess's turn to be paralyzed. He stood looking va-
cantly at first one of the men and then the other, and did
not seem to know what to do. The house was stupefied.
Lawyer Wilson spoke up, now, and said,

"I ask the Chair to read the name signed to that paper."

That brought the Chair to itself, and it read out the name:
"'John Wharton Billson.'"

"There!" shouted Billson, "what have you got to say for
yourself, now? And what kind of apology are you going to
make to me and to this insulted house for the imposture
which you have attempted to play here?"

"No apologies are due, sir; and as for the rest of it, I pub-
licly charge you with pilfering my note from Mr. Burgess and
substituting a copy of it ugned with your own name. There is
no other way by which you could have gotten hold of the test-
remark; I alone, of living men, possessed the secret of its
wording."

There was likely to be a scandalous state of things if this
went on; everybody noticed with distress that the shorthand
scribes were scribbling like mad; many people were crying
"Chair, Chair! Order! order!" Burgess rapped with his
gavel, and said:

"Let us not forget the proprieties due. There has evidently
been a mistake somewhere, but surely that is all. If Mr.
Wilson gave me an envelope--and I remember now that he did
--I still have it."

He took one out of his pocket, opened it, glanced at it,
looked surprised and worried, and stood silent a few moments.
Then he waved his hand in a wandering and mechanical way,
and made an effort or two to say something, then gave it up,
despondently. Several voices cried out:

"Read it! read it! What is it?"

So he began in a dazed and sleep-walker fashion:

" 'The remark which I made to the unhappy stranger was
this: "You are far from being a bad man. [The house gazed
at him, marveling.] Go, and reform" ' [Murmurs: "Amazing!
what can this mean?"] This one," said the Chair, "is
signed Thurlow G. Wilson."

"There!" cried Wilson. "I reckon that settles it! I knew
perfectly well my note was purloined."

"Purloined!" retorted Billson. "I'll let you know that
neither you nor any man of your kidney must venture to--"

THE CHAIR "Order, gentlemen, order! Take your seats, both
of you, please."

They obeyed, shaking their heads and grumbling angrily.
The house was profoundly puzzled; it did not know what to
do with this curious emergency. Presently Thompson got up.
Thompson was the hatter. He would have liked to be a Nine-
teener; but such was not for him: his stock of hats was
not considerable enough for the position. He said:

"Mr. Chairman, if I may be permitted to make a suggestion,
can both of these gentlemen be right? I put it to you, sir,
can both have happened to say the very same words to the
stranger? It seems to me--"

The tanner got up and interrupted him. The tanner was a dis-
gruntled man; he believed himself entitled to be a Nineteener,
but he couldn't get recognition. It made him a little unplea-
sant in his ways and speech. Said he:

"Sho, that's not the point! That could happen--twice in a
hundred years--but not the other thing. Neither of them gave
the twenty dollars!"

[A ripple of applause,]

BILLSON "I did!"

WILSON "I did!"

Then each accused the other of pilfering.

THE CHAIR "Order! Sit down, if you please--both of you.
Neither of the notes has been out of my possession at any
moment."

A VOICE "Good--that settles that!"

THE TANNER "Mr. Chairman, one thing is now plain: one of
these men have been eavesdropping under the other one's
bed, and filching family secrets. If it is not unparliamentary
to suggest it, I will remark that both are equal to it. [The
Chair. "Order! order!"] I withdraw the remark, sir, and will
confine myself to suggesting that if one of them has overheard
the other reved the test-remark to his wife, we shall catch him
now."

A VOICE "How?"

THE TANNER "Easily. The two have not quoted the remark in ex-
actly the same words. You would have noticed that, if there
hadn't been a considerable stretch of time and an exciting
quarrel inserted between the two readings."

A VOICE "Name the difference."

THE TANNER "The word very is in Bilson's note, and not in the
other."

MANY VOICES "That's so--he's right!"

THE TANNER "And so, if the Chair will examine the test-remark
in the sack, we shall know which of these two frauds --[The
Chair. "Order!"]--which of these two adventurers --[The Chair.
"Order! order!"l--which of these two gentlemen--[laughter and
applause}--is entitled to wear the belt as being the first
dishonest blatherskite ever bred in this town --which he has
dishonored, and which will be a sultry place for him from now
out!" [Vigorous applause.]

MANY VOICES "Open it!--open the sack!"

Mr. Burgess made a slit in the sack, slid his hand in and
brought out an envelope. In it were a couple of folded notes.
He said:

"One of these is marked, 'Not to be examined until all
written communications which have been addressed to the
Chair--if any--shall have been read.' The other is marked
'The Test.' Allow me. It is worded--to wit:

"'I do not require that the first half of the remark which was
made to me by my benefactor shall be quoted with exactness,
for it was not striking, and could be forgotten; but its clos-
ing fifteen words are quite striking, and I think easily re-
memberable; unless these shall be accurately reproduced, let
the applicant be regarded as an impostor. My benefactor began
by saying he seldom gave advice to any one but that it always
bore the hall-mark of high value when he did give it. Then he
said this--and it has never faded from my memory: "'You are
far from being a bad man--"'

FIFTY VOICES "That settles it--the money's Wilson's! Wilson!
Wilson! Speech! Speech!"

People jumped up and crowded around Wilson, wringing
his hand and conatulating fervently--meantime the
was hammering with the gavel and shouting:

"Order, gentlemen! Order! Order! Let me finish reading,
please." When quiet was restored, the reading was resumed--
as follows:

"'"Go, and reform--or, mark my words--some day, for your
sins, you will die and go to hell or Hadleyburg--TRY AND
MAKE IT THE FORMER." '"

A ghastly silence followed. First an angry cloud began to set-
tle darkly upon the faces of the citizenship; after a pause
the cloud began to rise, and a tickled expression tried to take
its place; tried so hard that it was only kept under with great
and painful difficulty; the reporters, the Brixtonites, and
other strangers bent their heads down and shielded their faces
with their hands, and managed to hold in by main strength and
heroic courtesy. At this most inopportune time burst upon the
stillness the roar of a solitary voice--Jack Halliday's:

"That's got the hall-mark on it!"

Then the house let go, strangers and all. Even Mr. Burgess's
gravity broke down presently, then the audience considered
itself officially absolved from all restraint, and it made
the most of its privilege. It was a good long laugh, and
a tempestuously whole-hearted one, but it ceased at last
--long enough for Mr. Burgess to try to resume, and for the
people to get their eyes partially wiped; then it broke out
again; and afterward yet again; then at last Burgess was able
to get out these serious words:

"It is useless to try to disguise the fact--we find ourselves
in the presence of a matter of grave import. It involves the
honor of your town, it strikes at the town's good name. The
difference of a single word between the test-remarks offered
by Mr. Wilson and Mr. Billson was itself a serious thing,
since it indicated that one or the other of these gentlemen
had committed a theft--"

The two men were sitting limp, nerveless, crushed; but at
these words both were electrified into movement, and started
to get up--

"Sit down!" said the Chair, sharply, and they obeyed, 'That,
as I have said, was a serious thing. And it was--but for only
one of them. But the matter has become graver; for the honor
of both is now in formidable peril. Shall I go even further,
and say in inextricable peril? Both left out the crucial
fifteen words." He paused. During several moments he allowed
the pervading stillness to gather and deepen its impressive
effects, then added: "There would seem to be but one way
whereby this could happen. I ask these gentlemen --Was there
collusion?--agreement?"

A low murmur sifted through the house; its import was, "He's
got them both."

Billson was not used to emergencies; he sat in a helpless
collapse. But Wilson was a lawyer. He struggled to his feet,
pale and worried, and said:

"I ask the indulgence of the house while I explain this
most painful matter. I am sorry to say what I am about to
say, since it must inflict irreparable injury upon Mr. Billson,
whom I have always esteemed and respected until now, and in
whose invulnerability to temptation I entirely believed--as
did you all. But for the preservation of my own honor I must
speak--and with frankness. I confess with shame--and I now
beseech your pardon for it--that I said to the ruined Stranger
all of the words contained in the test-remark, including the
disparaging fifteen. When the late publication was made I
recalled them, and I resolved to claim the sack of coin, for
by every right I was entitled to it. Now I will ask you to
consider this point, and weigh it well; that stranger's grat-
itude to me that night knew no bounds; he said himself that
he could find no words for it that were adequate, and that
if he should ever be able he would repay me a thousandfold.
Now, then, I ask you this: Could I expect--could I believe--
could I even remotely imagine--that, feeling as he did, he
would do so ungrateful a thing as to add those quite unnec-
essary fifteen words to his test?--set a trap for me?-- ex-
pose me as a slanderer of my own town before my own people
assembled in a public hall? It was preposterous; it was im-
possible. His test would contain only the kindly opening
clause of my remark. Of that I had no shadow of doubt. You
would have thought as I did. You would not have expected a
base betrayal from one whom you had befriended and against
whom you had committed no offense. And so, with perfect con-
fidence, perfect trust, I wrote on a piece of paper the open-
ing words--ending with 'Go, and reform,' and signed it. When
I was about to put it in an envelope I was called into my back
office, and without thinking I left the paper lying open on my
desk." He stopped, turned his head slowly toward Billson, wait-
ed a moment, then added: "I ask you to note this: when I re-
turned, a little later, Mr. Billson was retiring by my street
door." [Sensation.]

In a moment Billson was on his feet and shouting;

"It's a lie! It's an infamous lie!"

THE CHAIR "Be seated, sir! Mr. Wilson has the floor."

Billson's friends pulled him into his seat and quieted him,
and Wilson went on:

"Those are the simple facts. My note was now lying in a dif-
ferent place on the table from where I had left it. I noticed
that, but attached no importance to it, thinking a draught
had blown it there. That Mr. Billson would read a private pa-
per was a thing which could not occur to me; he was a honorable
man, and he would be above that. If you will allow me to say
it, I think his extra word 'very' stands explained; it is at-
tributable to a defect of memory. I was the only man in the
world who could furnish here any detail of the test-remark--
by honorable means. I have finished."

There is nothing in the world like a persuasive speech to
fuddle the mental apparatus and upset the convictions and
debauch the emotions of an audience not practised in the
tricks and delusions of oratory. Wilson sat down victorious.
The house submerged him in tides of approving applause;
friends swarmed to him and shook him by the hand and con-
gratulated him, and Billson was shouted down and not allowed
to say a word. The Chair hammered and hammered with its gavel,
and kept shouting:

"But let us proceed, gentlemen, let us proceed!"

At last there was a measurable degree of quiet, and the
hatter said:

"But what is there to proceed with, sir, but to deliver the
money?"

VOICES "That's it! That's it! Come forward, Wilson!"

THE HATTER "I move three cheers for Mr. Wilson, Symbol
of the special virtue which--

The cheers burst forth before he could finish; and in the
midst of them--and in the midst of the clamor of the gavel
also--some enthusiasts mounted Wilson on a big friend's
shoulder and were going to fetch him in triumph to the plat-
form. The Chair's voice now rose above the noise--

"Order! To your places! You forget that there is still a
document to be read." When quiet had been restored he took
up the document, and was going to read it, but laid it down
again, saying, "I forgot; this is not to be read until all
written communications received by me have first been read."
He took an envelope out of his pocket, removed its inclosure,
glanced at it--seemed astonished--held it out and gazed at
it--stared at it.

Twenty or thirty voices cried out:

"What is it? Read it! read it!"

And he did--slowly, and wondering:

"'The remark which I made to the stranger--[Voice. "Hello!
how's this?]--was this: "You are far from being a bad man."
[Voices. "Great Scott!"] "Go, and reform." [Voices. "Oh,
saw my leg off!"] Signed by Mr. Pinkerton, the banker."

The pandemonium of delight which turned itself loose now was
of a sort to make the judicious weep. Those whose withers were
unwrung laughed till the tears ran down; the reporters, in
throes of laughter, set down disordered pot-hooks which would
never in the world be decipherable; and a sleeping dog jumped
up, scared out of its wits, and barked itself crazy at the
turmoil. All manner of cries were scattered through the din;
"We're getting rich--two Symbols of Incorruptibility!--without
counting Billson!" "Three!--count Shadbelly in--we can't have
too many!" "All right--Billson's elected!" "Alas, poor Wilson
--victim of two thieves!"

A POWERFUL VOICE "Silence! The Chair's fishing up something
more out of its pocket"

VOICES "Hurrah! Is it something fresh? Read it! read! read!"

THE CHAIR [reading] "'The remark which I made,' etc.:
"'You are far from being a bad man. "Go,"' etc. Signed,
'Gregory Yates.'"

TORNADO OF VOICES "Four Symbols!" "'Rah for Yates!" "Fish
again!"

The house was in a roaring humor now, and ready to get all
the fun out of the occasion that might be in it. Several Nine-
teeners, looking pale and distressed, got up and began to
work their way toward the aisles, but a score of shouts went
up:

"The doors, the doors--close the doors; no Incorruptible
shall leave this place! Sit down, everybody!"

The mandate was obeyed.

"Fish again! Read! read!"

The Chair fished again, and once miM-e the familiar words
began to fall from its lips--" 'You are far from being a bad
man.'"

"Name! name! What's his name?"

"'L. Ingoldsby Sargent'"

"Five elected! Pile up the Symbols! Go on, go on!"

"'You are far from being a bad--"

"Name! name!"

"'Nicholas Whitworth.'"

"Hooray! hooray! it's a symbolical day!"

Somebody wailed in, and began to sing this rhyme (leaving
out "it's") to the lovely "Mikado" tune of "When a man's
afraid, a beautiful maid-- the audience joined in, with joy;
then, just in time, somebody contributed another line--

And don't you this forget--

The house roared it out A third line was at once furnished
--

Corruptibles far from Hadleyburg are--

The house roared that one too. As the last note died. Jack
Halliday's voice rose high and clear, freighted with a final
line--

But the Symbols are here, you bet!

That was sung, with booming enthusiasm. Then the happy
house started in at the beginning and sang the four lines
through twice, with immense swing and dash, and finished up
with a crashing three-times-three and a tiger for "Hadleyburg
the Incorruptible and all Symbols of it which we shall find
worthy to receive the hall-mark to-night."

Then the shoutings at the Chair began again, all over the
place:

"Go on! go on! Read! read some more! Read all you've
got!"

"That's it--go on! We are winning eternal celebrity!"
A dozen men got up now and began to protest. They said
that this farce was the work of some abandoned joker, and
was an insult to the whole community. Without a doubt these
signatures were all forgeries--

"Sit down! sit down! Shut up! You are confessing. We'll
find your names in the lot."

"Mr. Chairman, how many of those envelopes have you
got?"

The Chair counted.

'Together with those that have been already examined,
there are nineteen."

A storm of derisive applause broke out.

"Perhaps they all contain the secret. I move that you open
them all and read every signature that is attached to a note
of that sort--and read also the first eight words of the note."

"Second the motion!"

It was put and carried--uproariously. Then poor old Rich-
ards got up, and his wife rose and stood at his side. Her
head was bent down, so that none might see that she was cry-
ing. Her husband gave her his arm, and so supporting her,
he began to speak in a quavering voice:

"My friends, you have known us two--Mary and me--all
our lives, and I think you have liked us and respected us
--

The Chair interrupted him:

"Allow me. It is quite true--that which you are saying,
Mr. Richards: this town does know you two; it does like you;
it does respect you; more--it honors you and loves you--"

Halliday's voice rang out:

"That's the hall-marked truth, too! If the Chair is right,
let the house speak up and say it. Rise! Now, then--hip! hip!
hip!--all together!"

The house rose in mass, faced toward the old couple eagerly,
filled the air with a snow-storm of waving handkerchiefs,
and delivered the cheers with all its affectionate heart.

The Chair then continued:

"What I was going to say is this: We know your good heart,
Mr. Richards, but this is not a time for the exercise of cha-
rity toward offenders. [Shouts of "Right! right!"] I see your
generous purpose in your face, but I cannot allow you to
plead for these men--"

"But I was going to--"

"Please take your seat, Mr. Richards. We must examine
the rest of these notes--simple fairness to the men who have
already been exposed requires this. As soon as that has been
done--I give you my word for this--you shall he heard."

MANY VOICES "Right!--the Chair is right--no interruption
can be permitted at this stage! Go on!--the names! the names!
--according to the terms of the motion!"

The old couple sat reluctantly down, and the husband
whispered to the wife, "It is pitifully hard to have to wait;
the shame will be greater than ever when they find we were
only going to plead tor ourselves."

Straightway the jollity broke loose again with the reading
of the names.

"'You are far from being a bad man--' Signature, 'Robert J.
Titmarsh.'
"'You are far from being a bad man--' Signature, 'Eliphalet
Weeks.'
"'You are far from being a bad man--' Signature, 'Oscar B.
Wilder.'"

At this point the house lit upon the idea of taking the eight
words out of the Chairman's hands. He was not unthankful for
that. Thenceforward he held up each note in its turn, and wait-
ed. The house droned out the eight words in a massed and mea-
sured and musical deep volume of sound (with a daringly close
resemblance to a well-known church chant)--" 'You ar f-a-r from
being a b-a-a-a-d man.'" Then the Chair said, "Signature, 'Arch-
ibald Wilcox.'" And so on, and so on, name after name, and ev-
erybody had an increasiny and gloriously good time except the
wretched Nineteen. Now and then, when a particularly shining
name was called, the house made the Chair wait while it chant-
ed the whole of the testremark from the beginning to the clos-
ing words, "And go to hell or Hadleyburg--try and make it the
for-or-m-e-r!" and in these special cases they added a grand
and agonized and imposing "A-a-a-a-menI"

The list dwindled, dwindled, dwindled, poor old Richards
keeping tally of the count, wincing when a name resembling
his own was pronounced, and waiting in miserable suspense
for the time to come when it would be his humiliating privilege
to rise with Mary and finish his plea, which he was intending
to word thus: . . for until now we have never done any wrong
thing, but have gone our humble way unreproached. We are very
poor, we are old, and have no chick nor child to help us; we
were sorely tempted, and we fell. It was my purpose when I
got up before to make confession and beg that my name might
not be read out in this public place, for it seemed to us
that we could not bear it; but I was prevented. It was just;
it was our place to suffer with the rest. It has been hard
for us. It is the first time we have ever heard our name fall
from any one's lips--sullied. Be merciful --for the sake of
the better days; make our shame as light Jo bear as in your
charity you can." At this point in his revery Mary nudged him,
perceiving that his mind was absent. The house was chanting,
"You are f-a-r," etc.

"Be ready," Mary whispered. "Your name comes now; he has read
eighteen."

The chant ended.

"Next! next! next!" came volleying from all over the house.

Burgess put his hand into his pocket. The old couple, trembl-
ing, began to rise. Burgess fumbled a moment, then said,

"I find I have read them all."

Faint with joy and surprise, the couple sank into their
seats, and Mary whispered:

"Oh, bless God, we are saved!--he has lost ours--I wouldn't
give this for a hundred of those sacks!"

The house burst out with its "Mikado" travesty, and sang it
three times with ever-increasing enthusiasm, rising to its
feet when it reached for the third time the closing line--

But there's one Symbol left, you bet!

and finishing up with cheers and a tiger for "Hadleyburg
purity and our eighteen immortal representatives of it"

Then Wingate, the saddler, got up and proposed cheers "for the
cleanest man in town, the one solitary important citizen in it
who didn't try to steal that money--Edward Richards."

They were given with great and moving heartiness; then somebody
proposed that Richards be dected sole guardian and Symbol of
the now Sacred Hadleyburg Tradition, with pown and right to
stand up and look the whole sarcastic worid in the face.

Passed, by acclamation; then they sang the "Mikado" again,
and ended it with:

And there's one Symbol left, you bet!

There was a pause; then--

A VOICE "Now, then, who's to get the sack?"

THE TANNER {with bitter sarcasm) "That's easy. The money has
to be divided among the eighteen Incorruptibles. They gave the
suffering stranger twenty dollars apiece--and that ronark--each
in his turn--it took twenty-two minutes for the procession to
move past Staked the stranger--total contribution, $360. All
they want is just the loan back--and interest--forty thousand
dollars altoger."

MANY VOICES [derisively] "That's it! Divy! divy! Be kind to the
poor--don't keep them waiting!"

THE CHAIR "Order! I now offer the stranger's remaining document.
It says: 'If no claimant shall appear [grand chorus of groans]
I desire that you opei the sack and count out the money to the
principal citizens of your town, they to take it in trust [cries
of "Oh! Oh! Oh!"], and use it in such ways as to them shall seem
best for the propagation and preservation of your community's
noble reputation for incorruptible honesty [more cries]--a rep-
utation to which their names and their efforts will add a new
and far-reaching luster.' [Enthusiastic outburst of sarcastic
applause.] That seems to be all. No--here is a postscript:

'P.S.--CITIZENS OF HADLEYBURO: There is no test-remark--
nobody made one. [Great sensation.] There wasn't any pau-
per stranger, nor any twenty-dollar contribution, nor any
accompanying benediction and compliment--these are all
inventions. [General buzz and hum of astonishment and de-
light] Allow me to tell my story--it will take but a word
or two. I passed through your town at a certain time, and
received a deep offense which I had not earned. Any other
man would have been content to kill one or two of you and
call it square, but to me that would have been a trivial
revenge. and inadequate; for the dead do not suffer. Be-
sides I could not kill you all--and anyway, made as I am,
even that would not have satisfied me. I wanted to damage
every man in the place, and every woman--and not in their
bodies or in their estate, but in their vanity--the place
where feeble and foolish people are most vulnerable. So
I disguised myself and came back and studied you. You were
easy game. You had an old and lofty reputation for honesty,
and naturally you were proud of it--it was your treasure of
treasures, the very apple of your eye. As soon as I found out
that you carefully and vigilantly kept yourselves and your
children out of temptation, I knew how to proceed. Why, you
simple creatures, the weakest of all weak things is a virtue
which has not been tested in the fire. I laid a plan, and
gathered a list of names. My project was to corrupt Hadley-
burg the Incorruptible. My idea was to make liars and thieves
of nearly half a hundred smirchless men and women who had
never in their lives uttered a lie or stolen a penny. I was
afraid of Goodson. He was neither born nor reared in Hadley-
burg. I was afraid that if I started to operate my scheme by
getting my letter laid be' fore you, you would say to your-
selves, "Goodson is the only man among us who would give away
twenty dollars to a poor devil--and then you might not bite
at my bait. But Heaven took Goodson; then I knew I was safe,
and I set my trap and baited it. It may be that I shall not
catch all the men to whom I mailed the pretended test secret,
but I shall catch the most of them, if I know Hadleyburg na-
ture. [Voices. "Right--he got every last one of them."] I
believe they will even steal ostensible gamble-money, rather
than miss, poor, tempted, and mistrained fellows. I am hoping
to eternally and everlastingly squelch your vanity and
give Hadleyburg a new renown--one that will stick--and
spread far. If I have succeeded, open the sack and summon
the Committee on Propagation and Preservation of the Had-
leyburg Reputation.'

A CYCLONE OF VOICES "Open it! Open it! The Eighteen to the
front! Committee on Propagation of the Tradition! Forward--
the Incorruptibles!"

The Chair ripped the sack wide, and gathered up a handful
of bright, broad, yellow coins, shook them together, then
examined them--

"Friends, they are only gilded disks of lead!"

There was a crashing outbreak of delight over this news,
and when the noise had subsided, the tanner called out:

"By right of apparent seniority in this business, Mr. Wilson
is Chairman of the Committee on Propagation of the Tradition.
I suggest that he step forward on behalf of his pals, and
receive in trust the money."

A HUNDRED VOICES "Wilson! Wilson! Wilson! Speech! Speech!"

WILSON [in a voice trembling with anger] "You will allow
me to say, and without apologies for my language, damn the
money!"

A VOICE "Oh, and him a Baptist!"

A VOICE "Seventeen Symbols left! Step up, gentlemen, and
assume your trust!"

There was a pause--no response.

THE SADDLER "Mr. Chairman, we've got one clean man left,
anyway, out of the late aristocracy; and he needs money, and
deserves it. I move that you appoint Jack Halliday to get
up there and auction off that sack of gilt twenty-dollar
pieces, and give the result to the right man--the man whom
Hadleyburg delights to honor--Edward Richards."

This was received with great enthusiasm, the dog taking a
hand again; the saddler started the bids at a dollar, the
Brixton folk and Bamum's representative fought hard for it,
the people cheered every jump that the bids made, the ex-
citement climbed moment by moment higher and higher, the
bidders got on their mettle and grew steadily more and more
daring, more and more determined, the jumps went from a
dollar up to five, then to ten, then to twenty, then fifty,
then to a hundred, then--

At the beginning of the auction Richards whispered in dis-
tress to his wife: "O Mary, can we allow it? It--it--you
see, it is an honor-reward, a testimonial to purity of
character, and--and--can we allow it? Hadn't I better get
up and--O Mary, what ought we to do?--what do you think we
--[Hallidays voice, "'Fifteen I'm bid!--fifteen for the sack!
--twenty!--ah, thanks!--thirty--thanks again! Thirty, thirty,
thirty!--do I heard forty?--forty it is! Keep the ball roll-
ing, gentlemen, keep it rolling!--fifty! thanks, noble Roman!
going at fifty, fifty, fifty!--seventy!--ninety!--splendid!--
a hundred!--pile it up, pile it up!--hundred and twenty--
forty!--just in time!--hundred and fifty!--two hundred!
superb! Do I hear two h--thanks!--two hundred and
fifty!--]

It is another temptation, Edward--I'm all in a tremble
--but, oh, we've escaped one temptation, and that ought to
warn us to-- ["Six did I hear?--thanks!--six-fifty, six-f--
SEVEN hundred!"] And yet, Edward, when you think--nobody
susp-- ["Eight hundred dollars!--hurrah!--make it nine!--
Mr, Parsons, did I hear you say--thanks--nine! this noble
sack of virgin lead going at only nine hundred dollars,
gilding and all--come! do I hear--a thousand!-gratefully
yours!--did some one say eleven?--a sack which is going
to be the most celebrated in the whole Uni--] O Edward"
(beginning to sob), "we are so poor!--but--but --do as
you think best--do as you think best."

Edward fell--that is, he sat still; sat with a conscience
which was not satisfied, but which was overpowered by cir-
cumstances.

Meantime a stranger, who looked like an amateur detective
gotten up as an impossible English earl, had been watching
the evening's proceedings with manifest interest, and with
a contented expression in his face; and he had been pri-
vately commenting to himself. He was now soliloquizing
somewhat like this: "None of the Eighteen are bidding; that
is not satisfactory; I must change that--the dramatic unities
require it; they must buy the sack they tried to steal; they
must pay a heavy price, too--some of them are rich. And
another thing, when I make a mistake in Hadleyburg nature
the man that puts that error upon me is entitled to a high
honorarium, and some one must pay it. This poor old Richards
has brought my judgment to shame; he is an honest man:--I
don't understand it, but I acknowledge it. Yes, he saw my
deuces and with a straight flush, and by rights the pot is
his. And it shall be a jack-pot, too, if I can manage it. He
disappointed me, but let that pass."

He was watching the bidding. At a thousand, the market broke;
the. prices tumbled swiftly. He waited--and still watched. One
competitor dropped out; then another, and another. He put in
a bid or two, now. When the bids had sunk to ten dollars, he
added a five; some one raised him a three; he waited a moment,
then flung in a fifly-dollar jump, and the sack was his--at
$1,282. The house broke out in cheers then stopped; for he
was on his feet, and had lifted his hand. He began to speak.

"I desire to say a word, and ask a favor. I am a speculator
in rarities, and I have dealings with persons interested in
numismatics all over the world. I can make a profit on this
purchase, just as it stands; but there is a way, if I can get
your approval, whereby I can make every one of these leaden
twenty-dollar pieces worth its face in gold, and perhaps more.
Grant me that approval, and I will give part of my gains to
your Mr. Richards, whose invulnerable probity you have so
justly and so cordially recognized to-night; his share shall
be ten thousand dollars, and I will hand him the money to-mor-
row [Great applause from the house. But the "invulnerable
probity" made the Richardses blush prettily; however, it
went for modesty, and did no harm.} If you will pass my pro-
position by a good majority--I would like a two-thirds vote
--I will regard that as the town's consent, and that is all
I ask. Rarities are always helped by any device which will
rouse curiosity and compel remark. Now if I may have your
permission to stamp upon the faces of each of these osten-
sible coins the names of the eighteen gentlemen who--"

Nine-tenths of the audience were on their feet in a moment--
dog and all--and the proposition was carried with a whirl-
wind of approving applause and laughter.

They sat down, and all the Symbols except "Dr." Clay Hark-
ness got up, violently protesting against the proposed out-
rage, and threatening to--

"I beg you not to threaten me," said the stranger, calmly.
"I know my legal rights, and am not accustomed to being
frightened at bluster." [Applause. He sat down. "Dr."
Harkness saw an opportunity here. He was one of the two
very rich men of the place, and Pinkerton was the other.
Harkness was proprietor of a mint; that is to say, a popular
patent medicine. He was running for the legislature on
one ticket, and Pinkerton on the other. It was a close race
and a hot one, and getting hotter every day. Both had strong
appetities for money; each had bought a great tract of land,
with a purpose; there was going to be a new railway, and
each wanted to be in the legislature and help locate the route
to his own advantage; a single vote might make the decision,
and with it two or three fortunes. The stake was large, and
Harkness was a daring speculator. He was sitting close to the
stranger. He leaned over while one or another of the other
Symbols was entertaining the house with protests and appeals,
and asked, in a whisper.

"What is your price for the sack?"

"Forty thousand dollars."

"I'll give you twenty."

"No."

"Twenty-five."

"No."

"Say thirty."

"The price is forty thousand dollars; not a penny less."

"All right. I'll give it. I will come to the hotel at ten in
the morning. I don't want it known: will see you privately."

"Very good." Then the stranger got up and said to the
house:

"I find it late. The speeches of these gentlemen are not
without merit, not without interest, not without grace; yet
if I may be excused I will take my leave. I thank you for the
great favor which you have shown me in granting my petition.
I ask the Chair to keep the sack for me until to-morrow.
and to hand these three five-hundred-dollar notes to Mr.
Richards." They were passed up to the Chair. "At nine I will
call for the sack, and at eleven will deliver the rest of the
ten thousand to Mr. Richards in person, at his home. Good
night."

Then he slipped out, and left the audience making a vast
noise which was composed of a mixture of cheers, the
"Mikado" song, dog-disapproval, and the chant, "You are
f-a-r from being a b-a-a-d man--a-a-a-a-men!"


4


At home the Richardses had to endure congratulations and
compliments until midnight. Then they were left to themselves.
They looked a little sad, and they sat silent and thinking.
Finally Mary sighed and said,

"Do you think we are to blame, Edward--much to blame?"
and her eyes wandered to the accusing triplet of big banknotes
lying on the table, where the congratulators had been
gloating over them and reverently fingering them. Edward did
not answer at once; then he brought out a sigh and said,
hesitatingly:

"We--we couldn't help it, Mary. It--well, it was ordered
All things are."

Mary glanced up and looked at him steadily, but he didn't
return the look. Presently she said:

"I thought congratulations and praises always tasted good.
But--it seems to me, now--Edward?"

"Well?"

"Are you going to stay in the bank?"

"N-no."

"Resign?"

"In the morning--by note."

"It does seem best."

Richards bowed his head in his hands and muttered:

"Before, I was not afraid to let oceans of people's money
pour through my hands, but--Mary, I am so tired, so tired--"

"We will go to bed."

At nine in the morning the stranger called for the sack and
took it to the hotel in a cab. At ten Harkness had a talk
with him privately. The stranger asked for and got five
checks on a metropolitan bank--drawn to "Bearer"--four for
$1,500. each, and one for $34,000. He put one of the former
in his pocketbook, and the remainder, representing $38,500,
he put in an envelope, and with these he added a note, which
he wrote after Harkness was gone. At eleven he called at the
Richards house and knocked. Mrs. Richards peeped through
the shutters, then went and received the envelope, and the
stranger disappeared withont a word. She came back flushed
'and a little unsteady on her legs, and gasped out:

"I am sure I recognized him! Last night it seemed to me
that maybe I had seen him somewhere before."

"He is the man that brought the sack here?"

"I am almost sure of it"

"Then he is the ostensible Stephenson, too, and sold every
important citizen in this town with his bogus secret Now if
he has sent checks instead of money, we are sold, too, after
we thought we had escaped. I was beginning to feel fairly
comfortable once more, after my night's rest, but the look of
that envelope makes me sick. It isn't fat enough; $8,500 in
even the largest bank-notes makes more bulk than that."

"Edward, why do you object to checks?"

"Checks signed by Stephenson! I am resigned to take the
$8,500 if it could come in bank-notes--for it does seem that
it was so ordered, Mary--but I have never had much courage,
and I have not the pluck to try to market a check signed with
that disastrous name. It would be a trap. That man tried to catch
me; we escaped somehow or other; and now he is trying a new
way. If it is checks--"

"Oh, Edward, it is too bad!" and she held up the checks
and began to cry.

"Put them in the fire! quick! we mustn't be tempted. It is
a trick to make the world laugh at us, along with the rest,
and-- Give them to me, since you can't do it!" He snatched
them and tried to hold his grip till he could get to the
stove; but be was human, be was a cashier, and be stopped a
moment to make sure of the signature. Then be came near to
fainting.

"Fan me, Mary, fan me! They are the same as gold!"

"Oh, how lovely, Edward! Why?"

"Signed by Harkness. What can the mystery of that be,
Mary?"

"Edward, do you think--"

"Look here--look at this! Fifteen--fifteen--fifteen--thi-
rty-four. Thirty-eight thousand five hundred! Mary, the
sack isn't worth twelve dollars, and Harkness--apparently
has paid about par for it"

"And does it all come to us, do you think--instead of the
ten thousand?"

"Why, it looks like it And the checks are made to 'Bearer,'
too."

"Is that good, Edward? What is it for?"

"A hint to collect them at some distant bank, I reckon.
Perhaps Harkness doesn't want the matter known. What is
that --a note?"

"Yes. It was with the checks."

It was in the "Stephenson" handwriting, but there was no
signature. It said:

"I am a disappointed man. Your honesty is beyond the
reach of temptation. I had a different idea about it, but I
wronged you in that, and I beg pardon, and do it sincerely. I
honor you--and that is sincere too. This town is not worthy
to kiss the hem of your garment. Dear sir, I made a square
bet with myself that there were nineteen debauchable men in
your self-righteous community. I have lost. Take the whole
pot, you are entitled to it."

Richards drew a deep sigh, and said:

"It seems written with fire--it burns so. Mary--I am miserable
again."

"I, too. Ah, dear, I wish--"

"To think, Mary--he believes in me."

"Oh, don't, Edward-- can't bear it."

"If those beautiful words were deserved, Mary--and God
knows I believed I deserved them once--I think I could give
the forty thousand dollars for them. And I would put that
paper away, as representing more than gold and jewels, and
keep it always. But now-- We could not live in the shadow
of its accusing presence, Mary."

He put it in the fire.

A messenger arrived and delivered an envelope.

Richards took from it a note and read it; it was from Burgess.

"You saved me, in a difficult time. I saved you last night.
It was at cost of a lie, but I made the sacrifice freely, and
out of a grateful heart. None in this village knows so well
as I know kow brave and good and noble you are. At bottom
you cannot respect me, knowing as you do of that matter of
which I am accused, and by the general voice condemned;
but I beg that you will at least believe that I am grateful
man; it will help me to bear my burden."

[Signed] BURGESS

"Saved, once more. And on such terms!" He put the note in
the fire. "I--I wish I were dead, Mary, I wish I were out of
it all"

"Oh, these are bitter, bitter days, Edward. The stabs. through
their very generosity, are so deep--and they come so fast!"

Three days before the election each of two thousand voters
suddenly found himself in possession of a prized memento
--one of the renowned bogus double-eaes. Around one of
its faces was stamped these words: 'THE REMARK I MADE TO
THE POOR STRANGER WAS--" Around the other face was
stamped these: "GO, AND REFORM. [SIGNED] PINKERTON."
Thus the entire remaining refuse of the renowned joke was
emptied upon a single head, and with calamitous effect It
revived the recent vast laugh and concentrated it upon
Pinkerton; and Harkness's election was a walkover.

Within twenty-four hours after the Richardses had received
their checks their consciences were quieting down, discour-
aged; the old couple were learning to reconcile themselves
to the sin which they had committed. But they were to
learn, now, that a sin takes on new and real terrors when
there seems a chance that it is going to be found out. This
gives it a fresh and most substantial and important aspect.
At church the morning sermon was of the usual pattern; it
was the same old things said in the same old way; they had
heard them a thousand times and found them innocuous, next
to meaningless, and easy to sleep under; but now it was
different: the sermon seemed to bristle with accusations;
it seemed aimed straight and specially at people who were
concealing deadly sins. After church they got away from the
mob of congratulators as soon as they could, and hurried
homeward, chilled to the bone at they did not know what
vague, shadowy, indefinite fears. And by chance they caught
a glimpse of Mr. Burgess as he turned a corner. He paid no at-
tention to their nod of recognition! He hadn't seen it; but
they did not know that. What could his conduct mean? It it
mean--it might mean---ch, a dozen dreadful things. Was it
possible that he knew that Richards could have cleared him
of guilt in that bygone time, and had been silently waiting
for a chance to even up accounts? At home, in their distress
they got to imagining that their servant might have been in
the next room listening when Richards revealed the secret
to his wife that he knew of Burgess's innocence; next, Rich-
ard began to imagine that he had heard the swish of a gown
in there at that time; next, he was sure he had heard it They
would call Sarah in, on a pretext, and watch her face: if she
had been betraying them to Mr. Burgess, it would show in
her manner. They asked her some questions--questions which
were so random and incoherent and seeming purposeless that
the girl felt sure that the old people's minds had been
affected by their sudden good fortune; the sharp and watch-
ful gaze which they bent upon her fnghtened her, and Hat
completed the business. She blushed, she became nervous and
confused, and to the old people these were plain signs of
guilt--guilt of some fearful sort or other--without doubt
she was a spy and a traitor. When they were alone again they
began to piece many unrelated things together and get hor-
rible results out of the combination. When things had got
about to the worst, Richards was delivered of a sudden gasp,
and his wife asked:

"Oh, what is it?--what is it?"

'The note--Burgess's note! Its language was sarcastic, I
see it now." He quoted: "'At bottom you cannot respect me,
knowing, as you do, of that matter of which I am accused'--
oh, it is perfectly plain, now, God help me! He knows that
I know! You see the ingenuity of the phrasing. It was a
trap--and like a fool, I walked into it. And Mary--?"

"Oh, it is dreadful--I know what you are going to say
--he didn't return your transcript of the pretended test-
remark."

"No--kept it to destroy us with. Mary, he has exposed us
to some already. I know it--I know it well. I saw it in a
dozen faces after church. Ah, he wouldn't answer our nod of
recognition--he knew what he had been doing!"

In the night the doctor was called. The news went around
in the morning that the old couple were rather seriously ill-
prostrated by the exhausting excitement growing out of their
great windfall, the congratulations, and the late hours, the
doctor said. The town was sincerely distressed; for these old
people were about all it had left to be proud of, now.

Two days later the news was worse. The old couple were
delirious, and were doing strange things. By witness of the
nurses, Richards had exhibited checks--for $8,500? No--for
an amazing sum--$38,500! What could be the explanation
of this gigantic piece of luck?

The following day the nurses had more news--and wonderful.
They had concluded to hide the checks, lest harm come to
them; but when they searched they were gone from under
the patient's pillow--vanished away. The patient said:
"Let the pillow alone; what do you want?"

"We thought it best that the checks--"

"You will never see them again--they are destroyed. They
came from Satan. I saw the hell-brand on them, and I knew
they were sent to betray me to sin." Then he fell to gabbling
strange and dreadful things which were not clearly under-
standable, and which the doctor admonished them to keep to
themselves.

Richards was right; the checks were never seen again.

A nurse must have talked in her sleep, for within two days
the forbidden gabblings were the property of the town; and
they were of a surprising sort They seemed to indicate that
Richards had been a claimant for the sack himself, and that
Burgess had concealed that fact and then maliciously betrayed
it.

Burgess was taxed with this and stoutly denied it. And he
said it was not fair to attach weight to the chatter of a sick
old man who was out of his mind. Still, suspicion was in the
air, and there was much talk.

After a day or two it was reported that Mrs. Richards's de-
lirious deliveries were getting to be duplicates of her hus-
band's. Suspicion flamed up into conviction, now, and the
town's pride in the purity of its one undiscredited important
citizen began to dim down and flicker toward extinction.

Six days passed, then came more news. The old couple were
dying. Richards's mind cleared in his latest hour, and
sent for Burgess. Burgess said:

"Let the room be cleared. I think he wishes to say something
in privacy."

"No!" said Richards: "I want witnesses. I want you all to
hear my confession, so that I may die a man, and not a dog.
I was clean--artificially--like the rest; and like the rest
I fell when temptation came. I signed a lie, and claimed the
miserable sack. Mr. Burgess remembered that I had done him
a service, and in gratitude (and ignorance) suppressed my
claim and saved me. You know the thing that was charged
against Burgess years ago. My testimony, and mine alone,
could have cleared him, and I was a coward, and left him
to suffer disgrace--"

"No--no--Mr. Richards, you--

"My servant betrayed my secret to him--"

"No one has betrayed anything to me--"

--"and then he did a natural and justifiable thing, he re-
pented of the saving kindness which be had done me, and he
exposed me--as I deserved--"

"Never!--make oath--"

"Out of my heart I forgive him."

Burgess's impassioned protestations fell upon deaf ears;
the dying man passed away without knowing that once more
he had done poor Burgess a wrong. The old wife died that
night.

The last of the sacred Nineteen had fallen a prey to the
fiendish sack; the town was stripped of the last rag of its
ancient glory. Its mourning was not showy, but it was deep.

By act of the Legislature--upon prayer and petition--Had-
leyyburg was allowed to change its name to (never mind what
--I will not give it away), and leave one word out of the
motto that for many generations had graced the town's of-
ficial seal.

It is an honest town once more, and the man will have to
rise early that catches it napping again.



1899



The Death Disk


[The text for this story is a touching incident mentioned
in Carlyle's Letters and Speeches of Oliver Cromwell. M.T.]


1


This was in Oliver Cromwell's time. Colonel Mayfair was
the youngest officer of his rank in the armies of the Comm-
onwealth, he being but thirty years old. But young as he
was, he was a veteran soldier, and tanned and war-worn, for
he had begun his military life at seventeen; he had fought in
many battles, and had won his high place in the service and
in the admiration of men, step by step, by valor in the field.
But he was in deep trouble now; a shadow had fallen upon
his fortunes.

The winter evening was come, and outside were storm and
darkness; within, a melancholy silence; for the Colonel and
his young wife had talked their sorrow out, had read the
evening chapter and prayed the evening prayer, and there
was nothing more to do but sit hand in hand and gaze into
the fire, and think--and wait. They would not have to wait
long; they knew that, and the wife shuddered at the thought.

They had one child--Abby, seven years old, their idol. She
would be coming presently for the good-night kiss, and the
Colonel spoke now, and said;

"Dry away the tears and let us seem happy, for her sake.
We must forget, for the time, that which is to happen."

"I will I will shut them up in my heart, which is breaking."

"And we will accept what is appointed for us, and bear it
in patience, as knowing that whatsoever He doeth is done in
righteousness and meant in kindness--"

"Saying, His will be done. Yes, I can say it with all my
mind and soul-- would I could say it with my heart. Oh, if
I couldl if this dear hand which I press and kiss for the
last time--"

'Sh! sweetheart, she is coming!"

A curly-headed little figure in nightclothes glided in at
the door and ran to the father, and was gather to his breast
and fervently kissed once, twice, three times.

"Why, papa, you mustn't kiss me like that: you rumple my
hair."

"Oh, I am so sorry--so sorry: do you forgive me, dear?"

"Why, of course, papa. But are you sorry?--not pretending,
but real, right down sorry?"

"Well, you can judge for youself, Abby," and he covered
his face with his hands and made believe to sob. The child
was filled with remorse to see this tragic thing which she had
caused, and she began to cry herself, and to tug at the hands,
and say:

"Oh, don't, papa, please don't cry; Abby didn't mean it;
Abby wouldn't ever do it again. Please, papa!" Tugging and
straining to separate the fingers, she got a fleeting glimpse
of an eye behind them, and cried out: "Why, you naughty papa,
you are not crying at all! You are only fooling! And Abby
is going to mamma, now: you don't treat Abby right."

She was for climbing down, but her father wound his arms
about her and said: "No, stay with me, dear: papa was naughty,
and confesses it and is sorry--there, let him kiss the tears
away--and he begs Abby's forgiveness, and will do anything
Abby says he must do, for a punishment; they're all kissed
away now, and not a curl rumpled--and whatever Abby com-
mands--"

And so it was made up; and all in a moment the sunshine
was back again and burning brightly in the child's face, and
she was patting her father's cheeks and naming the penalty
--"A story! a story!"

Hark!

The elders stopped breathing, and listened. Footsteps!
faintly caught between the gusts of wind. They came nearer,
nearer--louder, louder--then passed by and faded away. The
elders drew deep breaths of relief, and the papa said: "A
story, is it? A gay one?"

"No, papa: a dreadful one."

Papa wanted to shift to the gay kind, but the child stood
by her rights--as per agreement, she was to have anything
she commanded. He was a good Puritan soldier and had
passed his word--he saw that he must make it good. She
said:

"Papa, we mustn't always have gay ones. Nurse says people
don't always have gay times. Is that true, papa? She says
so."

The mamma sighed, and her thoughts drifted to her troubles
again. The papa said, gently: "It is true, dear. Troubles
have to come; it is a pity, but it is true."

"Oh, then tell a story about them, papa--a dreadful one, so
that we'll shiver, and feel just as if it was us. Mamma, you
snuggle up close, and hold one of Abby's hands, so that if
it's too dreadful it'll be easier for us to bear it if we are
all snuggled up together, you know. Now you can begin, papa."
"Well, once there were three Colonels--"

"Oh, goody! I know Colonels, just as easy! It's because you
are one, and I know the clothes. Go on, papa."

"And in a battle they had committed a breach of discipline."

The large words struck the child's ear pleasantly, and she
looked up, full of wonder and interest, and said:

"Is it something good to eat, papa?"

The parents almost smiled, and the father answered:

"No, quite another matter, dear. They exceeded their orders."

"Is that someth--"

"No; it's as uneatable as the other. They were ordered to feign
an attack on a strong position in a losing fight, in order to
draw the enemy about and give the Commonwealth's forces a
chance to retreat; but in their enthusiasm they overstepped
their orders, for they turned the feint into a fact, and car-
ried the position by storm, and won the day and the battle.
The Lord General was very angry at their disobedience, and
praised them highly, and ordered them to London to be tried
for their lives."

"Is it the great General Cromwell, papa?"

"Yes."

"Oh, I've seen him, papa! and when he goes by our house so
grand on his big horse, with the soldiers, he looks so--so
--well, I don't know just how, only he looks as if he isn't
satisfied, and you can see the people are afraid of him; but
I'm not afraid of him, because he didn't look like that at
me."

''Oh, you dear prattlerl Well, the Colonels came prisonexs
to London, and were put upon their honor, and allowed to go
and see their families for the last--"

Hark!

They listened. Footsteps again; but again they passed by.
The mamma leaned her head upon her husband's Moulder to
hide her paleness.

"They arrived this morning."

The child's eyes opened wide.

"Why, papa! is it a true story?"

"Yes, dear."

"Oh, how good! Oh, it's ever so much better! Go on, papa.
Why, mamma!--dear mamma, are you crying?"

"Never mind me, dear--I was thinking of the--of the--the
poor families."

"But don't cry, mamma: it'll all come out right--you'll see;
stories always do. Go on, papa, to where they lived happy
ever after; then she won't cry any more. You'll see, mamma.
Go on, papa."

"First, they took them to the Tower before they let them
go home."

"Oh, I know the Tower! We can see it from here. Go on,
papa."

"I am going on as well as I can, in the circumstances. In
the Tower the military court tried them for an hour, and
found them guilty, and condemned them to be shot"

"Killed, papa?"

"Yes."

"Oh, how naughty! Dear mamma, you are crying again.
Don't mamma; it 'll soon come to the good place--you'll see.
Hurry, papa, for mama's sake; you don't go fast enough."

"I know I don't, but I suppose it is because I stop so much
to reflect"

"But you mustn't do it, papa; you must go right on."

"Very well, then. The three Colonels--"

"Do you know them, papa?"

"Yes, dear."

"Oh, I wish I did! I love Colonels. Would they let me kiss
them, do you think?" The Colonel's voice was a little unsteady
when he answered:

"One of them would, my darling! There--kiss me for him."

"There, papa--and these two are for the others. I think
they would let me kiss them, papa; for I would say, 'My papa
is a Colonel, too, and brave, and he would do what you did;
so it can't be wrong, no matter what those people say, and
you needn't be the least bit ashamed'; then they would let
me--wouldn't they, papa?"

"God knows they would, child!"

"Mamma!--oh, mamma, you mustn't He's soon coining
to the happy place; go on, papa."

"Then, some were sorry--they all were; that military
court, I mean; and they went to the Lord General, and said
they had done their duty--for it was their duty, you know
--and now they begged that two of the Colonels might be
spared, and only the other one shot. One would be sufficient
for an example for the army, they thought. But the Lord
General was very stern, and rebuked them forasmuch as,
having done their duty and cleared their consciences, they
would beguile him to do less, and so smirch his soldierly
honor. But they answered that they were asking nothing of
him that they would not do themselves if they stood in his
great place and held in their hands the noble prerogative of
mercy. That struck him, and he paused and stood thinking,
some of the sternness passing out of his face. Presently he bid
them wait, and he retired to his closet to seek counsel of God
in prayer; and when he came again, he said: 'They shall cast
lots. That shall decide it, and two of them shall live.'"

"And did they, papa, did they? And which one is to die--
ah, that poor man!"

"No. They refused."

"They wouldn't do it, papa?"

"No."

"Why?"

"They said that the one that got the fatal bean would be
sentencing himself to death by his own voluntary act, and it
would be but suicide, call it by what name one might. They
said they were Christians, and the Bible forbade men to
take their own lives. They sent back that word, and said they
were ready--let the court's sentence be carried into effect"

"What does that mean, papa?"

"They--they will all be shot."

Hark!

The wind? No. Tramp--tramp--tramp--r-r-r-umble-dumdum,
r-r-rumble-dumdum--

"Open--in the Lord General's name!"

"Oh, goody, papa, it's the soldiers!--I love the soldiers! Let
me let them in, papa, let me!"

She jumped down, and scampered to the door and pulled it
open, crying joyously: "Come in! come in! Here they are,
papa! Grenadiers! I know the Grenadiers!"

The file marched in and straightened up in line at shoulder
arms; its officer saluted, the doomed Colonel standing erect
and returning the courtesy, the soldier wife standing at his
side, white, and with features drawn with inward pain, but
giving no other sign of her misery, the child gazing on the
show with dancing eyes....

One long embrace, of father, mother, and child; then the
order, "To the Tower--forward!" Then the Colonel marched
forth from the house with military step and bearing, the file
following; then the door closed.

"Oh, mamma, didn't it come out beautiful! I told you it
would; and they're going to the Tower, and he'll see them!
He--"

"Oh, come to my arms, you poor innocent thing!"...


2


The next morning the stricken mother was not able to leave
her bed; doctors and nurses were watching by her, and whis-
pering together now and then; Abby could not be allowed in
the room; she was told to run and play--mamma was very ill.
The child, muffled in winter wraps, went out and played
in the street awhile; then it struck her as strange, and also
wrong, that her papa should be allowed to stay at the Tower
in ignorance at such a time as this. This must be remedied;
she would attend to it in person.

An hour later the military court were ushered into the
presence of the Lord General. He stood grim and erect, with
his knuckles resting upon the table, and indicated that he
was ready to listen. The spokesman said: "We have urged them
to reconsider; we have implored them: but they persist. They
will not cast lots. They are willing to die, but not to defile
their religion."

The Protector's face darkened, but he said nothing. He remained
a time in thought, then he said: "They shall not all die; the
lots shall be cast for them." Gratitude shone in the faces of
the court. "Send for them. Place them in that room there.
Stand them side by side with their faces to the wall and
their wrists crossed behind them. Let me have notice when
they are there."

Aen he was alone he sat down, and presently gave this order
to an attendant: "Go, bring me the first little child that
passes by."

The man was hardly out at the door before he was back again
--leading Abby by the hand, her garments lightly powdered
with snow. She went straight to the Head of the State, that
formidable personage at the mention of whose name the prin-
cipalities and powers of the earth trembled, and climbed
op in his lap, and said:

"I know you, sir: you are the Lord General; I have seen
you; I have seen you when you went by my house. Everybody
was afraid; but I wasn't afraid, because you didn't look
cross at me; you remember, don't you? I bad on my red frock
--the one with the blue things on it down the front. Don't
you remember that?"

A smile softened the austere lines of the Protector's face,
and he began to struggle diplomatically with his answer:

"Why, let me see--I--"

"I was standing right by the house--my house, you know."

"Well, you dear little thing, I ought to be ashamed, but you
know--"

The child interrupted, reproachfully.

"Now you don't remember it. Why, I didn't forget you"

"Now, I am ashamed: but I will never forget you again,
dear; you have my word for it. You will forgive me now,
won't you, and be good friends with me, always and forever?"
"Yes, indeed I will, though I don't know how you came to
forget it; you must be very forgetful: but I am too, sometimes.
I can forgive you without any trouble, for I think you mean
to be good and do right, and I think you are just as kind
--but you must snuggle me better, the way papa does--it's
cold."

"You shall be snuggled to your heart's content, little new
friend of mine, always to be old friend of mine hereafter,
isn't it? You mind me of my little girl--not little any more,
now--but she was dear, and sweet, and daintily made, like
you. And she had your charm, little witch--your all-conquer-
ing sweet confidence in friend and stranger alike, that wins
to willing slavery any upon whom its precious compliment
falls. She used to lie in my arms, just as you are doing now;
and charm the weariness and care out of my heart and give
it peace, just as you are doing now; and we were comrades,
and equals, and playfellows together. Ages ago it was, since
that pleasant heaven faded away and vanished, and you have
brought it back again;--take a burdened man's blessing for
it, you tiny creature, who are carrying the weight of England
while I rest!"

"Did you love her very, very, very much?"

"Ah, you shall judge by this: she commanded and I obeyed!"

"I think you are lovely! Will you kiss me?"

"Thankfully--and hold it a privilege, too. There--this one
is for you; and there--this one is for her. You made it a
request; and you could have made it a command, for you are
representing her, and what you command I must obey."

The child clapped her hands with delight at the idea of
this grand promotion--then her ear caught an approaching
sound: she measured tramp of marching men.

"Soldiers!--soldiers, Lord Generall Abby wants to see
them!"

"You shall, dear; but wait a moment, I have a commission
for you."

An officer entered and bowed low, saying, "They are come,
your Highness," bowed again, and retired.

The Head of the Nation gave Abby three little disks of
sealing-wax two white, and one a ruddy red--for this one's
mission was to deliver death to the Colonel who should get
it.

"Oh, what a lovely red one! Are they for me?"

"No, dear; they are for others. Lift the corner of that cur-
tain, there, which hides an open door; pass through, and you
will see three men standing in a row, with their backs toward
you and their hands behind their backs--so--each with one
hand open, like a cup. Into each of the open hands drop one
of those things, then come back to me."

Abby disappeared behind the curtain, and the Protector was
alone. He said, reverently: "Of a surety that good thought
came to me in my perplexity from Him who is an ever-present
help to them that are in doubt and seek His aid. He knoweth
where the choice should fall, and has sent His sinless
messenger to do His will. Another would err, but He cannot
err. Wonderful are His ways, and wise--blessed be His holy
Name!"

The small fairy dropped the curtain behind her and stood
for a moment conning with alert curiosity the appointments
of the chamber of doom, and the rigid figures of the soldiery
and the prisoners; then her face lighted merrily, and she
said to herself: "Why, one of them is papa! I know his back.
He shall have the prettiest one!" She tripped gaily forward
and dropped the disks into the open hands, then peeped
around under her father's arm and lifted her laughing face
and cried out:

"Papa! papa! look what you've got. I gave it to you!"

He glanced at the fatal gift, then sunk to his knees and
gathered his innocent little executioner to his breast in an
agony of love and pity. Soldiers, officers, released prisoners,
all stood paralyzed, for a moment, at the vastness of this
tragedy, then the pitiful scene smote their hearts, their eyes
filled, and they wept unashamed. There was deep and reverent
silence during some minutes, then the officer of the guard
moved reluctantly forward and touched his prisoner on the
shoulder, saying, gently:

"It grieves me, sir, but my duty commands."

"Commands what?" said the child.

"I must take him away. I am so sorry."

"Take him away? Where?"

"To--to--God help me!--to another part of the fortress."

"Indeed you can't. My mamma is sick, and I am going to
take him home." She released herself and climbed upon her
father's back and put her arms around his neck. "Now
Abby's ready, papa--come along."

"My poor child, I can't. I must go with them."

The child jumped to the ground and looked about her,
wondering. Then she ran and stood before the officer and
stamped her small foot indignantly and cried out:
"I told you my mamma is sick, and you might have listened.
Let him go--you must!"

"Oh, poor child, would God I could, but indeed I must
take him away. Attention, guard!...fall in!...shoulder
arms!"...

Abby was gone--like a flash of light. In a moment she was
back, dragging the Lord Protector by the hand. At this formidable
apparition all present straightened up, the officers saluting
and the soldiers presenting arms.

"Stop them, sir! My mamma is sick and wants my papa,
and I told them so, but they never even listened to me, and
are taking him away."

The Lord General stood as one dazed.

"Your papa, child? Is he your papa?"

"Why, of course--he was always it. Would I give the
pretty red one to any other, when I love him so? No!"

A shocked expression rose in the Protector's face, and he
said:

"Ah, God help me! through Satan's wiles I have done the
cruelest thing that ever man did--and there is no help, no
help! What can I do?"

Abby cried out, distressed and impatient: "Why you can
make them let him go," and she began to sob. "Tell them to
do it! You told me to command, and now the very first time
I tell you to do a thing you don't do it!"

A lender light dawned in the rugged old face, and the Lord
General laid his hand upon the small tyrant's head and said:
"God be thanked for the saving accident of that unthinking
promise; and you, inspired by Him, for reminding me of my
forgotten pledge, O incomparable child! Officer, obey her
command--she speaks by my mouth. The prisoner is pardoned;
set him free!"

1901



Two Little Tales


FIRST STORY: THE MAN WITH A MESSAGE FOR THE DIRECTOR-GENERAL


Some days ago, in this second month of 1900, a friend
made an afternoon call upon me here in London. We are of
that age when men who are smoking away their times in chat
do not talk quite so much about the pleasantnesses of life
as about its exasperations. By and by s friend began to abuse
the War Office. It appeared that he had a friend who had been
inventing something which could be made very useful to the
soldiers in South Africa. It was a light and very cheap and
durable boot, which would remain dry in wet weather, and keep
its shape and firmness. The inventor wanted to get the govern-
ment's attention called to it, but he was an unknown man and
knew the great officials would pay no heed to a message from
him.

"This shows that he was an ass--like the rest of us," I said,
interrupting. "Go on,"

"But why have you said that? The man spoke the truth."

"The man spoke a lie. Go on,"

"I will prove that he--"

"You can't prove anything of the kind. I am very old and
very wise. You must not argue with me: it is irreverent and
offensive. Go on."

"Very well. But you will presently see, I am not unknown,
yet even I was not able to get the man's message to the
Director-General of the Shoe-Leather Department,"

"This is another lie. Pray go on."

"But I assure you on my honor that I failed."

"Oh, certainly. I knew that. You didn't need to tell me."

"Then where is the lie?"

"It is in your intimation that you were not able to get the
Director-General's immediate attention to the man's message.
It is a lie, because you could have gotten his immediate
attention to it."

"I tell you I couldn't. In three months I haven't accomplished
it"

"Certainly. Of course. I could know that without your telling
me. You could have gotten his immediate attention if you
had gone at it in a sane way; and so could the other man."

"I did go at it in a sane way."

"You didn't."

"How do you know? What do you know about the circumstances?"

"Nothing at all. But you didn't go at in a sane way. That
much I know to a certainty."

"How can you know it, when you don't know what method
I used?"

"I know by the result. The result is perfect proof. You
went at it in an insane way. I am very old and very w--"

"Oh, yes, I know. But will you let me tell you how I proceeded?
I think that will settle whether it was insanity or not."

"No; that has already been settled. But go on, since you so
desire to expose yourself. I am very o--"

"Certainly, certainly. I sat down and wrote a courteous letter
to the Director-General of the Shoe-Leather Department, explai--"

"Do you know him personally?"

"No."

"You have scored one for my side. You began insanely. Go
on."

"In the letter I made the great value and inexpensiveness
of the invention clear, and offered to--"

"Call and see him? Of course you did. Score two against
yourself. I am v--"

"He didn't answer for three days."

"Necessarily. Proceed."

"Sent me three gruff lines thanking me for my trouble,
and proposing--"

"Nothing."

"That's it--proposing nothing. Then I wrote him more
elaborately and--"

"Score three--"

--"and got no answer. At the end of a week I wrote and
asked, with some touch of asperity, for an answer to that
letter."

"Four. Go on."

"An answer came back saying the letter had not been received,
and asking for a copy. I traced the letter through the post-
office, and found that it had been received; but I sent a
copy and said nothing. Two weeks passed without further not-
ice of me. In the mean time I gradually got myself cooled
down to a polite-letter temperature. Then I wrote and propos-
ed an interview for next day, and said that if I did not
hear from him in the mean time I should take his silence
for assent"

"Score five."

"I arrived at twelve sharp, and was given a chair in the
anteroom and told to wait. I waited until half past one; then
I left, ashamed and angry. I waited another week, to cool
down; then I wrote and made another appointment with him for
next day noon."

"Score six."

"He answered, assenting. I arrived promptly, and kept a
chair warm until half past two. I left then, and shook the
dust of that place from my shoes for good and all. For rudeness,
inefficiency, incapacity, indifference to the army's interests,
the Director-General of the Shoe-Leather Department of the War
Office is, in my o--

"Peace! I am very old and very wise, and have seen many seem-
ingly intelligent people who hadn't common sense enough to
go at a simple and easy thing like this in a common-sense
way. You are not a curiosity to me; I have personally known
millions and billions like you. You have lost three months
quite unnecessarily; the inventor has lost three months;
the soldiers have lost three--nine months altogether. I
will now read you a little tale which I wrote last night.
Then you will call on the Director-General at noon tomorrow
and transact your business."


"Splendid! Do you know him?"

"No; but listen to the tale."



SECOND STORY: HOW THE CHIMNEY-SWEEP GOT THE EAR OF THE EMPEROR


Summer was come, and all the strong were bowed by the burden
of the awful heat, and many of the weak were prostrate and
dying. For weeks the army had been wasting away with a plague
of dysentery, that scourge of the soldier, and there was but
little help. The doctors were in despair; such efficacy as
their drugs and their science had once had--and it was not
much at its best--was a thing of the past, and promised to
remain so.

The Emperor commanded the physicians of greatest renown to
appear before him for a consultation, for he was profoundly
disturbed. He was very severe with them, and called them to
account for letting his soldiers die; and asked them if they
knew their trade, or didn't; and were they properly healers,
or merely assassins? Then the principal assassin, who was al-
so the oldest doctor in the land and the most venerable in
appearance, answered and said:

"We have done what we could, your Majesty, and for a
good reason it has been little. No medicine and no pbysi-
cian can cure that disease; only nature and a good constitu
tion can do it. I am old, and I know. No doctor and no med'
icine can cure it-- repeat it and I emphasize it. Sometimes
they seem to help nature a little--a very little--but as a rule,
they merely do damage."

The Emperor was a profane and passionate man, and he
deluged the doctors with rugged and unfamiliar names, and
drove them from his presence.

Within a day he was attacked by that fell disease himself
The news flew from mouth to mouth, and carried consternation
with it over all the land.

All the talk was about this awful disaster, and there was
general depression, for few had hope. The Emperor himself
was very melancholy, and sighed and said:

"The will of God be done. Send for the assassins again,
and let us get over with it."

They came, and felt his pulse and looked at his tongue,
and fetched the drug-store and emptied it into him, and sat
down patiently to wait--for they were not paid by the job,
but by the year.


2


Tommy was sixteen and a bright lad, but he was not in society.
His rank was too humble for that, and his employment
too base. In fact, it was the lowest of all employments, for he
was second in command to his father, who emptied cesspools
and drove a night-cart. Tommy's closest friend was Jimmy
the chimney-sweep, a slim little fellow of fourteen, who was
honest and industrious, and had a good heart, and supported
a bedridden mother by his dangerous and unpleasant trade.

About a month after the Emperor fell ill, these two lads
met one evening about nine. Tommy was on his way to his
night-work, and of course was not in his Sundays, but in
his dreadful work-clothes, and not smelling very well. Jimmy
was on his way home from his day's labor, and was blacker
than any other object imaginable, and he had his brushes on
his shoulder and his soot-bag at his waist, and no feature of
his sable face was distinguishable except his lively eyes.

They sat down on the curbstone to talk; and of course it
was upon the one subject--the nation's calamity, the Emperor's
disorder. Jimmy was full of a great project, and burning
to unfold it He said:

"Tommy, I can cure his Majesty. I know how to do it."

Tommy was surprised.

"What! You?"

"Yes, I."

"Why, you little fool, the best doctors can't."

"I don't care: I can do it. I can cure him in fifteen minutes."

"Oh, come of! What are you giving me?"

"The facts--that's all."

Jimmy's manner was so serious that it sobered Tommy,
who said:

"I believe you are in earnest, Jimmy. Are you in earnest?"

"I give you my word."

"What is the plan? How'll you cure him?"

"Tell him to eat a slice of ripe watermelon."

It caught Tommy rather suddenly, and he was shouting with
laughter at the absurdity of the idea before he could put on
a stopper. But he sobered down when he saw that Jimmy was
wounded. He patted Jimmy's knee affectionately, not minding
the soot, and said:

"I take the laugh all back. I didn't mean any harm, Jimmy,
and I won't do it again. You see, it seemed so funny, be-
cause wherever there's a soldier-camp and dysentery, the
doctors always put up a sign saying anybody caught bringing
watermelons there will flogged with the cat till he can't
stand."

"I know it--the idiots!" said Jimmy, with both tears and
anger in his voice. "There's plenty of watermelons, and not
one of all those soldiers ought to have died."

"But, Jimmy, what put the notion into your head?"

"It isn't a notion; it's a fact. Do you know that old grayheaded
Zulu? Well, this long time back he has been curing a lot of
our friends, and my mother has seen him do it, and so have I.
It takes only one or two slices of melon, and it don't make
any difference whether the disease is new or old; it cures it."

"It's very odd. But, Jimmy, if it is so, the Emperor ought to
be told of it."

"Of course; and my mother has told people, hoping they
could get the word to him; but they are poor working-folks
and ignorant, and don't know how to manage it"

"Of course they don't, the blunderheads," said Tommy,
scornfully. I'll get it to him!"

"You? You night-cart polecat!" And it was Jimmy's turn
to laugh. But Tommy retorted sturdily:

"Oh, laugh if you like; but I'll do it!"

It had such an assured and confident sound that it made
an impression, and Jimmy asked gravely:

"Do you know the Emperor?"

"Do I know him? Why, how you talk! Of course I don't."

"Then how'll you do it?"

''It's very simple and very easy. Guess. How would you do
it, Jimmy?"

"Send him a letter. I never thought of it till this minute.
But I'll bet that's your way."

"I'll bet it ain't. Tell me, how would you send it?

"Why, through the mail, of course."

Tommy overwhelmed him with scoffings, and said;

"Now, don't you suppose every crank in the empire is doing
the same thing? Do you mean to say you haven't thought
of that?"

"Well--no," said Jimmy, abashed.

"You might have thought of it, if you weren't so young
and inexperienced. Why, Jimmy, when even a common general,
or a poet, or an actor, or anybody that's a little famous
gets sick, all the cranks in the kingdom load up the mails
with certain-sure quack cures for him. And so, what's bound
to happen when it's the Emperor?"

"I suppose it's worse," said Jimmy, sheepishly.

"Well, I should think so! Look here, Jimmy: every single
night we cart off as many as six loads of that kind of letters
from the back yard of the palace, where they're thrown.
Eighty thousand letters in one night! Do you reckon anybody
reads them? Sho! not a single one. It's what would happen
to your letter if you wrote it--which you won't, I reckon?"

"No," sighed Jimmy, crushed.

"But it's all right, Jimmy. Don't you fret: there's more than
one way to skin a cat. I'll get the word to him."

"Oh, if you only could, Tommy, I should love you forever!"

"I'll do it, I tell you. Don't you worry; you depend on
me."

"Indeed I will. Tommy, for you do know so much. You're
not like other boys: they never know anything. How'll you
manage. Tommy?"

Tommy was greatly pleased. He settled himself for reposeful
talk, and said:

"Do you know that ragged poor thing that thinks he's a
butcher because he goes around with a basket and sells cat's
meat and rotten livers? Well, to begin with. I'll tell him!"

Jimmy was deeply disappointed and chagrined, and said:

"Now, Tommy, it's a shame to talk so. You know my heart's in
it, and it's not right."

Tommy gave him a love-pat, and said:

"Don't you be troubled, Jimmy. I know what I'm about Pretty
soon you'll see. That half-breed butcher will tell the old
woman that sells chestnuts at the corner of the lane--she's
his closest friend, and I'll ask him to; then, by request, she'll
tell her rich aunt that keeps the little fruit-shop on the corner
two blocks above; and that one will tell her particular friend,
the man that keeps the game-shop; and he will tell his friend
the sergeant of police; and the sergeant will tell his captain,
and the captain will tell the magistrate, and the magistrate
will tell his brother-in-law the county judge, and the county
judge will ten the sheriff, and the sheriff will tell the Lord
Mayor, and the Lord Mayor will tell the President of the
Council, and the President of the Council will tell the--"

"By George, but it's a wonderful scheme. Tommy! How ever did
you--"

"--Rear-Admiral, and the Rear will tell the Vice, and the
Vice will tell the Admiral of the Blue, and the Blue will tell
the Red, and the Red will tell the White, and the White will
tell the First Lord of the Admiralty, and the First Lord will
tell the Speaker of the House, and the Speaker--"

"Go it, Tommy; you're 'most there!"

"--will tell the Master of the Hounds, and the Master will
tell the Head Groom of the Stables, and the Head Groom will
tell the Chief Equerry, and the Chief Equerry will tell the
First Lord in Waiting, and the First Lord will tell the Lord
High Chamberlain, and the Lord High Chamberlain will tell
the Master of the Household, and the Master of the Household
will tell the little pet page that fans the flies off the Emperor,
and the page will get down on his knees and whisper it to
his Majesty--and the game's made!"

"I've got to get up and hurrah a couple of times. Tommy.
It's the grandest idea that ever was. What ever put it into
your head?"

"Sit down and listen, and I'll give you some wisdom--and
don't you ever forget it as long as you live. Now, then, who
is the closest friend you've got, and the one you couldn't
and wouldn't ever refuse anything in the world to?"

"Why, it's you. Tommy. You know that."

"Suppose you wanted to ask a pretty large favor of the
cat's-meat man. Well, you don't know him, and he would
tell you to go to thunder, for he is that kind of a person;
but he is my next best friend after you, and would run his
legs off to do me a kindness--any kindness, he don't care
what it is. Now, I'll ask you; which is the most commonsensible--
for you to go and ask him to tell the chestnutwoman about
your watermelon cure, or for you to get me to do it for you?"

"To get you to do it for me, of course. I wouldn't ever
have thought of that, Tommy; it's splendid!"

"It's a philosophy, you see. Mighty good word--and large.
It goes on this idea: everybody in the world, little and big,
has one special friend, a friend that he's glad to do favors to
--not sour about it, but glad--glad clear to the marrow. And
so, I don't care where you start, you can get at anybody's car
that you want to--I don't care how low you are, nor how
high he is. And it's so simple: you've only to find the first
friend, that is all; that ends your part of the work. He finds
the next friend himself, and that one finds the third, and so
on, friend after friend, link after link, like a chain; and
you can go up it or down it, as high as you like or as low as
you like."

"It's just beautiful, Tommy."

"It's as simple and easy as a-b-c; but did you ever hear of
anybody trying it? No; everybody is a fool. He goes to a
stranger without any introduction, or writes him a letter, and
of course he strikes a cold wave--and serves him gorgeously
right. Now, the Emperor don't know me, but that's no matter--
he'll eat his watermelon to-morrow. You'll see. Hi-hi--
stop! It's the cat's-meat man. Good-by, Jimmy; I'll overtake
him,"

He did overtake him, and said:

"Say, will you do me a favor?"

"Will 1? Well, I should say! I'm your man. Name it, and
see me fly!"

"Go tell the chestnut-woman to put down everything and carry
this message to her first-best friend, and tell 'he friend
to pass it along." He worded the message, and said, "Now,
then, rush!"

The next moment the chimney-sweep's word to the Emperor
was on its way.


3


The next evening, toward midnight, the doctors sat whispering
together in the imperial sick-room and they were in deep
trouble, for the Emperor was in very bad case. They could
not hide it from themselves that every time they emptied
a fresh drug-store into him he got worse. It saddened them,
for they were expecting that result. The poor emaciated
Emperor lay motionless, with his eyes closed, and the page
that was his darling was fanning the flies away and crying
softly. Presently the boy heard the silken rustle of a portiere,
and turned and saw the Lord High Great Master of the Household
peering in at the door and excitedly motioning to him to come.
Lightly and swiftly the page tip-toed his way to his dear
and worshiped friend the Master, who said:

''Only you can persuade him, my child, and oh, don't fail
to do it! Take this, make him eat it, and he is saved."

"On my head be it. He shall eat it!"

It was a couple of great slices of ruddy, fresh watermelon.

The next morning news flew everywhere that the Emperor
was sound and well again, and had hanged the doctors.

A wave of joy swept the land, and frantic preparations were
made to illuminate.

After breakfast his Majesty sat meditating. His gratitude
was unspeakable, and he was trying to devise a reward rich
enough to properly testify it to his benefactor. He got it
arrange in his mind, and called the page, and asked him if he
had invented that cure. The boy said no--he got it from the
Master of the Household.

He was sent away, and the Emperor went to devising again.
The Master was an earl; he would make him a duke, and give
him a vast estate which belonged to a member of the Oppo-
sition. He had him called, and asked him if he was the in-
ventor of the remedy. But the Master was an honest man,
and said he got it of the Grand Chamberlain. He was sent
away, and tte Emperor thought smne more. The Chamberlain
was a viscount; he would make him an earl, and give him
a large income. But the Chamberlain referred him to the
First Lord in Waiting, and there was some more thinking;
his Majesty thought out a smaller reward. But the First
Lord in Waiting referred him back further, and he had to
sit down and think out a further and becomingly and suitab-
ly smaller reward.

Then, to break the tediousness of the inquiry and hurry
the business, he sent for the Grand High Cef Detective,
and commanded him to trace the cure to the bottom, so that
be could properly reward his benefactor.

At nine in the evening the High Chief Detective brought
the word. He had traced the cure down to a lad named
Jimmy, a chimney-sweep. The Emperor said, with deep feeling:

"Brave boy, he saved my life, and shall not regret it!"

And sent him a pair of his own boots; and the next best
ones he had, too. They were too large for Jimmy, but they
fitted the Zulu, so it was all right, and everything as it
should be.

CONCLUSION TO THE FIRST STORY

"There--do you get the idea?"

"I am obliged to admit that I do. And it will be as you have
said. I will transact the business to-morrow. I intimately
know the Director-General's nearest friend. He will give me
a note of introduction, with a word to say my matter is of real
importance to the government. I will take it along, without
an appointment, and send it in, with my card, and I sha'n't
have to wait so much as half a minute."

That turned out true to the letter, and the government
adopted the boots.

1901



The Belated Russian Passport



One fly makes a summer.--Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar


A great beer-saloon in the Friedrichstrasse, Berlin, toward
mid-afternoon. At a hundred round tables gentlemen sat
smoking and drinking; flitting here and there and everywhere
were white-aproned waiters bearing foaming mugs to the
thirsty. At a table near the main entrance were grouped half
a dozen lively young fellows--American students--drinking
good-by to a visiting Yale youth on his travels, who had been
spending a few days in the German capital.

"But why do you cut your tour short in the middle, Parrish?"
asked one of the students. "I wish I had your chance. What
do you want to go home for?"

"Yes," said another, "What is the idea? You want to explain,
you know, because it looks like insanity. Homesick?"

A girlish blush rose in Parrish's fresh young face, and after
a little hesitation he confessed that that was his trouble.

"I was never away from home before," he said, "and every
day I get more and more lonesome. I have not seen a friend
for weeks, and it's been horrible. I meant to stick the trip
through, for pride's sake, but seeing you boys has finished
me. It's been heaven to me, and I can't take up that compan-
ionless dreariness again. If I had company--but I haven't,
you know, so it's no use. They used to call me Miss Nancy when
I was a small chap, and I reckon I'm that yet--girlish and
timorous, and all that. I ought to have been a girl! I can't
stand it; I'm going home."

The boys rallied him good-naturedly, and said he was mak-
ing the mistake of his life; and one of them added that
he ought at least to see St. Petersburg before turning back.

