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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/34553-8.txt b/34553-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..122bbc2 --- /dev/null +++ b/34553-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,5367 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Over the Plum Pudding, by John Kendrick Bangs + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Over the Plum Pudding + +Author: John Kendrick Bangs + +Release Date: December 3, 2010 [EBook #34553] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK OVER THE PLUM PUDDING *** + + + + +Produced by Annie McGuire. This book was produced from +scanned images of public domain material from the Google +Print archive. + + + + + + + + + +[Illustration: Book Cover] + + + + +[Illustration: John Kendrick Bangs] + + + + +Over the Plum-Pudding + +_by_ +John Kendrick Bangs + +Author of + "A House-Boat on the Styx" + "Coffee and Repartee" + "The Idiot at Home" + "The Idiot" + +Illustrated + +[Illustration] + +New York and London +Harper & Brothers Publishers +1901 + + +Copyright, 1901, by HARPER & BROTHERS. + + + + +TO +JOHN KENDRICK BANGS, JR. +WHOSE FONDNESS FOR PLUM PUDDINGS +SUGGESTS THE PROPRIETY OF THIS +Dedication + + + + +Thanks are due to the Publishers of _Harper's Round Table_, _Harper's +Weekly_, _The Delineator_, _Life_, _Brooklyn Life_, and the New York +_Mail and Express_ for permission to republish these stories in +collected form. + + + + +Contents + + + PAGE + "OVER THE PLUM-PUDDING" 3 + BILLS, M.D. 23 + THE FLUNKING OF WATKINS'S GHOST 41 + AN UNMAILED LETTER 67 + THE AMALGAMATED BROTHERHOOD OF SPOOKS 83 + A GLANCE AHEAD 105 + HANS PUMPERNICKEL'S VIGIL 139 + THE AFFLICTION OF BARON HUMPFELHIMMEL 157 + A GREAT COMPOSER 175 + HOW FRITZ BECAME A WIZARD 193 + RISE AND FALL OF THE POET GREGORY 209 + THE LOSS OF THE "GRETCHEN B." 223 + + + + +Illustrations + + + JOHN KENDRICK BANGS _Frontispiece_ + PARLEY CONVERSING WITH THE INVISIBLE GHOST _Facing p._ 48 + "I THOUGHT A MILE WAS THE PROPER DISTANCE" 88 + "HE VANISHED IN SOMETHING OF A RAGE" 94 + THE SPECTRE BRASS-BAND 98 + "THE THING FELL OVER LIMP" 100 + "'GOOD-MORNING, MR. DAWSON'" 108 + "THREE VILLANOUS-LOOKING BODIES, AND A FOURTH, WHICH DAWSON + RECOGNIZED AS HIS OWN" 126 + "HE'S THE WORST BABY YOU EVER SAW" 148 + "IT WAS A WEARY VIGIL, BUT HE WAS TRUE" 150 + "'MY CASTLE'S BURNING, EH? HA-HA!'" 162 + "RUPERT WAS ALWAYS MERRY" 166 + "SIEGFRIED VON PEPPERPOTZ GREW ILL OF IT" 170 + "THE THREE FIDDLED WITH ALL THEIR STRENGTH" 188 + "'YOU ARE A VERY NICE OLD GENTLEMAN'" 200 + "THE LITTLE FELLOW MUSED OFT AND LONG THEREON" 202 + "IT NEARLY BLINDED HIM" 204 + + + + +"Over the Plum-Pudding" + +WHY IT WAS NEVER PUBLISHED. AN AUTHORITATIVE STATEMENT BY ITS EDITOR. + + +_On the eve of his departure for Manila, where he is shortly to begin +the publication of a comic paper, my friend Mr. Horace Wilkinson, late +literary adviser of Messrs. Hawkins, Wilkes & Speedway, the publishers, +sent to me the following pages of manuscript with the request that I +should have them published for the benefit of those whom the story may +concern. I have cheerfully accepted the commission, desiring it to be +distinctly understood, however, that I am in no sense responsible for +Mr. Wilkinson's statements either of fact or of opinion. I am merely the +medium through whom his explanation is brought to the public eye._ + + _J. K. B._ + + + + +"Over the Plum-Pudding" + +I + + +[Illustration: Decorative I] + +have been asked so often and by so many persons known and unknown to me +why it was that a Christmas book that was to have been issued some years +ago under my editorial supervision never appeared, although announced as +ready for immediate publication, that I feel that I should make some +statement in explanation of the seeming deception. The matter was very +annoying, both to my publishers and to myself at the time it happened, +and while I was anxious then to make public a full and candid statement +of the facts as they occurred, Messrs. Hawkins, Wilkes & Speedway deemed +it the wiser course to let the affair rest for a year or two anyhow. +They failed to see my point of view, that, while they were responsible +for the advertisement, I was assumed to be responsible for the book, +and in the event of its failure to appear it would naturally be inferred +by the public that my work had not proven sufficiently up to standard to +warrant them in continuing the venture. I did not press the matter, +however, being too busy on other affairs to give to it the attention it +deserved, and until now no opportunity to explain my connection with the +unfortunate volume has arisen. I should hesitate even at this late date +to give a wide publicity to the incident were it not that my mail has +lately been overburdened by rather peremptory requests from the several +contributors to the volume to be informed what had become of the tales +they wrote and for which they were to be paid on publication. +Ordinarily, letters of this kind I should refer to my business +principals, the publishers themselves, but in this emergency it happens, +unfortunately for me, that the publishers have been retired from +business and are now engaged in other pursuits: one of them at the +Klondike, another as a veterinary surgeon-general at Santiago, on the +appointment of the Secretary of War, and the third living somewhere +abroad incog. as the result of his having drawn out all the capital of +his partners and fled one early spring morning two years ago, leaving +behind him his best wishes and about eight thousand dollars in debts for +his partners to pay. It therefore devolves on me to explain to the irate +authors as best I can what happened. The explanation may not be shirked, +for they are wholly within their rights in demanding it. My only hope is +that they will be satisfied with my statement, although I am quite +conscious, sadly so, of the fact that to certain suspicious minds it may +seem to lack credibility. + + +II + +To begin, I will place the responsibility for the whole affair where it +belongs. It was the fault of no less a person than Mr. Rudyard Kipling. +Mr. Andrew Lang's connection with the episode, of course, involved us in +the final catastrophe, but he is not to blame. Mr. Kipling started the +whole affair, and if Mulvaney and Ortheris and Learoyd had behaved +themselves properly the book would now be resting calmly upon many an +appreciative library shelf, instead of being, as it is, but a sorrowful +memory and a possible cause for a series of international lawsuits. + +This fact being understood as the basis of my argument, I will proceed +to prove it; and to do so properly I must give in brief outline some +idea of the contents of the book. It was to be called "Over the +Plum-Pudding; or, Tales Told Under the Mistletoe, by Sundry Tattlers. +Edited by Horace Wilkinson"--in fact, I hold a copyright at this moment +upon this alluring title. Furthermore, it was to be unique among modern +publications in that, while professing to be a Christmas book, the tales +were to be full of Christmas spirit. The idea struck me as a very +original one. I had observed that Fourth-of-July issues of periodicals +were differentiated from the Christmas numbers only in the +superabundance of advertisements in the latter, and it occurred to me +that a Christmas publication containing some reference to the Christmas +season would strike the public as novel--and, in spite of the +unfortunate overturning of my schemes, I still think so. Messrs. +Hawkins, Wilkes & Speedway thought so, too, and gave me _carte blanche_ +to go ahead, stipulating only that I should spare no expense, and that +the stories should be paid for on publication. I was also to enlist the +services of the best persons in letters only. + +Taking this last stipulation as the basis of my editorial operations, it +is not a far cry to the conclusion that I sought to get stories from +such eminent writers as Mr. Hall Caine, Dr. Doyle, Mr. Kipling, Richard +Harding Davis, Andrew Lang, George Meredith, and myself. There were a +few others, but these were people whose light shone forth suddenly and +brilliantly, and then went out. I shall have no occasion to mention +their names. It is enough to call attention to the fact that ultimately +they were all I had left. + +Mr. Caine's contribution was a charming little fancy written originally +for children, but sent to me because it was the only thing the author +happened to have on hand at the moment he received my request. It was +called, if I remember rightly, "The Inebriate Santa Claus." It was full +of that spirit of life and gayety which has been such a marked feature +of Mr. Caine's work in the past, and was written with all of that fine, +manly vigor that Mr. Caine puts into his every word. Sunshiny, I should +call it, if I were seeking for the one word which summed up the virtues +of "The Inebriate Santa Claus." One glowed as one perused it with the +warmth of the whole thing, especially in such passages as this, for +instance: + + "His downward trip through the chimney of Marston Hall gave + him confidence in himself. He had observed as he was about + to leave the roof of Higginbottom Castle that his footprints + in the snow were suggestive of his actual condition, and he + wondered if he could possibly get through the evening's work + without catastrophe. But the Marston Hall chimney flue + restored his confidence. It was straight, and after his + descent the soot, that clung to the inner walls like bad + habits to a man, showed none of the vacillating lines which + were the essential characteristic of his footprints on the + roof. He was sobering up." + +I wish I could remember the story as a whole. It would be unjust, +however, to the author to try to reproduce it from memory, and I shall +not make the effort. It went on to tell, however, how the good old +Saint, in his unfortunate condition of inebriacy, overturned the +Christmas tree at Marston Hall and set fire to the house, resulting in a +slight singeing of his own person and the destruction of the Hall, +together with all the inmates, a fact that so distressed the unhappy +Santa Claus that at the next nursery he visited he resolved to reform +and indulge no more in strong drink, although the nurse, on putting the +children to bed, had departed, leaving a bottle of whiskey upon the +mantel-piece--this showing Santa Claus's powers of self-control in the +face of temptation. + +Altogether, as I have already said, the story was full of import and +sunshine, and, as may be seen from my brief and inadequate description, +was possibly more fitted for children than for the adult mind. + + +III + +Mr. Meredith's story came next, and it had all of that charm which goes +with the average Meredithian production. To call it dictionaryesque is +not too high praise to bestow upon it. What it was about I never really +gathered, although I of course read it through several times before +accepting it, and perused the proofs carefully some eight or nine times. +There were allusions to Santa Claus in it, however, and I therefore let +it pass, feeling that to the admirers of the master's genius its message +would ring out clear and crisp like the glad chimes of the Christmas +morn; and it was my desire to be the bearer of glad things to all +people, whether I was myself in sympathy with their literary tastes or +not. I recall one page in the story--the last of all, however, which +struck me as a marvel. Fotherington, whom I guessed to be the hero, is +standing on top of a shot-tower in London, about to commit suicide by +jumping down, when all of a sudden Santa Claus appears beside him and +inquires if the tower is a chimney or not. Fotherington gives a +"throat-gasping laugh" and invites Santa Claus to join him in the jump +and find out for himself. The author writes: + + "At this, the spirit of the Hourgod, the multitudinous larvæ + of his emotions, intensified by the nose-whirling + impertinence of the other, gazed, eyes tear-surging, towards + the reddish northern cheek of the piping East, human in its + bulk, the wharf cranes rising superabundant from the + umbrageous onflowing of the commerce-ridden stream, piercing + the middle distance like a mine-hid vein of purest gold in + the mellowing amber of approaching dawn, flying seaward, + curdling in its mad pressure ever onward, soon to be lost in + the vaguely infinite, beyond which, unconscious of the + perils of the inspired home-coming, lies that of which + homogeneous man may speculate, but never, by reason of his + inflated limitations, approximate without expletion. + + "'Beg pardon!' said he, with an interrogation in his + inflection. 'I was not aware of the facts.' Fotherington was + silent for a moment, and then, recognizing Santa Claus, a + shame-surge encarnadined his cheek, and he answered, + strenuously apologetic: 'This is the shot-tower. The sight + of you restores me to life. I shall not again dwell upon + self-destruction. Heaven bless the spirit of the hour.' + + "He buried his face in the Saint's pack, and hot tears + sprang forth from his vision. + + "'Beg pardon again,' observed Santa Claus, drawing himself + away. 'If you must weep, weep on my shoulder, not on my + pack. The toys are not painted in fast colors.' + + "And the two went down together." + + +IV + +The contribution of Mr. Davis was a most excellent sketch of the +inimitable Van Bibber, and told how on his way to a dance late one +evening during Christmas week he encountered, snuggled in a doorway near +the North River, a poor little street gamin nearly frozen to death. Van +Bibber saves the child's life by removing his dress-coat and wrapping it +up in it, the result being that he has to lead the cotillon at Mrs. +Winchley's clad in a fur-lined overcoat. It was a tender and touching +little literary gem, and was full of the fine sentiment and lofty +moralizing for which this author has always been noted. Its humor may +well be imagined. The little talk between Van Bibber and Travers in the +dressing-room as to Van Bibber's dilemma when he realized how his +impetuosity had led him into giving the boy his coat was a +characteristic bit, and ran somewhat like this: + + "'What the deuce shall I do?" he said, fanning his somewhat + flushed face with the silver-backed hand-mirror. 'I can't + lead the cotillon in my shirt-sleeves.' + + "'No, you can't,' assented Travers with a droll smile. 'What + an ass you were not to give him your fur-lined overcoat + instead.' + + "'It wouldn't have fitted him,' said Van Bibber, absently. + 'Poor little devil.' + + "'There's only one thing you can do, Van,' said Travers + after a moment's pause. 'Either don't stay, or dance in your + overcoat.' + + "'That's two things,' retorted Van Bibber. 'Of course I've + got to stay. I told Mrs. Winchley I'd lead her cotillon, and + I've got to do it. Do you suppose people would say anything + if I did appear in my overcoat?' + + "'Not if they had any manners they wouldn't,' said Travers. + 'Of course, it will be observed, but if they know anything + about good form they'll keep quiet about it.' + + "'Then it's settled,' Van Bibber said quietly. 'I'll wear + the fur overcoat, and to disarm all criticism I'll simply + tell everybody I have a fearful cold and don't dare take it + off. Come on--let's go down. It's half past one now, and + Mrs. Winchley told me she wanted to begin early, so as to + have it over with before breakfast.'" + + +V + +It was my pleasure next to have a Sherlock Holmes story from Dr. Doyle, +wherein the great detective is once more restored to life, and through +an ingenious complication discovers himself. His sudden disappearance, +which was never fully explained, did not really result in his death, but +in a concussion of the brain in his fall over the precipice which drove +all consciousness of his real self from his mind. Found in an +unconscious condition by a band of yodelers, he is carried by them into +the Tyrolese Alps, where, after a prolonged illness, he regains his +health, but all his past life is a blank to him. How he sets about +ferreting out the mystery of his identity is the burden of the story, +and how he ultimately discovers that he is none other than Sherlock +Holmes by finding a diamond brooch in the gizzard of a Christmas turkey +at Nice, where he is stopping under the name of Higgins, is vividly set +forth: + + "'And you have never really ascertained, Mr. Higgins, who + you are?' asked Lady Blenkinsop, as they sat down at Mrs. + Wilbraham's gorgeous table on Christmas night. + + "'No, madame,' he replied, sadly, 'but I shall ultimately + triumph. My taste in cigars is a peculiar one, and no one + else that I have ever met can smoke with real enjoyment the + kind of a cigar that I like. I am searching, step by step, + in every city for a cigar dealer who makes a specialty of + that brand who has recently lost a customer. Ultimately I + shall find one, and then the chain of evidence will be near + to its ultimate link, for it may be that I shall turn out to + be that man.'" + +Thus the story runs on, and the pseudo-Higgins delights his +fellow-guests with the brilliance of his conversation. He eats lightly, +when suddenly a flash of triumph comes into his deep-set eyes, for on +cutting open the turkey gizzard the diamond brooch is disclosed. He +seems about to faint, but with a strong effort of the will he regains +his strength and arises. + + "Mrs. Wilbraham,' he said, quietly and simply--'ladies and + gentlemen, I must leave you. I take the 9.10 train for + London. May I be excused?' + + "The eyes of the company opened wide. + + "'Why--must you really go, Mr Higgins?' Mrs. Wilbraham + queried + + "'It is imperative,' said he. 'I am going to have myself + identified. The finding of this diamond brooch in a turkey + gizzard convinces me that I am Sherlock Holmes. Such a thing + could happen to no other, yet I may be mistaken. I shall + call at once upon a certain Dr. Watson, of London, a friend + of Holmes's, who will answer the question definitely.' + + "And with a courteous bow to the company he left the room, + his usually pale features aglow with unwonted color." + +Of course, the surmise proves to be correct, and the great detective +once more rejoins his former companions, restored not only to them, but +to himself. It was one of the most keenly interesting studies of +detective life that Dr. Doyle or any one else has ever given us, and my +regret that the story is lost to the world amounts almost to a positive +grief. + + +VI + +The only other notable efforts in the book were, as I have already +indicated, from the pens of Andrew Lang and Rudyard Kipling, and as the +preceding stories were characteristic of their authors, so were these +equally so. I have not the time to more than suggest their tenor +briefly. Mr. Lang's story was one of his charming made-over fairy tales, +and he unfortunately introduced that most fearsome of dragons Fafner +into it. He was held, however, in captivity, and had the situation in +which Mr. Lang left him been allowed to remain undisturbed, all would +have been well, and "Over the Plum-Pudding" would not have met with +disaster. Mr. Kipling, however, chose to contribute a Mulvaney story, +and herein lay the whole trouble. Mulvaney and his two roystering +companions, Ortheris and Learoyd, start in on a Christmas spree, and +they do it in their own complete fashion, and Mr. Kipling never in his +life drew his characters more vividly and vigorously; but this time he +did it too vigorously. The three musketeers of the British army got +beyond his control, and it is the fact that when "Over the Plum-Pudding" +was ready for presentation to the public they broke loose from the story +in which they were supposed to be confined; went rushing and roaring, +regardless of the etiquette of the situation, through every other tale +in the book, found the bottle of whiskey which the nurse-maid in Mr. +Caine's story had left on the mantel-piece, drained it to the dregs, and +then, under the mad influence of the alcohol, _let Fafner loose_. + +Their fate may easily be imagined. They were at once destroyed by the +angry beast, who, after making a meal upon them, rushed like a +steam-engine through the Sherlock Holmes story, swallowing its +characters one and all as though they were naught but salted almonds; +breathed fire upon Meredith's shot-tower until it tottered and fell, a +smoking ruin; chewed up the frozen little gamin in the Van Bibber +sketch; withered Van Bibber and his overcoat and his friends by one +snorting blast of steam from his left nostril; and, in fact, to make a +long story shorter than it might be, strewed blue ruin from title-page +to finis of "Over the Plum-Pudding." It is the fact that on the morning +set for the presentation of the edition to the public, on opening my own +copy of the book there was not a character in it left alive; not a house +that had not been reduced to charred timbers and ashes; not a scene that +was not withered as by the flames of perdition, and where once had been +a strong portrayal of a scene of happy social revels, the ballroom of +Mrs. Winchley, where Van Bibber was to lead the cotillon, lay +Fafner--dead. Kipling's characters were too much for his digestion. + + +VII + +That is the story of "Over the Plum-Pudding." That is why it never +appeared. That is the explanation of the editor. I admit that in some +ways the explanation seems scarcely credible, but it is in every respect +truthful, and on my return from Manila I will prove it to all +suspicious-minded persons who may choose to doubt it, for I can show +them the copyright papers of the book, the advertisement of its +approaching publication, my contract with Messrs. Hawkins, Wilkes and +Speedway, and a few press notices I had myself prepared for its +exploitation. + +I can also prove that Mr. Kipling draws his characters so vividly and +vigorously that they stand out like real people before us, and certainly +if they can do that, there is no reason why they should not be able to +do all that I have claimed they did do. + + HORACE WILKINSON. + + + + +Bills, M.D. + + + + +Bills, M.D. + +A CHRISTMAS GHOST I HAVE MET + + +[Illustration: Decorative I] + +t was the usual kind of a Christmas Eve. The snow was falling with its +customary noiselessness, and the world was gradually taking on a mantle +of white which made it look like a very attractive wedding-cake. It was +upon this occasion that Old Bills materialized in my down-town study and +got me out of a very unpleasant hole. The year had not been a very +profitable one for me. My last book had been a comparative failure, +having sold only 118,000 copies in the first six months, so that instead +of receiving $60,000 in royalties on the first of November, as I had +expected, I had fallen down to something like $47,000. There was a +fraction of seven or eight hundred dollars--just what it was I cannot +recall. Then my securities had, for one reason or another, failed to +yield the customary revenue; some thirty or forty of my houses had not +rented; taxes had increased--in short, I found myself at Christmas-time, +with my wife and eight children expecting to be remembered, with less +than $80,000 that I could spare in the bank. + +To be sure, we had all agreed that this year we should avoid +extravagance, and the little madame had informed me that she would be +very unhappy if I expended more than $40,000 upon her present from +myself. My daughter, too, like the sweet girl that she is, said, with a +considerable degree of firmness, that she would rather have a check for +$10,000 than the diamond necklace I had contemplated giving her; and my +eldest son had sent word from college, in definite terms, that he didn't +think, in view of the hard times, he would ask for anything more than a +new pair of wheelers for his drag, three hunters, a T cart, a silver +chafing-dish set, and a Corot for his smoking-room. + +This spirit, as I say, permeated the household--even the baby babbled of +economy, and thought he could get along with ruby jackstones and a bag +of cats'-eyes to play marbles with. But even thus, as the reader can see +for himself, $80,000 would not go far, and I was in despair. There is no +greater trial in the world than that confronting a generously disposed +father who suddenly finds himself at Christmas time without the means to +carry out his wishes and to provide his little ones with the gifts which +their training has justified them in expecting. + +I was seated alone in my office, not having the courage to go home and +tell my family of the horrid state of affairs, or, rather, putting off +the evil hour, for ultimately the truth would have to be told. It was +growing dark. Outside I could hear the joyous hum of the busy streets; +the clanging of the crowded cable-cars, going to and fro, bearing their +holiday burden of bundle-laden shoppers, seemed to sound musically and +to tell of peace and good-will. Even the cold, godless world of commerce +seemed to warm up with the spirit of the hour. I alone was in misery, at +a moment when peace and happiness and good-will were the watchwords of +humanity. My distress increased every moment as I conjured up before my +mind's eye the picture of the coming morn, when my children and their +mother, in serene confidence that I would do the right thing by them, +should find the tree bare of presents, and discover, instead of the +usual array of bonds and jewels, and silver services, and horses and +carriages, and rich furs, and priceless books (the baby had cut his +teeth the year before on the cover of the Grolier edition of Omar +Khayyam, which, at a cost of $600, I had given him, bound in ivory and +gold, with carbuncles adorning the back and the title set in +brilliants)--discover, instead of these, I say, mere commonplace +presents possessing no intrinsic worth--why, it was appalling to think +of their disappointment! To be sure, I had purchased a suit of Russian +sables for madam, and had concealed a certified check for $25,000 in the +pocket of the dolman, but what was that in such times, hard as they +were! + +And you may imagine it was all exquisitely painful to me. Then, on a +sudden, I seemed not to be alone. Something appeared to materialize off +in the darker corner of the study. At first I thought it was merely the +filming over of my eyes with the moisture of an incipient and unshed +tear, but I was soon undeceived, for the thing speedily took shape, and +a rather unpleasant shape at that, although there was a radiant +kindliness in its green eyes. + +"Who are you?" I demanded, jumping up and staring intently at the +apparition, my hair meanwhile rising slightly. + +"I'm Dr. Bills," was the response, in a deep, malarial voice, as the +phantom, for that is all it was, approached me. "I've come to help you +out of your troubles," it added, rather genially. + +"Ah? Indeed!" said I. "And may I ask how you know I am in trouble?" + +"Certainly you may," said the old fellow. "We ghosts know everything." + +"Then you are a ghost, eh?" I queried, although I knew mighty well at +the moment I first saw him that he was nothing more, he was so +transparent and misty. + +"At your service," was the reply, as my unexpected visitor handed me a +gelatinous-looking card, upon which was engraved the following legend: + + U. P. BILLS, M.D., + "The Spook Philanthropist." + Troubles Cured While You Wait. + +"Ah!" said I, as I read it. "You'll find me a troublesome patient, I am +afraid. Do you know what my trouble is?" + +"Certainly I do," said Bills. "You're a little short and your wife and +children have expectations." + +"Precisely," said I. "And here is Christmas on top of us and nothing for +the tree except a few trifling gems and other things." + +"Well, my dear fellow," said the kindly visitant, "if you'll intrust +yourself to my care I'll cure you in a jiffy. There never was a case of +immediate woe that I couldn't cure, but you've got to have confidence in +me. + +"Sort of faith cure, eh?" I smiled. + +"Exactly," he replied. "If you don't believe in Old Bills, Old Bills +cannot relieve your distress." + +"But what do you propose to do, Doctor?" I asked. "What is your course +of treatment?" + +"That's my business," he retorted. "You don't ask your family physician +to outline his general plan to you when you summon him to treat you for +gout, do you?" + +"Well, I generally like to know more of him than I know of you," said I, +apologetically, for I had no wish to offend him. "For instance, are you +allopath, or a homoeopath, or some hitherto untrodden path?" + +"Something of a homoeopath," he admitted. + +"Then you cure trouble with trouble?" I asked, rather more pertinently, +as the event showed, than I imagined. + +"I cure trouble with ease," he replied glibly. "You may accept or reject +my services. It's immaterial to me." + +"I don't wish to seem ungrateful, Doctor," said I, seeing that the old +spook was growing a trifle irritated. "I certainly most gratefully +accept. What do you want me to do?" + +"Go home," he said, laconically. + +"But the empty tree?" I demanded. + +"Will not be empty to-morrow morning," said he, and he vanished. + +I locked my study door and started to walk home, first stopping at the +café down-stairs and cashing a check for $60,000. I had confidence in +Old Bills, but I thought I would provide against possible failure; and I +had an idea that on the way uptown I might perhaps find certain little +things to please, if not satisfy, the children, which could be purchased +for that sum. My surmise was correct, for, while Old Bills did his work, +as will soon be shown, most admirably, I had no difficulty in expending +the $60,000 on simple little things really worth having, between Pine +Street and Forty-second. For instance, as I passed along Union Square I +discovered a superb pair of pearl hat-pins which I knew would please my +second daughter, Jenny, because they were just suited to the immediate +needs of the talking doll she had received from her aunt on her +birthday. They were cheap little pins, but as I paid down the $1,800 +they cost in crisp hundred dollar bills they looked so stunningly +beautiful that I wondered if, after all, they mightn't prove sufficient +for little Jenny's whole Christmas, if Bills should fail. Then I met +poor old Hobson, who has recently met reverses. He had an opera-box for +sale for $2,500, and I bought it for Martha, my third daughter, who, +though only seven years old, frequently entertains her little school +friends with all the manner of a woman of fashion. I felt that the +opera-box would please the child, although it was not on the grand tier. +I also killed two birds with one stone by taking a mortgage for $10,000 +on Hobson's house, by which I not only relieved poor old Hobson's +immediate necessities, but, by putting the mortgage in my son Jimmy's +stocking, enriched the boy as well. So it went. By the time I reached +home the $60,000 was spent, but I felt that, brought up as they had +been, the children would accept the simple little things I had brought +home to them in the proper spirit. They were, of course, cheap, but my +little ones do not look at the material value of their presents. It is +the spirit which prompts the gift that appeals to them--Heaven bless +'em! I may add here, too, that my little ones did not even by their +manner seem to grudge that portion of the $60,000 spent which their +daddy squandered on his immediate impulses, consisting of a nickel extra +to a lad who blacked his boots, thirty cents for a cocktail at the club, +and a dime to a beggar who insisted on walking up Fifth Avenue with him +until he was bought off with the coin mentioned--a species of blackmail +which is as intolerable as it is inevitable on all fashionable +thoroughfares. + +But their delight as well as my own on the following morning, when the +doctor's fine work made itself manifest, was glorious to look upon. I +frankly never in my life saw so magnificent a display of gifts, and I +have been to a number of recent millionaire weddings, too. To begin +with, the most conspicuous thing in the room was the model of a steam +yacht which Old Bills had provided as the family gift to myself. It was +manifest that the yacht could not be got into the house, so Bills had +had the model sent, and with it the information that the yacht itself +was ready at Cramp's yard to go into commission whenever I might wish to +have it. It fairly took my breath away. Then for my wife was a rope of +pearls as thick as a cable, and long enough to accommodate the entire +week's wash should the laundress venture to borrow it for any such +purpose. All the children were fitted out in furs; there were four gold +watches for the boys, diamond tiaras and necklaces of pearls and +brilliant rings for the girls. My eldest son received not only the +horses and carriages and the Corot he wanted, but a superb gold mounted +toilet set, and a complete set of golf clubs, the irons being made of +solid silver, the shafts of ebony, with a great glittering diamond set +in the handle of each, these all in a caddy bag of seal-skin, the fur +shaved off. There was a charming little naphtha launch and a horseless +carriage for Jimmy, and, as for the baby, it was very evident that Old +Bills had a peculiarly tender spot in his ghostly make-up for children. +I doubt if the finest toy-shops of Paris ever held toys in greater +variety or more ingenious in design. There were two armies of soldiers +made of aluminum which marched and fought like real little men, a band +of music at the head of each that discoursed the most stirring music, +cannons that fired real shot--indeed, all the glorious panoply of war +was there in miniature, lacking only blood, and I have since discovered +that even this was possible, since every one of the little soldiers was +so made that his head could be pulled off and his body filled with red +ink. Then there was a miniature office building of superb architectural +design, with little steam elevators running up and down, and throngs of +busy little creatures, manipulated by some ingenious automatic +arrangement, rushing hither and thither like mad, one and all seemingly +engaged upon some errand of prodigious commercial import. Another +delightful gift for the baby was a small opera-house, and a complete +troupe of little wax prime donne, and zinc tenors, and brass barytones, +with patent removable chests, within which small phonographs worked so +that the little things sang like so many music--boxes, while in the +chairs and boxes and galleries were matinée girls and their escorts and +their bonnets and their enthusiastic applause--truly I never dreamed of +such magnificent things as Old Bills provided for the occasion. He had +indeed got me out of my immediate difficulty, and when I went to bed +that night, after the happiest Christmas I had ever known, I called down +the richest blessings upon his head; and why, indeed, should I not? We +had between $400,000 and $500,000 worth of presents in the house, and +they had not cost me a penny, outside of the $60,000 I had spent on the +way uptown, and what could be more conducive to one's happiness than +such a Yuletide Klondike as that? + +This was many years ago, dear reader, before the extravagant methods of +the present day crept into and somewhat poisoned the Christmas spirit, +but from that day to this Old Bills has never ceased to haunt me. He has +been my constant companion from that glorious morning until to-day, when +I find myself telling you of him, and, save at the beginning of every +recurring month, when I am always very busy and somewhat anxious about +making ends meet, his society is never irksome. Once you get used to +Bills he becomes a passion, and were it not for his singular name I +think I should find him a constant source of joy. + +It rather dampened my ardor, I must confess, when I found that the +initials of the good old doctor, U. P., stood for Un Paid, but if you +can escape the chill and irksomeness of that there is no reason why the +poorest of us all may not derive much real joy in life from the good +things we can get through Bills. + +In justice to the readers of this little tale, I should perhaps say, in +conclusion, that I read it to my wife before sending it out, and she +asserts that it was all a dream, because she says she never received +that rope of pearls. To which I retorted that she deserved to, +anyhow--but, dream or otherwise, the visitation has truly been with me +for many years, and I fear the criticism of my spouse is somewhat +prompted by jealousy, for she has stated in plain terms that she would +rather go without Christmas than see me constantly haunted by Bills: +but, after all, it is a common condition, and it does help one at +Christmas time in an era when the simple observance of the season, so +characteristic of the olden time, has been superceded by a lavish +expenditure which would bring ruin to the richest of us were it not for +the benign influence of Bills, M.D. + + + + +The Flunking of Watkins's Ghost + + + + +The Flunking of Watkins's Ghost + + +[Illustration: Decorative P] + +arley was a Freshman at Blue Haven University, and, like many other +Freshmen, had a wholesome fear of examinations. In the football field he +was courageous to the verge of foolhardiness, but when he sat in his +chair in the examination-room, with a paper covered with questions +before him, he was as timid as a fawn. There was no patent flying or +revolving wedge method of getting him through the rush-line of Greek, +nor by any known tackle could he down the half-backs of mathematics and +kick the ball of his intellect through the goal-posts, on the other side +of which lay the coveted land of Sophomoredom. Hence Parley, who had +spent most of his time practicing for his class eleven, found himself at +the end of his first term in a state of worry like unto nothing he had +ever known before. + +"It would be tough to fail at this stage of the game," he thought, as he +reflected upon what his father would say in the event of his failure. +"It wouldn't be so bad to flunk later on, but for a chap to fall down at +the very beginning of his race wouldn't reflect much credit on his +trainer, and I think it very likely the governor would be mad about it." + +"Of course he would!" said a voice at his side. "Who wouldn't?" + +Parley jumped, he was so startled. Nor was it surprising that even so +cool and physically strong a person as he should for an instant know the +sensation of fear. If you or I should happen to be lying off in our room +before a flickering log-fire, which furnished the only illumination, +smoking a pipe, reflecting, and all alone, I think we would ourselves, +superior beings as we are, be startled to hear a strange voice beside us +answering our unspoken thoughts. This was exactly what had happened in +Parley's case. Now that the football season was over, he realized that +too much time had been spent on that and too little upon his studies, +and conditions were all he could see in the future. This naturally made +Parley very unhappy, and upon this particular night he had retired to +his room to be alone until his blue spell should wear off. Several of +his classmates had knocked at his door, but he had made no response, and +in order further to give the impression that he was not within he had +turned out his gas and table lamp, and sat pulling viciously away at his +pipe, watching the flames on the hearth as they danced to and fro upon +the logs, which last hissed and spluttered away as if they approved +neither of the dancing flames nor of Parley himself. + +Straining his eyes in the direction whence the voice had seemed to come, +Parley endeavored to ascertain who had spoken, but all was as it had +been before. There was no one in sight, and the freshman settled back +again in his chair. + +"Humph!" he ejaculated. "Guess I must have fallen asleep and dreamed +it." + +"Not a bit of it," interposed the voice again. "I'm over here in the +arm-chair." + +Parley sprang to his feet and grabbed up his "banger," as the big cane +he had managed to hold to the bitter end in the rush of cherished memory +was called. + +"Oh, you are, are you?" he cried, controlling his fear with great +difficulty; and his voice would hardly come, his throat and lips had +become so dry from nervousness. "And, pray, how the deuce did you get +in?" he demanded, peering over into the arm-chair's capacious +depths--still seeing nothing, however. + +"Oh, the usual way," replied the voice--"through the door." + +"That's not so," retorted Parley. "Both doors are locked, so you +couldn't. Why don't you come out like a man where I can see you, and +tell the truth, if you know how?" + +"Can't," said the other--"that is, I _can't_ come out like a _man_." + +"Ah!" sneered Parley. "What are you then--a purple cow?" + +"I don't know what a purple cow is," replied the voice, in sepulchral +tones. "I never saw one. They didn't have 'em in my day, only plain +brown ones--cows of the primary colors." + +"Ah?" said Parley, smartly. The invisible thing was speaking so meekly +that his momentary terror was passing away. "You had blue cows in your +day, eh?" + +"Oh, my, yes!" replied the strange visitor; "lots of 'em. Take any old +cow and deprive her of her calf, and she becomes as blue as indigo." + +Here the voice laughed, and Parley joined. + +"You're a clever--ah--what?-- A clever It," he said. + +"You might call me an It if you wanted to," said the stranger. "Possibly +that's my general classification. To be more specific, however, I'm a +ghost." + +"Ho! Nonsense'" retorted Parley. "I don't believe in ghosts." + +"That may be," said the other, calmly. "I didn't when I was here, a +living human being with two legs and a taste for smoke, like you. But I +found out afterwards that I was all wrong. When you get to be a ghost, +if you have any self-respect you'll believe in 'em. Furthermore, if I +wasn't a ghost I couldn't have got in here through two closed doors to +speak to you." + +"That's so," replied Parley. "I didn't think of that. Still, you can't +expect me to believe you without some proof. Suppose you let me whack +you over the head with this stick? If it goes through you without +hurting you, all well and good. If it doesn't, and knocks you out, I +sha'n't be any the worse off. What do you say?" + +"I'm perfectly willing," said the voice; "only look out for your chair. +You might spoil it." + +"Afraid, eh?" said Parley. + +"For the chair, yes," replied the spirit. "Still it isn't my chair, and +if you want to take the risk, I'm willing. You can kick a football +through my ribs if you wish. It's all the same to me." + +"I'll try the banger," said Parley, dryly. "Then if you are a +sneak-thief, as I half suspect, you'll get what you deserve. If you're +what you claim to be, all's well for both of us. Shall I?" + +"Go ahead," replied the ghost, nonchalantly. + +Parley was more surprised than ever, and was beginning to believe that +It was a ghost, after all. No sneak-thief would willingly permit +himself to be whacked on the head with any such adamantine weapon as +that which Parley held in his hand. + +"Never mind," said he, relenting. "I won't." + +"Yon _must_, now," said the other. "If you don't, I can't help you at +all. I can't be of service to a person who either can't or won't believe +in me. If you want to pass your examinations, whack." + +"Bah! What idiocy!" cried Parley. "I--" + +"Go ahead and whack," persisted the voice. "As hard as you know how, +too, if you want to. Pretend you are cornered by a wild beast, and have +only one chance to escape, and whack for dear life. I'm ready. My arms +are folded, and I'm sitting right here over the embroidered cushion that +serves as the seat of your chair." + +"I've caught you, there," said Parley. "You aren't sitting there at all. +I can see the embroidered cushion." + +"Which simply proves what I say," retorted the ghost. "If I were not a +ghost, but a material thing like a sneak-thief, you couldn't see through +me. Whack away." + +And Parley did so. He raised the banger aloft, and brought it down on +the spot where the invisible creature was sitting with all the force at +his command. + +"There," said the ghost, calmly, from the chair. "Are you satisfied? It +didn't do me any damage; though I must say you've knocked the embroidery +into smithereens." + +It was even as he said. The force with which Parley had brought the +heavy stick down had made a great rent in the soft cushion, and he had +had his trouble for his pains. + +"Well, do you believe in me now?" the ghost demanded, Parley, in his +surprise and wrath, having found no words suited to the occasion. + +"I suppose I've got to," he replied, ruefully gazing upon the ruined +cushion. "That's what I get for being an idiot. I don't know--" + +"It's what you get for pretending that you can't believe all that you +can't see," put in the ghost, "which is a very grave error for a young +man--or an old one, either, for that matter--to make." + +Parley sat down, and was silent for a moment. + +[Illustration: PARLEY CONVERSING WITH THE INVISIBLE GHOST] + +"Well," he said at length, "granting that there are such things as +ghosts, and that you are one, what the deuce do you come bothering me +for? Just wanted to plague me, I suppose, and get me to smash my +furniture." + +"Not at all," retorted the ghost. "I didn't ask you to smash your +furniture. On the contrary, I warned you that that was what you were +going to do. You suggested smashing me, and I told you to go ahead." + +Parley couldn't deny it, but he could not quite conceal his resentment. + +"Don't you think I'm bothered enough by the prospect of a beautiful +flunk at my exams, without your trickling in through the doorway to +exasperate me?" he demanded. + +"Who has come to exasperate you, Parley?" said the ghost, a trifle +irritably. "I haven't. I came to help you, but, by Jingo! I've half a +mind to leave you to get out of your troubles the best way you can. Do +you know what's the matter with you? You are too impetuous. You are the +kind of chap who strikes first and thinks afterwards. So far your +experiments on me have kept me from telling you who I am and what I've +come for. If you don't want help, say so. There are others who do, and +I'll be jiggered if I wouldn't rather help them than you, now that I +know what a fly-away Jack you are." + +The spirit with which the visitor uttered these words made Parley +somewhat ashamed of his behavior, and yet no one could really blame him, +under the circumstances, for doing what he did. + +"I'm sorry," he said, in a moment, "but you must remember, sir, that at +Blue Haven there is no chair in manners, and the etiquette of a meeting +of this sort is a closed book to me." + +"That's all right," returned the ghost, kindly. "I don't blame you, on +the whole. The trouble lies just where you say. In college people study +geology and physiology and all the other 'ologies, save spectrology. +Most college trustees disbelieve in ghosts, just as you do, and the +consequence is you only touch upon the relations of man with the spirit +world in your studies of psychology, and then only in a very incomplete +fashion. Any gentleman knows how to behave to another gentleman, but +when he comes into contact with a spook he's all at sea. If somebody +would only write a ghost-etiquette book, or a 'Spectral Don't,' people +who suffer from what you are pleased to call hallucinations would have +an easier time of it. If I had been a book-agent, or a sneak-thief, or a +lady selling patent egg-beaters which no home should be without, you +would have received me with greater courtesy than you did." + +"Still," said Parley, anxious to make out a good case for himself, "most +of 'em wouldn't walk right into a fellow's room and scare him to death, +you know." + +"Nor would I," said the ghost. "You are still living, Parley, as you +wouldn't have been if I'd scared you to death." + +"Specious, but granted," returned Parley. "And now, Mr. Spook, let's +exchange cards." + +"I left my card-case at home," laughed the spirit. "But I'll tell you +who I am and it will suffice. I'm old Billie Watkins, of the class of +ninety-nine." + +"There is no Watkins in ninety-nine," said Parley, suspiciously. + +"Well, there _was_," retorted the spirit. "I ought to know, because I +was old Billie myself. Valedictorian, too." + +"What are you talking about?" demanded Parley. "Ninety-nine hasn't +graduated yet!" + +"Yes, it has," returned the ghost. "Seventeen ninety-nine, I mean." + +Parley whistled. "Oh, I see! You're a relic of the last century!" + +"That's it; and I can tell you, Parley, we eighteenth-century boys made +Blue Haven a very different sort of a place from what you make it," said +Billie. "We didn't mind being young, you know. When we had an +eight-oared race, we rowed only four men, and each man managed two oars. +And there wasn't any fighting over strokes, either; and we'd row anybody +that chose to try us. The main principle was to have a race, and the +only thing we thought about was getting in first." + +"In any old way, I suppose?" sneered Parley. + +"You bet!" cried the spirit, with enthusiasm. "We'd have put our +eight-oared crew up against twenty Indians in a canoe, if they'd asked +us; and when it came to rounders, we could bat balls a mile in those +days. A fellow didn't have to make a science out of his fun when I was +at Blue Haven." + +"And what good did it do you?" cried Parley. + +"We held every belt and every mug and every medal in the thirteen +States, that's what. We laid out Cambridge at one-old-cat eight times in +two months, and as for those New York boys, we beat 'em at marbles on +their own campus," returned the ghost. + +Parley was beginning to be interested. + +"I'd like to see the records of those times," he said. + +"Records? Bosh!" said old Billie Watkins. "You don't for a moment +believe that every time we played a game of marbles or peg-top, or rowed +against a lot of the town boys, we sat down and wrote up a history of +it, do you? We were too busy having fun for that. Oh, those days! those +days!" the ghost added, with a sigh. "College wasn't filled with +politicians and scientific fun-seekers and grandfathers then." + +"Grandfathers? More likely you were forefathers," suggested Parley. + +"We've become both since," said Watkins. "But we were boys then, and +glad of it." + +"Aren't we boys now?" queried Parley. + +"Yes, you are," replied the ghost. "But you seem to be doing your best +to conceal the fact. As soon as a lad gets into college now he puts on +all the airs of a man. Walks, talks like a grave man. Eats and drinks +like a grave man. Why, I don't believe you ever robbed the president's +hen-coop in your life!" + +"No," laughed Parley, "never. For two reasons: it's easier to get our +chickens cooked at the dining-hall, and Prex hasn't got a hen-coop." + +"Exactly. Even our college presidents aren't what they were. Never +hooked a ham out of his smoke-house, either, I'll wager, and for the +same reason-- Prex hasn't a smoke-house. All the smoking he does is in +the line of cigars. But all this hasn't got anything to do with what I +came here for. I came to help you, and I've seen enough of the way +things are done in colleges these days to know that in the other +respects of which I have spoken you are beyond help. Besides, this help +is personal. You are worried about your examinations, aren't you?" + +"Well, rather," said Parley. "You see, I've been playing football." + +"Precisely," said Watkins. "And you've put so much time into learning to +do it scientifically and without using your feet, as we did, that you've +let everything else go." + +"I suppose so," said Parley, sullenly. + +"That's it," said old Billie Watkins. "Now that everything's science, +there isn't time for a boy to do more than one thing at a time, and he's +got to choose between his degree and seeing his picture in the papers as +an athlete. Well, it's not your fault, maybe. It's the times, and I'm +going to help you out. I always try to help somebody once a year. It's +my Christmas gift to mankind, and this year I've decided to help you out +of your fix. Last year I helped Blue Haven win the debating championship +as against our traditional rivals. This year I should have tried to get +Blue Haven to the fore in the boat-race, but everybody about here was +so cocksure of winning it didn't seem to be necessary. I'm sorry now I +didn't know it was all men's bluff and not boys' confidence. I might +have helped the little men out. Still, that's over, and you are to be +the gainer. _I'll pass your examinations for you._" + +"What?" cried Parley, scarcely able to believe his ears. + +"I'll pass your examinations for you," repeated the ghost. "It won't be +hard. As I told you, I was valedictorian of my class." + +"But how?" asked Parley. "You couldn't pass yourself off for me, you +know." + +"Never said I could," returned Billie Watkins. "Never wanted to. I'd +rather be me, floating around in space, than you. What I propose to do +is to stand alongside of you, and tell you the answers to your +questions." + +"But what will the professors say?" demanded Parley. + +"How will they know? They won't be able to see me any more than you +can," said the ghost. "It's easy as shooting." + +"Well, I don't know if it's square," said Parley. "In fact, I do know +that it isn't; but if I get through this time I won't get into the same +fix again." + +"That's just the point," returned the ghost. "You're young, in spite of +your trying not to be, and you've got into trouble. I'll help you out +once, but after that you'll have to paddle your own steam-yacht. I +suppose you scientific watermen wouldn't demean yourselves by paddling a +canoe, the way we used to." + +"I'm sure I'm very much obliged, Mr. Watkins," said Parley. + +"Oh, botheration!" cried the ghost. "_Mister Watkins!_ Look here, +Parley, we're both Blue Haven boys--somewhat far apart in time, it's +true, but none the less Blue-Havenites. Don't 'mister' me. Call me +Billie." + +"All right, Billie," said Parley. "I'll go you, and after it's all over +I'll be as much of a boy as I can." + +"That's right," said the ghost of old Billie Watkins, and then he +departed. At least I presume he departed, for from that time on to the +day of the examinations Parley did not hear his voice again. + +What happened then can best be explained by the narration of an +interview between Parley and the ghost of old Billie Watkins on the +night of the concluding examination-day. Sick, tired, and flunked, poor +Parley went to his room to bemoan his unhappy fate. In no single branch +had he been successful. Apparently his reliance upon the assistance of +Watkins's ghost had proved a mistake--as, in fact, it was, although poor +old Watkins was, as it turned out, no more to blame than if he had never +volunteered his services. + +Flinging himself down in despair, Parley gave way to his feelings. + +"That's what I get for being an ass and believing in ghosts. I might +have known it was all a dream," he groaned. + +"It wasn't," said the unmistakable voice of Watkins, from the chair, +which had been repaired. + +Parley jumped as if stung. + +"You're a gay old valedictorian, you are!" he cried, glowering at the +chair. "Next time you have a Christmas gift for mankind, take it and +burn it, will you? A pretty fix you've got me into." + +"I'm sorry, Parley," began the ghost. "I--" + +"Sorry be hanged!" cried Parley. "If you hadn't made me believe in you, +I might have crammed up on my Greek and Latin anyhow. As it is, it's a +Waterloo all around." + +"If you won't listen--" the ghost began again. + +"I've listened enough!" roared Parley, thoroughly enraged. "And if there +was any way in which I could get at you, I'd make you smart for your +low-down trick!" + +"To think," moaned the ghost, "that I should see the day when old Billie +Watkins was accused of a low-down trick--and I tried to help him, too." + +"Tried to help me?" sneered Parley. "How the deuce do you make that out? +You didn't come within a mile of me, and I've not only flunked, but I've +lost a half-dozen bets on my ability to pass, just because I believed in +you." + +"I _was_ within a mile of you," retorted the ghost, indignantly. "I was +right square in front of you." + +"Then why the dickens didn't you answer the questions? I read 'em out +so loud that old Professor Wiggins sat on me for it." + +"I know you did, Parley," said the ghost, meekly. "And I'd have answered +'em if I could. But I couldn't." + +"Couldn't?" cried Parley. + +"Regularly just couldn't," said the ghost. + +"A valedictorian couldn't answer a question on a Freshman's paper?" +cried Parley, scornfully. + +"No," said the ghost. + +"Fine memory you must have! Do you know what a-b, ab, spells?" sneered +Parley. + +"I do, of course," retorted the ghost, angrily. "A-b, ab, spells +nothing. But that doesn't prove anything. I remember all I ever learned +at Blue Haven, but I've made a discovery, Parley, which lets me out. You +ought to have told me, but, my dear fellow, college begins now just +about where it used to leave off." + +"What?" queried Parley, doubtfully. "What do you mean?" + +"Why, it's plain enough, Jack! Can't you see?" said Watkins. "What +would make a valedictorian in my day won't help a Freshman through his +first year now. Times have changed." + +"Oh, that's it--eh?" said Parley, somewhat mollified. "It isn't only the +fellows that have changed and their sports, but the curriculum--eh? That +it?" + +"Precisely," rejoined old Billie, with a sigh of relief that Parley +should understand him. "I'm beginning to understand, my boy, why you +fellows have to be little men and not boys. No average boy could pass +any such stiff paper as that, and I found myself as ignorant as you +are." + +"Thanks," said Parley, with a short laugh. "I think you ought to have +found it out before leading me into accepting your Christmas gift, +though." + +"It was you who should have found out and told me," retorted the ghost. +"All I can say is that in my day I'd have got you through with flying +colors." + +"Well, I'm much obliged," said Parley. "I'll get out of it somehow, but +it means hard work; only, Mr. Spook, don't be so free with your +Christmas gifts another time." + +"I won't, Jack," said the spirit--"that is, I won't if you'll forgive me +and stop calling me mister. Call me Billie again, and show you've +forgiven me." + +"All right, Billie, my boy," said Parley. "We'll call it square." + +And the unhappy ghost wandered off into the night, leaving Parley to +fight his battles alone. Whether he has turned up again or not, I am not +aware, but, from my observation of Jack Parley's ways ever since, I +think he really did learn something from his contact with Billie +Watkins's ghost. He has been a good deal of a boy ever since. As for +Watkins, I hope that the genial old soul off in space somewhere has also +learned something from Jack. If the old chaps and the youngsters can +only get together and appreciate one another's good points, and how each +has had to labor towards the same end under possibly different +conditions, there will be a greater harmony and sympathy between them, +and they will discover that, in spite of differing times and differing +customs, 'way down at bottom they are the same old wild animals, after +all. There is no more delightful spectacle anywhere than that to be +seen at a college gathering, where the patriarchs of the fifties and the +Freshmen of the present join hand-in-hand and lark it together, and it +is this spirit that makes for the glory of Alma Mater everywhere. + +So, after all, perhaps the meeting of Jack Parley and old Billie +Watkins's ghost had its value. For my part, I can only hope that it had, +and leave them both with my blessing. + + + + +An Unmailed Letter + + + + +An Unmailed Letter + +BEING A CHRISTMAS TALE OF SOME SIGNIFICANCE + + +[Illustration: Decorative I] + +called the other night at the home of my friend Jack Chetwood, and found +him, as usual, engaged in writing. Chetwood's name is sufficiently well +known to all who read books and periodicals these days to spare me the +necessity of adverting to his work, or of attempting to describe his +personality. It is said that Chetwood writes too much. Indeed, I am one +of those who have said so, and I have told _him_ so. His response has +always been that I--and others who have ventured to remonstrate--did not +understand. He had to keep at it, he said. Couldn't help himself. Didn't +write for fun, but because he had to. Always did his best, anyhow, and +what more can be asked of any man? Surely a defence of this nature +takes the wind out of a critic's sails. + +"Busy, Jack?" said I, as I entered his sanctum. + +"Yes," said he. "Very." + +"Very well," said I. "Don't let me disturb you. I only happened in, +anyhow. Nothing in particular to say; but, Jacky, why don't you quit for +a little? You're worn and pale and thin. What's the use of breaking +down? Don't pose with me. You don't have to write all the time." + +He smiled wanly at me. + +"I--I'm only writing a letter this time," he said. + +"Oh, in that case--" I began. + +"You can't guess whom to?" he interrupted. + +"Me," said I. + +"No," he retorted. "Me." + +"I don't understand," said I, somewhat perplexed. + +"Myself," laughed Chetwood. + +"You are writing a letter to--to--" + +"Myself," said he. "Truly so. Odd, isn't it? Wait a few minutes, old +man, and I'll read it to you. Light a cigar and sit down just a minute +and I'll be through." + +I lit one of Chetwood's cigars. They are excellent. I have heard one +expert pronounce them "bully." They are, and of course while I smoked I +was happy. + +At the end of a half-hour's waiting, the silence broken only by the +scratching of Chetwood's pen and by my own puffings upon the weed, he +wheeled about in his chair. + +"Well, that's finished," he said, and he glanced affectionately and, I +thought, wistfully about his charming workshop. + +"Good," said I. "You promised to read it to me." + +"All right," said he. "Here goes." + +And he kept his word. I reproduce the letter from memory. Like all +copy-mongers, he began it with a title double underscored, and I +reproduce it as I heard it: + +"LETTER TO MYSELF + +"ON CHRISTMAS GIVING: A HINT + + "MY DEAR JOHN,--As the Christmas holidays approach it has + seemed to me to be somewhat in the line of my duty to write + to you not only to wish you all the good things of the + season, but to give you a little fatherly advice which may + stand you in good stead when the first of January comes + about. I have observed you and your ways with some + particularity for some time; in fact, since that very happy + day, nearly twenty years ago, when you entered upon the + duties of citizenship, with twenty-one years and a birthday + gift of $500 from your father to your credit. The twenty-one + years had come easily and had gone easily. All you had had + to do to acquire and to retain them was to breathe and to + keep your feet dry. The $500, which represented so much toil + on your father's part, came to you quite as easily. You saw + the check, and you realized the possibilities of the sum for + which it called, but I do not think you ever realized the + effort that produced that $500. I judge from the way you let + it filter through your fingers that you thought your + generous father picked the money up from a pile of gold + lying somewhere in the back yard of his home. I do not know + if you recall what it went for, but I do. Some of it went + for a half-dozen sporting pictures of some rarity that you + had long wished to hang on the walls of your den. More of it + went for rare first editions of books whose possession you + had envied others for no little time. A portion of it was + spent on sundry trinkets which should adorn your person, + such as studs, scarf-pins, a snake ring, with ruby eyes--a + disgusting-looking thing, by the way--to encircle your + little finger. There were also certain small things in the + line of bronzes, silver writing implements, a jug or two of + some value that you had cast your eyes upon, and which you + were quick to acquire. Do you remember, my dear Jack, how + delighted you were with all that you were able to buy with + that $500, until the bills came in and you found that the + consciousness of a $500 backing had led you into an + expenditure of a trifle over $900? You were painfully + surprised that day, Jacky, my boy, but, as I have watched + you since you let it go at that, you never learned anything + from those bills. Indeed, what you call your cheerful + philosophy, which led you to console yourself then with the + thought that the stuff you had