"Don't!" said Parrish, appealingly. "It was my dearest
dream, and I'm throwing it away. Don't say a word more on
that head, for I'm made of water, and can't stand out against
anybody's persuasion. I can't go alone; I think I should die."
He slapped his breast pocket, and added: ''Here is my protec-
tion against a change of mind; I've bought ticket and sleeper
for Paris, and I leave to-night Drink, now--this is on me--
bumpers--this is for homeI"

The good-bys were said, and Alfred Parrish was left to his
thoughts and his loneliness. But for a moment only. A sturdy
middle-aged man with a brisk and businesslike bearing, and
an air of decision and confidence suggestive of military train-
ing, came bustling from the next table, and seated himself at
Parrish's side, and began to speak, with concentrated interest
and earnestness. His eyes, his face, his person, his whole
system, seemed to exude energy. He was full of steam-racing
pressure--one could almost hear his gauge-cocks sing. He
extended a frank hand, shook Parrish's cordially, and said,
with a most convincing air of strenuous conviction:

"Ah, but you mustn't; really you mustn't; it would be the
greatest mistake; you would dways regret it Be persuaded,
I beg you; don't do it--don't!"

There was such a friendly note in it, and such a seeming
of genuineness, that it brought a sort of uplift to the youth's
despondent spirits, and a telltale moisture betrayed itself in
his eyes, an unintentional confession that he was touched
and grateful. The alert stranger noted that sign, was quite
content with that response, and followed up his advantage
without waiting for a spoken one:

"No, don't do it; it would be a mistake. I have heard every-
thing What was said--you will pardon that--I was so close by
that I couldn't help it. And it troubled me to think that you
would cut your travels short when you really want to see St.
Petersburg, and are right here almost in sight of it! Reconsider
it--ah, you must reconsider it. It is such a short distance--
it is very soon done and very soon over--and think what a mem-
ory it will be!"

Then he went on and made a picture of the Russian capital
and its wonders, which made Alfred Parrish's mouth water and
his roused spirits cry out with longing. Then --

"Of course you must see St. Petersburg--you must! Why,
it will be a joy to you--a joy! I know, because I know the
place as familiarly as I know my own birthplace in America.
Ten years--I've known it ten years. Ask anybody there;
they'll tell you; they all know me--Major Jackson. The very
dogs know me. Do go; oh, you must go; you must, indeed."

Alfred Parrish was quivering with eagerness now. He would go.
His face said it as plainly as his tongue could have done it.
Then--the old shadow fell,--and he said, sorrowfully:

"Oh, no--no, it's no use; I can't. I should die of the lone-
liness."

The Major said, with astonishment: "The--loneliness! Why,
I'm going with you!"

It was startlingly unexpected. And not quite pleasant.
Things were moving too rapidly. Was this a trap? Was this
stranger a sharper? Whence all this gratuitous interest in
a wandering and unknown lad? Then he glanced at the Major's
frank and winning and beaming face, and was ashamed; and
wished he knew how to get out of this scrape without hurting
the feelings of its contriver. But he was not handy in mat-
ters of diplomacy, and went at the difficulty with conscious
awkwardness and small confidence. He said, with a quite ov-
erdone show of unselfishness:

"Oh no, no, you are too kind; I couldn't--I couldn't allow
you to put yourself to such an inconvenience on my--"

"Inconvenience? None in the world, my boy; I was going to-
night, anyway; I leave in the express at nine. Come! we'll
go together. You sha'n't be lonely a single minute. Come
along--say the word!"

So that excuse had failed. What to do now? Parrish was
disheartened; it seemed to him that no subterfuge which his
poor invention could contrive would ever rescue him from
these toils. Still, he must make another effort, and he did;
and before he had finished his new excuse he thought he
recognized that it was unanswerable:

"Ah, but most unfortunately luck is against me, and it is
impossible. Look at these"--and he took out his tickets and
laid them on the table. "I am booked through to Paris, and
I couldn't get these tickets and baggage coupons changed for
St. Petersburg, of course, and would have to lose the money;
and if I could afford to lose the money I should be rather
short after I bought the new tickets--for there is all the cash
I've got about me"--and he laid a five-hundred-mark banknote
on the table.

In a moment the Major had the tickets and coupons and
was on his feet, and saying, with enthusiasm:

"Good! It's all right, and everything safe. They'll change
the tickets and baggage pasters for me; they all know me
--everybody knows me. Sit right where you are; I'll be back
right away." Then he reached for the bank-note, and added,
'I'll take this along, for there will be a little extra pay
on the new tickets, maybe"--and the next moment he was fly-
ing out at the door.


2


Alfred Parrish was paralyzed. It was all so sudden. So sud-
den, so daring, so incredible, so impossible. His mouth was
open, but his tongue wouldn't work; he tried to shout "Stop
him," but his lungs were empty; he wanted to pursue, but
his legs refused to do anything but tremble; then they gave
way under him and let him down into his chair. His throat
was dry, he was gasping and swallowing with dismay, his
head was, in a whirl. What must he do? He did not know.
One thing seemed plain, however--he must pull himself to-
gether, and try to overtake that man. Of course the man
could not get back the ticket-money, but would he throw the
tickets away on that account? No; he would certainly go to
the station and sell them to some one at half-price; and
today, too, for they would be worthless to-morrow, by German
custom. These reflections gave him hope and strength, and
he rose and started. But he took only a couple of steps, then
he felt a sudden sickness, and tottered back to his chair
again, weak with a dread that his movement had been noticed
--for the last round of beer was at his expense; it had not
been paid for, and he hadn't a pfennig. He was a prisoner
Heaven only could know what might happen if he tried to
leave the place. He was timid, scared, crushed; and he had
not German enough to state his case and beg for help and
indulgence.

Then his thoughts began to persecute him. How could he have
been such a fool? What possessed him to listen to such a
manifest adventurer? And here comes the waiter! He buried
himself in the newspaper--trembling. The waiter passed by.
It filled him with thankfulness. The hands of the clock
seemed to stand still, yet he could not keep his eyes from
them.

Ten minutes dragged by. The waiter again! Again he hid
behind the paper. Tte waiter paused--apparently a week
--then passed on.

Another ten minutes of misery--once more the waiter;
this time he wiped off the table, and seemed to be a month
at it; then paused two months, and went away.

Parrish felt that he could not endure another visit; he must
take the chances: he must run the gantlet; he must escape.
But the waiter stayed around about the neighborhood for five
minutes--months and months seemingly, Parrish watching him
with a despairing eye, and feeling the infirmities of age
creeping upon him and his hair gradually turning gray.

At last the waiter wandered away--stopped at a table, col-
lected a bill, wandered farther, collected another bill,
wandered farther--Parrish's praying eye riveted on him all
the time, his heart thumping, his breath coming and going
in quick little gasps of anxiety mixed with hope.

The waiter stopped again to collect, and Parrish said to
himself, it is now or never! and started for the door. One
step--two steps--three--four--he was nearing the door--five
--his legs shaking under him--was that a swift step behind
him?--the thought shriveled his heart--six steps--seven, and
he was out!--eight--nine--ten--eleven--twelve--there is a
pursuing step!--he turned the corner, and picked up his
heels to fly--a heavy hand fell on his shoulder, and the
strength went out of his body.

It was the Major. He asked not a question, he showed no
surprise. He said, in his breezy and exhilarating fashion:

"Confound those people, they delayed me; that's why I was
gone so long. New man in the ticket-office, and be didn't
know me, and wouldn't make the exchange because it was ir-
regular; so I had to hunt up my old friend, the great mogul
--the station-master, you know--hi, there, cab! cab!--jump in,
Parrish!--Russian consulate, cabby, and let them fly!--so, as
I say, that all cost time. But it's all right now, and every-
thing straight; your luggage reweighed, rechecked, fare-ticket
and sleeper changed, and I've got the documents for it in my
pocket; also the change--I'll keep it for you. Whoop along,
cabby, whoop along; don't let them go to sleep!"

Poor Parrish was trying his best to get in a word edgeways,
as the cab flew farther and farther from the bilked beerhall,
and now at last he succeeded, and wanted to return at
once and pay his little bill.

"Oh, never mind about that," said the Major, placidly;
"that's all right, they know me, everybody knows me--I'll
square it next time I'm in Berlin--push along, cabby, push
along--no eat lot of time to spare, now."

They arrived at the Russian consulate, a moment after-hours,
and hurried in. No one there but a clerk. The Major laid his
card on the desk, and said, in the Russian tongue, "Now, then,
if you'll vise this young man's passport for Petersburg as
quickly as--"

"But, dear sir. I'm not authorized, and the consul has just
gone."

"Gone where?"

"Out in the country, where he lives."

"And he'll be back--"

"Not till morning."

"Thunder! Oh, well, look here, I'm Major Jackson--he knows
me, everybody knows me. You vise it yourself; tell him Major
Jackson asked you; it'll be all right."

But it would be desperately and fatally irregular; the clerk
could not be persuaded; he almost fainted at the idea.

"Well, then, I'll tell you what to do," said the Major. "Here's
stamps and fee--vise it in the morning, and start it along by
mail."

The clerk said, dubiously, "He--well, he may perhaps do it,
and so--
"
"May? He will! He knows me--everybody knows me."

"Very well," said the clerk, "I will tell him what you say."

He looked bewildered, and in a measure subjugated; and
added, timidly: "But--but--you know you will beat it to the
frontier twenty-four hours. There are no accommodations
there for so long a wait."

"Who's going to wait? Not I, if the court knows herself."

The clerk was temporarily paralyzed, and said, "Surely,
sir, you don't wish it sent to Petersburg!"

"And why not?"

"And the owner of it tarrying at the frontier, twenty-five
miles away? It couldn't do him any good, in those circum-
stances."

"Tarry--the mischief! Who said he was going to do any
tarrying?"

"Why, you know, of course, they'll stop him at the frontier
if he has no passport."

"Indeed they won't! The Chief Inspector knows me--everybody
does. I'll be responsible for the young man. You send it
straight through to Petersburg--Hotel de I'Europe, care Major
Jackson: tell the consul not to worry, I'm taking all the
risks myself."

The clerk hesitated, then chanced one more appeal:

"You must bear in mind, sir, that the risks are peculiarly
serious, just now. The new edict is in force."

"What is it?"

"Ten years in Siberia for being in Russia without a passport."

"Mm--damnation!" He said it in English, for the Russian tongue
is but a poor stand-by in spiritual emergencies. He mused a mo-
ment, then brisked up and resumed in Russian:

"Oh, it's all right--label her St. Petersburg and let her sail!
ril fix it. They all know me there--all the authorities--every-
body."


3


The Major turned out to be an adorable traveling-companion,
and young Parrish was charmed with him. His talk was
sunshine and rainbows, and lit up the whole region around,
and keep it gay and happy and cheerful; and he was full of
accommodating ways, and knew all about how to do things,
and when to do them, and the best way. So the long journey
was a fairy dream for that young lad who had been so lonely
and forlorn and friendless so many homesick weeks. At last,
when the two travelers were approaching the frontier, Parrish
said something about passports; then started, as if recollect-
ing something, and added:

"Why, come to think, I don't remember your bringing my pass-
port away from the consulate. But you did, didn't you?"

"No; it's coming by mail," said the Major, comfortably.

"C--coming--by--mail!" gasped the lad; and all the dreadful
things he had heard about the terrors and disasters of pass-
portless visitors to Russia rose in his frightened mind and
turned him white to the lips. "Oh, Major--oh, my goodness,
what will become of mel How could you do such a thing?"

The Major laid a soothing hand upon the youth's shoulder
and said:

"Now, don't you worry, my boy, don't you worry a bit. I'm
taking care of you, and I'm not going to let any harm come
to you. The Chief Inspector knows me, and I'll explain to
him, and it'll be all right--you'll see. Now don't you give
yourself the least discomfort--I'll fix it all up, easy as
nothing."

Alfred trembled, and felt a great sinking inside, but he did
what he could to conceal his misery, and to respond with
some show of heart to the Major's kindly pettings and reassur-
ings.

At the frontier he got out and stood on the edge of the
great crowd, and waited in deep anxiety while the Major plowed
his way through the mass to "explain to the Chief Inspector."

It seemed a cruelly long wait, but at last the Major reappeared.
He said, cheerfully, "Damnation, it's a new inspector, and I
don't know him!"

Alfred fell up against a pile of trunks, with a despairing,
"Oh, dear, dear, I might have known it!" and was slumping
limp and helpless to the ground, but the Major gathered him
up and seated him on a box, and sat down by him, with a
supporting arm around him, and whispered in his ear:

"Don't worry, laddie, don't--it's going to be all right; you
just trust to me. The sub-inspector's as near-sighted as a
shad. I watched him, and I know it's so. Now I'll tell you
how to do. I'll go and get my passport chalked, then I'll
stop rit yonder inside the griUe where you see those peasants
srith ir packs. You be there, and I'll back up against the
grille, and slip my passport to you through the bars, then
you tag almig after the crowd and hand it in, and trust to
Providence and that shad. Mainly the shad. You'll pull
through all right--now don't you be afraid."

"But, oh dear, dear, your description and mine don't tally
any more than--"

"Oh, that's all right--difference between fifty-one and
nineteen--just entirely imperceptible to that shad--don't you
fret, it's going to come out as right as nails."

Ten minutes later Alfred was tottering toward the train, pale,
and in a collapse, but be had played the shad successfully, and
was as grateful as an untaxed dog that has evaded the police.

"I told you so," said the Major, in splendid spirits. "I knew
it would come out all right if you trusted in Providence like a
little trusting child and didn't try to improve on His ideas--
it always does."

Between the frontier and Petersburg the Major laid himself
out to restore his young comrade's life, and work up his
circulation, and pull him out of his despondency, and make
him feel again that life was a joy and worth living. And so,
as a consequence, the young fellow entered the city in high
feather and marched into the hotel in fine form, and regist-
ered his name. But instead of naming a room, the clerk glanc-
ed at him inquiringly, and waited. The Major came promptly
to the rescue, and said, cordially:

"It's all right--you know me--set him down, I'm responsible."

The clerk looked grave, and shook his head. The Major added:
"It's all right, it'll be here in twenty-four hours --it's
coming by mail. Here's mine, and his is coming, right along."

The clerk was full of politeness, full of deference, but he
was firm. He said, in English:

"Indeed, I wish I could accommodate you. Major, and certainly
I would if I could; but I have no choice, I must ask him to
go; I cannot allow him to remain in the house a moment" Par-
rish began to totter, and emitted a moan; the Major caught
him and stayed him with an arm, and said to the clerk, ap-
pealingly:

"Come, you know me--everybody does--just let him stay here
the one night, and I give you my word--"

The clerk shook his head, and said:

"But, Major, you are endangering me, you are endangering
the house. I--hate to do such a thing, but I--I must call
the police."

"Hold on, don't do that Come along, my boy, and don't
you fret--it's going to come out all rit Hi, there, cabbyl
Jump in, Parrish. Palace of the General of the Secret Police
--turn them loose, cabby! Let them go! Make them whiz! Now
we're off, and don't you give yourself any uneasiness. Prince
Bossloffsky knows me, knows me like a book; he'll soon fix
things all right for us."

They tore through the gay streets and arrived at the palace,
which was brilliantly lighted. But it was half past eight;
the Prince was about going in to dinner, the sentinel said,
and couldn't receive any one.

"But he'll receive me" said the Major, robustly, and handed
his card. "I'm Major Jackson. Send it in; it'll be all right."

The card was sent in, under protest, and the Major and his
waif waited in a reception-room for some time. At length
they were sent for, and conducted to a sumptuous private office
and confronted with the Prince, who stood there gorgeously
arrayed and frowning like a thunder-cloud. The Major stated
his case, and begged for a twenty-four-hour stay of proceedings
until the passport should be forthcoming.

"Oh, impossible!" said the Prince, in faultless English. "I
marvel that you should have done so insane a thing as to bring
the lad into the country without a passport. Major, I marvel at
it; why, it's ten years in Siberia, and no help for it--catch
him! support him!" for poor Parrish was malg another trip to
the floor. "Here--quick, give him this. There--take another
draught; brandy's the thing, don't you find it so, lad? Now
you feel better, poor fellow. Lie down on the sofa. How stu-
pid it was of you. Major, to get him into such a horrible
scrape." The Major eased the boy down with his strong arms,
put a cushion under his head, and whispered in his ear:

"Look as damned sick as you can! Play it for all it's worth;
he's touched, you see; got a tender heart under there somewhere;
fetch a groan, and say, 'Ob, mamma, mamma'; it'll knock him
out, sure as guns."

Parrish was going to do these things anyway, from native
impulse, so they came from him promptly, with great and
moving sincerity, and die Major whisthpered: "Splendid! Do it
again; Bernhardt couldn't beat it"

What with the Major's eloquence and the boy's misery, the
point was gained at last; the Prince struck his colors, and
said:

"Have it your way; though you deserve a sharp lesson and
you ought to get it. I give you exactly twenty-four hours. If
the passport is not here then, don't come near me; it's Sib-
eria without hope of pardon."

While the Major and the lad poured out their thanks, the
Prince rang in a couple of soldiers, and in their own lang-
uage, he ordered them to go with these two people, and not
lose sight of the younger one a moment for the next twenty-
four hours; and if, at thie end of that term, the boy could
not show a passport, impound him in the dungeons of St.
Peter and St. Paul, and report.

The unfortunates arrived at the hotel with their guards,
dined under their eyes, remained in Parrish's room until the
Major went off to bed, after cheering up the sad Parrish, then
one of the soldiers locked himself and Parrish in, and the
other one stretched himself across the door outside and
soon went off to sleep.

So also did not Alfred Parrish. The moment he was alone
with the solemn soldier and the voiceless silence his mach-
ine-made cheerfulness began to waste away, his medicated cour-
age began to give off its supporting gases and shrink toward
normal, and his poor little heart to shrivel like a raisin.
Within thirty minutes he struck bottom; grief, misery, fright,
despair, could go no lower. Bed? Bed was not for such as
he; bed was not for the doomed, the lost! Sleep? He was not
the Hebrew children, he could not sleep in the fire! He could
only walk the floor. And not only could, but must And did,
by the hour. And mourned, and wept, and shuddered, and
prayed.

Then all-sorrowfully he made his last dispositions, and pre-
pared himself, as well as in him lay, to meet his fate. As a
final act, he wrote a letter:

"My DARLING MOTHER,--When these sad lines shall have
reached you your poor Alfred will be no more. No; worse
than that, far worse! Through my own fault and foolishness
I have fallen into the hands of a sharper or a lunatic; I do
not know which, but in either case I feel that I am lost.
Sometimes I think he is a sharper, but most of the time I
think he is only mad, for he has a kind, good heart, I know,
and he certainly seems to try the hardest that ever a person
tried to get me out of the fatal difficulties he has gotten me
into.

"In a few hours I shall be one of a nameless horde plodding
the snowy solitudes of Russia, under the la and bound
far that land of mystery and misery and termless oblivion
Siberia! I shall not live to see it; my heart is broken and I
shall die. Give my picture to her, and ask her to keep it in
memory of me, and to so live that in the appointed time she
may join me in that better world where there is no marriage
nor giving in marriage, and where there are no more sepa-
rations, and troubles never come. Give my yellow dog to
Archy Hale, and the other one to Henry Taylor; my blazer I
give to brother Will, and my fishing-things and Bible.

"There is no hope for me. I cannot escape; the soldier
stands there with his gun and never takes his eyes off me,
just blinks; there is no other movement, any more than if
he was dead. I cannot bribe him, the maniac has my money.
My letter of credit is in my trunk, and may never come--will
never come, I know. Oh, what is to become of me! Pray for
me, darling mother, pray for your poor Alfred. But it will
do no good."


4


In the morning Alfred came out looking scraggy and worn
when the Major summoned him to an early breakfast. They
fed their guards, they lit cigars, the Major loosened his
tongue and set it going, and under its magic influence Alfred
gradually and gratefully became hopeful, measurably cheerful,
and almost happy once more.

But he would not leave the house. Siberia hung over him
black and threatening, his appetite for sights was all gone,
he could not have borne the shame of inspecting streets and
galleries and churches with a soldier at each elbow and all
the world stopping and staring and commenting--no, he would
stay within and wait for the Berlin mail and his fate.
So, all day long the Major stood gallantly by him in his
room, with one soldier standing stiff and motionless against
the door with his musket at his shoulder, and the other one
drowsing in a chair outside; and all day long the faithful
veteran spun campaign yarns, described battles, reeled off
explosive anecdotes, with unconquerable energy and sparkle
and resolution, and kept the scared student alive and his
pulses functioning. The long day wore to a close, and the
pair, followed by their guards, went down to the great din-
ing-room and took their seats.

"The suspense will be over before long, now," sighed poor
Alfred.

Just then a pair of Englishmen passed by, and one of
them said, "So we'll get no letters from Berlin to-night."
Parrish's breath began to fail him. The Englishmen seated
themselves at a near-by table, and the other one said:

"No, it isn't as bad as that." Parrish's breathing improved.
"There is later telegraphic news. The accident did detain the
train formidably, but that is all. It will arrive here three
hours late to-night"

Parrish did not get to the floor this time, for the Major
jumped for him in time. He had been listening, and foresaw
what would happen. He patted Parrish on the back, hoisted
him out of the chair, and said, cheerfully:

"Come along, my boy, cheer up, there's absolutely nothing
to worry about. I know a way out Bother the passport; let
it lag a week if it wants to, we can do without it"

Parrish was too sick to hear him; hope was gone, Siberia
present; he moved oflf on legs of lead, upheld by the Major,
who walked him to the American legation, heartening him on
the way with assurances that on his recommendation the
minister wouldn't hesitate a moment to grant him a new
passport.

"I had that card up my sleeve all the time," he said. "The
minister knows me--knows me familiarly--chummed together
hours and hours under a pile of other wounded at Cold
Harbor; been chummies ever since, in spirit, though we
haven't met much in the body. Cheer up, laddie, everything's
looking splendid! By gracious! I feel as cocky as a buck angel.
Here we are, and our troubles are at an end! If we ever really
had any."

There, alongside the door, was the trade-mark of the richest
and freest and mightiest republic of all the ages: the pine
desk, with the planked eagle spread upon it, his head and
shoulders among the stars, and his claws full of out-of-date
war material; and at that sight the tears came into Alfred's
eyes, the pride of country rose in his heart, Hail Columbia
boomed up in his breast, and all his fears and sorrows vanished
away; for here he was safe, safe! not all the powers of the
earth would venture to cross that threshold to lay a hand u-
pon him!

For economy's sake the mightiest republic's legations in
Europe consist of a room and a half on the ninth floor, when
the tenth is occupied, and the legation furniture consists of a
minister or an ambassador with a brakeman's salary, a secretary
of legation who sells matches and mends crockery for a living,
a hired girl for interpreter and general utility, pictures of the
American liners, a chromo of the reigning President, a desk,
three chairs, kerosene-lamp, a cat, a clock, and a cuspidor
with the motto, "In God We Trust."

The party climbed up there, followed by the escort. A man
sat at the desk writing official things on wrapping-paper with
a nail. He rose and faced about; the cat climbed down and
got under the desk; the hired girl squeezed herself up into
the corner by the vodka-jug to me room; the soldios squeezed
themselves up against the wall alongside of her, with muskets
at shoulder arms. Alfred was radiant with happiness and the
sense of rescue.

The Major cordially shook hands with the official, rattled
off his case in easy and fluent style, and asked fm the desired
passport.

The official seated his guests, then said: "Well, I am only
the secretary of legation, you know, and I wouldn't like to
grant a passport while the minister is on Russian s< There
is far too much responsibility."

"All right send for him."

The secretary smiled, and said: "That's easier said than
done. He's away up in the wilds, somewhere, on his vacation."

"Ger-reat Scott!" ejaculated the Major.

Alfred groaned; the color went out of his face, and he
began to slowly collapse in his clothes. The secretary said,
wonderingly:

"Why, what are you Great-Scotting about Major? The Prince
gave you twenty-four hours. Look at the clock; you're all
right; you've half an hour left; the train is just due; the
passport will arrive in time."

"Man, there's news! The train is three hours behind time!
This boy's life and liberty are wasting away by minutes,
and only thirty of them left! In half an hour he's the same
as dead and damned to all eternity! By God, we must have the
passport!"

"Oh, I am dying, I know it!" wailed the lad, and buried his
face in his arms on the desk. A quick change came over the
secretary, his placidity vanished away, excitement flamed up
in his face and eyes, and he exclaimed:

"I see the whole ghastliness of the situation, but. Lord help
us, what can I do? What can you suggest?"

"Why, hang it, give him the passport!"

"Impossible! Totally impossible! You know nothing about
him; three days ago you had never heard of him; there's no
way in the world to identify him. He is lost, lost--there's no
possibility of saving him!"

The boy groaned again, and sobbed out, "Lord, Lord, it's
the last of earth for Alfred Parrish!"

Another change came over the secretary.

In the midst of a passionate outburst of pity, vexation, and
hopelessness, be stopped short, his manner calmed down, and
he asked, in the indifferent voice which one uses in intro-
ducing the subject of the weather when there is nothing to
talk about, "Is that your name?"

The youth sobbed out a yes.

"Where are you from?"

"Bridgeport."

The secretary shook his head--shook it again--and muttered
to himself. After a moment:

"Born there?"

"No; New Haven."

"Ah-h." The secretary glanced at the Major, who was listening
intently, with blank and unenlightened face, and indicated
rather than said, "There is vodka there, in case the soldiers
are thirsty." The Major sprang up, poured for them, and
received their gratitude. The questioning went on.

"How long did you live in New Haven?"

"Till I was fourteen. Came back two years ago to enter
Yale."

"When you lived there, what street did you live on?"

"Parker Street."

With a vague half-light of comprehension dawning in his eyes,
the Major glanced an inquiry at the secretary. The secretary
nodded, the Major poured vodka again.

"What number?"

"It hadn't any."

The boy sat up and gave the secretary a pathetic look which
said, "Why do you want to torture me with these foolish
things, when I am miserable enough without it?"

The secretary went on, unheeding: "What kind of a house
was it?"

"Brick--two-story."

"Flush with the sidewalk?"

"No, small yard in front."

"Iron fence?"

"No, palings."

The Major poured vodka again--without instructions--poured
brimmers this time; and his face had cleared and was alive
now.

"What do you see when you enter the door?"

"A narrow hall; door at the end of it, and a door at your
right."

"Anything else?"

"Hat-rack."

"Room at the right?"

"Parlor."

"Carpet?"

"Yes."

"Kind of carpet?"

"Old-fashioned Wilton."

"Figures?"

"Yes--hawking-party, horseback."

The Major cast an eye at the clock--only six minutes left!
He faced about with the jug, and as he poured he glanced at
the secretary, then at the clock--inquiringly. The secretary
nodded; the Major covered the clock from view with his body
a moment, and set the hands back half an hour; then he re-
freshed the men--double rations.

"Room beyond the hall and hat-rack?"

"Dining-room."

"Stove?"

"Grate."

"Did your people own the house?"

"Yes."

"Do they own it yet?"

"No; sold it when we moved to Bridgeport."

The secretary paused a little, then said, "Did you have a
nickname among your playmates?"

The color slowly rose in the youth's pale cheeks, and he
dropped his eyes. He seemed to struggle with himself a mo-
ment or two, then he said plaintively, "They called me Miss
Nancy."

The secretary mused awhile, then he dug up another question:
"Any ornaments in the dining-room?"

"Well, y-no."

"None? None at all?"

"No."

"The mischief! Isn't that a little odd? Think!"

The youth thought and thought; the secretary waited, panting.
At last the imperiled waif looked up sadly and shook his head.

"Think--think!" cried the Major, in anxious solicitude; and
poured again.

"Come!" said the secretary, "not even a picture?"

"Oh, certainlyl but you said ornament."

"Ah! What did your father think of it?"

The color rose again. The boy was silent.

"Speak," said the secretary.

"Speak," cried the Major, and his trembling hand poured
more vodka outside the glasses than inside.

"I--can't tell you what he said," murmured the boy.

"Quick! quick!" said the secretary; "out with it; there's no
time to lose--Thorne and liberty or Siberia and death depend
upon the answer."

"Oh, have pity! he is a clergyman, and--"

"No matter; out with it, or--

"He said it was the hell-firedest nightmare he ever struck!"

"Saved!" shouted the secretary, and seized his nail and a
blank passport "I identify you; I've lived in the house, and
I painted the picture myself!"

"Oh, come to my arms, my poor rescued boy!" cried the Major.
"We will always be grateful to God that He made this artist!
--if He did."

1902



A Double-Barreled Detective Story



The first scene is in the country, in Virginia; the time,
1880. There has been a wedding, between a handsome young
man of slender means and a rich young girl--a case of love
at first sight and a precipitate marriage; a marriage bitterly
opposed by the girl's widowed father.

Jacob Fuller, the bridegroom, is twenty-sn years old, is of
an old but unconsidered family which had by compulsion emi-
grated from Sedgemoor, and for King James's purse's profit,
so everybody said--some maliciously, the rest merely because
they believed it. The bride is nineteen and beautiful. She is
intense, high-strung, romantic, immeasurably proud of her
Cavalier blood, and passionate in her love for her young hus-
band. For its sake she braved her father's displeasure, en-
dured his reproaches, listened with loyalty unshaken to his
warning predictions, and went from his house without his
blessing, proud and happy in the proofs she was thus giving
of the quality of the affection which had made its home in
her heart.

The morning after the marrriage there was a sad surprise
for her. Her husband put aside her proffered caresses, and
said:

"Sit down. I have something to say to you. I loved you.
That was before I asked your father to give you to me. His
refusal is not my grievance--I could haye endured that. But
the things he said of me to you--that is a different matter.
There--you needn't speak; I know quite well what they were;
I got them from authentic sources. Among other things he
said that my character was written in my face; that I was
treacherous, a dissembler, a coward, and a brute without
sense of pity or compassion: the 'Sedgemoor trade-mark,' he
called it--and 'white-sleeve badge.' Any other man in my
place would have gone to his house and shot him down like a
dog. I wanted to do it, and was minded to do it, but a better
thought came to me: to put him to shame; to break his heart;
to kill him by inches. How to do it? Through my treatment
of you, his idol! I would marry you; and then-- Have patience.
You will see."

From that moment onward, for three months, the young wife
suffered all the humiliations, all the insults, all the mis-
eries that the diligent and inventive mind of the husband
could contrive, save physical injuries only. Her strong pride
stood by her, and she kept the secret of her troubles. Now
and then the husband said, "Why don't you go to your father
and tell him?" Then he invented new tortures, applied them,
and asked again. She always answered, "He shall never know
by my mouth," and taunted him with his origin; said she was
the lawful slave of a scion of slaves, and must obey, and
would--up to that point, but no further; he could kill her
if he liked, but he could not break her; it was not in the
Sedgemoor breed to do it. At the end of the three months he
said, with a dark significance in his manner, "I have tried
all things but one"--and waited for her reply. "Try that,"
she said, and curled her lip in mockery.

That night he rose at midnight and put on his clothes,
then said to her:

"Get up and dress!"

Sh.e obeyed--as always, without a word. He led her half a
mile from the house, and proceeded to lash her to a tree by
the side of the public road; and succeeded, she screaming
and struggling. He gagged her then, struck her across the
face with his cowhide, and set his bloodhounds on her. They
tore the clothes off her, and she was naked. He called the
dogs off, and said:

"You will be found--by the passing public. They will be
dropping along about three hours from now, and will spread
the news--do you hear? Good-by. You have seen the last of
me."

He went away then. She moaned to herself:

"I shall bear a child--to him! God grant it may be a boy!"

The farmers released her by and by--and spread the news,
which was natural. They raised the country with lynching in-
tentions, but the bird had flown. The young wife shut herself
up in her father's house; he shut himself up with her, and
thenceforth would see no one. His pride was broken, and his
heart; so he wasted away, day by day, and even his daughter
rejoiced when death relieved him.

Then she sold the estate and disappeared.


2


In 1886 a young woman was living in a modest house near a
secluded New England village, with no company but a little boy
about five years old. She did her own work, she discouraged
acquaintanceships, and had none. The butcher, the baker, and
the others that served her could tell the villagers nothing
about her further than that her name was Stillman, and that
she called the child Archy. Whence she came they had not been
able to find out, but they said she talked like a Southerner.
The child had no playmates and no comrade, and no teacher but
the mother. She taught him diligently and intelligently, and
was satisfied with the results--even a little proud of them.
One day Archy said:

"Mamma, am I different from other children?"

"Well, I suppose not. Why?"

"There was a child going along out there and asked me if the
postman had been by and I said yes, and she said how long
since I saw him and I said I hadn't seen him at all, and
she said how did I know he'd been by, then, and I said be-
cause I smelt his track on the sidewalk, and she said I was
a dum fool and made a mouth at me. What did she do that
for?"

The young woman turned white, and said to herself, "It's a
birthmark! The gift of the bloodhound is in him." She
snatched the boy to her breast and hugged him passionately,
saying, "God has appointed the way!" Her eyes were burning
with a fierce light, and her breath came short and quick
with excitement. She said to herself: "The puzzle is solved
now; many a time it has been a mystery to me, the impossible
things the child has done in the dark, but it is all clear to
me now."

She set him in his small chair, and said:

"Wait a little till I come, dear; then we will talk about the
matter."

She went up to her room and took from her dressing-table
several small articles and put them out of sight: a nail-file
on the floor under the bed; a pair of nail-scissors under
the bureau; a small ivory paper-knife under the wardrobe.
Then she returned, and said:

"There! I have left some things which I ought to have
brought down." She named them, and said, "Run up and
bring them, dear."

The child hurried away on his errand and was soon back
again with the things.

"Did you have any difficulty, dear?"

"No, mamma; I only went where you went."

During his absence she had stepped to the bookcase, taken
several books from the bottom shelf, opened each, passed her
hand over a page, noting its number in her memory, then re-
stored them to their places. Now she said:

"I have been doing something while you have been gone,
Archy. Do you think you can find out what it was?"

The boy went to the bookcase and got out the books that
had been touched, and opened them at the pages which had
been stroked.

The mother took him in her lap, and said:

"I will answer your questions now, dear. I have found out
that in one way you are quite different from other people.
You can see in the dark, you can smell what other people
cannot, you have the talents of a bloodhound. They are good
and valuable things to have, but you must keep the matter a
secret. If people found it out, they would speak of you as an
odd child, a strange child, and children would be disagreeable
to you, and give you nicknames. In this world one must be like
everybody else if he doesn't want to provoke scorn or envy or
jealousy. It is a great and fine distinction which has been
born to you, and I am glad; but you will keep it a secret
for mamma's sake, won't you?"

The child promised, without understanding.

All the rest of the day the mother's brain was busy with
excited thinkings; with plans, projects, schemes, each and
all of them uncanny, grim, and dark. Yet they lit up her face;
lit it with a fell light of their own; lit it with vague fires of
hell. She was in a fever of unrest; she could not sit, stand,
read, sew; there was no relief for her but in movement. She
tested her boy's gift in twenty ways, and kept saying to her-
self all the time, with her mind in the past: "He broke my
father's heart, and night and day all these years I have tried,
and all in vain, to think out a way to break his. I have
found it now--I have found it now."

When night fell, the demon of unrest still possessed her.
She went on with her tests; with a candle she traversed the
house from garret to cellar, hiding pins, needles, thimbles,
spools, under pillows, under carpets, in cracks in the walls,
under the coal in the bin; then sent the little fellow in the
dark to find them; which he did, and was happy and proud
when she praised him and smothered him with caresses.

From this time forward life took on a new complexion for
her. She said, "The future is secure--I can wait, and enjoy
the waiting." The most of her lost interests revived. She took
up music again, and languages, drawing, painting, and the
other long-discarded delights of her maidenhood. She was
happy once more, and felt again the zest of life. As the years
drift by she watched the development of her boy, and was
contented with it. Not altogether, but nearly that. The soft
side of his heart was larger than the other side of it. It was
his only defect, in her eyes. But she considered that his love
for her and worship of her made up for it. He was a good
hater--that was well; but it was a question if the materials of
his hatreds were of as tough and enduring a quality as those
of his friendships--and that was not so well.

The years drifted on. Archy was become a handsome, shapely,
athletic youth, courteous, dignified, companionable, pleasant
in his ways, and looking perhaps a trifie older than he was,
which was sixteen. One evening his mother said she had some-
thing of grave importance to say to him, adding that he was
old enough to hear it now, and old enough and possessed of
character enough and stability enough to carry out a stern
plan which she had been for years contriving and maturing.
Then she told him her bitter story, in all its naked atrocious-
ness. For a while the boy was paralyzed; then he said:

"I understand. We are Southerners; and by our custom and
nature there is but one atonement. I will search him out
and kill him."

"Kill him? No! Death is release, emancipation; death is a
favor. Do I owe him favors? You must not hurt a hair of his
head."

The boy was lost in thought awhile; then he said:

"You are all the world to me, and your desire is my law
and my pleasure. Tell me what to do and I will do it."

The mother's eyes beamed with satisfaction, and she said:

"You will go and find him. I have known his hiding-place
for eleven years; it cost me five years and more of inquiry,
and much money, to locate it. He is a quartz-miner in Colorado,
and well-to-do. He lives in Denver. His name is Jacob
Fuller. There--it is the first time I have spoken it since that
unforgettable night. Think! That name could have been yours
if I had not saved you that shame and furnished you a cleaner
one. You will drive him from that place; you will hunt him
down and drive him again; and yet again, and again, and
again, persistently, relentlessly, poisoning his life, filling it
with mysterious terrors, loading it with weariness and misery,
making him wish for death, and that he had a suicide's
courage; you will make of him another Wandering Jew; he
shall know no rest any more, no peace of mind, no placid
sleep; you shall shadow him, cling to him, persecute him, till
you break his heart, as he broke my father's and mine."

"I will obey, mother."

"I believe it, my child. The preparations are all made;
everything is ready. Here is a letter of credit; spend freely,
there is no lack of money. At times you may need disguises.
I have provided them; also some other conveniences." She
took from the drawer of the typewriter-table several squares
of paper. They all bore these tewritten words:

　　　　　　　　$10,000 REWARD

It is believed that a certain man who is wanted in an Eastern
state is sojourning here. In 1880, in the night, he tied
his young wife to a tree by the public road, cut her across
the face with a cowhide, and made his dogs tear her clothes
from her, leaving her naked. He left her there, and fled the
country. A blood-relative of hers has searched for him for
seventeen years. Address , Post-office The above reward will
be paid in cash to the person who will furnish the seeker,
in a personal interview, the criminal's address.

"When you have found him and acquainted yourself with his
scent, you will go in the night and placard one of these
upon the building he occupies, and another one upon the
post-office or in some other prominent place. It will be the
talk of the region. At first you must give him several days in
which to force a sale of his belongings at something approaching
their value. We will ruin him by and by, but gradually; we must
not impoverish him at once, for that could bring him to despair
and injure his health, possibly kill him."

She took three or four more typewritten forms from the drawer
--duplicates--and read one:

18...

To Jacob Fuller:

You have....days in which to settle your affairs. You
will not be disturbed during that limit, which will expire at
.... M., on the ... of ... . You must then MOVE ON. If you
are still in the place after the named hour, I will placard
you on all the dead walls, detailing your crime once more,
and adding the date, also the scene of it, with all names
concerned, including your own. Have no fear of bodily injury--
it will in no circumstances ever be inflicted upon you.
You brought misery upon an old man, and ruined his life and
broke his heart. What he suffered, you are to suffer.

"You will add no signature. He must receive this before he
learns of the reward placard--before he rises in the morning--
lest he lose his head and fly the place penniless."

"I shall not forget."

"You will need to use these forms only in the beginning--
once may be enough. Afterward, when you are ready for
him to vanish out of a place, see that he gets a copy of this
form, which merely says:

　　　　　　MOVE ON. You have...days.

"He will obey. That is sure."


3


Extracts from letters to the mother:

DENVER, April 5, 1897

I have now been living several days in the same hotel with
Jacob Fuller. I have his scent; I could track him through ten
divisions of infantry and find him. I have often been near
him and heard him talk. He owns a good mine, and has a
fair income from it; but he is not rich. He learned mining in
a good way--by working at it for wages. He is a cheerful
creature, and his forty-three years sit lightly upon him; he
could pass for a younger man--say thirty-six or thirty-seven.
He has never married again--passes himself off for a widower.
He stands well, is liked, is popular, and has many
friends. Even I feel a drawing toward him--the paternal
blood in me making its claim. How blind and unreasoning
and arbitrary are some of the laws of nature--the most of
them, in fact! My task is become hard now--you realize it?
you comprehend, and make allowances?--and the fire of it
has cooled, more than I like to confess to myself. But I will
carry it out. Even with the pleasure paled, the duty remains,
and I will not spare him.

And for my help, a sharp resentment rises in me when I
reflect that he who committed that odious crime is the only
one who has not suffered by it. The lesson of it has manifestly
reformed his character, and in the change he is happy.
He, the guilty party, is absolved from all suffering; you,
the innocent, are borne down with it. But be comforted--he
shall harvest his share.

SILVER GULCH, May 19

I placarded Form No. I at midnight of April 3; an hour
later I slipped Form No. 2 under his chamber door, notifying
him to leave Denver at or before 11.50 the night of the 14th.

Some late bird of a reporter stole one of my placards, then
hunted the town over and found the other one, and stole
that. In this manner he accomplished what the profession
call a "scoop"--that is, he got a valuable item, and saw to it
that no other paper got it. And so his paper-the principal
one in the town--had it in glaring type on the editorial page
in the morning, followed by a Vesuvian opinion of our
wretch a column long, which wound up by adding a thousand
dollars to our reward on the paper's account! The journals
out here know how to do the noble thing--when there's
business in it.

At breakfast I occupied my usual seat--selected because it
afforded a view of papa Fuller's face, and was near enough
for me to hear the talk that went on at his table. Seventy-five
or a hundred people were in the room, and all discussing
that item, and saying they hoped the seeker would find that
rascal and remove the pollution of his presence from the
town--with a rail, or a bullet, or something.

When Fuller came in he had the Notice to Leave--folded
up--in one hand, and the newspaper in the other; and it
gave me more than half a pang to see him. His cheerfulness
was all gone, and he looked old and pinched and ashy. And
then--only think of the things he had to listen to! Mamma,
he heard his own unsuspecting friends describe him with
epithets and characterizations drawn from the very diction-
aries and phrase-books of Satan's own authorized editions
down below. And more than that, he had to agree with the
verdicts and applaud them. His applause tasted bitter in his
mouth, though; he could not disguise that from me; and it
was observable that his appetite was gone; he only nibbled;
he couldn't eat. Finally a man said:

"lt is quite likely that that relative is in the room and hear-
ing what this town thinks of that unspeakable scoundrel, I
hope so."

Ah, dear, it was pitiful the way Fuller winced, and glanced
around scared! He couldn't endure any more, and got up
and left.

During several days he gave out that he had bought a mine
in Mexico, and wanted to sell out and go down there as soon
as he could, and give the property his personal attention. He
played his cards well; said he would take $40,000--a quarter
in cash, the rest in safe notes; but that as he greatly need-
ed money on account of his new purchase, he would diminish
his terms for cash in full. He sold out for $30,000, then,
what do you think he did? He asked for greenbacks, and took
them, saying the man in Mexico was a New-Englander, with a
head full of crotchets, and preferred greenbacks to gold or
drafts. People thought it queer, since a draft on New York
could produce greenbacks quite conveniently. There was talk
of this odd thing, but only for a day; that is as long as
any topic lasts in Denver.

I was watching, all the time. As soon as the sale was com-
pleted and the money paid--which was on the 11th--I began
to stick to Fullers track without dropping it for a moment.
That night--no, 12th, for it was a little past midnight--I
tracked him to his room, which was four doors from mine in
the same hall; then I went back and put on my muddy day-laborer
disguise, darkened my complexion, and sat down in my room in
the gloom, with a gripsack handy, with a change in it, and
my door ajar. For I suspected that the bird would take wing
now. In half an hour an old woman passed by, carrying a grip.
I caught the familiar whiff, and followed with my grip, for
it was Fuller. He left the hotel by a side entrance, and at
the corner he turned up an unfrequented street and walked
three blocks in a light rain and a heavy darkness, and got
into a two-horse hack, which of course was waiting for him
by appointment. I took a seat (uninvited) on the trunk plat-
form behind, and we drove briskly off. We drove ten miles,
and the hack stopped at a way-station and was discharged.
Fuller got out and took a seat on a barrow under the awning,
as far as he could get from the light; I went inside,
and watched the ticket-office. Fuller bought no ticket:
I bought none. Presently the train came along, and he
boarded a car; I entered the same car at the other end, and
came down the aisle and took the seat behind him. When he
paid the conductor and named his objective point, I dropped
back several seats, while the conductor was changing a bill,
and when he came to me I paid to the same place--about a
hundred miles westward.

From that time for a week on end he led me a dance. He
traveled here and there and yonder--always on a general
westward trend--but he was not a woman after the first day.
He was a laborer, like myself, and wore bushy false whiskers.
His outfit was perfect, and he could do the character
without thinking about it, for he had served the trade for
wages. His nearest friend could not have recognized him. At
last he located himself here, the obscurest little mountain
camp in Montana; he has a shanty, and goes out prospecting
daily; is gone all day, and avoids society. I am living at a
miners boardinghouse, and it is an awful place; the bunks,
the food, the dirt--everything.

We have been here four weeks, and in that time I have
seen him but once; but every night I go over his track and
post myself. As soon as he engaged a shanty here I went to a
town fifty miles away and telegraphed that Denver hotel to
keep my baggage till I should send for it, I need nothing here
but a change of army shirts, and I brought that with me.

SILVER GULCH, June 12

The Denver episode has never found its way here, I think.
I know the most of the men in camp, and they have never
referred to it, at least in my hearing. Fuller doubtless feels
quite safe in these conditions. He has located a claim, two
miles away, in an out-of-the-way place in the mountains; it
promises very well, and he is working it diligently. Ah, but
the change in him! He never smiles, and he keeps quite to
himself, consorting with no one--he who was so fond of com>
pany and so cheery only two months ago, I have seen him
passing along several times recently--drooping, forlorn, the
spring gone from his step, a pathetic figure. He calls himself
David Wilson,

I can trust him to remain here until we disturb him. Since
you insist, I will banish him again, but I do not see how he
can be unhappier than he already is. I will go back to Denver
and treat myself to a little season of comfort, and edible food,
and endurable beds, and bodily decency; then I will fetch my
things, and notify poor papa Wilson to move on.

DENVER, June 19

They miss him here. They all hope he is prospering in Mexico,
and they do not say it just with their mouths, but out of
their hearts. You know you can always tell. I am loitering
here overlong, I confess it. But if you were in my place you
would have charity for me. Yes, I know what you will say,
and you are right: if I were in your place, and carried your
scalding memories in my heart--

I will take the night train back to-morrow.

DENVER, June 20

God forgive us, mother, we are hunting the wrong man! I
have not slept any all night. I am now waiting, at dawn, for
the morning train--and how the minutes drag, how they
drag!

This Jacob Fuller is a cousin of the guilty one. How stupid
we have been not to reflect that the guilty one would never
again wear his own name after that fiendish deed! The Denver
Fuller is four years younger than the other one; he came
here a young widower in '79, aged twenty-one--a year before
you were married; and the documents to prove it are innum-
erable. Last night I talked with familiar friends of his
who have known him from the day of his arrival. I said
nothing, but a few days from now I will land him in this
town again, with the loss upon his mine made good; and
there will be a banquet, and a torch-light procession, and
there will not be any expense on anybody but me. Do you call
this "gush"? I am only a boy, as you well know; it is my pri-
vilege. By and by I shall not be a boy any more.

SILVER GULCH, July 3

Mother, he is gone! Gone, and left no trace. The scent was
cold when I came. To-day I am out of bed for the first time
since. I wish I were not a boy; then I could stand shocks better.
They all think he went west. I start to-night, in a wagon
--two or three hours of that, then I get a train. I don't know
where I'm going, but I must go; to try to keep still would be
torture.

Of course he has effaced himself with a new name and a
disguise. This means that I may have to search the whole
globe to find him. Indeed it is what I expect. Do you see,
mother? It is I that am the Wandering Jew. The irony of it!
We arranged that for another.

Think of the difficulties! And there would be none if I only
could advertise for him. But if there is any way to do it
that would not frighten him, I have not been able to think it
out, and I have tried till my brains are addled. "If the gen-
tleman who lately bought a mine in Mexico and sold one in
Denver will send his address to'" (to whom, mother!), "it will
be explained to him that it was all a mistake; his forgiveness
will be asked, and full reparation made for a loss which
he sustained in a certain matter." Do you see? He would
think it a trap. Well, any one would. If I should say, "It
is now known that he was not the man wanted, but another man
--who once bore the same name, but discarded it for good
reasons"--would that answer? But the Denver people would
wake up then and say "Oho!" and they would remember about
the suspicious greenbacks, and say, "Why did he run away if
he wasn't the right man?--it is too thin." If I failed to
find him he would be ruined there--there where there is
no taint upon him now. You have a better head than mine.
Help me.

I have one clue, and only one. I know his handwriting. If
he puts his new false name upon a hotel register and does
not disguise it too much, it will be valuable to me if I
ever run across it.

SAN FRANCISCO, June 28, 1898

You already know haw well I have searched the states from
Colorado to the Pacific, and how nearly I came to getting
him once. Well, I have had another close miss. It was here,
yesterday, I struck his trail, hot on the street, and fol-
lowed it on a run to a cheap hotel. That was a costly mis
take; a dog would have gone the other way. But I am only
part dog, and can get very humanly stupid when excited. He
had been stopping in that house ten days; I almost know,
now, that he stops long nowhere, the past six or eight months,
but is restless and has to keep moving. I understand that feel'
ing! and I know what it is to feel it. He still uses the name he
had registered when I came so near catching him nine months
ago--"James Walker"; doubtless the same he adopted when
he fled from Silver Gulch. An unpretending man, and has
small taste for fancy names. I recognized the hand easily,
through its slight disguise. A square man, and not good at
shams and pretenses.

They said he was just gone, on a journey; left no address;
didnt say where he was going; looked frightened when
asked to leave his address; had no baggage but a cheap
valise; carried it off on foot--a "stingy old person, and not
much loss to the house." "Old!" I suppose he is, now. I hardly
heard; I was there but a moment. I rushed along his trail,
and it led me to a wharf. Mother, the smoke of the steamer
he had taken was just fading out on the horizon! I should
have saved half an hour if I had gone in the right direction
at first. I could have taken a fast tug, and should have stood a
chance of catching that vessel. She is bound for Melbourne.

Hope Canon, California, October 3, 1900

You have a right to complain. "A letter a year" is a pau-
city; I freely acknowledge it; but how can one write when
there is nothing to write about but failures? No one can keep
it up; it breaks the heart.

I told you--it seems ages ago, now--how I missed him at
Melbourne, and then chased him all over Australasia for
months on end.

Well, then, after that I followed him to India; almost saw
him in bombay; traced him all around--to Baroda, Rawal Pindi,
Lucknow, Lahore, Cawnpore, Allahabad, Calcutta, Madras--oh,
everywhere; week after week, month after month, through the
dust and swelter--always approximately on his track, some-
times close upon him, yet never catching him. And down to
Ceylon, and then to-- Never mind; by and by I will write it
all out.

I chased him home to California, and down to Mexico, and
back again to California. Since then I have been hunting him
about the state from the first of last January down to a
month ago. I feel almost sure he is not far from Hope
Cafton; I traced him to a point thirty miles from here, but
there I lost the trail; some one gave him a lift in a wagon,
I suppose.

I am taking a rest, now--modified by searchings for the lost
trail. I was tired to death, mother, and low-spirited, and
sometimes coming uncomfortably near to losing hope; but the
miners in this little camp are good fellows, and I am used
to their sort this long time back; and their breezy ways
freshen a person up and make him forget his troubles. I have
been here a month. I am cabining with a young fellow named
"Sammy" Hillyer, about twenty-five, the only son of his
mother--like me--and loves her dearly, and writes to her
every week--part of which is like me. He is a timid body,
and in the matter of intellect--well, he cannot he depended
upon to set a river on fire; but no matter, he is well liked;
he is good and fine, and it is meat and bread and rest and
luxury to sit and talk with him and have a comradeship again.
I wish "James Walker' could have it. He had friends; he lik-
ed company. That brings up that picture of him, the time that
I saw him last. The pathos of it! It comes before me often
and often. At that very time, poor thing, I was girding up my
conscience to make him move on again!

Hillyer's heart is better than mine, better than anybody's in
the community, I suppose, for he is the one friend of the
black sheep of the camp--Flint Buckner--and the only man
Flint ever talks with or allows to talk with him. He says he
knows Flint's history, and that it is trouble that has made
him what he is, and so one ought to be as charitable toward
him as one can. Now none but a pretty large heart could find
space to accommodate a lodger like Flint Buckner, from all
I hear about him outside. I think that this one detail will give
you a better idea of Sammy's character than any labored-out
description I could furnish you of him. In one of our talks he
said something about like this: "Flint is a kinsman of mine,
and he pours out all his troubles to me--empties his breast
from time to time, or I reckon it would burst. There couldn't
be any unhappier man, Archy Stillman; his life had been
made up of misery of mind--he isn't near as old as he looks.
He has lost the feel of reposefulness and peace--oh, years
and years ago! He doesn't know what got luck is--never
has had any; often says he wishes he was in the other hell,
he is so tired of this one."


4


No real gentleman will tell the naked truth in the presence
of ladies.

It was a crisp and spicy morning in early October. The
lilacs and laburnums, lit with the glory-fires of autumn, hung
burning and flashing in the upper air, a fairy bridge pro-
vided by kind Nature for the wingless wild things that have
their homes in the tree-tops and would visit together; the
larch and the pomegranate flung their purple and yellow
flames in brilliant broad splashes along the slanting sweep of
the woodland; the sensuous fragrance of innumerable decid-
uous flowers rose upon the swooning atmosphere; far in the
empty sky a solitary esophagus slept upon motionless wing;
everywhere brooded stillness, serenity, and the peace of God.

To the Editor of the Republican:

One of your citizens has asked me a question about the
"esophagus," and I wish to answer him through you. This is
the hope that the answer will get around, and save me some
penmanship, for I have already replied to the same question
more than several times, and am not getting as much holiday
as I ought to have.

I published a short story lately, and it was in that that I
put the esophagus. I will say privately that I expected it to
bother some people--in fact, that was the intention--but the
harvest has been larger than I was calculating upon. The
esophagus has gathered in the guilty and the innocent alike,
whereas I was only fishing for the innocent--the innocent
and confiding. I knew a few of these would write and ask
me; that would give me but little trouble; but I was not
expecting that the wise and the learned would call upon me for
succor. However, that has happened, and it is time for me to
speak up and stop the inquiries if I can, for letter-writing
is not restful to me, and I am not having so much fun out of
this thing as I counted on. That you may understand the sit
uation, I will insert a couple of sample inquiries. The first
is from a public instructor in the Philippines:

Santa Cruz, llocos, Sur, PJ.
February 13,1902

My dear Sir,--I have just been reading the first part of
your latest story, entitled "A Double-barreled Detective
Story,' and am very much delighted with it. In Part IV, Page
264, Harper's Magazine for January, occurs this passage: "far
in the empty sky a solitary esophagusI slept upon motionless
wing; everywhere brooded stillness, serenity, and the peace
of GodI' Now, there is one word I do not understand,
namely, 'esophagusI' My only work of reference is the Stan-
dard Dictionary, but that fails to explain the meaning. If you
can spare the time, I would be glad to have the meaning
cleared up, as I consider the passage a very touching and
beautiful one. It may seem foolish to you, but consider my
lack of means away out in the northern part of Luzon.

Yours very truly.

Do you notice? Nothing in the paragraph disturbed him but
that one word. It shows that that paragraph was most ably
constructed for the deception it was intended to put upon the
reader. It was my intention that it should read plausibly, and
it is now plain that it does; it was my intention that it should
be emotional and touching, and you see, yourself, that it
fetched this public instructor. Alas, if I had but left that one
treacherous word out, I should have scored! scored everywhere;
and the paragraph would have slidden through every readers sen-
sibilities like oil, and left not a suspicion behind.

The other sample inquiry is from a professor in a New England
university. It contains one naughty word (which I cannot hear
to suppress), but he is not in the theological department, so
it is no harm:

Dear Mr. Clemens: "Far in the empty sky a solitary esophagus
slept upon motionless wing."

It is not often I get a chance to read much periodical literature,
hut I have just gone through at this belated period, with much
gratification and edification, your "Double-barreled Detective
Story."

But what in hell is an esophagus? I keep one myself, hut it
never sleeps in the air or anywhere else. My profession is to
deal with words, and esophagus interested me the moment I
lighted upon it. But as a companion of my youth used to say,
"I'll be eternally, co-eternally cussed" if I can make it out.
Is it a joke, or I an ignoramus?

Between you and me, I was almost ashamed of having fooled that
man, but for pride's sake I was going to say so. I wrote and
told him it was a joke--and that is what I am now saying to my
Springfield inquirer. And I told him to carefully read the
whole paragraph, and he would find not a vestige of sense in
any detail of it. This also I commend to my Springfield inquirer.

I have confessed. I am sorry--partially. I will not do so
any more--for the present. Don't ask me any more questions;
let the esophagus have a rest--on his same old motionless
wing.

Mark Twain

New York City, April 10, 1902
(Editorial)

The "Double-barreled Detective Story," which appeared in
Harper's Magazine for January and February last, the most
elaborate of burlesques on detective fiction, with striking
melodramatic passages in which it is difficult to dented
the deception, so ably is it done. But the illusion ought
not to endure even the first incident in the February number.
As for the paragraph which has so admirably illustrated the
skill of Mr. Clemenses ensemble and the carelessness of
readers, here it is:

"It was a crisp and spicy morning in early October. The
lilacs and laburnums, lit with the gloryffires of autumn,
hung burning and flashing in the upper air, a fairy bridge
provided by kind nature for the wingless wild things that
have their home in the tree-tops and would visit together; the
larch and the pomegranate flung their purple and yellow
flames in brilliant broad splashes along the slanting sweep of
the woodland; the sensuous fragrance of innumerable deciduous
flowers rose upon the swooning atmosphere; far in the
empty sky a solitary esophagus slept upon motionless wings;
everywhere brooded stillness, serenity, and the peace of
God:'

The success of Mark Twain's joke recalls to mind his story
of the petrified man in the cavern, whom he described most
punctiliously, first giving a picture of the scene, its impressive
solitude, and all that; then going on to describe the majesty
of the figure, casually mentioning that the thumb of his
right hand rested against the side of his nose; then after
further description observing that the fingers of the right
hand were extended in a radiating fashion; and, recurring
to the dignified attitude and position of the man, incidentally
remarked that the thumb of the left hand was in contact with
the little finger of the right--and so on. But was it so ingeniously
written that Mark, relating the history years later in an
article which appeared in that excellent magazine of the
past, the Galaxy, declared that no one ever found out the
joke, and, if we remember aright, that ihat astonishing old
mockery was actually looked for in the region where he, as a
Nevada newspaper editor, had located it. It is certain that
Mark Twain's jumping frog has a good many more "pints"
than any other frog.

October is the time--1900; Hope Canon is the place, a
silver-mining camp away down in e Esmeralda region. It is
a secluded spot, high and remote; recent as to discovery;
thought by its occupants to be rich in metal-- year or two's
prospecting will decide that matter one way or the other. For
inhabitants, the camp has about two hundred miners, one
white woman and child, several Chinese washermen, five
squaws, and a dozen vagrant buck Indians in rabbit-skin
robes, battered plug hats, and tin-can necklaces. There are
no mills as yet; no church, no newspaper. The camp has
existed but two years; it has made no big strike; the world
is ignorant of its name and place.

On both sides of the canon the mountains rise wall-like,
three thousand feet, and the long spiral of straggling huts
down in its narrow bottom gets a kiss from the sun only
once a day, when he sails over at noon. The village is a
couple of miles long; the cabins stand well apart from each
other. The tavern is the only "frame" house--the only house,
one might say. It occupies a central position, and is the evening
resort of the population. They drink there, and play
seven-up and dominoes; also billiards, for there is a table,
crossed all over with torn places repaired with court-plaster;
there are some cues, but no leathers; some chipped balls
which clatter when they run, and do not slow up gradually,
but stop suddenly and sit down; there is a part of a
cube of chalk, with a projecting jag of flint in it; and the
man who can score six on a single break can set up the
drinks at the bar's expense.

Flint Buckner's cabin was the last one of the village, going
south; his silver-claim was at the other end of the village,
northward, and a little beyond the last hut in that direction.
He was a sour creature, unsociable, and had no companion-
ships. People who had tried to get acquainted with him had
regretted it and dropped him. His history was not known.
Some believed that Sammy Hillyer knew it; others said no. If
asked, Hillyer said no, he was not acquainted with it. Flint
had a meek English youth of sixteen or seventeen with him,
whom he treated roughly, both in public and in private; and
of course this lad was applied to for information, but with
no success. Fetlock Jones--name of the youth--said that
Flint picked him up on a prospecting tramp, and as he had
neither home nor friends in America, he had found it wise
to stay and take Buckner's hard usage for the sake of the
salary, which was bacon and beans. Further than this he
could offer no testimony.

Fetlock had been in this slavery for a month now, and
under his meek exterior he was slowly consuming to a cinder
with the insults and humiliations which his master had put
upon him. For the meek suffer bitterly from these hurts; more
bitterly, perhaps, than do the manlier sort, who can burst
out and get relief with words or blows when the limit of
endurance has been reached. Good-hearted people wanted to
help Fetlock out of his trouble, and tried to get him to leave
Buckner; but the boy showed fright at the thought, and said
he "dasn't." Pat Riley urged him, and said:

"You leave the damned skunk and come with me; don't you be
afraid. I'll take care of him."

The boy thanked him with tears in his eyes, but shuddered
and said be "dasn't risk it"; he said Flint would catch him
alone, some time, in the night, and then-- "Oh, it makes
me sick, Mr. Riley, to think of it."

Others said, "Run away from him; we'll stake you; skip
out for the coast some night." But all these suggestions
failed; he said Flint would hunt him down and fetch him
back, just for meanness.

The people could not understand this. The boy's miseries
went steadily on, week after week. It is quite likely that the
people would have understood if they had known how he was
employing his spare time. He slept in an out-cabin near Flint's;
and there, nights, he nursed his bruises and his humiliations,
and studied and studied over a single problem--how he could
murder Flint Buckner and not be found out. It was the only
joy he had in life; these hours were the only ones in the
twenty-four which he looked forward to with eagerness and
spent in happiness.

He thought of poison. No--that would not serve; the inquest
would reveal where it was procured and who had procured
it. He thought of a shot in the back in a lonely place
when Flint would be homeward bound at midnight--his unvar-
ying hour for the trip. No--somebody might be near, and
catch him. He thought of stabbing him in his sleep. No--he
might strike an inefficient blow, and Flint would seize him.
He examined a hundred different ways--none of them would
answer; for in even the very obscurest and secretest of them
there was always the fatal defect of a risk, a chance, a pos-
sibility that he might be found out. He would have none of
that.

But he was patient, endlessly patient. There was no hurry,
he said to himself. He would never leave Flint till he left
him a corpse; there was no burry--he would find the way. It
was somewhere, and he would endure shame and pain and misery
until he found it. Yes, somewhere there was a way which would
leave not a trace, not even the faintest clue to the murderer
--there was no hurry--he would find that way, and then--oh,
then, it would just be good to be alive! Meantime he would
diligently keep up his reputation for meekness; and also, as
always theretofore, he would allow no one to hear him say a
resentful or offensive thing about his oppressor.

Two days before the before-mentioned October morning
Flint had bought some things, and he and Fetlock had
brought them home to Flint's cabin: a fresh box of candles,
which they put in the corner; a tin can of blasting-powder,
which they placed upon the candle-box; a keg of blasting-
powder, which they placed under Flint's bunk; a huge coil of
fuse, which they hung on a peg. Fetlock reasoned that Flint's
mining operations had outgrown the pick, and that blasting
was about to begin now. He had seen blasting done, and he
had a notion of the process, but he had never helped in it.
His conjecture was right--blasting-time had come. In the
morning the pair carried fuse, drills, and the powder-can to
the shaft; it was now eight feet deep, and to get into it and
out of it a short ladder was used. They descended, and by
command Fetlock held the drill--without any instructions
as to the right way to hold it--and Flint proceeded to strike.
The sledge came down; the drill sprang out of Fetlock's
hand, almost as a matter of course.

"You mangy son of a nigger, is that any way to hold a
drill? Pick it up! Stand it up! There--hold fast. D-- you!
I'll teach you!"

At the end of an hour the drilling was finished.

"Now, then, charge it."

The boy started to pour in the powder.

"Idiot!"

A heavy bat on the jaw laid the lad out.

"Get up! You can't lie sniveling there. Now, then, stick in
the fuse first. Now put in the powder. Hold on, hold on!
Are you going to fill the hole all up? Of all the sap-headed
milksops I-- Put in some dirt! Put in some gravel! Tamp it
down! Hold on, hold on! Oh, great Scott! get out of the
way!" He snatched the iron and tamped the charge himself,
meantime cursing and blaspheming like a fiend. Then he fired
the fuse, climbed out of the shaft, and ran fifty yards away,
Fetlock following. They stood waiting a few minutes, then a
great volume of smoke and rocks burst high into the air
with a thunderous explosion; after a little there was a shower
of descending stones; then all was serene again.

"I wish to God you'd been in it!" remarked the master.

They went down the shaft, cleaned it out, drilled another
hole, and put in another charge,

"Look here! How much fuse are you proposing to waste?

Don't you know how to time a fuse?"

"No, sir."

"You don't! Well, if you don't beat anything I ever saw!"

He climbed out of the shaft and spoke down:

"Well, idiot, are you going to be all day? Cut the fuse and
light it!"

The trembling creature began:

"If you please, sir, I--"

"You talk back to me? Cut it and light it!"

The boy cut and lit.

"Ger-reat Scott! a one-minute fuse! I wish you were in--"

In his rage he snatched the ladder out of the shaft and
ran. The boy was aghast.

"Oh, my God! Help! Help! Oh, save me!" he implored. "Oh,
what can I do! What can I do!"

He backed against the wall as tightly as he could; the
sputtering fuse frightened the voice out of him; his breath
stood still; he stood gazing and impotent; in two seconds,
three seconds, four he would be flying toward the sky torn
to fragments. Then he had an inspiration. He sprang at the
fuse; severed the inch of it that was left above ground, and
was saved.

He sank down limp and half lifeless with fright, his strength
gone; but he muttered with a deep joy:

"He has learnt me! I knew there was a way, if I would wait.

After a matter of five minutes Buckner stole to the shaft,
looking worried and uneasy, and peered down into it. He
took in the situation; he saw what had happened. He lowered
the ladder, and the boy dragged himself weakly up it.
He was very white. His appearance added something to Buckner's
uncomfortable state, and he said, with a show of regret
and sympathy which sat upon him awkwardly from lack of prac-
tice:

"It was an accident, you know. Don't say anything about
it to anybody; I was excited, and didn't notice what I was
doing. You're not looking well; you've worked enough for
to-day; go down to my cabin and eat what you want, mo
rest. It's just an accident, you know, on account of my bemg
excited."

"It scared me," said the lad, as hestarted away; but I
learnt something, so I don't mind it." ,

"Damned easy to please!" muttered Buckner, following
him with his eye. "I wonder if he'll tell? Mightn't he?...I
wish it had killed him."

The boy took no advantage of his holiday matter of resting;
he employed it in work, eager and feverish and happy work. A
thick growth of chaparral extended down the mountainside clear
to Flint's cabin; the most of Fetlock s labor was done in the
dark intricacies of that stubborn growth; the rest of it was
done in his own shanty. At last all was complete, and he said:

''If he's got any suspicions that I'm going to tell on him,
he won't keep them long, to-morrow. He will see that I am the
same milksop as I always was--all day and the next. And the
day after to-morrow night there 'll be an end of him; nobody
will ever guess who finished him up nor how it was done. He
dropped me the idea his own self, and that's odd."


5


The next day came and went.

It is now almost midnight, and in five minutes the new
morning will begin. The scene is in the tavern billiard-room.
Rough men in rough clothing, slouch-hats, breeches stuffed
into boot-tops, some with vests, none with coats, are grouped
about the boiler-iron stove, which has ruddy cheeks and is
distributing a grateful warmth; the billiard-balls are clacking;
there is no other sound--that is, within; the wind is fitfully
moaning without. The men look bored; also expectant. A hulk-
ing broad-shouldered miner, of middle age, with grizzled
whiskers, and an unfriendly eye set in an unsociable face,
rises, slips a coil of fuse upon his arm, gathers up some other
personal properties, and departs without word or greeting to
anybody. It is Flint Buckner. As the door closes behind him
a buzz of talk breaks out

"The regularest man that ever was," said Jake Parker, the
blacksmith: "you can tell when it's twelve just by him leaving,
without looking at your Waterbury."

"And it's the only virtue he's got, as fur as I know," said
Peter Hawes, miner.

"He's just a blight on this society," said Wells-Fargo's man,
Ferguson. "If I was running this shop I'd made him say something,
some time or other, or vamos the ranch." This with a suggestive
glance at the barkeeper, who did not choose to see it, since
the man under discussion was a good customer, and went home
pretty well set up, every night, with refreshments furnished
from the bar.

"Say," said Ham Sandwich, miner, "does any of you boys
ever recollect of him asking you to take a drink?"

Him? Flint Buckner? Oh, Laura!"

This sarcastic rejoinder came in a spontaneous general outburst
in one form of words or another from the crowd. After a brief
silence, Pat Riley, miner, said:

"He's the 15-puzzle, that cuss. And his boy's another one.
I can't make them out"

"Nor anybody else," said Ham Sandwich; "and if they are
15-puzzles, how are you going to rank up that other one?
When it comes to A1 right-down solid mysteriousness, he
lays over both of them. Easy--don't he?"

"You bet!"

Everybody said it. Every man but one. He was the newcomer--
Peterson. He ordered the drinks all round, and asked
who No. 3 might be. All answered at once, "Archy Sitillman!"

"Is he a mystery?" asked Peterson.

"Is he a mystery? Is Archy Stillman a mystery?" said Wells-
Fargo's man, Ferguson. Why, the fourth dimension's foolishness
to him."

For Ferguson was learned.

Peterson wanted to hear all about him; everybody wanted to
tell him; everybody began. But Billy Stevens, the barkeeper,
called the house to order, and said one at a time was best.
He distributed the drinks, and appointed Ferguson to lead.
Ferguson said:

"Well, he's a boy. And that is just about all we know about
him. You can pump him till you are tired; it ain't any use;
you won't get anything. At least about his intentions, or line
of business, or where he's from, and such things as that. And
as for getting at the nature and get-up of his main big chief
mystery, why, he'll just change the subject, that's all. You can
guess till you're black in the face--it's your privilege--but
suppose you do, where do you arrive at? Nowhere, as near as
I can make out."

"What is his big chief one?"

"Sight, maybe. Hearing, maybe. Instinct, maybe. Magic,
maybe. Take your choice--grownups, twenty-five; children
and servants, half price. Now I'll tell you what he can do.
You can start here, and just disappear; you can go and hide
wherever you want to, I don't care where it is, nor how far--
and he'll go straight and put his finger on you."

"You don't mean it!"

"I just do, though. Weather's nothing to him--elemental
conditions is nothing to him--he don't even take notice of
them."

"Oh, come! Dark? Rain? Snow? Hey?"

"It's all the same to him. He don't give a damn."

"Oh, say--including fog, per'aps?"

"Fog! he's got an eye 't can plunk through it like a bullet."

"Now, boys, honor bright, what's he giving me?"

"It's a fact!" they all shouted. "Go on, Wells-Fargo."

"Well, sir, you can leave him here, chatting with the boys,
and you can slip out and go to any cabin in this camp and
open a book--yes, sir, a dozen of them--and take the page
in your memory, and he'll start out and go straight to that
cabin and open every one of them books at the right page,
and call it off, and never make a mistake,"

"He must be the devil!"

"More than one has thought it. Now I'll tell you a perfectly
wonderful thing that he done. The other night he--"

There was a sudden great murmur of sounds outside, the
door flew open, and an excited crowd burst in, with the
camp's one white woman in the lead and crying:

"My child! my child! she's lost and gone! For the love of
God help me to find Archy Stillman; we've hunted everywhere!"

Said the barkeeper:

"Sit down, sit down, Mrs. Hogan, and don't worry. He
asked for a bed three hours ago, tuckered out tramping the
trails the way he's always doing, and went up-stairs. Ham
Sandwich, run up and roust him out; he's in No. 14."

The youth was soon down-stairs and ready. He asked Mrs.
Hogan for particulars.

"Bless you, dear, there ain't any; I wish there was. I put
her to sleep at seven in the evening, and when I went in there
an hour ago to go to bed myself, she was gone. I rushed for
your cabin, dear, and you wasn't there, and I've hunted for
you ever since, at every cabin down the gulch, and now I've
come up again, and I'm that distracted and scared and heart-
broke; but, thanks to God, I've found you at last, dear heart,
and you'll find my child. Come on! come quick!"

"Move right along; I'm with you, madam. Go to your
cabin first."

The whole company streamed out to join the hunt. All the
southern half of the village was up, a hundred men strong,
and waiting outside, a vague dark mass sprinkled with
twinkling lanterns. The mass fell into columns by threes
and fours to accommodate itself to the narrow road, and
strode briskly along southward in the wake of the leaders.
In a few minutes the Hogan cabin was reached.

"There's the bunk," said Mrs. Hogan; "there's where she was;
it's where I laid her at seven o'clock; but where she is
now, God only knows."

"Hand me a lantern," said Archy. He set it on the hard earth
floor and knelt by it, pretending to examine the ground close-
ly. "Here's her track," he said, touching the ground here and
there and yonder with his finger. "Do you see?"

Several of the company dropped upon their knees and did their
best to see. One or two thought they discerned something like
a track; the others shook their heads and confessed that the
smooth hard surface had no marks upon it which their eyes were
sharp enough to discover. One said, "Maybe a child's foot could
make a mark on it, but I don't see how."

Young Stillman stepped outside, held the light to the ground,
turned leftward, and moved three steps, closely examining;
then said, "I've got the direction--come along; take
the lantern, somebody,"

He strode off swiftly southward, the files following, swaying
and bending in and out with the deep curves of the gorge.
Thus a mile, and the mouth of the gorge was reached before
them stretched the sage-brush plain, dim, vast, and
vague. Stillman called a halt, saying, "We mustn't start
wrong, now; we must take the direction again."

He took a lantern and examined the ground for a matter
of twenty yards; then said, "Come on; it's all right," and
gave up the lantern. In and out among the sage-bushes he
marched, a quarter of a mile, bearing gradually to the right;
then took a new direction and made another great semicircle;
then changed again and moved due west nearly half a mile--
and stopped,

"She gave it up, here, poor little chap. Hold the lantern.
You can see where she sat."

But this was in a slick alkali flat which was surfaced like
steel, and no person in the party was quite hardy enough to
claim an eyesight that could detect the track of a cushion on
a veneer like that. The bereaved mother fell upon her knees
and kissed the spot, lamenting.

"But where is she, then?" some one said. "She didn't stay
here. We can see that much, anyway."

Stillman moved about in a circle around the place, with
the lantern, pretending to hunt for tracks.

"Well!" he said presently, in an annoyed tone, "I don't
understand it." He examined again. "No use. She was here
--that's certain; she never walked away from here--and
that's certain. It's a puzzle; I can't make it out."

The mother lost heart then.

"Oh, my God! oh, blessed Virgin! some flying beast has
got her. I'll never see her again!"

"Ah, don't give up," said Archy. "We'll find her--don't
give up."

"God bless you for the words, Archy Stillman!" and she
seized his hand and kissed it fervently.

Peterson, the new-comer, whispered satirically in Ferguson's
ear:

"Wonderful performance to find this place, wasn't it? Hardly
worth while to come so far, though; any other supposititious
place would have answered just as well--hey?"

Ferguson was not pleased with the innuendo. He said, with
some wamth:

"Do you mean to insinuate that the child hasn't been here?
I tell you the child has been here! Now if you want to get
yourself into as tidy a little fuss as--"

"All right!" sang out Stillman. "Come, everybody, and look
at thisi It was right under our noses all the time, and we
didn't see if."

There was a general plunge for the ground at the place
vere the child was alleged to have rested, and many eyes
tried hard and hopefully to see the thing that Archy's finger
was resting upon. There was a pause, then a several-barreled
sigh of disappointment Pat Riley and Ham Sandwich said,
in the one breath:

"What is it, Archy? There's nothing here."

"Nothing? Do you call that nothing?" and he swiftly traced
upon the ground a form with his finger. "There--don't you
recognize it now? It's Injun Billy's track. He's got the
child."

"God be praised!" from the mother.

"Take away the lantern. I've got the direction. Follow!"

He started on a run, racing in and out among the sage-bushes
a matter of three hundred yards, and disappeared over a sand
-wave; the others struggled after him, caught him up, and
found him waiting. Ten steps away was a little wickiup, a
dim and formless shelter of rags and old horseblankets, a
dull light showing through its chinks.

"You lead, Mrs. Hogan," said the lad. "It's your privilege
to be first."

All followed the sprint she made for the wickiup, and saw,
with her, the picture its interior afforded. Injun Billy was
sitting on the ground; the child was asleep beside him. The
mother hugged it with a wild embrace, which included Archy
Stillman, the grateful tears running down her face, and in a
choked and broken voice she poured out a golden stream of
that wealth of worshiping endearments which has its home in
full richness nowhere but in the Irish heart.

"I find her bymeby it is ten o'clock," Billy explained. "She
'sleep out yonder, ve'y tired--face wet, been cryin', 'spose;
fetch her home, feed her, she heap much hungry--go 'sleep
'gin."

In her limitless gratitude the happy mother waived rank and
hugged him too, calling him "the angel of God in dsguise."
And he .probably was in disguise if he was that kind of an
official. He was dressed for the character.

At half past one in the morning the procession burst into
the villa singing, "When Johnny Comes Marching Home," wav-
ing its lanterns, and swallowing the drinks that were brought
out all along its course. It concentrated at the tavern and
made a night of what was left of the morning.


6


The next afternoon the village was electrified with an immense
sensation. A grave and dignified foreigner of distinguished
bearing and appearance had arrived at the tavern, and enter-
ed this formidable name upon the register:

SHERLOCK HOLMES

The news buzzed from cabin to cabin, from claim to claim;
tools were dropped, and the town swarmed toward the center
of interest. A man passing out at the northern end of the
village shouted it to Pat Riley, whose claim was the next one
to Flint Buckner's. At that time Fetlock Jones seemed to turn
sick. He muttered to himself:

"Uncle Sherlock! the mean luck of it!--that he should come
just when . . ." He dropped into a reverie, and presently
said to himself: "But what's the use of being afraid of him?
Anybody that knows him the way I do knows he can't detect
a crime except where he plans it all out beforehand and ar-
ranges the clues and hires some fellow to commit it according
to instructions.... Now there ain't going to be any clues
this time--so, what show has he got? None at all. No, sir;
everything's ready. If I was to risk putting it off--...No, I
won't run any risk like that. Flint Buckner goes out of this
world to-night, for sure." Then another trouble presented
itself. "Uncle Sherlock 'll be wanting to talk home matters
with me this vening, and how am I going to get rid of him?
for I've got to be at my cabin a minute or two about eight
o'clock." This was an awkward matter, and cost him much
thought. But he found a way to beat the difficulty. "We'll
go for a walk, and I'll leave him in the road a minute, so
that he won't see what it is I do: the best way to throw a
detective off the track, anyway, is to have him along when
you are preparing the thing. Yes, that's the safest--I'll
take him with me."

Meantime the road in front of the tavern was blocked
with villagers waiting and hoping for a glimpse of the great
man. But he kept his room, and did not appear. None but
Ferguson, Jake Parker the blacksmith, and Ham Sandwich
had any luck. These enthusiastic admirers of the great scientific
detective hired the tavern's detained-baggage lockup,
which looked into the detective's room across a little alleyway
ten or twelve feet wide, ambushed themselves in it, and
cut some peep-holes in the window-blind. Mr. Holmes's blinds
were down; but by and by he raised them. It gave the spies
a hair-lifting but pleasurable thrill to find themselves face to
face with the Extraordinary Man who had filled the world
with the fame of his more than human ingenuities. There he sat
not a myth, not a shadow, but real, alive, compact of substance,
and almost within touching distance with the hand.

"Look at that head!" said Ferguson, in an awed voice. "By
gracious! that's a head!"

"You bet!" said the blacksmith, with deep reverence. "Look
at his nose! look at his eyes! Intellect? Just a battery of
it!"

"And that paleness," said Ham Sandwich. "Comes from
thought--that's what it comes from. Hell! duffers like us
don't know what real thought is."

"No more we don't," said Ferguson. "What we take for
thinking is just blubber-and-slush."

"Right you are, Wells-Fargo. And look at that frown--that's
deep thinking--away down, down, forty fathoms into the
bowels of things. He's on the track of something."

"Well, he is, and don't you forget it. Say--look at that
awful gravity--look at that pallid solemness--there ain't
any corpse can lay over it."

"No, sir, not for dollars! And it's his'n by hereditary rights,
too; he's been dead four times a'ready, and there's history
for it. Three times natural, once by accident I've heard say he
smells damp and cold, like a grave. And he--"

"'Sh! Watch him! There--he's got his thumb on the bump
on the near corner of his forehead, and his forefinger on the
off one. His think-works is just a-grinding now, you bet your
other shirt."

"That's so. And now he's gazing up toward heaven and
stroking his mustache slow, and--"

"Now he has rose up standing, and is putting his clues together
on his left fingers with his right finger. See? he touches
the forefinger--now middle finger--now ring-finger--"

"Stuck!"

"Look at him scowl! He can't seem to make out that clue.
So he--"

"See him smile!--Uke a tiger--and tally off the other fingers
like nothing! He's got it, boys; he's got it sure!"

"Well, I should say! I'd hate to be in that man's place that
he's after."

Mr. Holmes drew a table to the window, sat down with his back
to the spies, and proceeded to write. The spies withdrew
their eyes from the peep-holes, lit their pipes, and settled
themselves for a comfortable smoke and talk. Ferguson said,
with conviction:

"Boys, it's no use talking, he's a wonder! He's got the signs
of it all over him."

"You hain't ever said a truer word than that, Wells-Fargo,"
said Jake Parker. "Say, wouldn't it 'a' been nuts if he'd
a-been here last night?"

"Oh, by George, but wouldn't it!" said Ferguson. "Then we'd
have seen scientific work. Intellect--just pure intellect--
away up on the upper levels, dontchuknow. Archy is all right,
and it don't become anybody to belittle him, I can tell you.
But his gift is only just eyesight, sharp as an owl's, as
near as I can make it out just a grand natural animal talent,
no more, no less, and prime as far as it goes, but no intellect
in it, and for awfulness and marvelousness no more to be com-
pared to what this man does than--than-- Why, let me tell you
what he'd have done. He'd have stepped over to Hogan's and
glanced--just glanced, that's all--at the premises, and that's
enough. See everything? Yes, sir, to the last little detail
and he'd know more about that place than the Hogans would know
in seven years. Next, he would sit down on the bunk, just as
ca'm, and say to Mrs. Hogan-- Say, Ham, consider that you are
Mrs. Hogan. I'll ask the questions; you answer them."

"All right; go on."

"'Madam, if you please--attention--do not let your mind
wander. Now, then--sex of the child?'"

"'Female, your Honor.'

"'Um--female. Very good, very good. Age?'

"'Turned six, your Honor.'

"'Um--young, weak--two miles. Weariness will overtake
it then. It will sink down and sleep. We shall find it two miles
away, or less. Teeth?'
"
'Five, your Honor, and one a-coming.'

"'Very good, very good, very good, indeed.' You see,
boys, he knows a clue when he sees it, when it wouldn't
mean a dern thing to anybody else. 'Stockings, madam?
Shoes?'

"'Yes, your Honor--both,'

"'Yarn, perhaps? Morocco?'

"'Yarn, your Honor. And kip.'

"'Um--kip. This complicates the matter. However, let it
go--we shall manage. Religion?'

"'Catholic, your Honor.'

"'Very good. Snip me a bit from the bed blanket, please.
Ah, thanks. Part wool--foreign make. Very well. A snip from
some garment of the child's, please. Thanks. Cotton. Shows
wear. An excellent clue, excellent. Pass me a pallet of the
floor dirt, if you'll be so kind. Thanks, many thanks. Ah,
admirable, admirable! Now we know where we are, I think.'
You see, boys, he's got all the clues he wants now; he don't
need anything more. Now, then, what does this Extraordinary
Man do? He lays those snips and that dirt out on the table
and leans over them on his elbows, and puts them together
side by side and studies them--mumbles to himself, 'Fem-
ale'; changes them around--mumbles, 'Six years old';
changes them this way and that--again mumbles: 'Five teeth
-one a-coming--Catholic--yarn--cotton--kip--damn that
kip.' Then he straightens up and gazes toward heaven, and
plows his hands through his hair--plows and plows, muttering,
'Damn that kip!' Then he stands up and frowns, and begins
to tally off his clues on his fingers--and gets stuck at the
ring-finger. But only just a minute--then his face glares all
up in a smile like a house afire, and he straightens up stately
and majestic, and says to the crowd, 'Take a lantern, a couple
of you, and go down to Injun Billy's and fetch the child
--the rest of you go 'long home to bed; good-night, madam;
good-night, gents.' And he bows like the Matterhorn, and
pulls out for the tavern. That's his style, and the Only--
scientific, intellectual--all over in fifteen minutes--no
poking around all over the sage-brush range an hour and a
half in a mass-meeting crowd for him, boys--you hear me!"

"By Jackson, it's grand!" said Ham Sandwich. "Wells-Fargo,
you've got him down to a dot. He ain't painted up any
exacter to the life in the books. By George, I can juse see
him--can't you, boys?"

"You bet you! It's just a photograft, that's what it is."

Ferguson was profoundly pleased with his success, and
grateful. He sat silently enjoying his happiness a little while,
then he murmured, with a deep awe in his voice,

"I wonder if God made him?"

There was no response for a moment; then Ham Sandwich
said, reverently:

"Not all at one time, I reckon."


7


At eight o'clock that evening two persons were groping
their way past Flint Buckner's cabin in the frosty gloom.
They were Sherlock Holmes and his nephew.

"Stop here in the road a moment, uncle," said Fetlock,
"while I run to my cabin; I won't be gone a minute."

He asked for something--the uncle furnished it--then he
disappeared in the darkness, but soon returned, and the
talking-walk was resumed. By nine o'clock they had wand-
ered back to the tavern. They worked their way through the
billiard-room, where a crowd had gathered in the hope of
getting a.glimpse of the Extraordinary Man. A royal cheer
was raised. Mr. Holmes acknowledged the compliment with a
series of courtly bows, and as he was passing out his nephew
said to the assemblage:

"Uncle Sherlock's got some work to do, gentlemen, that'll
keep him till twelve or one; but he'll be down again then, or
earlier if he can, and hopes some of you'll be left to take a
drink with him,"

"By George, he's just a duke, boys! Three cheers for Sherlock
Holmes, the greatest man that ever lived!" shouted Per'
guson. "Hip, hip, hip--"

"Hurrah! hurrah! hurrah! Tiger!"

The uproar shook the building, so hearty was the feeling
the boys put into their welcome. Up-stairs the uncle reproached
the nephew gently, saying:

"What did you get me into that engagement for?"

"I reckon you don't want to be unpopular, do you, uncle?
Well, then, don't you put on any exclusiveness in a miningcamp,
that's all. The boys admire you; but if you was to leave
without taking a drink with them, they'd set you down for a
snob. And besides, you said you had home talk enough in
stock to keep us up and at it half the night."

The boy was right, and wise--the uncle 'Acknowledged it
The boy was wise in another detail which he did not mention
--except to himself: "Uncle and the others will come handy
--in the way of nailing an alibi where it can't be budged."

He and his uncle talked diligently about three hours.
Then, about midnight, Fetlock stepped down-stairs and took
a tuition in the dark a dozen steps from the tavern, and
waited. Five minutes later Flint Buckner came rocking out
of the billiard-room and almost brushed him as he passed.

"I've got him!" muttered the boy. He continued to himself,
looking after the shadowy form: "Good-by--good-by for
good, Flint Buckner; you called my mother a--well, never
mind what: it's all right, now; you're taking your last walk,
friend."

He went musing back into the tavern. "From now till one
is an hour. We'll spend it with the bdys: it's good for the
alibi."

He brought Sherlock Holmes to the billiard-room, which
was jammed with eager and admiring miners; the guest called
the drinks, and the fun began. Everybody was happy; everybody
was complimentary; the ice was soon broken, songs, anecdotes,
and more drinks followed, and the pregnant minutes flew. At
six minutes to one, when the jollity was at its highest--

Boom!

There was silence instantly. The deep sound came rolling
and rumbling from peak to peak up the gorge, then died
down, and ceased. The spell broke, then, and the men made
a rush for the door, saying:

"Something's blown up!"

Outside, a voice in the darkness said, "It's away down
the gorge; I saw the flash."

The crowd poured down the canon--Holmes, Fetlock, Archy
Stillman, everybody. They made the mile in a few minutes.
By the light of a lantern they found the smooth and solid
dirt floor of Flint Buckner's cabin; of the cabin itself
not a vestige remained, not a rag nor a splinter. Nor any
sign of Flint. Search-parties sought here and there and
yonder, and presently a cry went up.

"Here he is!"

It was true. Fifty yards down the gulch they had found
him--that is, they had found a crushed and lifeless mass
which represented him. Fetlock Jones hurried thither with
the others and looked.

The inquest was a fifteen-minute affair. Ham Sandwich,
foreman of the jury, handed up the verdict, which was
phrased with a certain unstudied literary grace, and closed
with this finding, to wit: that "deceased came to his death by
his own act or some other person or persons unknown to this
jury not leaving any family or similar effects behind but his
cabin which was blown away and God have mercy on his soul
amen."

Then the impatient jury rejoined the main crowd, for the
storm-center of interest was there--Sherlock Holmes. The
miners stood silent and reverent in a half-circle, inclos-
ing a large vacant space which included the front exposure
of the site of the late premises. In this considerable space
the Extraordinary Man was moving about, attended by his ne-
phew with a lantern. With a tape he took measurements of the
cabin site; of the distance from the wall of chaparral to the
road; of the height of the chaparral bushes; also various
other measurements. He gathered a rag here, a splinter there,
and a pinch of earth yonder, inspected them profoundly, and
preserved them. He took the "lay" of the place with a pocket-
compass, allowing two seconds for magnetic variation. He
took the time (Pacific) by his watch, correcting it for local
time. He paced off the distance from the cabin site to the
corpse, and corrected that for tidal differentiation. He took
the altitude with a pocket-aneroid, and the temperature with
a pocket-thermometer. Finally he said, with a stately bow:

"It is finished. Shall we return, gentlemen?"

He took up the line of march for the tavern, and the crowd
fell into his wake, earnestly discussing and admiring the
Extraordinary Man, and interlarding guesses as to the origin
of the tragedy and who the author of it might be.

"My, but it's grand luck having him here--hey, boys?'
said Ferguson,

"It's the biggest thing of the century," said Ham Sandwich.
"It 'll go all over the world; you mark my words."

'"You bet!" said Jake Parker, the blacksmith, "It'll boom
this camp. Ain't it so, Wells-Fargo?"

"Well, as you want my opinion--if it's any sign of how I
think about it, I can tell you this: yesterday I was holding
the Straight Flush claim at two dollars a foot; I'd like to
see the man that can get it at sixteen to-day."

"Right you are, Wells-Fargo! It's the grandest luck a new
camp ever struck. Say, did you see him collar them little
rags and dirt and things? What an eye! He just can't overlook
a clue--'tain't in him."

"That's so. And they wouldn't mean a thing to anybody else;
but to him, why, they're just a book--large print at that."

"Sure's you're born! Them odds and ends have got their little
old secret, and they think there ain't anybody can pull it;
but, land! when he sets his grip there they've got to squeal,
and don't you forget it."

"Boys, I ain't sorry, now, that he wasn't here to roust out
the child; this is a bigger thing, by a long sight. Yes,
sir, and more tangled up and scientific and intellectual."

"I reckon we're all of us glad it's turned out this way.
Glad? 'George! it ain't any name for it. Dontchuknow,
Archy could 've learnt something if he'd had the nous to
stand by and take notice of how that man works the system.
But no; he went poking up into the chaparral and just missed
the whole thing."

"It's true as gospel; I seen it myself. Well, Archy's young.
He'll know better one of these days."

"Say, boys, who do you reckon done it?"

That was a difficult question, and brought out a world of
unsatisfying conjecture. Various men were mentioned possi-
bilities, but one by one they were discarded as not being
eligible, No one but young Hillyer had been intimate with
Flint Buckner; no one had really had a quarrel with him; he
had affronted every man who had tried to make up to him,
although not quite offensively enough to require bloodshed.
There was one name that was upon every tongue from the Start,
but it was the last to get utterance--Fetlock Jones's. It
was Pat Riley that mentioned it.

"Oh, well," the boys said, "of course we've all thought of
him, because he had a million rights to kill Flint Buckner,
and it was just his plain duty to do it. But all the same
there's two things we can't get around: for one thing, he
hasn't got the sand; and for another, he wasn't anywhere near
the place when it happened."

"I know it," said Pat. "He was there in the billiard-room with
us when it happened."

"Yes, and was there all the time for an hour before it hap-
pened."

"It's so. And lucky for him, too. He'd have been suspected
in a minute if it hadn't been for that"


8


The tavern dining-room had been cleared of all its furniture
save one six-foot pine table and a chair. This table was
against one end of the room; the chair was on it; Sherlock
Holmes, stately, imposing, impressive, sat in the chair. The
public stood. The room was full. The tobacco-smoke was
dense, the stillness profound.

The Extraordinary Man raised his hand to command additional
silence; held it in the air a few moments; then, in brief,
crisp terms he put forward question after question, and note-
d the answers with "Um-ums," nods of the head, and so on. By
this process he learned all about Flint Buckner, his charac-
ter, conduct, and habits, that the people were able to tell
him. It thus transpired that the Extraordinary Man's nephew
was the only person in the camp who had a killing-grudge
against Flint Buckner. Mr. Holmes smiled compassionately
upon the witness, and asked, languidly:

"Do any of you gentlemen chance to know where the lad
Fetlock Jones was at the time of the explosion?"

A thunderous response followed:

"In the billiard-room of this house!"

"Ah. And had he just come in?"

"Been there all of an hour!"

"Ah. It is about--about--well, about how far might it be
to the scene of the explosion?"

"All of a mile!"

"Ah. It isn't much of an alibi, 'tis true, but--

A storm-burst of laughter, mingled with shouts of "By
jiminy, but he's chain-lightning!" and "Ain't you sorry you
spoke, Sandy?" shut off the rest of the sentence, and the
crushed witness drooped his blushing face in pathetic shame.
The inquisitor resumed:

"The lad Jones's somewhat distant connection with the case"
(laughter) "having been disposed of, let us now call the
eye-witnesses of the tragedy, and listen to what they have
to say."

He got out his fragmentary clues and arranged them on a
sheet of cardboard on his knee. The house held its breath
and watched.

"We have the longitude and the latitude, corrected for
magnetic variation, and this gives us the exact location of
the tragedy. We have the altitude, the temperature, and the
degree of humidity prevailing--inestimably valuable, since
they enable us to estimate with precision the degree of in-
fluence which they would exercise upon the mood and dispo-
sition of the assassin at that time of the night."

(Buzz of admiration; muttered remarky "By George, but he's
deep!") He fingered his clues. "And now let us ask these
mute witnesses to speak to us.

"Here we have an empty linen shot-bag. What is its message?
This: that robbery was the motive, not revenge. What is its
further message? This: that the assassin was of inferior
intelligence--shall we say light-witted, or perhaps approach-
ing that? How do we know this? Because a person of sound
intelligence would not have proposed to rob the man Buckner,
who never had much money with him. But the assassin might
have been a stranger? Let the bag speak again. I take from
it this article. It is a bit of silver-bearing quartz. It
is peculiar. Examine it, please--you---and you--and you. Now
pass it back, please. There is but one lode on this coast which
produces just that character and color of quartz; and that is
a lode which crops put for nearly two miles on a stretch,
and in my opinion is destined, at no distant day, to confer
upon its locality a globe-girdling celebrity, and upon its two
hundred owners riches beyond the dreams of avarice. Name
that lode, please."

"The Consolidated Christian Science and Mary Ann!"
was the prompt response.

A wild crash of hurrahs followed, and every man reached
for his Neighbor's hand and wrung it, with tears in his eyes;
and Weils-Fargo Ferguson shouted, "The Straight Flush is
on the lode, and up she goes to a hundred and fifty a foot
--you hear me!"

When quiet fell, Mr. Holmes resumed:

"We perceive, then, that three facts are established, to
wit: the assassin was approximately light-witted; he was not
a stranger; his motive was robbery, not revenge. Let us pro-
ceed. I hold in my hand a small fragment of fuse, with the
recent smell of fire upon it. What is its testimony? Taken
with the corroborative evidence of the quartz, it reveals to
us that the assassin was a miner. What does it tell us fur-
ther? This, gentlemen: that the assassination was consummated
by means of an explosive. What else does it say? This: that
the explosive was located against the side of the cabin near-
est the road--the front side--for within six feet of that
spot I found it.

"I hold in my fingers a burnt Swedish match--the kind one
rubs on a safety-box. I found it in the road, six hundred
and twenty-two feet from the abolished cabin. What does it
say? This: that the train was fired from that point. What
further does it tell us? This: that the assassin was left-
handed. How do I know this? I should not be able to explain
to you, gentlemen, how I know it, the signs being so subtle
that only long experience and deep study can enable one to
detect them. But the signs are here, and they are reinforced
by a fact which you must have often noticed in the great de-
tective narratives--that all assassins are left-handed."

"By Jackson, tha's so!" said Ham Sandwich, bringing his
great hand down with a resounding slap upon his thigh;
"blamed if I ever thought of it before."

"Nor I!" "Nor I!" cried several. "Oh, there can't anything
escape him--look at his eye!"

"Gentlemen, distant as the murderer was from his doomed
victim, he did not wholly escape injury. This fragment of
wood which I now exhibit to you struck him. It drew blood.
Wherever he is, he bears the telltale mark. I picked it up
where he- stood when he fired the fatal train." He looked out
over the house from his high perch, and his countenance
began to darken; he slowly raised his hand, and pointed:

"There stands the assassin!"

For a moment the house was paralyzed with amazement;
then twenty voices burst out with:

"Sammy Hillyer? Oh, hell, no! Him? It's pure foolishness!"

"Take care, gentlemen--be not hasty. Observe--he has the
bloodmark on his brow."

Hillyer turned white with fright. He was near to crying.
He turned this way and that, appealing to every face for
help and sympathy; and held out his supplicating hands
toward Holmes and began to plead:

"Don't, oh, don't! I never did it; I give my word I never
did it. The way I got this hurt on my forehead was--"

"Arrest him, constable!" cried Holmes. "I will swear out
the warrant."

The constable moved reluctantly forward--hesitated
--stopped.

Hillyer broke out with another appeal. "Oh, Archy, don't
let them do it; it would kill mother! You know how I got
the hurt. Tell them, and save me, Archy; save me!"

Stillman worked his way to the front, and said:

"Yes, I'll save you. Don't be afraid." Then he said to the
house, 'Never mind how he got the hurt; it hasn't anything
to do with this case, and isn't of any consequence."

"God bless you, Archy, for a true friend!"

"Hurrah for Archy! Go in, boy, and play 'em a knockdown
flush to their two pair 'n' a jack!" shouted the house,
pride in their home talent and a patriotic sentiment of
loyalty to it rising suddenly in the public heart and
changing the whole attitude of the situation.

Young Stillman waited for the noise to cease; then he said:
"I will ask Tom Jeffries to stand by that door yonder, and
Constable Harris to stand by the other one here, and not
let anybody leave the room."

"Said and done. Go on, old man!"

"The criminal is present, I believe. I will show him to you
before long, in case I am right in my guess. Now I will tell
you all about the tragedy, from start to finish. The motive
wasn't robbery; it was revenge. The murderer wasn't lightwitted.
He didn't stand six hundred and twenty-two feet away. He didn't
get hit with a piece of wood. He didn't place the explosive
against the cabin. He didn't bring a shot-bag with him, and
he wasn't left-handed. With the exception of these errors,
the distinguished guest's statement of the case is substant-
ially correct"

A comfortable laugh rippled over the house; friend nodded
to friend, as much as to say, "That's the word, with the bark
on it. Good lad, good boy. He ain't lowering his flag any!"

The guest's serenity was not disturbed. Stillman resumed:

"I also have some witnesses; and I will presently tell you
where you can find some more." He held up a piece of coarse
wire; the crowd craned their necks to see. "It has a smooth
coating of melted tallow on it. And here is a candle which
is burned half-way down. The remaining half of it has marks
cut upon it an inch apart. Soon I will tell you where I found
these things. I will now put aside reasonings, guesses, the
impressive hitchings of odds and ends of clues together, and
the other showy theatricals of the detective trade, and tell
you in a plain, straightforward way just how this dismal
thing happened."

He paused a moment, for effect--to allow silence and sus-
pense to intensify and concentrate the house's interest;
then he went on:

"The assassin studied out his plan with a good deal of
pains. It was a good plan, very ingenious, and showed an
intelligent mind, not a feeble one. It was a plan which was
well calculated to ward off all suspicion from its inventor. In
the first place, he marked a candle into spaces an inch apart,
and lit it and timed it. He found it took three hours to burn
four inches of it. I tried it myself for half an hour, awhile
ago, up-stairs here, while the inquiry into Flint Buckner's
character and ways was being conducted in this room, and I
arrived in that way at the rate of a candle's consumption
when sheltered from the wind. Having proved his trial candle's
rate, he blew it out--I have already shown it to you--and
put his inch-marks on a fresh one.

"He put the fresh one into a tin candlestick. Then at the
five-hour mark he bored a hole through the candle with a
red-hot wire. I have already shown you the wire, with a
smooth coat of tallow on it--tallow that had been melted and
had cooled.

"With labor--very hard labor, I should say--he struggled
up through the stiff chaparral that clothes the steep hill-
side back of Flint Buckner's place, tugging an empty flour-
barrel with him. He placed it in that absolutely secure hid-
ing-place, and in the bottom of it he set the candlestick.
Then he measured off about thirty-five feet of fuse--the bar-
rel's distance from the back of the cabin. He bored a hole in
the side of the barrel--here is the large gimlet he did it with.
He went on and finished his work; and when it was done, one
end of the fuse was in Buckner's cabin, and the other end,
with a notch chipped in it to expose the powder, was in the
hole in the candle--timed to blow the place up at one o'clock
this morning, provided the candle was lit about eight o'clock
yesterday evening--which I am betting it was--and provided
there was an explosive in the cabin and connected with that
end of the fuse--which I am also betting there was, though I
can't prove it. Boys, the barrel is there in the chaparral,
the candle's remains are in it in the tin stick; the burnt-out
fuse is in the gimlet-hole, the other end is down the hill
where the late cabin stood. I saw them all an hour or two
ago, when the Professor here was measuring off unimplicated
vacancies and collecting relics that hadn't anything to
do with the case."

He paused. The house drew a long, deep breath, shook its
strained cords and muscles free and burst into cheers.
"Dang him!" said Ham Sandwich, "that's why he was snooping
around in the chaparral, instead of picking up points out of
the P'fessor's game. Looky here--he ain't no fool, boys."

"No, sir! Why, great Scott--"

But Stillman was resuming:

"While we were out yonder an hour or two ago, the owner
of the gimlet and the trial candle took them from a place
where he had concealed them--it was not a good place--and
carried them to what he probably thought was a better one,
two hundred yards up in the pine woods, and hid them there,
covering them over with pine needles. It was there that I
found them. The gimlet exactly fits the hole in the barrel.
And now--

The Extraordinary Man interrupted him. He said, sarcastical-
ly:

"We have had a very pretty fairy tale, gentlemen--very
pretty indeed. Now I would like to ask this young man a
question or two."

Some of the boys winced, and Ferguson said:

"I'm afraid Archy's going to catch it now."

The others lost their smiles and sobered down. Mr.
Holmes said:

"Let us proceed to examine into this fairy tale in a conse-
cutive and orderly way--by geometrical progression, so to
speak--linking detail to detail in a steadily advancing and
remorselessly consistent and unassailable march upon this
tinsel toy fortress of error, the dream fabric of a callow
imagination. To begin with, young sir, I desire to ask you
but three questions at present--at present. Did I understand
you to say it was your opinion that the supposititious candle
was lighted at about eight o'clock yesterday evening?"

"Yes, sir--about eight."

"Could you say exactly eight?"

"Well, no, I couldn't be that exact."

"Um. If a person had been passing along there just about
that time, he would have been almost sure to encounter that
assassin, do you think?"

"Yes, I should think so."

"Thank you, that is all. For the present. I say, all for the
present."

"Dern him! he's laying for Archy," said Ferguson.

"It's so," said Ham Sandwich. "I don't like the look of it."

Stillman said, glancing at the guest, "I was along there
myself at half-past eight--no, about nine."

"In-deed? This is interesting--this is very interesting.
Perhaps you encountered the assassin?"

"No, I encountered no one."

"Ah. Then--if you will excuse the remark--I do not quite
see the relevancy of the information."

"It has none. At present. I say it has none--at present."

He paused. Presently he resumed: "I did not encounter the
assassin, but I am on his track, I am sure, for I believe
he is in this room. I will ask you all to pass one by one
in front of me--here, where there is a good light--so that
I can see your feet."

A buzz of excitement swept the place, and the march began,
the guest looking on with an iron attempt at gravity
which was not an unqualified success. Stillman stooped,
shaded his eyes with his hand, and gazed down intently at
each pair of feet as it passed. Fifty men tramped monotonous-
ly by--with no result. Sixty. Seventy. The thing was beginning
to look absurd. The guest remarked, with suave irony:

"Assassins appear to be scarce this evening."

The house saw the humor of it, and refreshed itself with a
cordial laugh. Ten or twelve more candidates tramped by
--no, danced by, with airy and ridiculous capers which con-
vulsed the spectators--then suddenly Stillman put out his
hand and said:

"This is the assassin!"

"Fetlock Jones, by the great Sanhedrim!" roared the crowd;
and at once let fly a pyrotechnic explosion and dazzle and
confusion and stirring remarks inspired by the situation.

At the height of the turmoil the guest stretched out his
hand, commanding peace. The authority of a great name
and a great personality laid its mysterious compulsion upon
the house, and it obeyed. Out of the panting calm which
succeeded, the guest spoke, saying, with dignity and feeling:

"This is serious. It strikes at an innocent life. Innocent
beyond suspicion! Innocent beyond peradventure! Hear me
prove it; observe how simple a fact can brush out of exist-
ence this witless lie. Listen. My friends, that lad was
never out of my sight yesterday evening at any time!"

It made a deep impression. Men turned their eyes upon
Stillman with grave inquiry in them. His face brightened,
and he said:

"I knew there was another one!" He stepped briskly to the
table and glanced at the guest's feet, then up at his face,
and said: "You were with him! You were not fifty steps from
him when he lit the candle that by and by fired the powder!"
{Sensation.) "And what is more, you fuinished the matches
yourself!"

Plainly the guest seemed hit; it looked so to the public.
He opened his mouth to speak; the words did not come
freely.

"This--er--this is insanity--this--"

Stillman pressed his evident advantage home. He held up
a charred match.

"Here is one of them. I found it in the barrel--and there's
another one there."

The guest found his voice at once.

"Yes--and put them there yourself!"

It was recognized a good shot. Stillman retorted.

"It is wax--a breed unknown to this camp. I am ready to
be searched for the box. Are you?"

The guest was staggered this time--the dullest eye could
see it. He fumbled with his hands; once or twice his lips
moved, but the words did not come. The house waited and
watched, in tense suspense, the stillness adding effect to the
situation. Presently Stillman said, gently:

"We are waiting for your decision."

There was silence again during several moments; then the
guest answered, in a low voice:

"I refuse to be searched."

There was no noisy demonstration, but all about the house
one voice after another muttered:

"That settles it! He's Archy's meat."

What to do now? Nobody seemed to know. It was an embarrassing
situation for the moment--merely, of course, because matters
had taken such a sudden and unexpected turn that these unprac-
tised minds were not prepared for it, and had come to a stand-
still, like a stopped clock, under the shock. But after a lit-
tle the machinery began to work again, tentatively, and by
twos and threes the men put their heads together and private-
ly buzzed over this and that and the other proposition. One
of these propositions met with much tavor; it was, to confer
upon the assassin a vote of thanks lor removing Flint Buckner,
and let him go. But the cooler heads opposed it, pointing out
that addled brains in the hastcin states would pronounce it a
scandal, and make no end of foolish noise about it. Finally
the cool heads got the upper hand, and obtained general con-
sent to a proposition of their own; their leader then called
the house to order and stated it--to this effect: that Fetlock
Jones be jailed and put upon trial.

The motion was carried. Apparently there was nothing
further to do now, and the people were glad, for, privately,
they were impatient to get out and rush to the scene of the
tragedy, and see whether that barrel and the other things
were really there or not.

But no--the break-up got a check. The surprises were not
over yet. For a while Fetlock Jones had been silently sobbing,
unnoticed in the absorbing excitements which had been following
one another so persistently for some lime; but when
his arrest and trial were decreed, he broke out despairingly,
and said:

"No! it's no use. I don't want any jail, I don't want any
trial; I've had all the hard luck I want, and all the miser-
ies. Hang me now, and let me out! It would all come out, any-
way--there couldn't an}dhuig save me. He has told it all,
just as if he'd been with me and seen it--don't know how
he found out; and you'll find the barrel and things, and then
I wouldn't have any chance any more. I killed him; and
you'd have done it too, if he'd treated you like a dog, and
you only a boy, and weak and poor, and not a friend to
help you."

"And served him danmed well right!" broke in Ham Sandwich.

"Looky here, boys--

From the constable: "Order! Order, gentlemen!"

A voice: "Did your uncle know what you was up to?"

"No, he didn't."

"Did he give you the matches, sure enough?"

"Yes, he did; but he didn't know what I wanted them for."

"When you was out on such a business as that, how did
you venture to risk having him along--and him a detective?
How's that?"

The boy hesitated, fumbled with his buttons in an embarrassed
way, then said, shyly:

"I know about detectives, on account of having them in the
family; and if you don't want them to find out about a
thing, it's best to have, them around when you do it."
The cyclone of laughter which greeted his naive discharge
of wisdom did not modify the poor little waif's embarrassment
in any large degree.


9


From a letter to Mrs. Stillman, dated merely "Tuesday."

Fetlock Jones was put under lock and key in an unoccupied
log cabin, and left there to await his trial. Constable
Harris provided him with a couple of days' rations, instructed
him to keep a good guard over himself, and promised
to look in on him as soon as further supplies should
be due.

Next morning a score of us went with Hillyer, out of friend
ship, and helped him bury his late relative, the unlamented
Buckner, and I acted as first assistant pall-bearer,
Hillyer acting as chief. Just as we had finished our labors
a ragged and melancholy stranger, carrying an old handbag,
limped by with his head down, and I caught the scent
I had chased around the globe! It was the odor of Paradise
to my perishing hope!

In a moment I was at his side and had laid a gentle hand
upon his shoulder. He slumped to the ground as if a stroke
of lightning had withered him in his tracks; and as the boys
came running he struggled to his knees and put up his plead-
ing hands to me, and out of his chattering jaws he begged
me to persecute him no more, and said:

"You have hunted me around the world, Sherlock Holmes,
yet God is my witness I have never done any man harm!"
A glance at his wild eyes showed us that he was insane.
That was my work, mother! The tidings of your death can
some day repeat the misery I felt in that moment, but nothing
else can ever do it. The boys lifted him up, and gathered
about him, and were full of pity of him, and said the gentlest
and touchingest things to him, and said cheer up and don't
be troubled, he was among friends now, and they would take
care of him, and protect him, and hang any man that laid
a hand on him. They are just like so many mothers, the
rough mining-camp boys are, when you wake up the south
side of their hearts; yes, and just like so many reckless
and unreasoning children when you wake up the opposite of
that muscle. They did everything they could think of to
comfort him, but nothing succeeded until Wells-Fargo Fer-
guson, who is a clever strategist, said:

"If it's only Sherlock Holmes that's troubling you, you
needn't worry any more."

"Why?" asked the forlorn lunatic, eagerly.

"Because he's dead again."

"Dead! Dead! Oh, don't trifle with a poor wreck like me.
Is he dead? On honor, now--is he telling me true, boys?"
"True as you're standing there!" said Ham Sandwich, and
they all backed up the statement in a body.

"They hung him in San Bernardino last week," added Ferguson,
clinching the matter, "whilst he was searching around af-
ter you. Mistook him for another man. They're sorry, but
they can't help it now."

"They're a-building him a monument," said Ham Sandwich,
with the air of a person who had contributed to it, and
knew.

"James Walker" drew a deep sigh--evidently a sigh of relief--
and said nothing; but his eyes lost something of their wild-
ness, his countenance cleared visibly, and its drawn look
relaxed a little. We all went to our cabin, and the boys
cooked him the best dinner the camp could furnish the mater-
ials for, and while they were about it Hillyer and I outfit-
ted him from hat to shoe-leather with new clothes of ours,
and made a comely and presentable old gentleman of him.
"Old" is the right word, and a pity, too: old by the droop of
him, and the frost upon his hair, and the marks which sorrow
and distress have left upon his face; though he is only in
his prime in the matter of years. While he ate, we smoked
and chatted; and when he was finishing he found his voice
at last, and of his own accord broke out with his personal
history. I cannot furnish his exact words but I will come as
near it as I can.


THE "WRONG MAN'S" STORY


It happened like this: I was in Denver. I had been there
many years; sometimes I remember how many, sometimes I
don't --but it isn't any matter. All of a sudden I got a notice
to leave, or I would be exposed for a horrible crime commit-
ted long before--years and years before--in the East.

I knew about that crime, but I was not the criminal; it
was a cousin of mine of the same name. What should I better
do? My head was all disordered by fear, and I didn't know.
I was allowed very little time--only one day, I think it
was. I would be ruined if I was published, and the people
would lynch me, and not believe what I said. It is always
the way with lynchings: when they find out it is a mistake
they are sorry, but it is too late--the same as it was with
Mr. Holmes, you see. So I said I would sell out and get money
to live on, and run away until it blew over and I could come
back with my proofs. Then I escaped in the night and went
a long way off in the mountains somewhere, and lived disguised
and had a false name.

I got more and more troubled and worried, and my troubles
made me see spirits and hear voices, and I could not think
straight and clear on any subject, but got confused and
involved and had to give it up, because my head hurt so. It
go to be worse and worse; more spirits and more voices.
They were about me all the time; at first only in the night,
then in the day too. They were always whispering around my
bed and plotting against me, and it broke my sleep and kept
me fagged out, because I got no good rest.

And then came the worst. One night the whispers said, "We'll
never manage, because we can't see him, and so can't point
him out to the people."

They sighed; then one said: "We must bring Sherlock
Holmes. He can be here in twelve days."

They all agreed, and whispered and jibbered with joy. But
my heart broke; for I had read about that man, and knew
what it would be to have him upon my track, with his super-
human penetration and tireless energies.

The spirits went away to fetch him, and I got up at once
in the middle of the night and fled away, carrying nothing
but the band-bag that had my money in it--thirty thousand
dollars; two-thirds of it are in the bag there yet. It was
forty days before that man caught up on my track. I just es-
caped. From habit he had written his real name on a tavern
register but had scratched it out and written "Dagget Barc-
lay" in the place of it. But fear gives you a watchful eye
and keen, and I read the true name through the scratches,
and fled like a deer.

He has hunted me all over this world for three years and a
half--the Pacific states, Australasia, India--everywhere you
can think of; then back to Mexico and up to California again,
giving me hardly any rest; but that name on the registers
always saved me, and what is left of me is alive yet. And
I am so tired! A cruel time he has given me, yet I give you
my honor I have never harmed him nor any man. That was
the end of the story, and it stirred those boys to bloodheat,
be sure of it. As for me--each word burnt a hole in me
where it struck.

We voted that the old man should bunk with us, and be my
guest and Hillyer's. I shall keep my own counsel, naturally;
but as soon as he is well rested and nourished, I shall take
him to Denver and rehabilitate his fortunes.

The boys gave the old fellow the bone-smashing good-fellow-
ship handshake of the mines, and then scattered away to
spread the news.

At dawn next morning Wells-Fargo Ferguson and Ham Sand-
wich called us softly out, and said, privately: "That
news about the way that old stranger has been treated
has spread all around, and the camps are up. They are
piling in from everywhere, and are going to lynch the
P'fessor. Constable Harris is in a dead funk, and has
telephoned the sheriff. Come along!"

We started on a run. The others were privileged to feel as
they chose, but in my heart's privacy I hoped the sheriff
would arrive in time; for I had small desire that Sherlock
Holmes should hang for my deeds, as you can easily believe.
I had heard a good deal about the sheriff, but for reas-
surance's sake I asked:

"Can he stop a mob?"

"Can he stop a mob! Can Jack Fairfax stop a mob! Well, I
should smile! Ex-desperado--nineteen scalps on his string.
Can he! Oh, I say!"

As we tore up the gulch, distant cries and shouts and yells
rose faintly on the still air, and grew steadily in strength
as we raced along. Roar after roar burst out, stronger and
stronger, nearer and nearer; and at last, when we closed
up upon the multitude massed in the open area in front of
the tavern, the crash of sound was deafening. Some brutal
roughs from Daly's gorge had Holmes in their grip, and
he was the calmest man there; a contemptuous smile played
about his lips, and if any fear of death was in his British
heart, his iron personality was master of it and no sign of
it was allowed to appear.

"Come to a vote, men!" This from one of the Daly gang,
Shadbelly Higgins. "Quick! is it bang, or shoot?"

"Neither!" shouted one of his comrades. "He'd be alive
again in a week; burning's the only permanency for him."

The gangs from all the outlying camps burst out in a
thundercrash of approval, and went struggling and surging
toward the prisoner, and closed vound him, shouting, "Fire!
fire's the ticket!" They dragged him to the horse-post,
backed him against it, chained him to it, and piled wood and
pine cones around him waist-deep. Still the strong face did
not blench, and still the scornful smile played about the
thin lips.

"A match! fetch a match!"

Shadbelly struck it, shaded it with his hand, stooped, and
held it under a pine cone. A deep silence fell upon the mob.
The cone caught, a tiny flame flickered about it a moment
or two. I seemed to catch the sound of distant hoofs--it
grew more distinct--still more and more distinct, more and
more definite, but the absorbed crowd did not appear to no-
tice it. The match went out. The man struck anoer, stooped,
and again the flame rose; this time it took hold and began
to spread--here and there men turned away their faces. The
executioner stood with the charred match in his fingers,
watching his work. The hoof-beats turned a projecting crag,
and now they came thundering down upon us. Almost the
next moment there was a shout:

"The sheriff!"

And straightway he came tearing into the midst, stood his
horse almost on his hind feet, and said:

"Fall back, you gutter-snipes!"

He was obeyed. By all but their leader. He stood his ground,
and his hand went to his revolver. The sheriff covered him
promptly, and said:

"Drop your hand, you parlor desperado. Kick the fire
away. Now unchain the stranger."

The parlor desperado obeyed. Then the sheriff made a speech;
sitting his horse at martial ease, and not warming his words
with any touch of fire, but delivering them in a measured
and deliberate way, and in a time which harmonized with their
character and made them impressively disrespectful.

"You're a nice lot--now ain't you? Just about eligible to
travel with this bilk here--Shadbelly Higgins--this loudmouth-
ed sneak that shoots people in the back and calls himself
a desperado. If there's anything I do particularly despise,
it's a lynching mob; I've never seen one that had a man in
it. It has to tally up a hundred against one before it can
pump up pluck enough to tackle a sick tailor. It's made up of
cowards, and so is the community that breeds it; and ninety-
nine times out of a hundred the sheriff's another one." He
paused--apparently to turn that last idea over in his mind
and taste the juice of it--then he went on: "The sheriff
that lets a mob take a prisoner away from him is the lowest
-down coward there is. By the statistics there was a hundred
and eighty-two of them drawing sneak pay in America last year.
By the way it's going, pretty soon there'll be a new disease
in the doctor-books--sheriff complaint." That idea pleased
him--any one could see it. "People will say, 'Sheriff sick
again?' 'Yes; got the same old thing.' And next there 'll be
a new title. People won't say, 'He's running for sheriff of
Rapaho County,' for instance; they'll say, 'He's running for
Coward of Rapaho.' Lord, the idea of a grown-up person
being afraid of a lynch mob!"

He turned an eye on the captive, and said, "Stranger, who
are you, and what have you been doing?"

"My name is Sherlock Holmes, and I have not been doing
anything."

It was wonderful, the impression which the sound of that
name made on the sheriff, notwithstanding he must have
come posted. He spoke up with feeling, and said it was a
blot on the country that a man whose marvelous exploits had
filled the world with their fame and their ingenuity, and
whose histories of them had won every reader's heart by
the brilliancy and charm of their literary setting, should
be visited under the Stars and Stripes by an outrage like
this. He apologized in the name of the whole nation, and
made Holmes a most handsome bow, and told Constable Harris
to see him to his quarters, and hold himself personally
responsible if he was molested again. Then he turned to
the mob and said:

"Hunt your holes, you scum!" which they did; then he said:
"Follow me, Shadbelly; I'll take care of your case myself.
No--keep your pop-gun; whenever I see the day that I'll
be afraid to have you behind me with that thing, it'll be
time for me to join last year's hundred and eighty-two";
and he rode off in a walk, Shadbelly following.

When we were on our way back to our cabin, toward breakfast-
time, we ran upon the news that Fetlock Jones had escaped
from his lock-up in the night and is gone! Nobody is sorry.
Let his uncle track him out if he likes; it is in his line;
the camp is not interested.


10

Ten days later.

"James Walker" is all right in body now, and his mind shows
improvement too. I start with him for Denver tomorrow
morning.

Next night. Brief note, mailed at a way-station.

As we were starting, this morning, Hillyer whispered to
me: "Keep this news from Walker until you think it safe and
not likely to disturb his mind and check his improvement:
the ancient crime he spoke of was really committed--and by
his cousin, as he said. We buried the real criminal the other
day--the unhappiest man that has lived in a century--Flint
Buckner. His real name was Jacob Fuller!" There, mother, by
help of me, an unwitting mourner, your husband and my
father is in his grave. Let him rest.

1902



The Five Boons of Life


1


In the morning of life came the good fairy with her basket,
and said:

"Here are the gifts. Take one, leave the others. And be
wary, choose wisely; oh, choose wisely! for only one of them
is vduable."

The gifts were five: Fame, Love, Riches, Pleasure, Death.
The yo said, eagerly:

"There is no need to consider"; and he chose Pleasure.

He went out into the world and sought out the pleasures
that youth delights in. But each in its turn was short-
lived and disapointing, vain and empty; and each, departing,
mocked him. In the end he said: "These years I have wasted.
If I could but choose again, I would choose wisely."


2


The fairy appeared, and said:

"Four of the gifts remain. Choose once more; and ob, re-
member--time is flying, and only one of them is precious."

The man considered long, then chose Love; and did not
mark the tears that rose in the fairy's eyes.

After many, many years the man sat by a coffin, in an
empty home. And he communed with himself, saying: "One
by one they have gone away and left me; and now she lies
here, the dearest and the last. Desolation after desolation has
swept over me; for each hour of happiness the treacherous
trader, Love, has sold me I have paid a thousand hours of
grief. Out of my heart of hearts I curse him."


3


"Choose again." It was the fairy speaking. "The years have
taught you wisdom--surely it must be so. Three gifts remain.
Only one of them has any worth--remember it, and choose
warily."

The man reflected long, then chose Fame; and the fairy,
sighing, went her way.

Years went by and she came again, and stood behind the
man where he sat solitary in the fading day, thinking.
And she knew his thought:

"My name filled the world, and its praises were on every
tongue, and it seemed well with me for a little while.
How little a while it was! Then came envy; then detraction;
then calumny; then hate; then persecution. Then derision,
which is the beginning of the end. And last of all came pity,
which is the funeral of fame. Oh, the bitterness and misery
of renown! target for mud in its prime, for contempt and
compassion in its decay."


4


"Choose yet again." It was the fairy's voice. "Two gifts re-
main. And do not despair. In the beginning there was but one
that was precious, and it is still here."

"Wealth--which is power! How blind I was!" said the man.
"Now, at last, life will be worth the living. I will spend, squander,
dazzle. These mockers and despisers will crawl in the dirt be-
fore me, and I will feed my hungry heart with their envy. I
will have all luxuries, all joys, all enchantments of the spi-
rit, all ccmtentments of the body that man holds dear. I will
buy, buy, buy! deference, respect, esteem, worship --every
pinchbeck grace of life the mark of a trivial world can fur-
nish forth. I have lost much time, and chosen badly hereto-
fore, but let that pass: I was ignorant then, and could but
take for best what seemed so."

Three short years went by, and a day came when the man sat
shivering in a mean garret; and he was gaunt and wan and
hollow-eyed, and clothed in rags; and he was gnawing a dry
crust and mumbling:

"Curse all the world's gifts, for mockeries and gilded lies!
And mis-called, every one. They are not gifts, but merely
lendings. Pleasure, Love, Fame, Riches: they are but temporary
disguises for lasting realities--Pain, Grief, Shame, Poverty.
The fairy said true; in all her store there was but one
gift which was precious, only one that was not valueless.
How poor and cheap and mean I know those others now to
be, compared with that inestimable one, that dear and sweet
and kindly one, that steeps in dreamless and enduring sleep
the pains that persecute the body, and the shames and griefs
that eat the mind and heart. Bring it! I am weary, I would
rest.


5


The fairy came, bringing again four of the gifts, but Death
was wanting. She said:

"I gave it to a mother's pet, a little child. It was ignorant,
but trusted me, asking me to choose for it. You did not ask me
to choose."

"Oh, miserable me! What is there left for me?"

"What not even you have deserved: the wanton insult of Old Age."

1902


Was It Heaven? Or Hell?


1


"You told a lie?"

"You confess it--you actually confess it--you told a lie!"


2


The family consisted of four persons: Margaret Lester,
widow, aged thirty-six; Helen Lester, her daughter, aged six
teen; Mrs. Lester's maiden aunts, Hannah and Hester Gray,
twins, aged sixty-seven. Waking and sleeping, the three
women spent their days and nights in adoring the young
girl; in watching the movements of her sweet spirit in
the mirror of her face; in refreshing their souls with the
vision of her bloom and beauty; in listening to the music of
her voice; in gratefully recognizing how rich and fair for
them was the world with this presence in it; in shuddering
to think how desolate it would be with this light gone out of
it.

By nature--and inside--the aged aunts were utterly dear
and lovable and good, but in the matter of morals and conduct
their training had been so uncompromisingly strict that
it had made them exteriorly austere, not to say stern. Their
influence was effective in the house; so effective that the
mother and the daughter conformed to its moral and religious
requirements cheerfully, contentedly, happily, unquestionably.
To do this was become second nature to them. And so in this
peaceful heaven there were no clashings, no irritations, no
fault-findings, no heart-burnings.

In it a lie had no place. In it a lie was unthinkable. In it
speech was restricted to absolute truth, iron-bound truth, im-
placable and uncompromising truth, let the resulting conse-
quences be what they might. At last, one day, under stress of
circumstances, the darling of the house sullied her lips with
a lie--and confessed it, with tears and self-upbraidings.
There are not any words that can paint the consternation of
the aunts. It was as if the sky had crumpled up and collapsed
and the earth had tumbled to ruin with a crash. They sat side
by side, white and stern, gazing speechless upon the culprit,
who was on her knees before them with her face buried first
in one lap and then the other, moaning and sobbing, and ap-
pealing for sympathy and forgiveness and getting no response,
humbly kissing the hand of the one, then of the other, only
to see it withdrawn as suffering defilement by those soiled
lips..

Twice, at intervals. Aunt Hester said, in frozen amazement:

"You told a lie?"

Twice, at intervals. Aunt Hannah followed with the muttered
and amazed ejaculation:

"You confess it--you actually confess it--you told a lie!"

It was all they could say. The situation was new, unheard
incredible; they could not understand it, they did not
know how to take hold of it, it approximately paralyzed
speech.

At length it was decided that the erring child must be taken
to her mother, who was ill, and who ought to know what had
happened. Helen tegged, besought, implored that she might
be spared this further disgrace, and that her mother might
be sred the grief and pain of it; but this could not be: duty
required this sacrifice, duty takes precedence of all things,
nothing can absolve one from a duty, with a duty no compro-
mise is possible.

Helen still begged, and said the sin was her own, her other
had had no hand in it--why must she be made to suffer for
it?

But the aunts were obdurate in their righteousness, and said
the law that visited the sins of the parent upon the child
was by all right and reason reversible; and therefore it was
but just that the innocent mother of a sinning child should
suffer her rightful share of the grief and pain and shame which
were the allotted wages of the sin.

The three moved toward the sick-room.


At this time the doctor was approaching the house. He was
still a good distance away, however. He was a good doctor
and a good man, and he had a good heart, but one had to
know him a year to get over hating him, two years to learn to
endure him, three to learn to like him, and four or five to
learn to love him. It was a slow and trying education, but it
paid. He was of great stature; he had a leonine head, a leo-
nine face, a rough voice, and an eye which was sometimes a
pirate's and sometimes a woman's, according to the mood.
He knew nothing about etiquette, and cared nothing about it;
in speech, manner, carriage, and conduct he was the reverse
of conventional. He was frank, to the limit; he had opinions
on all subjects; they were always on tap and ready for deli-
very, and he cared not a farthing whether his listener liked
them or didn't. Whom he loved he loved, and manifested it;
whom he didn't love he hated, and published it from the house-
tops. In his young days he had been a sailor, and the salt-
airs of all the seas blew from him yet. He was a sturdy and
loyal Christian, and believed he was the best one in the land,
and the only one whose Christianity was perfectly sound, healthy,
full-charged with common sense, and had no decayed places in
it. People who had an ax to grind, or people who for any rea-
son wanted to get on the soft side of him, called him The
Christian--a phrase whose delicate flattery was music to his
ears, and whose capital T was such an enchanting and vivid
object to him that he could see it when it fell out of a
person's mouth even in the dark. Many who were fond of him
stood on their consciences with both feet and brazenly called
him by that large title habitually, because it was a pleasure
to them to do anything that would please him; and witb eager
and cordial malice his extensive and diligently cultivated
crop of enemies gilded it, beflowered it, expanded it to The
Only Christian." Of these two titles, the latter had the wid-
er currency; the enemy, being greatly in the majority, attend-
ed to that. Whatever the doctor believed, he believed with all
his heart, and would fight for it whenever he got the chance;
and if the intervals between chances grew to be irksomely wide,
he would invent ways of shortening them himself. He was severe-
ly conscientious, according to his rather independent lights,
and whatever he took to be a duty he performed, no matter whe-
ther the judgment of the professional moralists agreed with
his own or not At sea, in his young days, he had used profa-
nity freely, but as soon as he was converted he made a rule,
which he rigidly stuck to ever afterward, never to use it
except on the rarest occasions, and then only when duty com-
manded. He had been a hard drinker at sea, but after his con-
version he became a firm and outspoken teetotaler, in order
to be an example to the young, and from that time forth he
seldom drank; never, indeed, except when it seemed to him
to be a duty--a condition which sometimes occurred a couple
of times a year, but never as many as five times.

Necessarily, such a man is impressionable, impulsive, emoti-
onal. This one was, and had no gift at hiding his feelings;
or if he had it he took no trouble to exercise it. He carried
his soul's prevailing weather in his face, and when he entered
a room the parasols or the umbrellas went up--figuratively
speaking--according to the indications. When the soft light
was in his eye it meant approval, and delivered a benediction;
when he came with a frown he lowered the temperature ten
degrees. He was a well-beloved man in the house of his
friends, but sometimes a dreaded one.

He had a deep affection for the Lester household, and its
several members returned this feeling with interest They
mourned over his kind of Christianity, and he frankly
scoffed at theirs; but both parties went on loving each
other just the same.

He was approaching the house--out of the distance; the
aunts and the culprit were moving toward the sick-chamber.


3


The three last named stood by the bed; the aunts austere,
the transgressor softly sobbing. The mother turned her head
on the pillow; her tired eyes flamed up instantly with sym-
pathy and passionate mother-love when they fell upon her
opened the refuge and shelter of her arms.

'Wait!" said Aunt Hannah, and put out her hand and
stayed the girl from leaping into them.

"Helen," said the other aunt, impressively, "tell your
mother all. Purge your soul; leave nothing unconfessed."

Standing stricken and forlorn before her judges, the young
girl mourned her sorrowful tale through to the end, then in
a passion of appeal cried out:

"Oh, mother, can't you forgive me? won't you forgive me?--
am so desolate!
"
"Forgive you, my darling? Oh, come to my arms!--there,
lay your head upon my breast, and be at peace. If you had
told a thousand lies--"

There was a sound--a warning--the clearing of a throat
The aunts glanced up, and withered in their clothes--there
stood the doctor, his face a thunder-cloud. Mother and child
knew nothing of his presence; they lay locked together, heart
to heart, steeped in immeasurable content, dead to all things
else. The physician stood many moments glaring and glooming
upon the scene before him; studying it, analyzing it, search-
ing out its genesis; then he put up his hand and beckoned
to the aunts. They came trembling to him, and stood humbly
before him and waited. He bent down and whispered;

"Didn't I tell you this patient must be protected from all
excitement? What the hell have you been doing? Clear out
of the place!"

They obeyed. Half an hour later he appeared in the parlor,
serene, cheery, clothed in sunshine, conducting Helen, with
his arm about her waist, petting her, and saying gentle and
playful things to her; and she also was her sunny and happy
self again.

"Now, then," he said, "good-by, dear. Go to your room,
and keep away from your mother, and behave yourself. But
wait--put out your tongue. There, that will do--you're as
sound as a nut!" He patted her cheek and added, "Run along
now; I want to talk to these aunts."

She went from the presence. His face clouded over again
at once; and as he sat down he said:

"You two have been doing a lot of damage--and maybe
some good. Some good, yes--such as it is. That woman's
disease is typhoid! You've brought it to a show-up, I think,
with your insanities, and that's a service--such as it is. I
hadn't been able to determine what it was before."

With one impulse the old ladies sprang to their feet, quaking
with terror.

"Sit down! What are you proposing to do?"

"Do? We must fly to her. We--"

"You'll do nothing of the kind; you've done enough harm
for one day. Do you want to squander all your capital of
crimes and follies on a single deal? Sit down, I tell you. I
have arranged for her to sleep; she needs it; if you disturb
her without my orders, I'll brain you--if you've got the ma-
terials for it."

They sat down, distressed and indignant, but obedient,
under compulsion. He proceeded:

"Now, then, I want this case explained. They wanted to ex-
plain it to me--as if there hadn't been emotion and excite-
ment enough already. You knew my orders; how did you dare
to go in there and get up that riot?"

Hester looked appealingly at Hannah; Hannah returned a
beseeching look at Hester--neither wanted to dance to this
unsympathetic orchestra. The doctor came to their help. He
said:

"Begin, Hester."

Fingering at the fringes of her shawl, and with lowered
eyes, Hester said, timidly:

"We should not have disobeyed for any ordinary cause,
but this was vital. This was a duty. With a duty one has no
choice; one must put all lighter considerations aside and
perform it. We were obliged to arraign her before her mother.
She had told a lie."

The doctor glowered upon the woman a moment, and seemed
to be trying to work up in his mind an understanding of
a wholly incomprehensible proposition; then he stormed
out:

"She told a lie! Did she? God bless my soul! I tell a mill-
ion a day! And so does every doctor. And so does everybody--
including you--for that matter. And that was the important
thing that authorized you to venture to disobey my orders
and imperil that woman's life! Look here, Hester Gray, this
is pure lunacy; that girl couldn't tell a lie tlmt was intend-
ed to injure a person. The thing is impossible--absolutely
impossible. You know it yourselves--both of you; you know
it perfectly well."

Hannah came to her sister's rescue:

"Hester didn't mean that it was that kind of a lie, and it
wasn't. But it was a lie."

"Well, upon my word, I never heard such nonsense! Haven't
you got sense enough to discriminate between lies? Don't
you know the difference between a lie that helps and
a lie that hurts?"

"All lies are sinful," said Hannah, setting her lips together
like a vise; "all lies are forbidden."

The Only Christian fidgeted impatiently in his chair. He
wanted to attack this proposition, but he did not quite know
bow or where to begin. Finally he made a venture:

"Hester, wouldn't you tell a lie to shield a person from an
undeserved injury or shame?"

"No."

"Not even a friend?"

"No."

"Not even your dearest friend?"

"No. I would not."

The doctor struggled in silence awhile with this situation;
then he asked:

"Not even to save him from bitter pain and misery and
grief?"

"No. Not even to save his life."

Another pause. Then:

"Nor his soul?"

There was a hush--a silence which endured a measurable inter-
val--then Hester answered, in a low voice, but with decision:

"Nor his soul."

No one spoke for a while; then the doctor said:

"Is it with you the same, Hannah?"

"Yes," she answered.

"I ask you both--why?"

"Because to tell such a lie, or any lie, is a sin, and could
cost us the loss of our own souls--would, indeed, if we died
without time to repent."

"Strange...strange...it is past belief." Then he asked,
roughly: "Is such a soul as that worth saving?" He rose up,
mumbling and grumbling, and started for the door, stumping
vigorously along. At the threshold he turned and rasped
out an admonition: "Reform! Drop this mean and sordid and
selfish devotion to the saving of your shabby little souls,
and hunt up something to do that's got some dignity to it!
Risk your souls! risk them in good causes; then if you lose
them, why should you care? Reform!"

The good old gentlewomen sat paralyzed, pulverized, outraged,
insulted, and brooded in bitterness and indignation aver these
blasphemies. They were hurt to the heart, poor old ladies, and
said they could never forgive these injuries.

"Reform!"

They kept repeating that word resentfully. "Reform--and
learn to tell lies!"

Time slipped along, and in due course a change came over
their spirits. They had completed the human being's first
duty --which is to think about himself until he has exhausted
the subject, then he is in a condition to take up minor inter-
ests and think of other people. This changes the complexion
of his spirits--generally wholesomely. The minds of the two old
ladies reverted to their beloved niece and the fearful disease
which had smitten her; instantly they forgot the hurts their
self-love had received, and a passionate desire rose in their
hearts to go to the help of the sufferer and comfort her with
their love, and minister to her, and labor for her the best
they could with their weak hands, and joyfully and affection-
ately wear out their poor old bodies in her dear service if
only they might have the privilege.

"And we shall have it!" said Hester, with the tears running
down her face. "There are no nurses comparable to us, for
there are no others that will stand their watch by that
bed till they drop and die, and God knows we would do that."
"Amen," said Hannah, smiling approval and indorsement through
the mist of moisture that blurred her glasses. "The doctor
knows us, and knows we will not disobey again; and he will
call no others. He will not dare!"

"Dare?" said Hester, with temper, and dashing the water
from her eyes; "he will dare anything--that Christian devil!
But it will do no good for him to try it this time--but, laws!
Hannah! after all's said and done, he is gifted and wise and
good, and he would not think of such a thing. ... It is surely
time for one of us to go to that room. What is keeping him?
Why doesn't he come and say so?"

They caught the sound of his approaching step. He entered,
sat down, and began to talk.

"Margaret is a sick woman," he said. "She is still sleeping,
but she will wake presently; then one of you must go to her.
She will be worse before she is better. Pretty soon a night-and-
day watch must be set. How much of it can you two undertake?"

"All of it!" burst from both ladies at once.

The doctor's eyes flashed, and he said, with energy:

"You do ring true, you brave old relics! And you shall do
all of the nursing you can, for there's none to match you in
that divine office in this town; but you can't do all of it,
and it would be a crime to let you." It was grand praise,
golden praise, coming from such a source, and it took nearly
all the resentment out of the aged twins' hearts. "Your Tilly
and my old Nancy shall do the rest--good nurses both, white
souls with black skins, watchful, loving, tender--just perfect
nurses!--and competent liars from the cradle....Look you!
keep a little watch on Helen; she is sick, and is going to be
sicker."

The ladies looked a little surprised, and not credulous;
and Hester said;

"How is that? It isn't an hour since you said she was as
sound as a nut."

The doctor answered, tranquilly:

"It was a lie."

The ladies turned upon him indignantly, and Hannah
said:

"How can you make an odious confession like that, in so
indifferent a tone, when you know how we feel about all
forms of--"

"Hush! You are as ignorant as cats, both of you, and you
don't know what you are talking about. You are like all the
rest of the moral moles; you lie from morning till night, but
because you don't do it with your mouths, but only with your
lying eyes, your lying inflections, your deceptively misplaced
emphases, and your misleading gestures, you turn up your com-
placent noses and parade before God and the world as saintly
and unsmirched Truth-Speakers, in whose cold-storage souls a
lie would freeze to death if it got therel Why will you hum-
bug yourselves with that foolish notion that no lie is a lie
except a spoken one? What is the difference between lying
with your eyes and lying with your mouth? There is none; and
if you would reflect a moment you would see that it is so.
There isn't a human being that doesn't tell a gross of lies
every day of his life; and you--why, between you, you tell
thirty thousand; yet you flare up here in a lurid hypocrit-
ical horror because I tell that child a benevolent and sin-
less lie to protect her from her imagination, which would
get to work and warm up her blood to a fever in an hour, if
I were disloyal enough to my duty to let it. Which I should
probably do if I were interested in saving my soul by such
disreputable means.

"Come, let us reason together. Let us examine details.
When you two were in the sick-room raising that riot, what
would you have done if you had known I was coming?"

"Well, what?"

"You would have slipped out and carried Helen with you--
wouldn't you?"

The ladies were silent.

"What would be your object and intention?"

"Well, what?"

"To keep me from finding out your guilt; to beguile me to
infer that Margaret's excitement proceeded from some cause
not known to you. In a word, to tell me a lie--a silent one.
Moreover, a possibly harmful one."

The twins colored, but did not speak.

"You not only tell myriads of silent lies, but you tell
lies with your mouths--you two."

"That is not so!"

"It is so. But only harmless ones. You never dream of
uttering a harmful one. Do you know that that is a conces-
sion--and a confession?"

"How do you mean?"

"It is an unconscious concession that harmless lies are not
criminal; it is a confession that you constantly make that
discrimination. For instance, you declined old Mrs. Foster's
invitation last week to meet those odious Higbies at supper
--in a polite note in which you expressed regret and said you
were very sorry you could not go. It was a lie. It was as un-
mitigated a lie as was ever uttered. Deny it, Hester--with
another lie."

Hester replied with a toss of her head.

"That will not do. Answer. Was it a lie, or wasn't it?"

The color stole into the cheeks of both women, and with a
struggle and an effort they got out their confession;

"It was a lie."

"Good--the reform is beginning; there is hope for you yet;
you will not tell a lie to save your dearest friend's soul,
but you will spew out one without a scruple to save yourself
the discomfort of telling an unpleasant truth."

He rose. Hester, speaking for both, said, coldly:

"We have lied; we perceive it; it will occur no more. To lie
is a sin. We shall never tell another one of any kind whatsoever,
even lies of courtesy or benevolence, to save any one a pang
or a sorrow decreed for him by God."

"Ah, how soon you will fall! In fact, you have fallen already;
for what you have just uttered is a lie. Good-by. Reform!
One of you go to the sick-room now."


4


Twelve days later.

Mother and child were lingering in the grip of the hideous
disease. Of hope for either there was little. The aged sisters
looked white and worn, but they would not give up their
posts. Their hearts were breaking, poor old things, but their
grit was steadfast and indestructible. All the twelve days the
mother had pined for the child, and the child for the mother,
but both knew that the prayer of these longings could not
be granted. When the mother was told--on the first day--
that her disease was typhoid, she was frightened, and asked
if there was danger that Helen could have contracted it the
day before, when she was in the sick-chamber on that con-
fession visit. Hester told her the doctor had poo-pooed the
idea. It troubled Hester to say it, although it was true,
for she had not believed the doctor; but when she saw the
mother's joy in the news, the pain in her conscience lost
something of its force--a result which made her ashamed
of the constructive deception which she had practised,
though not ashamed enough to make her distinctly and defin--
itely wish she had refrained from it. From that moment
the sick woman understood that her daughter must remain
away, and she said she would reconcile herself to the sep-
aration the best she could, for she would rather suffer
death than have her child's health imperiled. That afternoon
Helen had to take to her bed, ill. She grew worse during the
night. In the morning her mother asked after her:

"Is she well?"

Hester turned cold; she opened her lips, but the words re-
fused to come. The mother lay languidly looking, musing,
waiting; suddenly she turned white and gasped out:

"Oh, my God! what is it? is she sick?"

Then the poor aunt's tortured heart rose in rebellion, and
words came:

"No--be comforted; she is well."

The sick woman put all her happy heart in her gratitude:
"Thank God for those dear words! Kiss me. How I worship
you for saying them!"

Hester told this incident to Hannah, who received it with
a rebuking look, and said, coldly:

"Sister, it was a lie."

Hester's lips trembled piteously; she choked down a sob,
and said:

"Oh, Hannah, it was a sin, but I could not help it. I could
not endure the fright and the misery that were in her face."

"No matter. It was a lie. God will hold you to account for
it"

"Oh, I know it, I know it," cried Hester, wringing her
hands, "but even if it were now, I could not help it. I know
I should do it again."

"Then take my place with Helen in the morning. I will
make the report myself."

Hester clung to her sister, begging and imploring.

"Don't, Hannah, oh, don't--you will kill her."

"I will at least speak the truth."

In the morning she had a cruel report to bear to the mother,
and she braced herself for the trial. When she returned
from her mission, Hester was waiting, pale and trembling,
in the hall. She whispered:

"Oh, how did she take it--that poor, desolate mother?"

Hannah's eyes were swimming in tears. She said:

"God forgive me, I told her the child was well!"

Hester gathered her to her heart, with a grateful "God
bless you, Hannah!" and poured out her thankfulness in an
inundation of worshiping praises.

After that, the two knew the limit of their strength, and
accepted their fate. They surrendered humbly, and abandoned
themselves to the hard requirements of the situation.
Daily they told the morning lie, and confessed their sin in
prayer; not asking forgiveness, as not being worthy of it,
but only wishing to make record that they realized their wick-
edness and were not desiring to hide it or excuse it.

Daily, as the fair young idol of the house sank lower and
lower, the sorrowful old aunts painted her glowing bloom
and her fresh young beauty to the wan mother, and winced
under the stabs her ecstasies of joy and gratitude gave them.

In the first days, while the child had strength to hold a
pencil, she wrote fond little love-notes to her mother, in
which she concealed her illness; and these the mother read
and reread through happy eyes wet with thankful tears, and
kissed them over and over again, and treasured them as
precious things under her pillow.

Then came a day when the strength was gone from the hand,
and the mind wandered, and the tongue babbled pathetic
incoherences. This was a sore dilemma for the poor aunts.
There were no love-notes for the mother. They did not know
what to do. Hester began a carefully studied and plausible
explanation, but lost the track of it and grew confused;
suspicion began to show in the mother's face, then alarm.
Hester saw it, recognized the imminence of the danger, and
descended to the emergency, pulling herself resolutely to-
gether and plucking victory from the open jaws of defeat.
In a placid and convincing voice she said:

"I thought it might distress you to know it, but Helen
spent the night at the Sloanes'. There Was a little parly
there, and, although she did not want to go, and you so
sick, we persuaded her, she being young and needing the
innocent pastimes of youth, and we believing you would
approve. Be sure she will write the moment she comes."

"How good you are, and bow dear and thoughtful for us both!
Approve? Why, I thank you with all my heart My poor little
exile! Tell her I want her to have every pleasure she can
--I would not rob her of one. Only let her keep her health,
that is all I ask. Don't let that suffer; I could not bear
it. How thankful I am that she escaped this infection--and
what a narrow risk she ran. Aunt Hester! Think of that love-
ly face all dulled and burned with fever. I can't bear the
thought of it. Keep her health. Keep her bloom! I can see
her now, the dainty creature--with the big, blue, earnest
eyes; and sweet, oh, so sweet and gentle and winning! Is
she as beautiful as ever, dear Aunt Hester?"

"Oh, more beautiful and bright and charming than ever she
was before, if such a thing can be"--and Hester turned
away and fumbled with the medicine-bottles, to hide her
shame and grief.


5


After a little, both aunts were laboring upon a difficult
and baffling work in Helen's chamber. Patiently and earnestly,
with their stiff old fingers, they were trying to forge the
required note. They made failure after failure, but they im-
proved little by little all the time. The pity of it all, the
pathetic humor of it, there was none to see; they themselves
were unconscious of it. Often their tears fell upon the notes
and spoiled them; sometimes a single misformed word made
a note risky which could have been ventured but for that;
but at last Hannah produced one whose script was a good
enough imitation of Helen's to pass any but a suspicious eye;
and bountifully enriched it with the petting phrases and
loving nicknames that had been familiar on the child's lips
from her nursery days. She carried it to the mother, who
took it with avidity, and kissed it, and fondled it, reading
its precious words over and over again, and dwelling with deep
contentment upon its closing paragraph;

"Mousie darling, if I could only see you, and kiss your
eyes, and feel your arms about me! I am so glad my practis-
ing does not disturb you. Get well soon. Everybody is good
to me, but I am so lonesome without you, dear mamma."

"The poor child, I know just how she feels. She cannot be
quite happy without me; and I--oh, I live in the light of her
eyes! Tell her she must practise all she pleases; and. Aunt
Hannah--tell her I can't hear the piano this far, nor her
dear voice when she sings: God knows I wish I could. No
one knows how sweet that voice is to me; and to think--some
day it will be silent! What are you crying for?"

"Only because--because--it was just a memory. When I
came away she was singing, 'Loch Lomond.' The pathos of
it! It always moves me so when she sings that."

"And me, too. How heartbreakingly beautiful it is when me
youthful sorrow is brooding in her breast and she sings
it for the mystic healing it brings... Aunt Hannah?"

"Dear Margaret?"

"I am very ill. Sometimes it comes over me that I shall
never hear that dear voice again."

"Oh, don't--don't, Margaret! I can't bear it!"

Margaret was moved and distressed, and said, gently:

"There--there--let me put my arms around you. Don't cry.
There--put your cheek to mine. Be comforted. I wish to
live. I will live if I can. Ah, what could she do without
met . . . Does she often speak of me?--but I know she does."

"Oh, all the time--all the time!"

"My sweet child! She wrote the note the moment she came
home?"

"Yes--the first moment She would not wait to take off
her things."

"I knew it It is her dear, impulsive, affectionate way. I
knew it without asking, but I wanted to hear you say it The
petted wife knows she is loved, but she makes her husband
tell her so every day, just for the joy of hearing it...She
used the pen this time. That is better; the pencil-marks could
rub out, and I should grieve for that Did you suggest that
she use the pen?"

"Y--no--she--it was her own idea."

The mother looked her pleasure, and said:

"I was hoping you would say that There was never such a
dear and thoughtful child!...Aunt Hannah?"

"Dear Margaret?"

"Go and tell her I think of her all the time, and worship
her. Why--you are crying again. Don't be so worried about
me, dear; I think there is nothing to fear, yet"

The grieving messenger carried her message, and piously
delivered it to unheeding ears. The girl babbled on unaware;
looking up at her with wondering and startled eyes flaming
with fever, eyes in which was no light of recognition:

"Are you--no, you are not my mother. I want her--oh,
I want her! She was here a minute ago--I did not see her
go. will she come? will she come quickly? will she come
now?...There are so many houses...and they oppress me so
...and everything whirls and turns and whirls . . .oh,
my head, my head!"--and so she wandered on and on, in her
pain, flitting from one torturing fancy to another, and
tossing her arms about in a weary and ceaseless persecu-
tion of unrest.

Poor old Hannah wetted the parched lips and softly
stroked the hot brow, murmuring endearing and pitying
words, and thanking the Father of all that the mother was
happy and did not know.


6


Daily the child sank lower and steadily lower towards the
grave, and daily the sorrowing old watchers carried gilded
tidings of her radiant health and loveliness to the happy
mother whose pilgrimage was also now nearing its end. And
daily they forged loving and cheery notes in the child's
hand, and stood by with remorseful consciences and bleeding
hearts, and wept to see the grateful mother devour them
and adore them and treasure them away as things beyond
price, because of their sweet source, and sacred because
her child's hand had touched them.

At last came that kindly friend who brings healing and
peace to all. The lights were burning low. In the solemn
hush which precedes the dawn vague figures flitted soundless
along the dim hall and gathered silent and awed in Helen's
chamber, and grouped themselves about her bed, for a warn-
ing had gone forth, and they knew. The dying girl lay with
closed lids, and unconscious, the drapery upon her breast
faintly rising and falling as her wasting life ebbed away.
At intervals a sigh or a muffled sob broke upon the still-
ness. The same haunting thought was in all minds there: the
pity of this death, the going out into the great darkness,
and the mother not here to help and hearten and bless.

Helen stirred; her hands began to grope wistfully about
as if they sought something--she had been blind some hours.
The end was come; all knew it. With a great sob Hester ga-
thered her to her breast, crying, "Oh, my child, my darling!"
A rapturous light broke in the dying girl's face, for it
was mercifully vouchsafed her to mistake those sheltering
arms for another's; and she went to her rest murmuring,
"Oh, mamma, I am so happy--I so longed for you--now I
can die."

Two hours later Hester made her report The mother asked:

"How is it with the child?"

"She is well."


7


A sheaf of white crape and black was hung upon the door
of the house, and there it swayed and rustled in the wind
and whispered its tidings. At noon the preparation of the
dead was finished, and in the cofiSn lay the fair young form,
beautiful, and in the sweet face a great peace. Two mourners
sat by it, grieving and worshiping--Hannah and the black
woman Tilly. Hester came, and she was trembling, for a
great trouble was upon her spirit She said:

"She asks for a note."

Hannah's face blanched. She had not thought of this; it
had seemed that that pathetic service was ended. But she
realized now that that could not be. For a little while the
two women stood looking into each other's face, with vacant
eyes; then Hannah said:

"There is no way out of it--she must have it; she will
suspect, else."

"And she would find out."

"Yes. It would break her heart." She looked at the dead
face, and her eyes filled. "I will write it," she said.
Hester carried it. The closing line said:

"Darling Mousie, dear sweet mother, we shall soon be together
again. Is not that good news? And it is true; they all say
it is true."

The mother mourned, saying:

"Poor child, how will she bear it when she knows? I shall
never see her again in life. It is hard, so hard. She does
not suspect? You guard her from that?"

"She thinks you will soon be well."

"How good you are, and careful, dear Aunt Hesterl None,
goes near her who could carry the infection?"

"It would be a crime."

"But you see her?"