bought on credit if sold at + auction would bring in enough to pay the deficit, has clung + to you ever since, and has served you ill--very ill--unless + I am wholly mistaken. You would strike any other man than + myself were he to venture to call you a second Mr. Micawber, + but Johnnie, dear, that is what you are--and you are even + worse than that, John. Let me assure you of the fact. _You + are something worse._ You are a modern Dick Turpin! Don't be + angry at my saying so. Merely understand that I am telling + you the truth, and for your own good, and I'll explain the + analogy. I cannot call a man a modern Dick Turpin without + explaining why I do so. + + "Turpin was a highwayman, as you know. He mounted his horse + and went out upon the highway, and whatever he wanted he + took. He had no greater powers of resistance in the face of + temptation than others had in the face of him. You, John, + are much the same, even if you do not realize the fact. You + mount the steed called Credit, and you go out upon the + highways, and whatever you see that you happen to want you + take--don't you, Jack? It is true that, sooner or later, + you pay, but so did Turpin. Turpin paid with his life. You + will pay with yours, and that is why I write you, for the + constant anxiety to meet the obligations of your thefts--for + that is what they are, John; we cannot blink the fact--this + constant anxiety, I say, is sapping your strength, + undermining your constitution, destroying slowly but surely + your nerves, and sooner or later you will succumb to the + strain. Is it worth the price, my boy? + + "I can imagine you asking what all this has to do with + Christmas and the season of Peace on Earth and Good Will to + Man. You think I am merely cavilling, but I am not. It has + this to do with it: It involves my Christmas present to you, + which is important to me and I trust will be so to you. I am + not going to give you a gold watch, or a complete edition of + Thackeray, or a set of golf clubs this year, and, being a + man, I cannot knit you a worsted vest as your sister + might--or as some other fellow's sister might. All I can + afford to give you this year is a hint, and I shall not wait + until Christmas morn to hand it over to you, because it + would then lack value. I send it to you now, when you need + it most, and, if you accept it, when the Christmas chimes + begin to sound their music on the frosty air you will thank + me for it perhaps more than you do now. + + "Don't be a highwayman this year, John. Never mind what + Solomon said; think of what I say. Solomon was a wise man, + but he lived in a bygone age. Take thought of the morrow, my + boy. Don't consider the lilies of the field, but come down + to real business. Don't mount your prancing horse Credit + and hold up some poor jeweller for a silver water-pitcher + for your brother George when you know that on January 1st + the jeweller will probably ask you for a _quid pro quo_, and + for which _quid_ you will be compelled to compel him to wait + until April or May. And remember that, if your dear wife + could have her choice, she would infinitely prefer your + peace of mind to the sables which you propose to give her at + Christmas, bought on a credit which, however pleasing + to-day, is sure to become a very pressing annoyance + to-morrow. + + "Then, my dear man, there are your children. What a joy they + are! What a source of affectionate pride; what a source of + satisfaction, and how they trust you, Jack. You remember the + trust you placed in your father. You have never slept since + you had to do for yourself as you slept when he did for you. + You didn't know a care then; you had no worries in those old + days; you knew your home was yours and that every reasonable + thing you could wish for he would give you to the full + extent of his means. That confidence was not misplaced, and + all that you have to-day you'd willingly give up for that + sweet peace of mind that was yours while he was with you. + God bless him and his memory. Do you realize, Jack, that you + occupy that same relation to your children? They believe in + you as you believed in him. And are you meeting your + responsibilities as he met his? Think it over. Of course, + for instance, Tommie wants a complete railway system, with + tracks and signals and switches and nickel-plated rolling + stock, and all that--but can you afford to give it to him? + And Pollie--dear little Pollie--what right-minded little + Pollie does not want a doll; a great yellow-haired, + blue-eyed, pink-cheeked doll, with automatic insides and an + expensive trousseau? But can you really afford to give it to + her? Do you remember when you were a baby how you wanted the + moon, and yelled for it lustily? And do you remember how you + didn't get it, and how you sobbed yourself to sleep, and + how, in spite of it all, you waked up the next morning all + smiles and sunshine, with no recollection of ever having + wanted the moon? And do you realize that if your daddy + _could_ have given it to you he _would_ have done so? Do you + recollect how, ever since that happy time, you have wanted + the earth, and how you haven't got it, and how fortunate you + are, and how happy you are without it? So it is, and so it + will be with your children. These things do not change. My + beloved boy, a serene, unworried father, next to a serene + and happy mother, is God's most gracious gift to childhood, + at Christmas or at any other time. If January finds you + petulant and nervous over a bill you cannot pay for Tommie's + Christmas railway and for Pollie's Yuletide doll, then has + the 25th of December brought woe instead of joy into your + home; strife instead of peace, and good will to man is not + to be found there. In January the pure, sweet, simple little + minds will wonder at you, Jack. The little hearts will love + you just the same, but the little minds will wonder at your + irritability, and they will still hold to that beautiful + trust. And you? Well, you'll toss about at night, sleepless + and worried, and if you are of the right sort, as I hope and + believe you are, you will ask yourself if you are worthy of + the confidence the little ones place in you. Your mistaken + notions of generosity may have imperilled your household. + Given health and strength and ideas, you may be able to keep + on and make all right, but who knows at what moment you will + have to give up the fight? Why should you invite care and + worry? Why not come down to the serious facts and insure the + happiness of all who depend upon you by following out a sane + and sensible plan of living and of giving? My dear boy, + don't you know you are doing wrong in being unjustifiably + ostentatious in your giving? I have likened you to Turpin. + You will laugh this off. You aren't a thief--at least you + cannot believe that you are one; but there is something + worse even than being a thief, and I fear you are verging + upon it. + + "Frankly, Jack, I am afraid you are a snob. Yes, sir, a + plain snob; and if snobbery is not worse than thievery, I + know nothing of life. I'd rather be a straight-out, sincere, + honest, unpretending thief than a snob, my dear boy. + Wouldn't you? Let us look into this. The thief is the + creature of circumstances. He is what he is because his + environment and his moral sense, plus his necessities, + require that he shall do what he does. But the snob--what + compelling circumstances make a snob of a man? Why should he + make a pretence of being what he is not? Why should he give + things he cannot afford to give unless it be that he desires + to make an impression that he has no right to? The thief + banks on nothing. The snob takes advantage of his supposed + respectability. Bless us, Jacky, aren't we worse than they + are? + + "Read your Thackeray, old chap. See what he said about + snobs. _He_ never inveighed against the submerged soul that + never had a chance. He never, with all his imputed cynicism, + made a slimy thing of those who fell, as Dickens did. He + struck high. He exploited the vices of those who might do + him real harm. He took the high man, not the low man, for + his target, and he struck home when he struck at snobbery. + And he struck a blow for purer, sweeter living, and men may + call him cynic for all time, but I shall never cease to call + him brave and true for what he did for you and for me, as + well as for all other men. + + "Put yourself in the crucible, Jack. Find out what you are + and what you may be, and don't try to make yourself appear + to be generous when you are simply financially reckless. + Don't rob your creditors in the vain hope that you are + living up to the spirit of the hour, and don't rob yourself. + You are not living up to that spirit. You are degrading it. + God knows I love you more than I love any living thing + except my wife and children, but let me tell you this: the + man who gives more than he has a right to give is a thief in + the eyes of conscience, and, worse than that, he is a snob, + and a mean one at that. Adapt your giving to your + circumstances. Do what you can to make others happy, but at + this season do not, I beg of you, try to do what you can't + in an effort to appear for what you are not. + + "The happiness of your children, of your wife, of yourself, + is involved, and when that happiness is attacked or + weakened, then is the whole spirit of Christmas season set + aside, and the selfishness of the posing impostor put in + its place. Always your affectionate self, + + "JOHN HENRY CHETWOOD." + +When Chetwood had finished I puffed away fiercely upon my cigar. + +"Good letter, Jack," said I. + +"Yes," said he, tearing it up. + +"Don't do that," I cried, trying to restrain him. + +He smiled again and sighed. "It's--gone," said he. "Gone. Forever. I +shall never write it again." + +"You should have sent it to--to yourself," said I. "I have thought +sometimes that such a letter should be written to you." + +"Possibly," said he. "But--it's gone." And he tossed it into the +waste-basket. + +"It's a pity," said I. "You--you might have sold that." + +"I know I might," said he. "But if it had ever appeared in print I +should have been immortally mad. It's a libel on myself. Truth--is +libellous, you know." + +"It might have been rejected," I said, sarcastically. + +"That would have made me madder yet," said Chetwood. + +"Still--you realize the--ah--situation, Jack," I put in. + +"Well," said he, with a laugh, "Christmas is coming, and when the fever +is on--I--well, I catch it. I want to give, give, give, and give I +shall." + +"But you are imperilling--" I cried. + +"I know, I know," he interrupted, gently. "God knows I know, but it is +the fever of the hour. You can't stave off an epidemic. It's not my +fault; it's the fault of the times." + +"Nonsense," I retorted. "Can't you stand up against the times?" + +"I can," said he, complacently lighting a cigar. "But I sha'n't. We'll +all go to ruin together. The man who tries to stand up against the +spirit of the times is an ass. I lack the requisite number of legs for +that." + +"Well," I put in, "I wish you a merry Christmas--" + +"I shall have it," said he, cheerily. "The children--" + +"And the New Year?" I interrupted. + +"It isn't here yet," said Chetwood. "And I never cross a bridge until I +come to it. Take another cigar." + +Nevertheless, I went from Chetwood that night rather happier than I +ought to have been, perhaps. His letter, even though he did not choose +to mail it to himself, showed that he was thinking--thinking about it; +and I was glad. + +What if all men were to consider the questions that Chetwood raised? + +Might not the meaning of Christmas, with all its joy and all its beauty, +and all its inspiration-giving qualities, once more be made clear to +man? I for one believe it would, and I venture to hope that the old-time +simplicity of the observance of the day may again be restored unto us. + +"God bless us all!" said Tiny Tim. + +When the simpler, happier Christmas time, which is a joy, and not a +burden, comes back to us, then will Tiny Tim's prayer have been +answered. + + + + +The Amalgamated Brotherhood of Spooks + + + + +The Amalgamated Brotherhood of Spooks + +A LETTER TO THE EDITOR + + +[Illustration: Decorative I] + +t is with very deep regret that I find myself unable to keep the promise +made to you last spring to provide you with a suitable ghost story for +your Christmas number. I have made several efforts to prepare such a +tale as it seemed to me you would require, but, one and all, these have +proved unavailing. By a singular and annoying combination of +circumstances in which only my unfortunate habit of meeting trouble in a +spirit of badinage has involved me, I cannot secure the models which I +invariably need for the realistic presentation of my stories, and I +decline at this present, as I have hitherto consistently declined, to +draw upon my imagination for the ingredients necessary, even though +tempted by the exigencies of a contract sealed, signed, and delivered. +It is far from my wish to be known to you as one who makes promises only +to break them, but there are times in a man's life when he must consider +seriously which is the lesser evil, to deceive the individual or to +deceive the world, the latter being a mass of individuals, and, +consequently, as much more worthy of respect as the whole is greater +than a part. Could I bring myself to be false to my principles as a +scribe, and draw upon my fancy for my facts, and, through a prostitution +of my art, so sickly o'er my plot with the pale cast of realism as to +hoodwink my readers into believing what I know to be false, the task +were easy. Given a more or less active and unrestrained imagination, +pen, ink, paper, and the will to do so, to construct out of these a +ghost story which might have been, but as a matter of fact was not, +presents no difficulties whatsoever; but I unfortunately have a +conscience which, awkward as it is to me at times, I intend to keep +clear and unspotted. The consciousness of having lied would forever rest +as a blot upon my escutcheon. I cannot manufacture out of whole cloth a +narrative such as you desire and be true to myself, and this I intend to +be, even if by so doing I must seem false to you. I think, however, +that, as one of my friends and most important consumer, you are entitled +to a complete explanation of my failure to do as I have told you I +would. To most others I should send merely a curt note evidencing, not +pleading, a pressure of other work as the cause of my not coming to +time. To you it is owed that I should enter somewhat into the details of +the unfortunate business. + +You doubtless remember that last summer, with our mutual friend Peters, +I travelled abroad seeking health and, incidentally, ideas. I had +discovered that imported ideas were on the whole rather more popular in +America than those which might be said to be indigenous to the soil. The +reading public had, for the time being at least, given itself over to +moats and châteaux and bloodshed and the curious dialects of the lower +orders of British society. Sherlock Holmes had superseded Old Sleuth in +the affections of my countrymen who read books. Even those honest little +critics the boys and girls were finding more to delight them in the +doings of Richard Coeur de Lion and Alice in Wonderland than in the +more remarkable and intensely American adventures of Ragged Dick or +Mickie the Motorboy. John Storm was at that moment hanging over the +world like the sword of Damocles, and Rudolf Rassendyll had completely +overshadowed such essentially American heroes as Uncle Tom and Rollo. I +found, to my chagrin, that the poetry of Tennyson was more widely read +even than my own, even though Tennyson was dead and I was not. And in +the universities whole terms were devoted to the compulsory study of +dramatists like Shakespeare and Molière, while home talent, as +represented by Mr. Hoyt or the facile productions of Messrs. Weber & +Fields, was relegated to the limbo of electives which the students might +take up or not, as they chose, and then only in the hours which they +were expected to devote to recreation. All of which seemed to indicate +that while there was of course no royal road to literary fame, there was +with equal certainty no republican path thereto, and that real +inspiration was to be derived rather under the effete monarchies of +Europe than at home. To Peters the same idea had occurred, but in his +case in relation to art rather than to literature. The patrons of art in +America had a marked preference for the works of Meissonier, Corot, +Gérôme, Millet--anybody, so long as he was a foreigner, Peters said. The +wealthy would pay ten, twenty, a hundred thousand dollars for a Rousseau +or a Rosa Bonheur rather than exchange a paltry one hundred dollars for +a canvas by Peters, though, as far as Peters was concerned, his canvas +was just as well woven, his pigments as carefully mixed, and his +application of the one to the other as technically correct as was +anything from the foreign brushes. + +"You can't take in the full import of a Turner unless you stand a way +away from it," said he, "and if you'll only stand far enough away from +mine you couldn't tell it from a Meissonier." + +[Illustration: "I THOUGHT A MILE WAS THE PROPER DISTANCE"] + +And when I jocularly responded to this that I thought a mile was the +proper distance, he was offended. We quarrelled, but made up after a +while, and in the making up decided upon a little venture into foreign +fields together, not only to recuperate, but to see if so be we could +discover just where the workers on the other side got that quality which +placed them in popular esteem so far ahead of ourselves. + +What we discovered along this especial line must form the burden of +another story. The main cause of our foreign trip, these discoveries, +are but incidental to the theme I have in hand. Our conclusions were +important, but they have no place here, and what they were you will have +to wait until my work on _Abroad versus Home_ is completed to learn. But +what is important to this explanation is the fact that while going +through the long passage leading from the Pitti Palace to the Uffizi +Gallery at Florence we--or rather I--encountered one of those phantoms +which have been among the chief joys and troubles of my life. Peters was +too much taken up with his Baedeker to see either ghosts or pictures. +Indeed, it used to irritate me that Peters saw so little, but he would +do as most American tourists do, and spend all of his time looking for +some especial thing he thought he ought to see, and generally missing +not only it, but thousands of minor things quite as well worthy of his +attention. I don't believe he would have seen the ghost, however, under +any circumstances. It requires a specially cultivated eye or digestion, +one or the other, to enable one to see ghosts, and Peters's eye is blind +to the invisible and his digestion is good. + +Why, under the canopy, the vulgar little spectre was haunting a +picture-gallery I never knew, unless it was to embarrass the Americans +who passed to and fro, for he claimed to be an American spook. I knew he +was not a living thing the minute I laid eyes through him. He loomed up +before me while I was engaged in chuckling over a particularly bad +canvas by somebody whose name I have forgotten, but which was something +like Beppo di Contarini. It represented the scene of a grand fête at +Venice back in the fifteenth century, and while preserved by the +art-lovers of Florence as something worthy, would, I firmly believe, +have failed of acceptance even by the catholic taste of the editor of an +American Sunday newspaper comic supplement. The thing was crude in its +drawing, impossible in its coloring, and absolutely devoid of action. +Every gondola on the canal looked as if it were stuck in the mud, and as +for the water of the Grand Canal itself, it had all the liquid glory +under this artist's touch of calf's-foot jelly, and it amused me +intensely to think that these patrons of art, in the most artistic city +in the world, should have deemed it worth keeping. However, whatever the +merit of the painting, I was annoyed in the midst of my contemplation of +it to have thrust into the line of vision a shape--I cannot call it a +body because there was no body to it. There were the lineaments of a +living person, and a very vulgar living person at that, but the thing +was translucent, and as it stepped in between me and the wonderful +specimen of Beppo di Somethingorother's art I felt as if a sudden haze +had swept over my eyes, blurring the picture until it reminded me of a +cheap kind of decalcomania that in my boyhood days had satisfied my +yearnings after the truly beautiful. + +I made several ineffectual passes with my hands to brush the thing away. +I had discovered that with certain classes of ghosts one could be rid +of them, just as one may dissipate a cloud of smoke, by swirling one's +outstretched paw around in it, and I hoped that I might in this way rid +myself of the nuisance now before me. But I was mistaken. He swirled, +but failed to dissipate. + +"Hum!" said I, straightening up, and addressing the thing with some +degree of irritation. "You may know a great deal about art, my friend, +but you seem not to have studied manners. Get out of my way." + +"Pah!" he ejaculated, turning a particularly nasty pair of green eyes on +me. "Who the deuce are you, that you should give me orders?" + +"Well," said I, "if I were impulsive of speech and seldom grammatical, I +might reply by saying Me, but as a purist, let me tell you, sir, that +I'm I, and if you seek to know further and more intimately, I will add +that who I am is none of your infernal business." + +"Humph!" he said, shrugging his shoulders. "Grammatical or otherwise, +you're a coward! You don't dare say who you are, because you are afraid +of me. You know I am a spectre, and, like all commonplace people, you +are afraid of ghosts." + +A hot retort was on my lips, and I was about to tell him my name and +address, when it occurred to me that by doing so I might lay myself open +to a kind of persecution from which I have suffered from time to time, +ghosts are sometimes so hard to lay, so I accomplished what I at the +moment thought was my purpose by a bluff. + +"Oh, as for that," said I, "my name is So and So, and I live at Number +This, That Street, Chicago, Illinois." + +Both the name and the address were of course fictitious. + +"Very well," said he, calmly, making a note of the address. "My name is +Jones. I am the president of the Amalgamated Brotherhood of Spooks, +enjoying a well-earned rest from his labors on his savings from his +salary as a walking delegate. You shall hear from me on your return to +Chicago through the local chapter, the United Apparitions of Illinois." + +"All right," said I, with equal calmness. "If the Illinois spooks are as +Illinoisome as you are, I will summon the board of health and have them +laid without more ado." + +[Illustration: "HE VANISHED IN SOMETHING OF A RAGE"] + +Upon this we parted. That is to say, I walked on to the Uffizi, and he +vanished, in something of a rage, it seemed to me. + +I thought no more of the matter until a week ago, when, in accordance +with an agreement with the principal thereof, I left New York to go to +Chicago, to give a talk before a certain young ladies' boarding-school, +on the subject of "Muscular Romanticism." This was a lecture I had +prepared on a literary topic concerning which I had thought much. I had +observed that a great deal of the popularity of certain authors had come +from the admiration of young girls--mostly those at boarding-school, and +therefore deprived of real manly company--for a kind of literature +which, seeming to be manly, did not yet appeal very strongly to men. In +certain aspects it seemed strong. It presented heroes who were truly +heroic, and who always did the right thing in the right manner. Writers +who had more ink than blood to shed, and a greater knowledge of +etiquette than of human nature, were making their way into temporary +fame by compelling chaps to do things they could not do. I rather like +to read of these fellows myself. I am no exception to the rule which +makes human beings admire, and very strongly, too, the fellow who poses +successfully. Indeed, I admire a _poseur_ who can carry his pose through +without disaster to himself, because he has nothing to back him up, and, +wanting this, if by his assurance he can make himself a considerable +personage he falls short of genius only by lacking it. But this is apart +from the story. Whatever the general line of thought in the lecture, I +was, as I have said, on my way to Chicago to deliver it before a young +ladies' boarding-school. I should have been happy over the prospect, for +I have many warm friends in Chicago, there was a moderately large fee +ahead, and there is always a charm, as well, in the mere act of standing +on a dais before some two or three hundred young girls and having their +undivided attention for a brief hour. Yet, despite all this, I was +dreadfully depressed. Why, I could not at first surmise. It seemed to +me, however, as though some horrid disaster were impending. I +experienced all the sensations which make four o'clock in the morning so +dreaded an hour to those who suffer from insomnia. My heart would race +ahead, thumping like the screw of an ocean greyhound, and then slow down +until it seemingly ceased to beat altogether; my hands were alternately +dry and hot, and clammy and cold; and then like a flash I knew why, and +what it was I feared. It suddenly dawned upon my mind that, by some +frightfully unhappy coincidence, the address of Miss Brockton's Academy +for Young Ladies, whither I was bound, was precisely the same as that I +had given the vulgar little spook at Florence as my own. I had entirely +forgotten the incident; and then, as I drew near to the spot whereon I +was to have been made to suffer through the machinations of the local +chapter of the Amalgamated Brotherhood of Spooks, my soul was filled +with dread. Had Grand-Master-Spook Jones's threat been merely idle? Had +he, even as I had done, dismissed the whole affair as unworthy of any +further care, or would he keep his word?--indeed, had he kept his word, +and, through his followers in the Amalgamated Brotherhood, made himself +obnoxious to the residents of Number This, That Street? + +[Illustration: THE SPECTRE BRASS-BAND] + +My nervous dread redoubled as I neared Chicago, and it was as much as I +could do, when the train reached Kalamazoo, to keep from turning back. +And the event showed that I suffered with only too much reason, for, on +my arrival at the home of the institution, I found it closed. The door +was locked, the shades pulled down, the building the perfect picture of +gloom. Miss Brockton, I was informed, was in a lunatic-asylum, and two +hundred and eighty-three young girls, ranging from fourteen to twenty +years of age, had been returned to their parents, the hair of every +mother's daughter of them blanched white as the driven snow. No one +knew, my informant said, exactly what had occurred at the academy, but +the fact that was plain to all was that, some two weeks previous to my +coming, the school had retired at the usual hour one night, in the very +zenith of a happy prosperity, and gathered at breakfast the next morning +to find itself wrecked, and bearing the outward semblance of a home for +indigent old ladies. No one, from Miss Brockton herself to the youngest +pupil, could give a coherent account of what had turned them all gray in +a single night, and brought the furrows of age to cheeks both old and +young, nor could any inducement be held out to any of the pupils to pass +another night within those walls. They one and all fled madly back to +their homes, and Miss Brockton's attempted explanation was so incredible +that, protesting her sanity, she was nevertheless placed under +restraint, pending a full investigation of the incident. She had, I was +informed, asserted that some sixty ghosts of most terrible aspect had +paraded through the house between the hours of midnight and 2 A.M., +howling and shrieking and threatening the occupants in a most terrifying +fashion. At their head marched a spectre brass-band of twenty-four +pieces, grinding out with horrid contortions and grimaces the most awful +discords imaginable--discords, indeed, Miss Brockton had said, alongside +of which those of the most grossly material German street band in +creation became melodies of soothing sweetness. The spectre rabble to +the rear bore transparencies, upon which were painted such legends as, +"Hail to Jones, our beloved Chief!" "Strike One, Strike All!" and, "Down +with Hawkins, the Grinder of Ghosts!" This last caused my heart to sink +still lower, for Hawkins was the name I had given the vision at +Florence, and I now understood all. It was only too manifest that I was +the cause of the undoing of these innocents. + +My lie to Jones had brought this disaster upon the Brockton Academy. The +dreadfulness of it appalled me, and I turned away, sick at heart, only +to find myself face to face with the horrid Jones, grinning like the cad +he had proved himself. + +"Well, you have done it," I cried, trembling with rage. "I hope you are +proud of yourself, venting your spite on an innocent woman and two +hundred and eighty-three defenceless girls." + +He laughed. + +"It was a pretty successful haunt," he said; "and possibly, now that +Mrs. Hawkins and your daughters--" + +"Who?" I cried. "Mrs. What, and my which?" + +"Your wife and children," he replied. "Now that the local chapter has +attended to them, maybe you'll apologize to me for your boorish behavior +at Florence." + +"Those people were nothing to me," said I. "That was a boarding-school +you have driven crazy. I was merely coming here to lecture--" + +I immediately perceived my mistake. He could now easily discover my +identity. + +"Oho!" said he, with a broad, grim smile. "Then you lied to me at +Florence, and you are not Hawkins, but the man they call the spook +Boswell among us?" + +"Yes, I am not Hawkins, and I am the other," I retorted. "Make the most +of it." + +"I thought that was rather a large family of girls for one man to have," +rejoined Jones. "But see here--are you going to apologize or not?" + +"I am not," I cried. "Never in this world nor in the next, you miserable +handful of miasma!" + +"Then, sir," said he, firmly, "I shall order a general strike for the +Amalgamated Brotherhood of Spooks, and the strike will be on until you +do apologize. Hereafter you will have to derive your inspiration from a +contemplation of unskilled spooks, and, if I understand matters, you +will find some difficulty in raising even these, for there is not one +that I know of who doesn't belong to the union." + +[Illustration: "THE THING FELL OVER LIMP"] + +With that he vanished, and I sadly made my way back to my home. Once at +my desk again, I turned my attention to the work I had promised you, +and, to my chagrin, discovered that while I had in mind all the +ingredients of a successful Christmas story, I could not write it, +because Grand-Master-Spirit Jones had kept his word. One and all, my +selected group of spooks went out on strike. They absolutely refused to +pose unless I apologized to Jones, and by no persuasions, threats, or +cajoling have I been able since to make them rise up before me, that I +might present them to my readers with that degree of fidelity which I +deem essential. My home, which was once a sort of spirit club, is now +bare of even a semblance of a ghost worth writing up, and, conjure as I +may, I cannot bring them back. The strike is on, and I am its victim. +But one miserable little specimen have I discovered since my interview +with Jones, and so unskilled is he in the science of spooking that I +give you my word he could not make a baby shiver on a dark night with +the temperature twenty below zero and the wind howling like a madman +without; and as for making hair stand on end, I tried him on a bit of +hirsute from the tail of the timidest fawn in the Central Park zoo, and +the thing fell over as limp as a strand from the silken locks of the +Lorelei. + +That, my dear sir, is why I cannot give you the story I have promised. I +hope you will understand that the fault is not my own, but is the result +of the evil tendency of the times, when the protective principle has +reached the ultimate of tyrannous absurdity. + +While Jones is at the head of the Amalgamated Brotherhood my case is +hopeless, for I shall never apologize, unless he promises to restore to +poor Mrs. Brockton and her two hundred and eighty-three pupils their +former youthful gayety and prosperity, which, I understand upon inquiry, +he is unable to do, since the needed patent reversible spook, who will +restore blanched hair to its natural color and return the bloom of youth +to furrowed cheeks, has not yet been invented; and I, the only person in +the world who might have invented it, am powerless, for while the +boycott hangs over my head, as you will see for yourself, I am bereft of +the raw material for the conducting of the necessary experiments. + + + + +A Glance Ahead + + + + +A Glance Ahead + +BEING A CHRISTMAS TALE OF A.D. 3568 + + +[Illustration: Decorative J] + +ust how it came about, or how he came to get so far ahead, Dawson never +knew, but the details are, after all, unimportant. It is what happened, +and not how it happened, that concerns us. Suffice it to say that as he +waked up that Christmas morning, Dawson became conscious of a great +change in himself. He had gone to bed the night before worn in body and +weary in spirit. Things had not gone particularly well with him through +the year. Business had been unwontedly dull, and his efforts to augment +his income by an occasional operation on the Street had brought about +precisely the reverse of that for which he had hoped. This morning, +however, all seemed right again. His troubles had in some way become +mere memories of a remote past. So far from feeling bodily fatigue, +which had been a pressingly insistent sensation of his waking moments of +late, he experienced a startling sense of absolute freedom from all +physical limitation whatsoever. The room in which he slept seemed also +to have changed. The pictures on the walls were not only not the same +pictures that had been there when he had gone to bed the night before, +but appeared, even as he watched them, to change in color and in +composition, to represent real action rather than a mere semblance +thereof. + +"Humph!" he muttered, as a lithograph copy of "The Angelus" before him +went through a process of enlivenment wherein the bell actually did +ring, the peasants bowing their heads as in duty bound, and then +resuming their work again. "I feel like a bird, but I must be a trifle +woozy. I never saw pictures behave that way before." Then he tried to +stretch himself, and observed, with a feeling of mingled astonishment +and alarm, that he had nothing to stretch with. He had no legs, no +arms--no body at all. He was about to indulge in an ejaculation of +dismay, but there was no time for it, for, even as he began, a +terrifying sound, as of rushing horses, over his bed attracted his +attention. Investigation showed that this was caused by an engraving of +Gérôme's "Chariot Race," which hung on the wall above his pillow--an +engraving which held the same peculiar attributes that had astonished +him in the marvellous lithograph of "The Angelus" opposite. The thing +itself was actually happening up there. The horses and chariots would +appear in the perspective rushing madly along the course, and then, +reaching the limits of the frame, would disappear, apparently into thin +air, amid the shoutings and clamorings of the pictured populace. Three +times it looked as if a mass of horseflesh, chariots, charioteers, and +dust would be precipitated upon the bed, and if Dawson could have found +his head there is no doubt whatever that he would have ducked it. + +"I must get out of this," he cried. "But," he added, as his mind +reverted to his disembodied condition, "how the deuce can I? What'll I +get out with?" + +The answer was instant. By the mere exercise of the impulse to be +elsewhere the wish was gratified, and Dawson found himself opposite the +bureau which stood at the far end of the room. + +"Wonder how I look without a body?" he thought, as he ranged his +faculties before the glass. But the mirror was of no assistance in the +settlement of this problem, for, now that Dawson was mere consciousness +only, the mirror gave back no evidence of his material existence. + +"This is awful!" he moaned, as he turned and twisted his mind in a mad +effort to imagine how he looked. "Where in thunder can I have left +myself?" + +As he spoke the door opened, and a man having the semblance of a valet +entered. + +[Illustration: "'GOOD-MORNING, MR. DAWSON'"] + +"Good-morning, Mr. Dawson," said the valet--for that is what the +intruder was--busying himself about the room. "I hope you find yourself +well this morning?" + +"I can't find myself at all this morning!" retorted Dawson. "What the +devil does this mean? Where's my body?" + +"Which one, sir?" the valet inquired, respectfully, pausing in his +work. + +"Which one?" echoed Dawson. "Wh--which--Oh, Lord! Excuse me, but how +many bodies do I happen to have?" he added. + +"Five--though a gentleman of your position, sir, ought to have at least +ten, if I may make so bold as to speak, sir," said the valet. "Your golf +body is pretty well used up, sir, you've played so many holes with it; +and I really think you need a new one for evening wear, sir. The one you +got from London is rather shabby, don't you think? It can't digest the +simplest kind of a dinner, sir." + +"The one I got from London, eh?" said Dawson. "I got a body in London, +did I? And where's the one I got in Paris?" he demanded, sarcastically. + +"You gave that to the coachman, sir," replied the valet. "It never +fitted you, and, as you said yourself, it was rather gaudy, sir." + +"Oh--I said that, did I? It was one of these loud, assertive, noisy +bodies, eh?" + +"Yes, sir, extremely so. None of your friends liked you in it, sir," +said the valet. "Shall I fetch your lounging body, or will you wish to +go to church this morning?" he continued. + +"Bring 'em all in; bring every blessed bone of 'em," said Dawson. "I +want to see how I look in 'em all; and bring me a morning paper." + +"A what, sir?" asked the valet, apparently somewhat perplexed by the +order. + +"A morning paper, you idiot!" retorted Dawson, growing angry at the +question. The man seemed to be so very stupid. + +"I don't quite understand what you wish, sir," said the valet, +apologetically. + +"Oh, you don't, eh?" said Dawson, amazed as well as annoyed at the man's +seeming lack of sense. "Well, I want to read the news--" + +"Ah! Excuse me, Mr. Dawson," said the valet. "I did not understand. You +want the _Daily Ticker_." + +"Oh, do I?" ejaculated Dawson. "Well, if you know what I want better +than I do, bring me what you think I want, and add to it a cup of coffee +and a roll." + +"I beg your pardon!" the valet returned. + +"A cup of coffee and a roll!" roared Dawson. "Don't you know what a cup +of coffee and a roll is or are? Just ask the cook, will you--" + +"Ask the what, sir?" asked the valet, very respectfully. + +"The cook! the cook! the cook!" screamed Dawson. His patience was +exhausted by such manifest dulness. + +"I--I'm sincerely anxious to please you, Mr. Dawson," said his man; "but +really, sir, you speak so strangely this morning, I hardly know what to +do. I--" + +"Can't you understand that I'm hungry?" demanded Dawson. + +"Oh!" said the valet. "Hungry, of course; yes, you should be at this +time in the morning; but--er--your bodies have already been refreshed, +sir; I have attended to all that as usual." + +"Ah! You've attended to all that, eh? And I've breakfasted, have I?" + +"Your bodies have all been fed, sir," said the valet. + +"Never mind me, then," said Dawson. "Bring in those well-fed figures of +mine, and let me look at 'em. Meanwhile, turn on the--er--_Daily +Ticker_." + +The valet bowed, walked across the room, and touched a button on a +board which had escaped Dawson's vigilant eye--possibly because his +vigilant eye was elsewhere--and, with a sigh of perplexity, left the +room. The response to the button pressure was immediate. A clicking as +of a stock-ticker began to make itself heard, and from one corner of the +bureau a strip of paper tape covered with letters of one kind and +another emerged. Dawson watched it unfold for a moment, and then, +approaching it, took in the types that were printed upon it. In an +instant he understood a portion of the situation at least, although he +did not wholly comprehend it. The date was December 25, 3568. He had +gone to bed on Christmas eve, 1898. What had become of the intervening +years he knew not--but this was undoubtedly the year of grace 3568, if +the ticker was to be believed--and tickers rarely lie, as most +stock-speculators know. Instead of living in the nineteenth century, +Dawson had in some wise leaped forward into the thirty-sixth. + +"Great Scott!" he cried. "Where have I been all this time? I don't +wonder my poor old body is gone!" + +And then he started to peruse the news. The first item was a statement +of governmental intent. It read something like a court circular. + +"It is pleasant to announce on Christmas morning," he read, "that the +business of the Administration has proven so successful during the year +that all loyal citizens, on and after January 1, will be paid $10,000 a +month instead of only $7600, as hitherto. The United States Railway +Department, under the management of our distinguished Secretary of +Railways, Mr. Hankinson Rawley, shows a profit of $750,000,000,000 for +the year. Mr. Johnneymaker, Secretary of Groceries, estimates the +profits of his department at $600,000,000,000, and the Secretary of War +announces that the three highly successful series of battles between +France and Germany held at the Madison Square Garden have netted the +Treasury over $500,000 apiece--no doubt due to the fact that Emperor +Bismarck XXXVII. and King Dreyfus XLVIII. led their troops in person. +The showing of the Navy Department is quite as good. The good business +sense of Secretary Smithers in securing the naval fights between Russia +and the Anglo-Indians for American waters is fully established by the +results. The twenty encounters between his Indo-Britannic Majesty's +Arctic squadron and the Czar's Baltic fleet in Boston Harbor alone have +cleared for our citizens $150,000,000 above the guarantees to the two +belligerents; whereas the bombardment of St. Petersburg by the +Anglo-Indians under our management, thanks to the efficient service of +the Cook excursion-steamers direct to the scene of action, has brought +us in several hundred millions more. It should be quite evident by this +time that the Barnum & Bailey party have shown themselves worthy of the +people's confidence." + +Dawson forgot all about his possible bodily complications in reading +this. Here was the United States gone into business, and instead of +levying taxes was actually paying dividends. It was magnificent. + +One might have thought that the unexpected announcement of the +possession of an income of $120,000 a year would be sufficient to +destroy any interest in whatever other news the _Ticker_ might present; +but with Dawson it only served to whet his curiosity, and he read on: + +"The acquirement of the department stores by the government in 2433 has +proven a decided success. Floorwalker-General Barker announces that the +last of the bonds given in payment for the good-will of these +institutions have matured and been paid off. This, too, out of the +profits of four centuries. It is true that the laws requiring citizens +to patronize these have helped much to bring about this desirable +effect, and some credit for the present wholly satisfactory condition of +affairs should be given to Senator Barca di Cinchona, of Peru, for +having, in 2830, introduced the bill which for the time being covered +him with execration. The profits for the coming year, on a conservative +estimate, cannot be less than eighteen trillions of dollars--which, as +our readers can see, will add much to the prosperity of the nation." + +"Worse and worse!" cried Dawson. "Floorwalker-General--compulsory +custom--eighteen trillions of dollars!" And then he read again: + +"It will be with unexpected pleasure this Christmas morning, too, that +our citizens will read the President's proclamation, in view of the +unexampled prosperity of the past year, ordering a bonus of $15,000 gold +to be delivered to every family in the land as a Christmas present from +the Administration. This will relieve the vaults of the national +Treasury of a store of coin that has been somewhat embarrassing to +handle. The delivery-wagons will start on their rounds at six o'clock, +and it is expected that by midday the money will have been wholly +distributed. Residents of large cities are requested not to keep the +carriers waiting at the door, since, as will be readily understood, the +delivery of so much coin to so many millions of people is not an easy +task. It is suggested that barrels of attested capacity be left on the +walk, so that the coin may be placed into these without unnecessary +delay. Those who still retain the old-fashioned coal-chutes can have the +gold dumped into their cellars direct if they will simply have the +covers to the coal-holes removed." + +Dawson could hardly believe the announcement. Here was $15,000 coming +to him this very morning. It was too good to be true, he thought; but +the news was soon confirmed by the valet, who interrupted his reading by +bursting breathlessly into the room. + +"What on earth are we going to do, Mr. Dawson?" he cried. "The Christmas +present has arrived. The cart is outside now." + +"Do?" retorted Dawson. "Do? Why, get a shovel and shovel it in. What +else?" + +"That's easier said than done, sir," said the valet. "The gold-bin is +chock-full already. You couldn't get a two-cent piece into the cellar, +much less three thousand five-dollar gold pieces. They'd ought to have +sent that money in certified checks." + +Dawson experienced a sensation of mirth. The idea of quarrelling as to +the form of a $15,000 gift struck him as being humorous. + +"Isn't there any place but the gold-bin you can put it in?" he demanded. +"How about the silver-bin, is that full?" + +"I don't know what you mean by the silver-bin," replied the valet. +"People don't use silver for money nowadays, sir." + +"Oh, they don't, eh? And what do they do with it--pave streets?" + +The valet smiled. + +"You are having your little joke with me this morning, Mr. Dawson," he +said, "or else you have forgotten that all we do with silver now is to +make it into bricks and build houses with 'em." + +"Well, I'll be hanged!" cried Dawson. "Really?" + +"Certainly, sir," observed the valet. "You must remember how silver +gradually cheapened and cheapened until finally it ruined the clay-brick +industry?" + +"Ah, yes," said Dawson. "I had temporarily forgotten. I do remember the +tendency of silver to cheapen, but the ruin of the brick industry has +escaped me. This house is--ah--built of silver bricks?" + +"Of course it is, Mr. Dawson. As if you didn't know!" said the valet, +with a deprecatory smirk. + +"Ah--about how much coal--I mean gold--have we in the cellar?" Dawson +asked. + +"In eagles we have $230,000, sir, but I think there's half a million in +fivers. I haven't counted up the $20 pieces for eight weeks, but I +think we have a couple of tons left, sir." + +"Then, James-- Is your name James?" + +"Yes, sir--James, or whatever else you please, sir," said the valet, +accommodatingly. + +"Then, James, if I have all that ready cash in the cellar, you can have +the $15,000 that has just come. I--ah--I don't think I shall need it +to-day," said Dawson, in a lordly fashion. + +"Me, sir?" said James. "Thank you, sir, but really I have no place to +put it. I don't know what to do with what I have already on hand." + +"Then give it to the poor," said Dawson, desperately. + +Again the valet smiled. He evidently thought his master very queer this +morning. + +"There ain't any poor any more, sir," he said. + +"No poor?" cried Dawson. + +"Of course not," said James. "Really. Mr. Dawson, you seem to have +forgotten a great deal. Don't you remember how the forty-seventh +amendment to the Constitution abolished poverty?" + +"I--ah--I am afraid, James," said Dawson, gasping for breath, "that I've +had a stroke of some kind during the night. All these things of which +you speak seem--er--seem a little strange to me, James. There seems to +be some lesion in my brain somewhere. Tell me about--er--how things are. +Am I still in the United States?" + +"Yes, sir, you are still in the United States." + +"And the United States is bounded on the north by--" + +"Sir, the United States has no northerly or southerly boundary. The +Western Hemisphere is now the United States." + +"And Europe?" + +"Europe has not changed much since 1900, sir. Don't you remember how in +the early years of the twentieth century the whole Eastern Hemisphere +became European?" + +"I remember that we took part in the division of China," said Dawson. + +"Oh yes," said James, "quite so. But in 1920 don't you recall how we +swapped off our share in China, together with the Dewey Islands, for +Canada and all other British possessions on this side of the earth?" + +"Dimly, James, only dimly," said Dawson, astonished, as well he might +be, at the news, since he had never even imagined anything of the kind, +although the Dewey Islands needed no explanation. "And we have +ultimately acquired the whole hemisphere?" + +"Yes, sir," replied James. "The South American republics came in +naturally in 1940, and the Mexican War in 2363 ended, as it had to, in +the conquest of Mexico." + +"And, tell me, what are we doing with Patagonia?" + +"One of the most flourishing States in the Union, Mr. Dawson. It was +made the Immigrant State, sir. All persons immigrating to the United +States, by an act of Congress passed in 2480, were compelled to go to +Patagonia first, and forced to live there for a period of five years, +studying American conditions, after which, provided they could pass an +examination showing themselves equal to the duties of citizenship, they +were permitted to go wherever else in the States they might choose." + +"And suppose they couldn't pass?" Dawson asked. + +"They had to stay in Patagonia until they could," said James. "It is +known as the School of Instruction of the States. It is also our penal +colony. Instead of prisons, we have a section of Patagonia set apart for +the criminal element." + +"And the negro?" asked Dawson. "How about him?" + +"The negro, Mr. Dawson, if the histories say rightly, was an awful +problem for a great many years. He had so many good points and so many +bad that no one knew exactly what to do about him. Finally the +sixty-third amendment was passed, ordering his deportation to Africa. It +seemed like a hardship at first, but in 2863 he pulled himself together, +and to-day has a continent of his own. Africa is his, and when nations +are at war together they hire their troops from Africa. They make +splendid soldiers, you know." + +"What's become of Krüger and--er--Rhodes?" Dawson asked. "Turned +black?" + +James laughed. "Oh, Rhodes and Krüger! Why, as I remember it, they +smashed each other. But that is ancient history, Mr. Dawson." + +"Jove!" cried Dawson. "What changes!" And then an idea crossed his mind. +"James," said he, "pack up my luggage. We'll go to London." + +"Where?" asked James. + +"To the British capital," returned Dawson. + +"Very well, sir," said James. "I will buy return tickets for Calcutta at +once, sir. Shall we go on the 1.10 or the 3.40? The 1.10 is an express, +but the 3.40 has a buffet." + +"Which is the quicker?" Dawson asked. + +"The 3.40 goes through in thirty-five minutes, sir. The 1.10 does it in +half an hour." + +"Great Scott!" said Dawson. "I think, on the whole, James, I won't try +it until to-morrow. Calcutta, eh!" he added to himself. "James," he +continued, "when did Calcutta become the British capital?" + +"In 2964, sir," said James. + +"And London?" queried Dawson. + +"I don't know much about those island towns, sir," said James. "It's +said that London was once the British capital, but sensible people don't +believe it much. Why, it hasn't more than twenty million inhabitants, +mostly tailors." + +"And how many citizens does a modern city have to have, to amount to +anything, James?" asked Dawson, faintly. + +"Well," said James scratching his head reflectively, "one hundred and +sixty or two hundred millions, according to the last census." + +"And New York reaches to where?" Dawson asked, in a tentative manner. + +"Oh, not very far. It's only third, you know, in population. The last +town annexed was Buffalo. The trouble with New York is that it has +reached the limits of the State on every side. We'd make it bigger if we +could, but Pennsylvania and Ohio and New Jersey won't give up an inch; +and Canada is very jealous of her old boundaries." + +"Wisely," said Dawson. And then he chose to be sarcastic. "Why don't +they fill in the ocean with ashes and extend the city over the Atlantic, +James? In an age of such marvellous growth so much waste space should +be utilized," he said. + +"Oh, it is," returned the valet. "You, of course, know that all the West +Indies are now connected by means of a cinder-track with the mainland?" + +"And is the bicycle-path to the Azores built yet?" demanded Dawson, +dryly. + +"No, Mr. Dawson," replied James. "That was given up in 2947, when the +patent balloon tires were invented, by means of which wheelmen can +scorch wherever they choose to through space, irrespective of roads." + +Dawson gasped. "For Heaven's sake, James," he cried, "I need air! Bring +up the bodies, and let me get aboard one of 'em and take a sleigh-ride +in Central Park. I can't stand this much longer." + +The valet laughed heartily. + +"Sleigh-rides have gone out in the Central Park, sir. When Mr. Bunkerton +started his earth-heating-and-cooling plant snow was practically +abolished hereabouts, Mr. Dawson," said he. "It's never cold enough for +snow--always about seventy degrees." + +"Ah! The earth is heated from a central station, eh?" asked Dawson. + +"Heated and cooled, sir. What with the hot and cold air running through +flues from Vesuvius and the north pole into a central reservoir, an +absolute mean temperature that never varies from one year's end to +another has been obtained. If you wish to take a sleigh-ride you'll have +to go to Mars, sir, and just at present the ships running both ways are +crowded. They always are during the holiday season. I doubt if you could +secure passage for a week." + +"Bring up the bodies!" roared Dawson. "I can't express myself in this +disembodied state. Mean temperature everywhere; income provided by +government; no taxes; no poor; gold dumped into the cellar; houses built +of silver; sleigh-riding at Mars. _Bring up the bodies!