"With a distance between--yes."

"That is so good. Others one could not trust; but you two
guardian angels--steel is not so true as you. Others would
be unfaithful; and many would deceive, and lie."

Hester's eyes fell, and her poor old lips trembled.

"Let me kiss you for her. Aunt Hester; and when I am gone,
and the danger is past, place the kiss upon her dear lips
some day, and say her mother sent it, and all her mother's
broken heart is in it."

Within the hour, Hester, raining tears upon the dead face,
performed her pathetic mission.


8


Another day dawned, and grew, and spread its sunshine in the
earth. Aunt Hannah brought comforting news to the failing
mother, and a happy note, which said again, "We have but a
little time to wait, darling mother, then we shall be to-
gether."

The deep note of a bell came moaning down the wind'

"Aunt Hannah, it is tolling. Some poor soul is at rest As
I shall be soon. You will not let her forget me?"

"Oh, God knows she never will!"

"Do not you hear strange noises, Aunt Hannah? It sounds
like the shuffling of many feet"

"We hoped you would not hear it, dear. It is a little com-
pany gathering, for--for Helen's sake, poor little prisoner.

There will be music--and she loves it so. We thought you
would not mind."

"Mind? Oh no, no--oh, give her everything her dear heart
can desire. How good you two are to her, and how good to
me! God bless you both always!"

After a listening pause:

"How lovely! It is her organ. Is she playing it herself,
do. you think?" Faint and rich and inspiring the chords
floated to her ears on the still air. "Yes, it is her touch,
dear heart, I recognize it. They are singing. Why--it is a
hymn! and the sacredest of all, the most touching, the most
consoling...It seems to open the gates of paradise to me.
...If I could die now..."


Faint and far the words rose out of the stillness:

Nearer, my God, to Thee,
Nearer to Thee,
E'en though it be a cross
That raiseth me.

With the closing of the hymn another soul passed to its
rest, and they that had been one in life were not sundered
in death. The sisters, mourning and rejoicing, said:

"How blessed it was that she never knew!"


9


At midnight they sat together, grieving, and the angel ot
the Lord appeared in the midst transfigured with a radiance
not of the earth: and speaking, said:

"For liars a place is appointed. There they burn in the
fires of hell from everlasting unto everlasting. Repent!"
The bereaved fell upon their knees before him and clasped
their hands and bowed their gray heads, adoring. But their
tongues clove to the roof of their mouths, and they were
dumb.

"Speak! that I may bear the message to the chancery of
heaven and bring again the decree from which there is no
appeal."

Then they bowed their beads yet lower, and one said:

"Our sin is great, and we suffer shame; but only perfect
and final repentance can make us whole; and we are poor
creatures who have learned our human weakness, and we
know that if we were in those hard straits again our hearts
would fail again, and we should sin as before. The strong
could prevail, and so be saved, but we are lost."

They lifted their beads in supplication. The angel was
gone. While they marveled and wept he came again; and
bending low, he whispered the decree.


10


Was it Heaven? Or Hell?

1902



A Dog's Tale



My father was a St. Bernard, my mother was a collie, but
I am a Presbyterian. This is what my mother told me; I
do not know these nice distinctions myself. To me they are
only fine large words meaning nothing. My mother had a
fondness for such; she liked to say them, and see other dogs
look surprised and envious, as wondering how she got so
much education. But, indeed, it was not real education; it
was only show: she got the words by listening in the din-
ing-room and drawing-room when there was company, and by
going with the children to Sunday-school and listening there;
and whenever she heard a large word she said it over to
herself many times, and so was able to keep it until there
was a dogmatic gathering in the neighborhood, then she
would get it off, and surprise and distress them all, from
pocket-pup to mastiff, which rewarded her for all her trouble.
If there was a stranger he was nearly sure to be suspicious,
and when he got his breath again he would ask her what it
meant. And she always told him. He was never expecting
this, but thought he would catch her; so when she told him,
he was the one that looked ashamed, whereas he had thought
it was going to be she. The others were always waiting for
this, and glad of it and proud of her, for they knew what
was going to happen, because they had had experience. When
she told the meaning of a big word they were all so taken
up with admiration that it never occurred to any dog to
doubt if it was the right one; and that was natural, be-
cause, for one thing, she answered up so promptly that it
seemed like a dictionary speakii, and for another thing,
where could they find out whether it was right or not?
for she was the only cultivated dog there was. By and by,
when I was older, she brought home the word Unintellectual,
one time, and worked it pretty hard all the week at dif-
ferent gatherings, making much unhappiness and despondency;
and it was at this time that I noticed that during that
week she was asked for the meaning at eight different
assemblages, and flashed out a fresh definition every
time, which showed me that she had more presence of mind
than culture, though I said nothing, of course. She had
one word which she always kept on hand, and ready, like a
life-preserver, a kind of emergency word to strap on when
she was likely to get washed overboard in a sudden way--
that was the word Synonymous. When she happened to fetch
out a long word which had had its day weeks before and its
prepared meanings gone to her dump-pile, if there was a
stranger there of course it knocked him groggy for a couple
of minutes, then he would come to, and by that time she
would be away down the wind on another tack, and not ex-
pecting anything; so when he'd hail and ask her to cash
in, I (the only dog on the inside of her game) could see
her canvas flicker a moment--but only just a moment--then
it would belly out taut and full, and she would say, as calm
as a summer's day, "It's synonymous with supererogation,"
or some godless long reptile of a word like that, and go
placidly about and skim away on the next tack, perfectly
comfortable, you know, and leave that stranger looking pro-
fane and embarrassed, and the initiated slatting the floor
with their tails in unison and their faces transfigured with
a holy joy.

And it was the same with phrases. She would drag home a
whole phrase, if it had a grand sound, and play it six nights
and two matinees, and explain it a new way every time--which
she had to, for all she cared for was the phrase; she wasn't
interested in what it meant, and knew those dogs hadn't wit
enough to catch her, anyway. Yes, she was a daisy! She got
so she wasn't afraid of anything, she had such confidence
in the ignorance of those creatures. She even brought an-
ecdotes that she had heard the family and the dinner-guests
laugh and shout over; and as a rule she got the nub of one
chestnut hitched onto another chestnut, where, of course,
it didn't fit and hadn't any point; and when she delivered
the nub she fell over and rolled on the floor and laughed
and barked in the most insane way, while I could see that
she was wondering to herself why it didn't seem as funny
as it did when she first heard it. But no harm was done;
the others rolled md barked too, privately ashamed of
themselves for not seeing the point, and never suspecting
that the fault was not with them and there wasn't any to
see.

You can see by these things that she was of a rather vain
and frivolous character; still, she had virtues, and enough
to make up, I think. She had a kind heart and gentle ways,
and never harbored resentments for injuries done her, but put
them easily out of her mind and forgot them; and she taught
her children her kindly way, and from her we learned also
to be brave and prompt in time of danger, and not to run
away, but face the peril that threatened friend or stranger,
and help him the best we could without stopping to think
what the cost might be to us. And she taught us not by
words only, but by example, and that is the best way and the
surest and the most lasting. Why, the brave things she did,
the splendid things! she was just a soldier; and so modest
about it--well, you couldn't help admiring her, and you
couldn't help imitating her; not even a King Charles spaniel
could remain entirely deicable in her society. So, as you
see, there was more to her than her education.


2


When I was well grown, at last, I was sold and taken away,
and I never saw her again. She was broken-hearted, and so
was I, and we cried; but she comforted me as well as she
could, and said we were sent into this world for a wise and
good purpose, and must do our duties without repining, take
our life as we might find it, live it for the best good of
others, and never mind about the results; they were not our
affair. She said men who did like this would have a noble
and beautiful reward by and by in another world, and although
we animals would not go there, to do well and right
without reward would give to our brief lives a worthiness
and dignity which in itself would be a reward. She had gathered
these things from time to time when she had gone to
the Sunday-school with the children, and had laid them up
in her memory more carefully than she had done with those
other words and phrases; and she had studied them deeply,
for her good and ours. One may see by this that she had a
wise and thoughtful head, for in there was so much lightness
and vanity in it.

So we said our farewells, and looked our last upon each
other through our tears; and the last thing she said--keeping
it for the last to make me remember it the better, I think
--was, memory of me, when there is a time of danger to an-
other do not think of yourself, think of your mother, and
do as she would do."

Do you think I could forget that? No.


3


It was such a charming home!--my new one; a fine great
house, with pictures, and delicate decorations, and rich
furniture, and no gloom anywhere, but all the wilderness of
dainty colors lit up with flowing sunshine; and the spacious
grounds around it, and the great garden--oh, greensward,
and noble trees, and fiowers, no end! And I was the same
as a member of the family; and they loved me, and petted
me, and did not give me a new name, but called me by my
old one that was dear to me because my mother had given it
me--Aileen Mavourneen. She got it out of a song; and the
Grays knew that song, and said it was a beautiful name.

Mrs. Gray was thirty, and so sweet and so lovely, you can-
not imagine it; and Sadie was ten, and just like her mother,
just a darling slender little copy of her, with auburn tails
down her back, and short frocks; and the baby was a year
old, and plump and dimpled, and fond of me, and never could
get enough of hauling on my tail, and hugging me, and laugh-
ing out its innocent happiness; and Mr. Gray was thirty-eight,
and tall and slender and handsome, a little bald in front,
alert, quick in his movements, businesslike, prompt, decid-
ed, unsentimental, and with that kind of trim-chiseled face
that just seems to glint and sparkle with frosty intellect-
uality! He was a renowned scientist. I do not know what
the word means, but my mother would know how to use it
and get effects. She would know how to depress a rat-terrier
with it and make a lap-dog look sorry he came. But that is
not the best one; the best one was Laboratory. My mother
could organize a Trust on that one that would skin the tax-
collars off the whole herd. The laboratory was not a book,
or a picture, or a place to wash your hands in, a the col-
lege president's dog said--no, that is the lavatory; the
laboratory is quite different, and is filled with jars,
and bottles, and electrics, and wires, and strange mach-
ines; and every week other scientists came there and sat
in the place, and used the machines, and discussed, and
made what they called experiments and discoveries; and
often I came, too, and stood around and listened, and
tried to learn, for the sake of my mother, and in loving
memory of her, although it was a pain to me, as realiz-
ing what she was losing out of her life and I gaining
nothing at all; for try as I might, I was never able to
make anything out of it at all.

Other times I lay on the floor in the mistress's work-room
and slept, she gently using me for a foot-stool, knowing it
pleased me, for it was a caress; other times I spent an hour
in the nursery, and got well tousled and made happy; other
times I watched by the crib there, when the baby was asleep
and the nurse out for a few minutes on the baby's affairs;
other times I romped and raced through the grounds and the
garden with Sadie till we were tired out, then slumbered on
the grass in the shade of a tree while she read her book;
other times I went visiting among the neighbor dogs--for
there were some most pleasant ones not far away, and one
very handsome and courteous and graceful one, a curlyhaired
Irish setter by the name of Robin Adair, who was a Pres-
byterian like me, and belonged to the Scotch minister.

The servants in our house were all kind to me and were
fond of me, and so, as you see, mine was a pleasant life.
There could not be a happier dog than I was, nor a grate-
fuler one. I will say this for myself, for it is only the
truth: I tried in all ways to do well and right, and honor
my mother's memory and her teachings, and earn the happi-
ness that had come to me, as best I could.

By and by came my little puppy, and then my cup was full,
my happiness was perfect. It was the dearest little waddl-
ing thing, and so smooth and soft and velvety, and had such
cunning little awkward paws, and such affectionate eyes,
and such a sweet and innocent face; and it made me so proud
to see how the children and their mother adored it, and fond-
led it, and exclaimed over every little wonderful thing it
did. It did seem to me that life was just too lovely to--

Then came the winter. One day I was standing a watch in the
nursery. That is to say, I was asleep on the bed. The baby
was asleep in the crib, which was alongside the bed, on the
side next the fireplace. It was the kind of crib that has a
lofty tent over it made of a gauzy stuff that you can see
through. The nurse was out, and we two sleepers were alone.
A spark from the wood-fire was shot out, and it lit on the
slope of the tent. I supposed a quiet interval followed, then
a scream from the baby woke me, and there was that tent flam-
ing up toward the ceiling! Before I could think, I sprang to
the floor in my fright, and in a second was half-way to the
door; but in the next half-second my mother's farewell was
sounding in my ears, and I was back on the bed again. I reach-
ed my head hrou the flames and dragged the baby out by the
waistband, and tugged it along, and we fell to the floor
together in a cloud of smoke; I snatched a new hold, and
dragged the screaming little creature along and out at the
door and around the bend of the hall, and was still tugging
away, all excited and happy and proud, when the master's
voice shouted:

"Begone, you cursed beast!" and I jumped to save myself;
but he was wonderfully quick, and chased me up, striking
furiously at me with his cane, I dodging this way and that,
in terror, and at last a strong blow fell upon my left fore-
leg, which made me shriek and fall, for the moment, helpless;
the cane went up for another blow, but never descended, for
the nurse's voice rang wildly out, "The nursery's on fire!"
and the master rushed away in that direction, and my other
bones were saved.

The pain was cruel, but, no matter, I must not lose any
time; he might come back at any moment; so I limped on
three legs to the other end of the hall, where there was a
dark little stairway leading up into a garret where old box-
es and such things were kept, as I had heard say, and where
people seldom went. I managed to climb up there, then I
searched my way through the dark among the piles of things,
and hid in the secretest place I could find. It was foolish
to be afraid there, yet still I was; so afraid that I held
in and hardly even whimpered, though it would have been such
a comfort to whimper, because that eases the pain, you know.
But I could lick my leg, and that did me some good.

For half an hour there was a commotion downstairs, and
shoutings, and rushing footsteps, and then there was quiet
again. Quiet for some minutes, and that was grateful to my
spirit, for then my fears began to go down; and fears are
worse than pains--oh, much worse. Then came a sound that
froze me. They were calling me--calling me by names--hunt-
ing for me!

It was muffled by distance, but that could not take the
terror out of it, and it was the most dreadful sound to me
that I had ever heard. It went all about, everywhere, down
there: along the halls, through all the rooms, in both stories,
and in the basement and the cellar; then outside, and farther
and farther away--then back, and all about the house again,
and I thought it would never, never stop. But at last it did,
hours and hours after the vague twilight of the garret had
long ago been blotted out by black darkness.

Then in that blessed stillness my terrors fell little by lit-
tle away, and I was at peace and slept. It was a good rest I
had, but I woke before the twilight had come again. I was
feeling fairly comfortable, and I could think out a plan now.
I made a very good one; which was, to creep down, all the way
down the back stairs, and hide behind the cellar door, and
slip out and escape when the iceman came at dawn, while he
was inside filling the refrigerator; then I would hide all
day, and start on my journey when night came; my journey to
--well, anywhere where they would not know me and betray me
to the master. I was feeling almost cheerful now; then sud-
denly I thought: Why, what would life be without my puppy!

That was despair. There was no plan for me; I saw that;
I must stay where I was; stay, and wait, and take what might
come--it was not my affair; that was what life is--my mother
had said it. Then--well, then the calling began again! All
my sorrows came back. I said to myself, the master will ne
ver forgive. I did not know what I had done to make him so
bitter and so unforgiving, yet I judged it was something a
dog could not understand, but which was clear to a man
and dreadful.

They called and called--days and nights, it seemed to me.
So long that the hunger and thirst near drove me mad, and
I recognized that I was getting very weak. When you are this
way you sleep a great deal, and I did. Once I woke in an aw-
ful fright--it seemed to me that the calling was right there
in the garret! And so it was: it was Sadie's voice, and she
was crying; my name was falling from her lips all broken,
poor thing, and I could not believe my ears for the joy of
it when I heard her say:

"Come back to us--oh, come back to us, and forgive--it
is all so sad without our--"

I broke in with such a grateful little yelp, and the next mo-
ment Sadie was plunging and stumbling through the darkness
and the lumber and shouting for the family to hear, "She's
found, she's found!"


The days that followed--well, they were wonderful. The
mother and Sadie and the servants--why, they just seemed to
worship me. They couldn't seem to make me a bed that was
fine enough; and as for food, they couldn't be satisfied with
anything but game and delicacies that were out of season;
and every day the friends and neighbors flocked in to hear
about my heroism--that was the name they called it by,
and it means agriculture. I remember my mother pulling it
on a kennel once, and explaining it that way, but didn't
say what agriculture was, except that it was synonymous
with intramural incandescence; and a dozen times a day Mrs.
Gray and Sadie would tell the tale to newcomers, and say I
risked my life to save the baby's, and both of us had burns
to prove it, and then the company would pass me around and
pet me and exclaim about me, and you could see the pride
in the eyes of Sadie and her mother; and when the people
wanted to know what made me limp, they looked ashamed
and changed die subject, and sometimes when people hunted
diem this way and tt way with questions about it, it looked
to me as if they were going to cry.

And this was not all the glory; no, the master's friends
came, a whole twenty of the most distinguished people,
and had me in the laboratory, and discussed me as if I was
a kind of discovery; and some of them said it was wonderful
in a dumb beast, the finest exhibition of instinct they could
call to mind; but the master said, with vehemence, "It's far
above instinct; it's reason, and many a man, privileged to be
saved and go with you and me to a better world by right of
its possession, has less of it than this poor silly quadruped
that's foreordained to perish"; and then he laughed, and
said: "Why, look at me--I'm a sarcasm! bless you, with all
my grand intelligence, the only thing I inferred was that
the dog had gone mad and was destroying the child, whereas
but for the beast's intelligence--it's reason, I tell you!--
the child would have perished!"

They disputed and disputed, and I was the very center and
subject of it all, and I wished my mother could know that
this grand honor had come to me; it would have made her
proud.

Then they discussed optics, as they called it, and whether
a certain injury to the brain would produce blindness or not,
but they could not agree about it, and said they must test
it by experiment by and by; and next they discussed plants,
and that interested me, because in the summer Sadie and I
had planted seeds--I helped her dig the holes, you know--
and after days and days a little shrub or a flower came up
there, and it was a wonder how that could happen; but it
did, and I wished I could talk--I would have told those people
about it and shown them how much I knew, and been all
alive with the subject; but I didn't care for the optics; it
was dull, and when they came back to it again it bored me,
and I went to sleep.

Pretty soon it was spring, and sunny and pleasant and
lovely, and the sweet mother and the children patted me and
the puppy good-by, and went away on a journey and a visit
to their and the master wasn't any company for us, but
we played together and had good times, and the servants
were kind and friendly, so we got along quite happily and
counted the days and waited for the family.

And one day those men came again, and said, now for the
test, and they took the puppy to the laboratory, and I
limped three-leggedly along, too, feeling proud, for any at-
tention shown the puppy was a pleasure to me, of course.
They discussed and experimented, and then suddenly the puppy
shrieked, and they set him on the floor, and he went stag-
gering around, with his head all bloody, and the master
clapped his hands and shouted:

"There, I've won--confess it! He's as blind as a bat!"
And they all said:

"It's so--you've proved your theory, and suffering human-
ity owes you a great debt from henceforth," and they crowded
around him, and wrung his hand cordially and thankfully,
and praised him.

But I hardly saw or heard these things, for I ran at once
to my little darling, and snuggled close to it where it lay,
and licked the blood, and it put its head against mine, whim-
pering softly, and I knew in my heart it was a comfort to
it in its pain and trouble to feel its mother's touch, though
it could not see me. Then it dropped down, presently, and its
little velvet nose rested upon the floor, and it was still,
and did not move any more.

Soon the master stopped discussing a moment, and rang in the
footman, and said, "Bury it in the far corner of the garden,"
and then went on with the discussion, and I trotted after
the footman, very happy and grateful, for I knew the puppy
was out of its pain now, because it was asleep. We went far
down the garden to the farthest end, where the children
and the nurse and the puppy and I used to play in the sum-
mer in the shade of a great elm, and there the footman
dug a hole, and I saw he was going to plant the puppy, and
I was glad, because it would grow and come up a fine hand-
some dog, like Robin Adair, and be a beautiful surprise
for the family when they came home; so I tried to help
him dig, but my lame leg was no good, being stiff, you know,
and you have to have two, or it is no use. Then the footman
had finished and covered little Robin up, he patted my head,
and there were tears in his eyes, and he said: "Poor little
doggie, you saved his child."

I have watched two whole weeks, and he doesn't come up!
This last week a fright has been stealing upon me. I think
there is something terrible about this. I do not know what
it is, but the fear makes me sick, and I cannot eat, though
the servants bring me the best of food; and they pet me so,
and even come in the night, and cry, and say, "Poor doggie
--do give it up and come home; don't break our hearts!" and
all this terrifies me the more, and makes me sure something
has happened. And I am so weak; since yesterday I cannot
stand on my feet any more. And within this hour the servants,
looking toward the sun where it was sinking out of sight and
the night chill coming on, said things I could not understand,
but they carried something cold to my heart.

"Those poor creaturesi They do not suspect They will
come home in the morning, and eagerly ask for the little
doggie that did the brave deed, and who of us will be strong
enough to say the truth to them: 'The humble little friend
is gone where go the beasts that perish.'"


1903



The $30,000 Bequest



Lakeside was a pleasant little town of five or six thousand
inhabitants, and a rather pretty one, too, as towns go in the
Far West. It had church accommodations for thirty-five thou-
sand, which is the way of the Far West and the South, where
everybody is religious, and where each of the Protestant
sects is represented and has a plant of its own. Rank was
unknown in Lakeside--unconfessed, anyway; everybody knew
everybody and his dog, and a sociable friendliness was
the prevailing atmosphere.

Saladin Foster was book-keeper in the principal store, and
the only high-salaried man of his profession in Lakeside. He
was thhty-five years old, now; he had served that store for
fourteen years; he had begun in his marriage-week at four
hundred dollars a year, and had climbed steadily up, a hundred
dollars a year, for four years; from that time forth his
wage t had remained eight hundred--a handsome figure inde,
and everybody conceded that he was worth it.

His wife, Electra, was a capable helpmeet, although--like
himself--a dreamer of dreams and a private dabbler in romance.
The first thing she did, after her marriage--child as she
was, aged only nineteen--was to buy an acre of ground on
the edge of the town, and pay down the cash for it--twenty-
five dollars, all her fortune. Saladin had less, by fifteen.
She instituted a vegetable garden there, got it farmed on
shares by the nearest neighbor, and made it pay her a hund-
red per cent, a year. Out of Saladin's first year's wage she
put thirty dollars in the savings-bank, sixty out of his se-
cond, a hundred out of his third, a hundred and fifty out of
his fourth. His wage went to eight hundred a year, then, and
meantime two children had arrived and increased the expenses,
but she banked two hundred a year from the salary, neverthe-
less, thenceforth. When she had been married seven years she
built and furnished a pretty and comfortable two-thousand-
dollar house in the midst of her garden-acre, paid half of
the money down and moved her family in. Seven years later
she was out of debt and had several hundred dollars out
earning its living.

Earning it by the rise in landed estate; for she had long
ago bought another acre or two and sold the most of it at
a profit to pleasant people who were willing to build, and
would be good neighbors and furnish a general comradeship
for herself and her growing family. She had an independent
income from safe investments of about a hundred dollars a
year; her children were growing in years and grace; and she
was a pleased and happy woman. Happy in her husband, happy
in her children, and the husband and the children were happy
in her. It is at this point that this history begins.

The youngest girl, Clytemnestra--called Clyde for short
--was eleven; her sister, Gwendolen--called Gwen for short
--was thirteen; nice girls, and comely. The names betray
the latent romance-tinge in the parental blood, the parents'
names indicate that the tinge was an inheritance. It was an
aflectionate family, hence all four of its members had pet
names. Saladin's was a curious and unsexing one--Sally;
and so was Electra's--Aleck. All day long Sally was a good
and diligent book-keeper and salesman; all day long Aleck
was a good and faithful mother and housewife, and thoughtful
and calculating business woman; but in the cozy living-room
at night they put the plodding world away, and lived in an-
other and a fairer, reading romances to each other, dream-
ing dreams, comrading with kings and princes and stately
lords and ladies in the flash and stir and splendor of no-
ble palaces and grim and ancient castles,


2


Now came great news! Stunning news--joyous news, in
fact. It came from a neighboring state, where the family's
only surviving relative lived. It was Sally's relative--a
sort of vague and indefinite uncle or second or third cou-
sin by the name of Tilbury Foster, seventy and a bachelor,
reputed well off and correspondingly sour and crusty. Sal-
ly had tried to make up to him once, by letter, in a bygone
time, and had not made that mistake again. Tilbury now
wrote to Sally, saying he should shortly die, and should
leave him thirty thousand dollars, cash; not for love, but
because money had given him most of his troubles and exas-
perations, and he wished to place it where there was good
hope that it would continue its malignant work. The bequest
would be found in his will, and would be paid over. Provid-
ed, that Sally should be able to prove to the executors that
he had taken no notice of the gift by spoken word or by let-
ter, had made no inquiries concerning the moribund's pro-
gress toward the everlasting tropics, and had not attended
the funeral.

As soon as Aleck had partially recovered from the tremendous
emotions created by the letter, she sent to the relative's
habitat and subscribed for the local paper.

Man and wife entered into a solemn compact, now, to never
mention the great news to any one while the relative lived,
lest some ignorant person carry the fact to the deathbed and
distort it and make it appear that they were disobediently
thankful for the bequest, and just the same as confessing it
and publishing it, right in the face of the prohibition.

For the rest of the day Sally made havoc and confusion with
his books, and Aleck could not keep her mind on her affairs,
nor even take up a flower-pot or book or a stick of wood
without forgetting what she had intended to do with it. For
both were dreaming.

"Thir-ty thousand dollars!"

All day long the music of those inspiring words sang
through those people's head.

From her marriage-day forth, Aleck's grip had been upon
the purse, and Sally had seldom known what it was to be
privileged to squander a dime on non-necessities.

"Thir-ty thousand dollars!" the song went on and on. A
vast sum, an unthinkable sum!

All day long Aleck was absorbed in planning how to
invest it, Sally in planning how to spend it.

There was no romance-reading that night. The children
took themselves away early, for the parents were silent,
distraught, and strangely unentertaining. The good-night
kisses might as well have been impressed upon vacancy, for
all the response they got; the parents were not aware of
the kisses, and the children had been gone an hour before
their absence was noticed. Two pencils had been busy dur-
ing that hour--note-making; in the way of plans. It was
Sally who broke the stillness at last He said, without
exultation:

"Ah, it'll be grand, Alec! Out of the first thousand we'll
have a horse and a buggy for summer, and a cutter and a
skin lap-robe for winter."

Aleck responded with decision and composure--

"Out of the capital? Nothing of the kind. Not if it was a
million!"

Sally was deeply disappointed; the glow went out of his
face.

"Oh, Aleck!" he said, reproachfully. "We've always worked
so hard and been so scrimped; and now that we are rich, it
does seem--"

He did not finish, for he saw her eye soften; his supplica-
tion had touched her. She said, with gentle persuasiveness:
"We must not spend the capital, dear, it would not be wise.
Out of the income from it--

"That will answer, that will answer, Aleck! How dear and
good you are! There will be a noble income, and if we can
spend that--"

"Not all of it, dear, not all of it, but you can spend a
part of it. That is, a reasonable part. But the whole of the
capital--every penny of it--must be put right to work, and
kept at it. You see the reasonableness of that, don't you?"

"Why, ye-s. Yes, of course. But we'll have to wait so long.
Six months before the first interest falls due."

"Yes--maybe longer."

"Longer, Aleck? Why? Don't they pay half-yearly?"

"That kind of an investment--yes; but I sha'n't invest in
that way."

"What way, then?"

"For big returns."

"Big. That's good. Go on, Aleck. What is it?"

"Coal. The new mines. Cannel. I mean to put in ten thousand.
Ground floor. When we organize, we'll get three shares for
one."

"By George, but it sounds good, Aleck! Then the shares
will be worth--how much? And when?"

"About a year. They'll pay ten per cent, half-yearly, and
be worth thirty thousand. I know all about it; the advertise-
ment is in the Cincinnati paper here."

"Land, thirty thousand for ten--in a year! Let's jam in the
whole capital and pull out ninety! I'll write and subscribe
right now--to-morrow it may be too late."

He was flying to the writing-desk, but Aleck stopped him
and put him back in his chair. She said:

"Don't lose your head so. We mustn't subscribe till we've
got the money; don't you know that?"

Sally's excitement went down a degree or two, but he was
not wholly appeased.

"Why, Aleck, we'll have it, you know--and so soon, too.
He's probably out of his troubles before this; it's a hundred
to nothing he's selecting his brimstone-shovel this very minute.
Now, I think--"

Aleck shuddered, and said:

"How can you, Sally! Don't talk in that way, it is per-
fectly scandalous."

"Oh well, make it a halo, if you like, I don't care for his
outfit, I was only just talking. Can't you let a person talk?"

"But why should you want to talk in that dreadful way?
How would you like to have people talk so about you, and
you not cold yet?"

"Not likely to be, for one while, I reckon, if my last act
was giving away money for the sake of doing somebody a
harm with it. But never mind about Tilbury, Aleck, let's
talk about something worldly. It does seem to me that that
mine is the place for the whole thirty. What's the objection?"

"All the eggs in one basket--that's the objection."

"All right, if you say so. What about the other twenty?
What do you mean to do with that?"

"There is no hurry; I am going to look around before I
do anything with it."

"All right, if your mind's made up," sighed Sally. He was
deep in thought awhile, then he said:

"There'll be twenty thousand profit coming from the ten a
year from now. We can spend that, can't we, Aleck?"

Aleck shook her head.

"No, dear," she said, "it won't sell high till we've had the
first semi-annual dividend. You can spend part of that."

"Shucks, only that--and a whole year to wait! Confound
it, I--"

"Oh, do be patient! It might even be declared in three
months--it's quite within the possibilities."

"Oh, jolly! oh, thanks!" and Sally jumped up and kissed
his wife in gratitude. "It'll be three thousand--three whole
thousand! how much of it can we spend, Aleck? Make it lib-
eral--do, dear, that's a good fellow."

Aleck was pleased; so pleased that she yielded to the pres-
sure and conceded a sum which her judgment told her was a
foolish extravagance--a thousand dollars. Sally kissed her
half a dozen times and even in that way could not express all
his joy and thankfulness. This new access of gratitude and
affection carried Aleck quite beyond the bounds of prudence,
and before she could restrain herself she had made her dar-
ling another grant--a couple of thousand out of the fifty
or sixty which she meant to clear within a year out of the
twenty which still remained of the bequest. The happy tears
sprang to Sally's eyes, and he said:

"Oh, I want to hug you!" And he did it. Then he got his
notes and sat down and began to check off, for first pur-
chase, the luxuries which be should earliest wish to
secure, "Horse--buggy--cutter--lap-robe--patent-leathers---
dog--plug-hat--church-pew--stem-winder--new teeth--say,

Aleck!"

"Well?"

"Ciphering away, aren't you? That's right. Have you got
the twenty thousand invested yet?"

"No, there's no hurry about that; I must look around first,
and think."

"But you are ciphering; what's it about?"

"Why, I have to find work for the thirty thousand that
comes out of the coal, haven't I?"

"Scott, what a head! I never thought of that. How are you
getting along? Where have you arrived?"

"Not very far--two years or three. I've turned it over
twice; once in oil and once in wheat."

"Why, Aleck, it's splendid! How does it aggregate?"

"I think--well, to be on the safe side, about a hundred
and eighty thousand clear, though it will probably be more."

"My! isn't it wonderful? By gracious! luck has come our
way at last, after all the hard sledding. Aleck!"

"Well?"

"I'm going to cash in a whole three hundred on the mission-
aries--what real right have we to care for expenses!"

"You couldn't do a nobler thing, dear; and it's just like
your generous nature, you unselfish boy."

The praise made Sally poignantly happy, but he .was fair
and just enough to say it was rightfully due to Aleck rather
than to himself, since but for her he should never have had
the money.

Then they went up to bed, and in their delirium of bliss
they forgot and left the candle burning in the parlor. They
did not remember until they were undressed; then Sally was
for letting it burn; he said they could afford it, if it was
a thousand. But Aleck went down and put it out.

A good job, too; for on her way back she hit on a scheme
that would turn the hundred and eighty thousand into half
a million before it had had time to get cold.


3


The little newspaper which Aleck had subscribed for was a
Thursday sheet; it would make the trip of five hundred miles
from Tilbury's village and arrive on Saturday. Tilbury's let-
ter had started on Friday, more than a day too late for the
benefactor to die and get into that week's issue, but in plen-
ty of time to make connection for the next output. Thus the
Fosters had to wait almost a complete week to find out whe-
ther anything of a satisfactory nature had happened to him
or not. It was a long, long week, and the strain was a heavy
one. The pair could hardly have borne it if their minds had
not had the relief of wholesome diversion. We have seen that
they had that. The woman was piling up fortunes right along,
the man was spending them--spending all his wife would give
him a chance at, at any rate.

At last the Saturday came, and the Weekly Sagamore arrived.
Mrs. Eversly Bennett was present. She was the Presbyterian
parson's wife, and was working the Fosters for a charity.
Talk now died a sudden death--on the Foster side. Mrs. Ben-
nett presently discovered that her hosts were not hearing
a word she was saying; so she got up, wondering and indignant,
and went away. The moment she was out of the house, Aleck
eagerly tore the wrapper from the paper, and her eyes and
Sally's swept the columns for the death-notices. Disappoin-
ment! Tilbury was not anywhere mentioned. Aleck was a
Christian from the cradle, and duty and the force of habit re-
quired her to go through the motions. She pulled herself
together and said, with a pious two-per-cent. trade joyous-
ness:

"Let us be humbly thankful that he has been spared; and--"

"Damn his treacherous hide, I wish--"

"Sally! For shame!"

"I don't care!" retorted the angry man. "It's the way you
feel, and if you weren't so immorally pious you'd be honest
and say so."

Aleck said, with wounded dignity:

"I do not see how you can say such unkind and unjust
things. There is no such thing as immoral piety."

Sally felt a pang, but tried to conceal it under a shuffling
attempt to save his case by changing the form of it--as if
changing the form while retaining the juice could deceive the
expert he was trying to placate. He said:

"I didn't mean so bad as that, Aleck; I didn't really mean
immoral piety, I only meant--meant--well, conventional pie-
ty, you know; er--shop piety; the--the--why, you know what
I mean. Aleck--the--well, where you put up the plated art-
icle and play it for solid, you know, without intending
anything improper, but just out of trade habit, ancient pol-
icy, petrified custom, loyalty to--to--hang it, I can't find
the right words, but you know what I mean, Aleck, and that
there isn't any harm in it. I'll try again. You see, it's this
way. If a person--"

"You have said quite enough," said Aleck, coldly; "let the
subject be dropped,"

"I'm willing," fervently responded Sally, wiping the sweat
from his forehead and looking the thankfulness he had no
words for. Then, musingly, he apologized to himself. "I
certainly held threes--I know it--but I drew and didn't fill.

That's where I'm so often weak in the game. If I had stood
pat--but I didn't. I never do. I don't know enough."

Confessedly defeated, he was properly tame now and subdued.
Aleck forgave him with her eyes.

The grand interest, the supreme interest, came instantly
to the front again; nothing could keep it in the background
many minutes on a stretch. The couple took up the puzzle of
the absence of Tilbury's death-notice. They discussed it e-
very which way, more or less hopefully, but they had to fin-
ish where they began, and concede that the only really sane
explanation of the absence of the notice must be--and without
doubt was--that Tilbury was not dead. There was something
sad about it, something even a little unfair, maybe, but
there it was, and had to be put up with. They were agreed
as to that. To Sally it seemed a strangely inscrutable dis-
pensation; more inscrutable than usual, he thought; one
of the most unnecessarily inscrutable he could call to mind,
in fact--and said so, with some feeling; but if he was hoping
to draw Aleck he failed; she reserved her opinion, if she
had one; she had not the habit of taking injudicious risks
in any market, worldly or other.

The pair must wait for next week's paper--Tilbury had evi-
dently postponed. That was their thought and their decision.
So they put the subject away, and went about their affairs
again with as good heart as they could.


Now, if they had but known it, they had been wronging Til-
bury all the time. Tilbury had kept faith, kept it to the
letter; he was dead, he had died to schedule. He was dead
more than four days now and used to it; entirely dead, per-
fectly dead, as dead as any other new person in the cemetery;
dead in abundant time to get into that week's Sagamore, too,
and only shut out by an accident; an accident which could
not happen to a metropolitan journal, but which happens
easily to a poor little village rag like the Sagamore. On
this occasion, just as the editorial page was being locked
up, a gratis quart of strawberry water-ice arrived from Hos-
tetter's Ladies' and Gents' Ice-Cream Parlors, and the stick-
ful of rather chilly regret over Tilbury's translation got
crowded out to make room for the editor's frantic gratitude.

On its way to the standing-galley Tilbury's notice got pied.
Otherwise it would have gone into some future edition, for
Weekly Sagamores do not waste "live" matter, and in their
galleys "live" matter is immortal, unless a pi accident in-
tervenes. But a thing that gets pied is dead, and for such
there is no ressurection; its chance of seeing print is gone,
forever and ever. And so, let Tilbury like it or not, let him
rave in his grave to his fill, no matter--no mention of his
death would ever see the light in the Weekly Sagamore.


4


Five weeks drifted tediously along. The Sagamore arrived
regularly on the Saturdays, but never once contained a
mention of Tilbury Foster. Sally's patience broke down at
this point, and he said, resentfully:

"Damn his livers, he's immortal!"

Aleck gave him a very severe rebuke, and added, with icy
solemnity:

"How would you feel if you were suddenly cut off just
after such an awful remark had escaped out of you?"

Without sufficient reflection Sally responded:

"I'd feel I was lucky I hadn't got caught with it in me."

Pride had forced him to say something, and as he could not
think of any rational thing to say he flung that out. Then
he stole a base--as he called it--that is, slipped from the
presence, to keep from getting brayed in his wife's discus-
sion-mortar.

Six months came and went. The Sagamore was still silent
about Tilbury. Meantime, Sally had several times thrown out
a feeler--that is, a hint that he would like to know. Aleck
had ignored the hints, Sally now resolved to brace up and
risk a frontal attack. So he squarely proposed to disguise
himself and go to Tilbury's village and surreptitiously find
out as to the prospects. Aleck put her foot on the dangerous
project with energy and decision. She said:

"What can you be thinking of? You do keep my hands full! You
have to be watched all the time, like a little child to keep
you from walking into the fire. You'll slay right where you
are!"

"Why, Aleck, I could do it and not be found out--I'm certain
of it."

"Sally Foster, don't you know' you would have to inquire
around?"

"Of course, but what of it? Nobody would suspect who I
was."

"Oh, listen to the man! Some day you've got to prove to
the executors that you never inquired. What then?"

He had forgotten that detail. He didn't reply; there wasn't
anything to say. Aleck added:

"Now then, drop that notion out of your mind, and don't
ever meddle with it again. Tilbury set that trap for you.
Don't you know it's a trap? He is on the watch, and fully
expecting you to blunder into it Well, he is going to be
disappointed--at least while I am on deck. Sally!"

"Well?"

"As long as you live, if it's a hundred years, don't you
ever make an inquiry. Promise!"

"All right," with a sigh and reluctantly.

Then Aleck softened and said:

"Don't be impatient. We are prospering; we can wait; there
is no hurry. Our small dead-certain income increases all the
time; and as to futures, I have not made a mistake yet--they
are piling up by the thousands and the tens of thousands.
There is not another family in the state with such prospects
as ours. Already we are beginning to roll in eventud wealth.
You know that, don't you?"

"Yes, Aleck, it's certainly so."

"Then be grateful for what God is doing for us, and stop
worrying. You do not believe we could have achieved these
prodigious results without His special help and guidance, do
you?"

Hesitatingly, "N-no, I suppose not." Then, with feeling and
admiration, "And yet, when it comes to judiciousness in
watering a stock or putting up a hand to skin Wall Street I
don't give in that you need any outside amateur help, if I
do wish I--"

"Oh, do shut up! I know you do not mean any harm or any ir-
reverence, poor boy, but you can't seem to open your mouth
without letting out things to make a person shudder.
You keep me in constant dread. For you and for all of us.
Once I had no fear of the thunder, but now when I hear it
I--"

Her voice broke, and she began to cry, and could not finish.
The sight of this smote Sally to the heart, and he took
her in his arms and petted her and comforted her and promised
better conduct, and upbraided himself and remorsefully
pleaded for forgiveness. And he was in earnest, and sorry
for what he had done and ready for any sacrifice that could
make up for it.

And so, in privacy, he thought long and deeply over the
matter, resolving to do what should seem best It was easy
to promise reform; indeed he had already promised it. But
would that do any real good, any permanent good? No, it
would be but temporary--he knew his weaess, and confessed
it to himself with sorrow--he could not keep the promise.
Something surer and better must be devised; and he devised
it. At cost of precious money which he had long been saving
up, shilling by shilling, he put a lightning-rod on the house.

At a subsequent time he relapsed.

What miracles habit can do! and how quickly and how easily
habits are acquired--both trifling habits and habits which
profoundly change us. If by accident we wake at two in the
morning a couple of nights in succession, we have need to
be uneasy, for another repetition can turn the accident
into a habit; and a month's dallying with whisky--but we
all know these commonplace facts.

The castle-building habit, the day-dreaming habit--how
it grows! what a luxury it becomes; how we fly to its en-
chantments at every idle moment, how we revel in them, steep
our souls in them, intoxicate ourselves with their beguiling
fantasies--oh yes, and how soon and how easily our dream
life and our material life become so intermingled and so
fused together that we can't quite tell which is which, any
more.

By and by Aleck subscribed for a Chicago daily and for
the Wall Street Pointer. With an eye single to finance she
studied these as diligently all the week as she studied her
Bible Sundays. Sally was lost in admiration, to note with
what swift and sure strides her genius and judgment devel-
oped and expanded in the forecasting and handling of the
securities of both the material and spiritual markets. He
was proud of her nerve and daring in exploiting worldly
stocks, and just as proud of her conservative caution in
working her spiritual deals. He noted that she never lost
her head in either case; that with a splendid courage she
often went short on worldly futures, but heedfully drew
the line there--she was always long on the others. Her po-
licy was quite sane and simple, as she explained it to him:
what she put into earthly futures was for speculation, what
she put into spiritual futures was for investment; she was
willing to go into the one on a margin, and take chances,
but in the case of the other, "margin her no margins"--she
wanted to cash in a hundred cents per dollar's worth, and
have the stock transferred on the books.

It took but a very few months to educate Aleck's imagina-
tion and Sally's. Each day's training added something to
the spread and effectiveness of the two machines. As a
consequence, Aleck made imaginary money much faster than at
first she had dreamed of making it, and Sally's competency
in spending the overflow of it kept pace with the strain put
upon it, right along. In the beginning, Aleck had given the
coal speculation a twelve-month in which to materialize, and
had been loath to grant that this term might possibly be
shortened by nine months. But that was the feeble work, the
nursery work, of a financial fancy that had had no teaching,
no earience, no practice. These aids soon came, then that
nine months vanished, and the imaginary ten-thousand-dollar
investment came marching home with three hundred per
cent profit on its back!

It was a great day for the pair of Fosters. They were
speechless for joy. Also speechless for another reason: after
much watching of the market, Aleck had lately, with fear
and trembling, made her first flyer on a "margin," using the
remaining twenty thousand of the bequest in tl risk. In her
mind's eye she had seen it climb, point by point--always with
a chance that the market would break--until at last her
anxieties were too great for further endurance--she being
new to the margin business and unhardened, as yet--and
she gave her imaginary broker an imaginary order by imaginary
telegraph to sell. She said forty tiousand dollars' profit
was enough. The sale was made on the very day that the coal
venture had returned with its rich freight. As I have said, the
couple were speechless. They sat dazed and blissful that
night, trying to realize the immense fact, the overwhelming
fact, that they were actually worth a hundred thousand dollars
in clean, imaginary cash. Yet so it was.

It was the last time that ever Aleck was afraid of a margin;
at least afraid enough to let it break her sleep and pale her
cheek to the extent that this first experience in that line
had done.

Indeed it was a memorable night. Gradually the realization
that they were rich sank securely home into the souls of
the pair, then they began to place the money. If we could
have looked out through the eyes of these dreamers, we
should have seen their tidy little wooden house disappear,
and a two-story brick with a cast-iron fence in front of it
take its place; we should have seen a three-globed gas-chan-
delier grow down from the parlor ceiling; we should have
seen the homely rag carpet turn to noble Brussels, a
dollar and a half a yard; we ould have seen the plebeian
fireplace vanish away and a rechercbe, big base-burner
with isinglass windows take position and spread awe around.
And we should have seen olher things, too; among them the
buggy, the lap-robe, the stove-pipe hat, and so on.

From that time forth, although the daughers and the
neighbors saw only the same old wooden house there, it was
a two-story brick to Aleck and Sally; and not a night went
by that Aleck did not worry about the imaginary gas-bilis,
and get for all comfort Sally's reckless retort: "What of
it? We can afford it"

Before the couple went to bed, that first night that they
were rich, they had decided that they must celebrate. They
must give a party--that was the idea. But how to explain it
--to the daughters and the neighbors? They could not expose
the fact that they were rich. Sally was willing, even anxious,
to do it; but Aleck kept her head and would not allow it. She
said that although the money was as good as in, it would be
as well to wait until it was actually in. On that policy she
took her stand, and would not budge. The great secret must be
kept, she said--kept from the daughters and everybody else.

The pair were puzzled. They must celebrate, they were
determined to celebrate, but since the secret must be kept,
what could they celebrate? No birthdays were due for three
months. Tilbury wasn't available, evidently he was going to
live forever; what the nation could they celebrate? That was
Sally's way of putting it; and he was getting impatient, too,
and harassed. But at last he hit it--just by sheer inspiration,
as it seemed to him--and all their troubles were gone in a
moment; they would celebrate the Discovery of America.
A splendid idea!

Aleck was almost too proud of Sally for words--she said
she never would have thought of it. But Sally, although he
was bursting with delight in the compliment and with wonder
at himself, tried not to let on, and said it wasn't really
anything, anybody could have done it. Whereat Aleck, with
a prideful toss of her happy head, said:

"Oh, certainly! Anybody could--oh, anybody! Hosannah Dil-
kins, for instance! Or maybe Adelbert Peanut--oh, dear--
yes! Well, I'd like to see them try it, that's all. Dear-
me-suz, if they could think of the discovery of a forty-acre
island it's more than I believe they could; and as for a
whole continent, why, Sally Foster, you know perfectly well
it would Strain the livers and lights out of them and then
they couldn't!"

The dear woman, she knew he had talent; and if affection made
her over-estimate the size of it a little, surely it was a
sweet and gentle crime, and forgiveable for its source's sake.


5


The celebration went off well. The friends were all present,
both the young and the old. Among the young were Flossie
and Grade Peanut and their brother Adelbert, who was a
rising young journeyman tinner, also Hosannah Dilkins, Jr.,
journeyman plasterer, just out of his apprenticeship. For
many months Adelbert and Hosannah had been showing interest
in Gwendolen and Clytemnestra Foster, and the parents
of the girls had noticed this with private satisfaction. But
they suddenly realized now that that feeling had passed.
They recognized that the changed financial conditions had
raised up a social bar between their daughters and the young
mechanics. The daughters could now look higher--and must.
Yes, must. They need marry nothing below the grade of
lawyer or merchant; poppa and momma would take care of
this; there must be no mesalliances.

However, these thinkings and projects of theirs were private,
and did not show on the surface, and therefore threw no sha-
dow upon the celebration. What showed upon the surface was a
serene and lofty contentment and a dignity of carriage and
gravity of deportment which compelled the admiration and like-
wise the wonder of the company. All noticed it, all commented
upon it, but none was able to divine the secret of it. It was
a marvel and a mystery. There several persons remarked, with-
out suspecting what clever shots they were making:

"It's as if they'd come into property."

That was just it, indeed.

Most mothers would have taken hold of the matrimonial
matter in the old regulation way; they would have given the
girls a talking to, of a solemn sort and untactful--a lecture
calculated to defeat its own purpose, by producing tears and
secret rebellion; and the said mothers would have further
damaged the business by requesting the young mechanics
to discontinue their attentions. But this mother was different.
She was practical. She said nothing to any of the young people
concerned, nor to any one else except Sally. He listened
to her and understood; understood and admired. He said:

"I get the idea. Instead of finding fault with the samples
on view, thus hurting feelings and obstructing trade without
occasion, you merely offer a higher class of goods for the
money, and leave nature to take her course. It's wisdom,
Aleck, solid wisdom, and sound as a nut. Who's your fish?
Have you nominated him yet?"

No, she hadn't. They must look the market over--which they
did. To start with, they considered and discussed Bradish,
rising young lawyer, and Fulton, rising young dentist.
Sally must invite them to dinner. But not right away; there
was no hurry, Aleck said. Keep an eye on the pair, and
wait; nothing would be lost by going slowly in so important
a matter.

It turned out that this was wisdom, too; for inside of three
weeks Aleck made a wonderful strike which swelled her ima-
ginary hundred thousand to four hundred thousand of the same
quality. She and Sally were in the clouds that evening. For
the first time they introduced champagne at dinner. Not real
champagne, but plenty real enough for the amount of imagi-
nation expended on it. It was Sally that did it, and Aleck
weakly submitted. At bottom both were troubled and ashamed,
for he was a high-up Son of Temperance, and at funerals wore
an apron which no dog could look upon and retain his reason
and his opinion; and she was a W. C. T. U., with all that
that implies of boiler-iron virtue and unendurable holiness.
But there it was; the pride of riches was beginning its dis-
integrating work. They had lived to prove, once more, a sad
truth which had been proven many times before in the world:
that whereas principle is a great and noble protection a-
gainst showy and degrading vanities and vices, poverty is
worth six of it. More an four hundred thousand dollars to
the good! They took up the matrimonial matter again. Neither
the dentist nor the lawyer was mentioned; there was no oc-
casion, they were out of the running. Disqualified. They
discussed the son of the pork-packer and the son of the vil-
lage banker. But finally, as in the previous case, they
concluded to wait and think, and go cautiously and sme.

Luck came their way again. Aleck, ever watchful, saw a
great and risky chance, and took a daring flyer. A time
of trembling, of doubt, of awful uneasiness followed, for
nonsuccess meant absolute ruin and nothing short of it.
Then came the result, and Aleck, faint with joy, could
hardly control her voice when she said:

"The suspense is over, Sally--and we are worth a cold
million!"

Sally wept for gratitude, and said:

"Oh, Electra, jewel of women, darling of my heart, we are
free at last, we roll in wealth, we need never scrimp again.
It's a case for Veuve Cliquot!" and he got out a pint of
spruce-beer and made sacrifice, he saying "Damn &e expense,"
and she rebuking him gently with reproachful but
hmnid and happy eyes.

They shelv the pork-packer's son and the banker's son,
and sat down to consider the Governor's son and the son
of the Congressman.


6


It were a weariness to follow in detail the leaps and bounds
the Foster fictitious finances took from this time forth. It
was marvelous, it was dizzying, it was dazzling. Everything
Aleck touched turned to fairy gold, and heaped itself glitter-
ing toward the firmament. Millions upon millions poured in, and
still the mighty stream flowed thundering along, still its vast
volume increased. Five millions--ten millions--twentythirty
--was there never to be an end?

Two years swept by in a splendid delirium, the intoxicated
Fosters scarcely noticing the flight of time. They were now
worth three hundred million dollars; they were in every
board of directors of every prodigious combine in the country;
and still, as time drifted along, the millions went on pil-
ing up, five at a time, ten at a time, as fast as they could
tally them off, almost. The three hundred doubled itself
--then doubled again--and yet again--and yet once more.
Twenty-four hundred millions!

The business was getting a little confused. It was neces-
sary to take an account of stock, and straighten it out.
The Fosters knew it, they felt it, they realized that it
was imperative; but they o knew that to do it properly and
perfectly the task must be carried to a finish without a
break when once it was begun. A ten-hours' job; and where
could they find ten leisure hours in a bunch? Sally was
selling pins and sugar and calico all day and every day;
Aleck was cooking and washing dishes and sweeping and mak-
ing beds all day and every day, with none to help, for the
daughters were being saved up for high society. The Fosters
knew there was one way to get the ten hours, and only one.
Both were ashamed to name it; each waited for the other to
do it. Finally Sally said:

"Somebody's got to give in. It's up to me. Consider that
I've named it--never mind pronouncing it out aloud."

Aleck colored, but was grateful. Without further remark,
they fell. Fell, and--broke the Sabbath. For that was their
only free ten-hour stretch. It was but another step in the
downward path. Others would follow. Vast wealth has tempt-
ations which fatally and surely undermine the moral structure
of persons not habituated to its possession.

They pulled down the shades and broke the Sabbath. With
hard and patient labor they overhauled their holdings and
listed them. And a long-drawn procession of formidable
names it was! Starting with the Railway Systems, Steamer
Lines, Standard Oil, Ocean Cables, Diluted Telegraph, and all
the rest, and winding up with Klondike, De Beers, Tammany
Graft, and Shady Privileges in the Post-office Department.

Twenty-four hundred millions, and all safely planted in
Good Things, gilt-edged and interest-bearing. Income, $120,
000,000 a year. Aleck fetched a long purr of soft delight,
and said:

"Is it enough?"

"It is, Aleck."

"What shall we do?"

"Stand pat."

"Retire from business?"

"That's it"

"I am agreed. The good work is finished; we will take a
tong rest and enjoy the money."

"Good! Aleck!"

"Yes, dear?"

"How much of the income can we spend?"

"The whole of it."

It seemed to her husband that a ton of chains fell from
his limbs. He did not say a word; he was happy beyond the
power of speech.

After that, they broke the Sabbaths right along, as fast as
they turned up. It is the first wrong steps that count Every
Sunday they put in the whole day, after morning service,
on inventions--inventions of ways to spend the money. They
got to continuing this delicious dissipation until past mid-
night; and at every seance Aleck lavished millions upon great
charities and religious enterprises, and Sally lavished like
sums upon matters to which (at first) he gave definite names.
Only at first. Later the names gradually lost sharpness of
outline, and eventually faded into "sundries," thus becoming
entirely--but safely--undescriptive. For Sally was crumbling.
The placing of these millions added seriously and most un-
comfortably to the family expenses--in tallow candles.
For a while Aleck was worried. Then, after a little, she
ceased to worry, for the occasion of it was gone. She was
pained, she was grieved, she was ashamed; but she said
nothing, and so became an accessory. Sally was taking candles;
he was robbing the store. It is ever thus. Vast wealth, to
the person unaccustomed to it, is a bane; it eats into the
flesh and bone of his morals. When the Fosters were poor,
they could have been trusted with untold candles. But now
they--but let us not dwell upon it. From candles to apples
is but a step: Sally got to taking apples; then soap; then
maple-sugar; then canned goods; then crockery. How easy it
is to go from bad to worse, when once we have started upon
a downward course!

Meantime, other effects had been milestoning the course of
the Fosters' splendid financial march. The fictitious brick
dwelling had given place to an imaginary granite one with a
checker-board mansard roof; in time this one disappeared
and gave place to a still grander home--and so on and so on.
Mansion after mansion, made of air, rose, higher, broader.
finer, and each in its turn vanished away; until now in these
latter great days, our dreamers were in fancy housed, in a
distant region, in a sumptuous vast palace which look out
from a leafy summit upon a noble prospect of vale and river
and receding hills steeped in tinted mists--and all private,
all the property of the dreamers; a palace swarming with
liveried servants, and populous with guests of fame and powder,
hailing from all the world's capitals, foreign and domestic.

This palace was far, far away toward the rising sun, immea-
surably remote, astronomically remote, in Newport, Rhode
Island, Holy Land of High Society, ineffable Domain of the
American Aristocracy. As a rule they spent a part of every
Sabbath--after morning service--in this sumptuous home, the
rest of it they spent in Europe, or in dawdling around in
their private yacht. Six days of sordid and plodding fact
life at home on the ragged edge of Lakeside and straitened
means, the seventh in Fairyland--such had become their pro-
gram and their habit.

In their sternly restricted fact life they remained as of old
--plodding, diligent, careful, practical, economical. They
stuck loyally to the little Presbyterian Church, and labored
faithfully in its interests and stood by its high and tough
doctrines with all their mental and spiritual energies. But in
their dream life they obeyed the invitations of their fancies,
whatever they might be, and howsoever the fancies might change.
Aleck's fancies were not very capricious, and not frequent,
but Sally's scattered a good deal. Aleck, in her dream life,
went over to the Episcopal camp, on acount of its large of-
ficial titles; next she became High-church on account of the
candles and shows; and next she naturally changed to Rome,
where there were cardinals and more candles. But these ex-
cursions were a nothing to Sally's. His dream life was a
glowing and continuous and persistent excitement, and he
kept every part of it fresh and sparkling by frequent
changes, the religious part along with the rest. He worked
his religions hard, and changed them with his shirt.

The liberal spendings of the Fosters upon their fancies
began early in their prosperities, and grew in prodigality
step by step with their advancing fortunes. In time they
became truly enormous. Aleck built a university or two per
Sunday; also a hospital or two; also a Rowton hotel or so;
also a batch of churches; now and then a cathedral; and
once, with untimely and ill-chosen playfulness, Sally said,
"It was a cold day when she didn't ship a cargo of mission-
aries to persuade unreflecting Chinamen to trade off twenty
-four carat Confucianism for counterfeit Christianity."

This rude and unfeeling language hurt Aleck to the heart,
and she went from the presence crying. That spectacle went
to his own heart, and in his pain and shame he would have
given worlds to have those unkind words back. She had ut-
tered no syllable of reproach--and that cut him. Not one
suggestion that he look at his own record--and she could
have made, oh, so many, and such blistering ones! Her gen-
erous silence brought a swift revenge, for it turned his
Noughts upon himself, it summoned before him a spectral
procession, a moving vision of his life as he had been
leading it these past few years of limitless prosperity,
and as he sat there reviewing it his cheeks burned and
his soul was steeped in humiliation. Look at her life--
how fair it was, and tending ever upward; and look at
his own--how frivolous, how charged with mean vanities,
how selfish, how empty, how ignoble! And its trend--nev-
er upward, but downward, ever downward!

He instituted comparisons between her record and his own.
He had found fault with her--so he mused--he! And what
could he say for himself? When she built her first church
what was he doing? Gathering other blase multimillionaires
into a Poker Club; defiling his own palace with it; losing
hundreds of thousands to it at every sitting, and sillily
vain of the admiring notoriety it made for him. When she
was building her first university, what was he doing? Pol-
luting himself with a gay and dissipated secret life in the
company of other fast bloods, multimillionaires in money
and paupers in character. When she was building her first
foundling asylum, what was he doing? Alas! When she was
projecting her noble Society for the Purifying of the Sex,
what was he doing? Ah, what, indeed! When she and the
W. C. T. U. and the Woman with the Hatchet, moving with
resistless march, were sweeping the fatal bottle from the
land, what was he doing? Getting drunk three times a day.
When she, builder of a hundred cathedrals, was being grate-
fully welcomed and blest in papal Rome and decorated with
the Golden Rose which she had so honorably earned, what
was he doing? Breaking the bank at Monte Carlo.

He stopped. He could go no farther; he could not bear the
rest. He rose up, with a great resolution upon his lips:
this secret life should be revealed, and confessed; no
longer would he live it clandestinely; he would go and
tell her All.

And that is what he did. He told her All; and wept upon
her bosom; wept, and moaned, and begged for her forgive-
ness. It was a profound shock, and she staggered under the
blow, but he was her own, the core of her heart, the bless-
ing of her eyes, her all in all, she could deny him nothing.
and she forgave him. She felt that he could never again
be quite to her what he had been before; she knew that he
could only repent, and not reform; yet all morally defaced
and decayed as he was, was he not her own, her very own,
the idol of her deathless worship? She said she was his serf,
his slave, and she opened her yearning heart and took him
in.


7


One Sunday afternoon some time after this they were sailing
the summer seas in their dream yacht, and reclining in
lazy luxury under the awning of the after-deck. There was
silence, for each was busy with his own thoughts. These
seasons of silence had insensibly been growing more and
more frequent of late; the old nearness and cordiality were
waning. Sally's terrible revelation had done its work; Aleck
had tried hard to drive the memory of it out of her mind,
but it would not go, and the shame and bitterness of it were
poisoning her gracious dream life. She could see now (on
Sundays) that her husband was becoming a bloated and repul-
sive Thing. She could not close her eyes to this, and in
these days she no longer looked at him, Sundays, when she
could help it.

But she--was she herself without blemish? Alas, she knew
she was not. She was keeping a secret from him, she was
acting dishonorably toward him, and many a pang it was
costing her. She was breaking the compact, and concealing
it from him. Under strong temptation she had gone into
business again; she had risked their whole fortune in a
purchase of all the railway systems and coal and steel
companies in the country on a margin, and she was now
trembling, every Sabbath hour, lest through some chance
word of hers he find it out. In her misery and remorse
for this treachery she could not keep her heart from go-
ing out to him in pity; she was filled with compunctions
to see him lying there, drunk and content, and never sus-
pecting. Never suspecting--trusting her with a perfect
and pathetic trust, and she holding over him by a thread
a possible calamity of so devastating a--

"Say--Aleck?"

The interrupting words brought her suddenly to herself.
She was grateful to have that persecuting subject from her
thoughts, and she answered, with much of the old-time ten-
derness in her tone:

"Yes, dear."

"Do you know, Aleck, I think we are making a mistake--
that, is you are. I mean about the marriage business." He
sat up, fat and froggy and benevolent, like a bronze Buddha,
and grew earnest. "Consider--it's more than five years.
You've continued the same policy from the start: with every
rise, always holding on for five points higher. Always when I
think we are going to have some weddings, you see a bigger
thing ahead, and I undergo another disappointment. I think
you are too hard to please. Some day we'll get left. First,
we turned down the dentist and the lawyer. That was all
right--it was sound. Next, we turned down the banker's son
and the pork-butcher's heir--right again, and sound. Next,
we turned down the Congressman's son and the Governor's
--right as a trivet, I confess it. Next the Senator's son and
the son of the Vice-President of the United States--perfectly
right, there's no permanency about those little distinctions.
Then you went for the aristocracy; and I thought we had
struck oil at last--yes. We would make a plunge at the
Four Hundred, and pull in some ancient lineage, venerable,
holy, ineffable, mellow with the antiquity of a hundred and
fifty years, disinfected of the ancestral odors of salt-cod
and pelts all of a century ago, and unsmirched by a day's
work since; and then! why, then the marriages, of course.
But no, along comes a pair of real aristocrats from Europe,
and straightway you throw over the half-breeds. It was aw-
fully discouraging, Aleck! Since then, what a procession!
You turned down the baronets for a pair of barons; you
turned down the barons for a pair of viscounts; the viscounts
for a pair of earls; the earls for a pair of marquises; the
marquises for a brace of dukes. Now, Aleck, cash in!--you've
played the limit You've got a job lot of four dukes imder
the hammer; of four nationalities; all sound in wind and limb
and pedigree, all bankrupt and in debt up to the ears. They
come high, but we can afford it. Come, Aleck, don't delay any
longer, don't keep up the suspense: take the whole layout,
and leave the girls to choose!"

Aleck had been smiling blandly and contentedly all through
this arraignment of her marriage policy; a pleasant light,
as of triumph with perhaps a nice surprise peeping cut
throng it, rose in her eyes, and she said, as calmly as she
could:

"Sally, what would you say to--royalty?"

Prodigious! Poor man, it knocked him silly, and he fell
over the gaihoard strake and barked his shin on the cat-
heads. He was dizzy for a moment, then he gathered himself
up and limped over and sat down by his wife and beamed his
oldime admiration and affection upon her in fioods, out of
his bleary eyes.

"By George!" he said, fervently, "Aleck, you are great--the
greatest woman in the whole earth! I can't ever learn the
whole size of you. I can't ever learn the immeasurable deeps
of you. Here I've been considering myself qualified to crit-
icize your game. I! Why, if I had stopped to think, Fd have
known you had a lone hand up your sleeve. Now, dear, heart,
I'm all red-hot impatience--tell me about it!"

The flattered and happy woman put her lips to his ear and
whispered a princely name. It made him catch his breath, it
lit his face with exultation.

"Land!" he said, "it's a stunning catch! He's got a gambl-
ing-hell, and a graveyard, and a bishop, and a cathedral
--all his very own. And all gilt-edged five-hundred-percent.
stock, every detail of it; the tidiest little property in
Europe. And that graveyard--it's the selectest in the world:
none but suicides admitted; yes, sir, and the free-list sus-
pended, too, all the time. There isn't much land in the prin-
cipality, but there's enough: eight hundred acres in the
graveyard and forty-two outside. It's a sovereignty--that's
the main thing; land's nothing. There's plenty land, Sahara's
drugged with it."

Aleck glowed; she was profoundly happy. She said:

"Think of it, Sally--it is a family that has never married
outside the Royal and Imperial Houses of Europe; our grand-
children will sit upon drones!"

"True as you live, Aleck--and bear scepters, too; and
handle them as naturally and nonchalantly as I handle a
yardstick. It's a grand catch, Aleck. He's corralled, is
he? Can't get away? You didn't take him on a margin?"

"No. Trust me for that. He's not a liability, he's an asset
So is the other one."

"Who is it, Aleck?"

"His Royal Highness Sigismund-Siegfried-Lauenfeld-Dinkel-
spiel-Schwartzenberg Blutwurst, Hereditary Grand Duke of
Katzenyammer."

"No! You can't mean it!"

"It's as true as I'm sitting here, I give you my word," she
answered.

His cup was full, and he hugged her to his heart with rapture,
saying: ,

"How wonderful it all seems, and how beautiful! It's one
of the oldest and noblest of the three hundred and sixty-four
ancient German principalities, and one of the few that was
aOowed to retain its royal estate when Bismarck got done
trimming them. I know that farm, I've been there. It's got a
rope-wai and a candle-factory and an army. Standing army.
Infantry and cavalry. Three soldiers and a horse. Aleck, it's
been a long wait, and full of heartbreak and hope deferred.
but God knows I am happy now. Happy, and grateful to you,
my own, who have done it all. When is it to be?"

"Next Sunday."

"Good. And we'll want to do these weddings up in the very
regalest style that's going. It's properly due to the royal
quality of the parties of the first part Now as I understand
it there is only one kind of marriage that is sacred to roy-
alty, exclusive to royalty: it's the morganatic."

"What do they call it that for, Sally?"

"I don't know; but anyway it's royal, and royal only."

"Then we will insist upon it. More--will compel it. It is
morganatic marriage or none."

"That settles it!" said Sally, rubbing his hands with delight.

"And it will be the very first in America. Aleck, it will
make Newport sick."

Then they fell silent, and drifted away upon their dream
wings to the far regions of the earth to invite all the
crowned heads and their families and provide gratis trans-
portation for them.


8


During three days the couple walked upon air, with their
heads in the clouds. They were but vaguely conscious of their
surroundings; they saw all things dimly, as through a veil;
they were steeped in dreams, often they did not hear when
they were spoken to; they often did not understand when
they heard; they answered confusedly or at random; Sally
sold molasses by weight, sugar by the yard, and furnished
soap when asked for candles, and Aleck put the cat in the
wash and fed milk to the soiled linen. Everybody was
stunned and amazed, and went about muttering, "What can
be the matter with the Fosters?"

Three days. Then came events! Things had taken a happy turn,
and for forty-eight hours Aleck's imaginary corner had been
booming. Up--up--still up! Cost point was passed. Still up
--and up--and up! Five points above cost--then ten--fifteen
--twenty! Twenty points cold profit on the vast venture,
now, and Aleck's imaginary brokers were shouting frantically
by imaginary long-distance, "Sell! sell! for Heaven's sake
sell!"

She broke the splendid news to Sally, and he, too, said,
"Sell! sell--oh, don't make a blunder, now, you own the
earth!--sell, sell!" But she set her iron will and lashed
it amidships, and said she would hold on for five points
more if she died for it

It was a fatal resolve. The very next day came the historic
the record crash, the devastating crash, when the bottom
fell out of Wall Street, and the whole body of gilt-edged
stocks dropped ninety-five points in five hours, and the mil-
lionaire was seen begging his bread in the Bowery. Aleck
sternly held her grip and "put up" as long as she coul but
at last there came a call which she was powerless to meet,
and her imaginary brokers sold her out. Then, and not till
then, the man in her was vanished, and the woman in her
resumed sway. She put her arms about her husband's neck
and wept, saying:

"I am to blame, do not forgive me, I cannot bear it We
are paupers! Paupers, and I am so miserable. The weddings
will never come off; all that is past; we could not even buy
the dentist, now."

A bitter reproach was on Sally's tongue: "I begged you to
sell, but you--" He did not say it; he had not the heart
to add a hurt to that broken and repentant spirit A nobler
thought came to him and he said:

"Bear up, my Aleck, all is not lost! You really never invested
a penny of my uncle's bequest, but only its unmaterialized
future; what we have lost was only e increment
harvested from that future by your incomparable financial
judgment and sagacity. Cheer up, banish these griefs; we still
have the thirty thousand untouched; and with the experience
which you have acquired, think what you will be able to do
with it in a couple of years! The marriages are not off, they
are only postponed."

These were blessed words. Aleck saw how true they were,
and their infiuence was electric; her tears ceased to flow, and
her great spirit rose to its full stature again. With flashing eye
and grateful heart, and with hand uplifted in pledge and
prophecy, she said:

"Now and here I proclaim--
"
But she was interrupted by a visitor. It was the editor and
proprietor of the Sagamore, He had happened into Lakeside
to pay a duty-call upon an obscure grandmother of his who
was nearing the end of her pilgrimage, and with the idea of
combining business with grief be had looked up the Fosters,
wlio had been so absorbed in other things for the past four
years that they had neglected to pay up their subscription.
Six dollars due. No visitor could have been more welcome.
He would know all about Uncle Tilbury and what his chances
might be getting to be, cemeterywards. They could, of course,
ask no questions, for that would squelch the bequest, but
ttey coifid nibble around on the edge of the subject and
hope for results. The scheme did not work. The obtuse editor
did not know he was being nibbled at; but at last, chance
accomplished what art had failed in. In illustration of
something under discussion which required the help of met-
aphor the editor said:

"Land, it's as tough as Tilbury Foster!--as we say."'

It was sudden, and it made the Fosters jump. The editor
noticed it, and said, apologetically:

''No harm intended, I assure you. It's just a saying; just
a joke, you know--nothing in it. Relation of yours?"

Sally crowded his burning eagerness down, and answered
widi all the indifference he could assume:

"I--well, not that I know of, but we've heard of him." The
editor was thankful, and resumed his composure. Sally
added: "Is he--is he--well?"

"Is he well? Why, bless you he's in Sheol these five years!"

The Fosters were trembling with grief, though it felt like
joy. Sally said, non-committally--and tentatively:

"Ah, well, such is life, and none can escape--not even the
rich are spared."

The editor laughed.

"If you are including Tilbury," he said, "it don't apply. He
hadn't a cent; the town had to bury him."

The Fosters sat petrified for two minutes; petrified and
cold. Then, white-faced and weak-voiced, Sally asked:

"Is it true? Do you know it to be true?"

"Well, I should say! I was one of the executors. He hadn't
anything to leave but a wheelbarrow, and he left that to me.
It hadn't any wheel, and wasnt any good. Still, it was some-
thing, and so, to square up, I scribbled off a sort of a
little obituarial send-off for him, but it got crowded out."

The Fosters were not listening--their cup was full, it
could contain no more. They sat with bowed heads, dead
to all things but the ache at their hearts.

An hour later. Still they sat there, bowed, motionless,
silent, the visitor long ago gone, they unaware.

Then they stirred, and lifted their heads wearily, and gazed
at each other wistfully, dreamily, dazed; then presently
began to twaddle to each other in a wandering and childish
way. At intervals they lapsed into silences, leaving a sen-
tence unfinished, seemingly either unaware of it or losing
their way. Sometimes, when they woke out of these silences
they had a dim and transient consciousness that something
had happened to their minds; then with a dumb and yearning
solicitude they would softly caress each other's hands in
mutual compassion and support, as if they would say: "I am
near you, I will not forsake you, we will bear it together;
somewhere there is release and forgetfulness, somewhere
there is a grave and peace; be patient, it will not be long."
They lived yet two years, in mental night, always brooding,
steeped in vague regrets and melancholy dreams, never
speaking; then release came to both the same day.

Toward the end the darkness lifted from Sally's ruined
mind for a moment, and he said:

"Vast wealth, acquired by sudden and unwholesome means,
is a snare. It did us no good, transient were its feverish
pleasures; yet for its sake we threw away our sweet and
simple and happy life--let others take warning by us."

He lay silent awhile, with closed eyes; then as the chill
of death crept upward toward his heart, and consciousness
was fading from his brain, he muttered:

"Money had brought him misery, and he took his revenge
upon us, who had done him no harm. He had his desire;
with base and cunning calculation he left us but thirty
thousand, knowing we would try to increase it, and ruin our
life and break our hearts. Without added expense be could
have left us far above desire of increase, far above the tempt-
ation to speculate, and a kinder soul would have done it;
but in him was no generous spirit, no pity, no--"

1904



A Horse's Tale


PART I


I SOLDIER BOY--PRIVATELY TO HIMSELF


I am Buffalo Bill's horse. I have spent my life under his
saddle--with him in it, too, and he is good for two hundred
pounds, without his clothes; and there is no telling how
much he does weigh when he is out on the war-path and has
his batteries belted on. He is over six feet, is young, hasn't
an ounce of waste flesh, is straight, graceful, springy in his
motions, quick as a cat, and has a handsome face, and black
hair dangling down on his shoulders, and is beautiful to
look at; and nobody is braver than he is, and nobody is
stronger, except myself. Yes, a person that doubts that he is
fine to see should see him in his beaded buckskins, on my
back and his rifle peeping above his shoulder, chasing a
hostile trail with me going like the wind and his hair stream
ing out behind from the shelter of his broad slouch. Yes, he
is a sight to look at then--and I'm part of it myself.

I am his favorite horse, out of dozens. Big as he is, I have
carried him eighty-one miles between nightfall and sunrise
on the scout; and I am good for fifty, day in and day out,
and all the time. I am not large, but I am built on a business
basis. I have carried him thousands and thousands of miles
on scout duty for the army, and there's not a gorge, nor a
pass, nor a valley, nor a fort, nor a trading post, nor a buf-
falo-range in the whole sweep of the Rocky Mountains and
the Great Plains that we don't know as well as we know
the bugle-calls. He is Chief of Scouts to the Army of the
Frontier, and it makes us very important. In such a position
as I hold in the military service one needs to be of good
family and possess an education much above the common to be
worthy of the place. I am the best-educated horse outside of
the hippodrome, everybody says, and the best-mannered. It
may be so, it is not for me to say; modesty is the best policy,
I think. Buffalo Bill taught me the most of what I know, my
mother taught me much, and I taught myself the rest. Lay a
row of moccasins before me--Pawnee, Sioux, Shoshone, Chey-
enne, Blackfoot, and as many other tribes as you please--and
I can name the tribe every moccasin belongs to by the make
of it. Name it in horse-talk, and could do it in American
if I had speech.

I know some of the Indian signs--the signs they make with
their hands, and by signal-fires at night and columns of
smoke by day. Buffalo Bill taught me how to drag wounded
soldiers out of the line of fire with my teeth; and I've done
it, too; at least I've dragged him out of the battle when he
was wounded. And not just once, but twice. Yes, I know a lot
of things. I remember forms, and gaits, and faces; and you
can't disguise a person that's done me a kindness so that I
won't know him thereafter wherever I find him. I know the
art of searching for a trail, and I know the stale track from
the fresh. I can keep a trail all by myself, with Buffalo Bill
asleep in the saddle; ask him--he will tell you so. Many a
time, when he has ridden all night, he has said to me at
dawn, 'Take the watch, Boy; if the trail freshens, call me."
Then he goes to sleep. He knows he can trust me, because I
have a reputation. A scout horse that has a reputation does
not play with it.

My mother was all American--no alkali-spider about her,
I can tell you; she was of the best blood of Kentucky, the
bluest Blue-grass aristocracy, very proud and acrimonious--
or maybe it is ceremonious. I don't know which it is. But it
is no matter; size is the main thing about a word, and that
one's up to standard. She spent her military life as colonel of
the Tenth Dragoons, and saw a deal of rough service--dis-
tinguished service it was, too. I mean, she carried the Colonel;
but it's all the same. Where would he be without his
horse? He wouldn't arrive. It takes two to make a colonel of
dragoons. She was a fine dragoon horse, but never got above
that. She was strong enough for the scout service, and had
the endurance, too, but she couldn't quite come up to the
speed required; a scout horse has to have steel in his muscle
and lightning in his blood.

My father was a bronco. Nothing as to lineage--that is,
nothing as to recent lineage--but plenty good enough when
you go a good way back. When Professor Marsh was out here
hunting bones for the chapel of Yale University he found
skeletons of horses ho bigger than a fox, bedded in the
rocks, and he said they were ancestors of my father. My
mother heard him say it; and he said those skeletons were
two million years old, which astonished her and made her
Kentucky pretensions look small and pretty antiphonal, not
to say oblique. Let me see... I used to know the meaning
of those words, but...well, it was years ago, and 'tisn't
as vivid now as it was when they were fresh. That sort of
words doesn't keep, in the kind of climate we have out
here. Professor Marsh said those skeletons were fossils. So
that makes me part blue grass and part fossil; if there is
any older or better stock, you will have to look for it a-
mong the Four Hundred, I reckon. I am satisfied with it And
I am a happy horse, too, though born out of wedlock.

And now we are back at Fort Paxton once more, after a
forty-day scout, away up as far as the Big Horn. Everything
quiet. Crows and Blackfeet squabbling--as usual--but no
outbreaks, and settlers feeling fairly easy.

The Seventh Cavalry still in garrison, here; also the Ninth
Dragoons, two artillery companies, and some infantry.
All glad to see me, including General Alison, conunandant.
The officers' ladies and children well, and called upon me
--with sugar. Colonel Drake, Seventh Cavalry, said some pleasant
things; Mrs. Drake was very complimentary; also Captain
and Mrs. Marsh, Company B, Seventh Cavalry; also the
Chaplain, who is always kind and pleasant to me, because I
kicked the lungs out of a trader once. It was Tommy Drake
and Fanny Marsh that furnished the sugar--nice children,
the nicest at the post, I think.

That poor orphan child is on her way from France--every-
body is full of the subject. Her father was General Alison's
brother; married a beautiful young Spanish lady ten years
ago, and has never been in America since. They lived in
Spain a year or two, then went to France. Both died some
months ago. This little girl that is coming is the only
child- General Alison is glad to have her. He has never seen
her. He is a very nice old bachelor, but is an old bachelor
just the same and isn't more than about a year this side of
retirement by age limit; and so what does he know about tak"
ing care of a little maid nine years old? If I could have
her it would be another matter, for I know all about chil-
dren, and they adore me. Buffalo Bill will tell you so him-
self. I have some of this news from overhearing the garrison-
gossip, the rest of it I got from Potter, the General's dog.
Potter is the great Dane. He is privileged, all over the post,
Uke Shekels, the Seventh Cavalry's dog, and visits everybody's
quarters and picks up everything that is going, in the way of
news. Potter has no imagination, and no great deal of cul-
ture, perhaps, but he has a historical mind and a good mem-
ory, and so he is the person I depend upon mainly to post
me up when I get back from a scout. That is, if Shekels is
out on depredation and I can't get hold of him.


2 LETTER FROM ROUEN--TO GENERAL ALISON


My dear Brother-in-law,--Please let me write again in
Spanish, I cannot trust my English, and I am aware, from
what your brother used to say, that army officers educated
at the Military Academy of the United States are taught our
tongue. It is as I told you in my other letter: both my poor
sister and her husband, when they found they could not re-
cover, expressed the wish that you should have their little
Catherine--as knowing that you would presently be retired
from the army--rather than that she should remain with me,
who am broken in health, or go to your mother in California,
whose health is also frail.

You do not know the child, therefore I must tell you some-
thing about her. You will not be ashamed of her looks, for
she is a copy in little of her beautiful mother--and it is
that Andalusian beauty which is not surpassable, even in
your country. She has her mother's charm and grace and good
heart and sense of justice, and she has her father's vivacity
and cheerfulness and pluck and spirit of enterprise, with
the affectionate disposition and sincerity of both parents.

My sister pined for her Spanish home all these years of exile;
she was always talking of Spain to the child, and tending and
nourishing the love of Spain in the little thing's heart as
a precious flower; and she died happy in the knowledge
that the fruitage of her patriotic labors was as rich as
even she could desire.

Cathy is a sufficiently good little scholar, for her nine
years; her mother taught her Spanish herself, and kept it
always fresh upon her ear and her tongue by hardly ever spea-
king with her in any other tongue; her father was her English
teacher, and talked with her in that language almost exclu-
sively; French has been her everyday speech for more than
seven years among her playmates here; she has a good working
use of governess German and Italian. It is true that there
is always a faint foreign fragrance about her speech, no
matter what language she is talking, but it is only just
noticeable, nothing more, and is rather a charm than a mar,
I think. In the ordinary child-studies Cathy is neither
before nor behind the average child of nine, I should say.
But I can say this for her: in love for her friends and in
high-mindedness and good-heartedness she has not many e-
quals, and in my opinion no superiors. And I beg of you, let her
have her way with the dumb animals--they are her worship.
It is an inheritance from her mother. She knows but little of
cruelties and oppressions--keep them from her sight if you
can. She would flare up at them and make trouble, in her
small but quite decided and resolute way; for she has a char-
acter of her own, and lacks neither promptness nor initiative.
Sometimes her judgment is at fault, but I think her inten-
tions are always right. Once when she was a little creature
of three or four years she suddenly brought her tiny foot
down upon the floor in an apparent outbreak of indignation,
then fetched it a backward wipe, and stooped down to examine
the result. Her mother said:

"Why, what is it, child? What has stirred you so?"

"Mamma, the big ant was trying to kill the little one."

"And so you protected the little one."

"Yes, mamma, because he had no friend, and I wouldn't
let the big one kill him."

"But you have killed them both."

Cathy was distressed, and her lip trembled. She picked up
the remains and laid them upon her palm, and said:

"Poor little anty, I'm so sorry; and I didn't mean to kill
you, but there wasn't any other way to save you, it was such
a hurry,"

She is a dear and sweet little lady, and when she goes it
will give me a sore heart. But she will be happy with you,
and if your heart is old and tired, give it into her keeping;
she will make it young again, she will refresh it, she will
make it sing. Be good to her, for all our sakes!

My exile will soon be over now. As soon as I am a little
stronger I shall see my Spain again; and that will make me
young again!

Mercedes


3 GENERAL ALISON TO HIS MOTHER


I am glad to know that you are all well, in San Bernardino.
. . . That grandchild of yours has been here--well, I do
not quite know how many days it is; nobody can keep account
of days or anything else where she is I Mother, she did
what the Indians were never able to do. She took the Fort
--took it the first day! Took me, too; took the colonels,
the captains, the women, the children, and the dumb brutes;
took Buffalo Bill, and all his scouts; took the garrison--to
the last man; and in forty-eight hours the Indian encampment
was hers, illustrious old Thunder-Bird and all. Do I seem
to have lost my solemnity, my gravity, my poise, my dignity?
You would lose your own, in my circumstances. Mother, you
never saw such a winning little devil. She is all energy,
and spirit, and sunshine, and interest in everybody and
everything, and pours out her prodigal love upon every
creature that will take it, high or low, Christian or pagan,
feathered or furred; and none has declined it to date, and
none ever will, I think. But she has a temper, and sometimes
it catches fire and flames up, and is likely to burn whatever
is near it; but it is soon over, the passion goes as quickly
as it comes. Of course she has an Indian name already; Indians
always rechristen a stranger early. Thunder-Bird attended to
her case. He gave her the Indian equivalent for firebug, or
firefly. He said:

"Times ver' quiet, ver' soft, like summer night, but when
she mad she blaze."

Isn't it good? Can't you see the flare? She's beautiful,
mother, beautiful as a picture; and there is a touch of you
in her face, and of her father--poor George! and in her un-
resting activities, and her fearless ways, and her sunbursts
and cloudbursts, she is always bringing George back to me.
These impulsive natures are dramatic. George was dramatic,
so is this Lightning-Bug, so is Buffalo Bill. When Cathy
first arrived--it was in the forenoon--Buffalo Bill was
away, carrying orders to Major Fuller, at Five Forks, up
in the Clayton Hills. At mid-afternoon I was at my desk,
getting to work, and this sprite had been making it impossible
for half an hour. At last I said:

"Oh, you bewitching little scamp, can't you be quiet just
a minute or two, and let your poor old uncle attend to a
part of his duties?"

"I'll try, uncle; I will, indeed," she said.

"Well, then, that's a good child--kiss me. Now, then, sit
up in the chair, and set your eye on that clock. There--
that's right. If you stir--if you so much as wink--for four
whole minutes. I'll bite you!"

It was very sweet and humble and obedient she looked sit-
ting there, still as a mouse; I could hardly keep from set-
ting her free and telling her to make as much racket as she
wanted to. During as much as two minutes there was a most
unnatural and heavenly quiet and repose, then Buffalo Bill
came thundering up to the door in all his scout finery,
flung himself out of the saddle, said to his horse, "Wait
for me. Boy," and stepped in, and stopped dead in his tracks
gazing at the child. She forgot orders, and was on the floor
in a moment, saying:

"Oh, you are so beautiful! Do you like me?"

"No, I don't, I love you!" and he gathered her up with a
hug, and then set her on his shoulder--apparently nine feet
from the floor.

She was at home. She played with his long hair, and admir-
ed his big hands and his clothes and his carbine, and ask-
ed question after question, as fast as he could answer,
until I excused them both for half an hour, in order to have
a chance to finish my work. Then I heard Cathy exclaiming
over Soldier Boy; and he was worthy of her raptures, for he
is a wonder of a horse, and has a reputation which is as
shining as his own silken hide.


4 CATHY TO HER AUNT MERCEDES


Oh, it is wonderful here, aunty dear, just paradise! Oh, if
you could only see it! everything so wild and lovely; such
grand plains, stretching such miles and miles and miles, all
the most delicious velvety sand and sage-brush, and rabbits
as big as a dog, and such tall and noble jackassful ears
that that is what they name them by; and such vast mount-
ains, and so rugged and craggy and lofty, with cloud-shawls
wrapped around their shoulders, and looking so solemn and
awful and satisfied; and the charming Indians, oh, how you
would dote on them, aunty dear, and they would on you, too,
and they would let you hold their babies, the way they do me,
and they are the fattest, and brownest, and sweetest little
things, and never cry, and wouldn't if they had pins sticking
in them, which they haven't, because they are poor and can't
afford it; and the horses and mules and cattle and dogs
--hundreds and hundreds and hundreds, and not an animal
that you can't do what you please with, except uncle Thomas,
but I don't mind him, he's lovely; and oh, if you could hear
the bugles; too--too--too-too--too--too, and so on--perfectly
teautiful! Do you recognize that one? It's the first toots
of the reveille; it goes, dear me, so early in the morning!
--then I and every other soldier on the whole place are up
and out in a minute, except uncle Thomas, who is most unac-
countably lazy, I don't know why, but I have talked to
him about it, and I reckon it will be better, now. He hasn't
any faults much, and is charming and sweet, like Buffalo
Bill, and Thunder-Bird, and Mammy Dorcas, and Soldier
Boy, and Shekels, and Potter, and Sour-Mash, and--well,
they're all that, just angels, as you may say.

The very first day I came, I don't know how long ago it
was, Buffalo Bill took me on Soldier Boy to Thunder-Bird's
camp, not the big one which is out on the plain, which is
White Cloud's, he took me to that one next day, but this
one is four or five miles up in the hills and crags, where
there is a great shut-in meadow, full of Indian lodges and
dogs and squaws and everything that is interesting, and a
brook of the clearest water running through it, with white
pebbles on the bottom and trees all along the banks cool
and shady and good to wade in, and as the sun goes down it
is dimmish in there, but away up against the sky you see
the big peaks towering up and shining bright and vivid in
the sun, and sometimes an eagle sailng by them, not flapp-
ing a wing, the same as if he was asleep; and young Indians
and girls romping and laughing and carrying on, around the
spring and the pool, and not much clothes on except the girls,
and dogs fighting, and the squaws busy at work, and the bucks
busy resting, and the old men sitting in a bunch smoking, and
passing the pipe not to the left but to the right, which means
there's been a row in the camp and they are settling it if they
can, and children playing just the same as any other children,
and little boys shooting at a mark with bows, and I cuffed
one of them because he hit a dog with a club that wasn't do-
ing anything, and he resented it but before long he wished he
hadn't: but this sentence is getting too long and I will start
another. Thunder-Bird put on his Sunday-best war outfit to
let me see him, and he was splendid to look at, with his face
painted red and bright and intense like a fire-coal and a val-
ance of eagle feathers from the top of his head all down
his back, and he had his tomahawk, too, and his pipe, which
has a stem which is longer than my arm, and I never had
such a good time in an Indian camp in my life, and I learned
a lot of words of the language, and next day BB took me to
the camp out on the Plains, four miles, and I had another
good time and got acquainted with some more Indians and
dogs; and the big chief, by the name of White Cloud, gave
me a pretty little bow and arrows and I gave him my red
sash-ribbon, and in four days I could shoot very well with
it and beat any ite boy of my size at the post; and I have
been to those camps plenty of times since; and I have learned
to ride, too, BB taught me, and every day he practises me
and praises me, and every time I do better than ever he
lets me have a scamper on Soldier Boy, and that's the last
agony of pleasure! for he is the charmingest horse, and so
beautiful and shiny and black, and hasn't another color on
him anywhere, except a white star in his forehead, not just
an imitation star, but a real one, with four points, shaped
exactly like a star that's handmade, and if you should cover
him all up but his star you would know him anywhere, even
in Jerusalem or Australia, by that. And I got acquainted
with a good many of the Seventh Cavalry, and the dragoons,
and officers, and families, and horses, in the first few days,
and some more in the next few and the next few and the next
few, and now I know more soldiers and horses than you can
think, no matter how hard you try. I am keeping up my stu-
dies every now and then, but there isn't much time for it
I love you so! and I send you a hug and a kiss. Cathy

P.S.--I belong to the Seventh Cavalry and Ninth Dragoons;
I am an officer, too, and do not have to work on account
of not getting any wages.


5 GENERAL ALISON TO MERCEDES


She has been with us a good nice long time, now. You
are troubled about your sprite because this is such a wild
frontier, hundreds of miles from civilization, and peopled
only by wandering tribes of savages? You fear for her safety?
Give yourself no uneasiness about her. Dear me, she's in a
nursery! and she's got more than eighteen hundred nurses.
It would distress the garrison to suspect that you think they
can't take care of her. They think they can. They would tell
you so themselves. You see, the Seventh Cavalry has never
had a child of its very own before, and neither has the Ninth
Dragoons; and so they are like all new mothers, they think
there is no other child like theirs, no other child so won-
derful, none that is so worthy to be faithfully and tenderly
looked after and protected. These bronzed veterans of mine
are very good mothers, I think, and wiser than some other
mothers; for they let her take lots of risks, and it is a
good education for her; and the more risks she takes and
comes successfully out of, the prouder they are of her. They
adopted her, with grave and formal military ceremonies of
their own invention--solemnities is the truer word; solem-
nities that were so profoundly solemn and earnest, that the
spectacle would have been comical if it hadn't been so touch-
ing. It was a good show, and as stately and complex as
guard-mount and the trooping of the colors; and it had its
own special music, composed for the occasion by the band-
master of the Seventh; and the child was as serious as the
most serious war-worn soldier of them all; and finally when
they throned her upon the shoulder of the oldest veteran,
and pronounced her "well and truly adopted," and the bands
struck up and all saluted and she saluted in return, it was
better and more moving than any kindred thing I have seen
on the stage, because stage things are make-believe, but this
was real and the players' hearts were in it.

It happened several weeks ago, and was followed by some add-
itional solemnities. The men created a couple of new ranks,
thitherto unknown to the army regulations, and conferred
them upon Cathy, with ceremonies suitable to a duke. So
now she is Corporal-General of the Seventh Cavalry, and
Flag-Lieutenant of the Ninth Dragoons, with the privilege
(decreed by the men) of writing U.S.A. after her name!
Also, they presented her a pair of shoulder-straps--both
dark blue, the one with F. L. on it, the other with C. G.
Also, a sword. She wears them. Finally, they granted her the
salute. I am witness that that ceremony is faithfully ob-
served by both parties--and most gravely and decorously,
too. I have never seen a soldier smile yet, while delivering
it, nor Cathy in returning it.

Ostensibly I was not present at these proceedings, and am
ignorant of them; but I was where I could see. I was afraid
of one thing--the jealousy of the other children of the
post; but there is nothing of that, I am glad to say. On the
contrary, they are proud of their comrade and her honors. It
is a surprising thing, but it is true. The childen are devo-
ted to Cathy, for she has turned their dull frontier life into
a sort of continuous festival; also they know her for a stanch
and steady friend, a friend who can always be depended on, and
does not change with the weather.

She has become a rather extraordinary rider, under the tutor-
ship of a more than extraordinary teacher--BB, which is her
pet name for Buffalo Bill. She pronounces it beeby. He has
not only taught her seventeen ways of breaking her neck, but
twenty-two ways of avoiding it. He has infused into her the best
and surest protection of a horseman--confidence. He did it gra-
dually, systematically, little by little, a step at a time, and each
step made sure before the next was essayed. And so he inched
her along up through terrors that had been discounted by train-
ing before she reached them, and therefore were not recognizable
as terrors when she got to them. Well, she is a daring little
rider, now, and is perfect in what she knows of horsemanship.
By and by she will know the art like a West Point cadet, and
will exercise it as fearlessly. She doesn't know anything about
sidesaddles. Does that distress you? And she is a fine perform-
er, without any saddle at all. Does that discomfort you? Do not
let it; she is not in any danger, I give you my word.

You said that if my heart was old and tired she would re-
fresh it, and you said truly. I do not know how I got along
without her, before. I was a forlorn old tree, but now that
this blossoming vine has wound itself about me and become
the life of my life, it is very different. As a furnisher of bus-
iness for me and for Mammy Dorcas she is exhaustlessly com-
petent, but I like my share of it and of course Dorcas likes
hers, for Dorcas "raised" George, and Cathy is George over
again in so many ways that she brings back Dorcas's youth
and the joys of that long-vanished time. My father tried to
set Dorcas free twenty years ago, when we still lived in
Virginia, but without success; she ccmsidered herself a mem-
ber of the family, and wouldn't go. And so, a member of the
family she remained, and has held that position unchallenged
ever since, and holds it now; for when my mother sent her
here from San Bernardino when we learned that Cathy was
coming, she only changed from one division of the family to
the other. She has the warm heart of her race, and its lavish
affections, and when Cathy arrived the pair were mother and
child in five minutes, and that is what they are to date and
will continue. Dorcas really thinks she raised George, and
that is one of her prides, but perhaps it was a mutual rais-
ing, for their ages were the same--thirteen years short of
mine. But they were playmates, at any rate; as regards that,
there is no room for dispute.

Cathy thinks Dorcas is the best Catholic in America except
herself. She could not pay any one a higher compliment than
that, and Dorcas could not receive one that would please her
better. Dorcas is satisfied that there has never been a more
wonderful child than Cathy. She has conceived the curious
idea that Cathy is twins, and that one of them is a boy-twii
and failed to get segregated--got submerged, is the idea. To
argue with her that this is nonsense is a waste of breath--her
mind is made up, and arguments do not affect it. She says:

"Look at her; she loves dolls, and girl-plays, and everything
a girl loves, and she's gentle and sweet, and ain't cruel to
dumb brutes--now that's the girl-twin, but she loves boy-
plays, and drums and fifes and soldiering, and rough-riding,
and ain't afraid of anybody or anything--and that's the
boy-twin; 'deed you needn't tell me she's only one child; no,
sir, die's twins, and oae of them got shet up out of sight
of Bight, but that don't make any difference, that boy is in
there, and you can see him look out of her eyes when her
temper is up."

Then Dorcas went on, in her simple and earnest way, to
furnish illustrations.

"Look at that raven, Marse Tom. Would anybody befriend a ra-
ven but that child? Of course they wouldn't; it ain't natu-
ral. Well, the Injun boy had the raven tied up, and was all
the time plaguing it and starving it, and she pitied the poor
thing, and tried to buy it from the boy, and the tears was
in her eyes. That was the girl-twin, you see. She offered him
her thimble, and he flung it down; she offered him all the
doumuts she had, which was two, and he flung them down;
she offered him half a paper of pins, worth forty ravens, and
he made a mouth at her and jabbed one of them in the raven's
back. That was the limit, you know. It called for the other
twin. Her eyes blazed up, and she jumped for him like a
wild-cat, and when she was done with him she was rags and
he wasn't anything but an allegory. That was most undoubtedly
the other twin, you see, coming to the front. No, sir; don't
tell me he ain't in there. I've seen him with my own eyes--
and plenty of times, at that."

"Allegory? What is an allegory?"

"I don't know, Marse Tom, it's one of her words; she loves
the big ones, you know, and I pick them up from her; they
sound good and I can't help it."

"What happened after she had converted the boy into an al-
legory?"

"Why, she untied the raven and confiscated him by force
and fetched him home, and left the doughnts and things on
the ground. Petted him, of course, like she does with every
creature. In two days she had him so stuck after her that
she--well, you know how he follows her everywhere, and
sets on her shoulder often when she rides her breakneck
rampages--all of which is the girl-twin to the front, you
see--and he does what he pleases, and is up to all kinds
of devilment, and is a perfect nuisance in the kitchen.
Well, they all stand it, but they wouldn't if it was ano-
ther person's bird."

Here she began to chuckle comfortably, and presently she
said:

"Well, you know, she's a nuisance herself. Miss Cathy is,
she is so busy, and into everything, like that bird. It's
all just as innocent, you know, and she don't mean any harm,
and is so good and dear; and it ain't her fault, it's her
nature; her interest is always a-working and always red-hot,
and she can't keep quiet. Well, yesterday it was 'Please, Miss
Cathy, don't do that; and, 'Please, Miss Cathy, let that alone';
and, 'Please, Miss Cathy, don't make so much noise'; and so
on and so on, till I reckon I had found fault fourteen times
in fifteen minutes; then she looked up at me with her big
brown eyes that can plead so, and said in that odd little for-
eign way that goes to your heart:

"'Please, mammy, make me a compliment' "

"And of course you did it, you old fool?"

"Marse Tom, I just grabbed her up to my breast and says, 'Oh,
you po' dear little motherless thing, you ain't got a fault
in the world, and you can do anything you want to, and tear
the house down, and yo' old black mammy won't say a word!'"

"Why, of course, of course--I knew you'd spoil the child."

She brushed away her tears, and said with dignity:

"Spoil the child? spoil that child, Marse Tom? There can't
anybody spoil her. She's the king bee of this post, and ev-
erybody pets her and is her slave, and yet, as you know,
your own self, she ain't the least little bit spoiled." Then
she eased her mind with this retort: "Marse Tom, she makes
you do anything she wants to, and you can't deny it; so if she
could be spoilt, she'd been spoilt long ago, because you are
the very worst! Look at that pile of cats in your chair, and
you sitting on candle-box, just as patient; it's because
they're her cats."

If Dorcas were a soldier, I could punish her for such large
frankness as that. I changed the subject, and made her re-
sume her illustrations. She had scored against me fairly, and
I wasn't going to cheapen her victory by disputing it. She
proceeded to offer this incident in evidence on her twin
theory:

"Two weeks ago when she got her finger mashed open, she
turned pretty pale with the pain, but she never said a word.
I took her in my lap, and the surgeon sponged off the blood
and took a needle and thread and began to sew it up; it had
to have a lot of stitches, and each one made her scrunch a
little, but she never let go a sound. At last the surgeon was
so full of admiration that he said, 'Well, you are a brave
little thing!' and she said, just as ca'm and simple as if she
was talking about the weather, 'There isn't anybody braver
but the Cid!" You see? it was the boy-twin that the sturgeon
was a-dealing with."

"Who is the Cid?"

"I don't know, sir--at least only what she says. She's always
talking about him, and says he was the bravest hero Spain ever
had, or any other country. They have it up and down, the chil-
dren do, she standing up for the Cid, and they working George
Washington for all he is worth."

"Do they quarrel?"

"No; it's only disputing, and bragging, the way children do.
They want her to be an American, but she can't be anything
but a Spaniard, she says. You see, her mother was always
longing for home, po' thing! and thinking about it, and so the
child is just as much a Spaniard as if she'd always lived
there. She thinks she remembers how Spain looked, but I reckon
she don't, because she was only a baby when they moved to
France. She is very proud to be a Spaniard."

Does that please you, Mercedes? Very well, be content;
your niece is loyal to her allegiance: her mother laid de
the foundations of her love for Spain, and she will go back
to you as good a Spaniard as you are yourself. She had made
me promise to take her to you for a long visit when the War
Office retires me.

I attend to her studies myself; has she told you that? Yes,
I am her schoo-master, and she makes pretty good progress,
I think, everything considered. Everything considoed--being
translated--means holidays. But the fact is, she was not born
for study, and it comes hard. Hard for me, too; it hurts me
like a physical pain to see that free spirit of the air and the
sunshine laboring and grieving over a book; and sometimes
when I find her gazing far away towards the plains and the
blue mountains with the longing in her eyes, I have to thow
open the prison doors; I can't help it. A quaint little scholar
she is, and makes plenty of blunders. Once I put the question:

"What does the Czar govern?"

She rested her elbow on her knee and her chin on her hand
and took that problem under deep consideration. Presently
she looked up and answered, with a rising inflection implying
a shade of uncertainty,

"The dative case?"

Here are a couple of her expositions which were delivered
with tranquil confidence:

"Chaplain, diminutive of chap. Lass is masculine, lassie
is feminine."

She is not a genius, you see, but just a normal child; they
all make mistakes of that sort. There is a glad light in her
eye which is pretty to see when she finds herself able to answer
a question promptly and accurately, without any hesitation;
as, for instance, this morning:

"Cathy dear, what is a cube?"

"Why, a native of Cuba."

She still drops a foreign word into her talk now and tben,
and there is still a subtle foreign flavor or fragrance about
even her exactest English--and long may this abide! for it
has for me a charm that is very pleasant. Sometimes her Eng-
lish is daintily prim and bookish and captivating. She has
a child's sweet tooth, but for her health's sake I try to
keep its inspirations under check. She is obedient--as is
proper for a titled and recognized military personage, which
she is--but the chain presses sometimes. For instance, we
were out for a walk, and passed by some bushes that were
freighted with wild gooseberries. Her face brightened and she
put her hands together and delivered herself of this speech,
most feelingly:

"Oh, if I was permitted a vice it would be the gourmandise!"

Could I resist that? No. I gave her a gooseberry.

You ask about her languages. They take care of themselves;
they will not get rusty here; our regiments are not made
up of natives alone--far from it And he is picking up
Indian tongues diligently.


6 SOLDIER BOY AND THE MEXICAN PLUG


"When did you come?"

"Arrived at sundown."

"Where from?"

"Salt Lake."

"Are you in the service?"

"No. Trade."

"Pirate trade, I reckon."

"What do you know about it?"

"I saw you when you came. I recognized your master. He
is a bad sort Trap-robber, horse-thief, squaw-man, rene-
gado--Hank Butters-- know him very welL Stole you, didn't
he?"

"Well, it amounted to that."

"I thought so. Where is his pard?"

"He stopped at White Cloud's camp."

"He is another of the same stripe, is Blake Haskins."
{Aside.) They are laying for Buffalo Bill again, I guess.
{Aloud.) "What is your name?"

"Which one?"

"Have you got more than one?"

"I get a new one every time I'm stolen. I used to have an
honest name but that was early; I've forgotten it. Since then
I've had thirteen aliases."

"Aliases? What is alias?"

"A false name."

"Alias. It's a fine large word, and is in my line; it has
quite a learned and cerebrospinal incandescent sound. Are
you educated?"

"Well, no, I can't claim it. I can take down bars, I can
distinguish oats from shoe-pegs, I can blaspheme a saddle-
boil with the college-bred, and I know a few other things
--not many; I have had no chance, I have always had to work;
besides, I am of low birth and no family. You speak my
dialect like a native, but you are not a Mexican Plug, you
are a gentleman, I can see that; and educated, of course."

"Yes, I am of old family, and not illiterate. I am a fossil."

"A which?

"Fossil. The first horses were fossils. They date back two
million years."

"Gr-eat sand and sage-brush! do you mean it?"

"Yes, it is true. The bones of my ancestors are held in
reverence and worship, even by men. They do not leave them
exposed to the weather when they find them, but carry them
three thousand miles and enshrine than in their temples of
learning, and worship them."

"It is wonderful! I knew you must be a person of distinction,
by your fine presence and courtly address, and by the fact
that you are not subjected to the indignity of hobbles,
like myself and the rest. Would you tell me your name?"

"You have probably heard of it--Soldier Boy."

"What!--the renowned, the illustrious?"

"Even so."

"It takes my breath! Little did I dream that ever I should
stand face to face with the possessor of that great name.
Buffalo Bill's horse! Known from the Canadian border to
the deserts of Arizona, and from the eastern marches of the
Great Plains to the foot-hills of the Sierra! Truly this is
a memorable day. You still serve the celebrated Chief of
Scouts?"

"I am still his property, but he has lent me, for a time, to
the most noble, the most gracious, the most excellent, her
Excellency Catherine, Corporal-General Seventh Cavalry and
Flag-Lieutenant Ninth Dragoons, U.S.A.,--on whom be peace!"

"Amen. Did you say her Excellency?"

"The same. A Spanish lady, sweet blossom of a ducal house.
And truly a wonder; knowing everything, capable of everything;
speaking all the languages, master of all sciences, a mind
without horizons, a heart of gold, the glory of her race!
On whom be peace!"

"Amen. It is marvelous!"

"Verily. I knew many things, she has taught me others. I
am educated. I will tell you about her."

"I listen--I am enchanted."

"I will tell a plain tale, calmly, without excitement, with-
out eloquence When she had been here four or five weeks she
was already erudite in military things, and they made her
an officer--a double officer. She rode the drill every day,
like any soldier; and she could take the bugle and direct
the evolutions herself. Then, on a day, there was a grand
race, for prizes--none to enter but the children. Seventeen
children entered, and she was the youngest. Three girls,
fourteen boys --good riders all. It was a steeplechase, with
four hurdles, all pretty high. The first prize was a most
cunning half-grown silver bugle, and mighty pretty, with red
silk cord and tassels. Buffalo Bill was very anxious; for he
had taught her to ride, and he did most dearly want her to
win that race, for the glory of it. So he wanted her to ride
me, but she wouldn't; and she reproached him, and said it
was unfair and unright, and taking advantage; for what
horse in this post or anyother could stand a ance against
me? and she was very severe with him, and said, 'You ought
to be ashamed--you are proposing to me conduct unbecoming
an officer and a gentleman.' So he just tossed her up in the
air about thirty feet and caught her as she came down, and
said he was ashamed; and put up his handkerchief and pretend-
ed to cry, which nearly broke her heart, and she petted him,
and begged him to forgive her, and said she would do anything
in the world be could ask but that; but he said he ought to go
bang himself, and he must, if he could get a rope; it was no-
thing but right he should, for be never, never could forgive
himself; and then she began to cry, and they both sobbed, the
way you could hear him a mile, and she clinging around his
neck and pleading, till at last he was comforted a little, and
gave his solemn promise he wouldn't hang himself till after
the race; and wouldn't do it at all if she won it, which made
her happy, and she said she would win it or die in the saddle;
so then everything was pleasant again and both of them content.
He can't help playing jokes on her, be is so fond of her
and she is so innocent and unsuspecting; and when she finds
it out she cuffs him and is in a fury, but presently forgives
him because it's him; and maybe the very next day she's
caught with another joke; you see she can't learn any better,
because she hasn't any deceit in her, and that kind
aren't ever expecting it in another person.

"It was a grand race. The whole post was there, and there
was such another whooping and shouting when the seventeen
kids came flying down the turf and sailing over the hurdles
--oh, beautiful to seel Halfway down, it was kind of neck and
neck, and anybody's race and nobody's. Then, what should
happen but a cow steps out and puts her head down to munch
grass, with her broadside to the battalion, and they a-coming
like the wind; they split apart to flank ter, -but she?--why,
she drove the spurs home and soared over that cow like a
bird! and on she went, and cleared the last hurdle solitary
and alone, the army letting loose the grand yell, and she
skipped from the horse the same as if he had been standing
still, and made her bow, and everybody crowded around to
congratulate, and they gave her the bue, and she put it to
her bps and blew 'boots and saddles' to see how it would go,
and BB wm as proud as you can't think! And he said. Take
Soldier Boy, and don't pass him back till I ask for him!' and
I can tell you he wouldn't have said that to any other person
on this planet That was two months and more ago, and nobody
has been on my back since but the Corporal-General Seventh
Cavalry and Flag-Lieutenant of flie Ninth Dragoons, U.S.A.,
--on whom be peace!"

"Amen. I listen--tell me more."

"She set to work and organized the Sixteen, and called it
the First Battalion Rocky Mountain Rangers, U.S.A., and
she wanted to be bugler, but they elected her Lieutenant-
General and Bugler. So she ranks her uncle the commandant,
who is only a Brigadier. And doesn't she train those little
people! Ask the Indians, ask the traders, ask the soldiers;
they'll tefl you. She has been at it from the first day. Ev-
ery morning they go clattering down into the plain, and there
she sits on my back with her bugle at her mouth and sounds
the orders and puts them through the evolutions for an hour
or more; and it is too beautiful for anything to see those
ponies dissolve from one formation into another, and waltz
about, and break, and scatter, and form again, always moving,
alwajrs graceful, now trotting, now galloping, and so on,
sometimes near by, sometimes in the distance, all just like
a state ball, you know, and sometimes she can't hold herself
any Icmger, but sounds the 'charge,' and turns me loose! and
you can take my word for it, if the battalion hasn't too much
of a start we catch up and go over the breastworks with the
front line.

"Yes, they are soldiers, those little people; and healthy,
too, not ailing any more, the way they used to be sometimes.
It's because of her drill. She's got a fort, now--Fort Fanny
Marsh. Major-General Tommy Drake planned it out, and the
Seventh and Dragoons built it. Tommy is the Colonel's son,
Md is fifteen and the oldest in the Battalion; Fanny Marsh
is Brigadier-General, and is next oldest---over thirteen. She
is daughter of Captain Marsh, Company B, Seventh Cavalry.
Lieutenant-General Alison is the youngest by considerable;
I rhinlc she is about nine and a half or three-quarters. Her
military rig, as Lieutenant-General, isn't for business, it's
for dress parade, because the ladies made it. They say they got
it out of the Middle Ages--out of a book--and it is aU red
and blue and white silks and satins and velvets; tights, trunks,
sword, doublet with slashed sleeves, short cape, cap with just
one feather in it; I've heard them name these things; they got
them out of the book; die's dressed like a page, of old times,
they say. It's the daintiest outfit that ever was--you will say
so, when you see it. She's lovely in it--oh, just a dreamt In
some ways she is just her age, but in others she's as old as
her uncle, I think. She is very learned. She teaches her uncle
his book. I have seen her sitting by with the book and reciting
to him what is in it, so that be can learn to do it himself.

"Every Saturday she hires little Injuns to garrison her fort;
then she lays siege to it, and makes military approaches by
make-believe trenches in make-believe night, and finally at
make-believe dawn she draws her sword and soimds the assault
and takes it by storm. It is for practice. And she has in-
vented a bugle-call all by herself, out of her own head, and
it's a stirring one, and the prettiest in the service. It's to
call me--it's never used for anything else. She taught it to
me, and told me what it says: 'It is I, Soldier--come' and when
those thrilling notes come floating down the distance I heard
them without fail, even if I am two miles away; and then--
oh, then you should see my heels get down to business!

"And she has taught me how to say good-morning and good-
night to her, which is by lifting my right hoof for her
to shake; and also how to say good-by; I do that with my
left foot--but only for practice, because there hasn't been
any but make-believe good-bying yet, and I hope there won't
ever be. It would make me cry if I ever bad to put up my
left foot in earnest She has taught me how to salute, and I
can do it as well as a soldier. I bow my head low, and lay
my right hoof against my cheek. She taught me that because
I got into disgrace once, through ignorance. I am privileged,
because I am knovra to be honorable and trustworthy, and
because I have a distinguished record in the service; so they
don't hobble me nor tie me to stakes or shut me tight in
stables, but let me wander around to suit myself. Well, troo-
ping the colors in a very solemn ceremony, and everybody
must stand uncovered when the flag goes by, the commandant
and all; and (mce I was there, and ignorantly walked across
right in front of the band, which was an awful disgrace.
Ah, the Lieutenant-General was so ashamed, and so distres-
sed that I should have done such a thing before all the
world, that she couldn't keep the tears back; and then she
taught me the salute, so that if I ever did any other un-
military act through ignorance I could do my salute and she
believed everybody would think it was apology enough and
would not press the matter. It is very nice and distinguis-
hed; no other horse can do it; often the men salute me, and
I return it. I am privileged to be present when the Rocky
Mountain Rangers troop the colors and I stand solemn, like
the children, and I salute when the flag goes by. Of course
when she goes to her fort her sentries sing out Turn out the
guard!' and then ... do you catch that refreshing early-
morning whiff from the mountain-pines and the wild flowers?
The night is far spent; we'll hear the bugles before long.
Dorcas, the black woman, is very good and nice; she takes
care of the Lieutenant-General, and is Brigadier-General
Alison's mother, which makes her mother-in-law to the Lieu-
tenant-General. That is what Shekels says. At least it is
what I think he says, though I never can understand him
quite clearly. He--"

"Who is Shekels?"

"The Seventh Cavalry dog. I mean, if he is a dog. His fa-
ther was a coyote and his mother was wild-cat. It doesn't
really make a dog out of him, does it?"

"Not a real dog, I should think. Only a kind of a general
dog, at most, I reckon. Though this is a matter of ichthy-
ology, I suppose; and if it is, it is out of my depth, and
so my opinion is not valuable, and I don't claim much con-
sideration for it."

"It isn't ichthyology; it is dogmatics, which is still more
difficult and tangled up. Dogmatics always are."

"Dogmatics is quite beyond me, quite; so I am not competing.
But on general principles it is my opinion that a colt out
of a coyote and a wild-cat is no square dog, but doubtful
That is my hand, and I stand pat."

"Well, it is as far as I can go myself, and be fair and
conscientious. I have always regarded him as a doubtful dog,
and so has Potter. Potter is the great Dane. Potter says he
is no dog, and not even poultry--though I do not go quite so
far as that"

"And I wouldn't, myself. Poultry is one of those things
which no person can get to the bottom of, there is so much
of it and such variety. It is just wings, and wings, and wings,
till you are weary: turkeys, and geese, and bats, and butter-
flies, and angels, and grasshoppers, and flying-fish, and--
well, there is really no end to the tribe; it gives me the
heaves just to think of it But this one hasn't any wings≫
has he?"

"No"

"Well, then, in my belief he is more likely to be dog than
poultry. I have not heard of poultry that hadn't wings. Wings
is the sign of poultry; it is what you tell poultry by. Look
at the mosquito."

"What do you reckon he is, then? He must be something."

"Why, he could be a reptile; anything that hasn't wings is
a reptile."

"Who told you that?"

"Nobody told me, but I overheard it."

"Where did you overhear it?"

"Years ago. I was with the Philadelphia Institute expedi-
tion in the Bad Lands under Professor Cope, hunting masto-
don bones, and I overheard him say, his own self, that any
plantigrade circumflex vertebrate bacterium that hadn't wings
and was uncertain was a reptile. Well, then, has this dog
any wings? No. Is he a plantigrade circumflex vertebrate
bacterium? Maybe so, maybe not; but without ever having
seen him, and judging only by his illegal and spectacular
parentage, I will bet the odds of a bale of hay to a bran
mash that he looks it. Finally, is he uncertain? That is the
point--is he uncertain? I will leave it to you if you have
ever heard of a more uncertainer dog than what this one
is?"

"No, I never have."

"Well, then, he's a reptile. That's settled."

"Why, look here, whatsyourname--"

"Last alias, 'Mongrel.'"

"A good one, too. I was going to say, you are better edu-
cated than you have been pretending to be. I like cultured
society, and I shall cultivate your acquaintance. Now as to
Shekels, whenever you want to know about any private thing
that is going on at this post or in White Cloud's camp or
Thunder-Bird's, he can tell you; and if you make friends
with him he'll be glad to, for he is a born gossip, and picks
up all the tittle-tattle. Being the whole Seventh Cavalry's
reptile, he doesn't belong to anybody in particular, and hasn't
any military duties; so he comes and goes as he pleases, and
is popular with all the house cats and other authentic sources
of private information. He understands all the languages,
and talks them all, too. With an accent like gritting your
teeth, it is true, and with a grammar that is no improvement
on blasphemy--still, with practice you get at the meat of
what he says, and it serves....Hark! That's the reveille...


THE REVEILLE'

"Faint and far, but isn't it clear, isn't it sweet? There's no
music like the bugle to stir the blood, in the still solemnity
of the morning twilight, with the dim plain stretching away
to nothing and the spectral mountains slumbering against the
sky. You'll hear another note in a minute--faint and far
and clear, like the other one, and sweeter still, you'll notice.
Wait...listen. There it goes! It says, 'It is I, Soldier-come!'...
.
SOLDIER BOY'S BUGLE CALL

...Now then, watch me leave a blue streak behind!"


7 SOLDIER BOY AND SHEKELS


"Did you do as I told you? Did you look up the Mexican
Plug?"

"Yes, I made his acquaintance before night and got his
friendship."

"I liked him. Did you?"

"Not at first. He took me for a reptile, and it troubled me,
because I didn't know whether it was a compliment or not. I.
couldn't ask him, because it would look ignorant. So I didn't
say anything, and soon I liked him very well indeed. Was it
a compliment, do you think?"

"Yes, that is what it was. They are very rare, the reptiles;
very few left, now-a-days."

"Is that so? What is a reptile?"

"It is a plantigrade circumflex vetebrate bacterium that
hasn't any wings and is uncertain."

"Well, it--it sounds fine, it surely does."

"And it is fine. You may be thankful you are one."

"I am. It seems wonderfully grand and elegant for a person
that is so humble as I am; but I am thaiul, I am indeed,
and will try to live up to it It is hard to remember.
Will you say it again, please, and say it slow?"

"Plantigrade circumflex vertebrate bacterium that hasn't
any wings and is uncertain."

"It is beautiful, anybody must grant it; beautiful, and of a
noble sound. I hope it will not make me proud and stuck-up
--I should not like to be that. It is much more distinguished
and honorable to be a reptile than a dog, don't you think,
Soldier?"

"Why, there's no comparison. It is awfully aristocratic.
Often a duke is called a reptile; it is set down so, in history."

"Isn't that grand! Potter wouldn't ever associate with me,
but I reckon he'll be glad to when he finds out what I am."

"You can depend upon it"

"I will thank Mongrel for this. He is a very good sort,
for a Mexican Plug. Don't you think he is?"

"It is my opinion of him; and as for his birth, he cannot
help that. We cannot all be reptiles, we cannot all be fossil;
we have to take what comes and be thankful it is no worse.

It is the true philosophy."

"For those others?"

"Stick to the subject please. Did it turn out that my suspicions
were right?"

"Yes, perfectly right Mongrel has heard them planning.
They are after BB's life, for running them out of Medicine
Bow and taking their stolen horses away from them."

"Well, they'll get him yet, for sure."

"Not if he keeps a sharp lookout"

"He keep a sharp lookout! He never does; he despises
them, and all their kind. His life is always being threatened,
and so it has come to be monotonous."

"Does he know they are here?"

"Oh yes, he knows it He is always the earliest to know
who comes and who goes. But he cares nothing for them and
their threats; he only laughs when pecle warn him. They'll
shoot him from behind a tree the t he knows. Did Mongrel
tell you their plans?"

"Yes. They have found out that he starts for Fort Clairton
day after to-morrow, with one of his scouts; so they will
leave to-morrow, letting on to go south, but they will fetch
around north all in good time."

"Siekels, I don't like the look of it."


8 THE SCOUT-START. BB AND LIEUTENANT-GENERAL ALISON


BB {saluting.): "Good! handsomely done! The Seventh
couldn't beat it! You do certainly handle your Rangers like an
expert. General. And where are you bound?"

"Four miles on the trail to Fort Clayton."

"Glad am I, dear! What's the idea of it?"

"Guard of honor for you and Thorndike."

"Bless--your--heart! I'd rather have it from you than
from the Commander-in-Chief of the armies of the United
States, you incomparable little soldier!--and I don't need to
take any oath to that, for you believe it."

"I thought you'd like it, BB."

"Like it? Well, I should say so! Now then--all ready
--sound the advance, and away we go!"


9 SOLDIER BOY AND SHEKELS AGAIN


Well, this is the way it happened. We did the escort duty;
then we came back and struck for the plain and put the
Rangers through a rousing drill--oh, for hours! Then we sent
them home under Brigadier-General Fanny Marsh; then the
Lieutenant-General and I went off on a gallop over the plains
for about three hours, and were lazying along home in the
middle of the afternoon, when we met Jimmy Slade, the
drummer-boy, and he saluted and asked the Lieutenant-General
if she had heard the news, and she said no, and he said:

"'Buffalo Bill has been ambushed and badly shot this
side of Clayton, and Thorndike the scout, too; Bill couldn't
travel, but Thorndike could, and he brought the news, and
Sergeant Wilkes and six men of Company B are gone, two
hours ago, hotfoot, to get Bill. And they say--'

"'Go!' she shouted to me--and I went."

"Fast?"

"Don't ask foolish questions. It was an awful pace. For four
hours nothing happened, and not a word said, except that
now and then she said, 'Keep it up. Boy, keep it up, sweetheart;
we'll save him!' I kept it up. Well, when the dark shut
down, in the rugged hills, that poor little chap had been tearing
around in the saddle all day, and I noticed by the slack
knee-pressure that she was tired and tottery, and I got dreadfully
afraid; but every time I tried to slow down and let her
go to sleep, so I could stop, she hurried me up again; and
so, sure enough, at last over she went!

"Ah, that was a fix to be in! for she lay there and didn't stir,
and what was I to do? I couldn't leave her to fetch help,
on account of the wolves. There was nothing to do but stand
by. It was dreadful. I was afraid she was killed, poor little
thing! But she wasn't. She came to, by and by, and said,
'Kiss me, Soldier,' and those were blessed words. I kissed her
--often; I am used to that, and we like it. But she didn't get
up, and I was worried. She fondled my nose with her hand,
and talked to me, and called me endearing names--which is
her way--but she caressed with the same hand all the time.
The other arm was broken, you see, but I didn't know it, and
she didn't mention it. She didn't want to distress me, you
know.

"Soon the big gray wolves came, and hung around, and you
could hear them snarl, and snap at each other, but you
couldn't see anything of them except their eyes, which shone
in the dark like sparks and stars. The Lieutenant-General
said, If I had the Rocky Mountain Rangers here, we would
make those creatures climb a tree.' Then she made believe
that the Rangers were in hearing, and put up her bugle and
blew the 'assembly'; and then, 'boots and saddles'; then the
'trot'; 'gallop'; "charger Then she blew the 'retreat,' and said,
'That's for you, you rebels; the Rangers don't ever retreat!'

"The music frightened them away, but they were hungry,
and kept coming back. And of course they got bolder and
bolder, which is their way. It went on for an hour, then the
tired child went to sleep, and it was pitiful to hear her moan
and nestle, and I couldn't do anything for her. All the time
I was laying for the wolves. They are in my line; I have
had experience. At last the boldest one ventured within my
lines, and I landed him among his friends with some of his
skull still on him, and they did the rest. In the next hour I
got a couple more, and they went the way of the first one,
down the throats of the detachment. That satisfied the sur-
vivors, and they went away and left us in peace.

"We hadn't any more adventures, though I kept awake
all night and was ready. From midnight on the child got very
restless, and out of her head, and moaned, and said, 'Water,
water--thirsty'; and now and then, 'Kiss me, Soldier'; and
sometimes she was in her fort and giving orders to her gar-
rison; and once she was in Spain, and thought her mother
was with her. People say a horse can't cry; but they don't
know, because we cry inside.

"It was an hour after sunup that I heard the boys coming,
and recognized the boof-beats of Pomp and Cssar and
Jary, old mates of mine; and a welcomer sound there
couldn't ever be.

"Buffalo Bill was in a horse-litter, with his leg broken by
a bullet, and Mcmgrel and Blake Haskins's horse were doing
the work. Buffalo Bill and Thorndike had killed both of those
toughs.

"When they got to us, and Buffalo Bill saw the child lying
there so white, he said, 'My God!' and the sound of his voice
brought her to herself, and she gave a little cry of pleasure
and struggled to get up, but couldn't, and the soldiers gath-
ered her up like the tenderest women, and their eyes were
wet and they were not ashamed, when they saw her arm
dangling; and so were Buffalo Bill's, and when they laid her
in his arms he said, 'My darling, how does this come?' and
she said, 'We came to save you, but I was tired, and couldn't
keep awake, and fell off and hurt myself, and couldn't get
on again.' 'You came to save me, you dear little rat? It was
too lovely of youl' 'Yes, and Soldier stood by me, which you
know he would, and protected me from the wolves; and if
he got a chance he kicked the life out of some of them--for
you know he would, BB.' The sergeant said, 'He laid out
three of them, sir, and here's the bones to show for it.' 'He's
a grand horse,' said BB; 'he's the grandest horse that ever
was! and has saved your life, Lieutenant-General Alison,
and shall protect it the rest of his life--he's yours for a
kiss!' He got it, along with a passion of delight, and he said,
'You are feeling better now, little Spaniard--do you think
you could blow the advance?' She put up the buggle to do it,
but he said wait a minute first. Then he and the sergeant set
her arm and put it in splints, she wincing but not whimpering;
then we took up the march for home, and that's the end
of the tale; and I'm her horse. Isn't she a brick, Shekels?"

"Brick? She's more than a brick, more than a thousand
bricks--she's a reptile!"

"It's a compliment out of your heart. Shekels. God bless
you for it!"


10 GENERAL ALISON AND DORCAS


'Too much company for her, Marse Tom. Betwixt you,
and Shekels, and the (Lionel's wife, and the Cid--"

"The Cid? Oh, I remember--the raven."

"--and Mrs. Captain Marsh and Famine and Pestilence the
baby coyotes, and Sour-Mash and her pups, and Sardanapalus
and her kittens--hang these names she gives the creatures,
they warp my jaw--and Potter; you--all sitting around
in the house, and Soldier Boy at the window the entire time,
it's a wonder to me she comes along as well as she (toes.
She--"

"You want her all to yourself, you stingy old thing!"

"Marse Tom, you know better. It's too much company.
And then the idea of her receiving reports all the time from
her officers, and acting upon them, and giving orders, the
same as if she was well! It ain't good for her, and the sur-
geon don't like it, and tried to persuade her not to and
couldn't; and when he ordered her, she was that outraged
and indignant, and was very severe on him, and accused him
of insubordination, and said it didn't become him to give
orders to an officer of her rank. Well, he saw he had excited
her more and done more harm than all the rest put together,
so he was vexed at himself and wished he had kept still.
Doctors don't know much, and that's a fact. She's too much
interested in things--she ought to rest more. She's all the
time sending messages to BB, and to soldiers and Injuns and
whatnot, and to the animals."

"To the animals?"

"Yes, sir."

"Who carries them?"

"Sometimes Potter, but mostly it's Shekels."

"Now come! who can find fault with such pretty make-
believe as that?"

"But it ain't make-beh'eve, Marse Tom. She does send
them."

"Yes, I don't doubt that part of it."

"Do you doubt fliey get them, sir?"

"Certainly. Don't you?"

"No, sir. Animals talk to one another. I know it perfectly
well, Marse Tom, and I ain't saying it by guess."

"What a curious superstition!"

"It ain't a superstition, Marse Tom. Look at that Shekels
--look at him, now. Is he listening, or ain't he? Now you
see! he's turned his head away. It's because he was caught
--caught in the act. I'll ask you--could a Christian look
any more ashamed than what he looks now?--lay down! You
see? he was going to sneak out. Don't tell me, Marse Tom!
If animals don't talk, I miss my guess. And Shekels is the
worst. He goes and tells the animals everything that happens
in the officers' quarters; and if he's short of facts, he
invents them. He hasn't any more principle than a blue jay;
and as for morals, he's empty. Look at him now; look at
him grovel. He knows what I am saying, and he knows it's the
truth. You see, yourself, that he can feel shame; it's the
only virtue he's got. It's wonderful how they find out eve-
thing that's going on--the animals. They--

"Do you really believe they do, Dorcas?"

"I don't only just believe it, Marse Tom, I know it. Day
before yesterday they knew something was going to happen.
They were that excited, and whispering around together; why,
anybody could see that they-- But my! I must get back to
her, and I haven't got to my errand yet."


"What is it, Dorcas?"

"Well, it's two or three things. One is, the doctor don't
salute when he comes...Now, Marse Tom, it ain't anything
to laugh at, and so--"

"Well, then, forgive me; I didn't mean to laugh--I got
caught unprepared."

"You see, she don't want to hurt the doctor's feelings, so
she don't say anything to him about it; but she is always po-
lite, herself, and it hurts that kind of people to be rude to
them."

"I'll have that doctor hanged."

"Marse Tom, she don't want him hanged. She--"

"Well, then. I'll have him boiled in oil."

"But she don't want him boiled. I--"

"Oh, very well, very well, I only want to please her; I'll
have him skinned."

"Why, she don't want him skinned; it would break her
heart Now--

"Woman, this is perfectly unreasonable. What in the nation
does she want?"

"Marse Tom, if you would only be a little patient, and not
fly off the handle at the least little thing. Why, she only wants
you to speak to him."

"Speak to him! Well, upon my word! All this unseemly
rage and row about such a--a--Dorcas, I never saw you
carry on like this before. You have alarmed the sentry; he
thinks I am being assassinated; he thinks there's a mutiny,
a revolt, an insurrection; he--"

"Marse Tom, you are just putting on; you know it perfectly
well; I don't know what makes you act like that--but you
always did, even when you was little, and you can't get over
it, I reckon. Are you over it now, Marse Tom?"

"Oh, well, yes; but it would try anybody to be doing the
best he could, offering every kindness he could think of, only
to have it rejected with contumely and...Oh, well, let it
go; it's no matter--I'll talk to the doctor. Is that satisfactory,
or are you going to break out again?"

"Yes, sir, it is; and it's only right to talk to him, too, beA
cause it's just as she says; she's trying to keep up discipline
in the Rangers, and this insubordination of his is a bad ex-
ample for them--now ain't it so, Marse Tom?"

"Well, there is reason in it, I can't deny it; so I will speak
to him, though at bottom I think hanging would be more
lasting. What is the rest of your errand, Dorcas?"

"Of course her room is Ranger headquarters now, Marse
Tom, while she's sick. Well, soldiers of the cavalry and the
dragoons that are off duty come and get her sentries to let
them relieve them and serve in their place. It's only out of
affection, sir, and because they know military honors please
her, and please the children too, for her sake; and they don't
bring their muskets; and so--"

"I've noticed them there, but didn't twig the idea. They are
standing guard, are they?"

"Yes, sir, and she is afraid you will reprove them and hurt
their feelings, if you see them there; so she begs, if--if you
don't mind coming in the back way--"

"Bear me up, Dorcas; don't let me faint."

"There--sit up and behave, Marse Tom. You are not going
to faint; you are only pretending--you used to act just so
when you was little; it does seem a long time for you to get
grown up."

"Dorcas, the way the child is progressing, I shall be out of
my job before long--she'll have the whole post in her hands.
I must make a stand, I must not go down without a struggle.
These encroachments.... Dorcas, what do you think she will
think of next?"

"Marse Tom, she don't mean any harm."

"Are you sure of it?"

"Yes, Marse Tom."

"You feel sure she has no ulterior designs?"

"I don't know what that is, Marse Tom, but I know she
hasn't."

"Very well, then, for the present I am satisfied. What else
have you come about?"

"I reckon I better tell you the whole thing first, Marse
Tom, then tell you what she wants. There's been an emeute,
as she calls it. It was before she got back with BB. The
officer of the day reported it to her this morning. It hap-
pened at her fort. There was a fuss betwixt Major-General
Tommy Drake and Lieutenant-Colonel Agnes Prisbie, and he
snatched her doll away, which is made of white kid stuffed
with sawdust and tore every rag of its clothes off, right
before them all, and is under arrest and the diarge is con-
duct un--

"Yes, I know--conduct unbecoming an officer and a gentle-
man -- plain case, too, it seems to me. This is a serious
matter. Well, what is her pleasure?"

'Well, Marse Tom, she has summoned a court-martial, but
the doctor don't think she is well enough to preside over it,
and she says there ain't anybody competent but her, because
there's a major-general concerned; and so she--she--well.
she says, would you preside over it for her?...Marse Tom,
sit up! You ain't any more going to faint than Shekels is."

"Look here, Dorcas, go along back, and be tactful. Be persua-
sive; don't fret her; tell her it's all right, the matter is
in my hands, but it isn't good form to hurry so grave a matter
as this. Explain to her that we have to go by precedent, and
that I believe this one to be new. In fact, you can say I
know that nothing just like it has happened in our army,
therefore I must be guided by European precedents, and
must go cautiously and examine them carefully. Tell her
not to be impatient, it will take me several days, but it will
all come out right, and I will come over and report progress
as I go along. Do you get the idea, Dorcas?"

"I don't know as I do, sir."

"Well, it's this. You see, it won't ever do for me, a brigadier
in the regular army, to preside over that infant court-martial
--there isn't any precedent for it, don't you see. Very well.
I will go on examining authorities and reporting progress
until she is well enough to get me out of this scrape by
presiding herself. Do you get it now?"

"Oh, yes, sir, I get it, and it's good, I'll go and fix it
with her. Lay down! and stay where you are."

"Why, what harm is he doing?"

"Oh, it ain't any harm, but it just vexes me to see him
act so."

"What was he doing?"

"Can't you see, and him in such a sweat? He was starting
out to spread it all over the post. Now I reckon you won't
deny, any more, that they go and tell everything they hear,
now that you've seen it with yo' own eyes."

"Well, I don't like to acknowledge it, Dorcas, but I don't
see how I can consistently stick to my doubts in the face of
such overwhelming proof as this dog is furnishing."

"There, now, you've got in yo' right mind at last! I wonder
you can be so stubborn, Marse Tom. But you always was, even
when you was little. I'm going now."

"Look here; tell her that in view of the delay, it is my
judgment that she ought to enlarge the accused on his parole."

"Yes, sir, I'll tell her. Marse Tom?"

"Well"

"She can't get to Soldier Boy, and he stands there all the
time, down in the mouth and lonesome; and e says will
you shake hands with him and comfort him? Everybody
does."

"It's a curious kind of lonesomeness; but, all right, I will"


11 SEVERAL MONTHS LATER. ANTONIO AND THORNIKE


"Thorndike, isn't that Plug you're riding an asset of the
scrap you and Buffalo Bill had with the late Blake Haskins
and his pal a few months back?"

"Yes, this is Mongrel--and not a half-bad horse, either."

"I've noticed he keeps up his lick first-rate. Say--isn't it a
gaudy morning?"

"Right you are!"

"Thorndike, it's Andalusian! and when that's said, all's
said."

"Andalusian and Oregonian, Antonio! Put it that way, and
you have my vote. Being a native up there, I know. You being
Andalusian-born--"

"Can speak with authority for that patch of paradise?
Well, I can. Like the Don! like Sancho! This is the correct
Andalusian dawn now--crisp, fresh, dewy, fragrant, pungent
--"

"What though the spicy breezes
Blow soft o'er Ceylon's isle--

--git up, you old cow! stumbling like that when we've just
been praising you! out on a scout and can't live up to the
honor any better than that? Antonio, how long have you
been rout here in the Plains and the Rockies?"

"More than thirteen years."

"It's a long time. Don't you ever get homesick?"

"Not till now."

"Why now?--after such a long cure."

"These preparations of the retiring commandant's have
started it up."

"Of course. It's natural."

"It keeps me thinking about Spain. I know the region
where the Seventh's diild's aunt lives; I know all the lovely
country for miles around; I'll bet I've seen her aunt's villa
many a time; Til bet I've been in it in those pleasant old
times when I was a Spanish gentleman."

"They say the child is wild to see Spain."

"It's so; I know it from what I hear."

"Haven't you talked with her about it?"

"No. I've avoided it. I should soon be as wild as she is.
That would not be comfortable.

"I wish I was going, Antonio. There's two things I'd give
a lot to see. One's a railroad."

"She'll see one when she strikes Missouri."

"The other's a bull-fight."

"I've seen lots of them; I wish I could see another."

"I don't know anything about it, except in a mixed-up,
foggy way, Antonio, but I know enough to know it's grand
sport."

"The grandest in the world! There's no other sport that
begins with it. Fll tell you what I've seen, then you can
judge. It was my first, and it's as vivid to me now as it
was when I saw it. It was a Sunday afternoon, and beautiful
weather, and my uncle, the priest, took me as a reward for
being a good boy and because of my own accord and without
anybody asking me I had bankrupted my savings-box and
given the money to a mission that was civilizing the Chinese
and sweetening their lives and softening their hearts with
the gentle teachings of our religion, and I wish you could
have seen what we saw that day, Thorndike.

"The amphitheater was packed, from the bull-ring to the
highest row--twelve thousand people in one circling mass,
one slanting, solid mass--royalties, nobles, clergy, ladies,
gentlemen, state officials, generals, admirals, soldiers, sai-
lors, lawyers, thieves, merchants, brokers, cooks, housemaids,
scullery-maids, doubtful women, dudes, gamblers, beggars,
loafers, tramps, American ladies, gentlemen, preachers, English
ladies, gentlemen, preachers, German ditto, French ditto,
and so on and so on, all the world represented: Spaniards to
admire and praise, foreigners to enjoy and go home and find
fault--there they were, one solid, sloping, circling sweep of
rippling and flashing color under the downpour of the summer
sun--just a garden, a gaudy, gorgeous flower-garden!
Children munching oranges, six thousand fans fluttering and
glimmering, everybody happy, everybody chatting gayly with
their intimates, lovely girl-faces smiling recognition and
salutation to other lovely girl-faces, gray old ladies and
gentlemen dealing in the like exchanges with each other--ah,
such a picture of cheery contentment and glad anticipation!
not a mean spirit, nor a sordid soul, nor a sad heart there--
ah, Thorndike, I wish I could see it again.

"Suddenly, the martial note of a bugle cleaves the hum and
murmur--clear the ring!"

"They clear it. The great gate is flung open, and the proces-
sion marches in, splendidly costumed and glittering: the
marshals of the day, then the picadores on horseback, then
the matadores on foot, each surrounded by his quadrille of
chulos. They march to the box of the city fathers, and for-
mally salute. The key is thrown, the bull-gate is unlocked.
Another bugle blast--the gate flies open, the bull plunges
in, furious, trembling, blinking in the blinding light, and
stands there, a magnficent creature, center of those multitu-
dinous and admiring eyes, brave, ready for battle, his attitude
a challenge. He sees his enemy: horsemen sitting motionless,
with long spears in rest, upon blindfolded brokendown nags,
lean and starved, fit only for sport and sacrifice, then the
carrion-heap.

"The bull makes a rush, with murder in his eye, but a
picador meets him with a spear-thrust in the shoulder. He
flinches with the pain, and the picador skips out of danger.
A burst of applause for the picador, hisses for the bull. Some
shout "Cow!" at the bull, and call him offensive names. But
he is not listening to them, he is there for business; he is
not minding the cloak-bearers that come fluttering around to
confuse him; he chases this way, he chases that way, and
hither and yon, scattering the nimble banderillos in every
direction like a spray, and receiving their maddening darts
in his neck as they dodge and fly--oh, but it's a lively
spectacle, and brings down the house! Ah, you should hear
the thundering roar that goes up when the game is at its
wildest and brilliant things are done!

"Oh, that first bull, that day, was great! From the moment
the spirit of war rose to flood-tide in him and he got
down to his work, he began to do wonders. He tore his
way through his persecutors, flinging one of them clear
over the parapet; he bowled a horse and his rider down,
and plunged straight for the next, got home with his borns,
wounding both horse and man; on again, here and there and
this way and that; and one after another be tore the bowels
out of two horses so that they grusbed to the ground, and
ripped a third one so badly that although they rushed him
to cover and shoved his bowels back and stuffed the rents
with tow and rode him against the bull again, he couldn't
make the trip; he tried to gallop, under the spur, but soon
reeled and tottered and fell, all in a heap. For a while, that
bull-ring was the most thrilling and glorious and inspiring
sight that ever was seen. The bull absolutely cleared it, and
stood there alone! monarch of the place. The people went
mad for pride in him, and joy and delight, and you couldn't
hear yourself think, for the roar and boom and crash of
applause."

"Antonio, it carries me clear out of myself just to hear
you tell it; it must have been perfectly splendid. If I live,
I'll see a bull-fight yet before I die. Did they kill him?"

"Oh yes; that is what the bull is for. They tired him out,
and got him at last. He kept rushing the matador, who always
slipped smartly and gracefully aside in time, waiting for
a sure chance; and at last it came; the bull made a deadly
plunge for him--was avoided neatly, and as he sped by, the
long sword glided silently into him, between left shoulder
and spine--in and in, to the hilt. He crumpled down, dying."

"Ah, Antonio, it is the noblest sport, that ever was. I would
give a year of my life to see it. Is the bull always killed?"

"Yes. Sometimes a bull is timid, finding himself in so
strange a place, and he stands trembling, or tries to retreat.
Then everybody despises him for his cowardice and wants
him punished and made ridiculous; so they hough him from
behind, and it is the funniest thing in the world to see him
hobbling around on his severed legs; the whole vast house
goes into hurricanes of laughter over it; I have laughed till
the tears ran down my cheeks to see it. When he has furnish-
ed all the sport he can, he is not any longer useful, and is
killed."

"Well, it is perfectly grand, Antonio, perfectly beautiful.
Burning a nigger don't begin."


12 MONGREL AND THE OTHER HORSE


"Sage-Brush, you have been listening?"

"Yes."

"Isn't it strange?"

"Well, no. Mongrel, I don't know that it is."

"Why don't you?"

"I've seen a good many human beings in my time. They are
created as they are; they cannot help it. They are only
brutal because that is their make; brutes would be brutal
if it was their make."

"To me, Sage-Brush, man is most strange and unaccountable.
Why should he treat dumb animals that way when they are not
doing any harm?"

"Man is not always like that, Mongrel; he is kind enough
when he is not excited by religion."

"Is the bull-fight a religious service?"

"I think so. I have heard so. It is held on Sunday."

(A reflective pause, lasting some moments.) Then:

"When we die, Sage-Brush, do we go to heaven and dwell
with man?"

"My father thought not. He believed we do not have to
go there unless we deserve it."


PART II IN SPAIN


13 GENERAL ALISON TO HIS MOTHER


It was a prodigious trip, but delightful, of course, through
the Rockies and the Black Hills and the mighty sweep of the
Great Plains to civilization and the Missouri border--where
the railroading began and the delightfulness ended. But no
one is the worse for the journey; certainly not Cathy, nor
Dorcas, nor Soldier Boy; and as for me, I am not complain'
ing.

Spain is all that Cathy had pictured it--and more, she says.
She is in a fury of deh'ght, the maddest little animal that
ever was, and for joy. She thinks she remembers Spain, but
that is not very likely, I suppose. The two--Mercedes and
Cathy--devour each other. It is a rapture of love, and beau-
tiful to see. It is Spanish; that describes it. Will this
be a short visit?

No. It will be permanent. Cathy has elected to abide with
Spain and her aunt. Dorcas says she (Dorcas) foresaw that
this would happen; and also says that she wanted it to happen,
and says the child's own country is the right place for
her, and that she ought not to have been sent to me, I ought
to have gone to her. I thought it insane to take Soldier Boy
to Spain, but it was well that I yielded to Cathy's pleadings;
if he had been left behind, half of her heart would have re-
mained with him, and she would not have been contented.
As it is, everything has fallen out for the best, and we are
all satisfied and comfortable. It may be that Dorcas and I
will see America again some day; but also it is a case of
maybe not.

We left the post in the early morning. It was an affecting
time. The women cried over Cathy, so did even those stem
warriors the Rocky Mountain Rangers; Shekels was there,
and the Cid, and Sardanapalus, and Potter, and Mongrel,
and Sour-Mash, Famine, and Pestilence, and Cathy kissed
them all and wept; details of the several arms of the garrison
were present to represent the rest, and say good-by and God
bless you for all the soldiery; and there was a special squad
from the Seventh, with the oldest veteran at its head, to speed
the Seventh's Child with grand honors and impressive ceremonies;
and the veteran had a touching speech by heart, and put up his
hand in salute and tried to say it, but his lips trembled and
his voice broke, but Cathy bent down from the saddle and kiss-
ed him on the mouth and turned his defeat to victory, and a
cheer went up.

The next act closed the ceremonies, and was a moving surprise.
It may be that you have discovered, before this, that the rig-
ors of military law and custom melt insensibly away and disa-
ppear when a soldier or a regiment or the garrison wants to
do something that will please Cathy. The bands conceived the
idea of stirring her soldierly heart with a farewell which
would remain in her memory always, beautiful and unfading,
and bring back the past and its love for her whenever she
should think of it; so they got their project placed before
General Burnaby, my successor, who is Cathy's newest slave,
and in spite of poverty of precedents they got his permis
sion. The bands knew the child's favorite military airs.
By this hint you know what is coming, but Cathy didn't.
She was asked to sound the ''reveille," which she did.


REVEILLE


With the last note the bands burst out with a crash; and
woke the mountains with the "Star-Spangled Banner" in a
way to make a body's heart swell and thump and his hair
rise! It was enough to break a person all up, to see Cathy's
radiant face shining out through her gladness and tears. By
request she blew the "assembly," now...
.
THE ASSEMBLY

...Then the bands thundered in, with "Rally round the
flag, boys, rally once again!" Next, she blew another call
("to the Standard")...

TO THE STANDARD

....and the bands responded with "When we were marching
through Georgia." Straightway she sounded "boots and
saddles," that thrilling and most expediting call...

BOOTS AND SADDLES

....and the bands could hardly hold in for the final note;
then they turned their whole strength loose on "Tramp,
tramp, tramp, the boys are marching," and everybody's excite-
ment rose to blood-heat.

Now an impressive pause--then the bugle sang "Taps"--transla-
table, this time, into "Good-by, and God keep us all!" for
taps is the soldier's nightly release from duty, and farewell;
plaintive, sweet, pathetic, for the morning is never sure,
for him; always it is possible that he is hearing it for the
last time....

TAPS

....Then the bands turned their instruments towards Cathy
and burst in with that rollicking frenzy of a tune, "Oh,
we'll all get blind drunk when Johnny comes marching home--
yes, well all get blind drunk when Johnny comes marching
home!" and followed it instantly with "Dixie," that antidote
for melancholy, merriest and gladdest of all military music
on any side of the ocean--and that was the end. And so--
farewell!

I wish you could have been there to see it all, hear it all,
and feel it: and get yourself blown away with the hurricane
huzza that swept the place as a finish.

When we rode away, our main body had already been on the
road an hour or two--I speak of our camp equipage; but
we didn't move off alone: when Cathy blew the "advance"
the Rangers cantered out in column of fours, and gave us
escort, and were joined by White Cloud and Thunder-Bird
in all their gaudy bravery, and by Buffalo Bill and four
subordinate scouts. Three miles away, in the Plains, the
Lieutenant-General halted, sat her horse like a military
statue, the bugle at her lips, and put the Rangers through
the evolutions for half an hour; and finally, when she blew
the "charge," she led it herself. "Not for the last time,"
she said, and got a cheer, and we said good-by all around,
and faced eastward and rode away.

Postscript. A Day Later. Soldier Boy was stolen last night.
Cathy is almost beside herself, and we cannot comfort her.
Mercedes and I are not much alarmed about the horse, although
this part of Spain is in something of a turmoil, politically,
at present, and there is a good deal of lawlessness. In
ordinary times the thief and the horse would soon be cap-
tured. We shall have them before long, I think.


14 SOLDIER BOY--TO HIMSELF


It is five months. Or is it six? My troubles have clouded my
memory. I think I have been all over this land, from end to
end, and now I am back again since day before yesterday, to
that city which we passed through, that last day of our long
journey, and which is near her country home. I am a totter-
ing ruin and my eyes are dim, but I recognized it. If she
could see me she would know me and sound my call. I wish
I could hear it once more; it would revive me, it would
bring back her face and the mountains and the free life, and
I would come--if I were dying I would come! She would not
know me, looking as I do, but she would know me by my
star. But she will never see me, for they do not let me out
of this shabby stable--a foul and miserable place, with most
two wrecks like myself for company.

How many times have I changed hands? I think it is twelve
times--I cannot remember; and each time it was down a
step lower, and each time I got a harder master. They have
been cruel, every one; they have worked me night and day
in degraded employments, and beaten me; they have fed me
ill and some days not at all. And so I am but bones, now,
with a rough and frowsy skin humped and cornered upon
my shrunken body--that skin which was once so glossy, that
skin which she loved to stroke with her hand. I was the pride
of the mountains and the Great Plains; now I am a scarecrow
and despised. These piteous wrecks that are my comrades
here say we have reached the bottom of the scale, the
final humiliaton; they say that when a horse is no longer
worth the weeds and discarded rubbish they feed to him,
they sell him to the bull-ring for a glass of brandy, to make
sport for the people and perish for their pleasure.

To die--that does not disturb me; we of the service never
care for death. But if I could see her once more! if I could
hear her bugle sing again and say, "It is I, Soldier--corne!"


15 GENERAL ALISON TO MRS. DRAKE, THE COLONEL'S WIFE


To return, now, to where I was, and tell you the rest. We
shall never know how she came to be there; there is no way
to account for it. She was always watching for black and
shiny and spirited horses--watching, hoping, despairing, hop-
ing again; always giving chase and sounding her call, upon
the meagerest chance of a response, and breaking her heart
over the disappointment; always inquiring, always interested
in sales-stables and horse accumulations in general. How she
got there must remain a mystery.

At the point which I had reached in a preceding parapaph
of this account, the situation was as follows: two horses
lay dying; the bull had scattered his persecutors for the
moment, and stood raging, panting, pawing the dust in clouds
over his back, when the man that had been wounded returned
to the ring on a remount, a poor blindfolded wreck that yet
had something ironically military about his bearing --and
the next moment the bull had ripped him open and his bowels
were dragging upon the ground and the bull was charging his
swarm of pests again. Then came pealing through the air a
bugle-call that froze my blood--"It is I, Soldier--come!" I
turned; Cathy was flying down through the massed people; she
cleared the parapet at a bound, and sped towards that rid-
erless horse, who staggered forward towards the remembered
sound; but his strength failed, and he fell at her feet, she
lavishing kisses upon him and sobbing, the house rising with
one impulse, and white with horror! Before help could reach
her the bull was back again----

She was never conscious again in life. We bore her home,
all mangled and drenched in blood, and knelt by her and
listened to her broken and wandering words, and prayed for
her passing spirit, and there was no comfort--nor ever will
be, I think. But she was happy, for she was far away under
another sky, and comrading again with her Rangers, and her
animal friends, and the soldiers. Their names fell softly and
caressingly from her lips, one by one, with pauses between.
She was not in pain, but lay with closed eyes, vacantly mur-
muring, as one who dreams. Sometimes she smiled, saying--
nothing; sometimes she smiled when she uttered a name---
such as Shekels, or BB, or Potter. Sometimes she was at her
fort, issuing commands; sometimes she was careering over
the plains at the head of her men; sometimes she was training
her horse; once she said, reprovingly, "You are giving me
the wrong foot; give me the left--don't you know it is goodby?"

After this, she lay silent some time; the end was near. By
and by she murmured, "Tired...sleepy...take Cathy, mamma."
Then "Kiss me. Soldier." For a little time she lay so still
that we were doubtful if she breathed. Then she put out her
hand and began to feel gropingly about; then said, "I cannot
find it; blow 'taps.'"' It was the end.

TAPS

"Lights Out"

1906


Hunting the Deceitful Turkey



When I was a boy my uncle and his big boys hunted with
the rifle, the youngest boy Fred and I with a shotgun--a small
single-barrelled shotgun which was properly suited to our size
and strength; it was not much heavier than a broom. We
carried it turn about, half an hour at a time. I was not able to
hit anything with it, but I liked to try. Fred and I hunted
feathered small game, the others hunted deer, squirrels, wild
turkeys, and such things. My uncle and the big boys were
good shots. They killed hawks and wild geese and such like
on the wing; and they didn't wound or kill squirrels, they
stunned them. When the dogs treed a squirrel, the squirrel
would scamper aloft and run out on a limb and flatten himself
along it, hoping to make himself invisible in that way
and not quite succeeding. You could see his wee little ears
sticking up. You couldn't see his nose, but you knew where it
was. Then the hunter, despising a "rest" for his rifle, stood
up and took offhand aim at the limb and sent a bullet into it
immediately under the squirrel's nose, and down tumbled the
animal, unwounded but unconscious; the dogs gave him a
shake and he was dead. Sometimes when the distance was
great and the wind not accurately allowed for, the bullet
would hit the squirrel's head; the dogs could do as they
pleased with that one--the hunter's pride was hurt, and he
wouldn't allow it to go into the gamebag.

In the first faint gray of the dawn the stately wild turkeys
would be stalking around in great flocks, and ready to be
sociable and answer invitations to come and converse with
other excursionists of their kind. The hunter concealed him-
self and imitated the turkey-call by sucking the air through
the Icgbone of a turkey which had previously answered a call
like that and lived only just long enough to regret it. There
is nothing that furnishes a perfect turkey-call except that
bone. Another of Nature's treacheries, you see. She is full
of them; half the time she doesn't know which she likes best
--to betray her child or protect it. In the case of the turkey
she is badly mixed: she gives it a bone to be used in getting
it into trouble, and she also furnishes it with a trick for
getting itself out of the trouble again. When a mamma-turkey
answers an invitation and finds she has made a mistake in
accepting it, she does as the mamma-partridge does--remembers
a previous engagement and goes limping and scrambling away,
pretending to be very lame; and at the same time she is saying
to her not-visible children, "Lie low, keep still, don't expose
yourselves; I shall he back as soon as I have beguiled this
shabby swindler out of the country."