_ Do you hear? +The mere idea is wrecking my mind. Give me something physical, and give +it to me quick." + +[Illustration: "THREE VILLANOUS-LOOKING BODIES, AND A FOURTH, WHICH +DAWSON RECOGNIZED AS HIS OWN"] + +Dawson's emotion was so overpowering that the valet was really +frightened, and he fled below, whence he shortly reappeared, pushing +before him a small wheeling vehicle in which sat three villanous-looking +bodies, and a fourth, which Dawson, with a gasp of relief, recognized +as his own. + +"I thought you said I had five of these things?" he demanded, inspecting +the bodies. + +"So you have, sir. The one you wear for evening, sir, is being pressed. +You fell asleep in it the other night, sir, and got it all wrinkled." + +"That golf fellow's a gay-looking prig!" laughed Dawson. "Let me try him +on." + +The valet stood the body up, and, opening a small door at the top of the +skull, ingeniously concealed by the hair, invited Dawson to enter. +Without even knowing how it came about, Dawson soon found himself in +full possession. Then he walked over to the glass and peered in at +himself. + +"Humph!" he said. "Not much to look at, am I? Bring me a driver." + +James obeyed, and Dawson tried the swing. + +"Why, the darned thing's left-handed!" he said, after some awkward work. +"I don't like that." + +"You picked it out for yourself, sir," replied the valet. "You said a +left-handed player always rattled the other man, and, besides, it was +the only one you ever had that could keep its eye on the ball." + +"Let me out! Let me out!" screamed Dawson. "I don't like it, and I won't +have it. I'm suffocating. Open my head and let me out." + +The valet unfastened the little door, and Dawson emerged. "What's that +tough-looking one for?" he asked, after a pause, during which his brain +throbbed with the excitement of his novel experience. + +"Prize-fights," said James. + +"And the strange-looking thing that appears to have been designed for a +fancy-dress ball?" + +"Nobody knows what you intended that for, Mr. Dawson. You had it sent up +yourself from the bodydasher's last week, sir." + +"Well, take it away," roared Dawson. "This may be 3568, but I haven't +lost my self-respect entirely. Give it to--ah--give it to the children +to play with." + +"Really, Mr. Dawson," said the valet, anxiously, "wouldn't I better ring +up the President and have him send a doctor here from the Department of +Physic? You seem all astray this morning. There aren't any children any +more, sir." + +"Wha--what? No _children_?" cried Dawson. + +"They were abolished three centuries ago, sir," explained the valet. + +"Then how the deuce is the world populated?" demanded Dawson. + +"It was sufficiently populated at the time the law abolishing children +was passed, sir." + +"But people die, don't they?" + +"Never," replied the valet. "When Dr. Perkinbloom discovered how to +separate man's mental from his physical side, by means of this little +door in the cranium, all the perishable portions of man were done away +with, which is how it is, sir, that, for convenience' sake, after the +world was as full of consciousness as it could be comfortably, it was +decided not to have any more of it." + +"But these bodies, James--these bodies?" + +"Oh, they are manufactured--" + +"But how?" + +"That, sir, is the secret of the inventor," replied the valet, "a secret +which he is permitted by our government to retain, although the +factories are maintained under the supervision of the Tailor-General." + +Dawson was silent. He was absolutely overpowered by the revelation. + +"James," he said, after a pause of nearly five minutes, "let me--let me +back into my old self just for a moment, please. I--I feel faint, and +sort of uncomfortable. I feel lost, don't you know. I can grasp some of +your ideas, but--Christmas without children! It does not seem possible." + +The valet respectfully raised up the original Dawson, opened the little +door in the top of its head, and Dawson slipped in. + +"Now lock that door," said Dawson, quickly, once he was safe inside. The +valet obeyed nervously. + +"Give me the key," said Dawson. "Quick!" + +"Yes, sir," said James, handing it over, eying his master anxiously +meanwhile. + +Dawson looked at it. It was a fragile bit of gold, but gold did not +appeal to him at the moment, and before the valet could interfere to +stop him he had hurled it far out of the window into the busy street +below, where it was lost in the maze of traffic. + +"There," said Dawson; "I guess you'll have a hard time getting me out of +this again. You needn't try. And meanwhile, James, you can kick those +other bodies out into the street and dump the gold into the river; after +which you may present my compliments to your darned old government, and +tell it that it can go where the woodbine twineth. A government that +abolishes children can go hang, so far as I am concerned." + +James sprang towards Dawson as if he had been stung. His face grew white +with wrath. + +"Sir," he hissed, passionately, "the words that you have spoken are +treason, and merit punishment." + +"What's that?" cried Dawson, wrathfully. + +"Treason is what I said," retorted the valet, aroused. "If I thought you +were in your right mind and knew what you were saying, I should conduct +you forthwith to the police-station and inform against you to the +Secretary of Justice." + +"Get out of here, you--you--you impertinent ass!" cried Dawson. "Leave +the room! I--I--I discharge you! You forget your position!" + +"It is you who forget your position," returned the valet. "Discharge me! +I like that. You might just as well try to discharge the President of +the United States as me." + +Here the valet gave a scornful laugh, and leered maddeningly at Dawson. +The latter gazed at him coldly. + +"You are my servant?" he demanded. + +"By government appointment, at your service," replied James, with a +satirical bow. "You have overlooked the fact that the government since +1900 has gradually absorbed all business--every function of labor is now +governmental--and a man who arbitrarily bounces a cook, as the ancients +used to put it, strikes at the administration. Charges may be preferred +against a servant, but he cannot be deprived of his office except upon +the report of a committee to the Department of Intelligence. As the +President is your servant, so am I." + +Dawson sat down aghast, and clutched his forehead with his hands. + +"But," he cried, jumping to his feet, "that is intolerable. The logic of +the thing makes you, while your party is in power--" + +"Your governor," interrupted the valet. "Come," he added, firmly. "You +called me an impertinent ass a moment ago, and my patience is exhausted. +I shall inform against you. If you aren't sent to Patagonia before +night, my name is not James Wilkins." + +He laid his hand on Dawson's shoulder roughly. A shock, as of +electricity, went through Dawson's person. His old-time strength +returned to him, and, turning viciously upon the impudent fellow, he +grasped him about his middle with both arms, and, after a struggle that +lasted several minutes, dragged him to the window and hurled him, even +as he had the key, down into the street below. + +This done, he fell unconscious to the floor. + + * * * * * + +A year has passed since the episode, and Dawson has become the happiest +man in the world, for on his return to consciousness, instead of +finding himself in the hands of a revengeful valet, backed by a +socialistic government, the past had been restored to him and the future +relegated to its proper place. It was only the other night that he spoke +of the value of his experience, however. + +"It has made me happier, in spite of my many troubles," he said. "If +there's anything that can make the present endurable it is the thought +of what the future may have in store for us. A guaranteed income, and a +detachable spirit, and no taxes, and a variety of imperishable bodies +are all very nice, but servants with the manners of custom-house +officials, and children abolished! No, thank you. Curious dream, +though," he added, "don't you think?" + +"No," said I, "not very. It strikes me as a reasonable forecast of what +is likely to be if things keep on as they are going. Especially in that +matter of our servants." + +"Maybe it wasn't a dream," said Dawson. "Maybe, time having neither +beginning nor ending, the future is, and I stumbled into it." + +"Maybe so," said I. "I think, however, you'll have some difficulty in +finding that $15,000 again." + +"I don't want to," observed Dawson. "For don't you see I'd find James +Wilkins's dead body beside it, and, in spite of its drawbacks, I prefer +life in New York to the possibility of Patagonia." + + + + +Hans Pumpernickel's Vigil + + + + +Hans Pumpernickel's Vigil + + +[Illustration: Decorative H] + +ans Pumpernickel was for many years regarded by his friends and +neighbors in the little town of Schnitzelhammerstein-on-the-Zugvitz as +the most industrious boy they had ever known. Where Hans came from no +one knew. He had appeared in Schnitzelhammerstein-on-the-Zugvitz when he +was not more than six years old. His name was all that he would confide +to the curious. + +"I'm Hans Pumpernickel," he had answered, in response to the inquiries +of the inquisitive. "But where I came from is neither here nor there." + +Some said that this statement was only half true, though many others +believed it wholly. Certain it is, however, that if one has a +hailing-place, a native town, it must be either here or there. If it is +not here, it must be there, said some; but Hans never took the trouble +to say anything further on the subject. + +"And what are you going to do to live?" asked the Mayor's wife, who took +a great interest in the pretty little stranger when first she saw him. + +"Breathe," said Hans, simply. "For you see, ma'am, I cannot live without +breathing, and so I have decided to do that." + +The Mayor said that this was impudence; but the good lady, who had made +that somewhat crabbed old person's life more happy than he deserved, +only laughed, and said that she thought it was droll, and only wished +her little boy, who was stupid like his father, could have said +something as bright. + +"But you cannot breathe unless you eat," the Mayor's wife had said, when +Hans had spoken. "What are you going to eat?" + +"I do not know," said Hans. "What have you got?" + +Again the Mayor growled "Impudence!" and again did the good lady laugh. + +"We have sausages and cake and apples," she said. + +"Then," said Hans, "I will have some sausages and cake and apples." + +"But we don't give away things of that kind," said the lady. "Those who +would eat must work." + +"I cannot work unless I breathe," said Hans; "and you yourself have said +that I cannot breathe unless I eat. Therefore, if you would have me +work, you must let me eat." + +"Logic!" cried the Mayor, beginning to take an interest in Hans. "Give +the boy an apple." + +So Hans was given the apple, and he ate it so thoroughly that the Mayor +decided that he was just the boy to do little errands for him, for +thoroughness was a quality he greatly admired, and from that time on +Hans lived in the Mayor's family; and when the stupid little son of that +exalted personage ran away from home and became a cabin-boy on a +man-of-war, the Mayor adopted Hans, and he took the place of the boy who +had gone away, refusing, however, much to the Mayor's sorrow, to change +his name from Pumpernickel to Ehrenbreitstein, which happened to be the +last name of the Mayor. + +"Pumpernickel was I born," said Hans, "and Pumpernickel will I remain. +Why should I, a Pumpernickel who am bound to make a name for myself +sooner or later, take the name of some one else, and shed the lustre of +my fame upon _his_ family?" + +All of which was very sensible, though Mayor Ehrenbreitstein did not +appreciate that fact. + +So Hans went on making himself very useful to the Mayor and his wife. He +would shell pease in the morning for the Lady Mayor, and in the +afternoon he would write speeches for the Mayor to deliver on public +occasions; and people said that as a public speaker the Mayor was +improving, while all who had the pleasure of dining with the head of the +city frequently complimented the Lady Mayor upon the excellence of the +pease served at her banquets. In every way was Hans satisfactory to all +for whom he worked. After a while such confidence did he inspire in his +employers that Frau Ehrenbreitstein let him do all her shopping for her, +and most of the Mayor's duties were intrusted to the boy. He could +match ribbons and veto or approve the doings of the aldermen of +Schnitzelhammerstein-on-the-Zugvitz with equal perfection. The ribbons +he matched and the worsteds he chose for his kind mistress always looked +well, and the lady soon became in the popular estimation a person of +unusually good taste, while the vetoes and other public papers were so +well phrased that even his opponents were forced to admit that the +magistrate was right. + +Hans bore all his prosperity with modesty, and for the fifteen years +during which he faithfully served his employers he developed no conceit +whatsoever, as many a weaker boy might reasonably have done, and, +barring one peculiarity, none of the eccentricities of the truly great +ever manifested themselves. This one peculiarity excited much curiosity +among those who had heard of it, but despite all questionings Hans +declined to say why he had it. It was a peculiarity that was indeed +peculiar. It was noticed that from the time he first ate with the family +of the Mayor he would set apart one full third of every dainty that was +placed upon his plate, and when the meal was over he would take it away +from the table rolled up in a napkin. For instance, if at breakfast +three sausages fell to the lot of Hans, he would eat two of them, and +the third he would wrap up in a napkin, and take it to his room. So it +was with everything else that came his way. Out of every three apples +one would go untouched into the napkin; and later, when he began to earn +a little money, one-third of it also would be saved. It was noticed, +too, that on every Friday afternoon Hans would send away a big box by +the express carrier, but to whom the box was sent no one could learn. +The express carrier would not tell, and Hans himself, when asked about +it, would say to the one who asked him: + +"Let me see. You are in what business?" + +"I am a baker," or, perhaps, "I am a butcher," the inquisitive one would +say. + +"Then," said Hans, "if I were you, I would stick to baking or to +butching, and not embark on enterprises which are not allied to the +making of bread or the slaughter of roast beef." + +The people so addressed would turn away chagrined, but with proper +apologies; and when they apologized Hans would say, with a smile, "Pray +don't mention it," so kindly that the meddlers would be pacified, and no +ill feeling ever resulted from the young boy's request that they mind +their own business. + +At the end of the fifteen years of faithful work, however, a great +change seemed to come over Hans. He began to show a great distaste for +the labors that he had hitherto spent his time in performing. When Frau +Ehrenbreitstein gave him a skein of pink zephyr to take to town to +match, he would try to beg off, and when he could not beg off he did +worse. He went to town and brought back, not the new skein of pink +zephyr that his mistress wanted, but a roll of green and yellow +wall-paper, and, when she expressed surprise, he said that that was the +best he could do. + +"But I didn't want wall-paper," cried the Lady Mayor. + +"Well, you never told me that," said Hans. "You said, I admit, that you +wanted pink zephyr; but then one might wish for that and still want a +roll of green and yellow wall-paper." + +"Are you crazy?" returned the good lady, much mystified. + +"I think not; and the mere fact that I _think_ not shows that I am not," +Hans replied, "for the very good reason that if I had lost my mind I +could not think at all." + +"Very well," said Frau Ehrenbreitstein, reassured by this perfectly +logical answer. "You may go and shell the pease." + +Whereupon Hans went down into the kitchen and shelled the pease, only he +retained the pods this time, and threw the pease to the pigs. + +"It is very evident to me," observed his good mistress to her husband +that night, when the pods were served at dinner, "that Hans Pumpernickel +has something on his mind." + +"Yes, my dear," answered the Mayor. "I know he has, and I know what it +is." + +"He is not in love, I hope?" said Frau Ehrenbreitstein. + +"Not he!" cried the Mayor. "He is thinking about what I shall say to the +Emperor next week when his Imperial Majesty and the Chancellor pass +through Schnitzelhammerstein-on-the-Zugvitz on their way to the +Schutzenfest at Würtemburger-Darmstadt. I have told Hans that the +imperial train stops at our station to water the engine, and during the +five minutes or so in which the Emperor honors our burg with his +presence it is only fitting that I, as Lord Mayor, should greet him with +an address of welcome. It will be the opportunity of my life, and the +boy is trying to enable me to be equal to it. Heaven forbid that he +should fail!" + +This explanation eased the mind of the Mayor's wife, and she refrained +from asking Hans to shell pease and match zephyrs until after the +Emperor had come and gone. Unfortunately, however, this was not the +real cause of the trouble with Hans, as the speech he wrote for the +Mayor to deliver to his imperial master showed; for, to the dismay +of Mayor Ehrenbreitstein, when the Emperor's train stopped at +Schnitzelhammerstein-on-the-Zugvitz, and he had unrolled the address +Hans had written, he discovered that Hans had not written a speech at +all, but a comic poem, in which his Imperial Majesty was referred to as +a royal turkey-cock, with a crow like the squeak of a penny flute. The +poor Mayor nearly expired when his eyes rested on the lines Hans had +written; but he went bravely ahead and made up a speech of his own, +which his Majesty fortunately did not hear, owing to the noise made by +the steam escaping from the engine whistle. + +When the Emperor had departed, the Mayor returned home in a rage, and +you may be sure that Hans could not get in a word edgewise even until +his employer had told him what he thought of him. + +"Excuse me," said Hans, when the Mayor had finished, after an hour's +angry tirade--"excuse me, but would you mind saying that over again? I +was thinking of something else." + +"Say it over again?" shrieked the Mayor. "Never. I shall never speak to +you again." + +"But what have I done?" asked Hans, so innocently that the Mayor +relented and repeated his tirade, and then Hans broke down. + +"Did I do that?" he said. "Then it is very plain that I need a +vacation." + +"I think so," retorted the Mayor. "You may take the next thousand years +without pay." + +"One year will be sufficient," said Hans. "Though I thank you just as +kindly for the others." Then he wept, and the Mayor's wife took pity on +him, and asked him to tell her what it was that had so occupied his mind +of late that he had committed so many grievous errors, and Hans told her +all. + +"It's my great-great-great-great-great-granduncle's fault," he sobbed. + +"Your what?" cried his mistress. + +[Illustration: "HE'S THE WORST BABY YOU EVER SAW"] + +"My great-great-great-great-great-granduncle, the perpetual baby," said +Hans, wiping his eyes. "He's the worst baby you ever saw. He yells and +howls and howls and yells all the time, and if he is left alone or put +down for a moment he has a convulsion of rage that is terrible to +witness. He breaks his toys the minute he gets them, and for fifteen +years he has made a slave of my poor father, who has not let the child +out of his lap in all that time." + +"Fifteen years?" cried Frau Ehrenbreitstein. "What _do_ you mean? How +old is this baby?" + +"Three hundred and forty-seven years, six months, and eight days," said +Hans, ruefully, consulting a pocket calendar he had with him. "During +my time with you," he added, "I have supported them. Father is alone in +the house with the infant; we could not afford a servant, and the child +yells so all the time that my father cannot get employment anywhere. It +was this that drove me out into the world to earn a living for them. +When I got only my food and bed, I shared my food with them, sending off +a third of it every week. Then when money came along, I gave them a +third of that; but the baby is as bad as ever, and father has written to +say that he can stand it no more, and I must return home or he will send +the baby to me here." + +"But, mercy me!" roared the Mayor, who had come in and heard the story, +"why doesn't the child grow?" + +"He can't," sobbed Hans. "His mother once made a wish that he might +always remain a baby, and it happened that she made the wish at the one +instant of the year when all wishes are granted by the fairies." + +"Nonsense," said the Mayor. "There are no fairies." + +"Indeed, there are," said Hans. "There is my +great-great-great-great-great-granduncle, the baby, to prove it. He's a +little tyrant, and he has worn out every generation of the family since, +making them look after him. It's terrible, and in trying to think what +to do to relieve my poor father and still support myself I have +neglected everything else, and that is why I--boo-hoo!--I wrote the +wall-paper and matched a pink Emperor with a green and yellow comic +poem." + +"Poor lad!" said the Mayor's wife. "Poor lad! It is a cruel story." + +"It is that," agreed the Mayor. "But cheer up, Hans. If there is an +instant in every year when wishes are always granted by the fairies, why +don't you wish the baby as he ought to be at the right moment?" + +"That's the trouble," said Hans, sadly. "There are many instants in a +year, and the lucky moment changes every twelve months. It is never the +same. I wish, and _wish_, but never at the right moment. Sometimes I +forget it; the instant comes and is gone, though I don't know it." + +"Well," said the Mayor's wife, "there is but one thing you can do. That +is, to devote a whole year to nothing else but that wish. I shall fix +you up a chair in the kitchen, give you a pipe, and on New-Year's +morning you may begin. You shall have no other duties but to wish for a +restoration of things as they should be. You will be sure to hit the +right moment if you are faithful to your work." + +"As I always am," said Hans, drying his tears. + +[Illustration: "IT WAS A WEARY VIGIL, BUT HE WAS TRUE"] + +And so it was that Hans Pumpernickel began his long vigil. He sat in the +kitchen, silent, smoking, gazing at the ceiling, wishing. It was weary +work indeed, but he was true, and last year, on the sixteenth day of +July, at half-past one o'clock in the morning, his fidelity was +rewarded, though he did not know it until the next morning, when the +expressman brought him a message from his father to the following +effect: + + "_July 16, 1893._ + + "MY DEAR HANS,--Don't worry; everything is serene again. At + half-past one o'clock this morning, just as the clock + struck, your great-great-great-great-great-granduncle began + to grow at a most rapid pace. I had hardly time to drop him + when he was taller than I, and twice as stout as I am told + you are. A beard sprouted on his face with equal rapidity, + and, just as I thought to ask him what he was going to do + next, he gave a deafening shout of laughter and disappeared + entirely. The whole affair didn't last more than five + seconds. The spell has been removed, and the perpetual baby + is no more. Come over and see me, and we'll celebrate our + emancipation. + + "Affectionately your daddy, + "RUPERT PUMPERNICKEL." + +Hans read this letter with a joyful face, and rushed up-stairs to tell +the Mayor and his faithful helpmate of his good fortune, and there was +great rejoicing for several days. Then Hans visited his father, and the +two happy creatures spent weeks and weeks rambling contentedly about the +country together, at the end of which time Hans returned to +Schnitzelhammerstein-on-the-Zugvitz, where, the Emperor having retired +the Mayor on a liberal pension for his attentions and kind expressions +of regard in the speech Hans did not write for him, he was chosen to +succeed his former master. + + + + +The Affliction of Baron Humpfelhimmel + + + + +The Affliction of Baron Humpfelhimmel + + +[Illustration: Decorative E] + +verybody said it was an extraordinary affair altogether, and for once +everybody was right. Baron Humpfelhimmel himself would say nothing about +it for two reasons. The first reason was that nobody dared ask him what +he thought about it, and the second was that he was too proud to speak +to anybody concerning any subject whatsoever, unless questioned. That he +always laughed, no matter what happened, was the melancholy fact, and +had been a melancholy fact from his childhood's earliest hour. He was +born laughing. He laughed in church, he laughed at home. When his father +spanked him he roared with laughter, and when he suffered from the +measles he could not begin to restrain his mirth. + +The situation seemed all the more singular when it was remembered that +Rudolf von Pepperpotz, the previous Baron Humpfelhimmel, and father of +the Laughing Baron, as he was called, was never known to smile from his +childhood's earliest hour to his dying day, and, strangest of all, was a +far more amiable person, despite his solemnity, than the present Baron +for all his laughter. + +"What does it mean, do you suppose?" Frau Ehrenbreitstein once asked of +Hans Pumpernickel, her husband's private secretary, of whom you have +already had some account. + +"I cannot tell," Hans had answered, "and I have my reason for saying +that I cannot tell," he added, significantly. + +"What is that reason, Hans?" asked the good lady, her curiosity aroused +by the boy's manner. + +"It is this," said Hans, his voice sinking to a whisper. "I cannot tell, +because--because I do not know!" + +And this, let me say in passing, was why Hans Pumpernickel was thought +by all to be so wise. He had a reason always for what he did, and was +ever willing to give it. + +"They say," the good Lady Ehrenbreitstein went on--"they do say that +when last winter the Baron while hunting boars was thrown from his +horse, breaking his leg and two of his ribs, they could not be set +because of his convulsions of laughter, though for my part I cannot see +wherein having one's leg and ribs broken is provocative of merriment." + +"Nor I," quoth Hans. "I have an eye for jokes. In most things I can see +the fun, but in the breaking of one's bones I see more cause for tears +than smiles." + +And it was true. As Frau Ehrenbreitstein had heard, the Baron +Humpfelhimmel had broken one leg and two ribs--only it was while hunting +wolves and not in a boar chase--and when the Emperor's physician, who +was one of the party, came to where the suffering man lay he found him +roaring with laughter. + +"Good!" cried the physician, leaning over his prostrate form. "I am glad +to see that you are not hurt. I feared you were injured." + +"I am injured," the Baron replied, with a loud laugh. "My left +leg--ha-ha-ha!--is nearly killing me--hee-hee!--with p-pain, and +if I mistake not, either my heart--ha-ha-ha-ha!--or my +ribs--hee-hee-hee!--are broken in nineteen places." + +Then he went off into such an explosion of mirth as not only appeared +unseemly, but also deprived him of the power of speech for five or six +minutes. + +"I fail to see the joke," said the physician, as the Baron's laughter +echoed and reechoed throughout the forest. + +"Th-there--hee-hee!--there isn't a-any joke," the Baron answered, +smiling. "Confound you--ha-ha-ha-ha!--oho-ho-ho!--can't you see I'm +suffering?" + +"I see you are laughing," the physician replied--"laughing as if you +were reading a comic paper full of real jokes. What are you laughing +at?" + +"Ha-ha! I--I d-dud-don't know," stammered the Baron, vainly endeavoring +to suppress his mirth. "I--I don't feel like laughing--hee-hee!--but I +can't help it." And off he went into another gale. Nor did he stop +there. The physician tried vainly to quiet him down so that he could set +the fractured bones, but in spite of all he could do for him the Baron +either would not or could not stop laughing. When he was able to move +about again it was only with a limp, and even that appeared to have its +humorous side, for whenever the Baron appeared on the public streets he +was always smiling, and when the Mayor ventured to express his sympathy +with him over his misfortune the Baron laughed again, and mirthfully +requested him to mind his own business. + +Then it was recalled how that ten years before, when the famous Von +Pepperpotz Castle was destroyed by fire, the Baron was found writing in +his study by the messenger who brought the news. + +"Baron," the messenger cried--"Baron, the château is burning. The flames +have already destroyed the armory, and are now eating their way through +the corridors to the state banquet-hall." + +The Baron looked the messenger in the eye for an instant, and then his +face wreathed with smiles. + +[Illustration: "MY CASTLE'S BURNING, EH? HA-HA!"] + +"My castle's burning, eh? Ha-ha-ha!" was what he said; and then, rising +hurriedly from his desk, he hastened, shouting with laughter, to the +scene, where no one worked harder than he to stay the devastating +course of the flames. + +"You seem to be pleased," said one who noticed his merriment. + +The Baron's answer was a blow which knocked the fellow down, and then, +striking him across the shoulders with his staff, he walked away, +muttering to himself: + +"Pleased! Ha-ha-ha! Does ruin please anybody--tee-hee-hee! If the churls +only--tee-hee!--only knew--ha-ha-ha-ha!" + +That was it! If they only knew! And no one did know until after the +Baron had died without children--for he had never married--and all +his possessions and papers became the property of the state. Through +these papers the secret of the Baron's laughter became known to the +good people of Schnitzelhammerstein-on-the-Zugvitz, and through them +it became known to me. Hans Pumpernickel himself told me the tale, +and as he has risen to the exalted position of Mayor of +Schnitzelhammerstein-on-the-Zugvitz, an honor conferred only on the +truly good and worthy, I have no reason to doubt that the story is in +every way truthful. + +"When Baron Humpfelhimmel died," said Hans, as he and I walked together +along the beautiful sylvan path that runs by the side of the Zugvitz +River, "I am sorry to say there were few mourners. A man who laughs, as +a rule, is popular, but the man who laughs always, without regard to +circumstances, makes enemies. One learns to love a person who laughs at +one's jests, but one who laughs at funerals, at conflagrations, at +beggars, at the needy and the distressed, does not become universally +beloved. Such was the habit of Fritz von Pepperpotz, last of the Barons +Humpfelhimmel. If you were to go to him with a funny story, none would +laugh more heartily than he; but equally loud would he laugh were you to +say to him that you had a racking headache, and should it chance that +you were to inform him you had been desperately ill, his mirth would +know no bounds. Even in his greatest frenzies of rage he would smirk and +laugh, and so it happened that the popularity which you would expect +would go with a mirthful disposition was the last thing in the world he +could hope for. I do not exaggerate when I say that Baron Humpfelhimmel +could not have been elected office-boy to the Mayor on a popular vote, +even if there were no opposing candidate. Now that it is all over, +however, and we know the truth, we have changed our minds about it, and +already several hundred of our citizens have raised a fund of twenty +marks to go towards putting up a monument to the memory of the Laughing +Baron. + +"Fritz von Pepperpotz, my friend," said Hans to me, in explanation of +the situation, "laughed because he could not help it, as a statement +found among his papers after he died showed. The statement contained the +whole story, and in some of its details it is a sad one. It was all the +fault of the grandfather of the late Baron that he could do nothing but +laugh all his days, that he died unmarried, and that the name of Von +Pepperpotz has died off the face of the earth forever, unless some one +else chooses to assume that name, which, I imagine, no one is crazy +enough to do. The only thing that could reconcile me to such a name +would be the estates that formerly went with it, but now that they have +become the property of the government the house has lost all of its +attractions, retaining, however, every bit of its homeliness. +Pumpernickel is bad enough, but it is beautiful beside Von Pepperpotz." + +Here Hans sighed, and to comfort him, rather than to say anything I +really meant, I observed that I thought Pumpernickel was a good strong +name. + +"Yes," Hans said, with a pleased smile. "It certainly is strong. I have +had mine twenty-five years now, and it doesn't show the slightest sign +of wear. It's as good as the day it was made. But to return to the Von +Pepperpotz family and its mysterious affliction. + +"According to the Baron's statement, while he himself could not restrain +his mirth, no matter how badly he felt, his father, Rupert von +Pepperpotz, could never smile, although he was a man of most genial +disposition. Just as Fritz was ushered into the world, grinning like a +Cheshire cheese--" + +"Cat," I suggested, noting Hans's error. + +"Cat, is it?" he said. "Well, now, do you know I am glad to hear that? +I always supposed the term used was cheese, and positively I have lain +awake night after night trying to comprehend how a cheese could grin, +and finally I gave it up, setting it down as one of the peculiarities of +the English language. If it's Cheshire cat, and not Cheshire cheese, +why, it's all clear as a pikestaff. But, as I was saying, just as Fritz +was born grinning like a Cheshire cat, his father Rupert was born +frowning apparently with rage. He was the most ill-natured-looking baby +you ever saw, according to the chronicles. Nothing seemed to please him. +When you or I would have cooed, Rupert von Pepperpotz would wrinkle up +his forehead until the furrows, if his nurse tells the truth, were deep +enough to hide letters in. + +[Illustration: "RUPERT WAS ALWAYS MERRY"] + +"And yet he was rarely cross, and never disobedient. It was the +strangest thing in the world. Here was a being who always frowned and +never laughed, and yet who was as obliging in his actions as could be. +As he grew older his active amiability increased, but his frown grew +more terrible than ever. He became a great wit. As he walked through +the streets of Schnitzelhammerstein-on-the-Zugvitz he was always merry, +though none would have guessed it to look at him. He had a pleasant +voice, and his neighbors all said it was a most startling thing to hear +in the distance a jolly, roistering song, and then to walk along a +little way and see that it was this forbidding-looking person who was +doing the singing. + +"How Rupert got Wilhelmina de Grootzenburg to become his wife, +considering his seeming solemnity, which made him appear to be +positively ugly, nobody ever knew. It is probable, however, that it was +sympathy which moved her to like him, unless it was that his ugliness +fascinated her. Rupert himself said that it was not sympathy for his +inability to laugh or smile, because he did not want sympathy for that. +He didn't feel badly about it himself. He never had smiled, and so did +not know the pleasure of it. Consequently he didn't miss it. Smiling was +an idiotic way of expressing pleasure anyhow, he said. Why just because +a man thought of a funny idea he should stretch his mouth he couldn't +see. No more could he understand why it was necessary to show one's +appreciation of a funny story by shaking one's stomach and saying Ha-ha! +On the whole, he said that he was satisfied. He could talk and could +tell people he enjoyed their stories without having to shake himself or +disturb the corners of his mouth. When little Fritz was born, and did +nothing but laugh even when he had the colic, the solemn-looking Rupert +observed that the baby simply proved the truth of what he said. + +"'What a donkey the child is,' he cried, 'to spoil his pretty face by +stretching his mouth so that you almost fear his ears will drop into it! +And those wild whoops, which you call laughter, what earthly use are +they? I can't see why, if he is glad about something, he can't just say, +"I'm glad about so and so," mildly, instead of making me deaf with his +roars. Truly, laughter is not what it is cracked up to be.' + +"'Ah, my dear Rupert,' Wilhelmina, his wife, had said, 'you do not +really know what you are talking about! If you could enjoy the sensation +of laughing once you would never wish to be without it.' + +"'Nonsense!' replied the Baron. 'My father never laughed, so why should +I wish to?' + +"Now, then," continued Hans, "according to Fritz von Pepperpotz's +statement, there was where Rupert was wrong. Siegfried von Pepperpotz +had known what it was to laugh, but he had not known when to laugh, +which was why the family of Von Pepperpotz was afflicted with a curse, +which only the final dying out of the family could remove, and there lay +the solution of the mystery. It seems that Siegfried von Pepperpotz, +grandfather of Fritz and father of Rupert, had been a wild sort of a +youth, who smiled when he wished and frowned when he wished, no matter +what the occasion may have been, and he smiled once too often. A +miserable-looking figure of a man once passed through the village of +Schnitzelhammerstein-on-the-Zugvitz, selling sugar dolls and other +sweets. To Siegfried and his comrades it seemed good to play a prank on +the old fellow. They sent him two miles off into the country, where, +they said, was a rich countess, who would buy his whole stock, when in +reality there was no rich countess there at all, so that the old man +had his trouble for his pains. + +"That he was a magician they did not know, but so he was, and in those +days magicians could do everything. Of course he was angry at the +deception, and on his return to Schnitzelhammerstein-on-the-Zugvitz he +sent for the young men, and got all of them to apologize and buy his +wares except Siegfried. Siegfried not only refused to apologize and buy +the old man's candies, but had the audacity to laugh in his face, and +tell him about a wealthy old duke who lived two miles out on the other +side of the village, which the magician immediately recognized as +another attempt to play a practical joke upon him. + +"'Enough, Siegfried von Pepperpotz!' he cried, in his rage. 'Laugh away +while you can. After to-day may you never smile, and may your son never +smile, and may your son's son, willing or unwilling, smile smiles that +you two would have smiled, and so may it ever go! May every third +generation get the laughter that the preceding two shall lose, according +to my curse!' + +"This made Siegfried laugh all the harder, for, not knowing, as I have +said, that the old man was a magician, he had no fear of him. Next day, +however, he changed his mind. He found that he could not laugh. He could +not even smile. Try as he would, his lips refused to do his bidding. + +[Illustration: "SIEGFRIED VON PEPPERPOTZ GREW ILL OF IT"] + +"It ruined his disposition. Siegfried von Pepperpotz grew ill over it. +The greatest doctors in the world were summoned to his aid, but to no +avail. If the curse had ended with him he might not have minded it so +much, but after the discovery that from the day of his birth his son +Rupert was no more able to laugh than himself he began to brood over the +affliction, and shortly died of it; and when Fritz found out from a +paper he discovered in a secret drawer in the old chest in the château +what the curse was--for Siegfried never told his son, and alone knew +from what it was he suffered, and that it was perpetual--he resolved +that there should be no further posterity to whom it should be handed +down. + +"That," said Hans, "is the story of Baron Humpfelhimmel's affliction." + +"And a strange story it is," said I. "Though I don't know that it has +any particular moral." + +"Oh yes, it has!" said Hans. "It has a good moral." + +"And what is that?" I asked. + +"Don't laugh at your own jokes," he replied. "If Siegfried von +Pepperpotz had not laughed when the magician came back, he never would +have been cursed, and this story never would have been told." + + + + +A Great Composer + + + + +A Great Composer + + +[Illustration: Decorative A] + +mong the best-known residents of Schnitzelhammerstein-on-the-Zugvitz +when Hans Pumpernickel first appeared in that beautiful city were three +musicians--Herr von Kärlingtongs, who was the only, and consequently the +best, violinist in town, Dr. Otto Teutonstring, and Heinrich Flatz, who +had played the 'cello once before the King of Prussia with such effect +that the king said he'd never heard anything like it before. The town +was naturally very proud of the trio, and particularly of Dr. +Teutonstring, who, though far from being a muscular man, had once played +the bass-viol for sixteen consecutive hours in the musical contest at +the Schnitzelhammerstein carnival, beating by one hour and twenty-two +minutes the strongest and most enduring bass-viol player in Germany. +They were the most amiable old gentlemen in the world. It very seldom +happened that they failed to agree, which was rather wonderful, because +it often happens, unhappily, that musicians grow jealous of one another, +and say and do things that make it impossible for them to live together +peaceably. You may not all of you remember that famous and very sad +instance of the lengths to which this jealousy is sometimes allowed to +run wherein Luigi Sparragini, the well-known Italian violinist, in his +rage at the applause received at a concert by his rival, Siegfried von +Heimstetter, broke a Stradivarius violin valued at a thousand pounds +over Von Heimstetter's head, to be rebuked in return by Von Heimstetter, +who induced Sparragini to look at the mechanism of a grand piano he had, +letting the cover fall on the other's head as soon as he had poked it +in, thereby utterly ruining the piano and severely injuring Sparragini's +nose. + +Nothing of this kind, as I have intimated, ever marred the serenity of +the three amiable musicians of Schnitzelhammerstein-on-the-Zugvitz. + +"We have no cause each other to be jealous of," Herr von Kärlingtongs +had said. "I the fiddle play; they the fiddle do not play." + +"True," observed Heinrich Flatz. "The potato just as well the watermelon +might be jealous of. If I the fiddle played, then might I Von +Kärlingtongs be jealous of. Therefore also already can the same be said +regarding Teutonstring. In no manner are we each other the rivals of." + +In all of which, as Hans Pumpernickel said to me, there was much +common-sense. "Discord is not music," said he, "and if these men were +discordant they would not be musicians. If they were not musicians they +would have to make a living in some other kind of business. They are not +fit for any other kind of business, wherefore they are wise as well as +amiable." + +The consequence of all this harmony between the three dear old gentlemen +was that they were always together. They practised together, and on +public occasions they played together, and their fellow-townsmen were +delighted with them. At weddings they played the wedding-marches, each +as earnestly as though he were playing a solo. At the Mayor's banquets +they were always present, adding much to the pleasure of these sumptuous +repasts by the soft and beautiful strains which they discoursed. "I am +not a king," said Mayor Ehrenbreitstein upon one of these occasions; +"but if I were, I could not hear better music. We have an orchestra +without a court. What more can we desire?" + +"Nothing," said Hans Pumpernickel, "unless it be another tune." + +"A good idea," cried one of the aldermen. "Let us have another tune." + +And so the cry would go about the board, and the three happy old +gentlemen would good-naturedly go to work again and play another tune. +It came about very naturally, then, that whenever a rival band of +musicians, desirous of wresting the laurels from the respective brows of +Herren Von Kärlingtongs, Teutonstring, and Flatz, came to +Schnitzelhammerstein, they found them so strongly intrenched in the +affections of the people that, while they lived and played in harmony +together, no others could hope to make a living from music in that +community. They rapidly grew rich; for it came to pass that, with the +exception of house rent, and new strings for their instruments, and +other mere incidentals of a musician's work, they had no expenses to +pay. Their food cost them nothing, they attended so many banquets; and +when, occasionally, a day would come upon which no breakfast, luncheon, +or dinner required their services, it was always found that they had +carried away enough fruit and cake and other dainties from the affairs +that had been given to last them through such rare intervals as found +them without an engagement. + +In other respects, too, did these worthies show themselves entitled to +be called wise. Some five years after they began to grow famous in +Schnitzelhammerstein-on-the-Zugvitz some of their admirers suggested +that they ought not to confine themselves to the small town in which +they had waxed so great, but should go out into the world and dazzle all +mankind by the brilliance of their playing. + +"The great orchestras of Austria," said one of these, "do not content +themselves with laurels won at home. They travel into far countries, +and win fame and fortune all the world over. Why do not you go?" + +"We will talk it over," Herr Teutonstring replied. "I for one am opposed +to making such a trip, because I am an old man, and my bass-viol is +heavy." + +"Can you not send it about by freight?" said the man who proposed the +scheme. + +"Would you send your child by freight?" asked Herr Teutonstring. + +"I would not," returned the other. + +"No more can I send my bass-viol by freight," said Herr Teutonstring, +fondly twanging the strings of his huge instrument. "This is my whole +family. I love it as I would a child for whom I must care; as a father +who has helped me to become what I am. Nevertheless, we will talk it +over." + +And they did talk it over, and as a result decided that the world, +if it desired to hear them play, must come to +Schnitzelhammerstein-on-the-Zugvitz. + +"If we go," said Herr Von Kärlingtongs, "who will provide music for +Schnitzelhammerstein-on-the-Zugvitz?" + +"Who, indeed?" said Heinrich Flatz, gazing at the floor after the +manner of the truly wise man. + +"Since you have both asked that question," said Herr Teutonstring, "out +of mere politeness I must answer it. My answer is, briefly, I haven't +the slightest idea." + +"But some one must," persisted Von Kärlingtongs. + +"Yes," said the others. + +"Then one of two things must happen," said Von Kärlingtongs. "Either by +our absence the people of this town must be deprived of good music, +which would be very ungrateful of us, who have gained so much profit +from them, or they must discover that there are others who can play as +well as we do, whereby we would cease to be the greatest in the +world--which strikes me as bad policy." + +"Von Kärlingtongs," said Heinrich Flatz, with tears of joy in his eyes, +"you are not only a musician, you are a thinker." + +"Do not flatter me, my dear Flatz," said Von Kärlingtongs, modestly. +"You do not know what a struggle it is to me to keep from giving way to +pride." + +"Well, I agree to all that you have said," said Herr Teutonstring; "and +I have to add that, as we are only young in spirit, and as my bass-viol +is very heavy, I think we should be content to remain at home." + +"Particularly," added Heinrich Flatz, "in view of the fact that there +can be but one result. We should succeed. Now where is the gratification +in success? Simply in the knowledge that you have succeeded. We know +that now. Wherefore why should we put ourselves to inconveniences simply +to find out what we already know? Does a man with a pantryful of tarts +go seeking tarts? He does not--" + +"If he is wise," said Herr Teutonstring. + +"And we are wise," added Herr von Kärlingtongs. + +"Which settles the point. We'll stay at home," said Herr Flatz. + +And they did, and subsequent events showed the wisdom of their +course, for in less than a year's time the King came to +Schnitzelhammerstein-on-the-Zugvitz. + +Some said that he stopped there merely because there was a better +luncheon-counter at the railway station than anywhere else along the +road. Others persisted that his Majesty had heard of the marvellous +powers of the three musicians, and, being fond of music, had travelled +all the way from the capital, a distance of more than a hundred miles, +to hear them. However this was, the fact remained that the King +announced that for two hours he would be the guest of the little city +concerning which we have spoken so much. The town naturally was all of a +flutter, and great preparations were made to receive his Majesty. + +"I will make a speech," said the Mayor, "and our orchestra can serenade +his Majesty." + +"The serenade is a good idea," said Hans Pumpernickel, innocently. +"Shall I inform Herr Teutonstring and his fellow-players that that is +your opinion?" + +"As a rule, I avoid having opinions," said the Mayor, "but in this +instance I think it is safe to hazard one. You may inform the +gentlemen." + +"And the speech?" suggested Hans. + +"We'll see about that," said the Mayor. "If I can get a good one, I +shall deliver it." + +"Very well," said Hans. "I'll try to think of something for you to say. +Meanwhile I'll see Von Kärlingtongs." + +Hans did as he said, and, despite their wisdom, the three musicians were +as much in a flutter as the rest of the city. To play before the King +was an unexpected honor, although Heinrich Flatz affected to treat it as +quite an ordinary thing. + +"He is a very fair judge of music," said Flatz, patronizingly, "for a +King. I think that, after all, we'd better do our best." + +"Yes," said Von Kärlingtongs, "you are right, as usual, though I will +say right here that, in doing my best, I am actuated as much by my +loyalty to my art as by any other motive. I _always_ do my best." + +"And I also," put in Teutonstring. "Now the question that arises is what +is our best?" + +"That _is_ indeed the question," said Herr Flatz. "I, having already had +the honor to play before his Majesty, am perhaps better fitted than +either of you to say what he likes. When I was so distinguished I played +Djorski's Symphony in B Minor. Therefore I contend that that is what we +should play. His Majesty remarked that he had never heard anything like +it before. He would doubtless like to hear it again. Therefore I say +that is the thing for us to play." + +"Ordinarily," said Teutonstring, "I can agree with Herr Flatz, but this +time I cannot. _I_ am at my best in Darmstadter's Oratorio. There can be +no question about it that the bass-viol is at its highest, most +ennobling point in that composition, which is why I say let us have the +Oratorio. The King, having heard the Symphony in B Minor, would +naturally rather hear something else. The Symphony, no doubt, would +awaken pleasant memories, but the Oratorio would give him something new +to remember in the future." + +"There is much in what you say, Herr Teutonstring," put in Von +Kärlingtongs. "There is also much in what my dear friend Flatz says; but +it seems to me that there is more in what I have to say than in the +combined suggestions of both of you. The Symphony in B Minor is +excellent, the Oratorio is quite as excellent, but neither of them comes +up to Dboriak's Moonlight Sonata, which, when I play it, makes me feel +as though the whole world lay at my feet--as if I were the King of all +creation. Now I am a man; the King is a man; we are both men. It is but +natural to suppose that if this Sonata makes me, a man, feel like the +King of all creation, it will also make that other man, the King, feel +the same way. What is our object in playing before the King? To please +him. How can we best please him? Simply by making him feel that he is +the King of all creation. Perfectly simple, my dear Flatz. Plain as a +pikestaff, Teutonstring. Therefore let us play Dboriak's Moonlight +Sonata." + +It was thus that the three musicians, who had always hitherto agreed, +came to have the first difference of their lives, and what made it seem +worse than all was that this difference occurred at a time which seemed +to them in their secret hearts to be the greatest event of their lives. +Perhaps it was the very importance of this event that made each of them +firm in his belief that he was right and the others wrong. Neither would +yield to the others, and an hour before the arrival of the royal train +found Flatz determined to play the Symphony, Teutonstring determined to +play the Oratorio, and Von Kärlingtongs equally immovable in his +determination to play the Moonlight Sonata, and nothing else. They +labored with one another in vain. Doctor Teutonstring tried to win over +Herr Flatz, saying that if together they should play the Oratorio they +could let Von Kärlingtongs render the Sonata without much harm, since +the bass-viol and 'cello together could drown the sounds of the violin. +Herr Flatz would agree to a combination of two against one only in case +the Symphony were selected, and when the King arrived no change +whatsoever had been made in the determination of the musicians. Ruin +stared them in the face, but each preferred ruin to a base surrender of +what he thought to be for the best. + +Of course, as the King alighted from the train the people cheered, and, +when the Mayor rose to greet him with the speech he had to make, they +cheered again, but these cheers were as nothing to those which greeted +the appearance of the musicians. Many nations had kings; all cities had +mayors; what city had such an orchestra? No wonder they cheered. + +And then the serenade began. + +Herr Flatz resined his bow and began the Symphony in B Minor, while Von +Kärlingtongs and Teutonstring, equally determined, started in on the +opening measures of the Sonata and Oratorio respectively. + +[Illustration: "THE THREE FIDDLED WITH ALL THEIR STRENGTH"] + +"It's something new they've got up for the occasion," whispered the +people, as the three men fiddled away with all their strength. + +"A most original composition!" said the King to the Chancellor. + +"I never heard such discord in my life," said a small boy on the +outskirts of the crowd. + +Still they kept on. The Symphony and the Oratorio were longer than the +Sonata, so that Von Kärlingtongs soon found himself outdone by his +fellow-players, but, nothing daunted, he played the Sonata over again. +And so it went, until, with a final grand burst of notes (I was almost +about to say harmony), they stopped. + +"Magnificent!" said the King. + +"A really classic composition," murmured the Chancellor. + +And the people shrieked with delight. + +The musicians, perspiring with excitement, stood overcome with surprise. +They had succeeded beyond their wildest hopes, but the King brought them +to their senses in a minute by asking: + +"What is the composer's name?" + +"What'll we tell him?" moaned Teutonstring. "It will never do to confess +what we have done now." + +"I'm sure I don't know," returned Flatz, with a shiver. + +"The composer's name, sir," replied Von Kärlingtongs, more ready of wit +than the others--"the composer's name is--ah--is--" + +"Well?" said the King, impatiently. + +"It is Kärlingteutonflatz," said Von Kärlingtongs. + +"Give him a thousand marks," said the King, "and distribute a thousand +more to these gentlemen," he added. + +And then the royal party proceeded on its way. + +As for the composer, Kärlingteutonflatz, he was never heard of again; +but several other eminent musicians modelled their music after his, and +obtained a renown that was not only world-wide, but has lasted until +this day. + +The three musicians of Schnitzelhammerstein-on-the-Zugvitz, when they +had recovered from their surprise and excitement, began to smile, and +never stopped until they died--and I am not certain that they stopped +then--nor did they ever confide their secret to any one but Hans +Pumpernickel, who in turn confided it to me, so that this is really the +first time the public has been let into the secret origin of what was +then the music of the future and what is to-day the music of the +present. + + + + +How Fritz Became a Wizard + + + + +How Fritz Became a Wizard + + +[Illustration: Decorative I] + +t was a lovely summer afternoon at Schnitzelhammerstein-on-the-Zugvitz, +and Hans Pumpernickel and I, having little else to do, idled along the +sylvan path that for five or six miles follows the winding course of the +famous little river. Hans was in a very talkative mood that day. He had +quite recently been re-elected Mayor of the town in which he lived, +after a hard campaign of six weeks, during which time he had not been +allowed to say anything, for fear of spoiling his chances of reelection. + +"And now that it is over, and I am safely in office once more, I am +going to make up for lost time," he said. "Having kept silent for six +weeks, I shall now talk three times as much as usual for three. I am fat +with suppressed conversation, and I must get rid of it, or I shall +burst." + +So, as I have told you, he was very talkative, and on that afternoon he +told me enough stories to fill an encyclopædia, most of which, I regret +to say, I have forgotten, but some of which, also, I remember perfectly. +The one telling how Fritz von Hatzfeldt became a wizard was one of these +latter, and it seemed to me quite good enough to tell to you. It came +about in this way. When nearing the point where the celebrated Baron +Laubenheimer, at the risk of his life, once plunged into the Zugvitz to +rescue Johanna Johannisberg from drowning--a heroic act, the story of +which I hope some day to tell you--we perceived walking ahead of us a +strange-looking old gentleman, clad in a long, flowing robe with a +border embroidered with mystic figures. He wore spectacles--or, rather, +the rims of spectacles, without glass; for, as I learned afterwards, +though his eyes were in good condition, his ideas as to the dignity of +his profession compelled him to appear as wise as possible, and he had +discovered that nothing imparts to the face of man so much of the +appearance of wisdom as spectacles. + +"That," said Hans Pumpernickel, in response to my question, "is our town +wizard, Fritz von Hatzfeldt, and I may add that the town has never had a +better one. When I was running for Mayor this last time against +Pflueger, who, as you may remember, was the opposing candidate, Von +Hatzfeldt was consulted by my friends as to my chances; for, as town +wizard, it is his duty to prophesy. His answer was wonderfully quick, +and absolutely accurate. 'Who will be elected,' said he, 'Pumpernickel +or Pflueger?' 'Yes,' said they, 'that is the question.' 'I will consult +the stars,' said Von Hatzfeldt, withdrawing to his observatory. Now, his +predecessor, Rosenstein, would have taken a week to return his verdict, +but Von Hatzfeldt's strong point is quickness. He remained with the +stars no longer than two hours, and then, emerging from his observatory, +he said, 'I have consulted, and the heavens tell me that the name of our +next Mayor will begin with the letter P.' And it was so. Pumpernickel +was elected, and Pflueger was defeated. Was not that an extraordinary, +even a wonderful prophecy?" + +"Very," I assented. "That man must be a genius; I should like to meet +him." + +"I think it can be arranged," said Hans. "I will ask him if you may." +And he hurried on to overtake the wizard. In a moment he returned. + +"Well," I said, "does he consent to my meeting him?" + +"Yes," said Hans. "Only, with his customary wisdom, he says that, to +meet him, you should be coming towards him from in front. He says that +people can only be said to meet when face to face. 'You do not meet the +man who walks behind you, Mr. Mayor,' he said; 'but if your friend will +take a short-cut through the woods to the old rock two hundred paces on, +he can then approach me from before, and then we shall meet." + +"That suits me," said I, and, making the cut through the woods, I +reached the rock, turned back, and soon stood face to face with the +wizard. "I am glad to know you," said I, as Pumpernickel introduced us. + +"I was about to make a similar remark myself," returned Von Hatzfeldt, +"but concluded not to, and for this reason: to tell you that would be +to tell you something you already knew. If I had not been glad to meet +you, I could have turned aside and avoided the meeting. Now, my notion +of the duties of a professional wizard is that he should tell people +only those things which they do not know, and should avoid wasting his +breath in imparting useless information." + +"A very sage observation," said Pumpernickel. + +"And what else did you expect?" queried the wizard, gazing through his +unglazed spectacles upon the Mayor. "Mark you, Mr. Mayor, it is the +business of wizards to make sage observations. You might as well try to +purchase a diamond necklace of a green-grocer as look for unwise remarks +from a professional wizard." + +"I'll test his powers of prophecy now," said Hans to me, in a whisper. + +"Do," I replied. "I shall be delighted, for I never met a real prophet +before." + +"Ah, Herr Wizard," said Hans, addressing Von Hatzfeldt, "what do you +think about the weather?" + +"It is very fair--now," replied the wizard. + +"Now, eh?" said Hans. "Then you think it will not always be so?" + +"No," replied the wizard, glancing up into the heavens. "No. To you +there is nothing in the skies to foretell a change, but to me there is +much. Before the winter is over, Hans Pumpernickel, we shall have snow. +I read it in the stars." + +"Stars?" I cried. "By day?" + +"And why not?" returned the wizard. "Do you think because you do not see +them that therefore the stars are all destroyed?" + +To this I had no answer, and before I could recover myself Fritz von +Hatzfeldt had passed on. + +"Isn't he a wonder?" said Pumpernickel. + +"He is more than a wonder," I replied. "He is a +four-hundred-and-tender"--a joke, by the way, which Hans Pumpernickel +did not appreciate. + +"Whence do your wizards come?" I asked. + +"There is no rule," Pumpernickel answered. "The wisest person in town is +generally selected, though, as for Fritz, he studied wizardry under +Rosenstein. It was curious the way it happened. Fritz was the son of a +farmer, who sent him to school when he was very young, and at the age of +five he could read so well that he couldn't be got to leave his books +and help gather in the crops. At seven his father, in a fit of anger at +what he termed the boy's laziness, turned him out of doors, and Fritz +came to Schnitzelhammerstein to seek his fortune. The first position he +held was as boy in a butcher-shop, but he had to give that up, because, +having gone for weeks without sufficient food, his appetite was a +serious menace to the butcher's stock, which the butcher did not +discover until Fritz had eaten one whole side of beef. Then he became +candy-puller for a molasses-candy-maker, who employed him without +counting upon his sweet tooth. This he was compelled to give up after +having consumed two weeks' salary's worth of candy in two days. It was +this second rebuff that brought him to Rosenstein's notice. While +standing in his laboratory one morning the wizard heard a piping little +voice cry out, 'Excuse me, sir, but don't you want an assistant?' + +"'An assistant what?' asked Rosenstein. + +"'An assistant whatever you are,' returned the owner of the little +voice, who was none other than Fritz. + +"The answer pleased Rosenstein. He recognized wisdom in it; for that it +was wise no one will deny. + +"'Don't you know what I am?' he asked. + +[Illustration: "'YOU ARE A VERY NICE OLD GENTLEMAN'"] + +"'Yes,' said Fritz. 'You are a very nice old gentleman.' + +"Rosenstein laughed. 'True,' he said. 'But I am also the town wizard.' + +"'Then will I be the assistant town wizard,' said Fritz. 'What do +wizards do--whiz?' + +"'I'll take you in for a week and let you see,' said Rosenstein, and +little Fritz was employed to do errands. But alas for him! The wizard, +though he liked him much, could not afford to keep him. He had not +counted upon Fritz's appetite any more than the butcher had, and again +was the boy sent forth. This time, however, he was sent forth in a +kindly way. 'You are a good boy, Fritz, and I like you, and I think you +would make a good wizard some day, for you have a wise way about you for +your years, but I am too poor to feed you. I will say to you, however, +that if you ever make your fortune in this world, then will I be glad +to receive you back again and point out to you the path you should +pursue if you would some day succeed me in my office. Make your fortune +first, my boy, then come to me.' + +"'Can't I stay if I lose my appetite?" asked Fritz, mournfully. + +"'Ah, but you mustn't do that,' the wizard answered. 'An appetite is a +splendid thing--a fortune in itself--but you must also have another +fortune in itself to maintain it. Go, my boy, and bless you!' + +"Poor Fritz! This last failure discouraged him wofully. He had no money, +no home, nobody to go to. His condition was a dreadful one; but the +Fates had a happy life in store for him. He wandered out along this very +path up to the big rock, and sat down to meditate, and as he meditated +he observed, as the tide of the river went down, it uncovered the +entrance to what appeared to be a huge cavern. 'Humph!' said Fritz. +'Looks like a cave. Maybe I can use that for a place to live in. There +may be one or two dry spots inside where I could sleep, and I could +always come out at low tide if I wanted to. There's house rent saved, +anyhow.' + +"Speaking thus, he climbed down into the cavern, and, as he had hoped, +found plenty of dry places, and from that time on it became his home. He +occasionally made a few marks by doing chores for people around about +Schnitzelhammerstein, and with them he supplied himself with food and +furniture. The spring-time came, and with it a freshet which completely +covered up the entrance to the cavern night and day, high tide or low, +and Fritz found himself shut up in his strange home for two whole dreary +months. Escape was impossible. The sole sustenance he had was an +occasional fish he caught in some of the pools. + +[Illustration: "THE LITTLE FELLOW MUSED OFT AND LONG THEREON"] + +"It was not until he had been in this cavernous prison for five weeks +that he noticed a most unique thing about it. _Night and day it was +always brilliantly lighted!_ On the Monday night of the fifth week this +singular fact flashed upon the boy's mind. How was it? Whence could the +light come? It was not sunlight, because that would not shine by night. +What, then, was the secret of the light in the cave? The little fellow +mused oft and long thereon, and finally he reached a conclusion, which, +like all his conclusions, was a wise one. + +"'This is worth investigating. I will investigate,' he cried. +'Meditation is good in its way, but if a thing is past mental +comprehension, then investigation of an active sort is in order. In the +first place, the light does not come from above; it streams in through +that chink in the rock off to the left. I will slide through that chink +and see what is to be seen.' + +[Illustration: "IT NEARLY BLINDED HIM"] + +"In an instant he had done so, and--there lay his fortune. Lying upon +the soft earth floor of the adjoining cave was a diamond, dazzling in +its lustre, and large as a hen's egg. So brilliant was it that all about +it was lighted up as though by electricity. In a second Fritz pounced +upon it and held it aloft. It nearly blinded him, but he held on to it +like grim death. It was his, and only his. His fortune was made. + +"Three weeks later the waters subsided, and Fritz went forth into the +world with his diamond." + +"But," said I, "a diamond like that would be very hard to sell, and +people might not understand how it had come into the possession of a +small boy who had always been poor." + +"True," said Pumpernickel, "and Fritz thought of that. 'Too sudden +riches fly suddenly away,' he observed. 'I will proceed slowly.' _He +didn't show that diamond to any one until he had made his fortune._" + +"Then how--how did he make his fortune?" I asked. + +"He sold its light," said Hans. "It does not sound probable, but it is +true. In those days we had no gas or electricity to light our public +squares or ballrooms or libraries, and Fritz, noting this, bought a +small lantern with ground-glass sides, so that the diamond could shed +its light without itself being seen, and, putting his diamond into it, +rented it out for public meetings, for ballroom illumination--in fact, +to any who stood in need of a strong, powerful light. Scientists from +all Germany flocked in to see it, and besought him to divulge the secret +of the light, but he would not until he had accumulated a fortune, and +then he let the world into his confidence. Meanwhile he had gone back +to Rosenstein, and had learned the art of being a wizard, and when +Rosenstein died he was unanimously called to fill the vacancy." + +"And what became of the diamond?" + +"That," said Hans, "is a mystery. Some say that Von Hatzfeldt has it +yet, but burglars who have searched his house high and low a thousand +times say that he hasn't it." + +"And he--what does he say?" + +"He declines to speak of it," said Hans, simply. + +"Well," said I, "that is a very remarkable tale." + +"Yes," said Hans, "but then Fritz von Hatzfeldt is a very remarkable +wizard, for how a man can be as wise as he and know so little passes all +comprehension." + + + + +Rise and Fall of the Poet Gregory + + + + +Rise and Fall of the Poet Gregory + + +[Illustration: Decorative O] + +ne night after dining with Hans Pumpernickel at his house in +Schnitzelhammerstein-on-the-Zugvitz, I recalled to his mind that he had +promised some time to introduce me to the three sages of the town--the +only persons residing there who at all approached Fritz von Hatzfeldt, +the wizard, in wisdom. + +"True," said he, "I did promise that, and if you like I will take you to +them this evening. They are a wonderful trio, and between you and me, I +really think they know more in a day than Von Hatzfeldt does in a year. +The maxims of Otto the Shoemaker alone contain wisdom enough to set ten +wizards up in business. Did you ever hear any of Otto the Shoemaker's +maxims?" + +"No," said I. "I never even heard of Otto the Shoemaker. Does he write +maxims?" + +"Not exactly," replied Hans, filling his pipe and putting on his hat. +"He cannot write, but he can speak. He says maxims." + +"How interesting!" I observed, following Hans's example and putting on +my hat and filling my pipe also. "I should like to hear some of them." + +"You shall," replied Hans. "Here is one of them: 'One never misses one's +shoes until he has to do without them.' That, you see, is undeniable, +and is full of wisdom. Then there was this one addressed to his son: +'Rise in the world, but be careful how. The man who goes up in a balloon +cannot stay up after the gas gives out. Therefore, my son, rise not up +at random, even as the balloonist does, but rather move up slowly but +surely, like him who builds a tower of rock beneath him, and is thus +able to stay up as long as he pleases.'" + +"Wonderful," said I. "And you say that this philosopher, this deep +thinker, this Maximilian, is content to remain a shoemaker?" + +"Yes," Hans answered, "he is, for, as he himself once said, 'The throne +itself rests upon society merely, but upon what does society stand? +Boots and shoes! I make boots and shoes, wherefore I am the cornerstone +of the empire.'" + +"I must meet this Otto the Shoemaker," was my response, and to that end +Hans Pumpernickel and I went out to the little back street where Otto +the Shoemaker, Eisenberg the Keysmith, and Jurgurson the Innkeeper, the +three sages of the town, dwelt peacefully and happily together in +neighborly intercourse. We found them having a quiet little gossip after +tea. Eisenberg was leaning out of his shop window, his long, white clay +pipe unfilled in his hand, lovingly discoursing to Otto the Shoemaker, +who, clad in his leather apron, hung upon his every word as though each +were a pearl of thought, and to Jurgurson the Innkeeper, who sat +opposite him with a look upon his face which indicated how much he +marvelled at the wisdom which bubbled out of Eisenberg's lips like water +from a geyser. + +"It is as I tell you," Eisenberg was saying; "thought is the key to +every mystery; wherefore I, being the maker of keys of all sorts, +necessarily manufacture thoughts. It is a part of my business. Why, +therefore, should the world express surprise at my being a thinker?" + +"Wherefore, indeed?" replied Jurgurson; "or me, too? As the keeper of +the inn is it not for me to dispense entertainment for man and beast? Is +not wisdom the entertainment of many men, and do not many men come here? +Why should I, too, then, not have wisdom on draught just as likewise I +have ginger-ale and lemonade?" + +"You are both right," put in Otto the Shoemaker. "And as for me, what? +This: the labor of the shoemaker is confining. I am kept at my bench all +day. I must have exercise or I die; with my body busy at my trade, what +can I exercise else? My wits--yah! That is, then, the cause of no +surprise that I, too, am sagacious." + +"We have never said anything more wise," said Eisenberg, proudly, and +the others agreed with him. + +At this point Hans presented me to the sages. + +"Gentlemen," he said, after he had given to each an appropriate +greeting, "I have brought with me one who wishes to know you. He is an +American and a poet." + +"Ach!" cried Eisenberg. "An American--that is good. A poet? Well we +shall see. That is not always so good. Do you write, sir?" + +"Occasionally," I answered. + +"Good," said Otto. "That is better than often." + +"True," assented Jurgurson, "though not so good as hardly ever." + +I laughed. "You do not seem to think much of poets," said I. + +"We do not say that," said Otto. "We do not know you as a poet, and so +we do not pass judgment. When one says because one or two, or even two +thousand, shoemakers are bad, all shoemakers are bad, one speaks +foolishness. So with the poets. Because Heinrich von Scribbhausen writes +bad stuff, you do not therefore write bad stuff. A poet should be +judged, not by his shoes, but by his poems. I, a shoemaker, must not be +judged by my poems, but by my shoes, which points a moral, and that +moral is, what is sauce for the goose is not always sauce for the +gander. The gander may be a person who makes fine clothes. The goose +should not be judged by his clothes, but the gander should; therefore, +never judge a man for what he ain't." + +"Bravo!" cried Jurgurson. "I could not have spoken more wisely myself." + +"Nor I," said Eisenberg. "Yet I could add somewhat. You do not print +your poems?" + +"Of course," I replied, "and why not?" + +"It is a great risk," sighed Eisenberg. "Particularly for poets, for, as +Otto has well said, the world cannot judge a man for what he is not; so +if a shoemaker print a bad book of poems, there is no risk. The poems +will be judged as the work of a shoemaker, and, though bad, may still be +good for a shoemaker to have written; but for a poet to print bad poems, +that is as risky as for a shoemaker to make bad shoes." + +At this point my guide, Hans Pumpernickel, feeling perhaps that the +conversation was not exactly pleasant for me, in spite of the undoubted +wisdom of the sages' remarks, handed his tobacco-pouch to the keysmith, +having observed that Eisenberg's pipe was empty. + +"Thank you, no," said Eisenberg, handing it back, "I do not smoke +tobacco. It is tobacco which makes of smoking an injurious pastime. To +me the pleasure of smoking is the caressing of a pipe, the holding of it +in one's hands, the occasional putting of it into one's mouth and +puffing. Therefore I keep my pipe to caress, to hold, to put into my +mouth, and to puff upon. The tobacco, which does not agree with me, I +never use." + +Otto and Jurgurson beamed proudly upon their fellow-sage. It was evident +that in him they recognized the centre of all wisdom. + +"But as for poets," said Eisenberg, turning to me, "I should like to +tell you about Gregory--the poet Gregory. Did you ever hear of him?" + +"No," said I. + +"Ah! See then!" cried Eisenberg. "It proves my point. He is unknown +already, and all for why? Because his poems were printed, for until +they were printed they were not unknown." + +"Magnificently put!" cried the shoemaker. + +"Logical as logic itself!" said the innkeeper. + +"And what is the story of Gregory?" I asked, interested hugely and +almost as enthusiastic over the whimsical wisdom of the keysmith as his +fellow-wiseacres. + +"Gregory," said Eisenberg, "was the first name. His last name I shall +not give you for two reasons. The first reason is that, if I gave it to +you, I should betray a confidence reposed in me by his family. The +second reason is that I have forgotten it. That is the sad part of it +all. When a name begins to be forgotten by one, or even two persons, its +trip to oblivion is rapid. Even I, who used to worship him as a poet, +have forgotten the name he made for himself." + +The keysmith sighed sorrowfully as he spoke, and I began to believe with +him, though without knowing the reason therefor, that Gregory's cause +was indeed a lost one. There was silence for a full minute, during which +Eisenberg puffed thoughtfully upon his empty pipe, blowing imaginary +clouds of smoke out into the air, and then he spoke. + +"Gregory was not of high birth, but early in life his parents saw that +he was not destined to follow successfully the career of a peasant. He +was of an inquiring mind. He was not content to know that grass was +green and water wet. He wished to know why grass was green and water +wet, and when, in response to questions of this nature, his father, a +practical person, would send him out to the stables to milk the cows, or +to the grindstone to sharpen the scythe, Gregory's soul revolted within +him. 