When a person is ignorant and confiding, this immoral
device can have tiresome results. I followed an ostensibly
lame turkey over a considerable part of the United States
one morning, because I believed in her and could not think
she would deceive a mere boy, and one who was trusting her
and considering her honest. I had the single-barrelled shot-
gun, but my idea was to catch her alive, I often got within
rushing distance of her, and then made my rush; but always,
just as I made my final plunge and put my hand down where
her back had been, it wasn't there; it was only two or three
inches from there and I brushed the tail-feathers as I landed
on my stomach--a very close call, but still not quite close
mou; that is, not close enough for success, but just close
enough; that is, not close enough for success, but just close
enough to convince me that I could do it next time. She always
waited for me, a little piece away, and let on to be resting
and greatly fatigued; which was a lie, but I believed it,
for I still thought her honest long after I ought to have
begun to doubt her, suspecting that this was no way for a
high-minded bird to be acting. I followed, and followed, and
followed, making my periodical rushes, and getting up and
brushing the dust off, and resuming the voyage with patient
confidence; indeed, with a confidence which grew, for I
could see by the change of climate and vegetation that we
were getting up into the high latitudes, and as she always
looked a little tireder and a little more discouraged after
each rush, I judged that I was safe to win, in the end, the
competition being purely a matter of staying power and the
advantage lying with me from the start because she was lame.

Along in the afternoon I began to feel fatigued myself.
Neither of us had had any rest since we first started on the
excursion, which was upwards of ten hours before, though
latterly we had paused awhile after rushes, I letting on to be
thinking about something else; but neither of us sincere, and
both of us waiting for the other to call game but in no real
hurry about it, for indeed those little evanescent snatches of
rest were very grateful to the feelings of us both; it would
naturally be so, skirmishing along like that ever since dawn
and not a bite in the meantime; at least for me, though some-
times as she lay on her side fanning herself with a wing and
praying for strength to get out of this difficulty a grass-
hopper happened along whose time had come, and that was well
for her, and fortunate, but I had nothing--nothing the whole
day.

More than once, after I was very tired, I gave up taking
her alive, and was going to shoot her, but I never did it,
although it was my right, for I did not believe I could hit
her; and besides, she always stopped and posed, when I rais-
ed the gun, and this made me suspicious that she knew about
me and my marksmanship, and so I did not care to expose my-
self to remarks.

I did not get her, at all. When she got tired of the game
at last, she rose from almost under my hand and flew aloft
with the rush and whir of a shell and lit on the highest limb
of a great tree and sat down and crossed her legs and smiled
down at me, and seemed gratified to see me so astonished.

I was ashamed, and also lost; and it was while wandering
the woods hunting for myself that I found a deserted log
cabin and had one of the best meals there that in my life-
days I have eaten. The weed-grown garden was full of ripe
tomatoes, and I ate them ravenously, though I had never
liked them before. Not more than two or three times since
have I tasted anything that was so delicious as those tomatoes.
I surfeited myself with them, and did not taste another one
until I was in middle life. I can eat them now, but I do not
like the look of them. I suppose we have all experienced a
surfeit at one time or another. Once, in stress of circum-
stances, ate part of a barrel of sardines, there being no-
thing else at hand, but since then I have always been able
to get along without sardines.

1906



Extract from Captain Stormfield's Visit to Heaven


1

Well, when I had been dead about thirty years, I begun to
get a little anxious. Mind you, I had been whizzing through
space all that time, like a comet. Like a comet! Why, Peters,
I laid over the lot of them! Of course there warn't any of
them going my way, as a steady thing, you know, because they
travel in a long circle like the loop of a lasso, whereas I
was pointed as straight as a dart for the Hereafter; but I
happened on one every now and then that was going my way for
an hour or so, and then we had a bit of a brush together. But
it was generally pretty one-sided, because I sailed by them
the same as if they were standing still. An ordinary comet
don't make more than about 200,000 miles a minute. Of
course when I came across one of that sort--like Encke's and
Haley's comets, for instance--it warn't anything but just a
flash and a vanish, you see. You couldn't rightly call it a
race. It was as if the comet was a gravel-train and I was a
telegraph despatch. But after I got outside of our astrono-
mical system, I used to flush a comet occasionally fliat
was something like. We haven't got any such comets--ours
don't begin. One night I was swinging along at a good round
gait, everything taut and trim, and the wind in my favor
--judged I was going about a million miles a minute--it might
have been more, it couldn't have been less--when I flushed
a most uncommonly big one about three points off my star--
board bow. By his stem lights I judged he was bearing about
northeast-and-by-north-half-east. Well, it was so near my
course that I wouldn't throw away the chance; so I fell off
a point, steadied my helm, and went for him. You should
have heard me whiz, and seen the electric fur fly! In about a
minute and a half I was fringed out with an electrical nimbus
that flamed around for miles and miles and lit up all space
like broad day. The comet was burning blue in the distance,
like a sickly torch, when I first sighted him, but he begun
to grow bigger and bigger as I crept up on him. I slipped
up on him so fast that when I had gone about 150,000,000
miles I was close enough to be swallowed up in the phospho-
rescent glory of his wake, and I couldn't see anything for
the glare. Thinks I, it won't do to run into him, so I shunted
to one side and tore along. By and by I closed up abreast of
his tail. Do you know what it was like? It was like a gnat
closing up on the continent of America. I forged along. By
and by I had sailed along his coast for a little upwards of
a hundred and fifty million miles, and then I could see by
the shape of him that I hadn't even got up to his waistband
yet. Why, Peters, we don't know anything about comets, down
here. If you want to see comets that are comets, you've got
to go outside of our solar system--where there's room for
em, you understand. My friend, I've seen comets out there
that couldn't even lay down inside the orbits of our noblest
comets without their tails hanging over.

Well, I boomed along another hundred and fifty million miles,
and got up abreast his shoulder, as you may say. I was feel-
ing pretty fine, I tell you; but just then I noticed the
oflScer of the deck come to the side and hoist his glass in
my direction. Straight off I heard him sing out--

"Below there, ahoy! Shake her up, shake her up! Heave
on a hundred million billion tons of brimstone!"

"Ay--ay, sir!"


"Pipe the starboard watch! All hands on deck!"

"Ay--ay, sir!"

"Send two hundred thousand million men aloft to shake.
out royals and sky-scrapers!"

"Ay--ay, sir!"

"Hand the stuns'ls! Hang out every rag you've got! Clothe
hm' from stem to rudder-post!"

"Ay--ay, sir!"

In about a second I begun to see I'd woke up a pretty ugly
customer, Peters. In less than ten seconds that comet was
just a blazing cloud of red-hot canvas. It was piled up into
the heavens clean out of sight--the old thing seemed to swell
out and occupy all space; the sulphur smoke from the fur-
naces--oh, well, nobody can describe the way it rolled and
tumbled up into the skies, and nobody can half describe the
way it smelt. Neither can anybody begin to describe the way
that monstrous craft begun to crash along. And such another
powwow--thousands of bo's'n's whistles screaming at once,
and a crew like the populations of a hundred thousand
worlds like ours all swearing at once. Well, I never heard
the like of it before.

We roared and thundered along side by side, both doing our
level best, because Fd never struck a comet before that
could lay over me, and so I was bound to beat this one or
break something. I judged I had some reputation in space,
and I calculated to keep it. I noticed I wasn't gaining as
fast, now, as I was before, but still I was gaining. There
was a power of excitement on board the comet. Upwards of
a hundred billion passengers swarmed up from below and rush-
ed to the side and begun to bet on the race. Of course this
careened her and damaged her speed. My, but wasn't the mate
mad! He jumped at that crowd, with his trumpet in his hand,
and sung out--

"Amidships! amidships, you or I'll brain the last idiot of you!"

Well, sir, I gained and gained, little by little, till at last
I went skimming sweetly by the magnificent old conflagration's
nose. By this time the captain of the comet had been rousted
out, and he stood there in the red glare for'ard, by the mate,
in his shirtsleeves and slippers, his hair all rats' nests and
one suspender hanging, and how sick those two men did look! I
just simply couldn't help putting my thumb to my nose as I
glided away and singing out:

"Ta-ta! ta-ta! Any word to send to your family?"

Peters, it was a mistake. Yes, sir, I've often regretted that--
it was a mistake. You see, the captain had given up the race,
but that remark was too tedious for him--he couldn't stand it.
He turned to the mate, and says he--

"Have we got brimstone enough of our own to make the trip?"

"Yes, sir."

"Sure?"

"Yes, sir--more than enough."

"How much have we got in cargo for Satan?"

"Eighteen hundred thousand billion quintillions of kazarks."

"Very well, then, let his boarders freeze till the next comet
comes. Lighten ship! Lively, now, lively, men! Heave the
whole cargo overboard!"

Peters, look me in the eye, and be calm. I found out, over
there, that a kazark is exactly the bulk of a hundred and
sixty-nine worlds like ours! They hove all that load overboard.
When it fell it wiped out a considerable raft of stars just as
clean as if they'd been candles and somebody blowed them
out. As for the race, that was at an end. The minute she was
lightened the comet swung along by me the same as if I was
anchored. The captain stood on the stem, by the after-davits,
and put his thumb to his nose and sung out--

"Ta-ta! ta-ta! Maybe you've got some message to send your
friends in the Everlasting Tropics!"

Then he hove up his other suspender and started for'ard, and
inside of three-quarters of an hour his craft was only a--
pale torch again in the distance. Yes, it was a mistake, Pet-
ers that remark of mine. I don't reckon I'll ever get over being
sorry about it. I'd 'a' beat the bully of the firmament if I'd
kept my mouth shut.


But I've wandered a little off the track of my tale; I'll
get back on my course again. Now you see what kind of speed
I was making. So, as I said, when I had been tearing along
this way about thirty years i begun to get uneasy. Oh, it was
pleasant enough, with a good deal to find out, but then it was
kind of lonesome, you know. Besides, I wanted to get some-
where. I hadn't shipped with the idea of cruising forever.
First off, I liked the delay, because I judged I was going
to fetch up in pretty warm quarters when I got through; but
towards the last I begun to feel that I'd rather go to--well,
most any place, so as to finish up the uncertainty.

Well, one night--it was always night, except when I was
rushing by some star that was occupying the whole universe
with its fire and its glare--light enough then, of course, but
I necessarily left it behind in a minute or two and plunged
into a solid week of darkness again. The stars ain't so close
together they look to be. Where was I? Oh yes; one night
I was sailing along, when I discovered a tremendous long
row of blinking lights away on the horizon ahead. As I ap
proached, they begun to tower and swell and look like
mighty furnaces. Says I to myself--

"By George, I've arrived at last--and at the wrong place,
just as I expected!"

Then I fainted. I don't know how long I was insensible, but
it must have been a good while, for, when I came to, the dark-
ness was all gone and there was the loveliest sunshine and
the balmiest, fragrantest air in its place. And there was
such a marvelous world spread out before me--such a glowing,
beautiful, bewitching country. The things I took for fur-
naces were gates, miles high, made all of flashing jewels,
and they pierced a wall of solid gold that you couldn't see
the top of, nor yet the end of, in either direction. I was
pointed straight for one of these gates, and a-coming like a
house afire. Now I noticed that the skies were black with
millions of people, pointed for those gates. What a roar they
made, rushing through the air! The ground was as thick as
ants with people, too--billions of them, I judge.

I lit. I drifted up to a gate with a swarm of people, and
when it was my turn the head clerk says, in a businesslike
way--

"Well, quick! Where are you from?"

"San Francisco," says I,

"San Fran--what?" says he.

"San Francisco."

He scratched his head and looked puzzled, then he says--

"Is it a planet?"

By George, Peters, think of it! "Planet?" says I; "it's a
city. And moreover, it's one of the biggest and finest and
--

"There, there!" says he, "no time here for conversation. We
don't deal in cities here. Where are you from in a general
way?"

"Oh," I says, "I beg your pardon. Put me down for California."

I had him again, Peters! He puzzled a second, then he says,
sharp and irritable--

"I don't know any such planet--is it a constellation?"

"Oh, my goodness!" says I. "Constellation, says you? No--
it's a State."

"Man, we don't deal in States here. Will you tell me where
you are from in general--at large, don't you understand?"

"Oh, now I get your idea," I says. "I'm from America,--
the United States of America."

Peters, do you know I had him again? If I hadn't I'm a clam!
His face was as blank as a target after a militia shooting-
match. He turned to an under clerk and says

"Where is America? What is America?"

The under clerk answered up prompt and say--

"There ain't any such orb."

"Orb?" says I. "Why, what are you talking about, young man?
It ain't an orb; it's a country; it's a continent Columbus
discovered it; I reckon likely you've heard of him, anyway.
America--why, sir, America--

"Silence!" says the head clerk. "Once for all, where--are
--you--from?"

"Well," says I, "I don't know anything more to say--unless
I lump things, and just say I'm from the world."

"Ah," says he, brightening up, "now that's something like!
What world?"

Peters, he had me, that time. I looked at him, puzzled, he
looked at me, worried. Then he burst out--

"Come, come, what world?"

Says I, "Why, the world, of course."

"The world!" he says. "H'm! there's billions of them! . . .
Next!"

That meant for me to stand aside. I done so, and a sky-blue
man with seven heads and only one leg hopped into my place.
I took a walk. It just occurred to me, then, that all the
myriads I had seen swarming to that gate, up to this time,
were just like that creature. I tried to run across somebody
I was acquainted with, but they were out of acquaintances
of mine just then. So I thought the thing all over and finally
sidled back there pretty meek and feeling rather stumped, as
you may say.

"Well?" said the head clerk.

"Well, sir," I says, pretty humble, "I don't seem to make
out which world it is I'm from. But you may know it from
this--it's the one the Saviour saved."

He bent his head at the Name. Then he says, gently--

"The worlds He has saved are like to the gates of heaven
in number --none can count them. What astronomical system
is your world in?--perhaps that may assist."

"It's the one that has the sun in it--and the moon--and
Mars"--he shook his head at each name--hadn't ever heard
of them, you see--"and Neptune--and Uranus--and Jupiter--"

"Hold on!" says he--"hold on a minute! Jupiter...Jupiter
. . . Seems to me we had a man from there eight or nine
hundred years ago--but people from that system very seldom
enter by this gate." All of a sudden he begun to look me
so straight in the eye that I thought he was going to bore
through me. Then he says, very deliberate, "Did you come
straight here from your system?"

"Yes, sir," I says--but I blushed the least little bit in
the world when I said it.

He looked at me very stern, and says--

"That is not true; and this is not the place for prevarica-
tion. You wandered from your course. How did that happen?"

Says I, blushing again--

'l'm sorry, and I take back what I said, and confess. I raced
a little with a comet one day--only just the least little bit
--only the tiniest lit--"

''So--so," says he--and without any' sugar in his voice to
speak of.

I went on, and says--

"But I only fell off just a bare point, and I went right back
on my course again the minute the race was over."

"No matter--that divergence has made all this trouble. It has
brought you to a gate that is billions of leagues from the
right one. If you had gone to your own gate they would have
known all about your world at once and there would have
been no delay. But we will try to accommodate you." He
turned to an under clerk and says--

"What system is Jupiter in?"

"I don't remember, sir, but I think there is such a planet
in one of the little new systems away out in one of the
thinly worlded corners of the universe. I will see."

He got a balloon and sailed up and up and up, in front of
a map that was as big as Rhode Island. He went on up till
he was out of sight, and by and by he came down and got
something to eat and went up again. To cut a long story
short, he kept on doing this for a day or two, and finally
he came down and said he thought he had found that solar
system, but it might be fly-specks. So he got a microscope
and went back. It turned out better than he feared. He had
rousted out our system, sure enough. He got me to describe
our planet and its distance from the sun, and then he says
to his chief--

"Oh, I know the one he means, now, sir. It is on the map.
It is called the Wart."

"Says I to myself, "Young man, it wouldn't be wholesome
for you to go down there and call it the Wart."

Well, they let me in, then, and told me I was safe forever
and wouldn't have any more trouble.

Then they turned from me and went on with their work, the
same as if they considered my case all complete and shipshape.
I was a good deal surprised at this, but I was diffident a-
bout speaking up and reminding them. I did so hate to do it,
you know; it seemed a pity to bother them, they had so much
on their hands. Twice I thought I would give up and let the
thing go; so twice I started to leave, but immediately I
thought what a figure I should cut stepping out amongst the
redeemed in such a rig, and that made me hang back and come
to anchor again. People got to eying me--clerks, you know--
wondering why I didn't get under way. I couldn't stand this
long--it was too uncomfortable. So at last I plucked up
courage and tipped the head clerk a signal He says--

"What! you here yet? What's wanting?"

Says I, in a low voice and very confidential making a trumpet
with my hands at his ear

"I beg pardon, and you mustn't mind my reminding you,
and seeming to meddle, but hain't you forgot something?"

He studied a second, and says--

"Forgot something?...No, not that I know of."

"Think," says I.

He thought Then he says--

"No, I can't seem to have forgot anything. What is it?"

"Look at me," says I, "look me all over."

He done it.

"Well?" says he.

"Well," says I, "you don't notice anything? If I branched
out amongst the elect looking like this, wouldn't I attract
considerable attention?--wouldn't I be a little conspicuous?"

"Well," he says, "I don't see anything the matter. What do
you lack?"

"Lack! Why, I lack my harp, and my wreath, and my halo,
and my hymn-book, and my palm branch--I lack everything
that a body naturally requires up here, my friend."

Puzzled? Peters, he was the worst puzzled man you ever
saw. Finally he says--

"Well, you seem to be a curiosity every way a body takes
you. I never heard of these things before."

I looked at the man awhile in solid astonishment; then I
says--

"Now, I hope you don't take it as an offence, for I don't
mean any, but really, for a man that has been in the
Kingdom as long as I reckon you have, you do seem to know
powerful little about its customs."

"Its customs!" says he. "Heaven is a large place, good
friend. Large empires have many and diverse customs. Even
small dominions have, as you doubtless know by what you
have seen of the matter on a small scale in the Wart. How
can you imagine I could ever learn the varied customs of
the countless kingdoms of heaven? It makes my head ache to
think of it. I know the customs that prevail in those portions
inhabited by peoples that are pointed to enter by my own
gate--and hark ye, that is quite enough knowledge for one
individual to try to pack into his head in the thirty-seven
millions of years I have devoted night and day to that study.
But the idea of learning the customs of the whole appalling
expanse of heaven--O man, how insanely you talk! Now I don't
doubt that this odd costume you talk about is the fashion in
that district of heaven you belong to, but you won't be con-
spicuous in this section without it."


I felt all right, if that was the case, so I bade him good-
day and left. All day I walked towards the far end of a pro-
digious hall of the office, hoping to come out into heaven
any moment, but it was a mistake. That hall was built on the
general heavenly plan--it naturally couldn't be small. At lt
I got so tired I couldn't go any farther; so I sat down to
rest, and began to tackle the queerest sort of strangers and
ask for information, but I didn't get any; they couldn't un-
derstand my language, and I could not understand theirs. I got
dreadfully lonesome. I was so downhearted and homesick I wished
a hundred times I never had died. I turned back, of course.

About noon next day, I got back at last and was on hand at
the booking-office once more. Says I to the head clerk--

"I begin to see that a man's got to be in his own heaven to
be happy."

"Perfectly correct," says he. "Did you imagine the same
heaven would suit all sorts of men?"

"Well, I had that idea--but I see the foolishness of it.
Which way am I to go to get to my district?"

He called the under clerk that had examined the map, and
be gave me general directions. I thanked him and started;
but he says--

"Wait a minute; it is millions of leagues from here. Go out-
side and stand on that red wishing-carp'et; shut your eyes,
hold your breath, and wish yourself there."

"I'm much obliged," says I; "why didn't you dart me through
when I first arrived?"

"We have a good deal to think of here; it was your place to
think of it and ask for it. Good-by; we probably sha'n't see
you in this region for a thousand centuries or so."

"In that case, o revoor," says I.

I hopped onto the carpet and held my breath and shut my
eyes and wished I was in the booking-office of my own section.
The very next instant a voice I knew sung out in a business
kind of a way--

"A harp and a hymn-book, pair of wings and a halo, size
13, for Cap'n Eli Stormfield, of San Francisco!--make him
out a clean bill of health, and let him in."

I opened my eyes. Sure enough, it was a Pi Ute Injun I
used to know in Tulare County; mighty good fellow--I remem-
bered being at his funeral, which consisted of him being
burnt and the other Injuns gauming their faces with his
ashes and howling like wild-cats. He was powerful glad to
see me, and you may make up your mind I was just as glad to
see him, and felt that I was in the right kind of a heaven
at last.

Just as far as your eye could reach, there was swarms of
clerks, running and bustling around, tricking out thousands
of Yanks and Mexicans and English and Arabs, and all sorts,
of people in their new outfits; and when they gave me my
kit and I put on my halo and I took a look in the glass, I
could have jumped over a house for joy, I was so happy.

"Now this is something like!" says I. "Now," says I, "I'm
all right--show me a cloud."

Inside of fifteen minutes I was a mile on my way towards
the cloud-banks and about a million people along with me.
Most of us tried to fly, but some got crippled and nobody
made a success of it. We concluded to walk, for the pres
ent, till we had had some wing practice.

We begun to meet swarms of folks who were coming back.
Some had harps and nothing else; some had hymn-books and
nothing else; some had nothing at all; all of them looked
meek and uncomfortable; one young fellow hadn't anything
left but his halo, and be was carrying that in his hand;
all of a sudden he offered it to me and says--

"Will you hold it for me a minute?"

Then he disappeared in the crowd. I went on. A woman ask-
ed me to hold her palm branch, and then she disappeared.
A girl got me to hold her harp for her, and by George, she
disappeared; and so on and so on, till I was about loaded
down to the guards. Then comes a smiling old gentleman and
asked me to hold his things. I swabbed off the perspiration
and says, pretty tart--

"I'll have to get you to excuse me, my friend,--I ain't no
hat-rack."

About this time I begun to run across piles of those traps,
lying in the road. I just quietly dumped my extra cargo along
with them. I looked around, and, Peters, that whole nation
that was following me were loaded down the same as I'd been.
The return crowd had got them to hold their things a minute,
you see. They all dumped their loads, too, and we went on.

When I found myself perched on a cloud, with a million
other people, I never felt so good in my life. Says I, "Now
this is according to the promises; I've been having my doubts,
but now I am in heaven, sure enough." I gave my palm branch
a wave or two, for luck, and then I tautened up my harpstrings
and struck in. Well, Peters, you can't imagine anything like
the row we made. It was grand to listen to, and made a body
thrill all over, but there was considerable many tunes going
on at once, and that was a drawback to the harmony, you un-
derstand; and then there was a lot of Injun tribes, and they
kept up such another war-whooping that they kind of took the
tuck out of the music. By and by I quit performing, and judg-
ed I'd take a rest. There was quite a nice mild old gentleman
sitting next me, and I noticed he didn't take a hand; I en-
couraged him, but he said he was naturally bashful, and was
afraid to try before so many people. By and by the old gen-
tleman said he never could seem to enjoy music somehow. The
fact was, I was beginning to feel the same way; but I didn't
say anything. Him and I had a considerable long silence, then,
but of course it warn't noticeable in that place. After about
sixteen or seventeen hours, during which I played and sung
a little, now and then--always the same tune, because I didn't
know any other--I laid down my harp and begun to fan myself
with my palm branch. Then we both got to sighing pretty regu-
lar. Finally, says he--

"Don't you know any tune but the one you've been pegging
at all day?"

"Not another blessed one," says I.

"Don't you reckon you could learn another one?" says he.

"Never," says I; "I've tried to, but I couldn't manage it."

"It's a long time to hang to the one--eternity, you know."

"Don't break my heart," says I; "I'm getting low-spirited
enough already."

After another long silence, says he--

"Are you glad to be here?"

Says I, "Old man, I'll be frank with you. This ain't just
as near my idea of bliss as I thought it was going to be,
when I used to go to church."

Says he, "What do you say to knocking off and calling it
half a day?"

"That's me," says I. "I never wanted to get off watch so
bad in my life."

So we started. Millions were coming to the cloud-bank all
the time, happy and hosannahing; millions were leaving it
all the time, looking mighty quiet, I tell you. We laid for
the new-comers, and pretty soon I'd got them to hold all
my things a minute, and then I was a free man again and
most outrageously happy. Just then I ran across old Sam
Bartlett, who had been dead a long time, and stopped to
have a talk with him. Says I--

"Now tell me--is this to go on forever? Ain't there anything
else for a change?"

Says he--

"I'll set you right on that point very quick. People take the
figurative language of the Bible and the allegories for literal,
and the first thing they ask for when they get here is a halo
and a harp, and so on. Nothing that's harmless and reasonable
is refused a body here, if he asks it in the right spirit
So they are outfitted with these things without a word. They
go and sing and play just about one day, and that's the last
you'll ever see them in the choir. They don't need anybody
to tell them that that sort of thing wouldn't make a heaven
--at least not a heaven that a sane man could stand a week
and remain sane. That cloud-bank is placed where the noise
can't disturb the old inhabitants, and so there ain't any harm
in letting everybody get up there and cure himself as soon as
he comes.

"Now you just remember this--heaven is as blissful and love-
ly as it can be; but it's just the busiest place you ever
heard of. There ain't any idle people here after the first day.
Singing hymns and waving palm branches through all eternity
is pretty when you hear about it in the pulpit, but it's as
poor a way to put in valuable time as a body could contrive.
It would just make a heaven of warbling ignoramuses, don't
you see? Eternal Rest sounds comforting in the pulpit, too.
Well, you try it once, and see how heavy time will hang on
your hands. Why, Stormfield, a man like you, that had been
active and stirring all his life, would go mad in six months
in a heaven where he hadn't anything to do. Heaven is the
very last place to come to rest in,--and don't you be afraid
to bet on that!"

Says I--

"Sam, I'm as glad to hear it as I thought I'd be sorry. I'm
glad I come, now."

Says he--

"Cap'n, ain't you pretty physically tired?"

Says I

"Sam, it ain't any name for it! I'm dog-tired."

"Just so--just so. You've earned a good sleep, and you'll
get it. You've earned a good appetite, and you'll enjoy your
dinner. It's the same here as it is on earth--you've got to
earn a thing, square and honest, before you enjoy it. You
can't enjoy first and earn afterwards. But there's this dif-
ference, here: you can choose your own occupation, and all
the powers of heaven will be put forth to help you make a
success of it, if you do your level best. The shoemaker on
earth that had the soul of a poet in him won't have to make
shoes here."

"Now that's all reasonable and right," says I. "Plenty of
work, and the kind you hanker after; no more pain, no more
suffering--
"
"Oh, hold on; there's plenty of pain here--but it don't kifl.
There's plenty of suffering here, but it don't last. You see,
happiness ain't a thing in itself--it's only a contrast with
something that ain't pleasant. That's all it is. There ain't
a thing you can mention that is happiness in its own self--
it's only so by contrast with the other thing. And so, as soon
as the novelty is over and the force of the contrast dulled,
it ain't happiness any longer, and you have to get something
fresh. Well, there's plenty of pain and suffering in heaven
consequently there's plenty of contrasts, and just no end of
happiness."

Says I, "It's the sensiblest heaven I've heard of, yet, Sam,
though it's about as different from the qne I was brought up
on as a live princess is different from her own wax figger."

Along in the first months I knocked around about the Kingdom,
making friends and looking at the country, and finally settl-
ed down in a pretty likely region, to have a rest before
taking another start. I went on making acquaintance and gath-
ering up information. I had a good deal of talk with an old
bald-headed angel by the name of Sandy McWilliains. He was
from somewhere in New Jersey. I went about with him, consi-
derable. We used to lay around, warm afternoons, in die
shade of a rock, on some meadow-ground that was pretty high
and out of the marshy slush of his cranberry farm, and there
we used to talk about all kinds of things, and smoke pipes.
One day, says I--

"About how old might you be, Sandy?"

"Seventy-two."

"I judged so. How long you been in heaven?"

"Twenty-seven years, come Christmas."

"How old was you when you come up?"

"Why, seventy-two, of course."

"You can't mean it!"

"Why can't I mean it?"

"Because, if you was seventy-two then, you are naturally
ninety-nine now."

"No, but I ain't. I stay the same age I was when I come."

"Well," says I, "come to think, there's something just here
that I want to ask about. Down below, I always had an idea
that in heaven we would all be young, and bright, and spry."

"Well, you can be young if you want to. You've only got
to wish."

"Well, then, why didn't you wish?"

"I did. They all do. You'll try it, some day, like enough;
but you'll get tired of the change pretty soon."

"Why?"

"Well, I'll tell you. Now you've always been a sailor; did
you ever try some other business?"

"Yes, I tried keeping grocery, once, up in the mines; but I
couldn't stand it; it was too dull--no stir, no storm, no life
about it; it was like being part dead and part alive, both at
the same time. I wanted to be one thing or t'other. I shut
up shop pretty quick and went to sea."

"That's it. Grocery people like it, but you couldn't. You
see you wasn't used to it. Well, I wasn't used to being young,
and I couldn't seem to take any interest in it. I was strong,
and handsome, and had curly hair,--yes, and wings, too!--
gay wings like a butterfly. I went to picnics and dances and
parties with the fellows, and tried to carry on and talk non-
sense with the girls, but it wasn't any use; I couldn't take
to it--fact is, it was an awful bore. What I wanted was early
to bed and early to rise, and something to do; and when my
work was done, I wanted to sit quiet, and smoke and think--
not tear around with a parcel of giddy young kids. You can't
think what I suffered whilst I was young."

"How long was you young?"

"Only two weeks. That was plenty for me. Laws, I was so
lonesome! You see, I was full of the knowledge and experience
of seventy-two years; the deepest subject those young folks
could strike was only a-b-c to me. And to hear them argue--
oh, my! it would have been funny, if it hadn't been so piti-
ful. Well, I was so hungry for the ways and the sober talk
I was used to, that I tried to ring in with the old people,
but they wouldn't have it. They considered me a conceited
young up-start, and gave me the cold shoulder. Two weeks
was a-plenty for me. I was glad to get back my bald head
again, and my pipe, and my old drowsy reflections in the
shade of a rock or a tree."

"Well," says I, "do you mean to say you're going to stand
still at seventy-two, forever?"

"I don't know, and I ain't particular. But I ain't going to
drop back to twenty-five any more--I know that, mighty well.
I know a sight more than I did twenty-seven years ago, and
I enjoy learning, all the time, but I don't seem to get any
older. That is, bodily--my mind gets older, and stronger,
and better seasoned, and more satisfactory."

Says I, "If a man comes here at ninety, don't he ever set
himself back?"

"Of course he does. He sets himself back to fourteen; tries
it a couple of hours, and feels like a fool; sets himself for-
ward to twenty; it ain't much improvement; tries thirty, fif-
ty, eighty, and finally ninety--finds be is more at home and
comfortable at the same old figure he is used to than any
other way. Or, if his mind begun to fail him on earth at
eighty, that's where he finally sticks up here. He sticks at
the place where his mind was last at its best, for there's
where his enjoyment is best, and his ways most set and estab-
lished."

"Does a chap of twenty-five stay always twenty-five, and
look it?"

"If he is a fool, yes. But if he is bright, and ambitious
and industrious, the knowledge he gains and the experience
he has, change his ways and thoughts and likings, and make
him find his best pleasure in the company of people above
that age; so he allows his body to take on that look of as
many added years as he needs to make him comfortable and
proper in that sort of society; he lets his body go on tak-
ing the look of age, according as he progresses, and by and
by he will be bald and wrinkled outside, and wise and deep
within."

"Babies the same?"

"Babies the same. Laws, what asses we used to be, on earth,
about these things! We said we'd be always young in heaven.
We didn't say how young--we didn't think of that, perhaps
--that is, we didn't all think alike, anyway. When I was a
boy of seven, I suppose I thought we'd all be twelve, in
heaven; when I was twelve, I suppose I thought we'd all be
eighteen or twenty in heaven; when I was forty, I begun to
go back; I remember I hoped we'd all be about thirty years
old in heaven. Neither a man nor a boy ever thinks the age
he has is exactly the best one--he puts the right age a few
years older or a few years younger than he is. Then he
makes the ideal age the general age of the heavenly people.
And he expects everybody to stick at that age--stand stock-
still--and expects them to enjoy it!--Now just think of
the idea of standing still in heaven! Think of a heaven made
up entirely of hoop-rolling, marble-playing cubs of seven
years!--or of awkward, diffident, sentimental immaturities
of nineteen!--or of vigorous people of thirty, healthy-minded,
brimming with ambition, but chained hand and foot to that
one age and its limitations like so many helpless galley-
slaves! Think of the dull sameness of a society made up of
people all of one age and one set of looks, habits, tastes
and feelings. Think how superior to it earth would be, with
its variety of types and faces and ages, and the enlivening
attrition of the myriad interests that come into pleasant
collision in such a variegated society."

"Look here," says I, "do you know what you're doing?"

"Well, what am I doing?"

"You are making heaven pretty comfortable in one way,
but you are playing the mischief with it in another."

"How d'you mean?"

"Well," I says, "take a young mother that's lost her child,
and--""

'Sh!" he says. "Look!"

It was a woman. Middle-aged, and had grizzled hair. She
was walking slow, and her head was bent down, and her
wings hanging limp and droopy; and she looked ever so
tired, and was crying, poor thing! She passed along by,
with her head down, that way, and the tears running down
her face, and didn't see us. Then Sandy said, low and gen-
tle, and full of pity:

"She's hunting for her child! No, found it, I reckon. Lord,
how she's changed! But I recognized her in a minute, though
it's twenty-seven years since I saw her. A young mother she
was, about twenty-two or four, or along there; and blooming
and lovely and sweet--oh, just a flower! And all her heart
and all her soul was wrapped up in her child, her little grl,
two years old. And it died, and she went wild with grief,
just wild! Well, the only comfort she had was that she'd see
her child -again, in heaven--'never more to part,' she said,
and kept on saying it over and over, 'never more to part.'
And the words made her happy; yes, they did; they made
her joyful; and when I was dying, twenty-seven years ago,
she told me to find her child the first thing, and say she
was coming--'soon, soon, very soon, she hoped and be-
lieved!' "

"Why, it's pitiful, Sandy."

He didn't say anything for a while, but sat looking at
the ground, thinking. Then he says, kind of mournful:

"And now she's come!"

"Well? Go on."

"Stormfield, maybe she hasn't found the child, but I think
she has. Looks so to me. I've seen cases before. You see,
she's kept that child in her head just the same as it was
when she jounced it in her arms a little chubby thing. But
here it didn't elect to stay a child. No, it elected to grow
up, which it did. And in these twenty-seven years it has
learned all the deep scientific learning ere is to learn, and
is studying and studying and learning and learning more and
more, all the time, and don't give a damn for anything but
learning; just learning, and discussing gigantic problems with
people like herself."

"Well?"

"Stormfield, don't you see? Her mother knows cranberries,
and how to tend them, and pick th, and put them up, and
market them; and not anotho- blamed thing! Her and her
daughter can't be any more company for each other now
than mud turtle and bird o' paradise. Poor thing, she was
looking for a baby to jounce; I think she's struck a dis-
appintment."

"Sandy, what will they do--stay unhappy forever in heaven?"

"No, they'll come together and get adjusted by and by. But
not this year, and not next. By and by."


2


I had been having considerable trouble with my wings.
The day after I helped the choir I made a dash or two
with them, but was not lucky. First off, I flew thirty yards,
and then fouled an Irishman and brought him down--brought
us both down, in fact. Next, I had a collision with a Bishop
--and bowled him down, of course. We had some sharp
words, and I felt pretty cheap, to come banging into a grave
old person like that, with a million strangers looking on and
smiling to themselves.

I saw I hadn't got the hang of the steering, and so couldn't
rightly tell where I was going to bring up when I started.
I went afoot the rest of the day, and let my wings hang.
Early next morning I went to a private place to have some
practice. I got up on a pretty high rock, and got a good
start, and went swooping down, aiming for a bush a little
over three hundred yards off; but I couldn't seem to calcu-
late for the wind, which was about two points abaft my
beam. I could see I was going considerable to looard of the
bush, so I worked my starboard wing slow and went ahead
strong on the port one, but it wouldn't answer; I could see
I was going to broach to, so I slowed down on both, and lit
I went back to the rock and took another chance at it. I
aimed two or three points to starboard of the bush--yes,
more than that--enough so as to make it nearly a head-wind.
I done well enough, but made pretty poor time. I could see,
plain enough, that on a head-wind, wings was a mistake.
I could see that a body could sail pretty close to the wind,
but he couldn't go in the wind's eye. I could see that if I
wanted to go a-visiting any distance from home, and the
wind was ahead, I might have to wait days, maybe, for a
change; and I could see, too, that these things could not
be any use at all in a gale; if you tried to run before
the wind, you would make a mess of it, for there isn't any
way to shorten sail--like reefing, you know--you have to
take it all in--shut your feathers down flat to your sides.
That would land you, of course. You could lay to, with your
head to the wind--that is the best you could do, and right
hard work- you'd find it, too. If you tried any other game,
you would founder, sure.

I judge it was about a couple of weeks or so after this
that I dropped old Sandy McWilliams a note one day--it was
a Tuesday--and asked him to come over and take his manna
and quails with me next day; and the first thing he did
when he stepped in was to twinkle his eye in a sly way,
and say,--

"Well, Cap, what you done with your wings?"

I saw in a minute that there was some sarcasm done up in
that rag somewheres, but I never let on. I only says,--

"Gone to the wash."

"Yes," he says, in a dry sort of way, "they mostly go to an-
gels are powerful neat. When do you look for 'em back?"

"Day after to-morrow," says I.

He winked at me, and smiled.

Says I,--

"Sandy, out with it. Come--no secrets among friends. I
notice you don't ever wear wings--and plenty others don't.
I've been making an ass of myself--is that it?"

"That is about the size of it. But it is no harm. We all do
it at first. It's perfectly natural. You see, on earth we
jumped to such foolish conclusions as to things up here. In
the pictures we always saw the angels with wings on--and
that was all right; but we jumped to the conclusion that that
was their way of getting around--and that was all wrong.
The wings ain't anything but a uniform, that's all. When
they are in the field--so to speak--they always wear them;
you never see an angel going with a message anywhere without
his wings, any more than you would see a military officer
presiding at a court-martial without his uniform, or a post-
man delivering letters, or a policeman walking his beat, in
plain clothes. But they ain't to fly with! The wings are for
show, not for use. Old experienced angels are like officers
of the regular army--they dress plain, when they are off duty.
New angels are like the militia--never shed the uniform--
always fluttering and floundering around in their wings, but-
ting people down, flapping here, and there, and everywhere,
always imagining they are attracting the admiring eye--well,
they just think they are the very most important people in
heaven. And when you see one of them come sailing around
with one wing tipped up and t'other down, you make up your
mind he is saying to himself: I wish Mary Ann in Arkansaw
could see me now. I reckon she'd wish she hadn't shook me.'
No, they're just for show, that's all--only just for show."

"I judge you've got it about right, Sandy," says I.

"Why, look at it yourself," says he. "You ain't built for
wings--no man is. You know what a grist of years it took
you to come here from the earth--and yet you were boom-
ing along faster than any cannon-ball could go. Suppose you
had to fly that distance with your wings--wouldn't eternity
have been over before you got here? Certainly. Well, angels
have to go to the earth every day--millions of them--to appear
in visions to dying children and good people, you know--it's
the heft of their business. They appear with their wings, of
course, because they are on official service, and because
the dying persons wouldn't know they were angels if they
hadn't wings--but do you reckon they fly with them? It
stands to reason they don't The wings would wear out
before they got half-way; even the pinfeathers would be
gone; the wing frames would be as bare as kite sticks before
the paper is pasted on. The distances in heaven are billions
of times greater; angels have to go all over heaven every
day; could they do it with their wings alone? No, indeed;
they wear the wings for style, but they travel any distance
in an instant by wishing. The wishing-carpet of the Arabian
Nights was a sensible idea--but our earthly idea of angels
flying these awful distances with their clumsy wings was
foolish.

"Our young saints, of both sexes, wear wings all the time
--blazing red ones, and blue and green, and gold, and var-
iegated, and rainbowed, and ring-streaked-and-striped ones
--and nobody finds fault. It is suitable to their time of
life. The things are beautiful, and they set the young peo-
ple off. They are the most striking and lovely part of their
outfit a halo don't begin."

"Well," says I, "I've tucked mine away in the cupboard,
and I allow to let them lay there till there's mud."

"Yes--or a reception."

"What's that?"

"Well, you can see one to-night if you want to. There's a
barkeeper from Jersey City going to be received."

"Go on--tell me about it."

"This barkeeper got converted at a Moody and Sankey
meeting, in New York, and started home on the ferryboat,
and there was a collision and he got drowned. He is of a
class that thinks heaven goes wild with joy when a particu-
larly hard lot like him is saved; they thk all heaven
turns out hosannahing to welcome them; they think there
isn't anything talked about in the realms of the blest but
their case, for that day. This barkeeper thinks there hasn't
been such another stir here in years, as his coming is going
to raise.-- And I've always noticed this peculiarity about a
dead barkeeper--he not only expects all hands to turn out
when he arrives, but he expects to be received with a torch-
light procession."

"I reckon he is disappointed, then."

"No, he isn't. No man is allowed to be disappointed here.
Whatever he wants, when he comes--that is, any reasonable
and unsacrilegious thing--he can have. There's always a few
millions or billions of young folks around who don't want
any better entertainment than to fill up their lungs and swarm
out with their torches and have a high time over a barkeeper.
It tickles the barkeeper till he can't rest, it makes a
charming lark for the young folks, it don't do anybody any
harm, it don't cost a rap, and it keeps up the place's repu-
tation for making all comers happy and content."

"Very good. I'll be on hand and see them land the barkeeper."

"Well," says I, "I reckon I ought to be ashamed of myself,
but the fact is I left them laying around that day I resigned
from the choir. I haven't got a rag to wear but this robe and
the wings."

"That's all right. You'll find they've been raked up and
saved for you. Send for them."

"I'll do it Sandy. But what was it you was saying about
unsacrilegious things, which people expect to get, and will
be disappointed about'

"Oh, there are a lot of such things that people expect and
don't get. For instance, there's a Brooklyn preacher by the
name of Talmage, who is laying up a considerable disappoint-
ment for himself. He says, every now and then in his sermons,
that the first thing he does when he gets to heaven, will
be to fling his arms around Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and
kiss them and weep on them. There's millions of people down
there on earth that are promising themselves the same thing.
As many as sixty thousand people arrive here every single
day, that want to run straight to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob,
and bug them and weep on them. Now mind you, sixty thousand
a day is a pretty heavy contract for those old people. If
they were a mind to allow it, they wouldn't ever have any-
thing to do, year in and year out, but stand up and be hug-
ged and wept on thirty-two hours in the twenty-four. They would
be tired out and as wet as muskrats all the time. What would
heaven be, to them? It would be a mighty good place to get
out of--you know that, yourself. Those are kind and gentle
old Jews, but they ain't any fonder of kissing the emo-
tional high-lights of Brooklyn than you be. You mark my
words, Mr. T.'s endearments are going to be declined, with
thanks. There are limits to the priveleges of the elect, e-
ven in heaven. Why, if Adam was to show himself to every new
comer that wants to call and gaze at him and strike him for
his autograph, he would never have time to do anything else
but just that. Talmage has said he is going to give Adam
some of his attentions, as well as A., I. and J. But he
will have to change his mind about that."

"Do you think Talmage will really come here?"

"Why, certainly, he will; but don't you be alarmed; he
will run with his own kind, and there's plenty of them.
That is the main charm of heaven--there's all kinds here
--which wouldn't be the case if you let the preachers tell
it Anybody can find the sort he prefers, here, and he just
lets the others alone, and they let him alone. When the Deity
builds a heaven, it is built right, and on a liberal plan."

Sandy sent home for his things, and I sent for mine, and
about nine in the evening we begun to dress. Sandy says,
"This is going to be a grand time for you. Stormy. Like as
not some of the patriarchs will turn out."

"No, but will they?"

"Like as not. Of course they are pretty exclusive. They
hardly ever show themselves to the common public. I believe
they never turn out except for an eleventh-hour convert
They wouldn't do it then, only earthly tradition makes a
grand show pretty necessary on that kind of an occasion."

"Do they all turn out, Sandy?"

"Who?--all the patriarchs? Oh, no--hardly ever more than
a couple. You will be here fifty thousand years--maybe
more--before you get a glimpse of all the patriarchs and
prophets. Since I have been here. Job has been to the front
once, and once Ham and Jeremiah both at the same time.
But the finest thing that has happened in my day was a
year or so ago; that was Charles Peace's reception--him
they called 'the Bannercross Murderer'--an Englishman.
There were four patriarchs and two prophets on the Grand
Stand that time--there hasn't been anything like it since
Captain Kidd came; Abel was there--the first time in twelve
hundred years. A report got around that Adam was coming;
well, of course, Abel was enough to bring a crowd, all by
himself, but there is nobody that can draw like Adam. It
was a false report, but it got around, anyway, as I say, and
it vdll be a long day before I see the like of it again.
The reception was in the English department, of course,
which is eight hundred and eleven million miles from the
New Jersey line. I went, along with a good many of my
neighbors, and it was a sight to see, I can tell you. Flocks
came from all the departments. I saw Esquimaux there, and
Tartars, Negroes, Chinamen--people from everywhere. You see
a mixture like that in the Grand Choir, the first day you
land here, but you hardly ever see it again. There were bil-
lions of people; when they were singing or hosannahing, the
noise was wonderful; and even when their tongues were still
the drumming of the wings was nearly enough to burst your head,
for all the sky was as thick as if it was snowing angels. Al-
though Adam was not there, it was a great time anyway, because
we had three archangels on the Grand Stand--it is a seldom
thing that even one comes out.”

“What did they look like, Sandy?”

“Well, they had shining faces, and shining robes, and wonder-
ful rainbow wings, and they stood eighteen feet high, and wore
swords, and held their heads up in a noble way, and looked like
soldiers.”

“Did they have halos?”

“No--anyway, not the hoop kind. The archangels and the upper-
class patriarchs wear a finer thing than that. It is a round,
solid, splendid glory of gold, that is blinding to look at.
You have often seen a patriarch in a picture, on earth, with
that thing on--you remember it?--he looks as if he had his head
in a brass platter. That don't give you the right idea of it
at all--it is much more shining and beautiful.”

“Did you talk with those archangels and patriarchs, Sandy?”

“Who--I? Why, what can you be thinking about, Stormy? I ain't
worthy to speak to such as they.”

“Is Talmage?”

“Of course not. You have got the same mixed-up idea about these
things that everybody has down there. I had it once, but I got
over it. Down there they talk of the heavenly King--and that is
right--but then they go right on speaking as if this was a repub-
lic and everybody was on a dead level with everybody else, and
privileged to fling his arms around anybody he comes across, and
be hail-fellow-well-met with all the elect, from the highest down.
How tangled up and absurd that is! How are you going to have a
republic under a king? How are you going to have a republic at
all, where the head of the government is absolute, holds his place
forever, and has no parliament, no council to meddle or make in
his affairs, nobody voted for, nobody elected, nobody in the whole
universe with a voice in the government, nobody asked to take a
hand in its matters, and nobody allowed to do it? Fine republic,
ain't it?”

“Well, yes--it is a little different from the idea I had--but I
thought I might go around and get acquainted with the grandees,
anyway--not exactly splice the main-brace with them, you know,
but shake hands and pass the time of day.”

“Could Tom, Dick and Harry call on the Cabinet of Russia and do
that?--on Prince Gortschakoff, for instance?”

“I reckon not, Sandy.”

“Well, this is Russia--only more so. There's not the shadow of
a republic about it anywhere. There are ranks, here. There are
viceroys, princes, governors, sub-governors, sub-sub-governors,
and a hundred orders of nobility, grading along down from grand-
ducal archangels, stage by stage, till the general level is struck,
where there ain't any titles. Do you know what a prince of the
blood is, on earth?”

“No.”

“Well, a prince of the blood don't belong to the royal family
exactly, and he don't belong to the mere nobility of the kingdom;
he is lower than the one, and higher than t'other. That's about
the position of the patriarchs and prophets here. There's some
mighty high nobility here--people that you and I ain't worthy to
polish sandals for--and they ain't worthy to polish sandals for
the patriarchs and prophets. That gives you a kind of an idea of
their rank, don't it? You begin to see how high up they are,
don't you? just to get a two-minute glimpse of one of them is a
thing for a body to remember and tell about for a thousand years.
Why, Captain, just think of this: if Abraham was to set his foot
down here by this door, there would be a railing set up around
that foot-track right away, and a shelter put over it, and people
would flock here from all over heaven, for hundreds and hundreds
of years, to look at it. Abraham is one of the parties that Mr.
Talmage, of Brooklyn, is going to embrace, and kiss, and weep
on, when he comes. He wants to lay in a good stock of tears,
you know, or five to one he will go dry before he gets a chance
to do it.”

“Sandy,” says I, “I had an idea that I was going to be equals
with everybody here, too, but I will let that drop. It don't
matter, and I am plenty happy enough anyway.”

“Captain, you are happier than you would be, the other way.
These old patriarchs and prophets have got ages the start of
you; they know more in two minutes than you know in a year.
Did you ever try to have a sociable improving-time discussing
winds, and currents and variations of compass with an underta-
ker?”

“I get your idea, Sandy. He couldn't interest me. He would be
an ignoramus in such things--he would bore me, and I would bore
him.”

"You have got it. You would bore the patriarchs when you
talked, and when they talked they would shoot over your
head. By and by you would say, 'Good morning, your Eminence,
I will call again'--but you wouldn't. Did you ever ask
the slush-boy to come up in the cabin and take dinner with
you?"

"I get your drift again, Sandy. I wouldn't be used to such
grand people as the patriarchs and prophets, and I would be
sheepish and tongue-tied in their company, and mighty glad
to get out of it. Sandy, which is the highest rank, patriarch
or prophet?"

"Oh, the prophets hold over the patriarchs. The newest
prophet, even, is of a sight more consequence than the
oldest patriarch. Yes, sir, Adam himself has to walk be-
hind Shakespeare."

"Was Shakespeare a prophet?"

"Of course he was; and so was Homer, and heaps more.
But Shakespeare and the rest have to walk behind a common
tailor from Tennessee, by the name of Billings; and behind
a horse-doctor named Sakka, from Afghanistan. Jeremiah,
and Billings and Buddha wk together, side by side,
right behind a crowd from planets not in our astronomy;
next come a dozen or two from Jupiter and other worlds;
next come Daniel, and Sakka and Confucius; next a lot from
sterns outside of ours; next come Ezekiel, and Mahomet,
roaster, and a knifegrinder from ancient Egypt; then there
IS a long string, and after them, away down toward the bot-
tom, come Shakespeare and Homer, and a shoemaker named
Marais, from the back settlements of France."

Have they really rung in Mahomet and all those other
heathens?"

"Yes--all had their message, and they all get their
reward. The man who don't get his reward on earth, needn't
bother--he will get it here, sure."

But why did they throw off on Shakespeare, that way,
and put him away down there below those shoemakers and
horse-doctors and knife-grinders--a lot of people nobody
ever heard of?"

'That is the heavenly justice of it--they warn't rewarded
according to their deserts, on earth, but here they get their
rightful rank. That tailor Billings, from Tennessee, wrote
poetry that Homer and Shakespeare couldn't begin to come
Up to; but nobody would print it, nobody read it but his
mighbors, an ignorant lot, and they laughed at it. Whenever
the village had a drunken frolic and a dance, they would
drag him in and crown him with cabbage leaves, and pretend
to bow down to him; and one night when he was sick
and nearly starved to death, they had him out and crowned
him, and then they rode him on a rail about the village, and
everybody followed along, beating tin pans and yelling.
Well, he died before morning. He wasn't ever expecting to go
to heaven, much less that there was going to be any fuss
made over him, so I reckon he was a good deal suirised
when the reception broke on him."

"Was you there, Sandy?"

"Bless you, no!"

"Why? Didn't you know it was going to come off?"

"Well, I judge I did. It was the talk of these realms--not
for a day, like this barkeeper business, but for twenty years
before the man died."

"Why the mischief didn't you go, then?"

"Now how you talk! The like of me go meddling around at
the reception of a prophet? A mudsill like me trying to push
in and help receive an awful grandee like Edward J. Billings?
Why, I should have been laughed at for a billion miles
around. I shouldn't ever heard the last of it"

"Well, who did go, then?"

"Mighty few people that you and I will ever get a chance
to see. Captain. Not a solitary commoner ever has the luck to
see a reception of a prophet, I can tell you. All the nobility,
and all the patriarchs and prophets--every last one of them--
and all the archangels, and all the princes and governors
and viceroys, were Acre,--and no small fry--not a single
one. And mind you, I'm not talking about only the grandees
from our world, but the princes and patriarchs and so on
from all the worlds that shine in our sky, and from billions
more that belong in systems upon systems away outside of
the one our sun is in. There were some prophets and patriarchs
there that ours ain't a circumstance to, for rank and illus-
triousness and all that. Some were from Jupiter and other
worlds in our own system, but the most celebrated were three
poets, Saa, Bo and Soof, from great planets in three different
and very remote systems. These three names are common
and familiar in every nook and corner of heaven, clear from
one end of it to the other--fully as well known as the eighty
Supreme Archangels, in fact--whereas our Moses, and
Adam, and the rest, have not been heard of outside of our
world's little corner of heaven, except by a few very learned
men scattered here and there--and they always spell their
names wrong, and get the performances of one mixed up with
the doings of another, and they almost always locate them
simply in our solar system and think that is enough without
going into little details such as naming the particular
world they are from. It is like a learned Hindoo showing off
how much he knows by saying Longfellow lived in the United
States--as if he lived all over the United States, and as if
the country was so small you couldn't throw a brick there
without hitting him. Between you and me, it does gravel me,
the cool way people from those monster worlds outside our
system snub our little world, and even our system. Of course
we think a good deal of Jupiter, because our world is only a
potato to it, for size; but then there are worlds in other
systems that Jupiter isn't even a mustard-seed to--like the
planet Goobra, for instance, which you couldn't squeeze in-
-side the orbit of Haley's comet without straining the rivets.
Tourists from Goobra (I mean parties that lived and died
there--natives) come here, now and then, and inquire about
our world, and when they find out it is so little that a streak
of lightning can flash clear around it in the eighth of a se-
cond, they have to lean up against something to laugh. Then
they screw a glass into their eye and go to examining us, as
if we were a curious kind of foreign bug, or something of that
sort. One of them asked me how long our day was; and when
I told him it was twelve hours long, as a general thing, he
asked me if people where I was from considered it worth
while to get up and wash for such a day as that. That is the
way with those Goobra people--they can't seem to let a
chance go by to throw it in your face that their day is three
hundred and twenty-two of our years long. This young snob
was just of age--he was six or seven thousand of his days old
--say two million of our years--and he had all the puppy
airs that belong to that time of life--that turning-point when
a person has got over being a boy and yet ain't quite a man
exactly. If it had been anywhere else but in heaven, I would
have given him a piece of my mind. Well, anyway, Billings
had the grandest reception that has been seen in thousands of
centuries, and I think it will have a good effect. His name
will be carried pretty far, and it will make our system talked
about, and maybe our world, too, and raise us in the respect
of the general public of heaven. Why, look here--Shakespeare
walked backwards before that tailor from Tennessee, and scat-
tered flowers for him to walk on, and Homer stood behind his
chair and waited on him at the banquet. Of course that didn't
go for much there, amongst all those big foreigners from other
systems, as they hadn't heard of Shakespeare or Homer either,
but it would amount to considerable down there on our little
earth if they could know about it. I wish there was something
in that miserable spiritualism, so we could send them word.
That Tennessee village would set up a monument to Billings,
then, and his autograph would outsell Satan's. Well they had
grand times at that reception--a small-fry noble from Hoboken
told me all about it--Sir Richard Duffer, Baronet"

"What, Sandy, a nobleman from Hoboken? How is that?"

"Easy enough. Duffer kept a sausage-shop and never saved
a cent in his life because he used to give all his spare meat
to the poor, in a quiet way. Not tramps,--no, the other sort
--the sort that will starve before they will beg--honest
square people out of work. Dick used to watch hungry-looking
men and women and children, and track them home, and find out
all about them from the neighbors, and then feed them and
find them work. As nobody ever saw him give anything to any-
body, he had the reputation of being mean; he died with it,
too, and everybody said it was a good riddance; but the min-
ute he landed here, they made him a baronet, and the very
first words Dick the sausage-maker of Hoboken heard when he
stepped upon the heavenly shore were, 'Welcome, Sir Richard
Duffer!' It surprised him some, because he thought he had
reasons to believe he was pointed for a warmer climate than
this one."


All of a sudden the whole region fairly rocked under the crash
of eleven hundred and one thunder blasts, all let off at once,
and Sandy says,

"There, that's for the barkeep."

I jumped up and says,--

"Then let's be moving along, Sandy; we don't want to miss
any of this thing, you know."

"Keep your seat," he says; "he is only just telegraphed,
that is all."

"How?"

"That blast only means that he has been sighted from the sig-
nal-station. He is off Sandy Hook. The committees will go
down to meet him, now, and escort him in. There will be cere-
monies and delays; they won't be coming up the Bay for a con-
siderable time, yet. It is several billion miles away, anyway."

"I could have been a barkeeper and a hard lot just as well
as not," says I, remembering the lonesome way I arrived, and
how there wasn't any committee nor anything.

"I notice some regret in your voice," says Sandy, "and it is
natural enough; hut let bygones be bygones; you went according
to your lights, and it is too late now to mend the thing."

"No, let it slide, Sandy, I don't mind. But you've got a
Sandy Hook here, too, have you?"

"We've got everything here, just as it is below. All the
States and Territories of the Union, and all the kingdoms of
the earth and the islands of the sea are laid out here just
as they are on the globe--all the same shape they are down
there, and all graded to the relative size, only each State
and realm and island is a good many billion times bigger here
than it is below. There goes another blast"

"What is that one for?"

"That is only another fort answering the first one. They
each fire eleven hundred and one thunder blasts at a single
dash--it is the usual salute for an eleventh-hour guest; a
hundred for each hour and an extra one for the guest's sex;
if it was a woman we would know it by their leaving off the
extra gun."

"How do we know there's eleven hundred and one, Sandy, when
they all go off at once?--and yet we certainly do know."

"Our intellects are a good deal sharpened up, here, in some
ways, and that is one of them. Numbers and sizes and distances
are so great, here, that we have to be made so we can feel
them--our old ways of counting and measuring and ciphering
wouldn't ever give us an idea of them, but would only confuse
us and oppress us and make our heads ache."

After some more talk about this, I says: "Sandy, I notice
that I hardly ever see a white angel; where I run across
one white angel, I strike as many as a hundred million copper-
colored ones--people that can't speak English. How is
that?"

"Well, you will find it the same in any State or Territory
of the American corner of heaven you choose to go to. I have
shot along, a whole week on a stretch, and gone millions and
millions of miles, through perfect swarms of angels, without
ever seeing a single white one, or hearing a word I could
understand. You see, America was occupied a billion years
and more, by Injuns and Aztecs, and that sort of folks, before
a white man ever set his foot in it. During the first three
hundred years after Columbus's discovery, there wasn't ever
more than one good lecture audience of white people, all put
together, in America--mean the whole thing, British Posses-
sions and all; in the beginning of our century there were
only 6,000,000 or 7,000,000--say seven; 12,000,000 or
14,000,000 in 1825; say 23,000,000 in 1850; 40,000,000 in
1875. Our death-rate has always been 20 in 1000 per annum.
Well, 140,000 died the first year of the century; 280,000 the
twenty-fifth year; 500,000 the fiftieth year; about a million
the seventy-fifth year. Now I am going to be liberal about
this thing, and consider that fifty million whites have died
in America from the beginning up to to-day--make it sixty, if
you want to; make it a hundred million--it's no difference
about a few millions one way or t'other. Well, now, you can
see, yourself, that when you come to spread a little dab of
people like that over these hundreds of billions of miles of
American territory here in heaven, it is like scattering a
ten-cent box of homoeopathic pills over the Great Sahara and
expecting to find them again. You can't expect us to amount
to anything in heaven, and we don't--now that is the simple
fact, and we have got to do the best we can with it The
learned men from other planets and other systems come here
and hang around a while, when they are touring around the
Kingdom, and then go back to their own section of heaven
and te a took of travels, and they give America about
five lines in it. And what do they say about us? They say
this wilderness is populated with a scattering few hundred
thousand billions of red angels, with now and then a curiously
complected diseased one. You see, they think we whites
and the occasional nigger are Injuns that have been bleached
out or blackened by some leprous disease or other--for some
peculiarly rascally sin, mind you. It is a mighty sour pill
for us all, my friend--even the modestest of us, let alone
the other kind, that think they are going to be received like
a long-lost government bond, and hug Abraham into the bargain.
I haven't asked you any of the particulars, Captain, but
I judge it goes without saying--if my experience is worth
anything--that there wasn't much of a hooraw made over
you when you arrived--now was there?"

"Don't mention it, Sandy," says I, coloring up a little; "I
wouldn't have had the family see it for any amount you are a
mind to name. Change the subject, Sandy, change the subject."

"Well, do you think of settling in the California department
of bliss?"

"I don't know. I wasn't calculating on doing anything really
definite in that direction till the family come. I thought I
would just look around, meantime, in a quiet way, and make
up my mind. Besides, I know a good many dead people, and I
was calculating to hunt them up and swap a little gossip with
them about friends, and old times, and one thing or another,
and ask them how they like it here, as far as they have got.
I reckon my wife will want to camp in the California range,
though, because most all her departed will be there, and she
likes to be with folks she knows."

"Don't you let her. You see what the Jersey district of heaven
is, for whites; well, the California district is a thousand
times worse. It swarms with a mean kind of leather-headed
mud-colored angels--and your nearest white neighbors is
likely to be a million miles away. What a man mostly misses,
in heaven, is company--company of his own sort and color
and language. I have come near settling in the European part
of heaven once or twice on that account"

"Well, why didn't you, Sandy?"

"Oh, various reasons. For one thing, although you see
plenty of whites there, you can't understand any of them
hardly, and so you go about as hungry for talk as you do
here. I like to look at a Russian or a German or an Italian--
I even like to look at a Frenchman if I ever have the luck to
catch him engaged in anything that ain't indelicate--but look-
ing don't cure the hunger--what you want is talk."

"Well, there's England, Sandy--the English district of heaven."

"Yes, but it is not so very much better than this end of the
heavenly domain. As long as you run across Englishmen born
this side of three hundred years ago, you are all right; but
the minute you get back of Elizabeth's time the language begins
to fog up, and the further back you go the foggier it gets. I
had some talk with one Langland and a man by the name of Chau-
cer--old-time poets--but it was no use, I couldn't quite un-
derstand them and they couldn't quite understand me. I have
had letters from them since, but it is such broken English
I can't make it out. Back of those men's time the English
are just simply foreigners, nothing more, nothing less; they
talk Danish, German, Norman French, and sometimes a mixture
of ail three; back of them, they talk Latin, and ancient
British, Irish, and Gaelic; and then back of these come bil-
lions and billions of pure savages that talk a gibberish that
Satan himself couldnH understand. The fact is, where you
strike one man in the English settlements that you can un-
derstand, you wade through awful swarms that talk something
you can't make head nor tail of. You see, every country on
earth has been overlaid so often, in the course of a billion
years, with different kinds of people and different sorts of
languages, that this sort of mongrel business was bound to
be the result in heaven."

"Sandy," says I, "did you see a good many of the great
people history tells about?"

"Yes--plenty. I saw kings and all sorts of distinguished
people."

"Do the kings rank just as they did below?"

"No; a body can't bring his rank up here with him. Divine
right is a good-enough earthly romance, but it don't go, here.
Kings drop down to the general level as soon as they reach
the realms of grace. I knew Charles the Second very well one
of the most popular comedians in the English section --draws
first rate. There are better, of course--people that were
never heard of on earth--but Charles is making a very good
reputation indeed, and is considered a rising man. Richard
the lionhearted is in the prize-ring, and coming into consid-
erable favor. Henry the Eighth is a tragedian, and the scenes
where he kills people are done to the very life. Henry the
Sixth keeps a religious-book stand."

"Did you ever see Napoleon, Sandy?"

"Often--sometimes in the Corsican range, sometimes in
the French. He always hunts up a conspicuous place, and goes
frowning around with his arms folded and his field-gla
under his arm, looking as grand, gloomy and peculiar as his
reputation calls for, and very much bothered because he don't
stand as high, here, for a soldier, as he expected to."

"Why, who stands higher?"

"Oh, a lot of people we never heard of before--the shoemaker
and horse-doctor and knife-grinder kind, you know--clodhop-
pers from goodness knows where, that never handled a sword
or fired a shot in their lives--but the soldiership was in
them, though they never had a chance to show it. But here
they take their right place, and Caesar and Napoleon and
Alexander have to take a back seat. The greatest military
genius our world ever produced was a bricklayer from some-
where back of Boston--died during the Revolution--by the
name of Absalom Jones. Wherever he goes, crowds flock to
see him. You see, everybody knows that if he had had a
chance he would have shown the world some generalship
that would have made all generalship before look like child's
play and 'prentice work. But he never got a chance; he tried
heaps of times to enlist as a private, but he had lost both
thumbs and a couple of front teeth, and the recruiting
sergeant wouldn't pass him. However, as I say, everybody
knows, now, what he would have been, and so they flock by
the million to get a glimpse of him whenever they hear he
is going to be anywhere. Caesar, and Hannibal, and Alexander,
and Napoleon are all on his staff, and ever so many more
great generals; but the public hardly care to look at them
when he is around. Boom! There goes another salute. The
barkeeper's off quarantine now."


Sandy and I put on our things. Then we made a wish, and
in a second we were at the reception-place. We stood on the
edge of the ocean of space, and looked out over the dimness,
but couldn't make out anything. Close by us was the Grand
Stand--tier on tier of dim thrones rising up toward the zenith.
From each side of it spread away the tiers of seats for
the general public. They spread away for leagues and leagues
'--you couldn't see the ends. They were empty and still, and
hadn't a cheerful look, but looked dreary, like a theater be-
fore anybody comes--gas turned down. Sandy says,--

"We'll sit down here and wait. We'll see the head of the
procession come in sight away off yonder pretty soon, now."

Says I,--

"It's pretty lonesome, Sandy; I reckon there's a hitch some-
wheres. Nobody but just you and me--it ain't much of a dis-
play for the barkeeper."

"Don't you fret, it's all right There'll be one more gunfire--
then you'll see."

In a little while we noticed a sort of a lightish flush, away
off on the horizon.

"Head of the torchlight procession," says Sandy.

It spread, and got lighter and brighter; soon it had a strong
glare like a locomotive headlight; it kept on getting brighter
and brighter till it was like the sun peeping above the horizon-
line at sea--the big red rays shot high up into the sky.

"Keep your eyes on the Grand Stand and the miles of seats--
sharp!" says Sandy, "and listen for the gun-fire."

Just then it burst out, "Boom-boom-boom!" like a million
thunder-storms in one, and made the whole heavens rock.
Then there was a sudden and awful glare of light all about
us, and in that very instant every one of the millions of seats
was occupied, and as far as you could see, in both directions,
was just a solid pack of people, and the place was all splendidly
lit up! It was enough to take a boy's breath away.

Sandy says,--

"That is the way we do it here. No time fooled away; nobody
straggling in after the curtain's up. Wishing is quicker work
than traveling. A quarter of a second ago these folks were
millions of miles from here. When they heard the last signal,
all they had to do was to wish, and here they are."
The prodigious choir struck up,--

We long to hear thy voice.
To see thee face to face.

It was noble music, but the uneducated chipped in and
spoilt it, just as the congregations used to do on earth.

The head of the procession begun to pass, now, and it was
a wonderful sight. It swept along, thick and solid, five
hundred thousand angels abreast, and every angel carrying a
torch and singing--the whirring thunder of the wings made
a body's head ache. You could follow the line of the proces-
sion back, and slanting upward into the sly, far away in a glit-
tering snaky rope, till it was only a faint streak in the dis-
tance. The rush went on and on, for a long time, and at last,
sure enough along comes the barkeeper, and then everybody
rose, and a cheer went up that made the heavens shake, I
tell you! He was all smiles, and had his halo tilted over one
ear in a cocky way, and was the most satisfied-looking saint
I ever saw. While he marched up the steps of the Grand
Stand, the choir struck up,--

The whole wide heaven groans.
And waits to hear that voice.

There were four gorgeous tents standing side by side in
the place of honor, on a broad railed platform in the center
of the Grand Stand, with a shining guard of honor round
about them. The tents had been shut up all this time. As the
barkeeper climbed along up, bowing and smiling to every-
body, and at last got to the platform, these tents were jerk
up aloft all of a sudden, and we saw four noble thrones of
gold, all caked with jewels, and in the two middle ones sat
old white-whiskered men, and in the two others a couple of
the most glorious and gaudy giants, with platter halos and
beautiful armor. All the millions went down on their knees,
and stared, and looked glad, and burst out into a joyful kind
of murmurs. They said,--

"Two archangels!--that is splendid. Who can the others be?

The archangels gave the barkeeper a stiff little military
bow; the two old men rose; one of them said, "Moses and
Esau welcome thee!" and then all the four vanished, and the
thrones were empty.

The barkeeper looked a little disappointed, for he was
calculating to hug those old people, I judge; but it was the
gladdest and proudest multitude you ever saw--because they
had seen Moses and Esau. Everybody was saying, "Did you
see them?---I did--Esau's side face was to me, but I saw
Moses full in the face, just as plain as I see you this
minute!"

The procession took up the barkeeper and moved on with
him again, and the crowd broke up and scattered. As we
went along home, Sandy said it was a great success, and the
barkeeper would have a right to be proud of it forever. And
he said we were in luck, too; said we might attend receptions
for forty thousand years to come, and not have a diance
to see a brace of such grand mogub as Moses and Esau. We
found afterwards that we had come near seeing another pat-
riarch, and likewise a genuine prophet besides, but at the
last moment they sent regrets. Sandy said there would be a
monument put up there, where Moses and Esau had stood,
with the date and circumstances, and all about the whole
business, and travelers would come for thousands of years
and gawk at it, and climb over it, and scribble their names
on it.

1907



A Fable



Once upon a time an artist who had painted a small and
very beautiful picture placed it so that he could see it
in the mirror. He said, "This doubles the distance and
softens it, and it is twice as lovely as it was before."

The animals out in the woods heard of this through the
housecat, who was greatly admired by them because he was
so learned, and so refined and civilized, and so polite and
high-bred, and could tell them so much which they didn't
know before, and were not certain about afterward. They
were much excited about this new piece of gossip, and they
asked questions, so as to get at a full understanding of it
They asked what a picture was, and the cat explained.

"It is a flat thing," he said; "wonderfully flat, marvelously
flat, enchantingly flat and elegant And, oh, so beautiful!"

That excited them almost to a frenzy, and they said they
would give the world to see it Then the bear asked:

"What is it that makes it so beautiful?'

"It is the looks of it," said the cat.

This filled them with admiration and uncertainty, and they
were more excited than ever. Then the cow asked:

"What is a mirror?"

"It is a hole in the wall," said the cat. "You look in it,
and there you see the picture, and it is so dainty and charm-
ing and ethereal and inspiring in its unimaginable beauty
that your head turns round and round, and you almost swoon
with ecstasy."

The ass had not said anything as yet; he now began to
throw doubts. He said there had never been anything as
beautiful as this before, and probably wasn't now. He said
that when it took a whole basketful of sesquipedalian adjecA
fives to whoop up a thing of beauty, it was time for suspi-
cion.

It was easy to see that these doubts were having an effect
upon the animals, so the cat went off offended. The subject
was dropped for a couple of days, but in the meantime curios-
ity was taking a fresh start, and there was a revival of
interest perceptible. Then the animals assailed the ass for
spoiling what could possibly have been a pleasure to them, on
a mere suspicion that the picture was not beautiful, without
any evidence that such was the case. The ass was not troub-
led; he was calm, and said there was one way to find out who
was in the right, himself or the cat: he would go and look
in that hole, and come back and tell what he found there.
The animals felt relieved and grateful, and asked him to
go at once--which he did.

But he did not know where be ought to stand; and, so,
through error, he stood between the picture and the mirror.
The result was that the picture had no chance, and didn't
show up. He returned home and said:

"The cat lied. There was nothing in that hole but an ass.
There wasn't a sign of a fiat thing visible. It was a handsome
ass, and friendly, but just an ass, and nothing more."

The elephant asked:

"Did you see it good and clear? Were you close to it?"

"I saw it good and clear, O Hathi, King of Beasts. I was so
close that I touched noses with it."

"This is very strange," said the elephant; "the cat was al-
ways truthful before--as far as we could make out Let anoth-
er witness try. Go, Baloo, look in the hole, and come and
report"

So the bear went When he came back, be said:

"Both the cat and the ass have lied; there was nothing in
the hole but a bear."

Great was the surprise and puzzlement of the animals. Each
was now anxious to make the test himself and get at the
straight truth. The elephant sent them one at a time.

First, the cow. She found nothing in the hole but a cow.

The tiger found nothing in it but a tiger.

The lion found nothing in it but a lion.

The leopard found nothing in it but a leopard.

The camel found a camel, and nothing more.

The Hathi was wroth, and said he would have the truth, if
he had to go and fetch it himself. When he returned, he
abused his whole subjectry for liars, and was in an unap-
peasable fury with the moral and mental blindness of the
cat He said anybody but a near-sigbted fool could see that
there was nothing in the hole but an elephant.


MORAL, BY THE CAT


You can find in a text udiatever you bring, if you udil
stand between it and the minxM' of your imagination. You
may not see your eats, but they will be there.

1909



The Mysterious Stranger



It was in 1590--winter. Austria was far away from the
world, and asleep; it was still the Middle Ages in Austria,
and promised to remain so forever. Some even set it away
back centuries upon centuries and said that by the mental
and spiritual clock it was still the Age of Belief in Austria.
But they meant it as a compliment, not a slur, and it was so
taken, and we were all proud of it I remember it well, al-
though I was only a boy; and I remember, too, the pleasure
it gave me.

Yes, Austria was far from the world, and asleep, and our
village was in the middle of that sleep, being in the middle
of Austria. It drowsed in peace in the deep privacy of a
hilly and woodsy solitude where news from the world hardly
ever came to disturb its dreams, and was infinitely content.
At its front flowed the tranquil river, its surface painted
with cloud-forms and the reflections of drifting arks and
stone-boats; behind it rose the woody steeps to the base of the
lofty precipice; from the top of the precipice frowned a vast
castle, its long stretch of towers and bastions mailed in vines;
beyond the river, a league to the left, was a tumbled expanse
of forest-clothed hills cloven by winding gorges where the sun
never penetrated; and to the right a precipice overlooked the
river, and between it and the hills just spoken of lay a far-
reaching plain dotted with little homestead nested among or-
chards and shade trees.

The whole region for leagues around was the hereditary
property of a prince, whose servants kept the castle always
in perfect conation for occupancy, but neither he nor his
family came there oftener than once in five years. When they
came it was as if the lord of the world had arrived, and had
brought all the glories of its kiogdoms along; and udien th
went they left a calm behind whidi was like the deep deep
whidi follows an orgy.

Eseldorf was a paradise for us boys. We were not over-
much pestered with schooling. Mainly we were trained to be
good Christians; to revere the Virgin, the Chiirch, and the
saints above everything. Beyond these matters we were not
required to know much; and, in fact, not allowed to. Know-
ledge was not good for the common people, and could make
them discontented with the lot which God had appointed
for them, and God would not endure discontentment with
His plans. We had two priests. One of them. Father Adolf,
was a very zealous and strenuous priest, much considered.

There may have been better priests, in some ways, than
Father Adolf, but there was never one in our commune who
was held in more solemn and awful respect. This was because
he had absolutely no fear of the Devil. He was the only
Christian I have ever known of whom that could be truly
said. People stood in deep dread of him on that account;
for they thought that there must be something supernatural
about him, else he could not be so bold and so confident.
All men speak in bitter disapproval of the Devil, but they
do it reverently, not flippantly; but Father Adolfs way was
very different; he called him by every name he could lay his
tongue to, and it made everyone shudder that heard him; and
often he would even speak of him scornfully and scoffingly;
then the people crossed themselves and went quickly out of
his presence, fearing that something fearful might happen.

Father Adolf had actually met Satan face to face more than
once, and defied him. This was known to be so. Father Adolf
said it himself. He never made any secret of it, but spoke
it right out. And that he was speaking true there was proof
in at least one instance, for on that occasion he quarreled
with the enemy, and intrepidly threw his bottle at him;
and there, upon the wall of his study, was the ruddy splotch
where it struck and broke.

But it was Father Peter, the other priest, that we all loved
best and were sorriest for. Some people charged him with
talking around in conversation that God was all goodness
and would find a way to save all his poor human children. It
was a horrible thing to say, but there was never any absolute
proof that Father Peter said it; and it was out of character
for him to say it, too, for he was always good and gentle and
truthful. He wasn't charged with saying it in the pulpit, where
all the congregation could hear and testify, but only outside,
in talk; and it is easy for enemies to manufacture that. Father
Peter had an enemy and a very powerful one, the astrologer
who lived in a tumbled old tower up the valley, and put in
his nights studying the stars. Every one knew he could foretell
wars and famines, though that was not so hard, for there
was always a war, and generally a famine somewhere. But he
could also read any man's life through the stars in a big book
he had, and find lost property, and every one in the village
except Father Peter stood in awe of him. Even Father Adolf,
who had defied the Devil, had a wholesome respect for the
astoologer when he came through our village wearing his tall,
pointed hat and his long, flowing robe with stars on it, car-
rying his big book, and a staff which was known to have
magic power. The bishop himself sometimes listened to the
astrologer, it was said, for, besides studying the stars and
prophesying, the astrologer made a great show of piety, which
would impress the bishop, of course.