'You will never make a peasant,' said his father. 'Not a peasant of +the fields,' the boy replied, 'but a peasant of learning, perhaps. I +would not mind milking the cow of knowledge, and filling the pail of my +mind with lactated information; nor should I mind sharpening my wits +upon the grindstone of thought.' And at these words his father would +stare at him and say that one who had such command of mysterious +language did not need Greek to conceal his thoughts from his hearers; +and he would add an invitation, which Gregory perforce always accepted, +to retire to the fagot-room with him and receive corporal punishment at +his hands. So it went for several years, during which Gregory read +everything that came within reach, until finally one morning he said to +his father: 'Why do you persist in making a peasant of me when I wish to +be a poet? What is the odds to you? Nay, more, father, do not the words +peasant and poet both begin with a P and end with a T? What difference +can it make if the ends be the same?'--which so enraged his father that +Gregory was disowned by him, and another boy adopted in his place. + +"Then Gregory came here to Schnitzelhammerstein-on-the-Zugvitz, and at a +time when Rudolf von Pepperpotz, the solemn Baron of Humpfelhimmel, +happened to stand in need of a secretary and librarian. How it came +about that Gregory was so unfortunate as to obtain the position is +neither here nor there. Suffice it to say that he became the secretary +and librarian of the Baron, and from that time on he was happy. He lived +among books, and while at times he found his duties arduous, he was +nevertheless content, for he was a philosopher." + +"I'd rather be content than eat," said the innkeeper. + +"Indeed, yes," said Otto, "for entertainment is better than dyspepsia, +and poor eating comes more of the one than the other." + +"By careful economy," continued Eisenberg, "Gregory soon managed to +amass a little fortune, and then he felt he might safely venture to +write a little himself, and he did so. He wrote poems about the moon, +odes to commonplace things, like scissors and dust-pans, but he was wise +enough not to publish any of his verse. Then he married, and +occasionally he would recite his verses to his wife, who said they were +magnificent. She in turn repeated them to her friends, and they said, as +she had, that they were unsurpassed. Still Gregory would not print them, +though it soon got noised about that he was a great poet. And so it +went. Finally, finding himself subjected to great temptation to print +his writings, he put everything he had written into a casket, and, +having a small closet constructed in the walls of his house, he placed +the casket in that closet, locked the iron door upon it and threw away +the key. Time went on, and people daily, their curiosity excited, talked +more and more of Gregory's poetry; they even sent delegations to him, +requesting him to have his rhymes printed, but he was faithful to his +resolution, and when he died he was looked upon as a great writer, +without having printed a line. Time passed and his reputation grew. +Three generations passed by. His children and their children and their +children's children came, lived, and died, and constantly his fame +increased, and people said, 'Ah, yes; so and so is a great poet, but the +poems of Gregory! You should have heard them. They were sublime.' + +"But two years ago there came an unhappy day. Some one laughed at the +mention of Gregory's name and cast doubt upon the tradition that he had +written, and his great-grandson, foolishly, I thought, and recklessly, +as has since been proved, offered to prove the truth of the tradition by +opening the closet which for a century had remained closed, and +publishing the writings of his ancestor. I was sent for as keysmith to +open the door, and when it was opened there stood the casket, and in the +casket were found the poems. + +"'Let that suffice,' said I to his great-grandson. 'You have proved your +point.' + +"'I will prove it to the world,' said he. 'I will publish the poems.'" + +Here Eisenberg sighed. + +"He did so," he resumed mournfully, "and another idol was shattered. The +poems were the worst you ever read, and from that time on the name of +Gregory the poet began to sink into oblivion, where it now lies. Had his +descendants been less weak, his name would still have remained a +household word, such is the force of tradition. As it is, the printed +volume is the best testimony that the great poet Gregory was nothing but +a commonplace rhymester whose name was not worthy of remembrance. + +"And that, sir," concluded Eisenberg, bowing politely to me, "is why I +say that a poet who does not publish runs less risk of failing as a poet +than he who does publish." + +And I? Well, how could I deny that Eisenberg was right? He had proved +his point only too well, and even that night, on my return home, I went +to my little portfolio and utterly destroyed the dozen or more poems I +had written that day. If you will take my word for it, you will think +them greater than you might if you insisted upon reading them. + +"What think you?" asked Hans, as we went home? "Are they not wise?" + +"Wiser than the Three Men of Gotham who went to sea in a bowl," said I, +"for I do not believe that Otto, Eisenberg, or Jurgurson would go to sea +at all." + +"True," was Hans's comment, "for as Otto well says in one of his maxims, +'For a sailor with his sea-legs on there is nothing like the sea, but +for a shoemaker who lives by shoes alone, dry land is by much the +solider foundation.'" + + + + +The Loss of the "Gretchen B." + + + + +The Loss of the "Gretchen B." + +A TALE OF A PIRATE GHOST, FOUND FLOATING IN A WATER-BOTTLE. + + +I + +THE DISCOVERY + + +[Illustration: Decorative I] + +t was a very pleasant evening in July. Hans Pumpernickel, who had just +laid down the duties of Mayor of Schnitzelhammerstein-on-the-Zugvitz, +after having filled that lofty office for eight years, was walking with +me along the river-front at its busiest point. + +"Let us go out on the wharf," said Hans, as we neared its entrance. +"When I was a small boy I used to take pleasure in sitting upon the +twine-piece of the wharf and letting my legs dingle over." + +I scratched my head for a moment before I saw exactly what he meant by +"twine-piece" and "dingle." + +"You speak English very well, Pumpernickel," said I; "but what you +should have said was 'string-piece' and 'dangle,' not 'twine-piece' and +'dingle.'" + +"But," he protested, "is not a piece of twine a piece of string?" + +"Yes," I replied; "but--" + +"Then why may not a 'twine-piece' be a 'string-piece'? And as for +'dingle,' is it not the present tense of the verb 'to dingle'? Dingle, +dangle, dungle--like sing, sang, sung? You would not say 'letting him +sang'--it would be 'letting him sing'; wherefore, why not say 'letting +my legs dingle over,' and avoid saying 'letting my legs dangle over'?" + +"Oh, well, have it your own way," said I; and, having reached the end of +the wharf, we sat down there, and shortly found our legs "dingling" over +the water in the most approved style. + +"It is a hard sort of a seat," said I, after a moment or two of silence, +as we gazed upon the river flowing by. + +"True," said Hans, philosophically, "though it is not made of hard wood. +Let us take a boat and have a row." + +I agreed, and we hired a small skiff and paddled idly down the stream. +We had not gone far when the bow of our craft bumped up against +something which scraped against the side of the boat as we passed. + +"What was that?" said Pumpernickel. + +"I don't know," said I, indifferently. "Nothing, I guess." + +"What nonsense you talk sometimes!" he retorted. "It must have been +something. We'll retreat and see." + +Suiting the action to the words, Hans backed water with his oars, and in +the dim light of the moon we soon descried the object of our search--a +curious old earthen vessel floating in the river, bobbing up and down +very much like a buoy. It looked like a water-bottle of two centuries +ago, and, indeed, upon investigation turned out to be such. + +"Aha!" cried Hans, triumphantly, as I lifted the bottle into the boat, +"it _was_ something, after all. I knew it could not be nothing. Is it +empty of contents?" + +I turned the vessel bottom side up, and nothing came out of it, but +there was a distinct thud within which betrayed the presence of some +solid substance. + +"It is not empty of contents," said I, giving it another shake, "but it +hasn't any table to show what those contents are." + +"Oh, we don't need a table," said Hans, failing to appreciate the subtle +humor of my remark. "Just shake it out." + +With a sigh over my lost joke, I did as I was bidden, and soon, after a +vigorous shaking and the removal of a cork which I had not previously +noticed, the substance within issued forth through the bottle's neck. + +"Dear me," said I. "It appears to be manuscript." + +"Let me see," said Hans. "Ah," he observed, "it is writing. Why did you +say it was manuscript?" + +"That is writing," I explained. + +"That may be," said he, "but why waste your tongue on three syllables +when two will do?" + +I ignored the question and put another. + +"Can you read it?" I asked. + +"With difficulty," he said, "by this light. Let us return to my rooms +and see if we can decimate it." + +"Decipher, decipher, Hans," said I. + +"As you will," he retorted, with a sweep of the oars which brought us +under the shadow of the wharf. + +Tying our boat, we hastened back to Pumpernickel's rooms, and within a +half-hour of our find we were busily engaged in translating the +extraordinary narrative of Captain Hammerpestle, commander of the +_Gretchen B._, a ship that, as we learned from the captain's story, was +once of ill-repute, later of pleasant memory, and finally the central +figure of an ocean mystery never as yet solved, though at least two +hundred and fifty years had passed since she was given up for lost. + +The story was in substance as follows: + + +II + +THE TALE OF CAPTAIN HAMMERPESTLE + +The end is approaching, and I, Rudolf Hammerpestle, of Bingen, third +owner and captain of the ill-starred _Gretchen B._, formerly known as +the _Dutch Avenger_, will shortly find a watery grave in sixty-eight +fathoms of the Atlantic, ninety miles west of the rock of Gibraltar. + +The _Gretchen B._ is sinking, and the pirate ghost is at last a victor, +though I have given him a pretty fight these many days. Had it not been +for my own stupidity in employing a foreign crew, all might yet be well, +and I am impelled in my last moments, for we are sure to go to the +bottom within two hours, to write out this story merely in the hope that +it may some day reach my fellow-men, tell them of my horrible fate, and +possibly warn them against my errors. If I had stuck to my own +countrymen, if I had employed Hans Stickenfurst and good old Diedrich +Foutzenhickle and their like for my officers and crew, instead of the +idiot Pat Sullivan and his twin, Barney O'Brien, and others of that ilk, +I should now be nearing port that I shall never reach, instead of +sinking, slowly sinking, into the mysterious depths of the great ocean. + +I have locked myself within my cabin so as to be free from interruption, +and it is highly probable that, having tightly closed my port and +calked up the door-cracks and key-hole, I shall be able to gain an extra +hour for the writing of this tale even after the _Gretchen B._ has +disappeared beneath the waves, to be hid forevermore from the eyes of +man. When the tale is finished I shall place it within my trusty +water-bottle, open the port, thrust it forth into the sea, and trust to +Heaven that it may rise to the surface and ultimately make some port +where it may be read and published, I devoutly hope, by some house of +standing. + +And now, as every story should begin at the beginning, let me go back to +the time when I first took charge of the _Gretchen B._ It was five years +agone, on the 7th day of May, 1635, that the _Gretchen B._ was purchased +by her present owners, and I, Rudolf Hammerpestle, of Bingen, appointed +her commander. It was with a light heart, a full crew, and sixty barrels +of Schnitzelhammerstein claret that I set out from Bingen on the 27th +day of May, 1635, for London, where the claret was to be sold to the +public as medicinal port--its nutty flavor, its bouquet, and other +properties favoring the illusion. All went well with us until we +reached the sea, when one night, after our second day on the ocean, +feeling faint from the effects of the sun, for I had had a hard day of +it, I tapped one of the barrels of my cargo for a taste of the claret. +Understand, I was not in any sense taking away from the full measure +which was due to the purchaser in London, for I intended to replace what +I had taken with water--so slight in quantity, too, as not to affect the +flavor appreciably. Imagine my consternation to find the liquid turned +sour and thin--so thin that under no circumstances could it ever pass +muster as medicinal port. I was horrified. Ours had always been an +honorable firm. What was to be done? My employers' reputation was at +stake. If that claret had ever been delivered at London as port they +were ruined. I determined to run the _Gretchen B._ to Naples, and there +dispose of my cargo as Chianti, to which, with the infusion of a little +whale-oil for appearance' sake, it could be made to bear a remarkable +resemblance. + +This done, I retired to my cabin to reflect. What could it have been +that had wrought such a change, for on leaving Bingen the wine was +sweet and good? I locked my door so as to be undisturbed, for I cannot +think when there are others about; but hardly had I seated myself at my +table when, upon the honor of a sea-captain, a ruffianly person, +noiseless as a cat, _walked through the massive oaken barrier I had but +just fastened to_! + +"Who--what are you?" I cried, aghast, the spectral quality of the +apparition being at once manifest. + +"Oh!" he retorted. "It seems to me it's more to the point for _me_ to +ask that question. You are the interloper." + +"It is my cabin," I said, indignantly. + +"Oh, is it?" he sneered. "Since when?" + +"Since the seventh day of May," I replied. "I am the commander of this +craft." + +"Pooh!" said he, harshly. "Do you know who I am?" + +"I've asked you once," said I, trying hard to appear calm and sarcastic. + +"Well, I almost hate to tell you," he said, throwing off his coat, +whereon I was filled with consternation to observe that his belt held +four wicked-looking blunderbusses and six cutlasses of razor edge. +"You're not a bad fellow, and your hair will turn white when I tell you; +but since you ask, so be it. Your hair be upon your own head. _I am the +ghost of Wouter von Rotterdaam!_" + +"You?" I cried, clutching wildly at my locks, not to keep them from +turning white, of course, but to steady my nerves, for in the name I +recognized that of one of the most successful pirates, and the bloodiest +in his way. + +"Ay, I!" he replied, impressively. + +"But--who--what do you here on board the _Gretchen B._?" I cried. + +"_Gretchen_ nothing," he said. "This is the _Dutch Avenger_, upon which, +after her capture, six months ago, I was hanged, and which, my dear +Hammerpestle, I shall haunt till she fills her destiny, which is +_there_!" + +The word "there" was pronounced in sepulchral tones, and with Von +Rotterdaam's forefinger pointed downward. I shivered from top to toe, +but quickly recovered. + +"If _I_ cannot have the _Dutch Avenger_, at least none other shall have +her," he added. + +"You are mistaken, Mr. von Rotterdaam," I said, politely. "You have +taken the wrong boat, sir. This is not the _Dutch Avenger_, but the +_Gretchen B._, of Bingen." + +"She has not always been the _Gretchen B._, of Bingen," he replied. + +"I know that, my dear sir," I observed, "but her previous name was the +_Anneke van der Q_." + +"_Anneke van der_ bosh!" he ejaculated, with a laugh. "That is what they +told you, and you swallowed the bait. They knew precious well your +people wouldn't buy her if they had ever guessed she'd once been the +terror of the seas as the _Dutch Avenger_ of everywhere, the ubiquitous +ranger of the deep, Captain Wouter von Rotterdaam, better known as the +Throat-Cutter of the Caribbees." + +"Is that the truth?" I replied. + +"As a pirate, I scorn lies," he answered. "We don't need 'em in our +business. Get your carpenter to plane off the name on her stern and +see!" and even as he spoke he disappeared, fading away through the +closed door. + +I was nearly prostrated by the revelation, but, hoping for disproof, I +rushed up on deck, summoned the carpenter, and ordered the name +_Gretchen B._ planed off the stern. Alas! there beneath the innocent +letters lay the horrid proof of the truth of the spectre's story, the +words _Dutch Avenger_, flanked on either side by skull and cross-bones. + +Again I sought my room, to recover, and to my added distress Von +Rotterdaam had returned, an ugly look on his face. + +"You've changed your course!" he said, savagely. + +"I know it," said I. "My cargo is spoiled for the original market. I am +taking it where it is salable." + +He was very wroth. + +"I was not aware that you were so clever a man," said he, after a +moment, calming down. "I perceive that my attempt to ruin you +interlopers at the outset is to be attended with some difficulty. You +have individual resources upon which I had not counted." + +"Ah!" said I. "It was you who turned the claret sour?" + +"It was," he replied--"as a part of my revenge. And, mark you, Captain +Hammerpestle, no cargo shall ever reach its destination unspoiled while +I have a bit of the old spook left in me. Where are we bound now?" + +"To Naples," said I, incautiously, and I further foolishly unfolded my +plan to dispose of the cargo as Chianti. + +"See here, captain," he said, pleadingly, "give up this honest seafaring +business and come out as a pirate, won't you? You're too clever a chap +to be honest. Keep the _Dutch Avenger_ going as a terror, and, by Jingo, +sir, I'll stand by you to the last." + +My answer was the lighting of a sulphur candle in the hope of exorcising +him, and, going on deck, I ordered the name _Gretchen B._ restored, +merely to emphasize my determination to have no part in his foul schemes +of piracy. + +I must now pause in my narrative for a moment, and see how far we have +settled in the water. It may be I shall have to write somewhat less in +detail so as to finish the tale before I am destroyed by the inrush of +the sea. + + * * * * * + +It is as I feared. The rippling surface of the ocean is already lapping +the lower edge of my circular port window, and one or two drops have +leaked within. It will not be long, I fear, before the water from below +will burst the decks and dash against my door, when, of course, we shall +sink the more rapidly, but if the walls of my cabin, and they are +unquestionably strong, Von Rotterdaam having had them made bullet-proof, +of wrought-iron--if these can withstand the pressure of the water for a +half-hour after we are submerged, I am quite confident I can finish the +story in time to bottle it up and launch it safely through the port. + + * * * * * + +After many days of difficulty we passed the Strait of Gibraltar, and on +the 18th of July were safely anchored in the Bay of Naples, where I sold +the claret, which Von Rotterdaam had changed into water, as the latest +mineral product of the Schnitzelhammerstein Spa. + +But from the hour of my refusal to compromise with my honor and become +the successor and partner of Von Rotterdaam in the profession of piracy +we had trouble on board. + +Letting my cargo alone, he introduced a system of haunting my crew, so +that at the end of several years not a German-speaking sailor was +anxious to ship with me, except at ruinously high wages. I found some, +but not many, and finally I was reduced to the followers of the two men +I have already mentioned--Hans Stickenfurst and Diedrich +Foutzenhickle--men who had never known fear, and who, when Von +Rotterdaam haunted them, merely laughed and blew the vile-smelling smoke +from their pipes into his face. But while the pirate ghost was powerless +to fill the men with fear, he did arouse a great interest in the stories +of his booty which he told. Night after night, lying in my cabin, I +could hear him in the forecastle telling them tales of his prowess, and +giving forth vague hints as to where vast treasure was hid which might +become theirs if only I would come around and become his successor. The +night we entered port I overheard a compact made between them, that on +the next outward voyage they would first reason with me and persuade me, +if possible, to accept his proposition, and, failing in that, to seize +the ship, put me in the long-boat, turn me adrift, and place themselves +subject to Von Rotterdaam's orders. + +That was a year ago. Since then, until this ill-fated voyage +(by-the-way, as I look up the water is clear over the port window, and +is beginning to trickle in under the door, so I must again +hasten)--until this ill-fated voyage, I was not again on the sea, and +having in mind the threats of my crew, which they do not even now know +that I overheard, I secured for this voyage the crew of an Irish bark, +discharging all my previous men. + +"I will at least have men who do not understand Dutch or German," I +thought, "and for this voyage shall be comparatively safe. To insure +against a possible turning adrift in the long-boat, I shall likewise +sail without it." + +Alas for all my expectations! While neither Sullivan nor O'Brien, as I +had supposed, was acquainted with the native tongue of Von Rotterdaam, +that talented ghost could speak English with as fine a brogue as ever +gilded speech; and, worse than this, Sullivan, the carpenter, was a +fly-away fool. Genial, full of good stories, and an excellent carpenter +(the deck beneath my feet is bulging upward), he was absolutely without +foresight, and it is to him I owe my present plight. + +It happened this afternoon. The day had been absolutely calm and still. +Not a ripple on the sea, not a breath of wind to stir even the frayed +hemp in the rigging, and yet down, down, down we are sinking, _for +Sullivan has sawed a hole in our bottom big enough to let a man +through_! + +I didn't suppose he would do it, but he has; and because last night +while he and Rafferty, my second mate, were smoking in the forecastle, +Von Rotterdaam's spirit rose up before them, and, arousing their +cupidity, led them astray. + +"For the love of the shaints!" cried Rafferty, as the ghost appeared, +"phwat are you?" + +Rotterdaam replied, "A spherit of the poirate Von Rotterdaam; and here +where I stand, directly below me, in five fathoms of water, lies a +million in treasure." + +"Go on!" cried Rafferty. + +"'Tis true," retorted Von Rotterdaam. "And if at noon to-morrow you will +cut away enough of the ship's bottom to let yourselves through the +hole, with a rope tied about you so that you can be hauled back again, +it will be yours." + +"Blame good pay for a shwim," said Sullivan. "A million phwat--pounds or +francs, sorr? They's some difference betune the two." + +"Exactly," returned Von Rotterdaam. "And they're pounds sterling, ingots +of gold, and priceless jewels." + +"Phwy don't yees tell the ould man?" asked Rafferty, referring to me. + +"Because," replied Von Rotterdaam, "he would keep it all for himself. +You gentlemen, I am sure, will divide it justly among all." + +"Thrue for youse," said Sullivan, with a laugh. "And phwere do you come +in?" + +"I have no further use for dross," replied Von Rotterdaam; and I judge +that at that moment he faded from their sight, for almost immediately he +appeared in my cabin. I was tired and irritated, so I said nothing, +pretending to be asleep, never for an instant believing that Sullivan +would do so foolish a thing. + +"He doesn't ever think of consequences; but he's not such an ass as to +cut a hole a yard square in the bottom of this ship," I said to myself; +and then, worn out, I really slept. How it happened I do not know; +possibly that infernal ghost in some manner drugged me; but it was not +until five minutes after midday, just three hours ago, that I awoke, and +my heart stood still as I heard the action of a saw deep down in the +hold. + +"Heavens!" I cried, starting up. "The idiot's at it!" + +A deep, baleful laugh greeted the remark. It was from Von Rotterdaam. + +"He is! And I am revenged!" he said, in tones which seemed to come from +the centre of the earth, and then he vanished--I hope, forever. + +I rushed madly out and called for Sullivan, but the only answer was the +grating of the saw's teeth. (Dear me! how dark it is getting! I must +really not linger with details.) My only answer was the grating of the +saw's teeth upon the bottom of my devoted vessel. Shrieking, I clambered +down into the hold, but too late. Just as I got there the yard square of +planking was burst in by the waters, and the vessel was doomed. + +"Well, captain," I said to myself, a great calm coming over my soul, +"it's all up with you; now think of others. Those at home, not hearing +from you, will be worried. Go to your cabin, and, like a dutiful man, +make your report." + +This I have done, and this narrative is my report. I hope it will reach +its destination in safety, and that the world may yet learn that in the +hour of peril, which has but one conclusion, I have been faithful and +calm. + +It is now the 16th day of June, 1640. I shall never see the 17th, and +I am resigned to my fate. And now for the bottle ... now for the +cork.... Blithering cyclones! the door is cracking open ... and +now--one--two--three--to open the port ... wait. I must put in one +final P.S. In case this story ever reaches the land, will the finder +kindly be careful in correcting the proof and see that my name is +spelled correctly? There is just a moment in which to write it +plainly--RUDOLF--with an F, mark you, not a PH, and HAMMERPESTLE with +two M's. And so--the port.... + + * * * * * + +There the story ends, and here it is for the world to see. What +followed Captain Hammerpestle's last word we can only surmise. +Pumpernickel and I have been faithful to the trust unwittingly +committed to our care by one who has been dead for a trifle over +two hundred and sixty years. We have only to add that those who do +not believe that the story is true can see the water-bottle at the home +of Herr Pumpernickel at Schnitzelhammerstein-on-the-Zugvitz at any time; +but as for the manuscript and the ghost of the pirate Von Rotterdaam, we +do not know where they are. The latter we have ourselves never seen, and +the former was, as usual, mislaid by the talented young person who +undertook to make a type-written copy of it for us a few days after our +discovery. + +THE END + + + + +By JOHN KENDRICK BANGS + + THE IDIOT AT HOME. Illustrated. + + THE BOOMING OF ACRE HILL. Illustrated. + + COFFEE AND REPARTEE and THE IDIOT. In One Volume. + Illustrated. + + THE ENCHANTED TYPEWRITER. Illustrated by PETER NEWELL. + + THE DREAMERS. Illustrated by EDWARD PENFIELD. + + PEEPS AT PEOPLE. Passages from the writings of Anne + Warrington Witherup, Journalist. Illustrated by EDWARD + PENFIELD. + + GHOSTS I HAVE MET, and Some Others. Illustrated by PETER + NEWELL. + + A HOUSE-BOAT ON THE STYX. Being Some Account of the Divers + Doings of the Associated Shades. Illustrated. + + THE PURSUIT OF THE HOUSE-BOAT. Being Some Further Account of + the Doings of the Associated Shades, under the Leadership of + Sherlock Holmes, Esq. Illustrated by PETER NEWELL. + + THE BICYCLERS, and Three Other Farces. Illustrated. + + A REBELLIOUS HEROINE. Illustrated. + + MR. BONAPARTE OF CORSICA. Illustrated by H. W. MCVICKAR. + + THE WATER GHOST, and Others. Illustrated. + +(16mo. Cloth, Ornamental, $1.25 per volume.) + + PASTE JEWELS. Being Seven Tales of Domestic Woe. With an + Illustration. 16mo, Cloth, Ornamental. $1.00. + + COBWEBS FROM A LIBRARY CORNER. Verses. 16mo, Cloth, 50 + cents. + + THREE WEEKS IN POLITICS. Illustrated. 32mo, Cloth, + Ornamental, 50 cents. + + COFFEE AND REPARTEE. Illustrated. 32mo, Cloth, Ornamental, + 50 cents. + + * * * * * + +HARPER & BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS + +NEW YORK AND LONDON + +_Any of the above works will be sent by mail, postage prepaid, to any +part of the United States, Canada, or Mexico, on receipt of the price._ + + + + +American Contemporary Novels + +EASTOVER COURT HOUSE + +By HENRY BURNHAM BOONE and KENNETH BROWN + +_This is the first of the twelve One-a-Month American Novels to be +published during 1901._ + + +"If each of the novels of American life by American authors which +Messrs. Harper & Brothers project for the current year proves as good as +'Eastover Court House,' the twelve volumes will constitute a decided +addition to American fiction."--_Detroit Free Press._ + +"Its charm lies in the constant succession of strongly drawn pictures of +life. One chapter after another presents these scenes, as sharply +outlined and deep in shadows as an artistic photograph. The book ... is +absolutely fascinating."--_Louisville Courier-Journal._ + +"Set in the midst of the fox-hunting and cross-country regions, there is +the hoof-beat of the galloping hunter all through the story, which is +full of dry humor and vivid pen-pictures of life."--_Horse Show +Monthly._ + +"The horse stories are the best since David Harum's, and quite as +laughable as his."--_Chester Times._ + +_Comments from various reviewers:_ + + "A good story well told." + + "Strong and absorbing." + + "Warm with life, with the passions and emotions ... of + Virginia." + + "Wholesome, true to life." + +_Post 8vo. Cloth, Ornamented, $1.50_ + + + + +THE SENTIMENTALISTS + +By ARTHUR STANWOOD PIER + +_This is the second of the twelve One-a-Month American Novels to be +published during 1901._ + + +"A novelist who sets out to depict a character like Becky Sharp is +likely to come to grief. Hence it is surprising that Mr. Pier has not +failed in portraying the social exile, Mrs. Kent. The novel is strong +and clever."--_Pittsburg Commercial-Gazette._ + +"It is a very clever novel. There is story to it; there is apt phrasing +and clear delineation of character; there is much incisive and +delightful epigram."--_Evening Sun_, New York. + +"If the cleverest parts of this work had been entirely cut out, we +should have called it one of the cleverest novels of the +season."--_Brooklyn Daily Eagle._ + +"The book is characterized throughout by keen analysis and a delightful +tense of humor."--_Chicago Tribune._ + +_Comments from various reviewers:_ + + "Mrs. Kent is distinctly American." + + "As interesting and unique as Becky Sharp." + + "The book will be a success." + + "A rattling good story." + + "A vivid study of contemporary social life." + + "One of the cleverest novels of the season." + +_Post 8vo. Cloth, Ornamented, $1.50_ + + + + +MARTIN BROOK By MORGAN BATES + +_This is the third of the twelve One-a-Month American Novels to be +published during 1901._ + + +"It is written in a style unknown nowadays, ... with an impressive power +revealed at each crisis of the tale, which makes the pulses stir and the +eye glisten. What a book for the opening of the twentieth +century!"--Julian Hawthorne, in the _Journal_, New York. + +"A very striking book, and one that I am quite sure will take an +enviable place in line with record-breakers. It is the third of the +'American Novel Series,' and is entitled 'Martin Brook.' I finished it +at one sitting, so intense was my interest in it."--_Buffalo +Commercial_, N. Y. + +"The third of the 'American Novel Series,' 'Martin Brook,' by Morgan +Bates, appeals to the best in man and woman, and is a credit alike to +author and publishers.... 'Martin Brook' is indeed an American novel, +and of the best kind."--Philadelphia _Daily Evening Telegraph_. + +"One's interest is caught and held by the hero from the moment of his +first appearance in its pages.... There has not been a stronger scene +(the library scene) written to revive the interest of jaded novel +readers for many a day."--_N. Y. Commercial Advertiser._ + +"The story is told in a vigorous manner and is certainly out of the +common run of fiction as it is told nowadays."--_New York Sun._ + +_Comments from various reviewers:_ + + "One of the most refreshing and natural of novels." + + "As good as it is charming." + + "A story of depth, color, and action." + + "It is refreshing to light upon a story like 'Martin + Brook.'" + +_Post 8vo. Cloth, Ornamented, $1.50_ + + + + +A VICTIM OF CIRCUMSTANCES + +By GERALDINE ANTHONY + +_This is the fourth of the twelve One-a-Month American Novels to be +published during 1901._ + + +"It plunges the reader directly into the social whirl of New York, and +the hand that detains one there all through an intensely interesting +succession of functions, flirtations, and incidents, ... is the hand of +one who has seen something whereof she writes."--_New York World._ + +"There is more than one thinly disguised portrait in its pages--so we +are told."--_Mail and Express_, New York. + +"Bobby Floyd is probably the most disagreeable and wholly exasperating +cad ever put into an American novel.... There is love-making all through +the book."--_The Times_, Washington, D. C. + +"They fall in love amid most delightful surroundings of tennis, boating, +and driving."--_Exchange._ + +_Comments from various reviewers:_ + + "Devoid of problems or mental complications." + + "A book for a summer day." + + "Has the correct New York social atmosphere." + + "Decidedly a fascinating book about attractive people." + + "Full of touch-and-go conversation." + + "They all revel in smart talk and repartee." + +_Post 8vo. Cloth, Ornamented, $1.50_ + + + + +DAYS LIKE THESE + +By EDWARD W. TOWNSEND + +_This is the fifth of the twelve One-a-Month American Novels to be +published during 1901._ + + +"Mr. Townsend has given us a novel that is a strong and vigorous picture +of contemporary New York. He tells his story with the gayety and charm +and light-hearted high spirits of one to whom the passing show of life +is still full of interest, and he succeeds in interesting the reader. +There is not a dull line in the book."--_New York Journal._ + +"The love story is well told, but the chief interest of the novel lies +in its contrasted pictures of New York life--from Fifth Avenue to Hell's +Kitchen."--_Cleveland Plain-Dealer._ + +"Mr. Townsend has made a very striking and daring use of his experience +as a newspaper man.... He has gone about his business with vigor and +decision.... There is hardly a chapter which does not stand out through +sheer force of the author's fund of anecdote and observation and +humor."--_New York Commercial Advertiser._ + +"It is an eminent success.... We recall very few novels of the past year +that we have read with such sustained interest."--_The Churchman_, New +York. + +_Comments from various reviewers:_ + + "The book has countless good things." + + "'Days Like These' is full of life and New York." + + "A kaleidoscopic yet homogeneous picture of modern New York + life." + + "His pictures are vivid and true." + + "Mr. Townsend writes incisively, vigorously." + +_Post 8vo. Cloth, Ornamented, $1.50_ + +HARPER & BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Over the Plum Pudding, by John Kendrick Bangs + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK OVER THE PLUM PUDDING *** + +***** This file should be named 34553-8.txt or 34553-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/3/4/5/5/34553/ + +Produced by Annie McGuire. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Over the Plum Pudding + +Author: John Kendrick Bangs + +Release Date: December 3, 2010 [EBook #34553] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK OVER THE PLUM PUDDING *** + + + + +Produced by Annie McGuire. This book was produced from +scanned images of public domain material from the Google +Print archive. + + + + + + +</pre> + + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 396px;"> +<img src="images/ill_001.jpg" width="396" height="600" alt="Book Cover" title="" /> +</div> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 287px;"><a name="ILL_002" id="ILL_002"></a> +<img src="images/ill_002.jpg" width="287" height="400" alt="John Kendrick Bangs" title="" /> +</div> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h1>Over the Plum-Pudding</h1> + +<h3><i>by</i></h3> + +<h2>John Kendrick Bangs</h2> + +<h3>Author of</h3> + +<p class="center">"A House-Boat on the Styx"</p> + +<p class="center">"Coffee and Repartee"</p> + +<p class="center">"The Idiot at Home"</p> + +<p class="center">"The Idiot"</p> + +<h3>Illustrated</h3> + +<h4>New York and London</h4> + +<h4>Harper & Brothers Publishers</h4> + +<h4>1901</h4> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p class="center">Copyright, 1901, by <span class="smcap">Harper & Brothers</span>.</p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h4>TO</h4> + +<h4>JOHN KENDRICK BANGS, <span class="smcap">Jr</span>.</h4> + +<h4>WHOSE FONDNESS FOR PLUM PUDDINGS</h4> + +<h4>SUGGESTS THE PROPRIETY OF THIS</h4> + +<h4>Dedication</h4> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p>Thanks are due to the Publishers of <i>Harper's Round Table</i>, <i>Harper's +Weekly</i>, <i>The Delineator</i>, <i>Life</i>, <i>Brooklyn Life</i>, and the New York +<i>Mail and Express</i> for permission to republish these stories in +collected form.</p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>Contents</h2> + +<div class='center'> +<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary=""> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#Over_the_Plum-Pudding"><b>"<span class="smcap">Over the Plum-pudding</span>"</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#Bills_MD"><b><span class="smcap">Bills, M.D</span>.</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#The_Flunking_of_Watkinss_Ghost"><b><span class="smcap">The Flunking of Watkins's Ghost</span></b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#An_Unmailed_Letter"><b><span class="smcap">An Unmailed Letter</span></b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#The_Amalgamated_Brotherhood_of_Spooks"><b><span class="smcap">The Amalgamated Brotherhood of Spooks</span></b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#A_Glance_Ahead"><b><span class="smcap">A Glance Ahead</span></b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#Hans_Pumpernickels_Vigil"><b><span class="smcap">Hans Pumpernickel's Vigil</span></b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#The_Affliction_of_Baron_Humpfelhimmel"><b><span class="smcap">The Affliction of Baron Humpfelhimmel</span></b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#A_Great_Composer"><b><span class="smcap">A Great Composer</span></b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#How_Fritz_Became_a_Wizard"><b><span class="smcap">How Fritz Became a Wizard</span></b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#Rise_and_Fall_of_the_Poet_Gregory"><b><span class="smcap">Rise and Fall of the Poet Gregory</span></b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#The_Loss_of_the_Gretchen_B"><b><span class="smcap">The Loss of the "Gretchen B</span>."</b></a></td></tr> +</table></div> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>Illustrations</h2> + +<div class='center'> +<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary=""> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#ILL_002"><b>JOHN KENDRICK BANGS</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#ILL_006"><b>PARLEY CONVERSING WITH THE INVISIBLE GHOST</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#ILL_009"><b>"I THOUGHT A MILE WAS THE PROPER DISTANCE"</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#ILL_010"><b>"HE VANISHED IN SOMETHING OF A RAGE"</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#ILL_011"><b>THE SPECTRE BRASS-BAND</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#ILL_012"><b>"THE THING FELL OVER LIMP"</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#ILL_014"><b>"'GOOD-MORNING, MR. DAWSON'"</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#ILL_015"><b>"THREE VILLANOUS-LOOKING BODIES, AND A FOURTH, WHICH DAWSON RECOGNIZED AS HIS OWN"</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#ILL_017"><b>"HE'S THE WORST BABY YOU EVER SAW"</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#ILL_018"><b>"IT WAS A WEARY VIGIL, BUT HE WAS TRUE"</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#ILL_020"><b>"'MY CASTLE'S BURNING, EH? HA-HA!'"</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#ILL_021"><b>"RUPERT WAS ALWAYS MERRY"</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#ILL_022"><b>"SIEGFRIED VON PEPPERPOTZ GREW ILL OF IT"</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#ILL_024"><b>"THE THREE FIDDLED WITH ALL THEIR STRENGTH"</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#ILL_026"><b>"'YOU ARE A VERY NICE OLD GENTLEMAN'"</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#ILL_027"><b>"THE LITTLE FELLOW MUSED OFT AND LONG THEREON"</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#ILL_028"><b>"IT NEARLY BLINDED HIM"</b></a></td></tr> +</table></div> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="Over_the_Plum-Pudding" id="Over_the_Plum-Pudding"></a>"Over the Plum-Pudding"</h2> + +<h3><span class="smcap">Why it was Never Published. An authoritative Statement by its Editor.</span></h3> + +<p><i>On the eve of his departure for Manila, where he is shortly to begin +the publication of a comic paper, my friend Mr. Horace Wilkinson, late +literary adviser of Messrs. Hawkins, Wilkes & Speedway, the publishers, +sent to me the following pages of manuscript with the request that I +should have them published for the benefit of those whom the story may +concern. I have cheerfully accepted the commission, desiring it to be +distinctly understood, however, that I am in no sense responsible for +Mr. Wilkinson's statements either of fact or of opinion. I am merely the +medium through whom his explanation is brought to the public eye.</i></p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 34em;"><i>J. K. B.</i></span><br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[Pg 3]</a></span></p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>"Over the Plum-Pudding"</h2> + +<h3>I</h3> + +<div class="figleft" style="width: 147px;"> +<img src="images/ill_003.jpg" width="147" height="150" alt="Decorative I" title="" /> +</div> + +<p>have been asked so often and by so many persons known and unknown to me +why it was that a Christmas book that was to have been issued some years +ago under my editorial supervision never appeared, although announced as +ready for immediate publication, that I feel that I should make some +statement in explanation of the seeming deception. The matter was very +annoying, both to my publishers and to myself at the time it happened, +and while I was anxious then to make public a full and candid statement +of the facts as they occurred, Messrs. Hawkins, Wilkes & Speedway deemed +it the wiser course to let the affair rest for a year or two anyhow. +They failed to see my point of view, that, while they were responsible +for the advertisement, I was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[Pg 4]</a></span> assumed to be responsible for the book, +and in the event of its failure to appear it would naturally be inferred +by the public that my work had not proven sufficiently up to standard to +warrant them in continuing the venture. I did not press the matter, +however, being too busy on other affairs to give to it the attention it +deserved, and until now no opportunity to explain my connection with the +unfortunate volume has arisen. I should hesitate even at this late date +to give a wide publicity to the incident were it not that my mail has +lately been overburdened by rather peremptory requests from the several +contributors to the volume to be informed what had become of the tales +they wrote and for which they were to be paid on publication. +Ordinarily, letters of this kind I should refer to my business +principals, the publishers themselves, but in this emergency it happens, +unfortunately for me, that the publishers have been retired from +business and are now engaged in other pursuits: one of them at the +Klondike, another as a veterinary surgeon-general at Santiago, on the +appointment of the Secretary of War, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[Pg 5]</a></span> the third living somewhere +abroad incog. as the result of his having drawn out all the capital of +his partners and fled one early spring morning two years ago, leaving +behind him his best wishes and about eight thousand dollars in debts for +his partners to pay. It therefore devolves on me to explain to the irate +authors as best I can what happened. The explanation may not be shirked, +for they are wholly within their rights in demanding it. My only hope is +that they will be satisfied with my statement, although I am quite +conscious, sadly so, of the fact that to certain suspicious minds it may +seem to lack credibility.</p> + +<h3>II</h3> + +<p>To begin, I will place the responsibility for the whole affair where it +belongs. It was the fault of no less a person than Mr. Rudyard Kipling. +Mr. Andrew Lang's connection with the episode, of course, involved us in +the final catastrophe, but he is not to blame. Mr. Kipling started the +whole affair, and if Mulvaney and Ortheris<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[Pg 6]</a></span> and Learoyd had behaved +themselves properly the book would now be resting calmly upon many an +appreciative library shelf, instead of being, as it is, but a sorrowful +memory and a possible cause for a series of international lawsuits.</p> + +<p>This fact being understood as the basis of my argument, I will proceed +to prove it; and to do so properly I must give in brief outline some +idea of the contents of the book. It was to be called "Over the +Plum-Pudding; or, Tales Told Under the Mistletoe, by Sundry Tattlers. +Edited by Horace Wilkinson"—in fact, I hold a copyright at this moment +upon this alluring title. Furthermore, it was to be unique among modern +publications in that, while professing to be a Christmas book, the tales +were to be full of Christmas spirit. The idea struck me as a very +original one. I had observed that Fourth-of-July issues of periodicals +were differentiated from the Christmas numbers only in the +superabundance of advertisements in the latter, and it occurred to me +that a Christmas publication containing some reference to the Christmas +season would strike the public as novel—and,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[Pg 7]</a></span> in spite of the +unfortunate overturning of my schemes, I still think so. Messrs. +Hawkins, Wilkes & Speedway thought so, too, and gave me <i>carte blanche</i> +to go ahead, stipulating only that I should spare no expense, and that +the stories should be paid for on publication. I was also to enlist the +services of the best persons in letters only.</p> + +<p>Taking this last stipulation as the basis of my editorial operations, it +is not a far cry to the conclusion that I sought to get stories from +such eminent writers as Mr. Hall Caine, Dr. Doyle, Mr. Kipling, Richard +Harding Davis, Andrew Lang, George Meredith, and myself. There were a +few others, but these were people whose light shone forth suddenly and +brilliantly, and then went out. I shall have no occasion to mention +their names. It is enough to call attention to the fact that ultimately +they were all I had left.</p> + +<p>Mr. Caine's contribution was a charming little fancy written originally +for children, but sent to me because it was the only thing the author +happened to have on hand at the moment he received my request. It<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[Pg 8]</a></span> was +called, if I remember rightly, "The Inebriate Santa Claus." It was full +of that spirit of life and gayety which has been such a marked feature +of Mr. Caine's work in the past, and was written with all of that fine, +manly vigor that Mr. Caine puts into his every word. Sunshiny, I should +call it, if I were seeking for the one word which summed up the virtues +of "The Inebriate Santa Claus." One glowed as one perused it with the +warmth of the whole thing, especially in such passages as this, for +instance:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"His downward trip through the chimney of Marston Hall gave +him confidence in himself. He had observed as he was about +to leave the roof of Higginbottom Castle that his footprints +in the snow were suggestive of his actual condition, and he +wondered if he could possibly get through the evening's work +without catastrophe. But the Marston Hall chimney flue +restored his confidence. It was straight, and after his +descent the soot, that clung to the inner walls like bad +habits to a man, showed none of the vacillating lines which +were the essential characteristic of his footprints on the +roof. He was sobering up."</p></div> + +<p>I wish I could remember the story as a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</a></span> whole. It would be unjust, +however, to the author to try to reproduce it from memory, and I shall +not make the effort. It went on to tell, however, how the good old +Saint, in his unfortunate condition of inebriacy, overturned the +Christmas tree at Marston Hall and set fire to the house, resulting in a +slight singeing of his own person and the destruction of the Hall, +together with all the inmates, a fact that so distressed the unhappy +Santa Claus that at the next nursery he visited he resolved to reform +and indulge no more in strong drink, although the nurse, on putting the +children to bed, had departed, leaving a bottle of whiskey upon the +mantel-piece—this showing Santa Claus's powers of self-control in the +face of temptation.</p> + +<p>Altogether, as I have already said, the story was full of import and +sunshine, and, as may be seen from my brief and inadequate description, +was possibly more fitted for children than for the adult mind.</p> + +<h3>III</h3> + +<p>Mr. Meredith's story came next, and it<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</a></span> had all of that charm which goes +with the average Meredithian production. To call it dictionaryesque is +not too high praise to bestow upon it. What it was about I never really +gathered, although I of course read it through several times before +accepting it, and perused the proofs carefully some eight or nine times. +There were allusions to Santa Claus in it, however, and I therefore let +it pass, feeling that to the admirers of the master's genius its message +would ring out clear and crisp like the glad chimes of the Christmas +morn; and it was my desire to be the bearer of glad things to all +people, whether I was myself in sympathy with their literary tastes or +not. I recall one page in the story—the last of all, however, which +struck me as a marvel. Fotherington, whom I guessed to be the hero, is +standing on top of a shot-tower in London, about to commit suicide by +jumping down, when all of a sudden Santa Claus appears beside him and +inquires if the tower is a chimney or not. Fotherington gives a +"throat-gasping laugh" and invites Santa Claus to join him in the jump<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</a></span> +and find out for himself. The author writes:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"At this, the spirit of the Hourgod, the multitudinous larvæ +of his emotions, intensified by the nose-whirling +impertinence of the other, gazed, eyes tear-surging, towards +the reddish northern cheek of the piping East, human in its +bulk, the wharf cranes rising superabundant from the +umbrageous onflowing of the commerce-ridden stream, piercing +the middle distance like a mine-hid vein of purest gold in +the mellowing amber of approaching dawn, flying seaward, +curdling in its mad pressure ever onward, soon to be lost in +the vaguely infinite, beyond which, unconscious of the +perils of the inspired home-coming, lies that of which +homogeneous man may speculate, but never, by reason of his +inflated limitations, approximate without expletion.</p> + +<p>"'Beg pardon!' said he, with an interrogation in his +inflection. 'I was not aware of the facts.' Fotherington was +silent for a moment, and then, recognizing Santa Claus, a +shame-surge encarnadined his cheek, and he answered, +strenuously apologetic: 'This is the shot-tower. The sight +of you restores me to life. I shall not again dwell upon +self-destruction. Heaven bless the spirit of the hour.'</p> + +<p>"He buried his face in the Saint's pack, and hot tears +sprang forth from his vision.</p> + +<p>"'Beg pardon again,' observed Santa Claus, drawing himself +away. 'If you must weep, weep on my<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</a></span> shoulder, not on my +pack. The toys are not painted in fast colors.'</p> + +<p>"And the two went down together."</p></div> + +<h3>IV</h3> + +<p>The contribution of Mr. Davis was a most excellent sketch of the +inimitable Van Bibber, and told how on his way to a dance late one +evening during Christmas week he encountered, snuggled in a doorway near +the North River, a poor little street gamin nearly frozen to death. Van +Bibber saves the child's life by removing his dress-coat and wrapping it +up in it, the result being that he has to lead the cotillon at Mrs. +Winchley's clad in a fur-lined overcoat. It was a tender and touching +little literary gem, and was full of the fine sentiment and lofty +moralizing for which this author has always been noted. Its humor may +well be imagined. The little talk between Van Bibber and Travers in the +dressing-room as to Van Bibber's dilemma when he realized how his +impetuosity had led him into giving the boy his coat was a +characteristic bit, and ran somewhat like this:<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</a></span></p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"'What the deuce shall I do?" he said, fanning his somewhat +flushed face with the silver-backed hand-mirror. 'I can't +lead the cotillon in my shirt-sleeves.'</p> + +<p>"'No, you can't,' assented Travers with a droll smile. 'What +an ass you were not to give him your fur-lined overcoat +instead.'</p> + +<p>"'It wouldn't have fitted him,' said Van Bibber, absently. +'Poor little devil.'</p> + +<p>"'There's only one thing you can do, Van,' said Travers +after a moment's pause. 'Either don't stay, or dance in your +overcoat.'</p> + +<p>"'That's two things,' retorted Van Bibber. 'Of course I've +got to stay. I told Mrs. Winchley I'd lead her cotillon, and +I've got to do it. Do you suppose people would say anything +if I did appear in my overcoat?'</p> + +<p>"'Not if they had any manners they wouldn't,' said Travers. +'Of course, it will be observed, but if they know anything +about good form they'll keep quiet about it.'</p> + +<p>"'Then it's settled,' Van Bibber said quietly. 'I'll wear +the fur overcoat, and to disarm all criticism I'll simply +tell everybody I have a fearful cold and don't dare take it +off. Come on—let's go down. It's half past one now, and +Mrs. Winchley told me she wanted to begin early, so as to +have it over with before breakfast.'"</p></div> + +<h3>V</h3> + +<p>It was my pleasure next to have a Sherlock Holmes story from Dr. Doyle, +wherein<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</a></span> the great detective is once more restored to life, and through +an ingenious complication discovers himself. His sudden disappearance, +which was never fully explained, did not really result in his death, but +in a concussion of the brain in his fall over the precipice which drove +all consciousness of his real self from his mind. Found in an +unconscious condition by a band of yodelers, he is carried by them into +the Tyrolese Alps, where, after a prolonged illness, he regains his +health, but all his past life is a blank to him. How he sets about +ferreting out the mystery of his identity is the burden of the story, +and how he ultimately discovers that he is none other than Sherlock +Holmes by finding a diamond brooch in the gizzard of a Christmas turkey +at Nice, where he is stopping under the name of Higgins, is vividly set +forth:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"'And you have never really ascertained, Mr. Higgins, who +you are?' asked Lady Blenkinsop, as they sat down at Mrs. +Wilbraham's gorgeous table on Christmas night.</p> + +<p>"'No, madame,' he replied, sadly, 'but I shall ultimately +triumph. My taste in cigars is a peculiar one, and no one +else that I have ever met can smoke<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</a></span> with real enjoyment the +kind of a cigar that I like. I am searching, step by step, +in every city for a cigar dealer who makes a specialty of +that brand who has recently lost a customer. Ultimately I +shall find one, and then the chain of evidence will be near +to its ultimate link, for it may be that I shall turn out to +be that man.'"</p></div> + +<p>Thus the story runs on, and the pseudo-Higgins delights his +fellow-guests with the brilliance of his conversation. He eats lightly, +when suddenly a flash of triumph comes into his deep-set eyes, for on +cutting open the turkey gizzard the diamond brooch is disclosed. He +seems about to faint, but with a strong effort of the will he regains +his strength and arises.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"Mrs. Wilbraham,' he said, quietly and simply—'ladies and +gentlemen, I must leave you. I take the 9.10 train for +London. May I be excused?'</p> + +<p>"The eyes of the company opened wide.</p> + +<p>"'Why—must you really go, Mr Higgins?' Mrs. Wilbraham +queried</p> + +<p>"'It is imperative,' said he. 'I am going to have myself +identified. The finding of this diamond brooch in a turkey +gizzard convinces me that I am Sherlock Holmes. Such a thing +could happen to no other, yet I may be mistaken. I shall +call at once upon<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</a></span> a certain Dr. Watson, of London, a friend +of Holmes's, who will answer the question definitely.'</p> + +<p>"And with a courteous bow to the company he left the room, +his usually pale features aglow with unwonted color."</p></div> + +<p>Of course, the surmise proves to be correct, and the great detective +once more rejoins his former companions, restored not only to them, but +to himself. It was one of the most keenly interesting studies of +detective life that Dr. Doyle or any one else has ever given us, and my +regret that the story is lost to the world amounts almost to a positive +grief.</p> + +<h3>VI</h3> + +<p>The only other notable efforts in the book were, as I have already +indicated, from the pens of Andrew Lang and Rudyard Kipling, and as the +preceding stories were characteristic of their authors, so were these +equally so. I have not the time to more than suggest their tenor +briefly. Mr. Lang's story was one of his charming made-over fairy tales, +and he unfortunately introduced that most fearsome of dragons<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</a></span> Fafner +into it. He was held, however, in captivity, and had the situation in +which Mr. Lang left him been allowed to remain undisturbed, all would +have been well, and "Over the Plum-Pudding" would not have met with +disaster. Mr. Kipling, however, chose to contribute a Mulvaney story, +and herein lay the whole trouble. Mulvaney and his two roystering +companions, Ortheris and Learoyd, start in on a Christmas spree, and +they do it in their own complete fashion, and Mr. Kipling never in his +life drew his characters more vividly and vigorously; but this time he +did it too vigorously. The three musketeers of the British army got +beyond his control, and it is the fact that when "Over the Plum-Pudding" +was ready for presentation to the public they broke loose from the story +in which they were supposed to be confined; went rushing and roaring, +regardless of the etiquette of the situation, through every other tale +in the book, found the bottle of whiskey which the nurse-maid in Mr. +Caine's story had left on the mantel-piece, drained it to the dregs, and +then, under the mad influence of the alcohol, <i>let Fafner loose</i>.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</a></span></p> + +<p>Their fate may easily be imagined. They were at once destroyed by the +angry beast, who, after making a meal upon them, rushed like a +steam-engine through the Sherlock Holmes story, swallowing its +characters one and all as though they were naught but salted almonds; +breathed fire upon Meredith's shot-tower until it tottered and fell, a +smoking ruin; chewed up the frozen little gamin in the Van Bibber +sketch; withered Van Bibber and his overcoat and his friends by one +snorting blast of steam from his left nostril; and, in fact, to make a +long story shorter than it might be, strewed blue ruin from title-page +to finis of "Over the Plum-Pudding." It is the fact that on the morning +set for the presentation of the edition to the public, on opening my own +copy of the book there was not a character in it left alive; not a house +that had not been reduced to charred timbers and ashes; not a scene that +was not withered as by the flames of perdition, and where once had been +a strong portrayal of a scene of happy social revels, the ballroom of +Mrs. Winchley, where Van Bibber was to lead the cotillon, lay +Fafner—dead. Kipling's<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</a></span> characters were too much for his digestion.</p> + +<h3>VII</h3> + +<p>That is the story of "Over the Plum-Pudding." That is why it never +appeared. That is the explanation of the editor. I admit that in some +ways the explanation seems scarcely credible, but it is in every respect +truthful, and on my return from Manila I will prove it to all +suspicious-minded persons who may choose to doubt it, for I can show +them the copyright papers of the book, the advertisement of its +approaching publication, my contract with Messrs. Hawkins, Wilkes and +Speedway, and a few press notices I had myself prepared for its +exploitation.</p> + +<p>I can also prove that Mr. Kipling draws his characters so vividly and +vigorously that they stand out like real people before us, and certainly +if they can do that, there is no reason why they should not be able to +do all that I have claimed they did do.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</a></span></p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 34em;"><span class="smcap">Horace Wilkinson</span>.</span><br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</a></span></p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="Bills_MD" id="Bills_MD"></a>Bills, M.D.</h2> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</a></span></p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>Bills, M.D.</h2> + +<h3>A CHRISTMAS GHOST I HAVE MET</h3> + +<div class="figleft" style="width: 147px;"> +<img src="images/ill_004.jpg" width="147" height="150" alt="Decorative I" title="" /> +</div> + +<p>t was the usual kind of a Christmas Eve. The snow was falling with its +customary noiselessness, and the world was gradually taking on a mantle +of white which made it look like a very attractive wedding-cake. It was +upon this occasion that Old Bills materialized in my down-town study and +got me out of a very unpleasant hole. The year had not been a very +profitable one for me. My last book had been a comparative failure, +having sold only 118,000 copies in the first six months, so that instead +of receiving $60,000 in royalties on the first of November, as I had +expected, I had fallen down to something like $47,000. There was a +fraction of seven or eight hundred dollars—just what it was I cannot +recall. Then my securities had, for one reason<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</a></span> or another, failed to +yield the customary revenue; some thirty or forty of my houses had not +rented; taxes had increased—in short, I found myself at Christmas-time, +with my wife and eight children expecting to be remembered, with less +than $80,000 that I could spare in the bank.</p> + +<p>To be sure, we had all agreed that this year we should avoid +extravagance, and the little madame had informed me that she would be +very unhappy if I expended more than $40,000 upon her present from +myself. My daughter, too, like the sweet girl that she is, said, with a +considerable degree of firmness, that she would rather have a check for +$10,000 than the diamond necklace I had contemplated giving her; and my +eldest son had sent word from college, in definite terms, that he didn't +think, in view of the hard times, he would ask for anything more than a +new pair of wheelers for his drag, three hunters, a T cart, a silver +chafing-dish set, and a Corot for his smoking-room.</p> + +<p>This spirit, as I say, permeated the household—even the baby babbled of +economy, and thought he could get along<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</a></span> with ruby jackstones and a bag +of cats'-eyes to play marbles with. But even thus, as the reader can see +for himself, $80,000 would not go far, and I was in despair. There is no +greater trial in the world than that confronting a generously disposed +father who suddenly finds himself at Christmas time without the means to +carry out his wishes and to provide his little ones with the gifts which +their training has justified them in expecting.</p> + +<p>I was seated alone in my office, not having the courage to go home and +tell my family of the horrid state of affairs, or, rather, putting off +the evil hour, for ultimately the truth would have to be told. It was +growing dark. Outside I could hear the joyous hum of the busy streets; +the clanging of the crowded cable-cars, going to and fro, bearing their +holiday burden of bundle-laden shoppers, seemed to sound musically and +to tell of peace and good-will. Even the cold, godless world of commerce +seemed to warm up with the spirit of the hour. I alone was in misery, at +a moment when peace and happiness and good-will were the watchwords of +humanity.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</a></span> My distress increased every moment as I conjured up before my +mind's eye the picture of the coming morn, when my children and their +mother, in serene confidence that I would do the right thing by them, +should find the tree bare of presents, and discover, instead of the +usual array of bonds and jewels, and silver services, and horses and +carriages, and rich furs, and priceless books (the baby had cut his +teeth the year before on the cover of the Grolier edition of Omar +Khayyam, which, at a cost of $600, I had given him, bound in ivory and +gold, with carbuncles adorning the back and the title set in +brilliants)—discover, instead of these, I say, mere commonplace +presents possessing no intrinsic worth—why, it was appalling to think +of their disappointment! To be sure, I had purchased a suit of Russian +sables for madam, and had concealed a certified check for $25,000 in the +pocket of the dolman, but what was that in such times, hard as they +were!</p> + +<p>And you may imagine it was all exquisitely painful to me. Then, on a +sudden, I seemed not to be alone. Something appeared to materialize off +in the darker corner<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</a></span> of the study. At first I thought it was merely the +filming over of my eyes with the moisture of an incipient and unshed +tear, but I was soon undeceived, for the thing speedily took shape, and +a rather unpleasant shape at that, although there was a radiant +kindliness in its green eyes.</p> + +<p>"Who are you?" I demanded, jumping up and staring intently at the +apparition, my hair meanwhile rising slightly.</p> + +<p>"I'm Dr. Bills," was the response, in a deep, malarial voice, as the +phantom, for that is all it was, approached me. "I've come to help you +out of your troubles," it added, rather genially.</p> + +<p>"Ah? Indeed!" said I. "And may I ask how you know I am in trouble?"</p> + +<p>"Certainly you may," said the old fellow. "We ghosts know everything."</p> + +<p>"Then you are a ghost, eh?" I queried, although I knew mighty well at +the moment I first saw him that he was nothing more, he was so +transparent and misty.</p> + +<p>"At your service," was the reply, as my unexpected visitor handed me a +gelatinous-looking<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</a></span> card, upon which was engraved the following legend:</p> + +<h4>U. P. BILLS, M.D.,</h4> + +<h4>"The Spook Philanthropist."</h4> + +<h4>Troubles Cured While You Wait.</h4> + +<p>"Ah!" said I, as I read it. "You'll find me a troublesome patient, I am +afraid. Do you know what my trouble is?"</p> + +<p>"Certainly I do," said Bills. "You're a little short and your wife and +children have expectations."</p> + +<p>"Precisely," said I. "And here is Christmas on top of us and nothing for +the tree except a few trifling gems and other things."</p> + +<p>"Well, my dear fellow," said the kindly visitant, "if you'll intrust +yourself to my care I'll cure you in a jiffy. There never was a case of +immediate woe that I couldn't cure, but you've got to have confidence in +me.</p> + +<p>"Sort of faith cure, eh?" I smiled.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Exactly," he replied. "If you don't believe in Old Bills, Old Bills +cannot relieve your distress."</p> + +<p>"But what do you propose to do, Doctor?" I asked. "What is your course +of treatment?"</p> + +<p>"That's my business," he retorted. "You don't ask your family physician +to outline his general plan to you when you summon him to treat you for +gout, do you?"</p> + +<p>"Well, I generally like to know more of him than I know of you," said I, +apologetically, for I had no wish to offend him. "For instance, are you +allopath, or a homœopath, or some hitherto untrodden path?"</p> + +<p>"Something of a homœopath," he admitted.</p> + +<p>"Then you cure trouble with trouble?" I asked, rather more pertinently, +as the event showed, than I imagined.</p> + +<p>"I cure trouble with ease," he replied glibly. "You may accept or reject +my services. It's immaterial to me."</p> + +<p>"I don't wish to seem ungrateful, Doctor," said I, seeing that the old +spook was growing a trifle irritated. "I certainly most<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</a></span> gratefully +accept. What do you want me to do?"</p> + +<p>"Go home," he said, laconically.</p> + +<p>"But the empty tree?" I demanded.</p> + +<p>"Will not be empty to-morrow morning," said he, and he vanished.</p> + +<p>I locked my study door and started to walk home, first stopping at the +café down-stairs and cashing a check for $60,000. I had confidence in +Old Bills, but I thought I would provide against possible failure; and I +had an idea that on the way uptown I might perhaps find certain little +things to please, if not satisfy, the children, which could be purchased +for that sum. My surmise was correct, for, while Old Bills did his work, +as will soon be shown, most admirably, I had no difficulty in expending +the $60,000 on simple little things really worth having, between Pine +Street and Forty-second. For instance, as I passed along Union Square I +discovered a superb pair of pearl hat-pins which I knew would please my +second daughter, Jenny, because they were just suited to the immediate +needs of the talking doll she had received from her aunt on her +birthday. They were cheap<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</a></span> little pins, but as I paid down the $1,800 +they cost in crisp hundred dollar bills they looked so stunningly +beautiful that I wondered if, after all, they mightn't prove sufficient +for little Jenny's whole Christmas, if Bills should fail. Then I met +poor old Hobson, who has recently met reverses. He had an opera-box for +sale for $2,500, and I bought it for Martha, my third daughter, who, +though only seven years old, frequently entertains her little school +friends with all the manner of a woman of fashion. I felt that the +opera-box would please the child, although it was not on the grand tier. +I also killed two birds with one stone by taking a mortgage for $10,000 +on Hobson's house, by which I not only relieved poor old Hobson's +immediate necessities, but, by putting the mortgage in my son Jimmy's +stocking, enriched the boy as well. So it went. By the time I reached +home the $60,000 was spent, but I felt that, brought up as they had +been, the children would accept the simple little things I had brought +home to them in the proper spirit. They were, of course, cheap, but my +little ones do not look at the material value of their<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</a></span> presents. It is +the spirit which prompts the gift that appeals to them—Heaven bless +'em! I may add here, too, that my little ones did not even by their +manner seem to grudge that portion of the $60,000 spent which their +daddy squandered on his immediate impulses, consisting of a nickel extra +to a lad who blacked his boots, thirty cents for a cocktail at the club, +and a dime to a beggar who insisted on walking up Fifth Avenue with him +until he was bought off with the coin mentioned—a species of blackmail +which is as intolerable as it is inevitable on all fashionable +thoroughfares.</p> + +<p>But their delight as well as my own on the following morning, when the +doctor's fine work made itself manifest, was glorious to look upon. I +frankly never in my life saw so magnificent a display of gifts, and I +have been to a number of recent millionaire weddings, too. To begin +with, the most conspicuous thing in the room was the model of a steam +yacht which Old Bills had provided as the family gift to myself. It was +manifest that the yacht could not be got into the house, so Bills<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</a></span> had +had the model sent, and with it the information that the yacht itself +was ready at Cramp's yard to go into commission whenever I might wish to +have it. It fairly took my breath away. Then for my wife was a rope of +pearls as thick as a cable, and long enough to accommodate the entire +week's wash should the laundress venture to borrow it for any such +purpose. All the children were fitted out in furs; there were four gold +watches for the boys, diamond tiaras and necklaces of pearls and +brilliant rings for the girls. My eldest son received not only the +horses and carriages and the Corot he wanted, but a superb gold mounted +toilet set, and a complete set of golf clubs, the irons being made of +solid silver, the shafts of ebony, with a great glittering diamond set +in the handle of each, these all in a caddy bag of seal-skin, the fur +shaved off. There was a charming little naphtha launch and a horseless +carriage for Jimmy, and, as for the baby, it was very evident that Old +Bills had a peculiarly tender spot in his ghostly make-up for children. +I doubt if the finest toy-shops of Paris ever held toys in greater<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</a></span> +variety or more ingenious in design. There were two armies of soldiers +made of aluminum which marched and fought like real little men, a band +of music at the head of each that discoursed the most stirring music, +cannons that fired real shot—indeed, all the glorious panoply of war +was there in miniature, lacking only blood, and I have since discovered +that even this was possible, since every one of the little soldiers was +so made that his head could be pulled off and his body filled with red +ink. Then there was a miniature office building of superb architectural +design, with little steam elevators running up and down, and throngs of +busy little creatures, manipulated by some ingenious automatic +arrangement, rushing hither and thither like mad, one and all seemingly +engaged upon some errand of prodigious commercial import. Another +delightful gift for the baby was a small opera-house, and a complete +troupe of little wax prime donne, and zinc tenors, and brass barytones, +with patent removable chests, within which small phonographs worked so +that the little things sang like so many music—boxes,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</a></span> while in the +chairs and boxes and galleries were matinée girls and their escorts and +their bonnets and their enthusiastic applause—truly I never dreamed of +such magnificent things as Old Bills provided for the occasion. He had +indeed got me out of my immediate difficulty, and when I went to bed +that night, after the happiest Christmas I had ever known, I called down +the richest blessings upon his head; and why, indeed, should I not? We +had between $400,000 and $500,000 worth of presents in the house, and +they had not cost me a penny, outside of the $60,000 I had spent on the +way uptown, and what could be more conducive to one's happiness than +such a Yuletide Klondike as that?</p> + +<p>This was many years ago, dear reader, before the extravagant methods of +the present day crept into and somewhat poisoned the Christmas spirit, +but from that day to this Old Bills has never ceased to haunt me. He has +been my constant companion from that glorious morning until to-day, when +I find myself telling you of him, and, save at the beginning of every +recurring month, when I am always very<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</a></span> busy and somewhat anxious about +making ends meet, his society is never irksome. Once you get used to +Bills he becomes a passion, and were it not for his singular name I +think I should find him a constant source of joy.</p> + +<p>It rather dampened my ardor, I must confess, when I found that the +initials of the good old doctor, U. P., stood for Un Paid, but if you +can escape the chill and irksomeness of that there is no reason why the +poorest of us all may not derive much real joy in life from the good<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</a></span> +things we can get through Bills.</p> + +<p>In justice to the readers of this little tale, I should perhaps say, in +conclusion, that I read it to my wife before sending it out, and she +asserts that it was all a dream, because she says she never received +that rope of pearls. To which I retorted that she deserved to, +anyhow—but, dream or otherwise, the visitation has truly been with me +for many years, and I fear the criticism of my spouse is somewhat +prompted by jealousy, for she has stated in plain terms that she would<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</a></span> +rather go without Christmas than see me constantly haunted by Bills: +but, after all, it is a common condition, and it does help one at +Christmas time in an era when the simple observance of the season, so +characteristic of the olden time, has been superceded by a lavish +expenditure which would bring ruin to the richest of us were it not for +the benign influence of Bills, M.D.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</a></span></p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="The_Flunking_of_Watkinss_Ghost" id="The_Flunking_of_Watkinss_Ghost"></a>The Flunking of Watkins's Ghost</h2> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</a></span></p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>The Flunking of Watkins's Ghost</h2> + +<div class="figleft" style="width: 150px;"> +<img src="images/ill_005.jpg" width="150" height="147" alt="Decorative P" title="" /> +</div> + +<p>arley was a Freshman at Blue Haven University, and, like many other +Freshmen, had a wholesome fear of examinations. In the football field he +was courageous to the verge of foolhardiness, but when he sat in his +chair in the examination-room, with a paper covered with questions +before him, he was as timid as a fawn. There was no patent flying or +revolving wedge method of getting him through the rush-line of Greek, +nor by any known tackle could he down the half-backs of mathematics and +kick the ball of his intellect through the goal-posts, on the other side +of which lay the coveted land of Sophomoredom. Hence Parley, who had +spent most of his time practicing for his class eleven, found himself at +the end of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</a></span> his first term in a state of worry like unto nothing he had +ever known before.</p> + +<p>"It would be tough to fail at this stage of the game," he thought, as he +reflected upon what his father would say in the event of his failure. +"It wouldn't be so bad to flunk later on, but for a chap to fall down at +the very beginning of his race wouldn't reflect much credit on his +trainer, and I think it very likely the governor would be mad about it."</p> + +<p>"Of course he would!" said a voice at his side. "Who wouldn't?"</p> + +<p>Parley jumped, he was so startled. Nor was it surprising that even so +cool and physically strong a person as he should for an instant know the +sensation of fear. If you or I should happen to be lying off in our room +before a flickering log-fire, which furnished the only illumination, +smoking a pipe, reflecting, and all alone, I think we would ourselves, +superior beings as we are, be startled to hear a strange voice beside us +answering our unspoken thoughts. This was exactly what had happened in +Parley's case. Now that the football season was over, he realized that +too much<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</a></span> time had been spent on that and too little upon his studies, +and conditions were all he could see in the future. This naturally made +Parley very unhappy, and upon this particular night he had retired to +his room to be alone until his blue spell should wear off. Several of +his classmates had knocked at his door, but he had made no response, and +in order further to give the impression that he was not within he had +turned out his gas and table lamp, and sat pulling viciously away at his +pipe, watching the flames on the hearth as they danced to and fro upon +the logs, which last hissed and spluttered away as if they approved +neither of the dancing flames nor of Parley himself.</p> + +<p>Straining his eyes in the direction whence the voice had seemed to come, +Parley endeavored to ascertain who had spoken, but all was as it had +been before. There was no one in sight, and the freshman settled back +again in his chair.</p> + +<p>"Humph!" he ejaculated. "Guess I must have fallen asleep and dreamed +it."</p> + +<p>"Not a bit of it," interposed the voice again. "I'm over here in the +arm-chair."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</a></span></p> + +<p>Parley sprang to his feet and grabbed up his "banger," as the big cane +he had managed to hold to the bitter end in the rush of cherished memory +was called.</p> + +<p>"Oh, you are, are you?" he cried, controlling his fear with great +difficulty; and his voice would hardly come, his throat and lips had +become so dry from nervousness. "And, pray, how the deuce did you get +in?" he demanded, peering over into the arm-chair's capacious +depths—still seeing nothing, however.</p> + +<p>"Oh, the usual way," replied the voice—"through the door."</p> + +<p>"That's not so," retorted Parley. "Both doors are locked, so you +couldn't. Why don't you come out like a man where I can see you, and +tell the truth, if you know how?"</p> + +<p>"Can't," said the other—"that is, I <i>can't</i> come out like a <i>man</i>."</p> + +<p>"Ah!" sneered Parley. "What are you then—a purple cow?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know what a purple cow is," replied the voice, in sepulchral +tones. "I never saw one. They didn't have 'em in my day, only plain +brown ones—cows of the primary colors."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Ah?" said Parley, smartly. The invisible thing was speaking so meekly +that his momentary terror was passing away. "You had blue cows in your +day, eh?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, my, yes!" replied the strange visitor; "lots of 'em. Take any old +cow and deprive her of her calf, and she becomes as blue as indigo."</p> + +<p>Here the voice laughed, and Parley joined.</p> + +<p>"You're a clever—ah—what?— A clever It," he said.</p> + +<p>"You might call me an It if you wanted to," said the stranger. "Possibly +that's my general classification. To be more specific, however, I'm a +ghost."</p> + +<p>"Ho! Nonsense'" retorted Parley. "I don't believe in ghosts."</p> + +<p>"That may be," said the other, calmly. "I didn't when I was here, a +living human being with two legs and a taste for smoke, like you. But I +found out afterwards that I was all wrong. When you get to be a ghost, +if you have any self-respect you'll believe in 'em. Furthermore, if I +wasn't a ghost I couldn't have got in here through two closed doors to +speak to you."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</a></span></p> + +<p>"That's so," replied Parley. "I didn't think of that. Still, you can't +expect me to believe you without some proof. Suppose you let me whack +you over the head with this stick? If it goes through you without +hurting you, all well and good. If it doesn't, and knocks you out, I +sha'n't be any the worse off. What do you say?"</p> + +<p>"I'm perfectly willing," said the voice; "only look out for your chair. +You might spoil it."</p> + +<p>"Afraid, eh?" said Parley.</p> + +<p>"For the chair, yes," replied the spirit. "Still it isn't my chair, and +if you want to take the risk, I'm willing. You can kick a football +through my ribs if you wish. It's all the same to me."</p> + +<p>"I'll try the banger," said Parley, dryly. "Then if you are a +sneak-thief, as I half suspect, you'll get what you deserve. If you're +what you claim to be, all's well for both of us. Shall I?"</p> + +<p>"Go ahead," replied the ghost, nonchalantly.</p> + +<p>Parley was more surprised than ever, and was beginning to believe that +It was a ghost, after all. No sneak-thief would<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</a></span> willingly permit +himself to be whacked on the head with any such adamantine weapon as +that which Parley held in his hand.</p> + +<p>"Never mind," said he, relenting. "I won't."</p> + +<p>"Yon <i>must</i>, now," said the other. "If you don't, I can't help you at +all. I can't be of service to a person who either can't or won't believe +in me. If you want to pass your examinations, whack."</p> + +<p>"Bah! What idiocy!" cried Parley. "I—"</p> + +<p>"Go ahead and whack," persisted the voice. "As hard as you know how, +too, if you want to. Pretend you are cornered by a wild beast, and have +only one chance to escape, and whack for dear life. I'm ready. My arms +are folded, and I'm sitting right here over the embroidered cushion that +serves as the seat of your chair."</p> + +<p>"I've caught you, there," said Parley. "You aren't sitting there at all. +I can see the embroidered cushion."</p> + +<p>"Which simply proves what I say," retorted the ghost. "If I were not a +ghost, but a material thing like a sneak-thief, you couldn't see through +me. Whack away."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</a></span></p> + +<p>And Parley did so. He raised the banger aloft, and brought it down on +the spot where the invisible creature was sitting with all the force at +his command.</p> + +<p>"There," said the ghost, calmly, from the chair. "Are you satisfied? It +didn't do me any damage; though I must say you've knocked the embroidery +into smithereens."</p> + +<p>It was even as he said. The force with which Parley had brought the +heavy stick down had made a great rent in the soft cushion, and he had +had his trouble for his pains.</p> + +<p>"Well, do you believe in me now?" the ghost demanded, Parley, in his +surprise and wrath, having found no words suited to the occasion.</p> + +<p>"I suppose I've got to," he replied, ruefully gazing upon the ruined +cushion. "That's what I get for being an idiot. I don't know—"</p> + +<p>"It's what you get for pretending that you can't believe all that you +can't see," put in the ghost, "which is a very grave error for a young +man—or an old one, either, for that matter—to make."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</a></span></p> + +<p>Parley sat down, and was silent for a moment.</p> + +<div class="figright" style="width: 500px;"><a name="ILL_006" id="ILL_006"></a> +<img src="images/ill_006.jpg" width="500" height="414" alt="PARLEY CONVERSING WITH THE INVISIBLE GHOST" title="" /> +<span class="caption">PARLEY CONVERSING WITH THE INVISIBLE GHOST</span> +</div> + +<p>"Well," he said at length, "granting that there are such things as +ghosts, and that you are one, what the deuce do you come bothering me +for? Just wanted to plague me, I suppose, and get me to smash my +furniture."</p> + +<p>"Not at all," retorted the ghost. "I didn't ask you to smash your +furniture. On the contrary, I warned you that that was what you were +going to do. You suggested smashing me, and I told you to go ahead."</p> + +<p>Parley couldn't deny it, but he could not quite conceal his resentment.</p> + +<p>"Don't you think I'm bothered enough by the prospect of a beautiful +flunk at my exams, without your trickling in through the doorway to +exasperate me?" he demanded.</p> + +<p>"Who has come to exasperate you, Parley?" said the ghost, a trifle +irritably. "I haven't. I came to help you, but, by Jingo! I've half a +mind to leave you to get out of your troubles the best way you can. Do +you know what's the matter with you?<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</a></span> You are too impetuous. You are the +kind of chap who strikes first and thinks afterwards. So far your +experiments on me have kept me from telling you who I am and what I've +come for. If you don't want help, say so. There are others who do, and +I'll be jiggered if I wouldn't rather help them than you, now that I +know what a fly-away Jack you are."</p> + +<p>The spirit with which the visitor uttered these words made Parley +somewhat ashamed of his behavior, and yet no one could really blame him, +under the circumstances, for doing what he did.</p> + +<p>"I'm sorry," he said, in a moment, "but you must remember, sir, that at +Blue Haven there is no chair in manners, and the etiquette of a meeting +of this sort is a closed book to me."</p> + +<p>"That's all right," returned the ghost, kindly. "I don't blame you, on +the whole. The trouble lies just where you say. In college people study +geology and physiology and all the other 'ologies, save spectrology. +Most college trustees disbelieve in ghosts, just as you do, and the +consequence is you only touch upon the relations of man<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</a></span> with the spirit +world in your studies of psychology, and then only in a very incomplete +fashion. Any gentleman knows how to behave to another gentleman, but +when he comes into contact with a spook he's all at sea. If somebody +would only write a ghost-etiquette book, or a 'Spectral Don't,' people +who suffer from what you are pleased to call hallucinations would have +an easier time of it. If I had been a book-agent, or a sneak-thief, or a +lady selling patent egg-beaters which no home should be without, you +would have received me with greater courtesy than you did."</p> + +<p>"Still," said Parley, anxious to make out a good case for himself, "most +of 'em wouldn't walk right into a fellow's room and scare him to death, +you know."</p> + +<p>"Nor would I," said the ghost. "You are still living, Parley, as you +wouldn't have been if I'd scared you to death."</p> + +<p>"Specious, but granted," returned Parley. "And now, Mr. Spook, let's +exchange cards."</p> + +<p>"I left my card-case at home," laughed the spirit. "But I'll tell you +who I am and it will suffice. I'm old Billie Watkins, of the class of +ninety-nine."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</a></span></p> + +<p>"There is no Watkins in ninety-nine," said Parley, suspiciously.</p> + +<p>"Well, there <i>was</i>," retorted the spirit. "I ought to know, because I +was old Billie myself. Valedictorian, too."</p> + +<p>"What are you talking about?" demanded Parley. "Ninety-nine hasn't +graduated yet!"</p> + +<p>"Yes, it has," returned the ghost. "Seventeen ninety-nine, I mean."</p> + +<p>Parley whistled. "Oh, I see! You're a relic of the last century!"</p> + +<p>"That's it; and I can tell you, Parley, we eighteenth-century boys made +Blue Haven a very different sort of a place from what you make it," said +Billie. "We didn't mind being young, you know. When we had an +eight-oared race, we rowed only four men, and each man managed two oars. +And there wasn't any fighting over strokes, either; and we'd row anybody +that chose to try us. The main principle was to have a race, and the +only thing we thought about was getting in first."</p> + +<p>"In any old way, I suppose?" sneered Parley.</p> + +<p>"You bet!" cried the spirit, with enthusiasm.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</a></span> "We'd have put our +eight-oared crew up against twenty Indians in a canoe, if they'd asked +us; and when it came to rounders, we could bat balls a mile in those +days. A fellow didn't have to make a science out of his fun when I was +at Blue Haven."</p> + +<p>"And what good did it do you?" cried Parley.</p> + +<p>"We held every belt and every mug and every medal in the thirteen +States, that's what. We laid out Cambridge at one-old-cat eight times in +two months, and as for those New York boys, we beat 'em at marbles on +their own campus," returned the ghost.</p> + +<p>Parley was beginning to be interested.</p> + +<p>"I'd like to see the records of those times," he said.</p> + +<p>"Records? Bosh!" said old Billie Watkins. "You don't for a moment +believe that every time we played a game of marbles or peg-top, or rowed +against a lot of the town boys, we sat down and wrote up a history of +it, do you? We were too busy having fun for that. Oh, those days! those +days!" the ghost added, with a sigh. "College<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</a></span> wasn't filled with +politicians and scientific fun-seekers and grandfathers then."</p> + +<p>"Grandfathers? More likely you were forefathers," suggested Parley.</p> + +<p>"We've become both since," said Watkins. "But we were boys then, and +glad of it."</p> + +<p>"Aren't we boys now?" queried Parley.</p> + +<p>"Yes, you are," replied the ghost. "But you seem to be doing your best +to conceal the fact. As soon as a lad gets into college now he puts on +all the airs of a man. Walks, talks like a grave man. Eats and drinks +like a grave man. Why, I don't believe you ever robbed the president's +hen-coop in your life!"</p> + +<p>"No," laughed Parley, "never. For two reasons: it's easier to get our +chickens cooked at the dining-hall, and Prex hasn't got a hen-coop."</p> + +<p>"Exactly. Even our college presidents aren't what they were. Never +hooked a ham out of his smoke-house, either, I'll wager, and for the +same reason— Prex hasn't a smoke-house. All the smoking he does is in +the line of cigars. But all this hasn't got anything to do with what I +came here for. I came to help you, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</a></span> I've seen enough of the way +things are done in colleges these days to know that in the other +respects of which I have spoken you are beyond help. Besides, this help +is personal. You are worried about your examinations, aren't you?"</p> + +<p>"Well, rather," said Parley. "You see, I've been playing football."</p> + +<p>"Precisely," said Watkins. "And you've put so much time into learning to +do it scientifically and without using your feet, as we did, that you've +let everything else go."</p> + +<p>"I suppose so," said Parley, sullenly.</p> + +<p>"That's it," said old Billie Watkins. "Now that everything's science, +there isn't time for a boy to do more than one thing at a time, and he's +got to choose between his degree and seeing his picture in the papers as +an athlete. Well, it's not your fault, maybe. It's the times, and I'm +going to help you out. I always try to help somebody once a year. It's +my Christmas gift to mankind, and this year I've decided to help you out +of your fix. Last year I helped Blue Haven win the debating championship +as against our traditional rivals. This year I should have tried to get +Blue<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</a></span> Haven to the fore in the boat-race, but everybody about here was +so cocksure of winning it didn't seem to be necessary. I'm sorry now I +didn't know it was all men's bluff and not boys' confidence. I might +have helped the little men out. Still, that's over, and you are to be +the gainer. <i>I'll pass your examinations for you.</i>"</p> + +<p>"What?" cried Parley, scarcely able to believe his ears.</p> + +<p>"I'll pass your examinations for you," repeated the ghost. "It won't be +hard. As I told you, I was valedictorian of my class."</p> + +<p>"But how?" asked Parley. "You couldn't pass yourself off for me, you +know."</p> + +<p>"Never said I could," returned Billie Watkins. "Never wanted to. I'd +rather be me, floating around in space, than you. What I propose to do +is to stand alongside of you, and tell you the answers to your +questions."</p> + +<p>"But what will the professors say?" demanded Parley.</p> + +<p>"How will they know? They won't be able to see me any more than you +can," said the ghost. "It's easy as shooting."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[Pg 57]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Well, I don't know if it's square," said Parley. "In fact, I do know +that it isn't; but if I get through this time I won't get into the same +fix again."</p> + +<p>"That's just the point," returned the ghost. "You're young, in spite of +your trying not to be, and you've got into trouble. I'll help you out +once, but after that you'll have to paddle your own steam-yacht. I +suppose you scientific watermen wouldn't demean yourselves by paddling a +canoe, the way we used to."</p> + +<p>"I'm sure I'm very much obliged, Mr. Watkins," said Parley.</p> + +<p>"Oh, botheration!" cried the ghost. "<i>Mister Watkins!</i> Look here, +Parley, we're both Blue Haven boys—somewhat far apart in time, it's +true, but none the less Blue-Havenites. Don't 'mister' me. Call me +Billie."</p> + +<p>"All right, Billie," said Parley. "I'll go you, and after it's all over +I'll be as much of a boy as I can."</p> + +<p>"That's right," said the ghost of old Billie Watkins, and then he +departed. At least I presume he departed, for from that time on to the +day of the examinations Parley did not hear his voice again.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</a></span></p> + +<p>What happened then can best be explained by the narration of an +interview between Parley and the ghost of old Billie Watkins on the +night of the concluding examination-day. Sick, tired, and flunked, poor +Parley went to his room to bemoan his unhappy fate. In no single branch +had he been successful. Apparently his reliance upon the assistance of +Watkins's ghost had proved a mistake—as, in fact, it was, although poor +old Watkins was, as it turned out, no more to blame than if he had never +volunteered his services.</p> + +<p>Flinging himself down in despair, Parley gave way to his feelings.</p> + +<p>"That's what I get for being an ass and believing in ghosts. I might +have known it was all a dream," he groaned.</p> + +<p>"It wasn't," said the unmistakable voice of Watkins, from the chair, +which had been repaired.</p> + +<p>Parley jumped as if stung.</p> + +<p>"You're a gay old valedictorian, you are!" he cried, glowering at the +chair. "Next time you have a Christmas gift for mankind, take it and +burn it, will you? A pretty fix you've got me into."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</a></span></p> + +<p>"I'm sorry, Parley," began the ghost. "I—"</p> + +<p>"Sorry be hanged!" cried Parley. "If you hadn't made me believe in you, +I might have crammed up on my Greek and Latin anyhow. As it is, it's a +Waterloo all around."</p> + +<p>"If you won't listen—" the ghost began again.</p> + +<p>"I've listened enough!" roared Parley, thoroughly enraged. "And if there +was any way in which I could get at you, I'd make you smart for your +low-down trick!"</p> + +<p>"To think," moaned the ghost, "that I should see the day when old Billie +Watkins was accused of a low-down trick—and I tried to help him, too."</p> + +<p>"Tried to help me?" sneered Parley. "How the deuce do you make that out? +You didn't come within a mile of me, and I've not only flunked, but I've +lost a half-dozen bets on my ability to pass, just because I believed in +you."</p> + +<p>"I <i>was</i> within a mile of you," retorted the ghost, indignantly. "I was +right square in front of you."</p> + +<p>"Then why the dickens didn't you answer<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</a></span> the questions? I read 'em out +so loud that old Professor Wiggins sat on me for it."</p> + +<p>"I know you did, Parley," said the ghost, meekly. "And I'd have answered +'em if I could. But I couldn't."</p> + +<p>"Couldn't?" cried Parley.</p> + +<p>"Regularly just couldn't," said the ghost.</p> + +<p>"A valedictorian couldn't answer a question on a Freshman's paper?" +cried Parley, scornfully.</p> + +<p>"No," said the ghost.</p> + +<p>"Fine memory you must have! Do you know what a-b, ab, spells?" sneered +Parley.</p> + +<p>"I do, of course," retorted the ghost, angrily. "A-b, ab, spells +nothing. But that doesn't prove anything. I remember all I ever learned +at Blue Haven, but I've made a discovery, Parley, which lets me out. You +ought to have told me, but, my dear fellow, college begins now just +about where it used to leave off."</p> + +<p>"What?" queried Parley, doubtfully. "What do you mean?"</p> + +<p>"Why, it's plain enough, Jack! Can't you see?" said Watkins. "What +would<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[Pg 61]</a></span> make a valedictorian in my day won't help a Freshman through his +first year now. Times have changed."</p> + +<p>"Oh, that's it—eh?" said Parley, somewhat mollified. "It isn't only the +fellows that have changed and their sports, but the curriculum—eh? That +it?"</p> + +<p>"Precisely," rejoined old Billie, with a sigh of relief that Parley +should understand him. "I'm beginning to understand, my boy, why you +fellows have to be little men and not boys. No average boy could pass +any such stiff paper as that, and I found myself as ignorant as you +are."</p> + +<p>"Thanks," said Parley, with a short laugh. "I think you ought to have +found it out before leading me into accepting your Christmas gift, +though."</p> + +<p>"It was you who should have found out and told me," retorted the ghost. +"All I can say is that in my day I'd have got you through with flying +colors."</p> + +<p>"Well, I'm much obliged," said Parley. "I'll get out of it somehow, but +it means hard work; only, Mr. Spook, don't be so free with your +Christmas gifts another time."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[Pg 62]</a></span></p> + +<p>"I won't, Jack," said the spirit—"that is, I won't if you'll forgive me +and stop calling me mister. Call me Billie again, and show you've +forgiven me."</p> + +<p>"All right, Billie, my boy," said Parley. "We'll call it square."</p> + +<p>And the unhappy ghost wandered off into the night, leaving Parley to +fight his battles alone. Whether he has turned up again or not, I am not +aware, but, from my observation of Jack Parley's ways ever since, I +think he really did learn something from his contact with Billie<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[Pg 63]</a></span> +Watkins's ghost. He has been a good deal of a boy ever since. As for +Watkins, I hope that the genial old soul off in space somewhere has also +learned something from Jack. If the old chaps and the youngsters can +only get together and appreciate one another's good points, and how each +has had to labor towards the same end under possibly different +conditions, there will be a greater harmony and sympathy between them, +and they will discover that, in spite of differing times and differing +customs, 'way down at bottom they are the same old wild animals, after +all. There is no more delightful spectacle anywhere than that to be<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[Pg 64]</a></span> +seen at a college gathering, where the patriarchs of the fifties and the +Freshmen of the present join hand-in-hand and lark it together, and it +is this spirit that makes for the glory of Alma Mater everywhere.</p> + +<p>So, after all, perhaps the meeting of Jack Parley and old Billie +Watkins's ghost had its value. For my part, I can only hope that it had, +and leave them both with my blessing.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[Pg 65]</a></span></p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[Pg 66]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="An_Unmailed_Letter" id="An_Unmailed_Letter"></a>An Unmailed Letter</h2> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[Pg 67]</a></span></p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>An Unmailed Letter</h2> + +<h3>BEING A CHRISTMAS TALE OF SOME SIGNIFICANCE</h3> + +<div class="figleft" style="width: 150px;"> +<img src="images/ill_007.jpg" width="150" height="150" alt="Decorative I" title="" /> +</div> + +<p>called the other night at the home of my friend Jack Chetwood, and found +him, as usual, engaged in writing. Chetwood's name is sufficiently well +known to all who read books and periodicals these days to spare me the +necessity of adverting to his work, or of attempting to describe his +personality. It is said that Chetwood writes too much. Indeed, I am one +of those who have said so, and I have told <i>him</i> so. His response has +always been that I—and others who have ventured to remonstrate—did not +understand. He had to keep at it, he said. Couldn't help himself. Didn't +write for fun, but because he had to. Always did his best, anyhow, and +what more can be asked of any man? Surely a defence<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[Pg 68]</a></span> of this nature +takes the wind out of a critic's sails.</p> + +<p>"Busy, Jack?" said I, as I entered his sanctum.</p> + +<p>"Yes," said he. "Very."</p> + +<p>"Very well," said I. "Don't let me disturb you. I only happened in, +anyhow. Nothing in particular to say; but, Jacky, why don't you quit for +a little? You're worn and pale and thin. What's the use of breaking +down? Don't pose with me. You don't have to write all the time."</p> + +<p>He smiled wanly at me.</p> + +<p>"I—I'm only writing a letter this time," he said.</p> + +<p>"Oh, in that case—" I began.</p> + +<p>"You can't guess whom to?" he interrupted.</p> + +<p>"Me," said I.</p> + +<p>"No," he retorted. "Me."</p> + +<p>"I don't understand," said I, somewhat perplexed.</p> + +<p>"Myself," laughed Chetwood.</p> + +<p>"You are writing a letter to—to—"</p> + +<p>"Myself," said he. "Truly so. Odd, isn't it? Wait a few minutes, old +man, and I'll read it to you. Light a cigar<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[Pg 69]</a></span> and sit down just a minute +and I'll be through."</p> + +<p>I lit one of Chetwood's cigars. They are excellent. I have heard one +expert pronounce them "bully." They are, and of course while I smoked I +was happy.</p> + +<p>At the end of a half-hour's waiting, the silence broken only by the +scratching of Chetwood's pen and by my own puffings upon the weed, he +wheeled about in his chair.</p> + +<p>"Well, that's finished," he said, and he glanced affectionately and, I +thought, wistfully about his charming workshop.</p> + +<p>"Good," said I. "You promised to read it to me."</p> + +<p>"All right," said he. "Here goes."</p> + +<p>And he kept his word. I reproduce the letter from memory. Like all +copy-mongers, he began it with a title double underscored, and I +reproduce it as I heard it:</p> + +<h4>"LETTER TO MYSELF</h4> + +<h4>"<span class="smcap">On Christmas Giving: A Hint</span></h4> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"<span class="smcap">My Dear John</span>,—As the Christmas holidays approach it has +seemed to me to be somewhat in the line of my duty to write +to you not only to wish you<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[Pg 70]</a></span> all the good things of the +season, but to give you a little fatherly advice which may +stand you in good stead when the first of January comes +about. I have observed you and your ways with some +particularity for some time; in fact, since that very happy +day, nearly twenty years ago, when you entered upon the +duties of citizenship, with twenty-one years and a birthday +gift of $500 from your father to your credit. The twenty-one +years had come easily and had gone easily. All you had had +to do to acquire and to retain them was to breathe and to +keep your feet dry. The $500, which represented so much toil +on your father's part, came to you quite as easily. You saw +the check, and you realized the possibilities of the sum for +which it called, but I do not think you ever realized the +effort that produced that $500. I judge from the way you let +it filter through your fingers that you thought your +generous father picked the money up from a pile of gold +lying somewhere in the back yard of his home. I do not know +if you recall what it went for, but I do. Some of it went +for a half-dozen sporting pictures of some rarity that you +had long wished to hang on the walls of your den. More of it +went for rare first editions of books whose possession you +had envied others for no little time. A portion of it was +spent on sundry trinkets which should adorn your person, +such as studs, scarf-pins, a snake ring, with ruby eyes—a +disgusting-looking thing, by the way—to encircle your +little finger. There were also certain small things in the +line of bronzes, silver writing implements, a jug or two of +some value that you had cast your eyes upon, and which you +were<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[Pg 71]</a></span> quick to acquire. Do you remember, my dear Jack, how +delighted you were with all that you were able to buy with +that $500, until the bills came in and you found that the +consciousness of a $500 backing had led you into an +expenditure of a trifle over $900? You were painfully +surprised that day, Jacky, my boy, but, as I have watched +you since you let it go at that, you never learned anything +from those bills. Indeed, what you call your cheerful +philosophy, which led you to console yourself then with the +thought that the stuff you had bought on credit if sold at +auction would bring in enough to pay the deficit, has clung +to you ever since, and has served you ill—very ill—unless +I am wholly mistaken. You would strike any other man than +myself were he to venture to call you a second Mr. Micawber, +but Johnnie, dear, that is what you are—and you are even +worse than that, John. Let me assure you of the fact. <i>You +are something worse.</i> You are a modern Dick Turpin! Don't be +angry at my saying so. Merely understand that I am telling +you the truth, and for your own good, and I'll explain the +analogy. I cannot call a man a modern Dick Turpin without +explaining why I do so.</p> + +<p>"Turpin was a highwayman, as you know. He mounted his horse +and went out upon the highway, and whatever he wanted he +took. He had no greater powers of resistance in the face of +temptation than others had in the face of him. You, John, +are much the same, even if you do not realize the fact. You +mount the steed called Credit, and you go out upon the +highways, and whatever you see that you happen to want you +take—don't you, Jack? It is true that,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[Pg 72]</a></span> sooner or later, +you pay, but so did Turpin. Turpin paid with his life. You +will pay with yours, and that is why I write you, for the +constant anxiety to meet the obligations of your thefts—for +that is what they are, John; we cannot blink the fact—this +constant anxiety, I say, is sapping your strength, +undermining your constitution, destroying slowly but surely +your nerves, and sooner or later you will succumb to the +strain. Is it worth the price, my boy?</p> + +<p>"I can imagine you asking what all this has to do with +Christmas and the season of Peace on Earth and Good Will to +Man. You think I am merely cavilling, but I am not. It has +this to do with it: It involves my Christmas present to you, +which is important to me and I trust will be so to you. I am +not going to give you a gold watch, or a complete edition of +Thackeray, or a set of golf clubs this year, and, being a +man, I cannot knit you a worsted vest as your sister +might—or as some other fellow's sister might. All I can +afford to give you this year is a hint, and I shall not wait +until Christmas morn to hand it over to you, because it +would then lack value. I send it to you now, when you need +it most, and, if you accept it, when the Christmas chimes +begin to sound their music on the frosty air you will thank +me for it perhaps more than you do now.</p> + +<p>"Don't be a highwayman this year, John. Never mind what +Solomon said; think of what I say. Solomon was a wise man, +but he lived in a bygone age. Take thought of the morrow, my +boy. Don't consider the lilies of the field, but come down +to real business. Don't mount your prancing horse Credit +and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[Pg 73]</a></span> hold up some poor jeweller for a silver water-pitcher +for your brother George when you know that on January 1st +the jeweller will probably ask you for a <i>quid pro quo</i>, and +for which <i>quid</i> you will be compelled to compel him to wait +until April or May. And remember that, if your dear wife +could have her choice, she would infinitely prefer your +peace of mind to the sables which you propose to give her at +Christmas, bought on a credit which, however pleasing +to-day, is sure to become a very pressing annoyance +to-morrow.</p> + +<p>"Then, my dear man, there are your children. What a joy they +are! What a source of affectionate pride; what a source of +satisfaction, and how they trust you, Jack. You remember the +trust you placed in your father. You have never slept since +you had to do for yourself as you slept when he did for you. +You didn't know a care then; you had no worries in those old +days; you knew your home was yours and that every reasonable +thing you could wish for he would give you to the full +extent of his means. That confidence was not misplaced, and +all that you have to-day you'd willingly give up for that +sweet peace of mind that was yours while he was with you. +God bless him and his memory. Do you realize, Jack, that you +occupy that same relation to your children? They believe in +you as you believed in him. And are you meeting your +responsibilities as he met his? Think it over. Of course, +for instance, Tommie wants a complete railway system, with +tracks and signals and switches and nickel-plated rolling +stock, and all that—but can you afford to give it to him? +And<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[Pg 74]</a></span> Pollie—dear little Pollie—what right-minded little +Pollie does not want a doll; a great yellow-haired, +blue-eyed, pink-cheeked doll, with automatic insides and an +expensive trousseau? But can you really afford to give it to +her? Do you remember when you were a baby how you wanted the +moon, and yelled for it lustily? And do you remember how you +didn't get it, and how you sobbed yourself to sleep, and +how, in spite of it all, you waked up the next morning all +smiles and sunshine, with no recollection of ever having +wanted the moon? And do you realize that if your daddy +<i>could</i> have given it to you he <i>would</i> have done so? Do you +recollect how, ever since that happy time, you have wanted +the earth, and how you haven't got it, and how fortunate you +are, and how happy you are without it? So it is, and so it +will be with your children. These things do not change. My +beloved boy, a serene, unworried father, next to a serene +and happy mother, is God's most gracious gift to childhood, +at Christmas or at any other time. If January finds you +petulant and nervous over a bill you cannot pay for Tommie's +Christmas railway and for Pollie's Yuletide doll, then has +the 25th of December brought woe instead of joy into your +home; strife instead of peace, and good will to man is not +to be found there. In January the pure, sweet, simple little +minds will wonder at you, Jack. The little hearts will love +you just the same, but the little minds will wonder at your +irritability, and they will still hold to that beautiful +trust. And you? Well, you'll toss about at night, sleepless +and worried, and if you are of the right sort, as I hope and +believe you are, you will ask yourself<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[Pg 75]</a></span> if you are worthy of +the confidence the little ones place in you. Your mistaken +notions of generosity may have imperilled your household. +Given health and strength and ideas, you may be able to keep +on and make all right, but who knows at what moment you will +have to give up the fight? Why should you invite care and +worry? Why not come down to the serious facts and insure the +happiness of all who depend upon you by following out a sane +and sensible plan of living and of giving? My dear boy, +don't you know you are doing wrong in being unjustifiably +ostentatious in your giving? I have likened you to Turpin. +You will laugh this off. You aren't a thief—at least you +cannot believe that you are one; but there is something +worse even than being a thief, and I fear you are verging +upon it.</p> + +<p>"Frankly, Jack, I am afraid you are a snob. Yes, sir, a +plain snob; and if snobbery is not worse than thievery, I +know nothing of life. I'd rather be a straight-out, sincere, +honest, unpretending thief than a snob, my dear boy. +Wouldn't you? Let us look into this. The thief is the +creature of circumstances. He is what he is because his +environment and his moral sense, plus his necessities, +require that he shall do what he does. But the snob—what +compelling circumstances make a snob of a man? Why should he +make a pretence of being what he is not? Why should he give +things he cannot afford to give unless it be that he desires +to make an impression that he has no right to? The thief +banks on nothing. The snob takes advantage of his supposed +respectability. Bless us, Jacky, aren't we worse than they +are?<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[Pg 76]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Read your Thackeray, old chap. See what he said about +snobs. <i>He</i> never inveighed against the submerged soul that +never had a chance. He never, with all his imputed cynicism, +made a slimy thing of those who fell, as Dickens did. He +struck high. He exploited the vices of those who might do +him real harm. He took the high man, not the low man, for +his target, and he struck home when he struck at snobbery. +And he struck a blow for purer, sweeter living, and men may +call him cynic for all time, but I shall never cease to call +him brave and true for what he did for you and for me, as +well as for all other men.</p> + +<p>"Put yourself in the crucible, Jack. Find out what you are +and what you may be, and don't try to make yourself appear +to be generous when you are simply financially reckless. +Don't rob your creditors in the vain hope that you are +living up to the spirit of the hour, and don't rob yourself. +You are not living up to that spirit. You are degrading it. +God knows I love you more than I love any living thing +except my wife and children, but let me tell you this: the +man who gives more than he has a right to give is a thief in +the eyes of conscience, and, worse than that, he is a snob, +and a mean one at that. Adapt your giving to your +circumstances. Do what you can to make others happy, but at +this season do not, I beg of you, try to do what you can't +in an effort to appear for what you are not.</p> + +<p>"The happiness of your children, of your wife, of yourself, +is involved, and when that happiness is attacked or +weakened, then is the whole spirit of Christmas season set +aside, and the selfishness of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[Pg 77]</a></span> the posing impostor put in +its place. Always your affectionate self,</p></div> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 34em;">"<span class="smcap">John Henry Chetwood</span>."</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>When Chetwood had finished I puffed away fiercely upon my cigar.</p> + +<p>"Good letter, Jack," said I.</p> + +<p>"Yes," said he, tearing it up.</p> + +<p>"Don't do that," I cried, trying to restrain him.</p> + +<p>He smiled again and sighed. "It's—gone," said he. "Gone. Forever. I +shall never write it again."</p> + +<p>"You should have sent it to—to yourself," said I. "I have thought +sometimes that such a letter should be written to you."</p> + +<p>"Possibly," said he. "But—it's gone." And he tossed it into the +waste-basket.</p> + +<p>"It's a pity," said I. "You—you might have sold that."</p> + +<p>"I know I might," said he. "But if it had ever appeared in print I +should have been immortally mad. It's a libel on myself. Truth—is +libellous, you know."</p> + +<p>"It might have been rejected," I said, sarcastically.</p> + +<p>"That would have made me madder yet," said Chetwood.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[Pg 78]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Still—you realize the—ah—situation, Jack," I put in.</p> + +<p>"Well," said he, with a laugh, "Christmas is coming, and when the fever +is on—I—well, I catch it. I want to give, give, give, and give I +shall."</p> + +<p>"But you are imperilling—" I cried.</p> + +<p>"I know, I know," he interrupted, gently. "God knows I know, but it is +the fever of the hour. You can't stave off an epidemic. It's not my +fault; it's the fault of the times."</p> + +<p>"Nonsense," I retorted. "Can't you stand up against the times?"</p> + +<p>"I can," said he, complacently lighting a cigar. "But I sha'n't. We'll +all go to ruin together. The man who tries to stand up against the +spirit of the times is an ass. I lack the requisite number of legs for +that."</p> + +<p>"Well," I put in, "I wish you a merry Christmas—"</p> + +<p>"I shall have it," said he, cheerily. "The children—"</p> + +<p>"And the New Year?" I interrupted.</p> + +<p>"It isn't here yet," said Chetwood. "And I never cross a bridge until I +come to it. Take another cigar."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[Pg 79]</a></span></p> + +<p>Nevertheless, I went from Chetwood that night rather happier than I +ought to have been, perhaps. His letter, even though he did not choose +to mail it to himself, showed that he was thinking—thinking about it; +and I was glad.</p> + +<p>What if all men were to consider the questions that Chetwood raised?</p> + +<p>Might not the meaning of Christmas, with all its joy and all its beauty, +and all its inspiration-giving qualities, once more be made clear to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[Pg 80]</a></span> +man? I for one believe it would, and I venture to hope that the old-time +simplicity of the observance of the day may again be restored unto us.</p> + +<p>"God bless us all!" said Tiny Tim.</p> + +<p>When the simpler, happier Christmas time, which is a joy, and not a +burden, comes back to us, then will Tiny Tim's prayer have been +answered.