But Father Peter took no stock in the astrologer. He de-
nounced him openly as a charlatan--a fraud with no valu-
able knowledge of any kind, or powers beyond those of an
ordinary and rather inferior human being, which naturally
made the astrologer hate Father Peter and wish to ruin him
It was the astrologer, as we all believed, who originated the
story about Father Peter's shocking remark and carried it to
the bishop. It was said that Father Peter had made the remark
to his niece, Marget, though Marget denied it and implored
the bishop to believe her and spare her old uncle from
poverty and disgrace. But the bishop wouldn't listen. He sus-
pended Father Peter indefinitely, though he wouldn't go so
far as to excommunicate him on the evidence of only one
witness; and now Father Peter had been out a couple of
years, and our other priest. Father Adolf, had his flock.

Those had been hard years for the old priest and Marget
They had been favorites, but of course that changed when
they came under the shadow of the bishop's frown. Many of
their friends fell away entirely, and the rest became cool and
distant. Marget was a lovely girl of eighteen when the trouble
came, and she had the best head in the village, and the most
in it. She taught the harp, and earned all her clothes and
pocket money by her own industry. But her scholars fell off
one by one now; she was forgotten when there were dances
and parties among the youth of the village; the young fellows
stopped coming to the house, all except Wilhelm Meidling--
and he could have been spared; she and her uncle
were sad and forlorn in their neglect and disgrace, and the
sunshine was gone out of their lives. Matters went worse and
worse, all through the two years. Clothes were wearing out,
bread was harder and harder to get. And now, at last, the very
end was come. Solomon Isaacs had lent all the money he was
willing to put on the house, and gave notice that tomorrow
be would foreclose.


2


Three of us boys were always together, and had been so
from the cradle, being fond of one another from the begin'
ning, and this affection deepened as the years went on--
Nikolaus Bauman, son of the principal judge of the local court;
Seppi Wohlmeyer, son of the keeper of the principal inn, the
"Golden Stag," which had a nice garden, with shade trees
reaching down to the riverside, and pleasure boats for hire;
and I was the third--Theodor Fischer, son of the church
organist, who was also leader of the village musicians, teacher
of the violin, composer, tax-collector of the commune, sexton,
and in other ways a useful citizen, and respected by all. We
knew the hills and the woods as well as the birds knew them;
for we were always roaming them when we had leisure--at
least, when we were not swimming or boating or fishing, or
playing on the ice or sliding down hill.

And we had the run of the castle park, and very few had
that. It was because we were pets of the oldest servingman
in the castle--Felix Brandt; and often we went there, nights,
to hear him talk about old times and strange things, and to
smoke with him (be taught us that) and to drink coffee; for
he had served in the wars, and was at the siege of Vienna;
and there, when the Turks were defeated and driven away,
among the captured things were bags of coffee, and the Turkish
prisoners explained the character of it and how to make a
pleasant drink out of it, and now he always kept coffee by
him, to drink himself and also to astonish the ignorant with.
When it stormed he kept us all night; and while it thundered
and lightened outside he told us about ghosts and horrors of
every kind, and of battles and murders and mutilations, and
such things, and made it pleasant and cozy inside; and be
told these things from his own experience largely. He had
seen many ghosts in his time, and witches and enchanters,
and once he was lost in a fierce storm at midnight in the
mountains, and by the glare of the lightning had seen the
Wild Huntsman rage on Ae blast with his specter dogs chasing
after him through the driving cloud-rack. Also he had seen
an incubus once, and several times he had seen the great bat
that sucks the blood from the necks of people while they are
asleep, fanning them softly with its wings and so keeping
them drowsy till they die.

He encouraged us not to fear supernatural things, such as
ghosts, and said they did no harm, but only wandered about
because they were lonely and distressed and wanted kindly
notice and compassion; and in time we learned not to be
afraid, and even went down with him in the night to the
haunted chamber in the dungeons of the castle. The ghost
appeared only once, and it went by very dim to the sight and
floated noiseless through the air, and then disappeared; and
we scarcely trembled, he had taught us so well. He said it
came up sometimes in the night and woke him by passing its
clammy hand over his face, but it did him no hurt; it only
wanted sympathy and notice. But the strangest thing was that
he had seen angels--actual angels out of heaven--and had
talked with them. They had no wings, and wore clothes, and
talked and looked and acted just like any natural person, and
you would never know them for angels except for the wonderful
things they did which a mortal could not do, and the
way they suddenly disappeared while you were talking with
them, which was also a thing which no mortal could do. And
he said they were pleasant and cheerful, not gloomy and
melancholy, like ghosts.

It was after that kind of a talk one May night that we got
up next morning and had a good breakfast with him and then
went down and crossed the bridge and went away up into
the hills on the left to a woody hill-top which was a favorite
place of ours, and there we stretched out on the grass in the
shade to rest and smoke and talk over these strange things,
for they were in our minds yet, and impressing us. But we
couldn't smoke, because we had been heedless and left our
flint and steel behind.

Soon there came a youth strolling toward us through the
trees, and he sat down and began to talk in a friendly way,
just as if he knew us. But we did not answer him, for he was
a stranger and we were not used to strangers and were shy of
them. He had new and good clothes on, and was handsome
and had a winning face and a pleasant voice, and was easy
and graceful and unembarrassed, not slouchy and awkward
and diffident, like other boys. We wanted to be friendly with
him, but didn't know how to begin. Then I thought of the
pipe, and wondered if it would be taken, as kindly meant if
I offered it to him. But I remembered that we had no fire, so
I was sorry and disappointed. But he looked up bright and
pleased, and said:

"Fire? Oh, that is easy; I will furnish it."

I was so astonished I couldn't speak; for I had not said
anything. He took the pipe and blew his breath on it, and the
tobacco glowed red, and spirals of blue smoke rose up. We
jumped up and were going to run, for that was natural; and
we did run a few steps, although he was yearningly pleading
for us to stay, and giving us his word that he would not do
us any harm, but only wanted to be friends with us and have
company. So we stopped and stood, and wanted to go back,
being full of curiosity and wonder, but afraid to venture. He
went on coaxing, in his soft, persuasive way; and when we
saw that the pipe did not blow up and nothing happened, our
confidence returned by little and little, and presently our
curiosity got to be stronger than our fear, and we ventured
back--but slowly, and ready to fly at any alarm.

He was bent on putting us at ease, and he had the right art;
one could not remain doubtful and timorous where a person
was so earnest and simple and gentle, and talked so alluringly
as he did; no, he won us over, and it was not long before we
were content and comfortable and chatty, and glad we had
found this new friend. When the feeling of constraint was all
gone we asked him how he had learned to do that strange
thing, and he said he hadn't learned it at all; it came natural
to him--like other things--other curious things.

"What ones?"

"Oh, a number; I don't know how many."

"Will you let us see you do them?"

"Do--please!" the others said.

"You won't run away again?"

"No--indeed we won't. Please do. Won't you?"

"Yes, with pleasure; but you mustn't forget your promise,
you know."

We said we wouldn't, and he went to a puddle and came
back with water in a cup which he had made out of a leaf,
and blew upon it and threw it out, and it was a lump of ice
the shape of the cup. We were astonished and charmed, but
not afraid any more; we were very glad to be there, and asked
him to go on and do some more things. And he did. He said
he would give us any kind of fruit we liked, whether it was
in season or not. We all spoke at once:

"Orange!"

"Apple!"

"Grapes!"

"They are in your pockets," he said, and it was true. And
they were of the best, too, and we ate them and wished we
had more, though none of us said so.

"You will find them where those came from," he said, "and
everything else your appetites call for; and you need not
name the thing you wish; as long as I am with you, you
have only to wish and find."

And he said true. There was never anything so wonderful
and so interesting. Bread, cakes, sweets, nuts--whatever one
wanted, it was there. He ate nothing himself, but sat and
chatted, and did one curious thing after another to amuse us.
He made a tiny toy squirrel out of clay, and it ran up a
tree and sat on a limb overhead and barked down at us.
Then he made a dog that was not much larger than a mouse,
and it treed the squirrel and danced about the tree, excited
and barking, and was as alive as any dog could be. It fright-
ened the squirrel from tree to tree and followed it up until
both were out of sight in the forest. He made birds out of
clay and set them free, and they flew away, singing.

At last I made bold to ask him to tell us who he was.

"An angel," he said, quite simply, and set another bird
free and clapped his hands and made it fly away.

A kind of awe fell upon us when we heard him say that,
and we were afraid again; but he said we need not be troubl-
ed, there was no occasion for us to be afraid of an angel,
and he liked us, anyway. He went on chatting as simply and
unaffectedly as ever; and while he talked he made a crowd
of little men and women the size of your finger, and they
went diligently to work and cleared and leveled off a space
a couple of yards square in the grass and began to build a
cunning little castle in it, the women mixing the mortar and
carrying it up the scaffoldings in pails on their heads, just
as our work-women have always done, and the men laying the
courses of masonry--five hundred of these toy people swarming
briskly about and working diligently and wiping the sweat
off their faces as natural as life. In the absorbing interest
of watching those five hundred little people make the castle
grow step by step and course by course, and take shape
and symmetry, that feeling and awe soon passed away and
we were quite comfortable and at home again. We asked if
we might make some people, and he said yes, and told Seppi
to make some cannon for the walls, and told Nikolaus to
make some halberdiers, with breastplates and greaves and
helmets, and I was to make some cavalry, with horses, and
in allotting these tasks he called us by our names, but did
not say how he knew them. Then Seppi asked him what his
own name was, and he said, tranquilly, "Satan," and held out
a chip and caught a little woman on it who was falling from
the scaffolding and put her back where she belonged, and
said, "She is an idiot to step backward like that and not no-
tice what she is about."

It caught us suddenly, that name did, and our work dropped
out of our hands and broke to pieces--a cannon, a halberdier,
and a horse. Satan laughed, and asked what was the matter.
I said, "Nothing, only it seemed a strange name for an
angel." He asked why.

"Because it's--it's--well, it's his name, you know."

"Yes--he is my uncle."

He said it placidly, but it took our breath for a moment
and made our hearts beat He did not seem to notice that,
but mended our halberdiers and things with a touch, handing
them to us finished, and said, "Don't you remember?--
he was an angel himself, once."

"Yes--it's true," said Seppi; "I didn't think of that"

"Before the Fall he was blameless."

"Yes," said Nikolaus, "he was without sin."

"It is a good family--ours," said Satan; "there is not a
better. He is the only member of it that has ever sinned."

I should not be able to make any one understand how excit-
ing it all was. You know that kind of quiver that trembles
around through you when you are seeing something so strange
and enchanting and wonderful that it is just a fearful joy
to be alive and look at it; and you know how you gaze, and
your lips turn dry and your breath comes short, but you
wouldn't be anywhere but there, not for the world. I was
bursting to ask one question--I had it on my tongue's
end and could hardly hold it back--but I was ashamed to
ask it; it might be a rudeness. Satan set an ox down that be
had been making, and smiled up at me and said;

"It wouldn't be a rudeness, and I should forgive it if it
was. Have I seen him? Millions of times. From the time that
I was a little child a thousand years old I was his second
favorite among the niusery angels of our blood and lineage--
to use a human phrase--yes, from that time until the Fall,
eight thousand years, measured as you count time."

"Eight--thousand!"

"Yes." He turned to Seppi, and went on as if answering
something that was in Seppi's mind: "Why, naturally I look
like a boy, for that is what I am. With us what you call
time is a spacious thing; it takes a long stretch of it to
grow an angel to full age." There was a question in my mind,
and he turned to me and answered it, "I am sixteen thousand
years old--counting as you count." Then he turned to
Nikolaus and said: "No, the Fall did not affect me nor the
rest of the relationship. It was only he that I was named for
who ate of the fruit of the tree and then beguiled the man
and the woman with it We others are still ignorant of sin;
we are not able to commit it; we are without blemish, and
shall abide in that estate always. We--" Two of the little
workmen were quarreling, and in buzzing little bumbled
voices they were cursing and swearing at each other; now
came blows and blood; dien they locked themselves together
in a life'Snd'death struggle. Satan reached out his hand and
crushed the life out of them with his fingers, threw they away,
wiped the red from his fingers on his handkerchief, and went
on talking where he had left off: "We cannot do wrong; neither
have we any disposition to do it, for we do not know what it
is."

It seemed a strange speech, in the circumstances, but we
barely noticed that, we were so shocked and grieved at the
wanton murder he had committed--for murder it was, that
was its true name, and it was without palliation or excuse,
for the men had not wronged him in any way. It made us
miserable, for we loved him, and had thought him so
noble and so beautiful and gracious, and had honestly be-
lieved he was an angel; and to have him do this cruel
thing--ah, it lowered him so, and we had had such pride in
him. He went right on talking, just as if nothing had hap-
pened, telling about his travels, and the interesting things
be bad seen in the big worlds of our solar systems and of
other solar systems far away in the remotenesses of space,
and about the customs of the immortals that inhabit em,
somehow fascinating us, enchanting us, charming us in spite
of the pitiful scene that was now under our eyes, for the
wives of the little dead men had found the crushed and
shapeless bodies and were crying over them, and sobbing and
lamenting, and a priest was kneeling there with his bands
crossed upon his breast, praying; and crowds and crowds of
pitying friends were massed aut them, reverently uncovered,
with their bare heads bowed, and many with the tears run-
ning down--a scene which Satan paid no attention to until
the small noise of the weeping and praying began to annoy
him, then be reached out and took the heavy board seat out
of our swing and brought it down and mashed all those peo-
ple into the earth just as if they had been files, and
went on talking just the same.

An angel, and kill a priest! An angel who did not know
how to do wrong, and yet destroys in cold blood hundreds
of helpless poor men and women who had never done him
any harm! It made us sick to see that awful deed, and to
think that none of those poor creatures was prepared except
the priest, for none of them had ever heard a mass or seen a
church. And we were witnesses; we had seen these murders
done and it was our duty to tell, and let the law take its
course.

But he went on talking right along, and worked his enchant-
ments upon us again with that fatal music of his voice. He
made us forget everything; we could only listen to him, and
love him, and be his slaves, to do with us as he would. He
made us drunk with the joy of being with him, and of looking
into the heaven of his eyes, and of feeling the ecstasy that
thrilled along our veins from the touch of his hand.


3


The Stranger had seen everything, he had been everywhere,
he knew everything, and he forgot nothing. What another
must study, he learned at a glance; there were no diffi-
culties for him. And he made things live before you when
he told about them. He saw the world made; he saw Adam
created; he saw Samson surge agst the pillars and bring
the temple down in ruins atout him; he saw Caesar's death;
he told of the daily life in heaven; he had seen the damned
writhing in the red waves of hell; and he made us see all
these tgs, and it was as if we were on the spot and looking
at them with our own eyes. And we felt them, too, but
there was no sign that they were anything to him beyond
mere entertainments. Those visions of hell, those poor babes
and women and girls and lads and men shrieking and supplica-
ting in anguish--why, we could hardly bear it, but he
was as bland about it as if it had been so many imitation
rats in an artificial fire.

And always when he was talking about men and women here
on the earth and their doings--even their grandest and
sublimest--we were secretly ashamed, for his manner show-
ed that to him they and their doings were of paltry poor
consequence; often you would think he was talking about
flies, if you didn't know. Once he even said, in so many
words, that our people down here were quite interesting to
him, notwithstanding they were so dull and ignorant and
trivial and conceited, and so diseased and rickety, and
such a shabby, poor, worthless lot all around. He said it
in a quite matter-of-course way and without bitterness, just
as a person might talk about bricks or manure or any other
thing that was of no consequence and hadn't feelings. I
could see he meant no offense, but in my thoughts I set
it down as not very good manners.

"Manners!" he said. "Why, it is merely the truth, and truth
is good manners; manners are a fiction. The castle is done.
Do you like it?"

Anyone would have been obliged to like it. It was lovely to
look at, it was so shapely and fine, and so cunningly perfect
in all its particulars, even to the little flags waving from
the turrets. Satan said we must put the artillery in place now,
and station the halbo'diers and display the cavalry. Our men
and horses were a spectacle to see, they were so little like
what they were intended for; for, of course, we had no art in
making such things. Satan said they were the worst he had
seen; and when he touched them and made them alive, it was
just ridiculous the way they acted, on account of their legs
not being of uniform lengths. They reeled and sprawled
around as if they were drunk, and endangered everybody's
lives around them, and finally fell over and lay helpless and
kicking. It made us all laugh, though it was a shameful thing
to see. The guns were charged with dirt, to fire a salute, but
they were so crooked and so badly made that they all burst
when they went off, and killed some of the gunners and crip-
pled the others. Satan said we would have a storm now, and
an earthquake, if we liked, but we must stand off a piece, out
of danger. We wanted to call the people away, too, but he
said never mind them; they were of no consequence, and we
could make more, some time or other, if we needed them.

A small storm-cloud began to settle down black over the
castle, and the miniature lightning and thunder began to
play, and the ground to quiver, and the wind to pipe and
wheeze, and the rain to fail, and all the people flocked into
the castle for shelter. The cloud settled down blacker and
blacker, and one could see the castle only dimly through it;
the lightning blazed out flash upon flash and pierced the
castle and set it on fire, and the flames shone out red and
fierce through the cloud, and the people came flying out,
shrieking, but Satan brushed them back, paying no attention
to om begging and crying and imploring; and in the midst of
the howling of the wind and volleying of the thunder the
magazine blew up, the earthquake rent the ground wide,
and the castle's wreck and ruin tumbled into the chasm,
.which swallowed it from sight, and closed upon it, with all
that innocent life, not one of the five hundred poor creatures
escaping. Our hearts were broken; we could not keep from
crying.

"Don't cry," Satan said; "they were of no value."

"But they are gone to hell!"

"Oh, it is no matter; we can make plenty more."

It was of no use to try to move him; evidently he was
wholly without feeling, and could not understand He was
ft of bubblng spirits, and as gay as if this were a wedding
instead of a fiendish massacre. And he was bent on making
us feel as he did, and of course his magic accomplished
his desire. It was no trouble to him; he did whatever he
pleased with us. In a little while we were dancing on
that grave, and he was playing to us on a strange, sweet
instrument which he took out of his pocket; and the music--
but there is no music like that, unless perhaps in heaven,
and that was where he brought it from, he said. It made one
mad, for pleasure; and we could not take our eyes from him,
and the looks that went out of our eyes came from our hearts,
and their dumb speech was worship. He brought the dance
from heaven, too, and the bliss of paradise was in it.

Presently he said he must go away on an errand. But we
could not bear the thought of it, and clung to him, and
pleaded with him to stay; and that pleased him, and he said
so, and said he would not go yet, but would wait a little
while and we would sit down and talk a few minutes longer;
and he told us Satan was only his real name, and he was to
be known by it to us alone, but he had chosen another one
to be called by in the presence of others; just a common one,
such as people have--Philip Traum.

It sounded so odd and mean for such a being! But it was
his decision, and we said nothing; his decision was suf-
ficient.

We had seen wonders this day; and my thoughts began to run
on the pleasure it would be to tell them when I got home,
but he noticed those thoughts, and said:

"No, all these matters are a secret among us four. I do not
mind your trying to tell them, if you like, but I will protect
your tongues, and nothing of the secret will escape from them."

It was a disappointment, but it couldn't be helped, and it
cost us a sigh or two. We talked pleasantly along, and he was
always reading our thoughts and responding to them, and it
seemed to me that this was the most wonderful of all the
things he did, but he interrupted my musings and said:

"No, it would be wonderful for you, but it is not wonderful
for me. I am not limited like you. I am not subject to human
conditions. I can measure and understand your human weaknes-
ses, for I have studied them; but I have none of them. My
flesh is not real, although it would seem firm to your touch;
my clothes are not real; I am a spirit. Father Peter is com-
ing." We looked around, but did not see any one. "He is not
in sight yet, but you will see him presently."

"Do you know him, Satan?"

"No."

"Won't you talk with him when he comes? He is not ignorant
and dull, like us, and he would so like to talk with you.
Will you?"

"Another time, yes, but not now. I must go on my errand
after a little. There he is now; you can see him. Sit still,
and don't say anything."

We looked up and saw Father Peter approaching throu the
chestnuts. We three were sitting together in the grass, and
Satn sat in front of us in the path. Father Peter came slowly
along with his head down, thinking and stopped within a couple
of yards of us and trok off his hat and got out his silk hand-
kerchief, and stood there mopping his face and looking as
if he were going to speak to us, but he didn't Presently he
muttered, "I can't think what brought me here; it seems as
if I were in my study a minute ago--but I suppose I have
been dreaming along for an hour and have come all this
stretch without noticing; for I am not myself in these
troubled days." Then he went mumbling along to himself and
walked straight throu Satan, just as if nothing were there.
It made us catch our breath to see it. We had the impulse to
cry out, the way you nearly always do when a startling
thing happens, but something mysteriously restrained us and
we remained quiet, only breathhig fast. Then the trees hid
Father Peter after a little, and Satan said:

"It is as I told you--I am only a spirit."

"Yes, one perceives it now," said Nikolaus, "but we are
not spirits. It is plain he did not see you, but were we
invisible, too? He looked at us, but he didn't seem to see
us."

"No. none of us was visible to him, for I wished it so."

It seemed almost too good to be true, that we were actually
seeing these romantic and wonderful things, and that it was
not a dream. And there he sat, looking just like anybody--so
natural and simple and charming, and chatting along again
the same as ever, and--well, words cannot make you un-
derstand what we felt It was an ecstasy; and an ecstasy is a
thing that will not go into words; it feels like music, and one
cannot tell about music so that another person can get
the feeling of it. He was back in the old ages once more now,
and making them live before us. He had seen so much, so
much! It was just a wonder to look at him and try to think
how it most seem to have such experience behind one.

But it made you seem sorrowfully trivial, and the creature
of a day, and such a short and paltry day, too. And he didn't
say anything to raise up your drooping pride--no, not a word.
He always spoke of men in the same old indifferent way--
just as one speaks of bricks and manure-piles and such
things; you ccd see that they were of no consequence to
him, one way or the other. He didn't mean to hurt us, you
we diqmrage it; a brick's ctkoos are aoddog to in; it never
occurs to us to think whether it has any or not.

Once when he was bunching the most illustrious kings and
conquerers and poets and prophets and pirates and beggars
together--just a brick-pile--I was shamed into putting in a
word for man, and asked him why he made so much difference
between men and himself. He had to struggle with that a mo-
ment; he didn't seem to understand how I could ask such a
strange question. Then he said:

"The difference between man and me? The difference between
a mortal and an immortal? between a cloud and a spirit?" He
picked up a wood-louse that was creeping along a piece of
bark: What is the difference between Caesr and this?"

I said, "One cannot compare things which by their nature
and by the interval between them are not comparable."

"You have answered your own question," he said. "I will
expand it. Man is made of dirt--I saw him made. I am not
made of dirt. Man is a museum of diseases, a home of impuri-
ties; he comes to-day and is gone to-morrow; he begins as
dirt and departs as stench; I am of the aristocracy of the
Imperishables. And man has the Moral Sense.You understand?
He has the Moral Sense. That would seem to be difference
enough between us, all by itself."

He stopped there, as if that settled the matter. I was sorry,
for at that time I had but a dim idea of what the Moral Sense
was. I merely knew that we were proud of having it, and
when he talked like that about it, it wounded me, and I felt
as a girl feels who thinks her dearest finery is being admired
and then overhears strangers making fun of it. For a while we
were all silent, and I, for one, was depressed. Then Satan
began to chat again, and soon he was sparkling along in such
a cheerful and vivacious vein that my spirits rose once
more. He told some very cunning things that put us in a gale
of laugh; and when he was telling about the time that Samson
i the torches to the foxes' tails and set them loose in the
Philistinra' com, and Samson sitting on the fence slapping
his thighs and laughing, with the tears running down his
cheeks, and lost his balance and fell off the fence, me
memory of that picture got him to laughing, too, and we
R most lovely and jolly time. By and by he said:

"I am going on my errand now."

"Don't!" we all said. "Don't go; stay with us. You wont
come back."

"Yes, I will; I give you my word."

"When? To-night? Say when."

"It won't be long. You will see."

"We like you."

"And I you. And as a proof of it I will show you something
fine to see. Usually when I go I merely vanish; but now I will
dissolve myself and let you see me do it."

He stood up, and it was quickly finished. He thinned away
and thinned away until he was a soap-bubble, except that he
kept his shape. You could see the bushes through him as clear-
ly as you see things through a soap-bubble, and all over
him played and flashed the delicate iridescent colors of the
bubble, and along with them was that thing shaped like a
window-sash which you always see on the globe of the bubble.
You have seen a bubble strike the carpet and lightly bound
along two or three times before it bursts. He did that. He
sprang--touched the grass--bounded--floated along--touched
again--and so on, and presently exploded--puff! and in his
place was vacancy.

It was a strange and beautiful thing to see. We did not say
anything, but sat wondering and dreaming and blinking; and
finely Seppi roused up and said, mournfully sighing:

"I suppose none of it has happened."

Nikolaus sighed and said about the same.

I was miserable to hear them say it, for it was the same
cold fear that was in my own mind. Then we saw poor old
Father Peter wandering along back, with his head bent down,
searching the ground. When he was pretty close to us he
looked up and saw us, and said, "How long have you been
here, boys?"

"A little while. Father."

"Then it is since I came by, and maybe you can help me.
Did you come up by the path?"

"Yes, Father."

"That is good. I came the same way. I have lost my wallet
Tboe wasn't much in it but a very little is much to me, for
it was all I had. I suppose you haven't seen anything of it
"No, Father, but we will help you hunt"

"It is what I was going to ask you. Why, here it is!"
We hadn't noticed it; yet there it lay, right where Satan
stood when he began to melt--if he did melt and it wasn't a
delusioiL Father Peter picked it up and looked very much
surprised.

"It is mine," he said, "but not the contents. This is fat;
mine was flat; mine was light; this is heavy." He opened it;
it was stuffed as full as it could hold with gold coins. He
let us gaze our fill; and of course we did gaze, for we had
never seen so much money at one time before. All our mouths
came open to say "Satan did it!" but nothing came out There
it was, you see--we couldn't tell what Satan didn't want told;
he had said so himself.

"Boys, did you do this?"

It made us laugh. And it made him laugh, too, as soon as
he thought what a foolish question it was.

"Who has been here?"

Our mouths came open to answer, but stood so for a moment,
because we couldn't say "Nobody," for it wouldn't be true,
and the right word didn't seem to come; then I thought of
the right one, and said it:

"Not a human being."

"That is so," said the others, and let their mouths go shut.

"It is not so," said Father Peter, and looked at us very se-
verely. "I came by here a while ago, and there was no one
here, but that is nothing: some one has been here since. I
don't mean to say that the person didn't pass here before you
came, and I don't mean to say you saw him, but some one did
pass, that I know. On your honor--you saw no one?"

"Not a human being."

"That is sufficient; I know you are telling me the truth."
He began to count the money on the path, we on our Imees
eagerly helping to stack it in little piles.

"It's eleven hundred ducats odd!" he said. "Oh dear! if it
were only mine--and I need it so!" and his voice broke and
his lips quivered.

"It is yours, sir!" we all cried out at once, "every heller!"

"No--it isn't mine. Only four ducats are mine; the rest
. . . !" He fell to dreaming, poor old soul, and caressing
some the coins in his hands, and forgot where he was, sitting
there on his heels with his old gray head bare; it was pitiful
to see. "No," be said, waking up, "it isn't mine. I can't ac-
count for it. I think some enemy ... it must be a trap."

Nikolaus said: "Father Peter, with the exception of the as-
trologer you haven't a real enemy in the village--nor Marget,
either. And not even a half-enemy that's rich enough to
chance eleven hundred ducats to do you a mean turn, ask
you if that's so or not?"

He couldn't get around that argument, and it cheered him up.
"But it isn't mine, you see--it isn't mine, in any case."

He said it in a wistful way, like a person that wouldn't be
sorry, but glad, if anybody would contradict him.

"It is yours. Father Peter, and we are witness to it. Aren't
we, boys'

"Yes, we are--and we'll stand by it, too."

"Bless your hearts, you do almost persuade me; you do, in-
deed. If I had only a hundred-odd ducats of it! The house
is mortgaged for it, and we've no home for our beads if we
don't pay to-morrow. And that four ducats is all we've got
in

"It's yours, every bit of it, and you've got to take it--we are
bail that it's all right. Aren't we, Theodor? Aren't we, Seppi?"'

We two said yes, and Nikolaus stuffed the money back into the
shabby old wallet and made the owner take it. So he said he
would use two hundred of it, for his house was good enough
security for that, and would put the rest at interest til!
the rightful owner came for it; and on our side we must sign
a paper showing how he got the money--a paper to show to
the villagers as proof that he had not got out of his troubles
dishonestly.


4


It made immense talk next day, when Father Peter paid
Solomon Isaacs in gold and left the rest of the money with
him at interest. Also, there was a pleasant change; many
people called at the house to congratulate him, and a number'
of cool old friends became kind and friendly again; and, to
top all, Marget was invited to a party.

And there was no mystery; Father Peter told the whole cir-
cumstance just as it happened, and said be could not account
for it, only it was the plain hand of Providence, so far as he
could see.

One or two shook their heads and said privately it looked
more like the hand of Satan; and really that seemed a sur-
prisingly good guess for ignorant people like that. Some came
slyly buzzing around and tried to coax us boys to come out
and "tell the truth;" and promised they wouldn't ever tell,
but only wanted to know for their own satisfaction, because
the whole thing was so curious. They even wanted to buy the
secret, and pay money for it; and if we could have invented
something that would answer--but we couldn't; we hadn't the
ingenuity, so we had to let the chance go by, and it was a
pity.

We carried that secret around without any trouble, but the
other one, the big one, the splendid one, burned the very
vitals of us, it was so hot to get out and we so hot to let it
out and astonish people with it. But we had to keep it in; in
fact, it kept itself in. Satan said it would, and it did. We
went off every day and got to ourselves in the woods so that
we could talk about Satan, and really that was the only sub-
ject we thought of or cared anything about; and day and night
we watched for him and hoped he would come, and we got more
and more impatient all the time. We hadn't any interest in
the other boys any more, and wouldn't take part in their
games and enterprises. They seemed so tame, after Satan; and
their doings so trifling and commonplace after his adventures
in antiquity and the constellations, and his miracles and
meltings and explosions, and all that.

During the first day we were in a state of anxiety on account
of one thing, and we kept going to Father Peter's house on
one pretext or another to keep track of it That was the
gold coin; we were afraid it would crumble and turn to dust
like fairy money. If it did-- But it didn't. At the end of
the day no complaint had been made about h, so after that we
were satisfied that it was real gold, and dropped the anxiety
out of our minds.

There was a question which we wanted to ask Father Peter, and
finally we went there the second evening, a little diffidently,
after drawing straws, and I asked it as casually as I could,
though it did not sound as casual as I wanted, because I didn't
know how;

"What is the Moral Sense, sir?"

He looked down, surprised, over his great spectacles, and said,
"Why, it is the faculty which enables us to distinguish good
from evil."

It threw some light, but not a glare, and I was a little disap-
pointed, also to some degree embarrassed. He was waiting for me
to go on, so, in default of an3rthing else to say, I asked, "Is
it valuable?"

"Valuable? Heavens! lad, it is the one thing that lifts man a-
bove the beasts that perish and makes him heir to immortality!"

This d not remind me of anything further to say, so I got out,
with the other boys, and we went away with that indefinite sense
you have often had of being filled but not fatted. They wanted
me to explain, but I was tired.

We passed out through the parlor, and there was Marget at
the spinnet teaching Marie Lueger. So one of the deserting
pupils was back; and an influential one, too; the others
would follow. Marget jumped up and ran and thanked us again,
with tears in her eyes--this was the third time--for saving
her and her uncle from being turned into the street, and
we told her again we hadn't done it; but that was her way,
she never could be grateful enough for anything a person did
for her; so we let her have her say. And as we passed
through the garden, there was Wilhelm Meidling sitting there
waiting, for it was getting toward the edge of the evening,
and he would be asking Marget to take a walk along the river
with him when she was done with the lesson. He was a young
lawyer, and succeeding fairly well and working his way along,
little by little. He was very fond of Marget, and she of him.
He had not deserted along with the others, but had stood his
ground all through. His faithfulness was not lost on Marget
and her uncle. He hadnt so very much talent, but he was
handsome and good, and these are a kind of talents them'
selves and help dong. He asked us how the lesson was getting
along, and we told him it was about done. And maybe it was
so; we didn't know anything about it, but we judged it would
please him, and it did, and didn't cost us anything.


5


On the fourth day comes the astrologer from his crumbling
old tower up the valley, where he had heard the news, I
reckon. He had a private talk with us, and we told him what
we could, for we were mightily in dread of him. He sat there
studying and studying awhile to himself; then he asked:
"How many ducats did you say?"

"Eleven hundred and seven, sir."

Then he said, as if he were talking to himself: "It is very
singular. Yes...very strange. A curious coincidence." Then
he began to ask questions, and went over the whole ground
from the beginning, we answering. By and by he said: "Eleven
hundred and six ducats. It is a large sum."

"Seven," said Seppi, correcting him.

"Oh, seven, was it? Of course a ducat more or less isn't of
consequence, but you said eleven hundred and six before."

It would not have been safe for us to say he was mistaken,
but we knew he was. Nikolaus said, "We ask pardon for the
mistake, but we meant to say seven."

"Oh, it is no matter, lad; it was merely that I noticed the
discrepancy. It is several days, and you cannot be expected to
remember precisely. One is apt to be inexact when there is no
particular circumstance to impress the count upon the memory."

"But there was one, sir," said Seppi, eagerly.

"What was it, my son?" asked the astrologer, indifferently.

"First, we all counted the piles of coin, each in turn, and
all made it the same--eleven hundred and six. But I had
slipped one out, for fun, when the count began, and now I
slipped it back and said, 'I think there is a mistake--there
arc eleven hundred and seven; let us count again.' We did,
and of course I was right. They were astonished; then I told
how it came about."

The astrologer asked us if this was so, and we said it was.

"That settles it," he said. "I know the thief now. Lads, the
money was stolen."

Then he went away, leaving us very muph troubled, and
wondering what he could mean. In about an hour we found
out; for by that time it was all over the village that Father
Peter had been arrested for stealing a great sum of money
from the astrologer. Everybody's tongue was loose and going.
Many said it was not in Father Peter's character and must
a mistake; but the others shook their heads and said misery
and want could drive a suffering man to almost anything.
About one detail there were no differences; all agreed that
Father Peter's account of how the money came into his hands
was just about unbelievable--it had such an impossible look.
They said it might have come into the astrologer's hands in
some such way, but into Father Peter's, neverl Our characters
began to suffer now. We were Father Peter's only witnesses;
how much did he probably pay us to back up his fantastic
tale? People talked that kind of talk to us pretty freely and
frankly, and were full of scoffings when we begged them to
believe really we had told only the truth. Our parents were
harder on us than any one else. Our fathers said we were
disgracing our families, and they commanded us to purge our
selves of our lie, and there was no limit to their anger when
we continued to say we had spoken true. Our mothers cried
over us and begged us to give back our bribe and get back our
honest names and save our families from shame, and come
out and honorably confess. And at last we were so worried
and harassed that we tried to tell the whole thing, Satan and
all--but no, it wouldn't come out. We were hoping and longing
all the time that Satan would come and help us out of our
trouble, but there was no sign of him.

Within an hour after the astrologer's talk with us. Father
Peter was in prison and the money sealed up and in the hands
of the officers of the law. The money was in a bag, and Sol-
omon Isaacs said he had not touched it since he had counted
it; his oath was taken that it was the same money, and that
the amount was eleven hundred and seven ducats. Father Peter
claimed trial by the ecclesiastical court, but our other
priest, Father Adolf, said an ecclesiastical court hadn't
jurisdiction over a suspended priest. The bishop upheld him.
That settled it; the case would go to trial in the civil court.
The court would not sit for some time to come. Wilhelm Meidling
would be Father Peter's lawyer and do the best he could, of
course, but he told us privately that a weak case on his side
and all the power and prejudice on the other made the outlook
bad.

So Marget's new happiness died a quick death. No friends
came to condole with her, and none were expected; an unsig-
ned note withdrew her invitation to the party. There would
be no scholars to take lessons. How could she support her
self? She could remain in the house, for the mortgage was
paid off, though the government and not poor Solomon Isaacs
had the mortgage-money in its grip for the present. Old
Ursula, who was cook, chambermaid, housekeeper, laundress,
and everyrthlng else for Father Peter, and had been Marget's
nurse in earlier years, said God would provide. But she said
that from habit, for she was a good Christian. She meant to
help in the providing, to make sure, if she could find a way.

We boys wanted to go and see Marget and show friendliness
for her, but our parents were afraid of offending the
community and wouldn't let us. The astrologer was going
around inflaming everybody against Father Peter, and saying
he was an abandoned thief and had stolen eleven bunded
and seven gold ducats from him. He said he knew he was a
ef from that fact, for it was exactly the sum he had lost
and which Father Peter pretended he had "found."

In the afternoon of the fourth day after the catastrophe
old Ursula appeared at our house and asked for some washing
to do, and begged my mother to keep this secret, to save
Marget's pride, who would stop this project if she found it
out, yet Marget had not enough to eat and was growing weak.
Ursula was growing weak herself, and showed it; and she ate
of the food that was offered her like a starving person, but
could not be persuaded to carry any home, for Marget would
not eat charity food. She took some clothes down to the
stream to wash them, but we saw from the window that handl-
ing the bat was too much for her strength; so she was call-
ed back and a trifle of money offered her, which she was
afraid to take lest Marget should suspect; then she took it,
saying she would explain that she foimd it in the road. To
kp it from being a lie and damning her soul, she got me
to open it while she watched; then she went along by there
and found it, and exclaimed with surprise and joy, and pick-
ed it up and went her way. Like the rest of the village, she
could tell every-day lies fast enough and without taking any
precautions against fire and brimstone on their account; but
this was a new kind of lie, and it had a dangerous look because
she hadn't had any practice in it. After a week's practice
it wouldn't have given her any trouble. It is the way we
are made.

I was in trouble, for how would Marget live? Ursula could
not find a coin in the road every day--perhaps not even a
second one. And I was ashamed, too, for not having been near
Marget, and she so in need of friends; but that was my parents'
fault, not mine, and I couldn't help it.

I was walking along the path, feeling very downhearted,
when a most eery and tingling frening-up sensation went
rippling through me, and I was too glad for any words, for
I knew by that sign that Satan was by. I had noticed it be-
fore. Next moment he was alongside of me and I was telling
him all my trouble and what had been happening to Marget
and her uncle. While we were talking we turned a curve and
saw old Ursula resting in the shade of a tree, and she had a
lean stray kitten in her lap and was petting it. I asked her
where she got it, and she said it came out of the woods and
followed her; and she said it probably hadn't any mother or
any friends and she was going to take it home and take care
of it. Satan said:

"I understand you are very poor. Why do you want to add
another mouth to feed? Why don't you give it to some rich
person?"

Ursula bridled at this and said: "Perhaps you would like to
have it. You must be rich, with your fine clothes and quality
airs." Then she sniffed and said: "Give it to the rich--the
idea! The rich don't care for anybody but themselves; it's
only the poor that have feeling for the poor, and help them.
The poor and God. God will provide for this kitten."

"What makes you think so?"

Ursula's eyes snapped with anger. "Because I know it!" she
said. "Not a sparrow falls to the ground without His seeing
it."

"But it falls, just the same. What good is seeing it fall?"

Old Ursula's jaws worked, but she could not get any word
out for the moment, she was so horrified. When she got her
tongue she stormed out, "Go about your business, you puppy,
or I will take a stick to you!"

I could not speak, I was so scared. I knew that with his no-
tions about the human race Satan would consider it a matter
of no consequence to strike her dead, there being "plenty
more;" but my tongue stood still, I could give her no warning.
But nothing happened; Satan remained tranquil--tranquil
and indifferent. I suppose he could not be insulted by Ursula
any more than the king could be insulted by a tumble-bug.
The old woman jumped to her feet when she made her remark,
and did it as briskly as a young girl. It had been many
years since she had done the like of that. That was Satan's
influence; he was a fresh breeze to the weak and the sick,
wherever he came. His presence affected even the lean kitten,
and it skipped to the ground and began to chase a leaf. This
surprised Ursula, and she stood looking at the creature and
nodding her head wonderingly, her anger quite forgotten.

"What's come over it?" she said. "Awhile ago it could
hardly walk."

"You have not seen a kitten of that breed before," said
Satan.

Ursula was not proposing to be friendly with the mocking
stranger, and she gave him an ungentle look and retorted:
"Who asked you to come here and pester me, I'd like to
know? And what do you know about what I've seen and what
I haven't seen?"

"You haven't seen a kitten with the hair-spines on its
tongue pointing to the front, have you?"

"No--nor you, either."

"Well, examine this one and see."

Ursula was become pretty spry, but the kitten was spryer,
and she could not catch it, and had to give it up. Then
Satan said:

"Give it a name, and maybe it will come."

Ursula tried several names, but the kitten was not inter-
"Call it Agnes. Try that."

The creature answered to the name and came. Ursula ex-
amined its tongue. "Upon my word, it's true!" she said.
"I have not seen this kind of a cat before. Is it yours?"

"No."

"Then how did you know its name so pat?"

"Because all cats of that breed are named Agnes; they will
not answer to any other."

Ursula was impressed. "It is the most wonderful thing!"
Then a shadow of trouble came into her face, for her super-
stitions were aroused, and she reluctantly put the creature
down, saying: "I suppose I must let it go; I am not afraid
--no, not exactly that, though the priest--well. I've heard
people--indeed, many people...And, besides, it is quite well
now and can take care of itself." She sighed, and turned to
go, murmuring: "It is such a pretty one, too, and would be
such company--and the house is so sad and lonesome these
troubled days...Miss Marget so mournful and just a shadow,
and the old master shut up in jail."

"It seems a pity not to keep it," said Satan.

Ursula turned quickly--just as if she were hoping some
one would encourage her.

"Why?" she asked, wistfully.

"Because this breed brings luck."

"Does it? Is it true? Young man, do you know it to be true?
How do it bring luck?"

"Well, it brings money, anyway."

Ursula looked disappointed. "Money? A cat bring money?
The idea! You could never sell it here; people do not buy
cats here; one can't even give them away." She turned to go.

"I don't mean sell it. I mean have an income from it. This
kind is called the Lucky Cat. Its owner finds four silver
groschen in his pocket every morning."

I saw the indignation rising in the old woman's face. She
was insulted. This boy was making fun of her. That was her
thought. She thrust her hands into her pockets and straight-
ened up to give him a piece of her mind. Her temper was all
up, and hot. Her mouth came open and let out three words of
a bitter sentence,...then it fell silent and the anger in her
face turned to surprise or wonder or fear, or something, and
she slowly brought out her hands from her pockets and opened
them and held them so. In one was my piece of money, in the
other lay four silver groschen. She gazed a little while,
perhaps to see if the groschen would vanish away; then she
said, fervently:

"It's true--it's true--and I'm ashamed and beg forgiveness,
O dear master and benefactor!" And she ran to Satan and
kissed his hand, over and over again, according to the Austrian
custom.

In her heart she probably believed it was a witch-cat and an
agent of the Devil; but no matter, it was all the more certain
to be able to keep its contract and furnish a daily good living
for the family, for in matters of finance even the piousest
of our peasants would have more confidence in an arrangement
with the Devil than with an archangel. Ursula started home-
ward, with Agnes in her arms, and I said I wished I had her
privilege of seeing Marget.

Then I caught my breath, for we were there.There in the
parlor, and Marget standing looking at us, astonished. She
was feeble and pale, but I knew that those conditions would
not last in Satan's atmosphere, and it turned out so. I in-
troduced Satan--that is, Philip Traum--and we sat down and
talked. There was no constraint We were simple folk, in our
village, and when a stranger was a pleasant person we were
soon friends. Marget wondered how we got in without her
hearing us. Traum said the door was open, and we walked
in and waited until she should turn around and greet us. This
was not true; no door was open; we entered through the walls
or the roof or down the chimney, or somehow; but no matter,
what Satan wished a person to believe, the person was sure
to believe, and so Marget was quite satisfied with that ex-
planation. And then the main part of her mind was on Trauni,
anyway; she couldn't keep her eyes off him, he was so beau-
tiful. That gratified me, and made me proud. I hoped he would
show off some, but he didn't. He seemed only interested in
being friendly and telling lies. He said he was an orphan.
That made Marget pity him. The water came into her eyes. He
said he had never known his mamma; she passed away while
he was a young thing; and said his papa was in shattered
health, and had no property to speak of--in fact, none of any
earthly value--but he had an uncle in business down in the
tropics, and he was very well off and had a monopoly, and it
was from this uncle that he drew his support. The very men-
tion of a kind uncle was enough to remind Marget of her own,
and her eyes filled again. She said she hoped their two un-
cles would meet, some day. It made me shudder. Philip said
he hoped so, too; and that made me shudder again.

"Maybe they will," said Marget. "Does your uncle travel
much?"

"Oh yes, he goes all about; he has business everywhere."

And so they went on chatting, and poor Marget forgot her
sorrow for one little while, anyway. It was probably the
only really bright and cheery hour she had known lately. I
saw she liked Philip, and I knew she would. And when he told
her he was studying for the ministry I could see that she
liked him better than ever. And then, when he promised to
get her admitted to the jail so that she could see her uncle,
that was the capstone. He said he would give the guards a lit-
tle present, and she must always go in the evening after
dark, and say nothing, "but just show this paper and pass
in, and show it again when you come out"--and he scribbled
some queer marks on the paper and gave it to her, and she
was ever so thankful, and rit away was in a fever for the
sun to go down; for in that old, cruel time prisoners were not
allowed to see their friends, and sometimes they spent years
in the jails without ever seeing a friendly face. I judged
that the marks on the paper were an enchantment, and that the
guards would not know what they were doing, nor have any me-
mory of it afterward; and that was indeed the way of it. Ur-
sula put her head in at the door now and said:

"Supper's ready, miss." Then she saw us and looked fright-
ened, and motioned me to come to her, which I did, and she
asked if we had told about the cat. I said no, and she was
relieved, and said please don't; for if Miss Marget knew,
she would think it was an unholy cat and would send for a
priest and have its gifts all purified out of it, and then
there wouldn't be any more dividends. So I said we wouldn't
tell, and she was satisfied. Then I was beginmng to say
good-by to Marget, but Satan interrupted and said, ever so
politely--well, I don't remember just the words, but anyway
he as good as invited himself to supper, and me, too. Of
course Marget was miserably embarrassed, for she had no
reason to suppose there would be half enough for a sick bird.
Ursula heard him, and she came straight into the room, not
a bit pleased. At first she was astonished to see Marget
looking so fresh and rosy, and said so; then she spoke
up in her native tongue which was Bohemian, and said--as
I learned afterward--

"Send him away. Miss Marget; there's not victuals enough."

Before Marget could speak, Satan had the word, and was talk-
ing back to Ursula in her own language--which was a surprise
to her, and for her mistress, too. He said, "Didn't I see you
down the road awhile ago?"

"Yes, sir."

"Ah, that pleases me; I see you remember me." He stepped
to her and whispered: "I told you it is a Lucky Cat. Don't
be troubled; it will provide."

That sponged the slate of Ursula's feelings clean of its
anxieties, and a deep, financial joy shone in her eyes. The
cat's value was augmenting. It was getting full time for Marget
to take some sort of notice of Satan's invitation, and she
did it in the best way, the honest way that was natural to her.
She said she had little to offer, but that we were welcome if
we would share it with her.

We had supper in the kitchen, and Ursula waited at table.
A small fish was in the frying-pan, crisp and brown and
tempting, and one could see that Marget was not expecting
such respectable food as this. Ursula brought it, and Marget
divided it between Satan and me, declining to take any of
it herself; and was beginning to say she did not care for
fish to-day, but she did not fih the remark. It was because
she noticed that another fish had appeared in the pan. She
looked surprised, but did not say anything. She probably
meant to inquire of Ursula about this later. There were other
surprises: flesh and game and wines and fruits--things which
had been strangers in that house lately; but Marget made no
exclamations, and now even lodged unsurprised, which was
Satan's influence, of course. Satan talked rit along, and was
entertaining, and made the time pass pleasantly and cheerful-
ly; and although he told a good many lies, it was no harm
in him, fm he was only an angel and did not know any better.
They do not know right from wrong; I knew this, because
I remembered what he bad said about it He got on the good
side of Ursula. He praised her to Marget, confidentially,
but speaking just loud enough for Ursula to hear. He said
she was a fine woman, and he hoped some day to bring her and
his uncle together. Very soon Ursula was mincing and simper-
ing around in a ridiculous girly way, and smoothing out her
gown and prinking at herself like a foolish old hen, and
all the time pretending she was not hearing what Satan was
saying. I was ashamed, for it showed us to be what Satan
considered us, a silly race and trivial. Satan said his uncle
entertained a great deal, and to have a clever woman presi-
ding over the festivities would double the attractions of
the place.

"But your uncle is a gentleman, isn't he?" asked Marget.

"Yes," said Satan indifferently; "some even call him a
Prince, out of compliment, but he is not bigoted; to him
personal merit is everything, rank nothing."

My hand was hanging down by my chair; Agnes came along
and licked it; by this act a secret was revealed. I
started to say, "It is all a mistake; this is just a com-
mon, ordinary cat; the hair-needles cm her tongue point
inward, not outward." But the words did not come, because
they couldn't. Satan smiled upon me, and I understood.

When it was dark Marget took food and wine and fruit, in a
basket, and hurried away to the jail, and Satan and I walked
toward my home. I was thinking to myself that I should like
to see what the inside of the jail was like; Satan overheard
the thought, and the next moment we were in the jail. We
were in the torture-chamber, Satan said. The rack was there,
and the other instruments, and there was a smoky lantern or
two hanging on the walls and helping to make the place look
dim and dreadful. There were people there--and executioners
--but as they took no notice of us, it meant that we were
invisible. A young man lay bound, and Satan said he was
suspected of being a heretic, and the executioners were about
to inquire into it. They asked the man to confess to the
charge, and be said he could not, for it was not true. Then
they drove splinter after splinter under his nails, aod he
shrieked with the pain. Satan was not disturbed, but I could
not endure it, and had to be whisked out of there. I was faint
and sick, but the fresh air revived me, and we walked toward
my home. I said it was a brutal thing.

"No, it was a human thing. You should not insult the brutes
by such a misuse of that word; they have not deserved it,"
and he went on talking like that. "It is like your paltry
race--always lying, always claiming virtues which it hasn't
got, always denying them to the higher animals, which alone
possess them. No brute ever does a cruel thing--that is the
monopoly of those with the Moral Sense. When a brute inflicts
pain he does it innocently; it is not wrong; for him there
is no such thing as wrong. And he does not inflict pain for
the pleasure of inflicting it--only man does that. Inspired
by that mongrel Moral Sense of his! A sense whose function
is to distinguish between right and wrong, with liberty to
choose which of them be will do. Now what advantage can he
get out of that? He is always choosing, and in nine cases
out of ten he prefers the wrong. There shouldn't be any
wrong; and without the Moral Sense there couldn't be any.
And yet he is such an unreasoning creature that he is not
able to perceive that the Moral Sense degrades him to the
bottom layer of animated beings and is a shameful posses-
sion. Are you feeling better? Let me show you something."


6


In a moment we were in a French village. We walked
through a great factory of some sort, where men and women
and little children were toiling in heat and dirt and a fog
of dust; and they were clothed in rags, and drooped at their
work, for they were worn and half starved, and weak and
drowsy. Satan said:

"It is some more Moral Sense. The proprietors are rich, and
very holy; but the wage they pay to these poor brothers and
sisters of theirs is only enough to keep them from dropping
dead with hunger. The work-hours are fourteen per day, winter
and summer--from six in the morning till eit at night--little
children and all. And they walk to and from the pigsties which
they inhabit--four miles each way, through mud and slush,
rain, snow, sleet, and storm, daily, year in and year out.
They get four hours of sleep. They kennel together, three
families in a room, in unimaginable filth and stench; and
disease comes, and they die off like flies. Have they commit-
ted a crime, these mangy things? No. What have they done, that
they are punished so? Nothing at all, except getting themselves
bom into your foolish race. You have seen how they treat a
misdoer there in the jail; now you see how they treat the
innocent and the worthy. Is your race logical? Are these
ill-smelling innocents better off than that heretic? Indeed,
no; his punishment is trivial compared with theirs. They broke
him on the wheel and smashed him to rags and pulp after we
left, and he is dead now, and free of your precious race;
but these poor slaves here--why, they have been dying for
years, and some of them will not escape from life for years
to come. It is the Moral Sense which teaches the factory pro-
prietors the difference between right and wrong--you perceive
the result. They think themselves better than dogs. Ah, you
are such an illogical, unreasoning race! And paltry--oh,
unspeakably!"

Then he dropped all seriousness and just overstrained him-
self making fun of us, and deriding our pride in our warlike
deeds, our great heroes, our imperishable fames, our mighty
kings, our ancient aristocracies, our venerable history--and
laughed and laughed till it was enough to make a person sick
to hear him; and finally he sobered a little and said, "But,
after all, it is not all ridiculous; there is a sort of pathos
about it when one remembers how few are your days, how
childish your pomps, and what shadows you are!"

Presently all things vanished suddenly from my sight, and
I knew what it meant. The next moment we were walking
altmg in our village; and down toward the river I saw the
twinkling lights of the Golden Stag. Then in the dark I
heard a joyful cry:

"He's come again!"

It was Seppi Wohlmeyer. He had felt his blood leap and his
spirits rise in a way that could mean only one thing, and
he knew Satan was near, although it was too dark to see him.
He came to us, and we walked along together, and Seppi pour-
ed out his gladness like water. It was as if he were a love-
r and had found his sweetheart who had been lost Seppi was
a smart and animated boy, and had enthusiasm and expression,
and was a contrast to Nikolaus and me. He was full of the
last new mystery, now--the disappearance of Hans Oppert,
the village loafer. People were beginning to be curious
about it, he said. He did not say anxious--curious was
the right word, and strong enough. No one had seen Hans
for a couple of days.

"Not since he did that brutal thing, you know," he said.

"What brutal thing?" It was Satan that asked.

"Well, he is always clubbing his dog, which is a good dog,
and his only friend, and is faithful, and loves him, and
does no one any harm; and two days ago he was at it again,
just for nothing--just for pleasure--and the dog was howling
and begging, and Thor and I begged, too, but he threatened
us, and struck the dog again with all his mit and knocked
one of his eyes out, and he said to us. There, I hope you
are satisfied now; that's what you have got for him by
your damned meddling'--and he laughed, the heartless brute."
Seppi's voice trembled with pity and anger. I guessed
what Satan would say, and he said it.

"There is that misused word again--that shabby slander.

Brutes do not act like that, but only men."

"Well, it was inhuman, anyway."

"No, it wasn't, Seppi; it was human--quite distinctly hu-
man. It is not pleasant to hear you libel the higher ani-
mals by attributing to them dispositions which they are
free from, and which are found nowhere but in the human
heart None of the higher animals is tainted with the dis-
ease called the Moral Sense. Purify your language, Seppi;
drop those lying phrases out of it."

He spoke pretty sternly--for him--and I was sorry I
hadn't warned Seppi to be more particular about the word he
used. I knew how he was feeling. He would not want to ofthe
fend Satan; he would rather offend all his kin. There was an
uncomfortable silence, but relief soon came, for that poor
dog came along now, with his eye hanging down, and went
straight to Satan, and began to moan and mutter brokenly,
and Satan began to answer in the same way, and it was plain
that they were talking together in the dog language. We all
sat down in the grass, in the moonlight, for the clouds were
breaking away now, and Satan took the dog's head in his lap
and put the eye back in its place, and the dog was comfor-
table, and he wagged his tail and licked Satan's hand, and
looked thankful and said the same; I knew he was saying it,
though I did not understand the words. Then the two talked
together a bit, and Satan said:

"He says his master was drunk."

"Yes, he was," said we.

"And an hour later he fell over the precipice there beyond
the Cliff Pasture."

"We know the place; it is three miles from here."

"And the dog has been often to the village, begging people
to go there, but he was only driven away and not listened to."

We remembered it, but hadn't understood what he wanted.

"He only wanted help for the man who had misused him,
and he thought only of that, and has had no food nor sought
any. He has watched by his master two nights. What do you
thiol: of your race? Is heaven reserved for it, and this dog
ruled out, as your teachers tell you? Can your race add any-
thing to this dog's stock of morals and magnanimities?" He
spoke to the creature, who jumped up, eager and happy, and
apparently ready for orders and impatient to execute them.
"Get some men; go with the dog--he will show you that car-
rion; and take a priest along to arrange about insurance,
for death is near."

With the last word he vanished, to our sorrow and disap-
pointment. We got the men and Father Adolf, and we saw the
man die. Nobody cared but the dog; he mourned and grieved,
and licked the dead face, and could not be comforted.
We buried him where he was, and without a coffin, for he
had no money, and no friend but the dog. If we had been an
hour earlier the priest would have been in time to send that
poor creature to heaven, but now he was gone down into
the awful fires, to burn forever. It seemed such a pity that
in a world where so many people have difficulty to put in
their time, one little hour could not have been spared for
this poor creature who needed it so much, and to whom it
would have made the difference between eternal joy and eternal
pain. It gave an appalling idea of the value of an hour, and
I thought I could never waste one again without remorse and
terror. Seppi was depressed and grieved, and said it must be
so much better to be a dog and not run such awful risks. We
took this one home with us and kept him for our own. Seppi
had a very good thought as we were walking along, and it
cheered us up and made us feel much better. He said the dog
had forgiven the man that had wronged him so, and maybe
God would accept that absolution.

There was a very dull week, now, for Satan did not come,
nothing much was going on, and we boys could not venture
to go and see Marget, because the nights were moonlit and
our parents might find us out if we tried. But we came across
Ursula a couple of times taking a walk in the meadows beyond
the river to air the cat, and we learned from her that
things were going well. She had natty new clothes on and
bore a prosperous look. The four groschen a day were arriv-
ing without a break, but were not being spent for food and
wine and such things--the cat attended to all that.

Marget was enduring her forsakenness and isolation fairly
well, all things considered, and was cheerful by help of
Wilhelm Meidling. She spent an hour or two every night in the
jail with her uncle, and had fattened him up with the cat's
contributions. But she was curious to know more about Philip
Traum, and hoped I would bring him again. Ursula was curious
about him herself, and asked a good many questions
about his uncle. It made the boys laugh, for I had told them
the nonsense Satan had been stuffing her with. She got no
satisfaction out of us, our tongues being tied.

Ursula gave us a small item of information: money being
plenty now, she had taken on a servant to help about the
house and run errands. She tried to tell it in a commonplace,
matter-of-course way, but she was so set up by it and so vain
of it that her pride in it leaked out pretty plainly. It was
beautiful to see her veiled delight in this grandeur, poor
old thing, but when we heard the name of the servant we won-
dered if she had been altogether wise; for although we were
young, and often thoughtless, we had fairly good perception
on some matters. This boy was Gottfried Narr, a dull, good
creature. With no harm in him and nothing against him person-
ally; still, he was under a cloud, and properly so, for it
had not been six months since a social blight had mildewed
the family --his grandmother had been burned as a witch. When
that kind of a malady is in the blood it does not always come
out with just one burning. Just now was not a good time for
Ursula and Marget to be having dealings with a member of
such a family, for the witch-terror had risen higher during
the past year than it had ever reached in the memory of the
oldest villagers. The mere mention of a witch was almost
enough to frighten os out of our wits. This was natural
enou because of late years there were more kinds of witches
than there used to be; in old times it had been only old wo-
men, but of late years they were of all ages--even children
of eight and nine; it was getting so that anybody might turn
out to be a familiar of the Devil--age and sex hadn't any-
thing to do with it In our little region we had tried to
extirpate the witches, but the more of them we burned the
more of the breed rose up in their places.

Once, in a school for girls only ten miles away, the teachers
found that the back of one of the girls was all red and in-
flamed, and they were greatly frightened, believing it to be
the Devil's marks. The girl was scared, and begged them not
to denounce her, and said it was only fleas; but of course it
would not do to let the matter rest there. All the girls were
examined, and eleven out of the fifty were badly marked,
the rest less so. A commission was appointed, but the eleven
only cried for their mothers and would not confess. Then they
were shut up, each by herself, in the dark, and put on black
bread and water for ten days and nights; and by that time
they were haggard and wild, and their eyes were dry and
they did not cry any more, but only sat and mumbled, and
would not take the food. Then one of them confessed, and
said they had often ridden through the air on broomsticks to
the witches' Sabbath, and in a bleak place high up in the
mountains had danced and drunk and caroused with several
hundred other witches and the Evil One, and all had con-
ducted themselves in a scandalous way and had reviled the
priests and blasphemed God. That is what she said--not in
narrative form, for she was not able to remember any of the
details without having them called to her mind one after the
other; but the commission did that, for they knew just what
questions to ask, they being all written down for the use of
witch-commissioners two centuries before. They asked, "Did
you do so and so?" and she always said yes, and looked weary
and tired, and took no interest in it And so when the other
ten heard that this one confessed, they confessed, too, and
answered yes to the questions. Then they were burned at the
stake all together, which was just and right; and everybody
went from the countryside to see it I went, too; but when
I saw that one of them was a bonny, sweet girl I used to
play with, and looked so pitiful there chained to the stake,
and her mother crying over her and devouring her with kisses
and dinging around her neck, and saying, "Oh, my God! oh,
my God!" it was too dreadful, and I went away.

It was bitter cold weather when Gottfried's grandmother
was burned. It was charged that she had cured bad head
aches by kneading the person's head and neck with her fin-
gers--as she said--but really by the Devil's help, as ever-
ybody knew. They were going to examine her, but she stopped
them, and confessed straight ofl that her power was from
the Devil. So they appointed to burn her next morning, early,
in our market-square. The officer who was to prepare the fire
was there first, and prepared it. She was there next--brought
by the constables, who left her and went to fetch another
witch. Her family did not come with her. They might be rev-
iled, maybe stoned, if the people were excited. I came, and
gave her an apple. She was squatting at the fire, warming
herself and waiting; and her old lips and hands were biue with
the cold. A stranger came next. He W'as a traveler, passing
through; and he spoke to her gently, and, seeing nobody but
me there to hear, said he was sorry for her. And he asked if
what she coressed was true, and she said no. He looked sur-
prised and still more sorry then, and asked her:

"Then why did you confess?"

"I am old and very poor," she said, "and I work for my liv-
ing. There was no way but to confess. If I hadn't they might
have set me free. That would ruin me, for no one would forget
that I had been suspected of being a witch, and so I would
get no more work, and wherever I went they would set the
dogs on me. In a little while I would starve. The fire is
best; it is soon over. You have been good to me, you two,
and I thank you."

She snuggled closer lo the fire, and put out her hands to
w'arm them, the snow-flakes descending soft and still on her
old gray head and making it white and whiter. The crowd
was gathering now, and an egg came flying and struck her in
the eye, and broke and ran down her face. There was a laugh
at that.

I told Satan all about the eleven girls and the old woman,
once, but it did not afleci him. He only said it was the
human race, and what the human race did was of no conse-
quence. And he said he had seen it made; and it was not made
of clay; it was made of mud--part of it was, anyway. I knew
what he meant by that--the Moral Sense. He saw the thought
in my head, and it tickled him and made him laugh. Then he
called a bullock out of a pasture and petted it and talked
with it, and said:

"There--he wouldn't drive children mad with hunger and
fright and loneliness, and then burn them for confessing to
things invented for them which had never happened. And
neither would he break the hearts of innocent, poor old
women and make them afraid to trust themselves among their
own race; and he would not insult them in their death-agony.
For he is not besmirched with the Moral Sense, but is as the
angels are, and knows no wrong, and never does it"

Lovely as he was, Satan could be cruelly offensive when he
chose; and he always chose when the human race was brought
to his attention. He always turned up his nose at it, and
nevor had a kind word for it.

Well, as I was saying, we boys doubted if it was a good
time for Ursula to be hiring a member of the Narr family.
We were right When the people found it out they were nat'
urally indignant And, moreover, since Marget and Ursula
hadn't enough to eat themselves, where was the money coming
from to feed another mouth? That is what they wanted to know;
and in order to find out they stopped avoiding Gottfried
and began to seek his society and have sociable conversa-
tions with him. He was pleased--not thinking any harm and
not seeing the trap--and so he talked innocenfly along, and
was no discreeter than a cow.

"Money!" he said; "they've got plenty of it. They pay me
two groschen a week, besides my keep. And they live on the
fat of the land, I can tell you; the prince himself can't
beat their table."

This astonishing statement was conveyed by the astrologer
to Father Adolf on a Sunday morning when he was returning
from mass. He was deeply moved, and said:

"This must be looked into."

He said there must be witchcraft at the bottom of it, and
told the villagers to resume relations with Marget and Ur-
sula in a private and unostentatious way, and keep both
eyes open. They were told to keep their own counsel, and not
rouse the suspicions of the household. The villagers were at
first a bit reluctant to enter such a dreadful place, but the
priest said they would be under his protection while there,
and no harm could come to them, particularly if they carried
a trifle of holy water along and kept their beads and crosses
handy. This satisfied them and made them willing to go; envy
and malice made the baser sort even eager to go.

And so poor Marget began to have company again, and was
as pleased as a cat. She was like 'most anybody else--just
human, and happy in her prosperities and not averse from
showing them off a little; and she was humanly grateful to
have the warm shoulder turned to her and be smiled upon by
her friends and the village again; for of all the hard things
to bear, to be cut by your neighbors and left in contemptuous
solitude is maybe the hardest.

The bars were down, and we could all go there now, and
we did--our parents and all--day after day. The cat began
to strain hmelf. She provided the of everything for those
companies, and in abundance--among them many a dish and
many a, wine which they had not tasted before and which
they had not even heard of except at second-hand from the
prince's servaits. And the tableware was much above ordin-
ary, too.

Marget was troubled at times, and pursued Ursula with
questions to an uncomfortable degree; but Ursula stood her
ound and stuck to it that it was Providence, and said no
word about the cat. Marget knew that nothing was impossible
to Providence, but she could not help having doubts that this
effort was from there, though she was afraid to say so, lest
disaster come of it. Witchcraft occurred to her, but she put
the thought aside, for this was before Gottfried joined the
household, and she knew Ursula was pious and a bitter hater
of witches. By the time Gottfried arrived Providence was
established, unshakably intrenched, and getting all the gra-
titude. The cat made no murmur, but went on composedly im-
proving in style and prodigality by experience.

In any community, big or little, there is always a fair pro-
portion of people who are not malicious or unkind by nature,
and who never do unkind things except when they are overmast-
ered by fear, or when their self-interest is greatly in danger,
or some such matter as that. Eseldorf had its proportion
of such people, and ordinarily their good and gentle influence
was felt, but these were not ordinary times--on account
of the witch-dread--and so we did not seem to have any
gentle and compassionate hearts left, to speak of. Every
person was frightened at the unaccountable state of things at
Marget's house, not doubting that witchcraft was at the bot-
tom of it, and fright frenzied their reason. Naturally there
were some who pitied Marget and Ursula for the danger that
was gathering about them, but naturally they did not say so;
it would not have been safe. So the others had it all their
own way, and there was none to advise the ignorant girl and
the foolish woman and warn them to modify their doings.
We boys wanted to warn them, but we backed down when it
came to the pinch, being afraid. We found that we were not
manly enough nor brave enough to do a generous action when
there was a chance that it could get us into trouble. Neither
of us confessed this poor spirit to the others, but did as
other people would have done--dropped the subject and talked
about something else. And I knew we all felt mean, eating
and drinking Marget's fine things along with those companies
of spies, and petting her and complimenting her with the
rest, and seeing with self-reproach how foolishly happy she
was, and never saying a word to put her on her guard. And,
indeed, she was happy, and as proud as a princess, and so
grateful to have friends again. And all the Ume these people
were watching with all their eyes and reporting all they saw
to Father Adolf.

But he couldn't make head mr tail of the situation. There
must be an enchanter somewhere on the premises, but who
was it? Marget was not seen to do any jugglery, nor was
Ursula, nor yet Gottfried; and still the wines and dainties
never ran short, and a guest could not call for a thing and
not get it. To produce these effects was usual enough with
witches and enchanters--that part of it was not new; but to
do it without any incantations, or even any rumblings or
earthquakes or lightnings or apparitions--that was new,
novel, wholly irregular. There was nothing in the books
like this. Enchanted things were always unreal. Gold turned to
dirt in an unenchanted atmosphere, food withered away and
vanished. But this test failed in the present case. The spies
brought samples: Father Adolf prayed over them, exorcised
them, but it did no good; they remained sound and real, they
yielded to natural decay only, and took the usual time to do
it.

Father Adolf was not merely puzzled, he was also exasper-
ated; for these evidences very nearly convinced him--pri-
vately--that there was no witchcraft in the matter. It did
not wholly convince him, for this could be a new kind of
witchcraft There was a way to find out as to this: if this
prodigal abundance of provender was not brought in from the
outside, but produced on the premises, there was witchcraft,
sure.


7


Marget announced a party, and invited forty people; the
date for it was seven days away. This was a fine opportunity.
Marget's house stood by itself, and it could be easily watched.
All the week it was watched night and day, Marget's household
went out and in as usual, but they carried nothing in
their hands, and neither they nor others brought anything to
the house. This was ascertained. Evidently rations for forty
people were not being fetched. If they were furnished any
sustenance it would have to be made on the premises. It was
true that Marget went out with a basket every evening, but
the spies ascertained that she always brought it back empty.

The guests arrived at noon and ed the place. Father Adolf
followed; also, after a little, the astrologer, without invi-
tation. The spies had informed him that never at the back
nor the front had any parcels been brought in. He entered,
and found the eating and drinking going on finely, and every
thing progressing in a lively and festive way. He glanced a-
round and perceived that many of the cooked delicacies
and all of the native and foreign fruits were of a perishable
character, and he also recognteed that these were fresh and
perfect. No apparitions, no incantations, no thunder. That set-
tled it. This was witchcraft. And not only that, but of a new
kind--a kind never dreamed of before. It was a prodigious
power, an illustrious power; he resolved to discover its se-
cret. The announcement of it would resound throughout the
world, penrate to the remotest lands, paralyze the naticms
with amazement--and carry his name with it and make
him renowned forever. It was a wonderful piece of luck, a
splendid piece of luck; the glory of it made him dizzy.

All the house made room for him; Marget politely seated
him; Ursula ordered Gottfried to bring a special table for
him. Then she decked it and furnish it and asked for
his orders.

"Bring me what you will," he said.

The two servants brought supplies from the pantry, together
with white wine and red--a bottle of each. The astrologer,
who very likely had never seen such delicacies before,
poured out a beaker of red wine, drank it off, poured an-
other, then began to eat with a grand appetite.

I was not expecting Satan, for it was more than a week
since I had seen or heard of him, but now he came in--I
knew it by the feel, though people were in the way and I
could not see him. I heard him apologizing for intruding;
and he was going away, but Marget urged him to stay, and
he thanked her and stayed. She brout him along, introducing
him to the girls, and to Meidling, and to some of the
elders; and there was quite a rustle of whispers; "It's the
yoti stranger we hear so much about and can't get sight of,
he is away so much." "Dear, dear, but he is beautiful--what
is his name?" "Philip Traum." "Ah, it fits him!" (You see,
"Traum" is German for "Dream.") "What does he do?" "Stud-
ying fm- the ministry, they say." "His face is his fortune-'
he'll be a cardinal some day." "Where is his home?" "Away
down somewhere in the tropics, they say--has a rich uncle
down there." And so on. He made his way at once; everybody
was anxious to know him and talk with Uol Everybody noticed
how cool and fresh it was, all of a suddoi, and wondered
at it, for they could see that the sun was beating down
the same as before, outside, and the sky was clear of clouds,
but no one guessed the reason, of course.

The astrologer had drunk his second beaker; he poured out
a third. He set the bottle down, and by accident overturned
it. He seized it before much was spilled, and held it Up
to the light, saying, "What a pity--it is royal wine." Then
his face lifted with joy or triumph, or something, and he
said, "Quick! Bring a bowl!"

It was brought--a four-quart one. He took up that two'
pint bottle and began to pour; went on pouring, the red
liquor gurgling and gushing into the white bowl and rising
higher and higher up its sides, everybody staring and holding
his breath--and presently the bowl was full to the brim.

"Look at the bottle," he said, holding it up; "it is full
yet!" I glanced at Satan, and in that moment he vanished.
Then Father Adolf rose up, flushed and excited, crossed
himself, and began. to thunder in his great voice, "This
house is bewitched and accursed!" People began to cry and
shriek and crowd toward the door. "I summon this detected
houshold to--"

His words were cut off short. His face became red, then
purple, but he could not utter another sound. Then I saw
Satan, a transparent film, melt into the astrologer's body;
then the astrologer put up his hand, and apparently in his
own voice said, "Wait--remain where you are." All stopped
where they sto. "Bring a funnel!" Ursula brought it, trembling
and scared, and he stuck it in the bottle and took up
the great bowl and began to pour the wine back, the people
gazing and dazed with astonishment, for they knew the botfle
was already full before he began. He emptied the whole of
the bowl into the bottle, then smiled out over the room,
chuckled, and said, indifferently: "It is nothing--anybody
can do itl With my powers I can even do much more."

A frightened cry burst out everywhere. "Oh, my God, he is
possessed!" and there was a tumultuous rush for the door
which swiftly emptied the house of all who did not belong
in it except us boys and Meidling. We boys knew the secret,
and would have told it if we could, but we couldn't. We were
very thankful to Satan for furnishing that good help at the
needful time.

Marget was pale, and crying; Meidling looked kind of pet-
rified; Ursula the same;, but Gottfried was the worst--he
couldn't stand, he was so weak and scared. For he was of a
witch family, you know, and it would be bad for him to be
suected. Agnes came loafing in, looking pious and unaware,
and wanted to rub up against Ursula and be petted, but
Ursula was afraid of hdr and shrank away from her,
but pretending she was not meaning any incivility, for she
knew very well it wouldn't answer to have strained relations
with that kind of a cat. But we boys took Agnes and petted
her, for Satan would not have befriended her if he had not
had a good opinion of her, and that was indorsement enough
for us. He seemed to trust anytbing that hadn't the Moral
Sense.

Outside, the guests, panic-stricken, scattered in every
direction and fled in a pitiable state of terror; and such
a tumult as they made with their running and sobbing and
shrieking and shouting that soon all the village came flock-
ing from their houses to see what had happened, and they
thronged the street and shouldered and jostled one another
in excitement and fright; and then Father Adolf appeared,
and they fell apart in two walls like the cloven Sea, and
presently down this lane the astrologer came striding and
mumbling, and where he passed the lanes surged back in
packed masses, and fell silent with awe, and their eyes
stared and their breasts heaved, and several women fainted;
and when he was gone by the crowd swarmed together and
followed him at a distance, talking excitedly and asking
questions and finding out the facts. Finding out the facts
and passing them on to others, with improvements--improve-
ments which soon enlarged the bowl of wine to a barrel, and
made the one bottle hold it all and yet remain empty to the
last.

When the astrologer reached the market-square he went
straight to a juggler, fantastically dressed, who was keep
ing three brass balls in the air, and took th from him and
faced around upon the approaching crowd and said: "This
poor clown is ignorant of his art. Come forward and see
an expert perform."

So saying, he tossed the balls up one after another and set
them whirling in a slender bright oval in the air, and added
another, th another and another, and soon--no one seeing
whence he got thoem--adding, adding, adding, the oval
lengthening all the time, his hand moving so swiftly that they
were just a web or a blur and not distinguishable as hands;
and such as counted said there were now a hundred balls in
the air. The spinning great oval reached up twenty feet in the
air and was a shining and glinting and wonderful sight Then
he folded his arms and told the balls to go on spinning with-
out his help--and they did it After a couple of minutes he
said, "There, that will do," and the oval broke and came
crashing down, and the balls scattered abroad and rolled
every whither. And wherever one of them came the people
fell back in dread, and no one would touch it It made him
laugh, and he scoffed at the people and called them cowards
and old women. Then he turned and saw the tight-rope, and
said foolish people were dally wasting their money to see a
clumsy and ignorant varlet degrade that beautiful art; now
they ould see the work of a master. With that he made a
Spring into the air and lit firm on his feet on the rope.
Then he hopped the whole length of it back and forth on one
foot, with his hands clasped over his eyes; and next he began
to throw somersaults, both backward and forward, and threw
twenty-seven.

The people murmured, for the astrologer was old, and al-
ways before had been halting of movement and at times
even lame, but he was nimble enough now and went on with
his antics in the liveliest manner. Finally he sprang lightly
down and walked away, and passed up the road and around
the corner and disappeared. Then that great, pale, silent,
solid crowd drew a deep breath and looked into one another's
faces as if they said: "Was it real? Did you see it, or was
it only I--and I was dreaming?" Then they broke into a low
murmur of talking, and fell apart in couples, and moved to-
ward their homes, still talking in that awed way, with faces
close together and laying a hand on an arm and making other
such gestures as people make when they have been deeply
impressed by something.

We boys followed behind our fathers, and listened, catching
all we could of what they said; and when they sat down
in our house and continued their talk they still had us for
company. They were in a sad mood, for it was certain, they
said, that disaster for the village must follow this awful
visitation of witches and devils. Then my father remembered
that Father Adolf had been struck dumb at the moment of his
denunciation.

"They have not ventured to lay their hands upon an
anointed servant of God before," he said; "and how they
could have dared it this time I cannot make out, for he wore
his cmcifix. Isn't it so?"

"Yes," said the others, "we saw it."