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[Pg 81]</a></span></p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[Pg 82]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="The_Amalgamated_Brotherhood_of_Spooks" id="The_Amalgamated_Brotherhood_of_Spooks"></a>The Amalgamated Brotherhood of Spooks</h2> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[Pg 83]</a></span></p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>The Amalgamated Brotherhood of Spooks</h2> + +<h3>A LETTER TO THE EDITOR</h3> + +<div class="figleft" style="width: 150px;"> +<img src="images/ill_008.jpg" width="150" height="149" alt="Decorative I" title="" /> +</div> + +<p>t is with very deep regret that I find myself unable to keep the promise +made to you last spring to provide you with a suitable ghost story for +your Christmas number. I have made several efforts to prepare such a +tale as it seemed to me you would require, but, one and all, these have +proved unavailing. By a singular and annoying combination of +circumstances in which only my unfortunate habit of meeting trouble in a +spirit of badinage has involved me, I cannot secure the models which I +invariably need for the realistic presentation of my stories, and I +decline at this present, as I have hitherto consistently declined, to +draw upon my imagination for the ingredients necessary, even though +tempted by the exigencies<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[Pg 84]</a></span> of a contract sealed, signed, and delivered. +It is far from my wish to be known to you as one who makes promises only +to break them, but there are times in a man's life when he must consider +seriously which is the lesser evil, to deceive the individual or to +deceive the world, the latter being a mass of individuals, and, +consequently, as much more worthy of respect as the whole is greater +than a part. Could I bring myself to be false to my principles as a +scribe, and draw upon my fancy for my facts, and, through a prostitution +of my art, so sickly o'er my plot with the pale cast of realism as to +hoodwink my readers into believing what I know to be false, the task +were easy. Given a more or less active and unrestrained imagination, +pen, ink, paper, and the will to do so, to construct out of these a +ghost story which might have been, but as a matter of fact was not, +presents no difficulties whatsoever; but I unfortunately have a +conscience which, awkward as it is to me at times, I intend to keep +clear and unspotted. The consciousness of having lied would forever rest +as a blot upon my escutcheon. I cannot manufacture out of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[Pg 85]</a></span> whole cloth a +narrative such as you desire and be true to myself, and this I intend to +be, even if by so doing I must seem false to you. I think, however, +that, as one of my friends and most important consumer, you are entitled +to a complete explanation of my failure to do as I have told you I +would. To most others I should send merely a curt note evidencing, not +pleading, a pressure of other work as the cause of my not coming to +time. To you it is owed that I should enter somewhat into the details of +the unfortunate business.</p> + +<p>You doubtless remember that last summer, with our mutual friend Peters, +I travelled abroad seeking health and, incidentally, ideas. I had +discovered that imported ideas were on the whole rather more popular in +America than those which might be said to be indigenous to the soil. The +reading public had, for the time being at least, given itself over to +moats and châteaux and bloodshed and the curious dialects of the lower +orders of British society. Sherlock Holmes had superseded Old Sleuth in +the affections of my countrymen who read books. Even those honest little +critics the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[Pg 86]</a></span> boys and girls were finding more to delight them in the +doings of Richard Cœur de Lion and Alice in Wonderland than in the +more remarkable and intensely American adventures of Ragged Dick or +Mickie the Motorboy. John Storm was at that moment hanging over the +world like the sword of Damocles, and Rudolf Rassendyll had completely +overshadowed such essentially American heroes as Uncle Tom and Rollo. I +found, to my chagrin, that the poetry of Tennyson was more widely read +even than my own, even though Tennyson was dead and I was not. And in +the universities whole terms were devoted to the compulsory study of +dramatists like Shakespeare and Molière, while home talent, as +represented by Mr. Hoyt or the facile productions of Messrs. Weber & +Fields, was relegated to the limbo of electives which the students might +take up or not, as they chose, and then only in the hours which they +were expected to devote to recreation. All of which seemed to indicate +that while there was of course no royal road to literary fame, there was +with equal certainty no republican path thereto, and that real +inspiration was to be<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[Pg 87]</a></span> derived rather under the effete monarchies of +Europe than at home. To Peters the same idea had occurred, but in his +case in relation to art rather than to literature. The patrons of art in +America had a marked preference for the works of Meissonier, Corot, +Gérôme, Millet—anybody, so long as he was a foreigner, Peters said. The +wealthy would pay ten, twenty, a hundred thousand dollars for a Rousseau +or a Rosa Bonheur rather than exchange a paltry one hundred dollars for +a canvas by Peters, though, as far as Peters was concerned, his canvas +was just as well woven, his pigments as carefully mixed, and his +application of the one to the other as technically correct as was +anything from the foreign brushes.</p> + +<p>"You can't take in the full import of a Turner unless you stand a way +away from it," said he, "and if you'll only stand far enough away from +mine you couldn't tell it from a Meissonier."</p> + +<div class="figright" style="width: 493px;"><a name="ILL_009" id="ILL_009"></a> +<img src="images/ill_009.jpg" width="493" height="397" alt=""I THOUGHT A MILE WAS THE PROPER DISTANCE"" title="" /> +<span class="caption">"I THOUGHT A MILE WAS THE PROPER DISTANCE"</span> +</div> + +<p>And when I jocularly responded to this that I thought a mile was the +proper distance, he was offended. We quarrelled, but made up after a +while, and in the making up decided upon a little venture into<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[Pg 88]</a></span> foreign +fields together, not only to recuperate, but to see if so be we could +discover just where the workers on the other side got that quality which +placed them in popular esteem so far ahead of ourselves.</p> + +<p>What we discovered along this especial line must form the burden of +another story. The main cause of our foreign trip, these discoveries, +are but incidental to the theme I have in hand. Our conclusions were +important, but they have no place here, and what they were you will have +to wait until my work on <i>Abroad versus Home</i> is completed to learn. But +what is important to this explanation is the fact that while going +through the long passage leading from the Pitti Palace to the Uffizi +Gallery at Florence we—or rather I—encountered one of those phantoms +which have been among the chief joys and troubles of my life. Peters was +too much taken up with his Baedeker to see either ghosts or pictures. +Indeed, it used to irritate me that Peters saw so little, but he would +do as most American tourists do, and spend all of his time looking for +some especial thing he thought he ought to see, and generally missing +not only<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[Pg 89]</a></span> it, but thousands of minor things quite as well worthy of his +attention. I don't believe he would have seen the ghost, however, under +any circumstances. It requires a specially cultivated eye or digestion, +one or the other, to enable one to see ghosts, and Peters's eye is blind +to the invisible and his digestion is good.</p> + +<p>Why, under the canopy, the vulgar little spectre was haunting a +picture-gallery I never knew, unless it was to embarrass the Americans +who passed to and fro, for he claimed to be an American spook. I knew he +was not a living thing the minute I laid eyes through him. He loomed up +before me while I was engaged in chuckling over a particularly bad +canvas by somebody whose name I have forgotten, but which was something +like Beppo di Contarini. It represented the scene of a grand fête at +Venice back in the fifteenth century, and while preserved by the +art-lovers of Florence as something worthy, would, I firmly believe, +have failed of acceptance even by the catholic taste of the editor of an +American Sunday newspaper comic supplement. The thing was crude in its +drawing, impossible<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[Pg 90]</a></span> in its coloring, and absolutely devoid of action. +Every gondola on the canal looked as if it were stuck in the mud, and as +for the water of the Grand Canal itself, it had all the liquid glory +under this artist's touch of calf's-foot jelly, and it amused me +intensely to think that these patrons of art, in the most artistic city +in the world, should have deemed it worth keeping. However, whatever the +merit of the painting, I was annoyed in the midst of my contemplation of +it to have thrust into the line of vision a shape—I cannot call it a +body because there was no body to it. There were the lineaments of a +living person, and a very vulgar living person at that, but the thing +was translucent, and as it stepped in between me and the wonderful +specimen of Beppo di Somethingorother's art I felt as if a sudden haze +had swept over my eyes, blurring the picture until it reminded me of a +cheap kind of decalcomania that in my boyhood days had satisfied my +yearnings after the truly beautiful.</p> + +<p>I made several ineffectual passes with my hands to brush the thing away. +I had discovered that with certain classes of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[Pg 91]</a></span> ghosts one could be rid +of them, just as one may dissipate a cloud of smoke, by swirling one's +outstretched paw around in it, and I hoped that I might in this way rid +myself of the nuisance now before me. But I was mistaken. He swirled, +but failed to dissipate.</p> + +<p>"Hum!" said I, straightening up, and addressing the thing with some +degree of irritation. "You may know a great deal about art, my friend, +but you seem not to have studied manners. Get out of my way."</p> + +<p>"Pah!" he ejaculated, turning a particularly nasty pair of green eyes on +me. "Who the deuce are you, that you should give me orders?"</p> + +<p>"Well," said I, "if I were impulsive of speech and seldom grammatical, I +might reply by saying Me, but as a purist, let me tell you, sir, that +I'm I, and if you seek to know further and more intimately, I will add +that who I am is none of your infernal business."</p> + +<p>"Humph!" he said, shrugging his shoulders. "Grammatical or otherwise, +you're a coward! You don't dare say who you are,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[Pg 92]</a></span> because you are afraid +of me. You know I am a spectre, and, like all commonplace people, you +are afraid of ghosts."</p> + +<p>A hot retort was on my lips, and I was about to tell him my name and +address, when it occurred to me that by doing so I might lay myself open +to a kind of persecution from which I have suffered from time to time, +ghosts are sometimes so hard to lay, so I accomplished what I at the +moment thought was my purpose by a bluff.</p> + +<p>"Oh, as for that," said I, "my name is So and So, and I live at Number +This, That Street, Chicago, Illinois."</p> + +<p>Both the name and the address were of course fictitious.</p> + +<p>"Very well," said he, calmly, making a note of the address. "My name is +Jones. I am the president of the Amalgamated Brotherhood of Spooks, +enjoying a well-earned rest from his labors on his savings from his +salary as a walking delegate. You shall hear from me on your return to +Chicago through the local chapter, the United Apparitions of Illinois."</p> + +<p>"All right," said I, with equal calmness. "If the Illinois spooks are as +Illinoisome<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[Pg 93]</a></span> as you are, I will summon the board of health and have them +laid without more ado."</p> + +<div class="figright" style="width: 490px;"><a name="ILL_010" id="ILL_010"></a> +<img src="images/ill_010.jpg" width="490" height="500" alt=""HE VANISHED IN SOMETHING OF A RAGE"" title="" /> +<span class="caption">"HE VANISHED IN SOMETHING OF A RAGE"</span> +</div> + +<p>Upon this we parted. That is to say, I walked on to the Uffizi, and he +vanished, in something of a rage, it seemed to me.</p> + +<p>I thought no more of the matter until a week ago, when, in accordance +with an agreement with the principal thereof, I left New York to go to +Chicago, to give a talk before a certain young ladies' boarding-school, +on the subject of "Muscular Romanticism." This was a lecture I had +prepared on a literary topic concerning which I had thought much. I had +observed that a great deal of the popularity of certain authors had come +from the admiration of young girls—mostly those at boarding-school, and +therefore deprived of real manly company—for a kind of literature +which, seeming to be manly, did not yet appeal very strongly to men. In +certain aspects it seemed strong. It presented heroes who were truly +heroic, and who always did the right thing in the right manner. Writers +who had more ink than blood to shed, and a greater knowledge of +etiquette than of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[Pg 94]</a></span> human nature, were making their way into temporary +fame by compelling chaps to do things they could not do. I rather like +to read of these fellows myself. I am no exception to the rule which +makes human beings admire, and very strongly, too, the fellow who poses +successfully. Indeed, I admire a <i>poseur</i> who can carry his pose through +without disaster to himself, because he has nothing to back him up, and, +wanting this, if by his assurance he can make himself a considerable +personage he falls short of genius only by lacking it. But this is apart +from the story. Whatever the general line of thought in the lecture, I +was, as I have said, on my way to Chicago to deliver it before a young +ladies' boarding-school. I should have been happy over the prospect, for +I have many warm friends in Chicago, there was a moderately large fee +ahead, and there is always a charm, as well, in the mere act of standing +on a dais before some two or three hundred young girls and having their +undivided attention for a brief hour. Yet, despite all this, I was +dreadfully depressed. Why, I could not at first surmise. It seemed to +me, however,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[Pg 95]</a></span> as though some horrid disaster were impending. I +experienced all the sensations which make four o'clock in the morning so +dreaded an hour to those who suffer from insomnia. My heart would race +ahead, thumping like the screw of an ocean greyhound, and then slow down +until it seemingly ceased to beat altogether; my hands were alternately +dry and hot, and clammy and cold; and then like a flash I knew why, and +what it was I feared. It suddenly dawned upon my mind that, by some +frightfully unhappy coincidence, the address of Miss Brockton's Academy +for Young Ladies, whither I was bound, was precisely the same as that I +had given the vulgar little spook at Florence as my own. I had entirely +forgotten the incident; and then, as I drew near to the spot whereon I +was to have been made to suffer through the machinations of the local +chapter of the Amalgamated Brotherhood of Spooks, my soul was filled +with dread. Had Grand-Master-Spook Jones's threat been merely idle? Had +he, even as I had done, dismissed the whole affair as unworthy of any +further care, or would he keep his word?—indeed, had he kept his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[Pg 96]</a></span> word, +and, through his followers in the Amalgamated Brotherhood, made himself +obnoxious to the residents of Number This, That Street?</p> + +<div class="figleft" style="width: 500px;"><a name="ILL_011" id="ILL_011"></a> +<img src="images/ill_011.jpg" width="500" height="316" alt="THE SPECTRE BRASS-BAND" title="" /> +<span class="caption">THE SPECTRE BRASS-BAND</span> +</div> + +<p>My nervous dread redoubled as I neared Chicago, and it was as much as I +could do, when the train reached Kalamazoo, to keep from turning back. +And the event showed that I suffered with only too much reason, for, on +my arrival at the home of the institution, I found it closed. The door +was locked, the shades pulled down, the building the perfect picture of +gloom. Miss Brockton, I was informed, was in a lunatic-asylum, and two +hundred and eighty-three young girls, ranging from fourteen to twenty +years of age, had been returned to their parents, the hair of every +mother's daughter of them blanched white as the driven snow. No one +knew, my informant said, exactly what had occurred at the academy, but +the fact that was plain to all was that, some two weeks previous to my +coming, the school had retired at the usual hour one night, in the very +zenith of a happy prosperity, and gathered at breakfast the next morning +to find itself wrecked, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[Pg 97]</a></span> bearing the outward semblance of a home for +indigent old ladies. No one, from Miss Brockton herself to the youngest +pupil, could give a coherent account of what had turned them all gray in +a single night, and brought the furrows of age to cheeks both old and +young, nor could any inducement be held out to any of the pupils to pass +another night within those walls. They one and all fled madly back to +their homes, and Miss Brockton's attempted explanation was so incredible +that, protesting her sanity, she was nevertheless placed under +restraint, pending a full investigation of the incident. She had, I was +informed, asserted that some sixty ghosts of most terrible aspect had +paraded through the house between the hours of midnight and 2 <span class="smcap">a.m</span>., +howling and shrieking and threatening the occupants in a most terrifying +fashion. At their head marched a spectre brass-band of twenty-four +pieces, grinding out with horrid contortions and grimaces the most awful +discords imaginable—discords, indeed, Miss Brockton had said, alongside +of which those of the most grossly material German street band in +creation became melodies of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[Pg 98]</a></span> soothing sweetness. The spectre rabble to +the rear bore transparencies, upon which were painted such legends as, +"Hail to Jones, our beloved Chief!" "Strike One, Strike All!" and, "Down +with Hawkins, the Grinder of Ghosts!" This last caused my heart to sink +still lower, for Hawkins was the name I had given the vision at +Florence, and I now understood all. It was only too manifest that I was +the cause of the undoing of these innocents.</p> + +<p>My lie to Jones had brought this disaster upon the Brockton Academy. The +dreadfulness of it appalled me, and I turned away, sick at heart, only +to find myself face to face with the horrid Jones, grinning like the cad +he had proved himself.</p> + +<p>"Well, you have done it," I cried, trembling with rage. "I hope you are +proud of yourself, venting your spite on an innocent woman and two +hundred and eighty-three defenceless girls."</p> + +<p>He laughed.</p> + +<p>"It was a pretty successful haunt," he said; "and possibly, now that +Mrs. Hawkins and your daughters—"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[Pg 99]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Who?" I cried. "Mrs. What, and my which?"</p> + +<p>"Your wife and children," he replied. "Now that the local chapter has +attended to them, maybe you'll apologize to me for your boorish behavior +at Florence."</p> + +<p>"Those people were nothing to me," said I. "That was a boarding-school +you have driven crazy. I was merely coming here to lecture—"</p> + +<p>I immediately perceived my mistake. He could now easily discover my +identity.</p> + +<p>"Oho!" said he, with a broad, grim smile. "Then you lied to me at +Florence, and you are not Hawkins, but the man they call the spook +Boswell among us?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, I am not Hawkins, and I am the other," I retorted. "Make the most +of it."</p> + +<p>"I thought that was rather a large family of girls for one man to have," +rejoined Jones. "But see here—are you going to apologize or not?"</p> + +<p>"I am not," I cried. "Never in this world nor in the next, you miserable +handful of miasma!"</p> + +<p>"Then, sir," said he, firmly, "I shall order a general strike for the +Amalgamated<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[Pg 100]</a></span> Brotherhood of Spooks, and the strike will be on until you +do apologize. Hereafter you will have to derive your inspiration from a +contemplation of unskilled spooks, and, if I understand matters, you +will find some difficulty in raising even these, for there is not one +that I know of who doesn't belong to the union."</p> + +<div class="figright" style="width: 374px;"><a name="ILL_012" id="ILL_012"></a> +<img src="images/ill_012.jpg" width="374" height="500" alt=""THE THING FELL OVER LIMP"" title="" /> +<span class="caption">"THE THING FELL OVER LIMP"</span> +</div> + +<p>With that he vanished, and I sadly made my way back to my home. Once at +my desk again, I turned my attention to the work I had promised you, +and, to my chagrin, discovered that while I had in mind all the +ingredients of a successful Christmas story, I could not write it, +because Grand-Master-Spirit Jones had kept his word. One and all, my +selected group of spooks went out on strike. They absolutely refused to +pose unless I apologized to Jones, and by no persuasions, threats, or +cajoling have I been able since to make them rise up before me, that I +might present them to my readers with that degree of fidelity which I +deem essential. My home, which was once a sort of spirit club, is now +bare of even a semblance of a ghost worth writing up, and, conjure as I +may, I cannot bring them<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[Pg 101]</a></span> back. The strike is on, and I am its victim. +But one miserable little specimen have I discovered since my interview +with Jones, and so unskilled is he in the science of spooking that I +give you my word he could not make a baby shiver on a dark night with +the temperature twenty below zero and the wind howling like a madman +without; and as for making hair stand on end, I tried him on a bit of +hirsute from the tail of the timidest fawn in the Central Park zoo, and +the thing fell over as limp as a strand from the silken locks of the +Lorelei.</p> + +<p>That, my dear sir, is why I cannot give you the story I have promised. I +hope you will understand that the fault is not my own, but is the result +of the evil tendency of the times, when the protective principle has +reached the ultimate of tyrannous absurdity.</p> + +<p>While Jones is at the head of the Amalgamated Brotherhood my case is +hopeless, for I shall never apologize, unless he promises to restore to +poor Mrs. Brockton and her two hundred and eighty-three pupils their +former youthful gayety and prosperity, which, I understand upon inquiry, +he is<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[Pg 102]</a></span> unable to do, since the needed patent reversible spook, who will +restore blanched hair to its natural color and return the bloom of youth +to furrowed cheeks, has not yet been invented; and I, the only person in +the world who might have invented it, am powerless, for while the +boycott hangs over my head, as you will see for yourself, I am bereft of +the raw material for the conducting of the necessary experiments.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[Pg 103]</a></span></p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[Pg 104]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="A_Glance_Ahead" id="A_Glance_Ahead"></a>A Glance Ahead</h2> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[Pg 105]</a></span></p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>A Glance Ahead</h2> + +<h3>BEING A CHRISTMAS TALE OF A.D. 3568</h3> + +<div class="figleft" style="width: 147px;"> +<img src="images/ill_013.jpg" width="147" height="150" alt="Decorative J" title="" /> +</div> + +<p>ust how it came about, or how he came to get so far ahead, Dawson never +knew, but the details are, after all, unimportant. It is what happened, +and not how it happened, that concerns us. Suffice it to say that as he +waked up that Christmas morning, Dawson became conscious of a great +change in himself. He had gone to bed the night before worn in body and +weary in spirit. Things had not gone particularly well with him through +the year. Business had been unwontedly dull, and his efforts to augment +his income by an occasional operation on the Street had brought about +precisely the reverse of that for which he had hoped. This morning, +however, all seemed right again. His troubles had in some way become +mere memories of a remote<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[Pg 106]</a></span> past. So far from feeling bodily fatigue, +which had been a pressingly insistent sensation of his waking moments of +late, he experienced a startling sense of absolute freedom from all +physical limitation whatsoever. The room in which he slept seemed also +to have changed. The pictures on the walls were not only not the same +pictures that had been there when he had gone to bed the night before, +but appeared, even as he watched them, to change in color and in +composition, to represent real action rather than a mere semblance +thereof.</p> + +<p>"Humph!" he muttered, as a lithograph copy of "The Angelus" before him +went through a process of enlivenment wherein the bell actually did +ring, the peasants bowing their heads as in duty bound, and then +resuming their work again. "I feel like a bird, but I must be a trifle +woozy. I never saw pictures behave that way before." Then he tried to +stretch himself, and observed, with a feeling of mingled astonishment +and alarm, that he had nothing to stretch with. He had no legs, no +arms—no body at all. He was about to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[Pg 107]</a></span> indulge in an ejaculation of +dismay, but there was no time for it, for, even as he began, a +terrifying sound, as of rushing horses, over his bed attracted his +attention. Investigation showed that this was caused by an engraving of +Gérôme's "Chariot Race," which hung on the wall above his pillow—an +engraving which held the same peculiar attributes that had astonished +him in the marvellous lithograph of "The Angelus" opposite. The thing +itself was actually happening up there. The horses and chariots would +appear in the perspective rushing madly along the course, and then, +reaching the limits of the frame, would disappear, apparently into thin +air, amid the shoutings and clamorings of the pictured populace. Three +times it looked as if a mass of horseflesh, chariots, charioteers, and +dust would be precipitated upon the bed, and if Dawson could have found +his head there is no doubt whatever that he would have ducked it.</p> + +<p>"I must get out of this," he cried. "But," he added, as his mind +reverted to his disembodied condition, "how the deuce can I? What'll I +get out with?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[Pg 108]</a></span></p> + +<p>The answer was instant. By the mere exercise of the impulse to be +elsewhere the wish was gratified, and Dawson found himself opposite the +bureau which stood at the far end of the room.</p> + +<p>"Wonder how I look without a body?" he thought, as he ranged his +faculties before the glass. But the mirror was of no assistance in the +settlement of this problem, for, now that Dawson was mere consciousness +only, the mirror gave back no evidence of his material existence.</p> + +<p>"This is awful!" he moaned, as he turned and twisted his mind in a mad +effort to imagine how he looked. "Where in thunder can I have left +myself?"</p> + +<p>As he spoke the door opened, and a man having the semblance of a valet +entered.</p> + +<div class="figright" style="width: 287px;"><a name="ILL_014" id="ILL_014"></a> +<img src="images/ill_014.jpg" width="287" height="500" alt=""'GOOD-MORNING, MR. DAWSON'"" title="" /> +<span class="caption">"'GOOD-MORNING, MR. DAWSON'"</span> +</div> + +<p>"Good-morning, Mr. Dawson," said the valet—for that is what the +intruder was—busying himself about the room. "I hope you find yourself +well this morning?"</p> + +<p>"I can't find myself at all this morning!" retorted Dawson. "What the +devil does this mean? Where's my body?"</p> + +<p>"Which one, sir?" the valet inquired, respectfully, pausing in his +work.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[Pg 109]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Which one?" echoed Dawson. "Wh—which—Oh, Lord! Excuse me, but how +many bodies do I happen to have?" he added.</p> + +<p>"Five—though a gentleman of your position, sir, ought to have at least +ten, if I may make so bold as to speak, sir," said the valet. "Your golf +body is pretty well used up, sir, you've played so many holes with it; +and I really think you need a new one for evening wear, sir. The one you +got from London is rather shabby, don't you think? It can't digest the +simplest kind of a dinner, sir."</p> + +<p>"The one I got from London, eh?" said Dawson. "I got a body in London, +did I? And where's the one I got in Paris?" he demanded, sarcastically.</p> + +<p>"You gave that to the coachman, sir," replied the valet. "It never +fitted you, and, as you said yourself, it was rather gaudy, sir."</p> + +<p>"Oh—I said that, did I? It was one of these loud, assertive, noisy +bodies, eh?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, sir, extremely so. None of your friends liked you in it, sir," +said the valet. "Shall I fetch your lounging body, or will<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[Pg 110]</a></span> you wish to +go to church this morning?" he continued.</p> + +<p>"Bring 'em all in; bring every blessed bone of 'em," said Dawson. "I +want to see how I look in 'em all; and bring me a morning paper."</p> + +<p>"A what, sir?" asked the valet, apparently somewhat perplexed by the +order.</p> + +<p>"A morning paper, you idiot!" retorted Dawson, growing angry at the +question. The man seemed to be so very stupid.</p> + +<p>"I don't quite understand what you wish, sir," said the valet, +apologetically.</p> + +<p>"Oh, you don't, eh?" said Dawson, amazed as well as annoyed at the man's +seeming lack of sense. "Well, I want to read the news—"</p> + +<p>"Ah! Excuse me, Mr. Dawson," said the valet. "I did not understand. You +want the <i>Daily Ticker</i>."</p> + +<p>"Oh, do I?" ejaculated Dawson. "Well, if you know what I want better +than I do, bring me what you think I want, and add to it a cup of coffee +and a roll."</p> + +<p>"I beg your pardon!" the valet returned.</p> + +<p>"A cup of coffee and a roll!" roared Dawson. "Don't you know what a cup +of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[Pg 111]</a></span> coffee and a roll is or are? Just ask the cook, will you—"</p> + +<p>"Ask the what, sir?" asked the valet, very respectfully.</p> + +<p>"The cook! the cook! the cook!" screamed Dawson. His patience was +exhausted by such manifest dulness.</p> + +<p>"I—I'm sincerely anxious to please you, Mr. Dawson," said his man; "but +really, sir, you speak so strangely this morning, I hardly know what to +do. I—"</p> + +<p>"Can't you understand that I'm hungry?" demanded Dawson.</p> + +<p>"Oh!" said the valet. "Hungry, of course; yes, you should be at this +time in the morning; but—er—your bodies have already been refreshed, +sir; I have attended to all that as usual."</p> + +<p>"Ah! You've attended to all that, eh? And I've breakfasted, have I?"</p> + +<p>"Your bodies have all been fed, sir," said the valet.</p> + +<p>"Never mind me, then," said Dawson. "Bring in those well-fed figures of +mine, and let me look at 'em. Meanwhile, turn on the—er—<i>Daily +Ticker</i>."</p> + +<p>The valet bowed, walked across the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[Pg 112]</a></span> room, and touched a button on a +board which had escaped Dawson's vigilant eye—possibly because his +vigilant eye was elsewhere—and, with a sigh of perplexity, left the +room. The response to the button pressure was immediate. A clicking as +of a stock-ticker began to make itself heard, and from one corner of the +bureau a strip of paper tape covered with letters of one kind and +another emerged. Dawson watched it unfold for a moment, and then, +approaching it, took in the types that were printed upon it. In an +instant he understood a portion of the situation at least, although he +did not wholly comprehend it. The date was December 25, 3568. He had +gone to bed on Christmas eve, 1898. What had become of the intervening +years he knew not—but this was undoubtedly the year of grace 3568, if +the ticker was to be believed—and tickers rarely lie, as most +stock-speculators know. Instead of living in the nineteenth century, +Dawson had in some wise leaped forward into the thirty-sixth.</p> + +<p>"Great Scott!" he cried. "Where have I been all this time? I don't +wonder my poor old body is gone!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[Pg 113]</a></span></p> + +<p>And then he started to peruse the news. The first item was a statement +of governmental intent. It read something like a court circular.</p> + +<p>"It is pleasant to announce on Christmas morning," he read, "that the +business of the Administration has proven so successful during the year +that all loyal citizens, on and after January 1, will be paid $10,000 a +month instead of only $7600, as hitherto. The United States Railway +Department, under the management of our distinguished Secretary of +Railways, Mr. Hankinson Rawley, shows a profit of $750,000,000,000 for +the year. Mr. Johnneymaker, Secretary of Groceries, estimates the +profits of his department at $600,000,000,000, and the Secretary of War +announces that the three highly successful series of battles between +France and Germany held at the Madison Square Garden have netted the +Treasury over $500,000 apiece—no doubt due to the fact that Emperor +Bismarck XXXVII. and King Dreyfus XLVIII. led their troops in person. +The showing of the Navy Department is quite as good. The good business +sense of Secretary Smithers<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[Pg 114]</a></span> in securing the naval fights between Russia +and the Anglo-Indians for American waters is fully established by the +results. The twenty encounters between his Indo-Britannic Majesty's +Arctic squadron and the Czar's Baltic fleet in Boston Harbor alone have +cleared for our citizens $150,000,000 above the guarantees to the two +belligerents; whereas the bombardment of St. Petersburg by the +Anglo-Indians under our management, thanks to the efficient service of +the Cook excursion-steamers direct to the scene of action, has brought +us in several hundred millions more. It should be quite evident by this +time that the Barnum & Bailey party have shown themselves worthy of the +people's confidence."</p> + +<p>Dawson forgot all about his possible bodily complications in reading +this. Here was the United States gone into business, and instead of +levying taxes was actually paying dividends. It was magnificent.</p> + +<p>One might have thought that the unexpected announcement of the +possession of an income of $120,000 a year would be sufficient to +destroy any interest in whatever<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[Pg 115]</a></span> other news the <i>Ticker</i> might present; +but with Dawson it only served to whet his curiosity, and he read on:</p> + +<p>"The acquirement of the department stores by the government in 2433 has +proven a decided success. Floorwalker-General Barker announces that the +last of the bonds given in payment for the good-will of these +institutions have matured and been paid off. This, too, out of the +profits of four centuries. It is true that the laws requiring citizens +to patronize these have helped much to bring about this desirable +effect, and some credit for the present wholly satisfactory condition of +affairs should be given to Senator Barca di Cinchona, of Peru, for +having, in 2830, introduced the bill which for the time being covered +him with execration. The profits for the coming year, on a conservative +estimate, cannot be less than eighteen trillions of dollars—which, as +our readers can see, will add much to the prosperity of the nation."</p> + +<p>"Worse and worse!" cried Dawson. "Floorwalker-General—compulsory +custom—eighteen trillions of dollars!" And then he read again:<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[Pg 116]</a></span></p> + +<p>"It will be with unexpected pleasure this Christmas morning, too, that +our citizens will read the President's proclamation, in view of the +unexampled prosperity of the past year, ordering a bonus of $15,000 gold +to be delivered to every family in the land as a Christmas present from +the Administration. This will relieve the vaults of the national +Treasury of a store of coin that has been somewhat embarrassing to +handle. The delivery-wagons will start on their rounds at six o'clock, +and it is expected that by midday the money will have been wholly +distributed. Residents of large cities are requested not to keep the +carriers waiting at the door, since, as will be readily understood, the +delivery of so much coin to so many millions of people is not an easy +task. It is suggested that barrels of attested capacity be left on the +walk, so that the coin may be placed into these without unnecessary +delay. Those who still retain the old-fashioned coal-chutes can have the +gold dumped into their cellars direct if they will simply have the +covers to the coal-holes removed."</p> + +<p>Dawson could hardly believe the announcement.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[Pg 117]</a></span> Here was $15,000 coming +to him this very morning. It was too good to be true, he thought; but +the news was soon confirmed by the valet, who interrupted his reading by +bursting breathlessly into the room.</p> + +<p>"What on earth are we going to do, Mr. Dawson?" he cried. "The Christmas +present has arrived. The cart is outside now."</p> + +<p>"Do?" retorted Dawson. "Do? Why, get a shovel and shovel it in. What +else?"</p> + +<p>"That's easier said than done, sir," said the valet. "The gold-bin is +chock-full already. You couldn't get a two-cent piece into the cellar, +much less three thousand five-dollar gold pieces. They'd ought to have +sent that money in certified checks."</p> + +<p>Dawson experienced a sensation of mirth. The idea of quarrelling as to +the form of a $15,000 gift struck him as being humorous.</p> + +<p>"Isn't there any place but the gold-bin you can put it in?" he demanded. +"How about the silver-bin, is that full?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know what you mean by the silver-bin," replied the valet. +"People don't use silver for money nowadays, sir."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[Pg 118]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Oh, they don't, eh? And what do they do with it—pave streets?"</p> + +<p>The valet smiled.</p> + +<p>"You are having your little joke with me this morning, Mr. Dawson," he +said, "or else you have forgotten that all we do with silver now is to +make it into bricks and build houses with 'em."</p> + +<p>"Well, I'll be hanged!" cried Dawson. "Really?"</p> + +<p>"Certainly, sir," observed the valet. "You must remember how silver +gradually cheapened and cheapened until finally it ruined the clay-brick +industry?"</p> + +<p>"Ah, yes," said Dawson. "I had temporarily forgotten. I do remember the +tendency of silver to cheapen, but the ruin of the brick industry has +escaped me. This house is—ah—built of silver bricks?"</p> + +<p>"Of course it is, Mr. Dawson. As if you didn't know!" said the valet, +with a deprecatory smirk.</p> + +<p>"Ah—about how much coal—I mean gold—have we in the cellar?" Dawson +asked.</p> + +<p>"In eagles we have $230,000, sir, but I think there's half a million in +fivers. I<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[Pg 119]</a></span> haven't counted up the $20 pieces for eight weeks, but I +think we have a couple of tons left, sir."</p> + +<p>"Then, James— Is your name James?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, sir—James, or whatever else you please, sir," said the valet, +accommodatingly.</p> + +<p>"Then, James, if I have all that ready cash in the cellar, you can have +the $15,000 that has just come. I—ah—I don't think I shall need it +to-day," said Dawson, in a lordly fashion.</p> + +<p>"Me, sir?" said James. "Thank you, sir, but really I have no place to +put it. I don't know what to do with what I have already on hand."</p> + +<p>"Then give it to the poor," said Dawson, desperately.</p> + +<p>Again the valet smiled. He evidently thought his master very queer this +morning.</p> + +<p>"There ain't any poor any more, sir," he said.</p> + +<p>"No poor?" cried Dawson.</p> + +<p>"Of course not," said James. "Really. Mr. Dawson, you seem to have +forgotten a great deal. Don't you remember how the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[Pg 120]</a></span> forty-seventh +amendment to the Constitution abolished poverty?"</p> + +<p>"I—ah—I am afraid, James," said Dawson, gasping for breath, "that I've +had a stroke of some kind during the night. All these things of which +you speak seem—er—seem a little strange to me, James. There seems to +be some lesion in my brain somewhere. Tell me about—er—how things are. +Am I still in the United States?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, sir, you are still in the United States."</p> + +<p>"And the United States is bounded on the north by—"</p> + +<p>"Sir, the United States has no northerly or southerly boundary. The +Western Hemisphere is now the United States."</p> + +<p>"And Europe?"</p> + +<p>"Europe has not changed much since 1900, sir. Don't you remember how in +the early years of the twentieth century the whole Eastern Hemisphere +became European?"</p> + +<p>"I remember that we took part in the division of China," said Dawson.</p> + +<p>"Oh yes," said James, "quite so. But in 1920 don't you recall how we +swapped<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[Pg 121]</a></span> off our share in China, together with the Dewey Islands, for +Canada and all other British possessions on this side of the earth?"</p> + +<p>"Dimly, James, only dimly," said Dawson, astonished, as well he might +be, at the news, since he had never even imagined anything of the kind, +although the Dewey Islands needed no explanation. "And we have +ultimately acquired the whole hemisphere?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, sir," replied James. "The South American republics came in +naturally in 1940, and the Mexican War in 2363 ended, as it had to, in +the conquest of Mexico."</p> + +<p>"And, tell me, what are we doing with Patagonia?"</p> + +<p>"One of the most flourishing States in the Union, Mr. Dawson. It was +made the Immigrant State, sir. All persons immigrating to the United +States, by an act of Congress passed in 2480, were compelled to go to +Patagonia first, and forced to live there for a period of five years, +studying American conditions, after which, provided they could pass an +examination showing themselves equal to the duties of citizenship,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[Pg 122]</a></span> they +were permitted to go wherever else in the States they might choose."</p> + +<p>"And suppose they couldn't pass?" Dawson asked.</p> + +<p>"They had to stay in Patagonia until they could," said James. "It is +known as the School of Instruction of the States. It is also our penal +colony. Instead of prisons, we have a section of Patagonia set apart for +the criminal element."</p> + +<p>"And the negro?" asked Dawson. "How about him?"</p> + +<p>"The negro, Mr. Dawson, if the histories say rightly, was an awful +problem for a great many years. He had so many good points and so many +bad that no one knew exactly what to do about him. Finally the +sixty-third amendment was passed, ordering his deportation to Africa. It +seemed like a hardship at first, but in 2863 he pulled himself together, +and to-day has a continent of his own. Africa is his, and when nations +are at war together they hire their troops from Africa. They make +splendid soldiers, you know."</p> + +<p>"What's become of Krüger and—er—Rhodes?" Dawson asked. "Turned +black?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[Pg 123]</a></span></p> + +<p>James laughed. "Oh, Rhodes and Krüger! Why, as I remember it, they +smashed each other. But that is ancient history, Mr. Dawson."</p> + +<p>"Jove!" cried Dawson. "What changes!" And then an idea crossed his mind. +"James," said he, "pack up my luggage. We'll go to London."</p> + +<p>"Where?" asked James.</p> + +<p>"To the British capital," returned Dawson.</p> + +<p>"Very well, sir," said James. "I will buy return tickets for Calcutta at +once, sir. Shall we go on the 1.10 or the 3.40? The 1.10 is an express, +but the 3.40 has a buffet."</p> + +<p>"Which is the quicker?" Dawson asked.</p> + +<p>"The 3.40 goes through in thirty-five minutes, sir. The 1.10 does it in +half an hour."</p> + +<p>"Great Scott!" said Dawson. "I think, on the whole, James, I won't try +it until to-morrow. Calcutta, eh!" he added to himself. "James," he +continued, "when did Calcutta become the British capital?"</p> + +<p>"In 2964, sir," said James.</p> + +<p>"And London?" queried Dawson.</p> + +<p>"I don't know much about those island<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[Pg 124]</a></span> towns, sir," said James. "It's +said that London was once the British capital, but sensible people don't +believe it much. Why, it hasn't more than twenty million inhabitants, +mostly tailors."</p> + +<p>"And how many citizens does a modern city have to have, to amount to +anything, James?" asked Dawson, faintly.</p> + +<p>"Well," said James scratching his head reflectively, "one hundred and +sixty or two hundred millions, according to the last census."</p> + +<p>"And New York reaches to where?" Dawson asked, in a tentative manner.</p> + +<p>"Oh, not very far. It's only third, you know, in population. The last +town annexed was Buffalo. The trouble with New York is that it has +reached the limits of the State on every side. We'd make it bigger if we +could, but Pennsylvania and Ohio and New Jersey won't give up an inch; +and Canada is very jealous of her old boundaries."</p> + +<p>"Wisely," said Dawson. And then he chose to be sarcastic. "Why don't +they fill in the ocean with ashes and extend the city over the Atlantic, +James? In an age<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[Pg 125]</a></span> of such marvellous growth so much waste space should +be utilized," he said.</p> + +<p>"Oh, it is," returned the valet. "You, of course, know that all the West +Indies are now connected by means of a cinder-track with the mainland?"</p> + +<p>"And is the bicycle-path to the Azores built yet?" demanded Dawson, +dryly.</p> + +<p>"No, Mr. Dawson," replied James. "That was given up in 2947, when the +patent balloon tires were invented, by means of which wheelmen can +scorch wherever they choose to through space, irrespective of roads."</p> + +<p>Dawson gasped. "For Heaven's sake, James," he cried, "I need air! Bring +up the bodies, and let me get aboard one of 'em and take a sleigh-ride +in Central Park. I can't stand this much longer."</p> + +<p>The valet laughed heartily.</p> + +<p>"Sleigh-rides have gone out in the Central Park, sir. When Mr. Bunkerton +started his earth-heating-and-cooling plant snow was practically +abolished hereabouts, Mr. Dawson," said he. "It's never cold enough for +snow—always about seventy degrees."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[Pg 126]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Ah! The earth is heated from a central station, eh?" asked Dawson.</p> + +<p>"Heated and cooled, sir. What with the hot and cold air running through +flues from Vesuvius and the north pole into a central reservoir, an +absolute mean temperature that never varies from one year's end to +another has been obtained. If you wish to take a sleigh-ride you'll have +to go to Mars, sir, and just at present the ships running both ways are +crowded. They always are during the holiday season. I doubt if you could +secure passage for a week."</p> + +<p>"Bring up the bodies!" roared Dawson. "I can't express myself in this +disembodied state. Mean temperature everywhere; income provided by +government; no taxes; no poor; gold dumped into the cellar; houses built +of silver; sleigh-riding at Mars. <i>Bring up the bodies!</i> Do you hear? +The mere idea is wrecking my mind. Give me something physical, and give +it to me quick."</p> + +<div class="figleft" style="width: 500px;"><a name="ILL_015" id="ILL_015"></a> +<img src="images/ill_015.jpg" width="500" height="439" alt=""THREE VILLANOUS-LOOKING BODIES, AND A FOURTH, WHICH +DAWSON RECOGNIZED AS HIS OWN"" title="" /> +<span class="caption">"THREE VILLANOUS-LOOKING BODIES, AND A FOURTH, WHICH +DAWSON RECOGNIZED AS HIS OWN"</span> +</div> + +<p>Dawson's emotion was so overpowering that the valet was really +frightened, and he fled below, whence he shortly reappeared, pushing +before him a small wheeling vehicle in which sat three villanous-looking +bodies,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[Pg 127]</a></span> and a fourth, which Dawson, with a gasp of relief, recognized +as his own.</p> + +<p>"I thought you said I had five of these things?" he demanded, inspecting +the bodies.</p> + +<p>"So you have, sir. The one you wear for evening, sir, is being pressed. +You fell asleep in it the other night, sir, and got it all wrinkled."</p> + +<p>"That golf fellow's a gay-looking prig!" laughed Dawson. "Let me try him +on."</p> + +<p>The valet stood the body up, and, opening a small door at the top of the +skull, ingeniously concealed by the hair, invited Dawson to enter. +Without even knowing how it came about, Dawson soon found himself in +full possession. Then he walked over to the glass and peered in at +himself.</p> + +<p>"Humph!" he said. "Not much to look at, am I? Bring me a driver."</p> + +<p>James obeyed, and Dawson tried the swing.</p> + +<p>"Why, the darned thing's left-handed!" he said, after some awkward work. +"I don't like that."</p> + +<p>"You picked it out for yourself, sir," replied the valet. "You said a +left-handed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[Pg 128]</a></span> player always rattled the other man, and, besides, it was +the only one you ever had that could keep its eye on the ball."</p> + +<p>"Let me out! Let me out!" screamed Dawson. "I don't like it, and I won't +have it. I'm suffocating. Open my head and let me out."</p> + +<p>The valet unfastened the little door, and Dawson emerged. "What's that +tough-looking one for?" he asked, after a pause, during which his brain +throbbed with the excitement of his novel experience.</p> + +<p>"Prize-fights," said James.</p> + +<p>"And the strange-looking thing that appears to have been designed for a +fancy-dress ball?"</p> + +<p>"Nobody knows what you intended that for, Mr. Dawson. You had it sent up +yourself from the bodydasher's last week, sir."</p> + +<p>"Well, take it away," roared Dawson. "This may be 3568, but I haven't +lost my self-respect entirely. Give it to—ah—give it to the children +to play with."</p> + +<p>"Really, Mr. Dawson," said the valet, anxiously, "wouldn't I better ring +up the President and have him send a doctor here from the Department of +Physic? You<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[Pg 129]</a></span> seem all astray this morning. There aren't any children any +more, sir."</p> + +<p>"Wha—what? No <i>children</i>?" cried Dawson.</p> + +<p>"They were abolished three centuries ago, sir," explained the valet.</p> + +<p>"Then how the deuce is the world populated?" demanded Dawson.</p> + +<p>"It was sufficiently populated at the time the law abolishing children +was passed, sir."</p> + +<p>"But people die, don't they?"</p> + +<p>"Never," replied the valet. "When Dr. Perkinbloom discovered how to +separate man's mental from his physical side, by means of this little +door in the cranium, all the perishable portions of man were done away +with, which is how it is, sir, that, for convenience' sake, after the +world was as full of consciousness as it could be comfortably, it was +decided not to have any more of it."</p> + +<p>"But these bodies, James—these bodies?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, they are manufactured—"</p> + +<p>"But how?"</p> + +<p>"That, sir, is the secret of the inventor," replied the valet, "a secret +which he is permitted<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[Pg 130]</a></span> by our government to retain, although the +factories are maintained under the supervision of the Tailor-General."</p> + +<p>Dawson was silent. He was absolutely overpowered by the revelation.</p> + +<p>"James," he said, after a pause of nearly five minutes, "let me—let me +back into my old self just for a moment, please. I—I feel faint, and +sort of uncomfortable. I feel lost, don't you know. I can grasp some of +your ideas, but—Christmas without children! It does not seem possible."</p> + +<p>The valet respectfully raised up the original Dawson, opened the little +door in the top of its head, and Dawson slipped in.</p> + +<p>"Now lock that door," said Dawson, quickly, once he was safe inside. The +valet obeyed nervously.</p> + +<p>"Give me the key," said Dawson. "Quick!"</p> + +<p>"Yes, sir," said James, handing it over, eying his master anxiously +meanwhile.</p> + +<p>Dawson looked at it. It was a fragile bit of gold, but gold did not +appeal to him at the moment, and before the valet could interfere to +stop him he had hurled it far out of the window into the busy street<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[Pg 131]</a></span> +below, where it was lost in the maze of traffic.</p> + +<p>"There," said Dawson; "I guess you'll have a hard time getting me out of +this again. You needn't try. And meanwhile, James, you can kick those +other bodies out into the street and dump the gold into the river; after +which you may present my compliments to your darned old government, and +tell it that it can go where the woodbine twineth. A government that +abolishes children can go hang, so far as I am concerned."</p> + +<p>James sprang towards Dawson as if he had been stung. His face grew white +with wrath.</p> + +<p>"Sir," he hissed, passionately, "the words that you have spoken are +treason, and merit punishment."</p> + +<p>"What's that?" cried Dawson, wrathfully.</p> + +<p>"Treason is what I said," retorted the valet, aroused. "If I thought you +were in your right mind and knew what you were saying, I should conduct +you forthwith to the police-station and inform against you to the +Secretary of Justice."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[Pg 132]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Get out of here, you—you—you impertinent ass!" cried Dawson. "Leave +the room! I—I—I discharge you! You forget your position!"</p> + +<p>"It is you who forget your position," returned the valet. "Discharge me! +I like that. You might just as well try to discharge the President of +the United States as me."</p> + +<p>Here the valet gave a scornful laugh, and leered maddeningly at Dawson. +The latter gazed at him coldly.</p> + +<p>"You are my servant?" he demanded.</p> + +<p>"By government appointment, at your service," replied James, with a +satirical bow. "You have overlooked the fact that the government since +1900 has gradually absorbed all business—every function of labor is now +governmental—and a man who arbitrarily bounces a cook, as the ancients +used to put it, strikes at the administration. Charges may be preferred +against a servant, but he cannot be deprived of his office except upon +the report of a committee to the Department of Intelligence. As the +President is your servant, so am I."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[Pg 133]</a></span></p> + +<p>Dawson sat down aghast, and clutched his forehead with his hands.</p> + +<p>"But," he cried, jumping to his feet, "that is intolerable. The logic of +the thing makes you, while your party is in power—"</p> + +<p>"Your governor," interrupted the valet. "Come," he added, firmly. "You +called me an impertinent ass a moment ago, and my patience is exhausted. +I shall inform against you. If you aren't sent to Patagonia before +night, my name is not James Wilkins."</p> + +<p>He laid his hand on Dawson's shoulder roughly. A shock, as of +electricity, went through Dawson's person. His old-time strength +returned to him, and, turning viciously upon the impudent fellow, he +grasped him about his middle with both arms, and, after a struggle that +lasted several minutes, dragged him to the window and hurled him, even +as he had the key, down into the street below.</p> + +<p>This done, he fell unconscious to the floor.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>A year has passed since the episode, and Dawson has become the happiest +man in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[Pg 134]</a></span> the world, for on his return to consciousness, instead of +finding himself in the hands of a revengeful valet, backed by a +socialistic government, the past had been restored to him and the future +relegated to its proper place. It was only the other night that he spoke +of the value of his experience, however.</p> + +<p>"It has made me happier, in spite of my many troubles," he said. "If +there's anything that can make the present endurable it is the thought<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[Pg 135]</a></span> +of what the future may have in store for us. A guaranteed income, and a +detachable spirit, and no taxes, and a variety of imperishable bodies +are all very nice, but servants with the manners of custom-house +officials, and children abolished! No, thank you. Curious dream, +though," he added, "don't you think?"</p> + +<p>"No," said I, "not very. It strikes me as a reasonable forecast of what +is likely to be if things keep on as they are going. Especially in that +matter of our servants."</p> + +<p>"Maybe it wasn't a dream," said Dawson. "Maybe, time having neither<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[Pg 136]</a></span> +beginning nor ending, the future is, and I stumbled into it."</p> + +<p>"Maybe so," said I. "I think, however, you'll have some difficulty in +finding that $15,000 again."</p> + +<p>"I don't want to," observed Dawson. "For don't you see I'd find James +Wilkins's dead body beside it, and, in spite of its drawbacks, I prefer +life in New York to the possibility of Patagonia."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[Pg 137]</a></span></p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[Pg 138]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="Hans_Pumpernickels_Vigil" id="Hans_Pumpernickels_Vigil"></a>Hans Pumpernickel's Vigil</h2> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[Pg 139]</a></span></p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>Hans Pumpernickel's Vigil</h2> + +<div class="figleft" style="width: 149px;"> +<img src="images/ill_016.jpg" width="149" height="150" alt="Decorative H" title="" /> +</div> + +<p>ans Pumpernickel was for many years regarded by his friends and +neighbors in the little town of Schnitzelhammerstein-on-the-Zugvitz as +the most industrious boy they had ever known. Where Hans came from no +one knew. He had appeared in Schnitzelhammerstein-on-the-Zugvitz when he +was not more than six years old. His name was all that he would confide +to the curious.</p> + +<p>"I'm Hans Pumpernickel," he had answered, in response to the inquiries +of the inquisitive. "But where I came from is neither here nor there."</p> + +<p>Some said that this statement was only half true, though many others +believed it wholly. Certain it is, however, that if one has a +hailing-place, a native town, it must be either here or there. If it is +not here, it must be there, said some; but Hans never<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[Pg 140]</a></span> took the trouble +to say anything further on the subject.</p> + +<p>"And what are you going to do to live?" asked the Mayor's wife, who took +a great interest in the pretty little stranger when first she saw him.</p> + +<p>"Breathe," said Hans, simply. "For you see, ma'am, I cannot live without +breathing, and so I have decided to do that."</p> + +<p>The Mayor said that this was impudence; but the good lady, who had made +that somewhat crabbed old person's life more happy than he deserved, +only laughed, and said that she thought it was droll, and only wished +her little boy, who was stupid like his father, could have said +something as bright.</p> + +<p>"But you cannot breathe unless you eat," the Mayor's wife had said, when +Hans had spoken. "What are you going to eat?"</p> + +<p>"I do not know," said Hans. "What have you got?"</p> + +<p>Again the Mayor growled "Impudence!" and again did the good lady laugh.</p> + +<p>"We have sausages and cake and apples," she said.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[Pg 141]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Then," said Hans, "I will have some sausages and cake and apples."</p> + +<p>"But we don't give away things of that kind," said the lady. "Those who +would eat must work."</p> + +<p>"I cannot work unless I breathe," said Hans; "and you yourself have said +that I cannot breathe unless I eat. Therefore, if you would have me +work, you must let me eat."</p> + +<p>"Logic!" cried the Mayor, beginning to take an interest in Hans. "Give +the boy an apple."</p> + +<p>So Hans was given the apple, and he ate it so thoroughly that the Mayor +decided that he was just the boy to do little errands for him, for +thoroughness was a quality he greatly admired, and from that time on +Hans lived in the Mayor's family; and when the stupid little son of that +exalted personage ran away from home and became a cabin-boy on a +man-of-war, the Mayor adopted Hans, and he took the place of the boy who +had gone away, refusing, however, much to the Mayor's sorrow, to change +his name from Pumpernickel to Ehrenbreitstein, which happened to be the +last name of the Mayor.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[Pg 142]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Pumpernickel was I born," said Hans, "and Pumpernickel will I remain. +Why should I, a Pumpernickel who am bound to make a name for myself +sooner or later, take the name of some one else, and shed the lustre of +my fame upon <i>his</i> family?"</p> + +<p>All of which was very sensible, though Mayor Ehrenbreitstein did not +appreciate that fact.</p> + +<p>So Hans went on making himself very useful to the Mayor and his wife. He +would shell pease in the morning for the Lady Mayor, and in the +afternoon he would write speeches for the Mayor to deliver on public +occasions; and people said that as a public speaker the Mayor was +improving, while all who had the pleasure of dining with the head of the +city frequently complimented the Lady Mayor upon the excellence of the +pease served at her banquets. In every way was Hans satisfactory to all +for whom he worked. After a while such confidence did he inspire in his +employers that Frau Ehrenbreitstein let him do all her shopping for her, +and most of the Mayor's duties were intrusted to the boy. He could +match<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[Pg 143]</a></span> ribbons and veto or approve the doings of the aldermen of +Schnitzelhammerstein-on-the-Zugvitz with equal perfection. The ribbons +he matched and the worsteds he chose for his kind mistress always looked +well, and the lady soon became in the popular estimation a person of +unusually good taste, while the vetoes and other public papers were so +well phrased that even his opponents were forced to admit that the +magistrate was right.</p> + +<p>Hans bore all his prosperity with modesty, and for the fifteen years +during which he faithfully served his employers he developed no conceit +whatsoever, as many a weaker boy might reasonably have done, and, +barring one peculiarity, none of the eccentricities of the truly great +ever manifested themselves. This one peculiarity excited much curiosity +among those who had heard of it, but despite all questionings Hans +declined to say why he had it. It was a peculiarity that was indeed +peculiar. It was noticed that from the time he first ate with the family +of the Mayor he would set apart one full third of every dainty that was +placed upon his plate, and when the meal was over he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[Pg 144]</a></span> would take it away +from the table rolled up in a napkin. For instance, if at breakfast +three sausages fell to the lot of Hans, he would eat two of them, and +the third he would wrap up in a napkin, and take it to his room. So it +was with everything else that came his way. Out of every three apples +one would go untouched into the napkin; and later, when he began to earn +a little money, one-third of it also would be saved. It was noticed, +too, that on every Friday afternoon Hans would send away a big box by +the express carrier, but to whom the box was sent no one could learn. +The express carrier would not tell, and Hans himself, when asked about +it, would say to the one who asked him:</p> + +<p>"Let me see. You are in what business?"</p> + +<p>"I am a baker," or, perhaps, "I am a butcher," the inquisitive one would +say.</p> + +<p>"Then," said Hans, "if I were you, I would stick to baking or to +butching, and not embark on enterprises which are not allied to the +making of bread or the slaughter of roast beef."</p> + +<p>The people so addressed would turn away chagrined, but with proper +apologies; and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[Pg 145]</a></span> when they apologized Hans would say, with a smile, "Pray +don't mention it," so kindly that the meddlers would be pacified, and no +ill feeling ever resulted from the young boy's request that they mind +their own business.</p> + +<p>At the end of the fifteen years of faithful work, however, a great +change seemed to come over Hans. He began to show a great distaste for +the labors that he had hitherto spent his time in performing. When Frau +Ehrenbreitstein gave him a skein of pink zephyr to take to town to +match, he would try to beg off, and when he could not beg off he did +worse. He went to town and brought back, not the new skein of pink +zephyr that his mistress wanted, but a roll of green and yellow +wall-paper, and, when she expressed surprise, he said that that was the +best he could do.</p> + +<p>"But I didn't want wall-paper," cried the Lady Mayor.</p> + +<p>"Well, you never told me that," said Hans. "You said, I admit, that you +wanted pink zephyr; but then one might wish for that and still want a +roll of green and yellow wall-paper."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[Pg 146]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Are you crazy?" returned the good lady, much mystified.</p> + +<p>"I think not; and the mere fact that I <i>think</i> not shows that I am not," +Hans replied, "for the very good reason that if I had lost my mind I +could not think at all."</p> + +<p>"Very well," said Frau Ehrenbreitstein, reassured by this perfectly +logical answer. "You may go and shell the pease."</p> + +<p>Whereupon Hans went down into the kitchen and shelled the pease, only he +retained the pods this time, and threw the pease to the pigs.</p> + +<p>"It is very evident to me," observed his good mistress to her husband +that night, when the pods were served at dinner, "that Hans Pumpernickel +has something on his mind."</p> + +<p>"Yes, my dear," answered the Mayor. "I know he has, and I know what it +is."</p> + +<p>"He is not in love, I hope?" said Frau Ehrenbreitstein.</p> + +<p>"Not he!" cried the Mayor. "He is thinking about what I shall say to the +Emperor next week when his Imperial Majesty and the Chancellor pass +through Schnitzelhammerstein-on-the-Zugvitz on their<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[Pg 147]</a></span> way to the +Schutzenfest at Würtemburger-Darmstadt. I have told Hans that the +imperial train stops at our station to water the engine, and during the +five minutes or so in which the Emperor honors our burg with his +presence it is only fitting that I, as Lord Mayor, should greet him with +an address of welcome. It will be the opportunity of my life, and the +boy is trying to enable me to be equal to it. Heaven forbid that he +should fail!"</p> + +<p>This explanation eased the mind of the Mayor's wife, and she refrained +from asking Hans to shell pease and match zephyrs until after the +Emperor had come and gone. Unfortunately, however, this was not the +real cause of the trouble with Hans, as the speech he wrote for the +Mayor to deliver to his imperial master showed; for, to the dismay +of Mayor Ehrenbreitstein, when the Emperor's train stopped at +Schnitzelhammerstein-on-the-Zugvitz, and he had unrolled the address +Hans had written, he discovered that Hans had not written a speech at +all, but a comic poem, in which his Imperial Majesty was referred to as +a royal turkey-cock, with a crow like the squeak<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[Pg 148]</a></span> of a penny flute. The +poor Mayor nearly expired when his eyes rested on the lines Hans had +written; but he went bravely ahead and made up a speech of his own, +which his Majesty fortunately did not hear, owing to the noise made by +the steam escaping from the engine whistle.</p> + +<p>When the Emperor had departed, the Mayor returned home in a rage, and +you may be sure that Hans could not get in a word edgewise even until +his employer had told him what he thought of him.</p> + +<p>"Excuse me," said Hans, when the Mayor had finished, after an hour's +angry tirade—"excuse me, but would you mind saying that over again? I +was thinking of something else."</p> + +<p>"Say it over again?" shrieked the Mayor. "Never. I shall never speak to +you again."</p> + +<p>"But what have I done?" asked Hans, so innocently that the Mayor +relented and repeated his tirade, and then Hans broke down.</p> + +<p>"Did I do that?" he said. "Then it is very plain that I need a +vacation."</p> + +<p>"I think so," retorted the Mayor. "You may take the next thousand years +without pay."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[Pg 149]</a></span></p> + +<p>"One year will be sufficient," said Hans. "Though I thank you just as +kindly for the others." Then he wept, and the Mayor's wife took pity on +him, and asked him to tell her what it was that had so occupied his mind +of late that he had committed so many grievous errors, and Hans told her +all.</p> + +<p>"It's my great-great-great-great-great-granduncle's fault," he sobbed.</p> + +<p>"Your what?" cried his mistress.</p> + +<div class="figright" style="width: 315px;"><a name="ILL_017" id="ILL_017"></a> +<img src="images/ill_017.jpg" width="315" height="500" alt=""HE'S THE WORST BABY YOU EVER SAW"" title="" /> +<span class="caption">"HE'S THE WORST BABY YOU EVER SAW"</span> +</div> + +<p>"My great-great-great-great-great-granduncle, the perpetual baby," said +Hans, wiping his eyes. "He's the worst baby you ever saw. He yells and +howls and howls and yells all the time, and if he is left alone or put +down for a moment he has a convulsion of rage that is terrible to +witness. He breaks his toys the minute he gets them, and for fifteen +years he has made a slave of my poor father, who has not let the child +out of his lap in all that time."</p> + +<p>"Fifteen years?" cried Frau Ehrenbreitstein. "What <i>do</i> you mean? How +old is this baby?"</p> + +<p>"Three hundred and forty-seven years, six months, and eight days," said +Hans,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[Pg 150]</a></span> ruefully, consulting a pocket calendar he had with him. "During +my time with you," he added, "I have supported them. Father is alone in +the house with the infant; we could not afford a servant, and the child +yells so all the time that my father cannot get employment anywhere. It +was this that drove me out into the world to earn a living for them. +When I got only my food and bed, I shared my food with them, sending off +a third of it every week. Then when money came along, I gave them a +third of that; but the baby is as bad as ever, and father has written to +say that he can stand it no more, and I must return home or he will send +the baby to me here."</p> + +<p>"But, mercy me!" roared the Mayor, who had come in and heard the story, +"why doesn't the child grow?"</p> + +<p>"He can't," sobbed Hans. "His mother once made a wish that he might +always remain a baby, and it happened that she made the wish at the one +instant of the year when all wishes are granted by the fairies."</p> + +<p>"Nonsense," said the Mayor. "There are no fairies."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[Pg 151]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Indeed, there are," said Hans. "There is my +great-great-great-great-great-granduncle, the baby, to prove it. He's a +little tyrant, and he has worn out every generation of the family since, +making them look after him. It's terrible, and in trying to think what +to do to relieve my poor father and still support myself I have +neglected everything else, and that is why I—boo-hoo!—I wrote the +wall-paper and matched a pink Emperor with a green and yellow comic +poem."</p> + +<p>"Poor lad!" said the Mayor's wife. "Poor lad! It is a cruel story."</p> + +<p>"It is that," agreed the Mayor. "But cheer up, Hans. If there is an +instant in every year when wishes are always granted by the fairies, why +don't you wish the baby as he ought to be at the right moment?"</p> + +<p>"That's the trouble," said Hans, sadly. "There are many instants in a +year, and the lucky moment changes every twelve months. It is never the +same. I wish, and <i>wish</i>, but never at the right moment. Sometimes I +forget it; the instant comes and is gone, though I don't know it."</p> + +<p>"Well," said the Mayor's wife, "there<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[Pg 152]</a></span> is but one thing you can do. That +is, to devote a whole year to nothing else but that wish. I shall fix +you up a chair in the kitchen, give you a pipe, and on New-Year's +morning you may begin. You shall have no other duties but to wish for a +restoration of things as they should be. You will be sure to hit the +right moment if you are faithful to your work."</p> + +<p>"As I always am," said Hans, drying his tears.</p> + +<div class="figright" style="width: 391px;"><a name="ILL_018" id="ILL_018"></a> +<img src="images/ill_018.jpg" width="391" height="500" alt=""IT WAS A WEARY VIGIL, BUT HE WAS TRUE"" title="" /> +<span class="caption">"IT WAS A WEARY VIGIL, BUT HE WAS TRUE"</span> +</div> + +<p>And so it was that Hans Pumpernickel began his long vigil. He sat in the +kitchen, silent, smoking, gazing at the ceiling, wishing. It was weary +work indeed, but he was true, and last year, on the sixteenth day of +July, at half-past one o'clock in the morning, his fidelity was +rewarded, though he did not know it until the next morning, when the +expressman brought him a message from his father to the following +effect:</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 18em;">"<i>July 16, 1893.</i></span><br /> +</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"<span class="smcap">My dear Hans</span>,—Don't worry; everything is serene again. At +half-past one o'clock this morning, just as the clock +struck, your great-great-great-great-great-granduncle began +to grow at a most rapid pace. I had hardly time to drop him +when he was taller than<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[Pg 153]</a></span> I, and twice as stout as I am told +you are. A beard sprouted on his face with equal rapidity, +and, just as I thought to ask him what he was going to do +next, he gave a deafening shout of laughter and disappeared +entirely. The whole affair didn't last more than five +seconds. The spell has been removed, and the perpetual baby +is no more. Come over and see me, and we'll celebrate our +emancipation.</p></div> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 18em;">"Affectionately your daddy,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 18em;">"<span class="smcap">Rupert Pumpernickel</span>."</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>Hans read this letter with a joyful face, and rushed up-stairs to tell +the Mayor and his faithful helpmate of his good fortune, and there was +great rejoicing for several days. Then Hans visited his father, and the +two happy creatures spent weeks and weeks rambling contentedly about the +country together, at the end of which time Hans returned to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[Pg 154]</a></span> +Schnitzelhammerstein-on-the-Zugvitz, where, the Emperor having retired +the Mayor on a liberal pension for his attentions and kind expressions +of regard in the speech Hans did not write for him, he was chosen to +succeed his former master.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[Pg 155]</a></span></p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[Pg 156]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="The_Affliction_of_Baron_Humpfelhimmel" id="The_Affliction_of_Baron_Humpfelhimmel"></a>The Affliction of Baron Humpfelhimmel</h2> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[Pg 157]</a></span></p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>The Affliction of Baron Humpfelhimmel</h2> + +<div class="figleft" style="width: 150px;"> +<img src="images/ill_019.jpg" width="150" height="149" alt="Decorative E" title="" /> +</div> + +<p>verybody said it was an extraordinary affair altogether, and for once +everybody was right. Baron Humpfelhimmel himself would say nothing about +it for two reasons. The first reason was that nobody dared ask him what +he thought about it, and the second was that he was too proud to speak +to anybody concerning any subject whatsoever, unless questioned. That he +always laughed, no matter what happened, was the melancholy fact, and +had been a melancholy fact from his childhood's earliest hour. He was +born laughing. He laughed in church, he laughed at home. When his father +spanked him he roared with laughter, and when he suffered from the +measles he could not begin to restrain his mirth.</p> + +<p>The situation seemed all the more singular<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[Pg 158]</a></span> when it was remembered that +Rudolf von Pepperpotz, the previous Baron Humpfelhimmel, and father of +the Laughing Baron, as he was called, was never known to smile from his +childhood's earliest hour to his dying day, and, strangest of all, was a +far more amiable person, despite his solemnity, than the present Baron +for all his laughter.</p> + +<p>"What does it mean, do you suppose?" Frau Ehrenbreitstein once asked of +Hans Pumpernickel, her husband's private secretary, of whom you have +already had some account.</p> + +<p>"I cannot tell," Hans had answered, "and I have my reason for saying +that I cannot tell," he added, significantly.</p> + +<p>"What is that reason, Hans?" asked the good lady, her curiosity aroused +by the boy's manner.</p> + +<p>"It is this," said Hans, his voice sinking to a whisper. "I cannot tell, +because—because I do not know!"</p> + +<p>And this, let me say in passing, was why Hans Pumpernickel was thought +by all to be so wise. He had a reason always for what he did, and was +ever willing to give it.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[Pg 159]</a></span></p> + +<p>"They say," the good Lady Ehrenbreitstein went on—"they do say that +when last winter the Baron while hunting boars was thrown from his +horse, breaking his leg and two of his ribs, they could not be set +because of his convulsions of laughter, though for my part I cannot see +wherein having one's leg and ribs broken is provocative of merriment."</p> + +<p>"Nor I," quoth Hans. "I have an eye for jokes. In most things I can see +the fun, but in the breaking of one's bones I see more cause for tears +than smiles."</p> + +<p>And it was true. As Frau Ehrenbreitstein had heard, the Baron +Humpfelhimmel had broken one leg and two ribs—only it was while hunting +wolves and not in a boar chase—and when the Emperor's physician, who +was one of the party, came to where the suffering man lay he found him +roaring with laughter.</p> + +<p>"Good!" cried the physician, leaning over his prostrate form. "I am glad +to see that you are not hurt. I feared you were injured."</p> + +<p>"I am injured," the Baron replied, with a loud laugh. "My left +leg—ha-ha-ha!—is nearly killing me—hee-hee!—with<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[Pg 160]</a></span> p-pain, and +if I mistake not, either my heart—ha-ha-ha-ha!—or my +ribs—hee-hee-hee!—are broken in nineteen places."</p> + +<p>Then he went off into such an explosion of mirth as not only appeared +unseemly, but also deprived him of the power of speech for five or six +minutes.</p> + +<p>"I fail to see the joke," said the physician, as the Baron's laughter +echoed and reechoed throughout the forest.</p> + +<p>"Th-there—hee-hee!—there isn't a-any joke," the Baron answered, +smiling. "Confound you—ha-ha-ha-ha!—oho-ho-ho!—can't you see I'm +suffering?"</p> + +<p>"I see you are laughing," the physician replied—"laughing as if you +were reading a comic paper full of real jokes. What are you laughing +at?"</p> + +<p>"Ha-ha! I—I d-dud-don't know," stammered the Baron, vainly endeavoring +to suppress his mirth. "I—I don't feel like laughing—hee-hee!—but I +can't help it." And off he went into another gale. Nor did he stop +there. The physician tried vainly to quiet him down so that he could set +the fractured bones, but in spite of all he could do for him the Baron +either would<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[Pg 161]</a></span> not or could not stop laughing. When he was able to move +about again it was only with a limp, and even that appeared to have its +humorous side, for whenever the Baron appeared on the public streets he +was always smiling, and when the Mayor ventured to express his sympathy +with him over his misfortune the Baron laughed again, and mirthfully +requested him to mind his own business.</p> + +<p>Then it was recalled how that ten years before, when the famous Von +Pepperpotz Castle was destroyed by fire, the Baron was found writing in +his study by the messenger who brought the news.</p> + +<p>"Baron," the messenger cried—"Baron, the château is burning. The flames +have already destroyed the armory, and are now eating their way through +the corridors to the state banquet-hall."</p> + +<p>The Baron looked the messenger in the eye for an instant, and then his +face wreathed with smiles.</p> + +<div class="figright" style="width: 353px;"><a name="ILL_020" id="ILL_020"></a> +<img src="images/ill_020.jpg" width="353" height="500" alt=""MY CASTLE'S BURNING, EH? HA-HA!"" title="" /> +<span class="caption">"MY CASTLE'S BURNING, EH? HA-HA!"</span> +</div> + +<p>"My castle's burning, eh? Ha-ha-ha!" was what he said; and then, rising +hurriedly from his desk, he hastened, shouting with laughter, to the +scene, where no one worked<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[Pg 162]</a></span> harder than he to stay the devastating +course of the flames.</p> + +<p>"You seem to be pleased," said one who noticed his merriment.</p> + +<p>The Baron's answer was a blow which knocked the fellow down, and then, +striking him across the shoulders with his staff, he walked away, +muttering to himself:</p> + +<p>"Pleased! Ha-ha-ha! Does ruin please anybody—tee-hee-hee! If the churls +only—tee-hee!—only knew—ha-ha-ha-ha!"</p> + +<p>That was it! If they only knew! And no one did know until after the +Baron had died without children—for he had never married—and all +his possessions and papers became the property of the state. Through +these papers the secret of the Baron's laughter became known to the +good people of Schnitzelhammerstein-on-the-Zugvitz, and through them +it became known to me. Hans Pumpernickel himself told me the tale, +and as he has risen to the exalted position of Mayor of +Schnitzelhammerstein-on-the-Zugvitz, an honor conferred only on the +truly good and worthy, I have no reason to doubt that the story is in +every way truthful.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[Pg 163]</a></span></p> + +<p>"When Baron Humpfelhimmel died," said Hans, as he and I walked together +along the beautiful sylvan path that runs by the side of the Zugvitz +River, "I am sorry to say there were few mourners. A man who laughs, as +a rule, is popular, but the man who laughs always, without regard to +circumstances, makes enemies. One learns to love a person who laughs at +one's jests, but one who laughs at funerals, at conflagrations, at +beggars, at the needy and the distressed, does not become universally +beloved. Such was the habit of Fritz von Pepperpotz, last of the Barons +Humpfelhimmel. If you were to go to him with a funny story, none would +laugh more heartily than he; but equally loud would he laugh were you to +say to him that you had a racking headache, and should it chance that +you were to inform him you had been desperately ill, his mirth would +know no bounds. Even in his greatest frenzies of rage he would smirk and +laugh, and so it happened that the popularity which you would expect +would go with a mirthful disposition was the last thing in the world he +could hope for. I do<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[Pg 164]</a></span> not exaggerate when I say that Baron Humpfelhimmel +could not have been elected office-boy to the Mayor on a popular vote, +even if there were no opposing candidate. Now that it is all over, +however, and we know the truth, we have changed our minds about it, and +already several hundred of our citizens have raised a fund of twenty +marks to go towards putting up a monument to the memory of the Laughing +Baron.</p> + +<p>"Fritz von Pepperpotz, my friend," said Hans to me, in explanation of +the situation, "laughed because he could not help it, as a statement +found among his papers after he died showed. The statement contained the +whole story, and in some of its details it is a sad one. It was all the +fault of the grandfather of the late Baron that he could do nothing but +laugh all his days, that he died unmarried, and that the name of Von +Pepperpotz has died off the face of the earth forever, unless some one +else chooses to assume that name, which, I imagine, no one is crazy +enough to do. The only thing that could reconcile me to such a name +would be the estates that formerly went with it, but now that they have +become the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[Pg 165]</a></span> property of the government the house has lost all of its +attractions, retaining, however, every bit of its homeliness. +Pumpernickel is bad enough, but it is beautiful beside Von Pepperpotz."</p> + +<p>Here Hans sighed, and to comfort him, rather than to say anything I +really meant, I observed that I thought Pumpernickel was a good strong +name.</p> + +<p>"Yes," Hans said, with a pleased smile. "It certainly is strong. I have +had mine twenty-five years now, and it doesn't show the slightest sign +of wear. It's as good as the day it was made. But to return to the Von +Pepperpotz family and its mysterious affliction.</p> + +<p>"According to the Baron's statement, while he himself could not restrain +his mirth, no matter how badly he felt, his father, Rupert von +Pepperpotz, could never smile, although he was a man of most genial +disposition. Just as Fritz was ushered into the world, grinning like a +Cheshire cheese—"</p> + +<p>"Cat," I suggested, noting Hans's error.</p> + +<p>"Cat, is it?" he said. "Well, now, do<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[Pg 166]</a></span> you know I am glad to hear that? +I always supposed the term used was cheese, and positively I have lain +awake night after night trying to comprehend how a cheese could grin, +and finally I gave it up, setting it down as one of the peculiarities of +the English language. If it's Cheshire cat, and not Cheshire cheese, +why, it's all clear as a pikestaff. But, as I was saying, just as Fritz +was born grinning like a Cheshire cat, his father Rupert was born +frowning apparently with rage. He was the most ill-natured-looking baby +you ever saw, according to the chronicles. Nothing seemed to please him. +When you or I would have cooed, Rupert von Pepperpotz would wrinkle up +his forehead until the furrows, if his nurse tells the truth, were deep +enough to hide letters in.</p> + +<div class="figleft" style="width: 333px;"><a name="ILL_021" id="ILL_021"></a> +<img src="images/ill_021.jpg" width="333" height="500" alt=""RUPERT WAS ALWAYS MERRY"" title="" /> +<span class="caption">"RUPERT WAS ALWAYS MERRY"</span> +</div> + +<p>"And yet he was rarely cross, and never disobedient. It was the +strangest thing in the world. Here was a being who always frowned and +never laughed, and yet who was as obliging in his actions as could be. +As he grew older his active amiability increased, but his frown grew +more terrible than ever. He became a great wit. As<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[Pg 167]</a></span> he walked through +the streets of Schnitzelhammerstein-on-the-Zugvitz he was always merry, +though none would have guessed it to look at him. He had a pleasant +voice, and his neighbors all said it was a most startling thing to hear +in the distance a jolly, roistering song, and then to walk along a +little way and see that it was this forbidding-looking person who was +doing the singing.</p> + +<p>"How Rupert got Wilhelmina de Grootzenburg to become his wife, +considering his seeming solemnity, which made him appear to be +positively ugly, nobody ever knew. It is probable, however, that it was +sympathy which moved her to like him, unless it was that his ugliness +fascinated her. Rupert himself said that it was not sympathy for his +inability to laugh or smile, because he did not want sympathy for that. +He didn't feel badly about it himself. He never had smiled, and so did +not know the pleasure of it. Consequently he didn't miss it. Smiling was +an idiotic way of expressing pleasure anyhow, he said. Why just because +a man thought of a funny idea he should stretch his mouth he couldn't<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[Pg 168]</a></span> +see. No more could he understand why it was necessary to show one's +appreciation of a funny story by shaking one's stomach and saying Ha-ha! +On the whole, he said that he was satisfied. He could talk and could +tell people he enjoyed their stories without having to shake himself or +disturb the corners of his mouth. When little Fritz was born, and did +nothing but laugh even when he had the colic, the solemn-looking Rupert +observed that the baby simply proved the truth of what he said.</p> + +<p>"'What a donkey the child is,' he cried, 'to spoil his pretty face by +stretching his mouth so that you almost fear his ears will drop into it! +And those wild whoops, which you call laughter, what earthly use are +they? I can't see why, if he is glad about something, he can't just say, +"I'm glad about so and so," mildly, instead of making me deaf with his +roars. Truly, laughter is not what it is cracked up to be.'</p> + +<p>"'Ah, my dear Rupert,' Wilhelmina, his wife, had said, 'you do not +really know what you are talking about! If you could enjoy the sensation +of laughing once you would never wish to be without it.'<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[Pg 169]</a></span></p> + +<p>"'Nonsense!' replied the Baron. 'My father never laughed, so why should +I wish to?'</p> + +<p>"Now, then," continued Hans, "according to Fritz von Pepperpotz's +statement, there was where Rupert was wrong. Siegfried von Pepperpotz +had known what it was to laugh, but he had not known when to laugh, +which was why the family of Von Pepperpotz was afflicted with a curse, +which only the final dying out of the family could remove, and there lay +the solution of the mystery. It seems that Siegfried von Pepperpotz, +grandfather of Fritz and father of Rupert, had been a wild sort of a +youth, who smiled when he wished and frowned when he wished, no matter +what the occasion may have been, and he smiled once too often. A +miserable-looking figure of a man once passed through the village of +Schnitzelhammerstein-on-the-Zugvitz, selling sugar dolls and other +sweets. To Siegfried and his comrades it seemed good to play a prank on +the old fellow. They sent him two miles off into the country, where, +they said, was a rich countess, who would buy his whole stock, when in +reality there was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[Pg 170]</a></span> no rich countess there at all, so that the old man +had his trouble for his pains.</p> + +<p>"That he was a magician they did not know, but so he was, and in those +days magicians could do everything. Of course he was angry at the +deception, and on his return to Schnitzelhammerstein-on-the-Zugvitz he +sent for the young men, and got all of them to apologize and buy his +wares except Siegfried. Siegfried not only refused to apologize and buy +the old man's candies, but had the audacity to laugh in his face, and +tell him about a wealthy old duke who lived two miles out on the other +side of the village, which the magician immediately recognized as +another attempt to play a practical joke upon him.</p> + +<p>"'Enough, Siegfried von Pepperpotz!' he cried, in his rage. 'Laugh away +while you can. After to-day may you never smile, and may your son never +smile, and may your son's son, willing or unwilling, smile smiles that +you two would have smiled, and so may it ever go! May every third +generation get the laughter that the preceding two shall lose, according +to my curse!'<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[Pg 171]</a></span></p> + +<div class="figright" style="width: 500px;"><a name="ILL_022" id="ILL_022"></a> +<img src="images/ill_022.jpg" width="500" height="426" alt=""SIEGFRIED VON PEPPERPOTZ GREW ILL OF IT"" title="" /> +<span class="caption">"SIEGFRIED VON PEPPERPOTZ GREW ILL OF IT"</span> +</div> + +<p>"This made Siegfried laugh all the harder, for, not knowing, as I have +said, that the old man was a magician, he had no fear of him. Next day, +however, he changed his mind. He found that he could not laugh. He could +not even smile. Try as he would, his lips refused to do his bidding.</p> + +<p>"It ruined his disposition. Siegfried von Pepperpotz grew ill over it. +The greatest doctors in the world were summoned to his aid, but to no +avail. If the curse had ended with him he might not have minded it so +much, but after the discovery that from the day of his birth his son +Rupert was no more able to laugh than himself he began to brood over the +affliction, and shortly died of it; and when Fritz found out from a +paper he discovered in a secret drawer in the old chest in the château +what the curse was—for Siegfried never told his son, and alone knew +from what it was he suffered, and that it was perpetual—he resolved +that there should be no further posterity to whom it should be handed +down.</p> + +<p>"That," said Hans, "is the story of Baron Humpfelhimmel's affliction."</p> + +<p>"And a strange story it is," said I.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[Pg 172]</a></span> "Though I don't know that it has +any particular moral."</p> + +<p>"Oh yes, it has!" said Hans. "It has a good moral."</p> + +<p>"And what is that?" I asked.</p> + +<p>"Don't laugh at your own jokes," he replied. "If Siegfried von +Pepperpotz had not laughed when the magician came back, he never would +have been cursed, and this story never would have been told."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[Pg 173]</a></span></p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[Pg 174]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="A_Great_Composer" id="A_Great_Composer"></a>A Great Composer</h2> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[Pg 175]</a></span></p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>A Great Composer</h2> + +<div class="figleft" style="width: 149px;"> +<img src="images/ill_023.jpg" width="149" height="150" alt="Decorative A" title="" /> +</div> + +<p>mong the best-known residents of Schnitzelhammerstein-on-the-Zugvitz +when Hans Pumpernickel first appeared in that beautiful city were three +musicians—Herr von Kärlingtongs, who was the only, and consequently the +best, violinist in town, Dr. Otto Teutonstring, and Heinrich Flatz, who +had played the 'cello once before the King of Prussia with such effect +that the king said he'd never heard anything like it before. The town +was naturally very proud of the trio, and particularly of Dr. +Teutonstring, who, though far from being a muscular man, had once played +the bass-viol for sixteen consecutive hours in the musical contest at +the Schnitzelhammerstein carnival, beating by one hour and twenty-two +minutes the strongest and most enduring bass-viol player in Germany. +They were the most amiable old gentlemen in the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[Pg 176]</a></span> world. It very seldom +happened that they failed to agree, which was rather wonderful, because +it often happens, unhappily, that musicians grow jealous of one another, +and say and do things that make it impossible for them to live together +peaceably. You may not all of you remember that famous and very sad +instance of the lengths to which this jealousy is sometimes allowed to +run wherein Luigi Sparragini, the well-known Italian violinist, in his +rage at the applause received at a concert by his rival, Siegfried von +Heimstetter, broke a Stradivarius violin valued at a thousand pounds +over Von Heimstetter's head, to be rebuked in return by Von Heimstetter, +who induced Sparragini to look at the mechanism of a grand piano he had, +letting the cover fall on the other's head as soon as he had poked it +in, thereby utterly ruining the piano and severely injuring Sparragini's +nose.</p> + +<p>Nothing of this kind, as I have intimated, ever marred the serenity of +the three amiable musicians of Schnitzelhammerstein-on-the-Zugvitz.</p> + +<p>"We have no cause each other to be jealous<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[Pg 177]</a></span> of," Herr von Kärlingtongs +had said. "I the fiddle play; they the fiddle do not play."</p> + +<p>"True," observed Heinrich Flatz. "The potato just as well the watermelon +might be jealous of. If I the fiddle played, then might I Von +Kärlingtongs be jealous of. Therefore also already can the same be said +regarding Teutonstring. In no manner are we each other the rivals of."</p> + +<p>In all of which, as Hans Pumpernickel said to me, there was much +common-sense. "Discord is not music," said he, "and if these men were +discordant they would not be musicians. If they were not musicians they +would have to make a living in some other kind of business. They are not +fit for any other kind of business, wherefore they are wise as well as +amiable."</p> + +<p>The consequence of all this harmony between the three dear old gentlemen +was that they were always together. They practised together, and on +public occasions they played together, and their fellow-townsmen were +delighted with them. At weddings they played the wedding-marches, each +as earnestly as though he were playing<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[Pg 178]</a></span> a solo. At the Mayor's banquets +they were always present, adding much to the pleasure of these sumptuous +repasts by the soft and beautiful strains which they discoursed. "I am +not a king," said Mayor Ehrenbreitstein upon one of these occasions; +"but if I were, I could not hear better music. We have an orchestra +without a court. What more can we desire?"</p> + +<p>"Nothing," said Hans Pumpernickel, "unless it be another tune."</p> + +<p>"A good idea," cried one of the aldermen. "Let us have another tune."</p> + +<p>And so the cry would go about the board, and the three happy old +gentlemen would good-naturedly go to work again and play another tune. +It came about very naturally, then, that whenever a rival band of +musicians, desirous of wresting the laurels from the respective brows of +Herren Von Kärlingtongs, Teutonstring, and Flatz, came to +Schnitzelhammerstein, they found them so strongly intrenched in the +affections of the people that, while they lived and played in harmony +together, no others could hope to make a living from music in that +community. They rapidly grew rich; for it<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[Pg 179]</a></span> came to pass that, with the +exception of house rent, and new strings for their instruments, and +other mere incidentals of a musician's work, they had no expenses to +pay. Their food cost them nothing, they attended so many banquets; and +when, occasionally, a day would come upon which no breakfast, luncheon, +or dinner required their services, it was always found that they had +carried away enough fruit and cake and other dainties from the affairs +that had been given to last them through such rare intervals as found +them without an engagement.</p> + +<p>In other respects, too, did these worthies show themselves entitled to +be called wise. Some five years after they began to grow famous in +Schnitzelhammerstein-on-the-Zugvitz some of their admirers suggested +that they ought not to confine themselves to the small town in which +they had waxed so great, but should go out into the world and dazzle all +mankind by the brilliance of their playing.</p> + +<p>"The great orchestras of Austria," said one of these, "do not content +themselves with laurels won at home. They travel<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[Pg 180]</a></span> into far countries, +and win fame and fortune all the world over. Why do not you go?"</p> + +<p>"We will talk it over," Herr Teutonstring replied. "I for one am opposed +to making such a trip, because I am an old man, and my bass-viol is +heavy."</p> + +<p>"Can you not send it about by freight?" said the man who proposed the +scheme.</p> + +<p>"Would you send your child by freight?" asked Herr Teutonstring.</p> + +<p>"I would not," returned the other.</p> + +<p>"No more can I send my bass-viol by freight," said Herr Teutonstring, +fondly twanging the strings of his huge instrument. "This is my whole +family. I love it as I would a child for whom I must care; as a father +who has helped me to become what I am. Nevertheless, we will talk it +over."</p> + +<p>And they did talk it over, and as a result decided that the world, +if it desired to hear them play, must come to +Schnitzelhammerstein-on-the-Zugvitz.</p> + +<p>"If we go," said Herr Von Kärlingtongs, "who will provide music for +Schnitzelhammerstein-on-the-Zugvitz?"</p> + +<p>"Who, indeed?" said Heinrich Flatz, gazing<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[Pg 181]</a></span> at the floor after the +manner of the truly wise man.</p> + +<p>"Since you have both asked that question," said Herr Teutonstring, "out +of mere politeness I must answer it. My answer is, briefly, I haven't +the slightest idea."</p> + +<p>"But some one must," persisted Von Kärlingtongs.</p> + +<p>"Yes," said the others.</p> + +<p>"Then one of two things must happen," said Von Kärlingtongs. "Either by +our absence the people of this town must be deprived of good music, +which would be very ungrateful of us, who have gained so much profit +from them, or they must discover that there are others who can play as +well as we do, whereby we would cease to be the greatest in the +world—which strikes me as bad policy."</p> + +<p>"Von Kärlingtongs," said Heinrich Flatz, with tears of joy in his eyes, +"you are not only a musician, you are a thinker."</p> + +<p>"Do not flatter me, my dear Flatz," said Von Kärlingtongs, modestly. +"You do not know what a struggle it is to me to keep from giving way to +pride."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[Pg 182]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Well, I agree to all that you have said," said Herr Teutonstring; "and +I have to add that, as we are only young in spirit, and as my bass-viol +is very heavy, I think we should be content to remain at home."</p> + +<p>"Particularly," added Heinrich Flatz, "in view of the fact that there +can be but one result. We should succeed. Now where is the gratification +in success? Simply in the knowledge that you have succeeded. We know +that now. Wherefore why should we put ourselves to inconveniences simply +to find out what we already know? Does a man with a pantryful of tarts +go seeking tarts? He does not—"</p> + +<p>"If he is wise," said Herr Teutonstring.</p> + +<p>"And we are wise," added Herr von Kärlingtongs.</p> + +<p>"Which settles the point. We'll stay at home," said Herr Flatz.</p> + +<p>And they did, and subsequent events showed the wisdom of their +course, for in less than a year's time the King came to +Schnitzelhammerstein-on-the-Zugvitz.</p> + +<p>Some said that he stopped there merely because there was a better +luncheon-counter at the railway station than anywhere else<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[Pg 183]</a></span> along the +road. Others persisted that his Majesty had heard of the marvellous +powers of the three musicians, and, being fond of music, had travelled +all the way from the capital, a distance of more than a hundred miles, +to hear them. However this was, the fact remained that the King +announced that for two hours he would be the guest of the little city +concerning which we have spoken so much. The town naturally was all of a +flutter, and great preparations were made to receive his Majesty.</p> + +<p>"I will make a speech," said the Mayor, "and our orchestra can serenade +his Majesty."</p> + +<p>"The serenade is a good idea," said Hans Pumpernickel, innocently. +"Shall I inform Herr Teutonstring and his fellow-players that that is +your opinion?"</p> + +<p>"As a rule, I avoid having opinions," said the Mayor, "but in this +instance I think it is safe to hazard one. You may inform the +gentlemen."</p> + +<p>"And the speech?" suggested Hans.</p> + +<p>"We'll see about that," said the Mayor. "If I can get a good one, I +shall deliver it."</p> + +<p>"Very well," said Hans. "I'll try to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[Pg 184]</a></span> think of something for you to say. +Meanwhile I'll see Von Kärlingtongs."</p> + +<p>Hans did as he said, and, despite their wisdom, the three musicians were +as much in a flutter as the rest of the city. To play before the King +was an unexpected honor, although Heinrich Flatz affected to treat it as +quite an ordinary thing.</p> + +<p>"He is a very fair judge of music," said Flatz, patronizingly, "for a +King. I think that, after all, we'd better do our best."</p> + +<p>"Yes," said Von Kärlingtongs, "you are right, as usual, though I will +say right here that, in doing my best, I am actuated as much by my +loyalty to my art as by any other motive. I <i>always</i> do my best."</p> + +<p>"And I also," put in Teutonstring. "Now the question that arises is what +is our best?"</p> + +<p>"That <i>is</i> indeed the question," said Herr Flatz. "I, having already had +the honor to play before his Majesty, am perhaps better fitted than +either of you to say what he likes. When I was so distinguished I played +Djorski's Symphony in B Minor. Therefore I contend that that is what we +should play. His Majesty remarked that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[Pg 185]</a></span> he had never heard anything like +it before. He would doubtless like to hear it again. Therefore I say +that is the thing for us to play."</p> + +<p>"Ordinarily," said Teutonstring, "I can agree with Herr Flatz, but this +time I cannot. <i>I</i> am at my best in Darmstadter's Oratorio. There can be +no question about it that the bass-viol is at its highest, most +ennobling point in that composition, which is why I say let us have the +Oratorio. The King, having heard the Symphony in B Minor, would +naturally rather hear something else. The Symphony, no doubt, would +awaken pleasant memories, but the Oratorio would give him something new +to remember in the future."</p> + +<p>"There is much in what you say, Herr Teutonstring," put in Von +Kärlingtongs. "There is also much in what my dear friend Flatz says; but +it seems to me that there is more in what I have to say than in the +combined suggestions of both of you. The Symphony in B Minor is +excellent, the Oratorio is quite as excellent, but neither of them comes +up to Dboriak's Moonlight Sonata, which, when I play it, makes me<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[Pg 186]</a></span> feel +as though the whole world lay at my feet—as if I were the King of all +creation. Now I am a man; the King is a man; we are both men. It is but +natural to suppose that if this Sonata makes me, a man, feel like the +King of all creation, it will also make that other man, the King, feel +the same way. What is our object in playing before the King? To please +him. How can we best please him? Simply by making him feel that he is +the King of all creation. Perfectly simple, my dear Flatz. Plain as a +pikestaff, Teutonstring. Therefore let us play Dboriak's Moonlight +Sonata."</p> + +<p>It was thus that the three musicians, who had always hitherto agreed, +came to have the first difference of their lives, and what made it seem +worse than all was that this difference occurred at a time which seemed +to them in their secret hearts to be the greatest event of their lives. +Perhaps it was the very importance of this event that made each of them +firm in his belief that he was right and the others wrong. Neither would +yield to the others, and an hour before the arrival of the royal train +found Flatz<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[Pg 187]</a></span> determined to play the Symphony, Teutonstring determined to +play the Oratorio, and Von Kärlingtongs equally immovable in his +determination to play the Moonlight Sonata, and nothing else. They +labored with one another in vain. Doctor Teutonstring tried to win over +Herr Flatz, saying that if together they should play the Oratorio they +could let Von Kärlingtongs render the Sonata without much harm, since +the bass-viol and 'cello together could drown the sounds of the violin. +Herr Flatz would agree to a combination of two against one only in case +the Symphony were selected, and when the King arrived no change +whatsoever had been made in the determination of the musicians. Ruin +stared them in the face, but each preferred ruin to a base surrender of +what he thought to be for the best.</p> + +<p>Of course, as the King alighted from the train the people cheered, and, +when the Mayor rose to greet him with the speech he had to make, they +cheered again, but these cheers were as nothing to those which greeted +the appearance of the musicians. Many nations had kings; all cities had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[Pg 188]</a></span> +mayors; what city had such an orchestra? No wonder they cheered.</p> + +<p>And then the serenade began.</p> + +<p>Herr Flatz resined his bow and began the Symphony in B Minor, while Von +Kärlingtongs and Teutonstring, equally determined, started in on the +opening measures of the Sonata and Oratorio respectively.</p> + +<div class="figright" style="width: 500px;"><a name="ILL_024" id="ILL_024"></a> +<img src="images/ill_024.jpg" width="500" height="495" alt=""THE THREE FIDDLED WITH ALL THEIR STRENGTH"" title="" /> +<span class="caption">"THE THREE FIDDLED WITH ALL THEIR STRENGTH"</span> +</div> + +<p>"It's something new they've got up for the occasion," whispered the +people, as the three men fiddled away with all their strength.</p> + +<p>"A most original composition!" said the King to the Chancellor.</p> + +<p>"I never heard such discord in my life," said a small boy on the +outskirts of the crowd.</p> + +<p>Still they kept on. The Symphony and the Oratorio were longer than the +Sonata, so that Von Kärlingtongs soon found himself outdone by his +fellow-players, but, nothing daunted, he played the Sonata over again. +And so it went, until, with a final grand burst of notes (I was almost +about to say harmony), they stopped.</p> + +<p>"Magnificent!" said the King.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[Pg 189]</a></span></p> + +<p>"A really classic composition," murmured the Chancellor.</p> + +<p>And the people shrieked with delight.</p> + +<p>The musicians, perspiring with excitement, stood overcome with surprise. +They had succeeded beyond their wildest hopes, but the King brought them +to their senses in a minute by asking:</p> + +<p>"What is the composer's name?"</p> + +<p>"What'll we tell him?" moaned Teutonstring. "It will never do to confess +what we have done now."</p> + +<p>"I'm sure I don't know," returned Flatz, with a shiver.</p> + +<p>"The composer's name, sir," replied Von Kärlingtongs, more ready of wit +than the others—"the composer's name is—ah—is—"</p> + +<p>"Well?" said the King, impatiently.</p> + +<p>"It is Kärlingteutonflatz," said Von Kärlingtongs.</p> + +<p>"Give him a thousand marks," said the King, "and distribute a thousand +more to these gentlemen," he added.</p> + +<p>And then the royal party proceeded on its way.</p> + +<p>As for the composer, Kärlingteutonflatz,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[Pg 190]</a></span> he was never heard of again; +but several other eminent musicians modelled their music after his, and +obtained a renown that was not only world-wide, but has lasted until +this day.</p> + +<p>The three musicians of Schnitzelhammerstein-on-the-Zugvitz, when they +had recovered from their surprise and excitement, began to smile, and +never stopped until they died—and I am not certain that they stopped +then—nor did they ever confide their secret to any one but Hans +Pumpernickel, who in turn confided it to me, so that this is really the +first time the public has been let into the secret origin of what was +then the music of the future and what is to-day the music of the +present.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[Pg 191]</a></span></p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[Pg 192]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="How_Fritz_Became_a_Wizard" id="How_Fritz_Became_a_Wizard"></a>How Fritz Became a Wizard</h2> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[Pg 193]</a></span></p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>How Fritz Became a Wizard</h2> + +<div class="figleft" style="width: 150px;"> +<img src="images/ill_025.jpg" width="150" height="149" alt="Decorative I" title="" /> +</div> + +<p>t was a lovely summer afternoon at Schnitzelhammerstein-on-the-Zugvitz, +and Hans Pumpernickel and I, having little else to do, idled along the +sylvan path that for five or six miles follows the winding course of the +famous little river. Hans was in a very talkative mood that day. He had +quite recently been re-elected Mayor of the town in which he lived, +after a hard campaign of six weeks, during which time he had not been +allowed to say anything, for fear of spoiling his chances of reelection.</p> + +<p>"And now that it is over, and I am safely in office once more, I am +going to make up for lost time," he said. "Having kept silent for six +weeks, I shall now talk three times as much as usual for three. I am fat +with suppressed conversation, and I must get rid of it, or I shall +burst."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[Pg 194]</a></span></p> + +<p>So, as I have told you, he was very talkative, and on that afternoon he +told me enough stories to fill an encyclopædia, most of which, I regret +to say, I have forgotten, but some of which, also, I remember perfectly. +The one telling how Fritz von Hatzfeldt became a wizard was one of these +latter, and it seemed to me quite good enough to tell to you. It came +about in this way. When nearing the point where the celebrated Baron +Laubenheimer, at the risk of his life, once plunged into the Zugvitz to +rescue Johanna Johannisberg from drowning—a heroic act, the story of +which I hope some day to tell you—we perceived walking ahead of us a +strange-looking old gentleman, clad in a long, flowing robe with a +border embroidered with mystic figures. He wore spectacles—or, rather, +the rims of spectacles, without glass; for, as I learned afterwards, +though his eyes were in good condition, his ideas as to the dignity of +his profession compelled him to appear as wise as possible, and he had +discovered that nothing imparts to the face of man so much of the +appearance of wisdom as spectacles.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[Pg 195]</a></span></p> + +<p>"That," said Hans Pumpernickel, in response to my question, "is our town +wizard, Fritz von Hatzfeldt, and I may add that the town has never had a +better one. When I was running for Mayor this last time against +Pflueger, who, as you may remember, was the opposing candidate, Von +Hatzfeldt was consulted by my friends as to my chances; for, as town +wizard, it is his duty to prophesy. His answer was wonderfully quick, +and absolutely accurate. 'Who will be elected,' said he, 'Pumpernickel +or Pflueger?' 'Yes,' said they, 'that is the question.' 'I will consult +the stars,' said Von Hatzfeldt, withdrawing to his observatory. Now, his +predecessor, Rosenstein, would have taken a week to return his verdict, +but Von Hatzfeldt's strong point is quickness. He remained with the +stars no longer than two hours, and then, emerging from his observatory, +he said, 'I have consulted, and the heavens tell me that the name of our +next Mayor will begin with the letter P.' And it was so. Pumpernickel +was elected, and Pflueger was defeated. Was not that an extraordinary, +even a wonderful prophecy?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[Pg 196]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Very," I assented. "That man must be a genius; I should like to meet +him."</p> + +<p>"I think it can be arranged," said Hans. "I will ask him if you may." +And he hurried on to overtake the wizard. In a moment he returned.</p> + +<p>"Well," I said, "does he consent to my meeting him?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," said Hans. "Only, with his customary wisdom, he says that, to +meet him, you should be coming towards him from in front. He says that +people can only be said to meet when face to face. 'You do not meet the +man who walks behind you, Mr. Mayor,' he said; 'but if your friend will +take a short-cut through the woods to the old rock two hundred paces on, +he can then approach me from before, and then we shall meet."</p> + +<p>"That suits me," said I, and, making the cut through the woods, I +reached the rock, turned back, and soon stood face to face with the +wizard. "I am glad to know you," said I, as Pumpernickel introduced us.</p> + +<p>"I was about to make a similar remark myself," returned Von Hatzfeldt, +"but concluded<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[Pg 197]</a></span> not to, and for this reason: to tell you that would be +to tell you something you already knew. If I had not been glad to meet +you, I could have turned aside and avoided the meeting. Now, my notion +of the duties of a professional wizard is that he should tell people +only those things which they do not know, and should avoid wasting his +breath in imparting useless information."</p> + +<p>"A very sage observation," said Pumpernickel.</p> + +<p>"And what else did you expect?" queried the wizard, gazing through his +unglazed spectacles upon the Mayor. "Mark you, Mr. Mayor, it is the +business of wizards to make sage observations. You might as well try to +purchase a diamond necklace of a green-grocer as look for unwise remarks +from a professional wizard."</p> + +<p>"I'll test his powers of prophecy now," said Hans to me, in a whisper.</p> + +<p>"Do," I replied. "I shall be delighted, for I never met a real prophet +before."</p> + +<p>"Ah, Herr Wizard," said Hans, addressing Von Hatzfeldt, "what do you +think about the weather?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[Pg 198]</a></span></p> + +<p>"It is very fair—now," replied the wizard.</p> + +<p>"Now, eh?" said Hans. "Then you think it will not always be so?"</p> + +<p>"No," replied the wizard, glancing up into the heavens. "No. To you +there is nothing in the skies to foretell a change, but to me there is +much. Before the winter is over, Hans Pumpernickel, we shall have snow. +I read it in the stars."</p> + +<p>"Stars?" I cried. "By day?"</p> + +<p>"And why not?" returned the wizard. "Do you think because you do not see +them that therefore the stars are all destroyed?"</p> + +<p>To this I had no answer, and before I could recover myself Fritz von +Hatzfeldt had passed on.</p> + +<p>"Isn't he a wonder?" said Pumpernickel.</p> + +<p>"He is more than a wonder," I replied. "He is a +four-hundred-and-tender"—a joke, by the way, which Hans Pumpernickel +did not appreciate.</p> + +<p>"Whence do your wizards come?" I asked.</p> + +<p>"There is no rule," Pumpernickel answered. "The wisest person in town is +generally selected, though, as for Fritz, he studied wizardry under +Rosenstein. It was curious the way it happened. Fritz was the son<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[Pg 199]</a></span> of a +farmer, who sent him to school when he was very young, and at the age of +five he could read so well that he couldn't be got to leave his books +and help gather in the crops. At seven his father, in a fit of anger at +what he termed the boy's laziness, turned him out of doors, and Fritz +came to Schnitzelhammerstein to seek his fortune. The first position he +held was as boy in a butcher-shop, but he had to give that up, because, +having gone for weeks without sufficient food, his appetite was a +serious menace to the butcher's stock, which the butcher did not +discover until Fritz had eaten one whole side of beef. Then he became +candy-puller for a molasses-candy-maker, who employed him without +counting upon his sweet tooth. This he was compelled to give up after +having consumed two weeks' salary's worth of candy in two days. It was +this second rebuff that brought him to Rosenstein's notice. While +standing in his laboratory one morning the wizard heard a piping little +voice cry out, 'Excuse me, sir, but don't you want an assistant?'</p> + +<p>"'An assistant what?' asked Rosenstein.</p> + +<p>"'An assistant whatever you are,' returned<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[Pg 200]</a></span> the owner of the little +voice, who was none other than Fritz.</p> + +<p>"The answer pleased Rosenstein. He recognized wisdom in it; for that it +was wise no one will deny.</p> + +<p>"'Don't you know what I am?' he asked.</p> + +<div class="figright" style="width: 402px;"><a name="ILL_026" id="ILL_026"></a> +<img src="images/ill_026.jpg" width="402" height="500" alt=""'YOU ARE A VERY NICE OLD GENTLEMAN'"" title="" /> +<span class="caption">"'YOU ARE A VERY NICE OLD GENTLEMAN'"</span> +</div> + +<p>"'Yes,' said Fritz. 'You are a very nice old gentleman.'</p> + +<p>"Rosenstein laughed. 'True,' he said. 'But I am also the town wizard.'</p> + +<p>"'Then will I be the assistant town wizard,' said Fritz. 'What do +wizards do—whiz?'</p> + +<p>"'I'll take you in for a week and let you see,' said Rosenstein, and +little Fritz was employed to do errands. But alas for him! The wizard, +though he liked him much, could not afford to keep him. He had not +counted upon Fritz's appetite any more than the butcher had, and again +was the boy sent forth. This time, however, he was sent forth in a +kindly way. 'You are a good boy, Fritz, and I like you, and I think you +would make a good wizard some day, for you have a wise way about you for +your years, but I am too poor to feed you. I will say to you, however, +that if you ever make<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[Pg 201]</a></span> your fortune in this world, then will I be glad +to receive you back again and point out to you the path you should +pursue if you would some day succeed me in my office. Make your fortune +first, my boy, then come to me.'</p> + +<p>"'Can't I stay if I lose my appetite?" asked Fritz, mournfully.</p> + +<p>"'Ah, but you mustn't do that,' the wizard answered. 'An appetite is a +splendid thing—a fortune in itself—but you must also have another +fortune in itself to maintain it. Go, my boy, and bless you!'</p> + +<p>"Poor Fritz! This last failure discouraged him wofully. He had no money, +no home, nobody to go to. His condition was a dreadful one; but the +Fates had a happy life in store for him. He wandered out along this very +path up to the big rock, and sat down to meditate, and as he meditated +he observed, as the tide of the river went down, it uncovered the +entrance to what appeared to be a huge cavern. 'Humph!' said Fritz. +'Looks like a cave. Maybe I can use that for a place to live in. There +may be one or two dry spots inside where I could sleep, and I could +always come out<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[Pg 202]</a></span> at low tide if I wanted to. There's house rent saved, +anyhow.'</p> + +<p>"Speaking thus, he climbed down into the cavern, and, as he had hoped, +found plenty of dry places, and from that time on it became his home. He +occasionally made a few marks by doing chores for people around about +Schnitzelhammerstein, and with them he supplied himself with food and +furniture. The spring-time came, and with it a freshet which completely +covered up the entrance to the cavern night and day, high tide or low, +and Fritz found himself shut up in his strange home for two whole dreary +months. Escape was impossible. The sole sustenance he had was an +occasional fish he caught in some of the pools.</p> + +<div class="figleft" style="width: 407px;"><a name="ILL_027" id="ILL_027"></a> +<img src="images/ill_027.jpg" width="407" height="500" alt=""THE LITTLE FELLOW MUSED OFT AND LONG THEREON"" title="" /> +<span class="caption">"THE LITTLE FELLOW MUSED OFT AND LONG THEREON"</span> +</div> + +<p>"It was not until he had been in this cavernous prison for five weeks +that he noticed a most unique thing about it. <i>Night and day it was +always brilliantly lighted!</i> On the Monday night of the fifth week this +singular fact flashed upon the boy's mind. How was it? Whence could the +light come? It was not sunlight, because that would not shine by night. +What, then, was the secret of the light in the cave? The<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[Pg 203]</a></span> little fellow +mused oft and long thereon, and finally he reached a conclusion, which, +like all his conclusions, was a wise one.</p> + +<p>"'This is worth investigating. I will investigate,' he cried. +'Meditation is good in its way, but if a thing is past mental +comprehension, then investigation of an active sort is in order. In the +first place, the light does not come from above; it streams in through +that chink in the rock off to the left. I will slide through that chink +and see what is to be seen.'</p> + +<div class="figright" style="width: 500px;"><a name="ILL_028" id="ILL_028"></a> +<img src="images/ill_028.jpg" width="500" height="423" alt=""IT NEARLY BLINDED HIM"" title="" /> +<span class="caption">"IT NEARLY BLINDED HIM"</span> +</div> + +<p>"In an instant he had done so, and—there lay his fortune. Lying upon +the soft earth floor of the adjoining cave was a diamond, dazzling in +its lustre, and large as a hen's egg. So brilliant was it that all about +it was lighted up as though by electricity. In a second Fritz pounced +upon it and held it aloft. It nearly blinded him, but he held on to it +like grim death. It was his, and only his. His fortune was made.</p> + +<p>"Three weeks later the waters subsided, and Fritz went forth into the +world with his diamond."</p> + +<p>"But," said I, "a diamond like that would be very hard to sell, and +people might not understand how it had come into the possession of a +small boy who had always been poor."</p> + +<p>"True," said Pumpernickel, "and Fritz thought of that. 'Too sudden<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[Pg 204]</a></span> +riches fly suddenly away,' he observed. 'I will proceed slowly.' <i>He +didn't show that diamond to any one until he had made his fortune.</i>"</p> + +<p>"Then how—how did he make his fortune?" I asked.