"It is serious, friends, it is very serious. Always before,
we had a protection. It has failed."

The others shook, as with a sort of chill, and niuttered
those words over--"It has failed." "God has forsaken us."

"It is true," said Seppi Wohlmeyer's father; "there is no-
where to look for help."

"The people will realize this," said Nikolaus's father, the
judge, "and despair will take away their courage and their
energies. We have indeed fallen upon evil times."

He sighed, and Wohlmeyer said, in a troubled voice: "The re-
port of it all will go about the country, and our village will
be shunned as being under the displeasure of God. The Golden
Stag will know hard times."

"True, neighbor," said my father; "all of us will suffer
--all in repute, many in estate. And, good God!--"

"What is it?"

"That can come--to finish us!"

"Name it--um Gottes Willen!"

"The Interdict!"

It smote like a thunderclap, and they were like to swoon
with the terror of it. Then the dread of this calamity roused
their energies, and they stopped brooding and began to con-
sider ways to avert it. They discussed this, that and the
other way, and talked till the afternoon was far spent then
confessed that at present they could arrive at no decision.
So they parted sorrowfully, with oppressed hearts which
were filled with bodings.

While they were saying their parting words I slipped out and
set my course for Marget's house to see what was happening
there. I met many people, but none of them greeted me.
It ought to have been surprising, but it was not, for they
were so distraught with fear and dread that they were not in
their right minds, I think; they were white and haggard, and
walked like persons in a dream, their eyes open but seeing
nothing, their lips moving but uttering nothing, and worried-
ly clasping and unclasping their hands without knowing it.

At Marget's it was like a funeral. She and Wilhelm sat to-
gether on the sofa, but said nothing, and not even holding
hands. Both were steeped in gloom, and Marget's eyes were
red from the crying she had been doing. She said:

"I have been begging him to go, and come no more, and so
save himself alive. I cannot bear to be his murderer. This
house is bewitched, and no inmate will escape the fire. But
he will not go, and he will be lost with the rest."

Wilhelm said he would not go; if there was danger for
her, his place was by her, and there he would remain. Then
she began to cry again, and it was all so mournful that I
wished I had stayed away. There was a knock, now, and
Satan came in, fresh and cheery and beautiful, and brought
that winy atmosphere of his and changed the whole thing.
He never said a word about what had been happening, nor
about the awful fears which were freezing the blood in the
hearts of the community, but began to talk and rattle on
about all manner of gay and pleasant things: and next about
music--an artful stroke which cleared away the remnant of
Maiget's depression and brought her spirits and her interests
broad awake. She had not heard any one talk so well and so
knowing on that subject before, and she was so uplifted by
it and so charmed that what she was feeling lit up her face
and came out in her words; and Wilhelm noticed it and did
not look as pleased as he ought to have done. And next Satan
branched off into poetry, and recited some, and did it well,
and Marget was charmed again; and again Wilhelm was not
as pleased as he ought to have been, and this time Marget no-
ticed it and was remorseful.

I fell asleep to pleasant music that night--the patter of
rain upon the panes and the dull growling of distant thunder.
Away in the night Satan came and roused me and said; "Come
with me. Where shall we go?"

"Anywhere--so it is with you."

Then there was a fierce glare of sunlight, and he said, "This
is China."

That was a grand surprise, and made me sort of drunk with
vanity and gladness to think I had come so far--so much,
much farther than anybody else in our village, including
Bartel Sperling, who had such a great opinion of his travels.
We buzzed around over that empire for more than half an hour,
and saw the whole of it. It was wonderful, the spectacles we
saw; and some were beautiful, others too horrible to think.
For instance-- However, I may go into that by and by, and
also why Satan chose China for this excursion instead of
another place; it would interrupt my tale to do it now.
Finally we stopped flitting and lit.

We sat upon a mountain commanding a vast landscape of
mountain-range and gorge and valley and plain and river,
with cities and villages slumbering in the sunlight, and a
glimpse of blue sea on the farther verge. It was a tranquil
and dreamy picture, beautiful to the eye and restful to the
spirit If we could only make a change Uke that whenever we
wanted to, the world would be easier to live in than it is,
for change of scene shifts the mind's burdens to the other
shoulder and banishes old, shop-worn wearinesses from mind
and body both.

We talked together, and I had the idea of trying to reform
Satan and persuade him to lead a better life. I told him about
all those things he had been doing, and begged him to be
more considerate and stop making people uappy. I said I
knew he did not mean any harm, but that he out to stop
and consider the possible consequences of a thing before
launching it in that impulsive and random way of his; then he
would not make so much trouble. He was not hurt by this
plain speech; he only looked amused and surprised, and said:

"What? I do random things? Indeed, I never do. I stop and
consider possible consequences? Where is the need? I know
what the consequences are going to be--always."

"Oh, Satan, then how could you do these things?"

"Well, I will tell you, and you must understand if you
can. You belong to a singular race. Every man is a suffer-
ing machine and a happiness-machine combined. The two
functions work together harmoniously, with a fine and deli-
cate precision, on the give-and-take principle. For every
happiness turned out in the one department the other stands
ready to modify it with a sorrow or a pain--maybe a dozen.
In most cases the man's life is about equally divided between
happiness and unhappiness. When this is not the case the
unhappiness predominates--always; never the other. Some-
times a man's make and disposition are such that his misery-
maclune is able to do nearly all the business. Such a man
goes through life almost ignorant of what happiness is.
Everything he touches, everything he does, brings a misfor-
tune upon him. You have seen such people? To that kind
of a person life is not an advantage, is it? It is only a
disaster. Sometimes for an hour's happiness a man's machinery
makes him pay years of misery. Don't you know that? It happens
every now and then. I give you a case or two presently.
Now the people of your village are nothing to me--you know
that, don't you?"

I did not like'to speak out too fiatly, so I said I had sus-
pected it.

"Well, it is true that they are nothing to me. It is not pos-
sible that they should be. The difference between them and
me is abysmal, immeasurable. They have no intellect."

"No intellect?"

"Nothing that resembles it. At a future time I will examine
what man calls his mind and give you the details of that
chaos, then you will see and understand. Men have nothing
in common with me--there is no point of contact; they have
foolish little feelings and foolish little vanities and im-
pertinences and ambitions; their foolish little life is but
a laugh, a sigh, and extinction; and they have no sense. Only
the Moral Sense. I will show you what I mean. Here is a red
spider, not so big as a pin's head. Can you imagine an ele-
phant being interested in him--caring whether be is happy or
isn't, or whether he is wealthy or poor, or whether his sweet-
heart returns his love or not, or whether his mother is sick
or well, or whether be is looked up to in society or not, or
whether his enemies will smite him or his friends desert him,
or whether his hopes will suffer blight or his political ambi-
tions fail, whether he shall die in the bosom of his family
or neglected and despised in a foreign land? These things can
never be important to the elephant; they are nothing to him;
he cannot shrink his sympathies to the microscopic size of
them. Man is to me as the red spider is to the elephant. The
elephant has nothing against the spider--he cannot get down
to that remote level; I have nothing against man. The ele-
phant is indifferent; I am indifferent The elephant would not
take the trouble to do the spider an ill turn; if he took the
notion he might do him a good turn, if it came in his way
and cost nothing. I have done men good service, but no ill
turns.

"The elephant lives a century, the red spider a day; in
power, intellect, and dignity the one creature is separated
from the other by a distance which is simply astronomicaL
Yet in these, as in all quantities, man is immeasurably further
below me than is the wee spider below the elephant.

"Man's mind clumsily and tediously and laboriously patches
little trivialities together and gets a result--such as it
is. My mind creates! Do you get the force of that? Creates
anything it desires--and in a moment. Creates without mater-
ial. Creates fluids, solids, colors--anything, everything---
out of the airy nothing which is called Thought. A man imag-
ines a silk thread, imagines a machine to make it, imagines
a picture, then by weeks of labor embroiders it on canvas with
the thread. I think the whole thing, and in a moment it is
before you--created.

"I think a poem, music, the record of a game of chess--any-
ything--and it is there. This is the immortal mind--nothing
is beyond its reach. Nothing can obstruct my vision; the
rocks are transparent to me, and darkness is daylight. I do
not need to open a book; I take the whole of its contents into
my mind at a single glance, through the cover; and in a million
years I could not forget a single word of it, or its place
in the volume. Nothing goes on in the skull of man, bird,
fish, insect, or other creature which can be hidden from me. I
pierce the learned man's brain with a single glance, and the
treasures which cost him threescore years to accumulate are
mine; he can forget, and he does forget, but I retain.

"Now, then, I perceive by your thoughts that you are under-
standing me fairly well. Let us proceed. Circumstances
might so fall out that the elephant could like the spider--
supposing he can see it--but he could not love it. His love is
for his own kind--for his equals. An angel's love is sublime,
adorable, divine, beyond the imagination of man--infinitely
beyond it! But it is limited to his own august order. If it fell
upon one of your race for only an instant, it would consume
its object to ashes. No, we cannot love men, but we can be
harmlessly indifferent to them; we can also like them, sometimes.
I like you and the boys, I like Father Peter, and for your
sakes I am doing all these things for the villagers."

He saw that I was thinking a sarcasm, and he explained
his position.

"I have wrought well for the villagers, though it does not
look like it on the surface. Your race never know good fortune
from ill. They are always mistaking the one for the other. It
is because they cannot see into the future. What I am doing
for the villages will bear good fruit some day; in some cases
to themselves; in others, to unborn generations of men. No
one will eva know that I was the cause, but it will be none
the less true, for all that. Among you boys you have a game:
you stand a row of bricks on end a few inches apart; you
posh a brick, it knocks its neighbor over, the neighbor knocks
over the next brick--and so on till all the row is prostrate.
That is human life. A child's first act knocks over the initial
brick, and the rest will follow inexorably. If you could see
into the future, as I can, you woidd see everydiing that was
going to happen to that creature; for nothing can ange the
order of its life afrer the first event has determined it. That
is, nothing will change it, because each act unfailingly begets
an act, that act begets another, and so on to the end, and the
seer can look forward down the line and see just when each
act is to have birth, from cradle to grave."

"Does God order the career?"

"Foreordain it? No. The man's circumstances and environment
order it. His first act determines the second and all that
follow after. But suppose, for argument's sake, that the man
should skip one of these acts; an apparently trifling one, for
instance; suppose that it had been appointed that on a certain
day, at a certain hour and minute and second and fraction
of a second he should go to the well, and he didn't go.
That man's career would change utterly, from that moment;
thence to the grave it would be wholly different from the
career which his first act as a child had arranged for him. In-
deed, it might be that if he had gone to the well he would
have ended his career on a throne, and that omitting to do it
would set him upon a career that would lead to beggary and
a pauper's grave. For instance: if at any time--say in boyhood--
Columbus had skipped the triflingest little link in the chain
of acts projected and made inevitable by his first childish
act, it would have changed his whole subsequent life, and
he would have become a priest and died obscure in an Italian
village, and America would not have been discovered for two
centuries afterward. I know this. To skip any one of the billion
acts in Columbus's chain would have wholly changed his
life. I have examined his billion of possible careers, and in
only one of them occurs the discovery of America. You people
do not suspect that all of your acts are of one size and
importance, but it is true; to snatch at an appointed fly is as
big with fate for you as in any other appoint act--
"
"As the conquering of a continent, for instance?"

"Yes. Now, then, no man ever does drop a link--the thing
has never happened! Even when he is trying to make up his
mind as to whether he will do a thing or not, that itself is a
link, an act, and has its proper place in his chain; and when
he finally decides an act, that dso was the thing which he
was absolutely certain to do. You see, now, that a man will
never drop a link in his chain. He cannot. If he made up
his mind to try, that project would itself be an unavoidable
link--Si thought bound to occur to him at that precise mo-
ment, and made certain by the first act of his babyhood."

It seemed so dismal!

"He is a prisoner for life," I said sorrowfully, "and cannot
get free."

"No, of himself he cannot get away from the consequences
of his first childish act. But I can free him."

I looked up wistfully.

"I have changed the careers of a number of your villagers."

I tried to thank him, but found it difficult, and let it drop.

"I shall make some other changes. You know that little Lisa
Brandt?"

"Oh yes, everybody does. My mother says she is so sweet and
so lovely that she is not like any other child. She says
she will be the pride of the village when she grows up; and
its idol, too, just as she is now."

"I shall change her future,"

"Make it better?" I asked.

"Yes. And I will change the future of Nikolaus."

I was glad, this time, and said, "I don't need to ask about
his case; you will be sure to do generously by him."

"It is my intention."

Straight off I was building that great future of Nicky's in
my imagination, and had already made a renowned general of
him and hofmeister at the court, when I noticed that Satan
was waiting for me to get ready to listen again. I was ashamed
of having exposed my cheap imaginings to him, and was expecting
some sarcasms, but it did not happen. He proceeded with his
subject:

"Nicky's appointed life is sixty-two years."

"That's grand!" I said.

"Lisa's, thirty-six. But, as I told you, I shall change their
lives and those ages. Two minutes and a quarter from now
Nikolaus will wake out of his sleep and find the rain blowing
in. It was appointed that he should turn over and go to
sleep again. But I have appointed that he shall get up and
close the window first. That trifle will change his career
entirely. He will rise in the morning two minutes later than
the chain of his life had appointed him to rise. By consequence,
thenceforth nothing will ever happen to him in accordance
with the details of the old chain." He took out his watch and
sat looking at it a few moments, then said: "Nikolaus has
risen to close the window. His life is changed, his new career
has begun. There will be consequences."

It made me feel creepy; it was uncanny.

"But for this change certain things would happen twelve
days from now. For instance, Nikolaus would save Lisa from
drowning. He would arrive on the scene at exactly the right
moment--four minutes past ten, the long-ago appointed instant
of time--and the water would be shoal, the achievement
easy and certain. But he will arrive some seconds too late,
now; Lisa will have struggled into deeper water. He will do
his best, but both will drown."

"Oh, Satan! oh, dear Satan!" I cried, with the tears rising
in my eyes, "save them! Don't let it happen. I can't bear to
lose Nikolaus, he is my loving playmate and friend; and think
of Lisa's poor mother!"

I clung to him and begged and pleaded, but he was not moved.
He made me sit down again, and told me I must bear him out

"I have changed Nikolaus's life, and this has changed Lisa's.
If I had not done this, Nikolaus would save Lisa, then he
would catch cold from his drenching; one of your race's
fantastic and desolating scarlet fevers would follow, with
pathetic aftereffects; for forty-six years he would lie in
his bed a paralytic log, deaf, dumb, blind, and praying night
and day for the blessed relief of death. Shall I change his
life back?"

"Oh no! Oh, not for the world! In charity and pity leave it
as it is."

"It is best so. I could not have changed any other link in
his life and done him so good a service. He had a billion
possible careers, but not one of them was worth living; they
were charged full with miseries and disasters. But for my
intervention be would do his brave deed twelve days from
now--a deed begun and ended in six minutes--and get for
all reward those fifty-six years of sorrow and suffering
I told you of. It is one of the cases I was thinking of
awhile ago when I said that sometimes an act which brings
the actor an hour's happiness and self-satisfaction is paid
for--or punished--by years of suffering."

I wondered what poor little Lisa's early death would save
her from. He answered the thought:

"From ten years of pain and slow recovery from an accident,
and then from nineteen years' pollution, shame, depravity,
crime, ending with death at the bands ot the executioner.
Twelve days hence she will die; her mother would save her
life if she could. Am I not kinder than her mother?"

"Yes--oh, indeed yes; and wiser."

"Father Peter's case is coming on presently. He will be
acquitted, through unassailable proofs of his innocence."

"Why, Satan, how can that be? Do you really think it?"

"Indeed, I know it. His good name will be restored, and the
rest of his life will be happy."

"I can believe it To restore his good name will have that
effect"

"His happiness will not proceed from that cause. I shall
change his life that day, for his good. He will never know
his good name has been restored."

In my mind--and modestly--I asked for particulars, but
Satan paid no attention to my thought. Next, my mind wan-
dered to the astrologer, and I wondered where he might be.

"In the moon," said Satan, with a fleeting sound which I
believed was a chuckle. "I've got him on the cold side of it,
too. He doesn't know where be is, and is not having a pleasant
time; still, it is good enough for him, a good place for his
star studies. I shall need him presently; then I shall bring
him back and possess him again. He has a long and cruel and
odious life before him, but I will change that, for I have no
feeling against him and am quite willing to do him a kindness.
I think I shall get him burned."

He had such strange notions of kindness! But angels are
made so, and do not know any better. Their ways are not like
our ways; and, besides, human beings are nothing to them;
they think they are only freaks. It seems to me odd that he
should put the astrologer so far away; he could have dumped
him in Germany just as well, where he would be handy.

"Far away?" said Satan, "To me no place is far away; distance
does not exist for me. The sun is less than a hundred mill-
ion miles from here, and the light that is falling upon us
has taken eight minutes to come; but I can make that flight,
or any other, in a fraction of time so minute that it cannot
be measured by a watch. I have but to think the journey,
and it is accomplished."

I held out my hand and said, "The light lies upon it; think
it into a glass of wine, Satan."

He did it. I drank the wine.

"Break the glass," he said.

I broke it.

"There--you see it is real. The villagers thought the brass
balls were magic stuff and as perishable as smoke. They were
afraid to touch them. You are a curious lot--your race. But
come along; I have business. I will put you to bed." Said
and done. Thm he was gone; but his voice came back to me
through the rain and darkness saying, "Yes, tell Seppi, but
no other."

It was the answer to my thought.


8


Sleep would not come. It was not because I was proud of
my travels and excited about having been around the big
world to China, and feeling contemptuous of Bartel Sperling,
"the traveler," as he called himself, and looked down upon
us others because he had been to Vienna once and was the
only Eseldorf boy who had made such a journey and seen
the world's wonders. At another time that would have kept
me awake, but it did not affect me now. No, my mind was
filled with Nikolaus, my thoughts ran upon him only, and the
good days we had seen together at romps and frolics in the
woods and the fields and the river in the long summer days,
and skating and sliding in the winter when our parents
thought we were in school. And now he was going out of this
young life, and the summers and winters would come and
go, and we others would rove and play as before, but his
place would be vacant; we should see him no more. Tommor-
row he would not suspect, but would be as he had always
been, and it would shock me to hear him laugh, and see him
do lightsome and frivolous things, for to me he would be a
corpse, with waxen hands and dull eyes, and I should see the
shroud around his face; and next day he would not suspect,
nor the next, and all the time his handful of days would be
wasting swiftly away and that awful thing coming nearer
and nearer, his fate closing steadily around him and no one
knowing it but Seppi and me. Twelve days--only twelve days.
It was awful to think of. I noticed that in my thoughts I
was not calling him by his familiar names, Nick and Nicky,
but was speaking of him by his full name, and reverently, as
one speaks of the dead. Also, as incident after incident of
our comradeship came thronging into my mind out of the past,
I noticed that they were mainly cases where I had wronged
him or hurt him, and they rebuked me and reproached me,
and my heart was wrung with remorse, just as it is when we
remember our unkindnesses to friends who have passed be-
yond the veil, and we wish we could have them back again,
if only for a moment, so that we could go on our knees to
them and say, "Have pity, and forgive."

Once when we were nine years old he went a long errand of
nearly two miles for the fruiterer, who gave him a splendid
big apple for reward, and he was flying home with it, almost
beside himself with astonishment and delight, and I met
him, and he let me look at the apple, not thinking of trea-
chery, and I ran off with it, eating it as I ran, he foll-
owing me and begging; and when he overtook me I offered
him the core, which was all that was left; and I laughed.
Then he turned away, crying, and said he had meant to give
it to his little sister. That smote me, for she was slowly
getting well of a sickness, and it would have been a proud
moment for him, to see her joy and surprise and have her
caresses. But I was ashamed to say I was ashamed, and only
said something rude and mean, to pretend I did not care, and
he made no reply in words, but there was a wounded look in
his face as he turned away toward his home which rose before
me many times in after years, in the night, and reproached
me and made me ashamed again. It had grown dim in my mind,
by and by, then it disappeared; but it was back now, and
not dim.

Once at school, when we were eleven, I upset my ink and
spoiled four copy-books, and was in danger of severe pun-
ishment; but I put it upon him, and he got the whipping.
And only last year I had cheated him in a trade, giving him
a large fish-hook which was partly broken through for three
small sound ones. The first fish he caught broke the hook, but
he did not know I was blamable, and he refused to take back
one of the small hooks which my conscience forced me to offer
him, but said, "A trade is a trade; the hook was bad, but that
was not your fault."

No, I could not sleep. These little, shabby wrongs upbraided
me and tortured me, and with a pain much sharper than one
feels when the wrongs have been done to the living. Nikolaus
was living, but no matter; he was to me as one already dead.
The wind was still moaning about the eaves, the rain still
pattering upon the panes.

In the morning I sought out Seppi and told him. It was
down by the river. His lips moved, but he did not say any-
thing, he only looked dazed and stunned, and his face turned
very white. He stood like that a few moments, the tears well-
ing into his eyes, then he turned away and I locked my arm
in his and we walked along thinking, but not speaking. We
crossed the bridge and wandered through the meadows and
up among the hills and the woods, and at last the talk came
and flowed fredy, and it was all about Nikolaus and was a
recalling of the life we had lived with him. And every now
and then Seppi said, as if to himself:

"Twelve days!--less than twelve days."

We said we must be with him all the time; we must have
all of him we could; the days were precious now. Yet we
did not go to seek him. It would be like meeting the dead,
and we were afraid. We did not say it, but that was what we
were feeling. And so it gave us a shock when we turned a
curve and came upon Nikolaus face to face. He shouted,
gaily:

"Hi-hi! What is the matter? Have you seen a ghost?"

We couldn't speak, but there was no occasion; he was willing
to talk for us all, for he had just seen Satan and was in
high spirits about it. Satan had told him about our trip to
China, and he had begged Satan to take him a journey, and
Satan had promised. It was to be a far journey, and wonderful
and beautiful; and Nikolaus had begged him to take us, too,
but he said no, he would take us some day, maybe, but not
now. Satan would come for him on the 13th, and Nikolaus
was already counting the hours, he was so impatient.

That was the fatal day. We were already counting the
hours, too.

We wandered many a mile, always following paths which
had been our favorites from the days when we were little,
and always we talked about the old times. All the blitheness
was with Nikolaus; we others could not shake off our depress-
ion. Our tone toward Nikolaus was so strangely gentle and
tender and yearning that he noticed it, and was pleased; and
we were constantly doing him deferential little ofBces of
courtesy, and saying, "Wait, let me do that for you," and
that pleased him, too. I gave him seven fish-hooks--all I
had --and made him take them; and Seppi gave him his new
knife and a humming-top painted red and yellow--atonements
for swindles practised upon him formerly, as I learned later,
and probably no longer remembered by Nikolaus now. These
things touched him, and he could not have believed that we
loved him so; and his pride in it and gratefulness for it
cut us to the heart, we were so undeserving of them. When
we parted at last, he was radiant, and said he had never had
such a happy day.

As we walked along homeward, Seppi said, "We always prized
him, but never so much as now, when we are going to lose
him."

Next day and every day we spent all our spare time with .
Nikolaus; and also added to it time which we (and he) stole
from work and other duties, and this cost the three of us
some sharp scoldings, and some threats of punishment Every
morning two of us woke with a start and a shudder, saying,
as the days flew along, "Only ten days left;" "only nine days
left;" "only eight;" "only seven." Always it was narrowing.
Always Nikolaus was gay and happy, and always puzzled be-
cause we were not. He wore his invention to the bone trying
to invent ways to cheer us up, but it was only a hollow
success; he could see that our jollity had no heart in it, and
that the laughs we broke into came up against some obstruction
or other and suffered damage and decayed into a sigh. He tried
to find out what the matter was, so that be could help us out
of our trouble or make it lighter by sharing it with us; so
we had to tell many lies to deceive him and appease him.

But the most distressing thing of all was that he was always
making plans, and often they went beyond the 13th! Whenever
that happened it made us groan in spirit. All his mind was
fixed upon finding some way to conquer our depression and
cheer us up; and at last, when he had but three days to live,
he fell upon the right idea, and was jubilant over it--a
boys-and-girls' frolic and dance in the woods, up there
where we first met Satan, and this was to occur on the 14th.
It was ghastly, for that was his funeral day. We couldn't
venture to protest; it would only have brought a "Why?"
which we could not answer. He wanted us to help him invite
his guests, and we did it--one can refuse nothing to a dy-
ing friend. But it was dreadful, for really we were inviting
them to his funeral.

It was an awful eleven days; and yet, with a lifetime
stretching back between to-day and then, they are still a
grateful memory to me, and beautiful. In effect they were
days of companionship with one's sacred dead, and I have
known no comradeship that was so close or so precious. We
clung to the hours and the minutes, counting them as they
wasted away, and parting with them with that pain and be
reavement which a miser feels who sees his hoard filched
from him coin by coin by robbers and is helpless to prevent
it.

When the evening of the last day came we stayed out too
long; Seppi and I were in fault for that; we could not bear
to part with Nikolaus; so it was very late when we left him
at his door. We lingered near awhile, listening; and that
happened which we were fearing. His father gave him the
promised punishment, and we heard his shrieks. But we list-
ened only a moment, then hurried away, remorseful for this
thing which we had caused. And sorry for the father, too;
our thought being, "If he only knew--if he only knew!"

In the morning Nikolaus did not meet us at the appointed
place, so we went to his home to see what the matter was.
His mother said:

"His father is out of all patience with these goings-on,
and will not have any more of it Half the time when Nick is
needed he is not to be found; then it toms out that he has
been gadding around with you two. His father gave him a
flogging last night It always grieved me before, and many's
the time I have begged him off and saved him, but this time
he appealed to me in vain, for I was out of patience myself."

"I wish you had saved him just this one time," I said, my
voice trembling a little; "it would ease a pain in your heart
to remember it some day."

She was ironing at the time, and her back was partly toward
me. She turned about with a startled or wondering look in
her face and said, "What do you mean by that?"

I was not prepared, and didn't know anything to say; so it
was awkward, for she kept looking at me; but Seppi was alert
and spoke up:

"Why, of course it woidd be pleasant to remember, for the
very reason we were out so late was that Nikolaus got to tell-
ing how good you are to him, and how he never got whipped
when you were by to save him; and he was so full of it, and
we were so full of the interest of it, that none of us noticed
how late it was getting."

"Did he say that? Did he?" and she put her apron to her eyes.

"You can ask Theodor--he will tell you the same."

"It is a dear, good lad, my Nick," she said. "I am sorry I
let him get whipped; I will never do it again. To think--all the
time I was sitting here last night, fretting and angry at him,
he was loving me and praising me! Dear, dear, if we could
only know! Then we shouldn't ever go wrong; but we are
only poor, dumb beasts groping around and making mistakes.
I shan't ever think of last night without a pang."

She was like all the rest; it seemed as if nobody could open
a mouth, in these wretched days, without saying something
that made us shiver. They were "groping around," and did
not know what true, sorrowfully true things they were saying
by accident.

Seppi asked if Nikolaus might go out with us.

"I am sorry," she answered, "but he can't To punish him
further, his father doesn't allow him to go out of the house
to-day."

We had a great hope! I saw it in Seppi's eyes. We thouglK,
"If he cannot leave the house, he cannot be drowned." Seppi
asked, to make sure:

"Must he stay in all day, or only the morning?"

"All day. It's such a pity, too; it's a beautiful day, and he
is so unused to being shut up. But he is busy planning his
party, and maybe that is company lot him. I do hope he isn't
too lonesome."

Seppi saw that in ha eye which emboldened him to ask if
we might go up and help him pass his time.

"And welcome!" the said, right heartily. "Now I call that
real friendship, when you might be abroad in the fields and
the woods, having a happy time. You are good Ixtys, I'll allow
that, though you don't always find satisfactory ways of
improving it. Take these cakes--for yourselves--and give him
this one, from his motha."

The first thing we noticed when we entered Nikolaus's
room was the time--a quarter to 10. Could that be correct?
Only such a few minutes to live! I felt a contraction at my
heart Nikolaus jumped up and gave us a glad welcome. He
was in good spirits over his plannings for his party and had
not been lonesome.

"Sit down," he said, "and look at what I've been doing. And
I've finished a kite that you will say is a beauty. It's drying,
in the kitchen; I'll fetch it"

He had been spending his penny savings in fanciful trifles
of various kinds, to go as prizes in the games, and they were
marshaled with fine and showy effect upon the table. He
said:

"Examine them at your leisure while I get mother to touch
up the kite with her iron if it isn't dry enough yet."

Then be tripped out and went clattering down-stairs, whistling.

We did not look at the things; we couldn't take any interest
in anything but the clock. We sat staring at it in silence,
listening to the ticking, and every time the minutehand
jumped we nodded recognition--one minute fewer to cover in
the race for life or for death. Finally Seppi drew a deep
breath and said:

"Two minutes to ten. Seven minutes more and be will pass the
death-point. Theodor, be is going to be saved! He's going to--"

"Hush! I'm on needles. Watch the clock and keep still."

Five minutes more. We were panting with the strain and the
excitement. Another three minutes, and there was a footstep
on the stair.

"Saved!" And we jumped up and faced the door.

The old mother entered, bringing the kite. "Isn't it a
beauty?" she said. "And, dear me, how he has slaved over
it--ever since daylight, I think, and only finished it awhile
before you came." She stood it against the wall, and stepped
back to take a view of it. "He drew the pictures his own sdf,
and I think they are very good. The church isn't so very good.
I'll have to admit, but look at the bridge--any one can recog-
nize the bridge in a minute. He asked me to bring it...Dear me!
it's seven minutes past ten, and I--"

"But where is he?"

"He? Oh, he'll be here soon; he's gone out a minute."

"Gone out?"

''Yes. Just as he came down-stairs little Lisa's mother came
in and said the child had wandered off somewhere, and as
she was a little uneasy I told Nikolaus to never mind about
his father's orders--go and look her up.... Why, how white
you two do look! I do believe you are sick. Sit down; I'll
fetch something. That cake has disagreed with you. It is a
little heavy, but I thought--"

She disappeared without finishing her sentence, and we
hurried at once to the back window and looked toward
the river. There was a great crowd at the other end of the
bridge, and people were flying toward that point from every
direction.

"Oh, it is all over--poor Nikolaus! Why, oh, why did she
let him get out of the house!"

"Come away," said Seppi, half sobbing, "come quick--we
can't bear to meet her; in five minutes she will know."

But we were not to escape. She came upon us at the foot
of the stairs, with her cordials in her hands, and made us
come in and sit down and take the medicine. Then she watched
the effect, and it did not satisfy her; so she made us wait
longer, and kept upbraiding herself for giving us the unwhole-
some cake.

Presently the thing happened which we were dreading.
There was a sound of tramping and scraping outside, and a
crowd came solemnly in, with beads uncovered, and laid the
two drowned bodies on the bed.

"Oh, my God!" that poor mother cried out, and fell on her
knees, and put her arms about her dead boy and began to
cover the wet face with kisses. "Oh, it was I that sent him,
and I have been his death. If I had obeyed, and kept him in
the house, this would not have happened. And I am rightly
punished; I was cruel to him last night, and him begging me,
his own mother, to be his friend."

And so she went on and on, and all the women cried, and
pitied her, and tried to comfort her, but she could not for-
ve hmelf and could not be comforted, and kept on saying
if she had not sent him out he would be alive and well now,
and she was the cause of his death.

It shows how foolish people are when they blame themselves
for anything they have done. Satan knows, and he said no-
thing happens at your first act hasn't arranged to happen
and made inevitable; and so, of your own motion you can't
ever alter the scheme or do a thing that will break a link.
Next we heard screams, and Frau Brandt came wildly plowing
and plunging through the crowd with her dress in disorder and
hair flying loose, and flung herself upon her dead child with
moans ai kisses and pleadings and endearments; and by and
by she rose up almost exhausted with her outpourings of pas-
sionate emotion, and clenched her fist and lifted it toward
the sky, and her tear-drenched face grew hard and resentM,
and she said:

"For nearly two weeks I have had dreams and presentiments
and warnings that death was going to strike what was most
precious to me, and day and night and night and day I have
groveled in the dirt before Him praying Him to have pity
on my innocent child and save it from harm--and here is
his answer!"

Why, He had saved it from harm--but she did not know. She
wiped the tears from her eyes and cheeks, and stood awhile
gazing down at the child and caressing its face and its
hair with her hands; then she spoke again in that bitter
tone: "But in His hard heart is no compassion. I will never
pray again."

She gathered her dead child to her bosom and strode away,
the crowd falling back to let her pass, and smitten dumb by
the awful words they had heard. Ah, that poor woman! It is
as Satan said, we do not know good fortune from bad, and
are always mistaking the one for the other. Many a time since
I have heard people pray to God to spare the life of sick
persons, but I have never done it.

Both funerals took place at the same time in our little
church next day. Everybody was there, including the party
guests. Satan was there, too; which was proper, for it was
on account of his efforts that the funerals had happened.
Nikolaus had departed this life without absolution, and a
collection was taken up for masses, to get him out of pur-
gatory. Only two-thirds of the required money was gathered,
and the parents were going to try to borrow the rest, but
Satan furnished it. He told us privately that there was no
purgatory, but he had contributed in order that Nikolaus's
parents and their friends might be saved from worry and dis-
tress. We thought it very good of him, but he said money did
not cost him anything.

At the graveyard the body of little Lisa was seized for debt
by a carpenter to whom the mother owed fifty groschen for
work done the year before. She had never been able to pay
this, and was not able now. The carpenter took the corpse
home and kept it four days in his cellar, the mother weeping
and imploring about his house all the time; then he buried
it in his broker's cattle-yard, without religious ceremonies.
It drove the mother wild with grief and shame, and she for'
took her work and went daily about the town, cursing the
caipenter and blaspheming the laws of the emperor and the
church, and it was pitiful to see. Seppi asked Satan to inter'
fere, but be said the carpenter and the rest were members of
the human race and were acting quite neatly for that spedes
of animal. He would interfere if he found a horse acting in
such a way, and we must inform him when we came across
that kind of horse doing that kind of a human thing, so that
he could stop it. We believed this was sarcasm, for of course
there wasn't any such horse.

But after a few days we found that we could not abide that
poor woman's distress, so we begged Satan to examine her
several possible careers, and see if he could not change her,
to her profit, to a new one. He said the longest of her car-
eers as they now stood gave her forty-two years to live, and
her shortest one twenty-nine, and that both were charged with
grief and hunger and cold and pain. The only improvement
he could make would be to enable her to skip a certain three
minutes from now; and he asked us if he should do it. This
was such a short time to decide in that we went to pieces
with nervous excitement, and before we could pull ourselves
together and ask for particulars he said the time would be
up in a few more seconds; so then we gasped out, "Do it!"

"It is done," he said; "she was going arormd a corner; I
have turned her back; it has changed her career."

"Then what will happen, Satan?"

"It is happening now. She is having words with Fischer, the
weaver. In his anger Fischer will straightway do what he
would not have done but for this accident. He was present
when she stood over her child's body and uttered those blas-
phemies."

"What will he do?"

"He is doing it now--betraying her. In three days she will
go to the stake."

We could not speak; we were frozen with horror, for if
we had not meddled with her career she would have been
spared this awful fate. Satan noticed these thoughts, and
said:

"What you are thinking is strictly human-like--that is to
say, foolish. The woman is advantaged. Die whm she might,
she would go to heaven. By this prompt death she gets twenty-
nine years more of heaven than she is entitled to, and escape
twenty-nine years of misery here."

A moment before we were bitterly making up our minds
that we would ask no more favors of Satan for friends of ours,
for he did not seem to know any way to do a perform a kind-
ness but by killing him; but the whole aspect of the case
was changed now, and we were glad of what we had done and
full of happiness in the thought of it.

After a little I began to feel troubled about Fischer, and
asked, timidly, "Does this episode change Fischer's life-
scheme, Satan?"

"Change it? Why, certainly. And radically. If he had not
met Frau Brandt awhile ago he would die next year, thirty-
four years of age. Now he will live to be ninety, and have
a pretty prosperous and comfortable life of it, as human
lives go."

We felt a great joy and pride in what we had done for
Fischer, and were expecting Satan to sympathize with this
feeling; but he showed no sign and this made us uneasy. We
waited for him to speak, but he didn't; so, to assuage our
solicitude we had to ask him if there was any defect in Fis
cher's good luck. Satan considered the question a moment,
then said, with some hesitation:

"Well, the fact is, it is a delicate point. Under his several
former possible lifenareers he was going to heaven."

We were aghast. "Oh, Satan! and under this one--"

"There, don't be so distressed. You were sincerely trying to
do him a kindness; let that comfort you."

"Oh, dear, dear, that cannot comfort us. You ought to have
told us what we were doing, then we wouldn't have acted
so."

But it made no impression on him. He had never felt a
pain or a sorrow, and did not know what they were, in any
really informing way. He had no knowledge of them except
theoretically--that is to say, intellectually. And of course
that is no good. One can never get any but a loose and igno-
rant notion of such things except by experience. We tried our
best to make him comprehend the awful thing that had been
done and how we were compromised by it, but he couldn't
seem to get hold of it. He said he did not think it important
where Fischer went to; in heaven he would not be missed,
there were "plenty there." We tried to make him see that he
was missing the point entirely; that Fischer, and not other
people, was the proper one to decide about the importance of
it; but it all went for nothing; he said he did not care for
Fischer--there were plenty more Fischers.

The next minute Fischer went by on the other side of the
way, and it made us sick and faint to see him, remembering
the doom that was upon him, and we the cause of it And
how unconscious he was that anything had happened to himi
You could see by his elastic step and his alert manner that
he was well satisfied with himself for doing that hard turn
fax poor Frau Brandt He kept glancing back over his shoulder
expectantly. And, sure enou, pretty soon Frau Brandt followed
after, in charge of the officers and wearing jingling chains.
A mob was in her wake, jeering and shouting, "Blasphemer and
heretic!" and some among them were neighbors and friends of
her happier days. Some were trying to strike her, and the
officers were not taking as much trouble as they might to
keep them from it.

"Oh, stop them, Satan!" It was out before we remembered
that he could not interrupt them for a moment without changing
their whole after-lives. He puffed a little puff toward them
with his lips and they began to reel and stagger and grab at
the empty air; then they broke apart and fled in every direc-
tion, seeking, as if in intolerable pain. He had crushed a
rib of each of them with that little puff. We could not help
asking if their life-chart was changed.

"Yes, entirely. Some have gained years, some have lost them.
Some few will profit in various ways by the change, but only
that few."

We did not ask if we had brought poor Fischer's luck to
any of them. We did not wish to Imow. We fully believed in
Satan's desire to do us kindness, but we were losing confi-
dence in his judgment. It was at this time that our growing
anxiety to have him look over our life-charts and suggest
improvements began to fade out and give place to other in-
terests.

For a day or two the whole village was a chattering turmoil
over Frau Brandt's case and over the mysterious calamity
that had overtaken the mob, and at her trial the place was
crowded. She was easily convicted of her blasphemies, for
she uttered those terrible words again and said she would not
take them back. When warned that she was imperiling her
life, she said they could take it in welcome, she did not want
it, she would rather live with the professional devils in per-
dition than with these imitators in the village. They accused
her of breaking all those ribs by witchcraft, and asked her if
she was not a witch? She answered scornfully:

"No. If I had that power would any of you holy hypocrites
be alive five minutes? No; I would strike you all dead. Pro-
nounce your sentence and let me go; I am tired of your soc-
iety."

So they found her guilty, and she was excommunicated and
cut off from the joys of heaven and doomed to the fires of
hell; then she was clothed in a coarse robe and delivered to
the secular arm, and conducted to the market-place, the bell
solemnly tolling the while. We saw her chained to the stake,
and saw the first film of blue smoke rise on the still air.
Then ber hard face softened, and she looked upon the packed
crowd in front of her and said, with gentleness:

"We played together once, in long-agone days when we were
innocent little creatures. For the sake of that, I forgive you."

We went away then, and did not see the fires consume her,
but we heard the shrieks, although we put our fingers in our
ears. When they ceased we knew she was in heaven, not-
withstanding the excommunication; and we were glad of hor
death and not sorry that we had brought it about

One day, a little while after this, Satan appeared again.
We were always watching out for him, for life was never
very stagnant when he was by. He came upon us at that place
in the woods where we had first met him. Being boys, we
wanted to be entertained; we asked him to do a show for us.

"Very well," he said; "would you like to see a history of
the progress of the human race?--its development of that
product which it calls civilization?"

We said we should.

So, with a thought, he turned the place into the Garden of
Eden, and we saw Abel praying by his altar; then Cain came
walking toward him with his club, and did not seem to see us,
and would have stepped on my foot if I had not drawn it in.
He spoke to his brother in a language which we did not un-
derstand; then he grew violent and threatening, and we knew
what was going to happen, and turned away our beads for
the moment; but we heard the CTasb of the blows and beard
the shrieks and the groans; then there was silence, and we
saw Abel lying in his blood and gasping out his life, and
Cain standing over him and looking down at him, vengeful
and unrepentant.

Then the vision vanished, and was followed by a long series
of unknown wars, murders, and massacres. Next we had the
Flood, and the Ark tossing around in the stormy waters,
with lofty mountains in the distance showing veiled and dim
through the rain. Satan said:

"The progress of your race was not satisfactory. It is to
have another chance now."

The scene changed, and we saw Noah overcome with
wine.

Next, we had Sodom and Gomorrah, and "the attempt to dis-
cover two or three respectable persons there," as Satan
described it. Next, Lot and his daughters in the cave.

Next came the Hebraic wars, and we saw the victors massacre
the survivors and their cattle, and save the young girls
alive and distribute them around.

Next we had Jael; and saw her slip into the tent and drive
the nail into the temple of her sleeping guest; and we were so
close that when the blood gushed out it trickled in a little,
red steam to our feet, and we could have stained our hands
in it if we had wanted to.

Next we had Egyptian wars, Greek wars, Roman wars, hideous
drenchings of the earth with blood; and we saw the trea-
cheries of the Romans toward the Carthaginians, and the
sickening spectacle of the massacre of those brave people.
Also we saw Csesar invade Britain--"not that those barbar-
ians had done him any harm, but because he wanted their
land, and desired to confer the blessings of civilization
upon their widows and orphans," as Satan explained.

Next, Christianity was born. Then ages of Europe passed in
review before us, and we saw Christianity and Civilization
march hand in hand through those ages, "leaving famine
and death and desolation in their wake, and other signs of
the progress of the human race," as Satan observed.

And always we had wars, and more wars, and still other wars
--all over Europe, all over the world. "Sometimes in the
private interest of royal families," Satan said, "sometimes
to crush a weak nation; but never a war started by the ag-
gressor for any clean purpose--there is no such war in the
history of the race."

"Now," said Satan, "you have seen your progress down to
the present, and you must confess that it is wonderful--in
its way. We must now exhibit the future."

He showed us slaughters more terrible in their destruction
of life, more devastating in their engines of war, than any
we had seen.

"You perceive," he said, "that you have made continual
progress. Cain did his murder with a club; the Hebrews did
their murders with javelins and swords; the Greeks and Romans
added protective armor and the fine arts of military organi-
zation and generalship; the Christian has added guns and
gunpowder; a few centuries from now he will have so greatly
improved the deadly effectiveness of his weapons of slaugh-
ter that all men will confess that without Christian civi-
lization war must have remained a poor and trifUng thing to
the end of time."

Then he began to laugh in the most unfeeling way, and
make fun of the human race, although he knew that what he
had been saying shamed us and wounded us. No one but an
angel could have acted so; but suffering is nothing to them;
they do not know what it is, except by hearsay.

More than once Seppi and I had tried in a humble and diff-
ident way to convert him, and as he had remained silent we
had taken his silence as a sort of encouragement; necessa-
rily. Then, this talk of his was a disappointment to us, for
it showed that we had made no deep impression upon him.
The thought made us sad, and we knew then how the missi-
onary must feel when he has been cherishing a glad hope
and has seen it blighted. We kept our grief to ourselves,
knowing that this was not the time to continue our work.

Satan laughed his unkind laugh to a finish; then he said:
"It is a remarkable progress. In five or six thousand years
five or six high civilizations have risen, flourished, com-
manded the wonder of the world, then faded out and disap-
peared; and not one of them except the latest ever invented
any sweeping and adequate way to kill petle. They all did
their best--to kill being the chiefest ambition of the human
race and the earliest incident in its history--but only the
Christian civilization has scored a triumph to be proud of.
Two in three centuries from now it will be recognized that
all the competent killers are Christian; then the pagan
world will go to school to the Christian--not to acquire his
religion, but his guns. The Turk and the Chinaman will buy
those to kill missionaries and converts with."

By this time his theater was at work again, and before our
eyes nation after nation drifted by, during two or three
centuries, a mighty procession, an endless procession,
raging, strugng, wallowing through seas of blood, smother-
ed in battle-smoke through which the flags glinted and the
red jets from the cannon darted; and always we heard the
founder of the guns and the cries of the dying.

"And what does it amount to?" said Satan, with his evil
chuckle. "Nothing at all. You gain nothing; you always come
out where you went in. For a million years the race has gone
on monotonously propagating itself and monotonously reper-
forming this dull nonsense--to what end? No wisdom can guess!
Who gets a profit out of it? Nobody but a parcel of usurping
little monarchs and nobilities who despise you; would feel
defiled if you touched them; would shut foe door in your
face if you proposed to call; whom you slave for, fight for,
die for, and are not ashamed of it, but proud; whose exis-
tence is a perpetual insult to you and you are afraid to
resent it; who are mendicants supported by your alms, yet
assume toward you foe airs of benefactor toward beggar; who
address you in foe language of master to slave, and are an-
swered in the language of slave to master who are worshiped
by you with your mouth, while in your heart--if you have
one--you despise yourselves for it. The first man was a hy-
pocrite and a coward, qualities ufoich have not yet failed
in his line; it is the foundation upon which all civili-
zation have been built. Drink to their perpetuation! Drink
to their augmentation! Drink to--" Then he saw by our faces
how much we were hurt, and he cut his sentence short and
stopped chuckling, and his manner changed. He said, gently:
"No, we will drink one another's health, and let civiliza-
tion go. The wine which has flown to our hands out of space by
desire is earthly, and good enough for that other toast; but
throw away the glasses; we will drink this one in wine which
has not visited this world before."

We obeyed, and reached up and received the new cups as
they descended. They were shapely and beautiful goblets, but
they were not made of any material that we were acquainted
wiA. They seemed to be in motion, they seemed to be alive;
and certainly the colors in them were in motion. They were
very brilliant and sparkling, and of every tint, and they
were never still, but flowed to and fro in rich tides which
met and broke and flashed out dainty explosions of enchant-
ing color. I think it was most like opals washing about in
waves and flashing out their splendid &es. But there is no-
thing to compare the wine with. We drank it, and felt a
strange and witching ecstasy as of heaven go stealing
through us, and Seppi's eyes fiUed and be said worship-
ingly: "We shall be there some day, and then--"

He glanced furtively at Satan, and I think he hoped Satan
would say, "Yes, you will be there some day," but Satan
seemed to be thinlg about something else, and said nothing.
This made me feel ghastly, for I knew he had heard; nothing,
spoken or unspoken, ever escaped him. Poor Seppi looked
distressed, and d not finish his remark. The goblets rose
and clove their way into the sky, a triplet of radiant sun-
dogs, and disappeared. Why didn't they stay? It seemed a
bad sign, and depressed me. Should I ever see mine again?
Would Seppi ever see his?


9


It was wonderful, the mastery Satan had over time and dist-
ance. For him they did not exist He called them human inv-
entions, and said they were artificialities. We often went
to the most distant parts of the globe with him, and stayed
weeks and months, and yet were gone only a fraction of a
second, as a rule. You could prove it by the clock. One
day when our people were in such awful distress because
the witch commission were afraid to proceed against the
astrologer and Father Peter's household, or against any,
indeed, but the poor and the friendless, they lost patience
and took to witch-hunting on their own score, and began
to chase a born lady who was known to have the habit cur-
ing people by devilish arts, such as bathing them, washing
them, and nourishing them instead of bleeding them and
purging them through the ministrations of a barber-surgeon
in the proper way. She came flying down, with the howling
and cursing mob after her, and tried to take refuge in
houses, but the doors were shut in her face. They chased
her more than half an hour, we following to see it, and
at last she was exhausted and fell, and they caught her.
They dragged her to a tree and threw a rope over the limb,
and began to make a noose in it, some holding her, mean-
time, and she crying and begging, and her young daughter
looking on and weeping, but afraid to say or do anything.

They hanged the lady, and I threw a stone at her, although
in my heart I was sorry for her; but all were throwing
stones and each was watching his neighbor, and if I had not
done as the others did it would have ln noticed and spoken
of. Satan burst out laughing.

All that were near by turned upon him, astonished and not
pleased. It was an ill time to laugh, for his free and scof-
fing ways and his supernatural music had brought him under
suspicion all over the town and turned many privately against
him. The big blacksmith called attention to him now, raising
his voice so that all should hear, and said:

"What are you laughing at? Answer! Moreover, please explain
to the company why you threw no stone."

"Are you sure I did not throw a stone?"

"Yes. You needn't try to get out of it; I had my eye on
you."

"And I--I noticed you!" shouted two others.

"Three witnesses," said Satan: "Mueller, the blacksmith;
Klein, the butcher's man; Pfeiffer, the weaver's journeyman.
Three very ordinary liars. Are there any more?"

"Never mind whether there are others or not, and never
mind about what you consider us--three's enough to settle
your matter for you. You'll prove that you threw a stone,
or it shall go hard with you."

"That's so!" shouted the crowd, and surged up as closely
as they could to the center of interest.

"And first you will answer that other question," cried the
blacksmith, pleased with himself for being mouthpiece to the
public and hero of the occasion. "What are you laughing at?"

Satan smiled and answered, pleasantly: "To see three cowards
stoning a dying lady when they were so near death themselves."

You could see the superstitious crowd shrink and catch
their breath, under the sudden shock. The blackith, with
a show of bravacto, said:

"Pooh! What do you know about it?"

"I? Everything. By profession I am a fortuneteller, and I
read the hands of you three--and some others--while you
lifted them to stone the woman. One of you will die tommor-
row week; another of you will die to-night; the third has
but five minutes to live--and yonder is the clock!"

It made a sensation. The faces of the crowd blanched, and
turned mechanically toward the clock. The butcher and the
weaver seemed smitten with an illness, but the blacksmith
braced up and said, with spirit:

"It is not long to wait for prediction number one. If it fails,
young master, you will not live a whole minute after, I promise
you that."

No one said anything; all watched the clock in a deep stillness
which was impressive. When four and a half minutes were
gone the blacksmith gave a sudden gasp and clapped his
hands upon his heart, saying, "Give me breath! Give me
room!" and began to sink down. The crowd surged back, no
one daring to support him, and he fell lumbering to the
ground and was dead. The people stared at him, then at Satan,
then at one another; and their lips moved, but no words
came. Then Satan said:

"Three saw that I threw no stone. Perhaps there are others;
let them speak."

It struck a kind of panic into them, and, although no one
answered him, many began to violently accuse one another,
saying, "You said he didn't throw," and getting for rqply, "It
is a lie, and I will make you eat it!" And so in a moment they
were in a raging and noisy turmoil, and beating and banging
one another; and in the midst was the only indifferent one--
the dead lady hanging from her rope, her troubles forgotten,
her spirit at peace.

So we walked away, and I was not at ease, but was saying
to myself, "He told them he was laughing at them, but it
was a lie--he was laughing at me."

That made him laugh again, and he said, "Yes, I was laugh-
ing at you, because, in fear of what others might report
about you, you stoned the woman when your heart revolted
at the act--but I was laughing at the others, too."

"Why?"

"Because their case was yours."

"How is that?"

"Well, there were sixty-eight people there, and sixty-two
of them had no more desire to throw a stone than you had."

"Satan!"

"Oh, it's true. I know your race. It is made up of sheep. It
is governed by minorities, seldom or never by majorities.
It suppresses its feelings and its beliefs and follows the
handful that makes the most noise. Sometimes the noisy hand-
ful is right, sometimes wrong; but no matter, the crowd fol-
lows it The vast majority of the race, whether savage or
civilized, are secretly kind-hearted and shrink from inflicting
pain, but in the presence of the aggressive and pitiless min-
ority they don't dare to assert themselves. Think of it! One
kind-hearted creature spies upon another, and sees to it that
he loyally helps in iniquities which revolt both of them.
Speaking as an expert, I know that ninety-nine out of a hun-
dred of your race were strongly against the killing of witches
when that foolishness was firat agitated by a handful of pious
lunatics in the long ago. And I know that even to-day, after
ages of transmitted prejudice and silly teaching, tmly one
person in twenty puts any real heart into the harrying of a
witch. And yet apparently everybody hates witches and wants
them killed. Some day a handful will rise up on the other
side and make the most noise--perhaps even a single daring
man with a big voice and a determined front will do it--and
in a week all the sheep will wheel and follow him, and witch-
hunting will come to a sudden end.

"Monarchies, aristocracies, and religions are all based
upon that large defect in your race--the individual's distrust
of his neighbor, and his desire, for safety's or comfort's sake,
to stand well in his neighbor's eye. These institutions will
always remain, and always flourish, and always oppress you,
affront you, and degrade you, because you will always be and
remain slaves of minorities. There was never a country where
the majority of the people were in their secret hearts loyal
to any of these institutions."

I did not like to hear our race called sheep, and said I did
not think they were.

"Still, it is true, lamb," said Satan. "Look at you in war--
what mutton you are, and how ridiculous!"

"In war? How?"

"There has never been a just one, never an honorable one--
on the part of the instigator of the war. I can see a million
years ahead, and this rule will never change in so many as
half a dozen instances. The loud little handful--as usual
--will shout for the war. The pulpit will--warily and cautiously
--object--at first; the great, big, dull bulk of the nation will
rub its sleepy eyes and try to make out why there should be
a war, and will say, earnestly and indiantly, "It is unjust
and dishonorable, and there is no necessity for it." llien the
handful will shout louder. A few fair men on the other side
will- argue and reason against the war with speech and pen,
and at first will have a hearing and be applaut; but it will
not last long; those others will outshout them, and presently
the anti-war audiences will thin out and lose populuity. Bts
fore long you will see this curious thing: the speakers stoned
from the platform, and free speedi strangled by hordes ot
furious men who in their secret hearts are still at one with
those stoned speakers--as earlier--but do not dare to say so.
And now the whole nation--pulpit and all--will take up the
war-cry, and shout itself hoarse, and mob any honest man
who ventures to open his mouth; and presently such mouths
will cease to open. Next the statesmen will invent cheap lies,
putting the blame upon the nation that is attacked, and every
man will be glad of those conscience-soothing falsities, and
will diligently study them, and refuse to examine any refuta-
tions of them; and thus he will by and by convince himself
that the war is just, and will thank God for the better sleep
he enjoys after this process of grotesque self-deception."


10


Days and days went by now, and no Satan. It was dull without
him. But the astrologer, who had returned from his excursion
to tlw moon, went about the village, braving public opinion,
and getting a stone in the middle of his back now and
then when some witch-hater got a safe chance to throw it and
dge out of sight. Meantime two influences had been working
well for Marget. That Satan, who was quite indifferent to
her, had stopped going to her house after a visit or two had
hurt her pride, and she had set herself the task of banishing
him from her heart. Reports of Wilhelm Meidling's dissipation
brought to her from time to time by old Ursula had touched
her with remorse, jealousy of Satan being the cause of it;
and so now, these two matters working upon her together, she
was getting a good profit out of the combination her interest
in Satan was steadily cooling, her interest in Wilhelm as
steadily warming. All that was needed to complete her in-
version was that Wilhelm should brace up and do something
that should cause favorable talk and inrlinp the public
toward him again.

The opportunity came now, Marget sent and asked him to
defend her uncle in the approaching trial, and he was great-
ly pleased, and stopped drinking and began his preparations
with diligence. With more diligence than hope, in fact, for
it as not a promising case. He had many interviews in hfe
office with Seppi and me, and threshed out our testimony
pretty thoroughly, thinking to find some valuable grains
among the chaff, but the harvest was poor, of course.

If Satan would only come! That was my constant thought
He could invent some way to win the case; for he had said
it would be won, so he necessarily knew how it could be done.
But the days dragged on, and stiU he did not come. Of course
I did not doubt that it would win, and that Father Peter
would be happy for the rest of his life, since Satan had
said so; yet I knew I should be much more comfmtable if he
would come and tell us how to manage it It was getting high
time for Father Peter to have a saving change toward hap-
piness, for by general report he was worn out with his im-
prisonment and the ignominy that was burdening him, and
was like to die of his miseries unless he got relief soon.

At last the trial came on, and the people gathered from all
around to witness it; among them many strangers from consi-
derable distances. Yes, everybody was there except the ac-
cused. He was too feeble in body for the strain. But Marget
was present, and keeping up her hope and her spirit the best
she could. The money was present, too. It was emptied on
the table, and was handled and caressed and examined by
such as were privileged.

The astrologer was put in the witness-box. He had on his
best hat and robe for the occasion.

QUESTION You claim that this money is yours?

ANSWER I do.

Q. How did you come by it?

A. I found the bag in the road when I was returning from
a journey.

Q. When?

A. More than two years ago.

Q. What did you do with it?

A. I brought it home and hid it in a secret place in my obser-
vatory, intending to find the owner if I could.

Q. You endeavored to find him?

A. I made diligent inquiry during several months, but nothing
came of it.

Q. And then?

A. I thought it not worth while to look further, and was
minded to use the money in finishing the wing of the foundl-
ing-asylum connected with the priory and nunnery. So I took
it out of its hiding-place and counted it to see if any of it
was missing. And then--

Q. Why do you stop? Proceed.

A. I am sorry to have to say this, but just as I had finished
and was restoring the bag to its place, I looked up and there
stood Father Peter behind me.

Several murmured, "That looks bad," but others answered,

"Ah, but he is such a liar!"

Q. That made you uneasy?

A. No; I thought nothing of it at the time, for Father Peter
often came to me unannounced to ask for a little help in his
need.

Marget blushed crimson at hearing her uncle falsely and impudent-
ly charged with begging, especially from one he had always de-
nounced as a fraud, and was going to speak, but remembered
herself in time and held her peace.

Q. Proceed.

A. In the end I was afraid to contribute the money to the
foundling-asylum, but elected to wait yet another year and
continue,my inquiries. When I heard of Fatiber Peter's find
I was glad, and no suspicion entered my mind; when I came
home a day or two later and discovered that my own money
was gone I still did not suspect until three circumstances
connect with Father Peter's good fortune struck me as being
singular coincidences.

Q. Pray name them.

A. Faer Peter had found his money in a path--I had found
mine in a road. Father Peter's find consisted exclusively
of gold ducats--mine also. Father Peter found eleven
hundred and seven ducats-- exactly the same.

This closed his evidence, and certainly it made a strong
impression on the house; one could see that.

Wilhelm Meidling asked him some questions, then called us
boys, and we told our tale. It made the people laugh, and
we were ashamed. We were feeling pretty badly, anyhow, be-
cause Wilhelm was hopeless, and showed it. He was doing as
well as he could, poor young fellow, but nothing was in his
favor, and such sympathy as there was was now plainly not
with his client It might be difficult for court and people to
believe the astrologer's story, considering his character, but
it was almost impossible to believe Father Peter's. We were
already feeling badly enough, but when the astrologer's lawyer
said he believed he would not ask us any questions--for our
story was a little delicate and it would be cruel for him to put
any strain upon it--everybody tittered, and it was almost
more than we could bear. Then he made a sarcastic little
speech, and got so much fun out of our tale, and it seemed so
ridiculous and childish and every way impossible and foolish,
that it made everybody laugh till the tears came; and at
last Marget could not keep up her courage any longer, but
broke down and cried, and I was so sorry for her.

Now I noticed something that braced me up. It was Satan
standing alongside of Wilhelm! And there was such a con-
trast!--Satan looked so confident, had such a spirit in his
eyes and face, and Wilhelm looked so depressed and despondent.
We two were comfortable now, and judged that he would test-
ify and persuade the bench and the people that black was
white and white black, or any other color he wanted it. We
anced around to see what the strangers in the house thought
of him, for he was beautiful, you know--stunning, in fact
--but no one was noticing him; so we knew by that that he
was invisible.

The lawyer was saying his last words; and while he was
saying them Satan began to melt into Wilhelm. He melted
into him and disappeared; and then there was a change,
when his spirit began to look out of Wilhelm's eyes.

That lawyer finished quite seriously, and with dignity.
He pointed to the money, and said:

"The love of it is the root of all evil. There it lies, the
ancient tempter, newly red with the shame of its latest
victory--the dishonor of a priest of God and his two poor
juvenile helpers in crime. If it could but speak, let us
hope that it would be constrained to confess that of all
its conquests this was the basest and the most pathetic."

He sat down. Wilhelm rose and said:

"From the testimony of the accuser I gather that he found
this money in a road more than two years ago. Correct me,
sir, if I misunderstood you."

The astrologer said his understanding of it was correct.

"And the money so found was never out of his hands thence-
forth up to a certain definite date--the last day of last
year. Correct me, sir, if I am wrong."

The astrologer nodded his head. Wilhelm turned to the
bench and said:

"If I prove that this money here was not that money, then
it is not his?"

"Certainly not; but this is irregular. If you had such a wit-
ness it was your duty to give proper notice of it and have
him here to--" He broke off and began to consult with the
other judges. Meantime that other lawyer got up excited and
began to protest against allowing new witnesses to be brought
into the case at this late stage.

The judges decided that his contention was just and must
be allowed.

"But this is not a new witness," said Wilhelm. "It has already
been partly examined. I speak of the coin."

"The coin? What can the coin say?"

"It can say it is not the coin that the astrologer once pos-
sessed. It can say it was not in existence last December.

By its date it can say this."

And it was so! There was the eatest excitement in the
court while that lawyer and the judges were reaching for
coins and examining tbm and exclaiming. And everybody
was full of admiration of Wilhelm's brightness in happening
to think of that neat idea. At last order was called and
the court said:

"All of the coins but four are of the date of the present
year. The court tenders its sincere sympathy to the accused,
and its deep regret that he, an innocent man, through
an unfortunate mistake, has suffered the undeserved humi-
iation of imprisonment and trial. The case is dismissed."

So the money could speak, after all, though that lawyer
thought it couldn't. The court rose, and almost everybody
came forward to shake hands with Marget and congratulate
her, and then to shake with Wilhelm and praise him; and
Satan had stepped out of Wilhelm and was standing around
looking on full of interest, and people walking through
him every which way, not knowing he was there. And Wilhelm
could not explain why he only thought of the date on the
coins at the last moment, instead of earlier; he said it
just occurred to him, all of a sudden, like an inspiration,
and he brought it right out without any hesitation, for,
although he didn't examine the coins, he seemed, somehow,
to know it was true. That was honest of him, and like him;
another would have pretended he had thought of it earlier,
and was keeping it back for a surprise.

He had dulled down a little now; not much, but still you
could notice that he hadn't that luminous look in his eyes
that he had while Satan was in him. He nearly got it back,
though, for a moment when Marget came and praised him
and thanked him and couldn't keep him from seeing how
proud she was of him. The astrologer went off dissatisfied
and cursing, and Solomon Isaacs gathered up the money and
carried it away. It was Father Peter's for good and all, now.
Satan was gone. I judged that he had spirited himself away
to the jail to tell the prisoner the news; and in this I was
right. Marget and the rest of us hurried thither at our best
speed, in a great state of rejoicing.

Well, what Satan had done was this: he had appeared before
that poor prisoner, exclaiming, "The trial is over, and
you stand forever disgraced as a thief--by verdict of the
court!"

The shock unseated the old man's reason. When we arrived,
ten minutes later, he was parading pompously up and
down and delivering commands to this and that and the
other constable or jailer, and calling them Grand Cham-
berlain, and Prince This and Prince That, and Admiral of
the Fleet, Field Marshal in Command, and all such fustian,
and was as happy as a bird. He thought he was Emperor!

Marget flung herself on his breast and cried, and indeed
everybody was moved almost to heartbreak. He recognized
Marget, but could not understand why she should cry. He
patted her on the shoulder and said:

"Don't do it, dear; remember, there are witnesses, and it
not becoming in the Crown Princess. Tell me your trouble
--it shall be mended; there is nothing the Emperor cannot
do." Then he looked aroimd and saw old Ursula with her apron
to her es. He was puzzled at that, and said, "And what is the
matter with you?"

Through her sobs she got out words explaining that she
was distressed to see him--"so." He reflected over that a
moment, then muttered, as if to himself; "A singular old thing,
the Dowager Duchess--means well, but is always snuffling
and never able to tell what it is about. It is because she
doesn't know." His eyes fell on Wilhelm. "Prince of India,"
he said, "I divine that it is you that the Crown Princess is
concerned about. Her tears shall be dried; I will no longer
stand between you; she shall share your throne; and between
you you shall inherit mine. There, little lady, have I done
well? You can smile now--isn't it so?"

He petted Marget and kissed her, and was so contented
with hhnself and with everybody that he could not do enou
for us all, but began to give away kingdoms and such things
light and left, and the least that any of us got was a prin-
cipality. And so at last, being persuaded to go home, he
marched in imposing state; and when the crowds along the
way saw how it gratified him to be hurrahed at, they humo-
red him to the top of his desire, and he responded with
condescending bows and gracious smiles, and often stretched
(Hit a hand and said, "Bless you, my people!"

As pitiful a sight as ever I saw. And Marget, and old
Ursula crying all the way.

On my road home I came upon Satan, and reproached him
with deceiving me with that lie. He was not embarrassed,
but said, quite simply and composedly;

"Ah, you mistake; it was the truth. I said he would be
ha.ppy the rest of his days, and he will, for he will always
tlunk he is the Emperor, and his pride in it and his joy in it
will endure to the end. He is now, and will remain, the one
utterly happy person in this empire."

"But the method of it, Satan, the method! Couldn't you
have done it without depriving him of his reason?"

It was difficult to irritate Satan, but that accomplished it.

"What an ass you are!" he said. "Are you so unobservant
not to have found out that sanity and happiness are an
impossible combination? No sane man can be happy, for to
him life is real, and he sees what a fearful thing it is.
Only the mad can be happy, and not many of those. The few
that imagine themselves kings or gods are happy, the rest
are no happier than the sane. Of course, no man is entirely
in his right mind at any time, but I have been referring to
the extreme cases. I have taken from this man that trump
thing which the race regards as a Mind; I have replaced his
tin life with a silver-gilt fiction; you see the result--and
you criticize! I said I would make him permanently happy,
and I have done it. I have made him happy by the only means
possible to his race--and you are not satisfied!" He heaved a
discouraged sigh, and said, "It seems to me that this race is
hard to please."

There it was, you see. He didn't seem to know any way to
do a person a favor except by killing him or making a lunatic
out of him. I apologized, as well as I could; but privately I
did not think much of his processes--at that time.


Satan was accustomed to say that our race lived a life of
continuous and uninterrupted self-deception. It duped itself
from cradle to grave with shams and delusions which it mis-
took for realities, and this made its entire life a sham. Of the
score of fine qualities which it imagined it had and was vain
of, it really possessed hardly one. It regarded itself as gold,
and was only brass. One day when he was in this vein he men-
tioned a detail--the sense of humor. I cheered up then, and
took issue. I said we possessed it.

"There spoke the race!" he said; "always ready to claim
what it hasn't got, and mistake its ounce of brass filings
for a ton of gold-dust. You have a mongrel perception of humor,
nothing more; a multitude of you possess that. This multitude
see the comic side of a thousand low-grade and trivial things
--broad incongruities, mainly; grotesqueries, absurdities,
evokers of the horse-laugh. The ten thousand high-grade
comicalities which exist in the world are sealed from their
dull vision. Will a day come when the race will detect the
funniness of these juvenilities and laugh at them--and by
laughing at them destroy them? For your race, in its poverty,
has unquestionably one really effective weapon--laughter.
Power, money, persuasion, supplication, persecution--these
can lift at a colossal humbug--push it a little--weaken it
a little, century by century; but only laughter can blow it
to rags and atoms at a blast. Against the assault of laughter
nothing can stand. You are always fussing and fighting with
your other weapons. Do you ever use that one? No; you leave
it lying rusting. As a race, do you ever use it at all? No; you
lack sense and the courage."

We were traveling at the time and stopped at a little
city in India and looked on while a juger did his tiidcs be-
fore a group of natives. They were wonderful, but I knew
Satan coidd beat that game, and I begged him to show us.a
little, and he said he would. He changed himself into a
native in turban and breech-cloth, and very considerately
conferred on me a temporary knowledge of the language.

The juggler exhibited a seed, covered it with earth in a
small flower-pot, then put a rag over the pot; after a minute
the rag began to rise; in tmi minutes it had risen a foot;
then e rag was removed and a little tree was exposed, with
leaves upon it and ripe fruit. We ate the fruit, and it
was good. But Satan said:

"Why do you cover the pot? Can't you grow the tree in
the sunlight?"

"No," said the juggler; "no one can do that."

"You are only an apprentice; you don't know your trade.
Give me the seed. I will show you." He took the seed and
said, "What shall I raise from it?"

"It is a dierry seed; of course you will raise a cherry."

"Oh no; that is a trifle; any novice can do that. Shall 1
raise an orange-tree from it?"

"Oh yes!" and the juggler laughed.

"And shall I make it bear other fruits as well as oranges?"

"If God wills!" and they all laughed.

Satan put the seed in the ground, put a handful of dust on
it, and said, "Rise!"

A tiny stem shot up and began to grow, and grew so fast
that in five minutes it was a great tree, and we were sitting
in the shade of it. There was a murmur of wonder, then all
looked up and saw a strange and pretty sight, for the branch-
es were heavy with fruits of many kinds and colors--oranges,
grapes, bananas, peaches, dierries, apricots, and so on.
Baskets were brought, and the unlading of the tree began;
and the people crowded around Satan and kissed his hand,
and praised him, calling Him the prince of jugglers. The
news went about the town, and everybody came running to
see the wonder--and they remembered to bring baskets, too.
But the tree was equal to the occasion; it put out new fruits
as fast as any were removed; baskets were filled by the scene
and by the hundred, but always the supply remained undimin-
ished. At last a foreigner in white linen and sun-helmet ar-
rived, and exclaimed, angrily:

"Away from here! Clear out, you dogs; flie tree is on my
lands and is my property."

The natives put down their baskets and made humble obei-
sance. Satan made humble obeisance, too, with his fingers
to his forehead, in the native way, and said:

"Please let them have their pleasure for an hour, sir--
only that, and no longer. Afterward you may forbid them;
and you will still have more fruit than you and the state
together can consume in a year."

This made the foreigner very angry, and he cried out,
"Who are you, you vagabond, to tell your betters what they
may do and what they maynH!" and he struck Satan with his
cane and followed this error with a kick.

The fruits rotted on the branches, and the leaves gathered
and fell. The foreigner gazed at the bare limbs with the
look of one who is surprised, and not gratified. Satan said:

"Take good care of the tree, for its health and yours
are bound together. It will never bear again, but if you
tend it well it will live long. Water its roots once in each
hour every night--and do it yourself; it must not be done by
proxy, and to do it in daylight will not answer. If you fail
only once in any night, the tree will die, and you likewise.
Do not go home to your own country any more--you would
not reach there; make no business or pleasure engagements
which require you to go outside your gate at night--you cannot
afford the risk; do not rent or sell this place--it would
be injudicious."

The foreigner was proud and wouldn't beg, but I thought
he looked as if he would like to. While he stood gazing at
Satan we vanished away and landed in Ceylon.

I was sorry for that man; sorry Satan hadn't been his cus-
tomary self and killed him or made him a lunatic. It would
have been a mercy. Satan overheard the thought, and said:

"I would have done it but for his wife, who has not offen-
ded me. She is coming to him presently from their native
land, Portugal. She is well, but has not long to live, and
has been yearning to see him and persuade him to go back
with her next year. She will die without knowing he can't
leave that place."

"He won't tell her?"

"He? He will not trust that secret with any one; he will
reflect that it could be revealed in sleep, in the hearing
of some Portuguese guest's servant some time or other."

"Did none of those natives understand what you said to
him?"

"None of them understood, but he will always be afraid
that some of them did. That fear will be torture to him,
for he has been a harsh master to them. In his dreams he
will imagine them chopping his tree down. That will make
his days uncomfortable--I have already arranged for his
nights."

It grieved me, though not sharply, to see him take such a
malicious satisfaction in his plans for this foreigner.

"Does he believe what you told him, Satan?"

"He thought he didn't, but our vanishing helped. The tree,
where there had been no tree before--that helped. The in-
sane and uncanny variety of fruits--the sudden withering--all
these things are helps. Let him think as he may, reason as
he may, one thing is certain, he will water the tree. But
between this and night he will begin his changed career with
a very natural precaution--for him."

"What is that?"

"He will fetch a priest to cast out the tree's devil. You
are such a humorous race--and don't suspect it."

"Will he tell the priest?"

"No. He will say a juggler from Bombay created it, and that h
e wants the juggler's devil driven out of it, so that it will
thrive and be fruitful again. The priest's incantations will
fail; then the Portuguese will give up that scheme and get his
watering-pot ready."

"But the priest will burn the tree. I know it; he will not
allow it to remain."

"Yes, and anywhere in Europe he would burn the man,
too. But in India the people are civilized, and these things
will not happen. The man will drive the priest away and take
care of the tree."

I reflected a little, then said, "Satan, you have given him
a hard life, I think."

"Comparatively. It must not be mistaken for a holiday."

We flitted from place to place around the world as we had
done before, Satan showing me a hundred wonders, most of
them reflecting in some way the weakness and triviality of
our race. He did this now every few days--not out of malice
--I am sure of that--it only seemed to amuse and interest
him, just as a naturalist might be amused and interested by
a collection of ants.


11


For as much as a year Satan continued these visits, but at
last he came less often, and then for a long time he did not
come at all. This always made me lonely and melancholy. I
felt that he was losing interest in our tiny world and might
at any time abandon his visits entirely. When one day
he finally came to me I was overjoyed, but only for a little
while. He had come to say good-by, he told me, and for the
last time. He had investigations and undertakings in other
oomen of the universe, he said, that would keep him bmy
for a longer period than I could wait for his return.

"And you are going away, and will not come back any
more?"

"Yes," he said. "We have comraded long together, and it
has bera pleasant--pleasant for both; but I must go now,
and we shall not see each other any more."

"In this life, Satan, but in another? We shall meet in an-
other, surely?"

Then, all tranquilly and soberly, he made the strange an-
swer, "There is no other."

A subtle influence blew upon my spirit from his, bringing
it a vague, dim, but blessed and hopeful feeling that the
incredible words might be true--even must be true.

"Have you never suspected this, Theodor?"

"No. How could I? But if it can only be true--"

"It is true."

A gust of thankfulness rose in my breast, but a doubt
checked it before it could issue in words, and I said,
"But--but--we have seen that future life--seen it in its
actuality, and so--"

"It was a vision--it had no existence."

I could hardly breathe for the great hope that was struggling
in me. "A vision?--a vi--"

"Life itself is only a vision, a dream."

It was electrical. By God! I had had that very thought a
thousand times in my musings!

"Nothing exists; all is a dream. God--man--the world
the sun, the moon, the wilderness of stars--a dream, all a
dream; they have no existence. Nothing exists save empty
space--and you!"

"I!"

"And you are not you--you have no body, no blood, no
bones, you are but a thought. I myself have no existence;
I am but a dream--your dream, creature of your imagination.
In a moment you will have realized this, then you will banish
me from your visions and I shall dissolve into the nothing-
ness out of which you made me....

"I am perishing already--I am failing--I am passing away.
In a little while you will be alone in shoreless space, to wan-
der its limitless solitudes without friend or comrade forever--
for you will remain a thought, the only existent thought, and
by your nature inextinguishable, indestructible. But I, your
poor servant, have revealed you to yourself and set you free.
Dream other dreams, and better!

"Strange! that you should not have suspected years ago--
centuries, ages, eons, ago!--for you have existed, compan-
ionless, through all the eternities. Strange indeed, that you
should not have suspected that your universe and its contents
were only dreams, visions, fiction! Strange, because they are
so frankly and hysterically insane--like all dreams: a God who
could make good children as easily as bad, yet preferred to
make bad ones; who could have made every one of them hap-
py, yet never made a single happy one; who made them prize
their bitter life, yet stingily cut it short; who gave his angels
eternal happiness unearned, yet required his other children to
earn it; who gave his angels painless lives, yet cursed his other
children with biting miseries and maladies of mind and body;
who mouths justice and invented hell--mouths mercy and in-
vented hell--mouths Golden Rules, and forgiveness multiplied
by seventy times seven, and invented hell; who mouths morals
to other people and has none himself; who frowns upon crimes,
yet commits them all; who created man without invitation, then
tries to shuffle the responsibility for man's acts upon man, in-
stead of honorably placing it where it belongs, upon himself; and
finally, with altogether divine obtuseness, invites this poor, abused
slave to worship him!...
.
"You perceive, now, that these things are all impossible
except in a dream. You perceive that they are pure and
puoUe insanities, the silly creations of an imagination that is
not consdous of its freaks--in a word, that they are a dream,
and you the mako' of it The dream-marks are all present;
you should have recognized them earlier.

"It is true, that which I have revealed to you; there is no
God, no universe, no human race, no earthly life, no heaven,
no hell. It is all a dream--a grotesque and foolish dream.
Nothing exists but you. And you are but a thought--a vagrant
thought, a useless thought, a homeless thought, wandering
forlorn among the empty etemities!"

He vanished, and left me appalled; for I knew, and realized,
that all he had said was true.

1916