</p> + +<p>"He sold its light," said Hans. "It does not sound probable, but it is +true. In those days we had no gas or electricity to light our public +squares or ballrooms or libraries, and Fritz, noting this, bought a +small lantern with ground-glass sides, so that the diamond could shed +its light without itself being seen, and, putting his diamond into it, +rented it out for public meetings, for ballroom illumination—in fact, +to any who stood in need of a strong, powerful light. Scientists from +all Germany flocked in to see it, and besought him to divulge the secret +of the light, but he would not until he had accumulated a fortune, and +then he let the world into his confidence. Meanwhile he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[Pg 205]</a></span> had gone back +to Rosenstein, and had learned the art of being a wizard, and when +Rosenstein died he was unanimously called to fill the vacancy."</p> + +<p>"And what became of the diamond?"</p> + +<p>"That," said Hans, "is a mystery. Some say that Von Hatzfeldt has it +yet, but burglars who have searched his house high and low a thousand<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[Pg 206]</a></span> +times say that he hasn't it."</p> + +<p>"And he—what does he say?"</p> + +<p>"He declines to speak of it," said Hans, simply.</p> + +<p>"Well," said I, "that is a very remarkable tale."</p> + +<p>"Yes," said Hans, "but then Fritz von Hatzfeldt is a very remarkable +wizard, for how a man can be as wise as he and know so little passes all +comprehension."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[Pg 207]</a></span></p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">[Pg 208]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="Rise_and_Fall_of_the_Poet_Gregory" id="Rise_and_Fall_of_the_Poet_Gregory"></a>Rise and Fall of the Poet Gregory</h2> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[Pg 209]</a></span></p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>Rise and Fall of the Poet Gregory</h2> + +<div class="figleft" style="width: 148px;"> +<img src="images/ill_029.jpg" width="148" height="150" alt="Decorative O" title="" /> +</div> + +<p>ne night after dining with Hans Pumpernickel at his house in +Schnitzelhammerstein-on-the-Zugvitz, I recalled to his mind that he had +promised some time to introduce me to the three sages of the town—the +only persons residing there who at all approached Fritz von Hatzfeldt, +the wizard, in wisdom.</p> + +<p>"True," said he, "I did promise that, and if you like I will take you to +them this evening. They are a wonderful trio, and between you and me, I +really think they know more in a day than Von Hatzfeldt does in a year. +The maxims of Otto the Shoemaker alone contain wisdom enough to set ten +wizards up in business. Did you ever hear any of Otto the Shoemaker's +maxims?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">[Pg 210]</a></span></p> + +<p>"No," said I. "I never even heard of Otto the Shoemaker. Does he write +maxims?"</p> + +<p>"Not exactly," replied Hans, filling his pipe and putting on his hat. +"He cannot write, but he can speak. He says maxims."</p> + +<p>"How interesting!" I observed, following Hans's example and putting on +my hat and filling my pipe also. "I should like to hear some of them."</p> + +<p>"You shall," replied Hans. "Here is one of them: 'One never misses one's +shoes until he has to do without them.' That, you see, is undeniable, +and is full of wisdom. Then there was this one addressed to his son: +'Rise in the world, but be careful how. The man who goes up in a balloon +cannot stay up after the gas gives out. Therefore, my son, rise not up +at random, even as the balloonist does, but rather move up slowly but +surely, like him who builds a tower of rock beneath him, and is thus +able to stay up as long as he pleases.'"</p> + +<p>"Wonderful," said I. "And you say that this philosopher, this deep +thinker, this Maximilian, is content to remain a shoemaker?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[Pg 211]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Yes," Hans answered, "he is, for, as he himself once said, 'The throne +itself rests upon society merely, but upon what does society stand? +Boots and shoes! I make boots and shoes, wherefore I am the cornerstone +of the empire.'"</p> + +<p>"I must meet this Otto the Shoemaker," was my response, and to that end +Hans Pumpernickel and I went out to the little back street where Otto +the Shoemaker, Eisenberg the Keysmith, and Jurgurson the Innkeeper, the +three sages of the town, dwelt peacefully and happily together in +neighborly intercourse. We found them having a quiet little gossip after +tea. Eisenberg was leaning out of his shop window, his long, white clay +pipe unfilled in his hand, lovingly discoursing to Otto the Shoemaker, +who, clad in his leather apron, hung upon his every word as though each +were a pearl of thought, and to Jurgurson the Innkeeper, who sat +opposite him with a look upon his face which indicated how much he +marvelled at the wisdom which bubbled out of Eisenberg's lips like water +from a geyser.</p> + +<p>"It is as I tell you," Eisenberg was saying;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[Pg 212]</a></span> "thought is the key to +every mystery; wherefore I, being the maker of keys of all sorts, +necessarily manufacture thoughts. It is a part of my business. Why, +therefore, should the world express surprise at my being a thinker?"</p> + +<p>"Wherefore, indeed?" replied Jurgurson; "or me, too? As the keeper of +the inn is it not for me to dispense entertainment for man and beast? Is +not wisdom the entertainment of many men, and do not many men come here? +Why should I, too, then, not have wisdom on draught just as likewise I +have ginger-ale and lemonade?"</p> + +<p>"You are both right," put in Otto the Shoemaker. "And as for me, what? +This: the labor of the shoemaker is confining. I am kept at my bench all +day. I must have exercise or I die; with my body busy at my trade, what +can I exercise else? My wits—yah! That is, then, the cause of no +surprise that I, too, am sagacious."</p> + +<p>"We have never said anything more wise," said Eisenberg, proudly, and +the others agreed with him.</p> + +<p>At this point Hans presented me to the sages.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">[Pg 213]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Gentlemen," he said, after he had given to each an appropriate +greeting, "I have brought with me one who wishes to know you. He is an +American and a poet."</p> + +<p>"Ach!" cried Eisenberg. "An American—that is good. A poet? Well we +shall see. That is not always so good. Do you write, sir?"</p> + +<p>"Occasionally," I answered.</p> + +<p>"Good," said Otto. "That is better than often."</p> + +<p>"True," assented Jurgurson, "though not so good as hardly ever."</p> + +<p>I laughed. "You do not seem to think much of poets," said I.</p> + +<p>"We do not say that," said Otto. "We do not know you as a poet, and so +we do not pass judgment. When one says because one or two, or even two +thousand, shoemakers are bad, all shoemakers are bad, one speaks +foolishness. So with the poets. Because Heinrich von Scribbhausen writes +bad stuff, you do not therefore write bad stuff. A poet should be +judged, not by his shoes, but by his poems. I, a shoemaker, must not be +judged by my poems, but by my shoes, which points a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">[Pg 214]</a></span> moral, and that +moral is, what is sauce for the goose is not always sauce for the +gander. The gander may be a person who makes fine clothes. The goose +should not be judged by his clothes, but the gander should; therefore, +never judge a man for what he ain't."</p> + +<p>"Bravo!" cried Jurgurson. "I could not have spoken more wisely myself."</p> + +<p>"Nor I," said Eisenberg. "Yet I could add somewhat. You do not print +your poems?"</p> + +<p>"Of course," I replied, "and why not?"</p> + +<p>"It is a great risk," sighed Eisenberg. "Particularly for poets, for, as +Otto has well said, the world cannot judge a man for what he is not; so +if a shoemaker print a bad book of poems, there is no risk. The poems +will be judged as the work of a shoemaker, and, though bad, may still be +good for a shoemaker to have written; but for a poet to print bad poems, +that is as risky as for a shoemaker to make bad shoes."</p> + +<p>At this point my guide, Hans Pumpernickel, feeling perhaps that the +conversation was not exactly pleasant for me,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">[Pg 215]</a></span> in spite of the undoubted +wisdom of the sages' remarks, handed his tobacco-pouch to the keysmith, +having observed that Eisenberg's pipe was empty.</p> + +<p>"Thank you, no," said Eisenberg, handing it back, "I do not smoke +tobacco. It is tobacco which makes of smoking an injurious pastime. To +me the pleasure of smoking is the caressing of a pipe, the holding of it +in one's hands, the occasional putting of it into one's mouth and +puffing. Therefore I keep my pipe to caress, to hold, to put into my +mouth, and to puff upon. The tobacco, which does not agree with me, I +never use."</p> + +<p>Otto and Jurgurson beamed proudly upon their fellow-sage. It was evident +that in him they recognized the centre of all wisdom.</p> + +<p>"But as for poets," said Eisenberg, turning to me, "I should like to +tell you about Gregory—the poet Gregory. Did you ever hear of him?"</p> + +<p>"No," said I.</p> + +<p>"Ah! See then!" cried Eisenberg. "It proves my point. He is unknown +already, and all for why? Because his poems were<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">[Pg 216]</a></span> printed, for until +they were printed they were not unknown."</p> + +<p>"Magnificently put!" cried the shoemaker.</p> + +<p>"Logical as logic itself!" said the innkeeper.</p> + +<p>"And what is the story of Gregory?" I asked, interested hugely and +almost as enthusiastic over the whimsical wisdom of the keysmith as his +fellow-wiseacres.</p> + +<p>"Gregory," said Eisenberg, "was the first name. His last name I shall +not give you for two reasons. The first reason is that, if I gave it to +you, I should betray a confidence reposed in me by his family. The +second reason is that I have forgotten it. That is the sad part of it +all. When a name begins to be forgotten by one, or even two persons, its +trip to oblivion is rapid. Even I, who used to worship him as a poet, +have forgotten the name he made for himself."</p> + +<p>The keysmith sighed sorrowfully as he spoke, and I began to believe with +him, though without knowing the reason therefor, that Gregory's cause +was indeed a lost one. There was silence for a full minute, during which +Eisenberg puffed thoughtfully upon<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">[Pg 217]</a></span> his empty pipe, blowing imaginary +clouds of smoke out into the air, and then he spoke.</p> + +<p>"Gregory was not of high birth, but early in life his parents saw that +he was not destined to follow successfully the career of a peasant. He +was of an inquiring mind. He was not content to know that grass was +green and water wet. He wished to know why grass was green and water +wet, and when, in response to questions of this nature, his father, a +practical person, would send him out to the stables to milk the cows, or +to the grindstone to sharpen the scythe, Gregory's soul revolted within +him. 'You will never make a peasant,' said his father. 'Not a peasant of +the fields,' the boy replied, 'but a peasant of learning, perhaps. I +would not mind milking the cow of knowledge, and filling the pail of my +mind with lactated information; nor should I mind sharpening my wits +upon the grindstone of thought.' And at these words his father would +stare at him and say that one who had such command of mysterious +language did not need Greek to conceal his thoughts from his hearers; +and he would add an invitation,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">[Pg 218]</a></span> which Gregory perforce always accepted, +to retire to the fagot-room with him and receive corporal punishment at +his hands. So it went for several years, during which Gregory read +everything that came within reach, until finally one morning he said to +his father: 'Why do you persist in making a peasant of me when I wish to +be a poet? What is the odds to you? Nay, more, father, do not the words +peasant and poet both begin with a P and end with a T? What difference +can it make if the ends be the same?'—which so enraged his father that +Gregory was disowned by him, and another boy adopted in his place.</p> + +<p>"Then Gregory came here to Schnitzelhammerstein-on-the-Zugvitz, and at a +time when Rudolf von Pepperpotz, the solemn Baron of Humpfelhimmel, +happened to stand in need of a secretary and librarian. How it came +about that Gregory was so unfortunate as to obtain the position is +neither here nor there. Suffice it to say that he became the secretary +and librarian of the Baron, and from that time on he was happy. He lived +among books, and while at times he found his duties arduous, he was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">[Pg 219]</a></span> +nevertheless content, for he was a philosopher."</p> + +<p>"I'd rather be content than eat," said the innkeeper.</p> + +<p>"Indeed, yes," said Otto, "for entertainment is better than dyspepsia, +and poor eating comes more of the one than the other."</p> + +<p>"By careful economy," continued Eisenberg, "Gregory soon managed to +amass a little fortune, and then he felt he might safely venture to +write a little himself, and he did so. He wrote poems about the moon, +odes to commonplace things, like scissors and dust-pans, but he was wise +enough not to publish any of his verse. Then he married, and +occasionally he would recite his verses to his wife, who said they were +magnificent. She in turn repeated them to her friends, and they said, as +she had, that they were unsurpassed. Still Gregory would not print them, +though it soon got noised about that he was a great poet. And so it +went. Finally, finding himself subjected to great temptation to print +his writings, he put everything he had written into a casket, and, +having a small closet constructed in the walls of his house, he placed +the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">[Pg 220]</a></span> casket in that closet, locked the iron door upon it and threw away +the key. Time went on, and people daily, their curiosity excited, talked +more and more of Gregory's poetry; they even sent delegations to him, +requesting him to have his rhymes printed, but he was faithful to his +resolution, and when he died he was looked upon as a great writer, +without having printed a line. Time passed and his reputation grew. +Three generations passed by. His children and their children and their +children's children came, lived, and died, and constantly his fame +increased, and people said, 'Ah, yes; so and so is a great poet, but the +poems of Gregory! You should have heard them. They were sublime.'</p> + +<p>"But two years ago there came an unhappy day. Some one laughed at the +mention of Gregory's name and cast doubt upon the tradition that he had +written, and his great-grandson, foolishly, I thought, and recklessly, +as has since been proved, offered to prove the truth of the tradition by +opening the closet which for a century had remained closed, and +publishing the writings of his ancestor. I was sent for as<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">[Pg 221]</a></span> keysmith to +open the door, and when it was opened there stood the casket, and in the +casket were found the poems.</p> + +<p>"'Let that suffice,' said I to his great-grandson. 'You have proved your +point.'</p> + +<p>"'I will prove it to the world,' said he. 'I will publish the poems.'"</p> + +<p>Here Eisenberg sighed.</p> + +<p>"He did so," he resumed mournfully, "and another idol was shattered. The +poems were the worst you ever read, and from that time on the name of +Gregory the poet began to sink into oblivion, where it now lies. Had his +descendants been less weak, his name would still have remained a +household word, such is the force of tradition. As it is, the printed +volume is the best testimony that the great poet Gregory was nothing but +a commonplace rhymester whose name was not worthy of remembrance.</p> + +<p>"And that, sir," concluded Eisenberg, bowing politely to me, "is why I +say that a poet who does not publish runs less risk of failing as a poet +than he who does publish."</p> + +<p>And I? Well, how could I deny that Eisenberg was right? He had proved +his point only too well, and even that night,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">[Pg 222]</a></span> on my return home, I went +to my little portfolio and utterly destroyed the dozen or more poems I +had written that day. If you will take my word for it, you will think +them greater than you might if you insisted upon reading them.</p> + +<p>"What think you?" asked Hans, as we went home? "Are they not wise?"</p> + +<p>"Wiser than the Three Men of Gotham who went to sea in a bowl," said I, +"for I do not believe that Otto, Eisenberg, or Jurgurson would go to sea +at all."</p> + +<p>"True," was Hans's comment, "for as Otto well says in one of his maxims, +'For a sailor with his sea-legs on there is nothing like the sea, but +for a shoemaker who lives by shoes alone, dry land is by much the +solider foundation.'"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">[Pg 223]</a></span></p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">[Pg 224]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="The_Loss_of_the_Gretchen_B" id="The_Loss_of_the_Gretchen_B"></a>The Loss of the "Gretchen B."</h2> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">[Pg 225]</a></span></p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>The Loss of the "Gretchen B."</h2> + +<h3>A TALE OF A PIRATE GHOST, FOUND FLOATING IN A WATER-BOTTLE.</h3> + +<h3>I</h3> + +<h3>THE DISCOVERY</h3> + +<div class="figleft" style="width: 150px;"> +<img src="images/ill_030.jpg" width="150" height="148" alt="Decorative I" title="" /> +</div> + +<p>t was a very pleasant evening in July. Hans Pumpernickel, who had just +laid down the duties of Mayor of Schnitzelhammerstein-on-the-Zugvitz, +after having filled that lofty office for eight years, was walking with +me along the river-front at its busiest point.</p> + +<p>"Let us go out on the wharf," said Hans, as we neared its entrance. +"When I was a small boy I used to take pleasure in sitting upon the +twine-piece of the wharf and letting my legs dingle over."</p> + +<p>I scratched my head for a moment before I saw exactly what he meant by +"twine-piece" and "dingle."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">[Pg 226]</a></span></p> + +<p>"You speak English very well, Pumpernickel," said I; "but what you +should have said was 'string-piece' and 'dangle,' not 'twine-piece' and +'dingle.'"</p> + +<p>"But," he protested, "is not a piece of twine a piece of string?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," I replied; "but—"</p> + +<p>"Then why may not a 'twine-piece' be a 'string-piece'? And as for +'dingle,' is it not the present tense of the verb 'to dingle'? Dingle, +dangle, dungle—like sing, sang, sung? You would not say 'letting him +sang'—it would be 'letting him sing'; wherefore, why not say 'letting +my legs dingle over,' and avoid saying 'letting my legs dangle over'?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, well, have it your own way," said I; and, having reached the end of +the wharf, we sat down there, and shortly found our legs "dingling" over +the water in the most approved style.</p> + +<p>"It is a hard sort of a seat," said I, after a moment or two of silence, +as we gazed upon the river flowing by.</p> + +<p>"True," said Hans, philosophically, "though it is not made of hard wood. +Let us take a boat and have a row."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">[Pg 227]</a></span></p> + +<p>I agreed, and we hired a small skiff and paddled idly down the stream. +We had not gone far when the bow of our craft bumped up against +something which scraped against the side of the boat as we passed.</p> + +<p>"What was that?" said Pumpernickel.</p> + +<p>"I don't know," said I, indifferently. "Nothing, I guess."</p> + +<p>"What nonsense you talk sometimes!" he retorted. "It must have been +something. We'll retreat and see."</p> + +<p>Suiting the action to the words, Hans backed water with his oars, and in +the dim light of the moon we soon descried the object of our search—a +curious old earthen vessel floating in the river, bobbing up and down +very much like a buoy. It looked like a water-bottle of two centuries +ago, and, indeed, upon investigation turned out to be such.</p> + +<p>"Aha!" cried Hans, triumphantly, as I lifted the bottle into the boat, +"it <i>was</i> something, after all. I knew it could not be nothing. Is it +empty of contents?"</p> + +<p>I turned the vessel bottom side up, and nothing came out of it, but +there was a distinct<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">[Pg 228]</a></span> thud within which betrayed the presence of some +solid substance.</p> + +<p>"It is not empty of contents," said I, giving it another shake, "but it +hasn't any table to show what those contents are."</p> + +<p>"Oh, we don't need a table," said Hans, failing to appreciate the subtle +humor of my remark. "Just shake it out."</p> + +<p>With a sigh over my lost joke, I did as I was bidden, and soon, after a +vigorous shaking and the removal of a cork which I had not previously +noticed, the substance within issued forth through the bottle's neck.</p> + +<p>"Dear me," said I. "It appears to be manuscript."</p> + +<p>"Let me see," said Hans. "Ah," he observed, "it is writing. Why did you +say it was manuscript?"</p> + +<p>"That is writing," I explained.</p> + +<p>"That may be," said he, "but why waste your tongue on three syllables +when two will do?"</p> + +<p>I ignored the question and put another.</p> + +<p>"Can you read it?" I asked.</p> + +<p>"With difficulty," he said, "by this light.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">[Pg 229]</a></span> Let us return to my rooms +and see if we can decimate it."</p> + +<p>"Decipher, decipher, Hans," said I.</p> + +<p>"As you will," he retorted, with a sweep of the oars which brought us +under the shadow of the wharf.</p> + +<p>Tying our boat, we hastened back to Pumpernickel's rooms, and within a +half-hour of our find we were busily engaged in translating the +extraordinary narrative of Captain Hammerpestle, commander of the +<i>Gretchen B.</i>, a ship that, as we learned from the captain's story, was +once of ill-repute, later of pleasant memory, and finally the central +figure of an ocean mystery never as yet solved, though at least two +hundred and fifty years had passed since she was given up for lost.</p> + +<p>The story was in substance as follows:</p> + +<h3>II</h3> + +<h3>THE TALE OF CAPTAIN HAMMERPESTLE</h3> + +<p>The end is approaching, and I, Rudolf Hammerpestle, of Bingen, third +owner and captain of the ill-starred <i>Gretchen B.</i>, formerly<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">[Pg 230]</a></span> known as +the <i>Dutch Avenger</i>, will shortly find a watery grave in sixty-eight +fathoms of the Atlantic, ninety miles west of the rock of Gibraltar.</p> + +<p>The <i>Gretchen B.</i> is sinking, and the pirate ghost is at last a victor, +though I have given him a pretty fight these many days. Had it not been +for my own stupidity in employing a foreign crew, all might yet be well, +and I am impelled in my last moments, for we are sure to go to the +bottom within two hours, to write out this story merely in the hope that +it may some day reach my fellow-men, tell them of my horrible fate, and +possibly warn them against my errors. If I had stuck to my own +countrymen, if I had employed Hans Stickenfurst and good old Diedrich +Foutzenhickle and their like for my officers and crew, instead of the +idiot Pat Sullivan and his twin, Barney O'Brien, and others of that ilk, +I should now be nearing port that I shall never reach, instead of +sinking, slowly sinking, into the mysterious depths of the great ocean.</p> + +<p>I have locked myself within my cabin so as to be free from interruption, +and it is<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">[Pg 231]</a></span> highly probable that, having tightly closed my port and +calked up the door-cracks and key-hole, I shall be able to gain an extra +hour for the writing of this tale even after the <i>Gretchen B.</i> has +disappeared beneath the waves, to be hid forevermore from the eyes of +man. When the tale is finished I shall place it within my trusty +water-bottle, open the port, thrust it forth into the sea, and trust to +Heaven that it may rise to the surface and ultimately make some port +where it may be read and published, I devoutly hope, by some house of +standing.</p> + +<p>And now, as every story should begin at the beginning, let me go back to +the time when I first took charge of the <i>Gretchen B.</i> It was five years +agone, on the 7th day of May, 1635, that the <i>Gretchen B.</i> was purchased +by her present owners, and I, Rudolf Hammerpestle, of Bingen, appointed +her commander. It was with a light heart, a full crew, and sixty barrels +of Schnitzelhammerstein claret that I set out from Bingen on the 27th +day of May, 1635, for London, where the claret was to be sold to the +public as medicinal port—its nutty flavor, its bouquet, and other +properties<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">[Pg 232]</a></span> favoring the illusion. All went well with us until we +reached the sea, when one night, after our second day on the ocean, +feeling faint from the effects of the sun, for I had had a hard day of +it, I tapped one of the barrels of my cargo for a taste of the claret. +Understand, I was not in any sense taking away from the full measure +which was due to the purchaser in London, for I intended to replace what +I had taken with water—so slight in quantity, too, as not to affect the +flavor appreciably. Imagine my consternation to find the liquid turned +sour and thin—so thin that under no circumstances could it ever pass +muster as medicinal port. I was horrified. Ours had always been an +honorable firm. What was to be done? My employers' reputation was at +stake. If that claret had ever been delivered at London as port they +were ruined. I determined to run the <i>Gretchen B.</i> to Naples, and there +dispose of my cargo as Chianti, to which, with the infusion of a little +whale-oil for appearance' sake, it could be made to bear a remarkable +resemblance.</p> + +<p>This done, I retired to my cabin to reflect. What could it have been +that had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233">[Pg 233]</a></span> wrought such a change, for on leaving Bingen the wine was +sweet and good? I locked my door so as to be undisturbed, for I cannot +think when there are others about; but hardly had I seated myself at my +table when, upon the honor of a sea-captain, a ruffianly person, +noiseless as a cat, <i>walked through the massive oaken barrier I had but +just fastened to</i>!</p> + +<p>"Who—what are you?" I cried, aghast, the spectral quality of the +apparition being at once manifest.</p> + +<p>"Oh!" he retorted. "It seems to me it's more to the point for <i>me</i> to +ask that question. You are the interloper."</p> + +<p>"It is my cabin," I said, indignantly.</p> + +<p>"Oh, is it?" he sneered. "Since when?"</p> + +<p>"Since the seventh day of May," I replied. "I am the commander of this +craft."</p> + +<p>"Pooh!" said he, harshly. "Do you know who I am?"</p> + +<p>"I've asked you once," said I, trying hard to appear calm and sarcastic.</p> + +<p>"Well, I almost hate to tell you," he said, throwing off his coat, +whereon I was filled with consternation to observe that his belt held +four wicked-looking blunderbusses and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_234" id="Page_234">[Pg 234]</a></span> six cutlasses of razor edge. +"You're not a bad fellow, and your hair will turn white when I tell you; +but since you ask, so be it. Your hair be upon your own head. <i>I am the +ghost of Wouter von Rotterdaam!</i>"</p> + +<p>"You?" I cried, clutching wildly at my locks, not to keep them from +turning white, of course, but to steady my nerves, for in the name I +recognized that of one of the most successful pirates, and the bloodiest +in his way.</p> + +<p>"Ay, I!" he replied, impressively.</p> + +<p>"But—who—what do you here on board the <i>Gretchen B.</i>?" I cried.</p> + +<p>"<i>Gretchen</i> nothing," he said. "This is the <i>Dutch Avenger</i>, upon which, +after her capture, six months ago, I was hanged, and which, my dear +Hammerpestle, I shall haunt till she fills her destiny, which is +<i>there</i>!"</p> + +<p>The word "there" was pronounced in sepulchral tones, and with Von +Rotterdaam's forefinger pointed downward. I shivered from top to toe, +but quickly recovered.</p> + +<p>"If <i>I</i> cannot have the <i>Dutch Avenger</i>, at least none other shall have +her," he added.</p> + +<p>"You are mistaken, Mr. von Rotterdaam,"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235">[Pg 235]</a></span> I said, politely. "You have +taken the wrong boat, sir. This is not the <i>Dutch Avenger</i>, but the +<i>Gretchen B.</i>, of Bingen."</p> + +<p>"She has not always been the <i>Gretchen B.</i>, of Bingen," he replied.</p> + +<p>"I know that, my dear sir," I observed, "but her previous name was the +<i>Anneke van der Q</i>."</p> + +<p>"<i>Anneke van der</i> bosh!" he ejaculated, with a laugh. "That is what they +told you, and you swallowed the bait. They knew precious well your +people wouldn't buy her if they had ever guessed she'd once been the +terror of the seas as the <i>Dutch Avenger</i> of everywhere, the ubiquitous +ranger of the deep, Captain Wouter von Rotterdaam, better known as the +Throat-Cutter of the Caribbees."</p> + +<p>"Is that the truth?" I replied.</p> + +<p>"As a pirate, I scorn lies," he answered. "We don't need 'em in our +business. Get your carpenter to plane off the name on her stern and +see!" and even as he spoke he disappeared, fading away through the +closed door.</p> + +<p>I was nearly prostrated by the revelation, but, hoping for disproof, I +rushed up on<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236">[Pg 236]</a></span> deck, summoned the carpenter, and ordered the name +<i>Gretchen B.</i> planed off the stern. Alas! there beneath the innocent +letters lay the horrid proof of the truth of the spectre's story, the +words <i>Dutch Avenger</i>, flanked on either side by skull and cross-bones.</p> + +<p>Again I sought my room, to recover, and to my added distress Von +Rotterdaam had returned, an ugly look on his face.</p> + +<p>"You've changed your course!" he said, savagely.</p> + +<p>"I know it," said I. "My cargo is spoiled for the original market. I am +taking it where it is salable."</p> + +<p>He was very wroth.</p> + +<p>"I was not aware that you were so clever a man," said he, after a +moment, calming down. "I perceive that my attempt to ruin you +interlopers at the outset is to be attended with some difficulty. You +have individual resources upon which I had not counted."</p> + +<p>"Ah!" said I. "It was you who turned the claret sour?"</p> + +<p>"It was," he replied—"as a part of my revenge. And, mark you, Captain +Hammerpestle, no cargo shall ever reach its<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237">[Pg 237]</a></span> destination unspoiled while +I have a bit of the old spook left in me. Where are we bound now?"</p> + +<p>"To Naples," said I, incautiously, and I further foolishly unfolded my +plan to dispose of the cargo as Chianti.</p> + +<p>"See here, captain," he said, pleadingly, "give up this honest seafaring +business and come out as a pirate, won't you? You're too clever a chap +to be honest. Keep the <i>Dutch Avenger</i> going as a terror, and, by Jingo, +sir, I'll stand by you to the last."</p> + +<p>My answer was the lighting of a sulphur candle in the hope of exorcising +him, and, going on deck, I ordered the name <i>Gretchen B.</i> restored, +merely to emphasize my determination to have no part in his foul schemes +of piracy.</p> + +<p>I must now pause in my narrative for a moment, and see how far we have +settled in the water. It may be I shall have to write somewhat less in +detail so as to finish the tale before I am destroyed by the inrush of +the sea.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>It is as I feared. The rippling surface of the ocean is already lapping +the lower edge<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238">[Pg 238]</a></span> of my circular port window, and one or two drops have +leaked within. It will not be long, I fear, before the water from below +will burst the decks and dash against my door, when, of course, we shall +sink the more rapidly, but if the walls of my cabin, and they are +unquestionably strong, Von Rotterdaam having had them made bullet-proof, +of wrought-iron—if these can withstand the pressure of the water for a +half-hour after we are submerged, I am quite confident I can finish the +story in time to bottle it up and launch it safely through the port.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>After many days of difficulty we passed the Strait of Gibraltar, and on +the 18th of July were safely anchored in the Bay of Naples, where I sold +the claret, which Von Rotterdaam had changed into water, as the latest +mineral product of the Schnitzelhammerstein Spa.</p> + +<p>But from the hour of my refusal to compromise with my honor and become +the successor and partner of Von Rotterdaam in the profession of piracy +we had trouble on board.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239">[Pg 239]</a></span></p> + +<p>Letting my cargo alone, he introduced a system of haunting my crew, so +that at the end of several years not a German-speaking sailor was +anxious to ship with me, except at ruinously high wages. I found some, +but not many, and finally I was reduced to the followers of the two men +I have already mentioned—Hans Stickenfurst and Diedrich +Foutzenhickle—men who had never known fear, and who, when Von +Rotterdaam haunted them, merely laughed and blew the vile-smelling smoke +from their pipes into his face. But while the pirate ghost was powerless +to fill the men with fear, he did arouse a great interest in the stories +of his booty which he told. Night after night, lying in my cabin, I +could hear him in the forecastle telling them tales of his prowess, and +giving forth vague hints as to where vast treasure was hid which might +become theirs if only I would come around and become his successor. The +night we entered port I overheard a compact made between them, that on +the next outward voyage they would first reason with me and persuade me, +if possible, to accept his proposition, and, failing in that, to seize +the ship, put me in the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240">[Pg 240]</a></span> long-boat, turn me adrift, and place themselves +subject to Von Rotterdaam's orders.</p> + +<p>That was a year ago. Since then, until this ill-fated voyage +(by-the-way, as I look up the water is clear over the port window, and +is beginning to trickle in under the door, so I must again +hasten)—until this ill-fated voyage, I was not again on the sea, and +having in mind the threats of my crew, which they do not even now know +that I overheard, I secured for this voyage the crew of an Irish bark, +discharging all my previous men.</p> + +<p>"I will at least have men who do not understand Dutch or German," I +thought, "and for this voyage shall be comparatively safe. To insure +against a possible turning adrift in the long-boat, I shall likewise +sail without it."</p> + +<p>Alas for all my expectations! While neither Sullivan nor O'Brien, as I +had supposed, was acquainted with the native tongue of Von Rotterdaam, +that talented ghost could speak English with as fine a brogue as ever +gilded speech; and, worse than this, Sullivan, the carpenter, was a +fly-away fool. Genial, full of good stories,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241">[Pg 241]</a></span> and an excellent carpenter +(the deck beneath my feet is bulging upward), he was absolutely without +foresight, and it is to him I owe my present plight.</p> + +<p>It happened this afternoon. The day had been absolutely calm and still. +Not a ripple on the sea, not a breath of wind to stir even the frayed +hemp in the rigging, and yet down, down, down we are sinking, <i>for +Sullivan has sawed a hole in our bottom big enough to let a man +through</i>!</p> + +<p>I didn't suppose he would do it, but he has; and because last night +while he and Rafferty, my second mate, were smoking in the forecastle, +Von Rotterdaam's spirit rose up before them, and, arousing their +cupidity, led them astray.</p> + +<p>"For the love of the shaints!" cried Rafferty, as the ghost appeared, +"phwat are you?"</p> + +<p>Rotterdaam replied, "A spherit of the poirate Von Rotterdaam; and here +where I stand, directly below me, in five fathoms of water, lies a +million in treasure."</p> + +<p>"Go on!" cried Rafferty.</p> + +<p>"'Tis true," retorted Von Rotterdaam. "And if at noon to-morrow you will +cut<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_242" id="Page_242">[Pg 242]</a></span> away enough of the ship's bottom to let yourselves through the +hole, with a rope tied about you so that you can be hauled back again, +it will be yours."</p> + +<p>"Blame good pay for a shwim," said Sullivan. "A million phwat—pounds or +francs, sorr? They's some difference betune the two."</p> + +<p>"Exactly," returned Von Rotterdaam. "And they're pounds sterling, ingots +of gold, and priceless jewels."</p> + +<p>"Phwy don't yees tell the ould man?" asked Rafferty, referring to me.</p> + +<p>"Because," replied Von Rotterdaam, "he would keep it all for himself. +You gentlemen, I am sure, will divide it justly among all."</p> + +<p>"Thrue for youse," said Sullivan, with a laugh. "And phwere do you come +in?"</p> + +<p>"I have no further use for dross," replied Von Rotterdaam; and I judge +that at that moment he faded from their sight, for almost immediately he +appeared in my cabin. I was tired and irritated, so I said nothing, +pretending to be asleep, never for an instant believing that Sullivan +would do so foolish a thing.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243">[Pg 243]</a></span></p> + +<p>"He doesn't ever think of consequences; but he's not such an ass as to +cut a hole a yard square in the bottom of this ship," I said to myself; +and then, worn out, I really slept. How it happened I do not know; +possibly that infernal ghost in some manner drugged me; but it was not +until five minutes after midday, just three hours ago, that I awoke, and +my heart stood still as I heard the action of a saw deep down in the +hold.</p> + +<p>"Heavens!" I cried, starting up. "The idiot's at it!"</p> + +<p>A deep, baleful laugh greeted the remark. It was from Von Rotterdaam.</p> + +<p>"He is! And I am revenged!" he said, in tones which seemed to come from +the centre of the earth, and then he vanished—I hope, forever.</p> + +<p>I rushed madly out and called for Sullivan, but the only answer was the +grating of the saw's teeth. (Dear me! how dark it is getting! I must +really not linger with details.) My only answer was the grating of the +saw's teeth upon the bottom of my devoted vessel. Shrieking, I clambered +down into the hold, but too late. Just as I got there the yard square of +planking was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244">[Pg 244]</a></span> burst in by the waters, and the vessel was doomed.</p> + +<p>"Well, captain," I said to myself, a great calm coming over my soul, +"it's all up with you; now think of others. Those at home, not hearing +from you, will be worried. Go to your cabin, and, like a dutiful man, +make your report."</p> + +<p>This I have done, and this narrative is my report. I hope it will reach +its destination in safety, and that the world may yet learn that in the +hour of peril, which has but one conclusion, I have been faithful and +calm.</p> + +<p>It is now the 16th day of June, 1640. I shall never see the 17th, and +I am resigned to my fate. And now for the bottle ... now for the +cork.... Blithering cyclones! the door is cracking open ... and +now—one—two—three—to open the port ... wait. I must put in one +final P.S. In case this story ever reaches the land, will the finder +kindly be careful in correcting the proof and see that my name is +spelled correctly? There is just a moment in which to write it +plainly—RUDOLF—with an F, mark you, not a PH, and HAMMERPESTLE<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245">[Pg 245]</a></span> with +two M's. And so—the port....</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>There the story ends, and here it is for the world to see. What +followed Captain Hammerpestle's last word we can only surmise. +Pumpernickel and I have been faithful to the trust unwittingly +committed to our care by one who has been dead for a trifle over +two hundred and sixty years. We have only to add that those who do +not believe that the story is true can see the water-bottle at the home +of Herr Pumpernickel at Schnitzelhammerstein-on-the-Zugvitz at any time; +but as for the manuscript and the ghost of the pirate Von Rotterdaam, we +do not know where they are. The latter we have ourselves never seen, and +the former was, as usual, mislaid by the talented young person who +undertook to make a type-written copy of it for us a few days after our +discovery.</p> + +<h4>THE END</h4> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>By JOHN KENDRICK BANGS</h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>THE IDIOT AT HOME. Illustrated.</p> + +<p>THE BOOMING OF ACRE HILL. Illustrated.</p> + +<p>COFFEE AND REPARTEE and THE IDIOT. In One Volume. +Illustrated.</p> + +<p>THE ENCHANTED TYPEWRITER. Illustrated by <span class="smcap">Peter Newell</span>.</p> + +<p>THE DREAMERS. Illustrated by <span class="smcap">Edward Penfield</span>.</p> + +<p>PEEPS AT PEOPLE. Passages from the writings of Anne +Warrington Witherup, Journalist. Illustrated by <span class="smcap">Edward +Penfield</span>.</p> + +<p>GHOSTS I HAVE MET, and Some Others. Illustrated by <span class="smcap">Peter +Newell</span>.</p> + +<p>A HOUSE-BOAT ON THE STYX. Being Some Account of the Divers +Doings of the Associated Shades. Illustrated.</p> + +<p>THE PURSUIT OF THE HOUSE-BOAT. Being Some Further Account of +the Doings of the Associated Shades, under the Leadership of +Sherlock Holmes, Esq. Illustrated by <span class="smcap">Peter Newell</span>.</p> + +<p>THE BICYCLERS, and Three Other Farces. Illustrated.</p> + +<p>A REBELLIOUS HEROINE. Illustrated.</p> + +<p>MR. BONAPARTE OF CORSICA. Illustrated by <span class="smcap">H. W. McVickar</span>.</p> + +<p>THE WATER GHOST, and Others. Illustrated.</p></div> + +<p class="center">(16mo. Cloth, Ornamental, $1.25 per volume.)</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>PASTE JEWELS. Being Seven Tales of Domestic Woe. With an +Illustration. 16mo, Cloth, Ornamental. $1.00.</p> + +<p>COBWEBS FROM A LIBRARY CORNER. Verses. 16mo, Cloth, 50 +cents.</p> + +<p>THREE WEEKS IN POLITICS. Illustrated. 32mo, Cloth, +Ornamental, 50 cents.</p> + +<p>COFFEE AND REPARTEE. Illustrated. 32mo, Cloth, Ornamental, +50 cents.</p></div> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<h4>HARPER & BROTHERS, <span class="smcap">Publishers</span></h4> + +<h4>NEW YORK AND LONDON</h4> + +<p class="center">☞ <i>Any of the above works will be sent by mail, postage +prepaid, to any part of the United States, Canada, or Mexico, on receipt +of the price.</i></p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><i>American Contemporary Novels</i></h3> + +<h2><span class="smcap">Eastover Court House</span></h2> + +<h3>By HENRY BURNHAM BOONE and KENNETH BROWN</h3> + +<p class="center"><i>This is the first of the twelve One-a-Month American Novels to be +published during 1901.</i></p> + +<p>"If each of the novels of American life by American authors which +Messrs. Harper & Brothers project for the current year proves as good as +'Eastover Court House,' the twelve volumes will constitute a decided +addition to American fiction."—<i>Detroit Free Press.</i></p> + +<p>"Its charm lies in the constant succession of strongly drawn pictures of +life. One chapter after another presents these scenes, as sharply +outlined and deep in shadows as an artistic photograph. The book ... is +absolutely fascinating."—<i>Louisville Courier-Journal.</i></p> + +<p>"Set in the midst of the fox-hunting and cross-country regions, there is +the hoof-beat of the galloping hunter all through the story, which is +full of dry humor and vivid pen-pictures of life."—<i>Horse Show +Monthly.</i></p> + +<p>"The horse stories are the best since David Harum's, and quite as +laughable as his."—<i>Chester Times.</i></p> + +<p><i>Comments from various reviewers:</i></p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"A good story well told."</p> + +<p>"Strong and absorbing."</p> + +<p>"Warm with life, with the passions and emotions ... of +Virginia."</p> + +<p>"Wholesome, true to life."</p></div> + +<p class="center"><i>Post 8vo. Cloth, Ornamented, $1.50</i></p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><span class="smcap">The Sentimentalists</span></h2> + +<h3>By ARTHUR STANWOOD PIER</h3> + +<p class="center"><i>This is the second of the twelve One-a-Month American Novels to be +published during 1901.</i></p> + +<p>"A novelist who sets out to depict a character like Becky Sharp is +likely to come to grief. Hence it is surprising that Mr. Pier has not +failed in portraying the social exile, Mrs. Kent. The novel is strong +and clever."—<i>Pittsburg Commercial-Gazette.</i></p> + +<p>"It is a very clever novel. There is story to it; there is apt phrasing +and clear delineation of character; there is much incisive and +delightful epigram."—<i>Evening Sun</i>, New York.</p> + +<p>"If the cleverest parts of this work had been entirely cut out, we +should have called it one of the cleverest novels of the +season."—<i>Brooklyn Daily Eagle.</i></p> + +<p>"The book is characterized throughout by keen analysis and a delightful +tense of humor."—<i>Chicago Tribune.</i></p> + +<p><i>Comments from various reviewers:</i></p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"Mrs. Kent is distinctly American."</p> + +<p>"As interesting and unique as Becky Sharp."</p> + +<p>"The book will be a success."</p> + +<p>"A rattling good story."</p> + +<p>"A vivid study of contemporary social life."</p> + +<p>"One of the cleverest novels of the season."</p></div> + +<p class="center"><i>Post 8vo. Cloth, Ornamented, $1.50</i></p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>MARTIN BROOK</h2> + +<h3>By MORGAN BATES</h3> + +<p class="center"><i>This is the third of the twelve One-a-Month American Novels to be +published during 1901.</i></p> + +<p>"It is written in a style unknown nowadays, ... with an impressive power +revealed at each crisis of the tale, which makes the pulses stir and the +eye glisten. What a book for the opening of the twentieth +century!"—Julian Hawthorne, in the <i>Journal</i>, New York.</p> + +<p>"A very striking book, and one that I am quite sure will take an +enviable place in line with record-breakers. It is the third of the +'American Novel Series,' and is entitled 'Martin Brook.' I finished it +at one sitting, so intense was my interest in it."—<i>Buffalo +Commercial</i>, N. Y.</p> + +<p>"The third of the 'American Novel Series,' 'Martin Brook,' by Morgan +Bates, appeals to the best in man and woman, and is a credit alike to +author and publishers.... 'Martin Brook' is indeed an American novel, +and of the best kind."—Philadelphia <i>Daily Evening Telegraph</i>.</p> + +<p>"One's interest is caught and held by the hero from the moment of his +first appearance in its pages.... There has not been a stronger scene +(the library scene) written to revive the interest of jaded novel +readers for many a day."—<i>N. Y. Commercial Advertiser.</i></p> + +<p>"The story is told in a vigorous manner and is certainly out of the +common run of fiction as it is told nowadays."—<i>New York Sun.</i></p> + +<p><i>Comments from various reviewers:</i></p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"One of the most refreshing and natural of novels."</p> + +<p>"As good as it is charming."</p> + +<p>"A story of depth, color, and action."</p> + +<p>"It is refreshing to light upon a story like 'Martin +Brook.'"</p></div> + +<p class="center"><i>Post 8vo. Cloth, Ornamented, $1.50</i></p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>A VICTIM OF CIRCUMSTANCES</h2> + +<h3>By GERALDINE ANTHONY</h3> + +<p class="center"><i>This is the fourth of the twelve One-a-Month American Novels to be +published during 1901.</i></p> + +<p>"It plunges the reader directly into the social whirl of New York, and +the hand that detains one there all through an intensely interesting +succession of functions, flirtations, and incidents, ... is the hand of +one who has seen something whereof she writes."—<i>New York World.</i></p> + +<p>"There is more than one thinly disguised portrait in its pages—so we +are told."—<i>Mail and Express</i>, New York.</p> + +<p>"Bobby Floyd is probably the most disagreeable and wholly exasperating +cad ever put into an American novel.... There is love-making all through +the book."—<i>The Times</i>, Washington, D. C.</p> + +<p>"They fall in love amid most delightful surroundings of tennis, boating, +and driving."—<i>Exchange.</i></p> + +<p><i>Comments from various reviewers:</i></p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"Devoid of problems or mental complications."</p> + +<p>"A book for a summer day."</p> + +<p>"Has the correct New York social atmosphere."</p> + +<p>"Decidedly a fascinating book about attractive people."</p> + +<p>"Full of touch-and-go conversation."</p> + +<p>"They all revel in smart talk and repartee."</p></div> + +<p class="center"><i>Post 8vo. Cloth, Ornamented, $1.50</i></p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>DAYS LIKE THESE</h2> + +<h3>By EDWARD W. TOWNSEND</h3> + +<p class="center"><i>This is the fifth of the twelve One-a-Month American Novels to be +published during 1901.</i></p> + +<p>"Mr. Townsend has given us a novel that is a strong and vigorous picture +of contemporary New York. He tells his story with the gayety and charm +and light-hearted high spirits of one to whom the passing show of life +is still full of interest, and he succeeds in interesting the reader. +There is not a dull line in the book."—<i>New York Journal.</i></p> + +<p>"The love story is well told, but the chief interest of the novel lies +in its contrasted pictures of New York life—from Fifth Avenue to Hell's +Kitchen."—<i>Cleveland Plain-Dealer.</i></p> + +<p>"Mr. Townsend has made a very striking and daring use of his experience +as a newspaper man.... He has gone about his business with vigor and +decision.... There is hardly a chapter which does not stand out through +sheer force of the author's fund of anecdote and observation and +humor."—<i>New York Commercial Advertiser.</i></p> + +<p>"It is an eminent success.... We recall very few novels of the past year +that we have read with such sustained interest."—<i>The Churchman</i>, New +York.</p> + +<p><i>Comments from various reviewers:</i></p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"The book has countless good things."</p> + +<p>"'Days Like These' is full of life and New York."</p> + +<p>"A kaleidoscopic yet homogeneous picture of modern New York +life."</p> + +<p>"His pictures are vivid and true."</p> + +<p>"Mr. Townsend writes incisively, vigorously."</p></div> + +<p class="center"><i>Post 8vo. Cloth, Ornamented, $1.50</i></p> + +<h3>HARPER & BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS</h3> + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Over the Plum Pudding, by John Kendrick Bangs + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK OVER THE PLUM PUDDING *** + +***** This file should be named 34553-h.htm or 34553-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/3/4/5/5/34553/ + +Produced by Annie McGuire. 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+1,5367 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Over the Plum Pudding, by John Kendrick Bangs + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Over the Plum Pudding + +Author: John Kendrick Bangs + +Release Date: December 3, 2010 [EBook #34553] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK OVER THE PLUM PUDDING *** + + + + +Produced by Annie McGuire. This book was produced from +scanned images of public domain material from the Google +Print archive. + + + + + + + + + +[Illustration: Book Cover] + + + + +[Illustration: John Kendrick Bangs] + + + + +Over the Plum-Pudding + +_by_ +John Kendrick Bangs + +Author of + "A House-Boat on the Styx" + "Coffee and Repartee" + "The Idiot at Home" + "The Idiot" + +Illustrated + +[Illustration] + +New York and London +Harper & Brothers Publishers +1901 + + +Copyright, 1901, by HARPER & BROTHERS. + + + + +TO +JOHN KENDRICK BANGS, JR. +WHOSE FONDNESS FOR PLUM PUDDINGS +SUGGESTS THE PROPRIETY OF THIS +Dedication + + + + +Thanks are due to the Publishers of _Harper's Round Table_, _Harper's +Weekly_, _The Delineator_, _Life_, _Brooklyn Life_, and the New York +_Mail and Express_ for permission to republish these stories in +collected form. + + + + +Contents + + + PAGE + "OVER THE PLUM-PUDDING" 3 + BILLS, M.D. 23 + THE FLUNKING OF WATKINS'S GHOST 41 + AN UNMAILED LETTER 67 + THE AMALGAMATED BROTHERHOOD OF SPOOKS 83 + A GLANCE AHEAD 105 + HANS PUMPERNICKEL'S VIGIL 139 + THE AFFLICTION OF BARON HUMPFELHIMMEL 157 + A GREAT COMPOSER 175 + HOW FRITZ BECAME A WIZARD 193 + RISE AND FALL OF THE POET GREGORY 209 + THE LOSS OF THE "GRETCHEN B." 223 + + + + +Illustrations + + + JOHN KENDRICK BANGS _Frontispiece_ + PARLEY CONVERSING WITH THE INVISIBLE GHOST _Facing p._ 48 + "I THOUGHT A MILE WAS THE PROPER DISTANCE" 88 + "HE VANISHED IN SOMETHING OF A RAGE" 94 + THE SPECTRE BRASS-BAND 98 + "THE THING FELL OVER LIMP" 100 + "'GOOD-MORNING, MR. DAWSON'" 108 + "THREE VILLANOUS-LOOKING BODIES, AND A FOURTH, WHICH DAWSON + RECOGNIZED AS HIS OWN" 126 + "HE'S THE WORST BABY YOU EVER SAW" 148 + "IT WAS A WEARY VIGIL, BUT HE WAS TRUE" 150 + "'MY CASTLE'S BURNING, EH? HA-HA!'" 162 + "RUPERT WAS ALWAYS MERRY" 166 + "SIEGFRIED VON PEPPERPOTZ GREW ILL OF IT" 170 + "THE THREE FIDDLED WITH ALL THEIR STRENGTH" 188 + "'YOU ARE A VERY NICE OLD GENTLEMAN'" 200 + "THE LITTLE FELLOW MUSED OFT AND LONG THEREON" 202 + "IT NEARLY BLINDED HIM" 204 + + + + +"Over the Plum-Pudding" + +WHY IT WAS NEVER PUBLISHED. AN AUTHORITATIVE STATEMENT BY ITS EDITOR. + + +_On the eve of his departure for Manila, where he is shortly to begin +the publication of a comic paper, my friend Mr. Horace Wilkinson, late +literary adviser of Messrs. Hawkins, Wilkes & Speedway, the publishers, +sent to me the following pages of manuscript with the request that I +should have them published for the benefit of those whom the story may +concern. I have cheerfully accepted the commission, desiring it to be +distinctly understood, however, that I am in no sense responsible for +Mr. Wilkinson's statements either of fact or of opinion. I am merely the +medium through whom his explanation is brought to the public eye._ + + _J. K. B._ + + + + +"Over the Plum-Pudding" + +I + + +[Illustration: Decorative I] + +have been asked so often and by so many persons known and unknown to me +why it was that a Christmas book that was to have been issued some years +ago under my editorial supervision never appeared, although announced as +ready for immediate publication, that I feel that I should make some +statement in explanation of the seeming deception. The matter was very +annoying, both to my publishers and to myself at the time it happened, +and while I was anxious then to make public a full and candid statement +of the facts as they occurred, Messrs. Hawkins, Wilkes & Speedway deemed +it the wiser course to let the affair rest for a year or two anyhow. +They failed to see my point of view, that, while they were responsible +for the advertisement, I was assumed to be responsible for the book, +and in the event of its failure to appear it would naturally be inferred +by the public that my work had not proven sufficiently up to standard to +warrant them in continuing the venture. I did not press the matter, +however, being too busy on other affairs to give to it the attention it +deserved, and until now no opportunity to explain my connection with the +unfortunate volume has arisen. I should hesitate even at this late date +to give a wide publicity to the incident were it not that my mail has +lately been overburdened by rather peremptory requests from the several +contributors to the volume to be informed what had become of the tales +they wrote and for which they were to be paid on publication. +Ordinarily, letters of this kind I should refer to my business +principals, the publishers themselves, but in this emergency it happens, +unfortunately for me, that the publishers have been retired from +business and are now engaged in other pursuits: one of them at the +Klondike, another as a veterinary surgeon-general at Santiago, on the +appointment of the Secretary of War, and the third living somewhere +abroad incog. as the result of his having drawn out all the capital of +his partners and fled one early spring morning two years ago, leaving +behind him his best wishes and about eight thousand dollars in debts for +his partners to pay. It therefore devolves on me to explain to the irate +authors as best I can what happened. The explanation may not be shirked, +for they are wholly within their rights in demanding it. My only hope is +that they will be satisfied with my statement, although I am quite +conscious, sadly so, of the fact that to certain suspicious minds it may +seem to lack credibility. + + +II + +To begin, I will place the responsibility for the whole affair where it +belongs. It was the fault of no less a person than Mr. Rudyard Kipling. +Mr. Andrew Lang's connection with the episode, of course, involved us in +the final catastrophe, but he is not to blame. Mr. Kipling started the +whole affair, and if Mulvaney and Ortheris and Learoyd had behaved +themselves properly the book would now be resting calmly upon many an +appreciative library shelf, instead of being, as it is, but a sorrowful +memory and a possible cause for a series of international lawsuits. + +This fact being understood as the basis of my argument, I will proceed +to prove it; and to do so properly I must give in brief outline some +idea of the contents of the book. It was to be called "Over the +Plum-Pudding; or, Tales Told Under the Mistletoe, by Sundry Tattlers. +Edited by Horace Wilkinson"--in fact, I hold a copyright at this moment +upon this alluring title. Furthermore, it was to be unique among modern +publications in that, while professing to be a Christmas book, the tales +were to be full of Christmas spirit. The idea struck me as a very +original one. I had observed that Fourth-of-July issues of periodicals +were differentiated from the Christmas numbers only in the +superabundance of advertisements in the latter, and it occurred to me +that a Christmas publication containing some reference to the Christmas +season would strike the public as novel--and, in spite of the +unfortunate overturning of my schemes, I still think so. Messrs. +Hawkins, Wilkes & Speedway thought so, too, and gave me _carte blanche_ +to go ahead, stipulating only that I should spare no expense, and that +the stories should be paid for on publication. I was also to enlist the +services of the best persons in letters only. + +Taking this last stipulation as the basis of my editorial operations, it +is not a far cry to the conclusion that I sought to get stories from +such eminent writers as Mr. Hall Caine, Dr. Doyle, Mr. Kipling, Richard +Harding Davis, Andrew Lang, George Meredith, and myself. There were a +few others, but these were people whose light shone forth suddenly and +brilliantly, and then went out. I shall have no occasion to mention +their names. It is enough to call attention to the fact that ultimately +they were all I had left. + +Mr. Caine's contribution was a charming little fancy written originally +for children, but sent to me because it was the only thing the author +happened to have on hand at the moment he received my request. It was +called, if I remember rightly, "The Inebriate Santa Claus." It was full +of that spirit of life and gayety which has been such a marked feature +of Mr. Caine's work in the past, and was written with all of that fine, +manly vigor that Mr. Caine puts into his every word. Sunshiny, I should +call it, if I were seeking for the one word which summed up the virtues +of "The Inebriate Santa Claus." One glowed as one perused it with the +warmth of the whole thing, especially in such passages as this, for +instance: + + "His downward trip through the chimney of Marston Hall gave + him confidence in himself. He had observed as he was about + to leave the roof of Higginbottom Castle that his footprints + in the snow were suggestive of his actual condition, and he + wondered if he could possibly get through the evening's work + without catastrophe. But the Marston Hall chimney flue + restored his confidence. It was straight, and after his + descent the soot, that clung to the inner walls like bad + habits to a man, showed none of the vacillating lines which + were the essential characteristic of his footprints on the + roof. He was sobering up." + +I wish I could remember the story as a whole. It would be unjust, +however, to the author to try to reproduce it from memory, and I shall +not make the effort. It went on to tell, however, how the good old +Saint, in his unfortunate condition of inebriacy, overturned the +Christmas tree at Marston Hall and set fire to the house, resulting in a +slight singeing of his own person and the destruction of the Hall, +together with all the inmates, a fact that so distressed the unhappy +Santa Claus that at the next nursery he visited he resolved to reform +and indulge no more in strong drink, although the nurse, on putting the +children to bed, had departed, leaving a bottle of whiskey upon the +mantel-piece--this showing Santa Claus's powers of self-control in the +face of temptation. + +Altogether, as I have already said, the story was full of import and +sunshine, and, as may be seen from my brief and inadequate description, +was possibly more fitted for children than for the adult mind. + + +III + +Mr. Meredith's story came next, and it had all of that charm which goes +with the average Meredithian production. To call it dictionaryesque is +not too high praise to bestow upon it. What it was about I never really +gathered, although I of course read it through several times before +accepting it, and perused the proofs carefully some eight or nine times. +There were allusions to Santa Claus in it, however, and I therefore let +it pass, feeling that to the admirers of the master's genius its message +would ring out clear and crisp like the glad chimes of the Christmas +morn; and it was my desire to be the bearer of glad things to all +people, whether I was myself in sympathy with their literary tastes or +not. I recall one page in the story--the last of all, however, which +struck me as a marvel. Fotherington, whom I guessed to be the hero, is +standing on top of a shot-tower in London, about to commit suicide by +jumping down, when all of a sudden Santa Claus appears beside him and +inquires if the tower is a chimney or not. Fotherington gives a +"throat-gasping laugh" and invites Santa Claus to join him in the jump +and find out for himself. The author writes: + + "At this, the spirit of the Hourgod, the multitudinous larvae + of his emotions, intensified by the nose-whirling + impertinence of the other, gazed, eyes tear-surging, towards + the reddish northern cheek of the piping East, human in its + bulk, the wharf cranes rising superabundant from the + umbrageous onflowing of the commerce-ridden stream, piercing + the middle distance like a mine-hid vein of purest gold in + the mellowing amber of approaching dawn, flying seaward, + curdling in its mad pressure ever onward, soon to be lost in + the vaguely infinite, beyond which, unconscious of the + perils of the inspired home-coming, lies that of which + homogeneous man may speculate, but never, by reason of his + inflated limitations, approximate without expletion. + + "'Beg pardon!' said he, with an interrogation in his + inflection. 'I was not aware of the facts.' Fotherington was + silent for a moment, and then, recognizing Santa Claus, a + shame-surge encarnadined his cheek, and he answered, + strenuously apologetic: 'This is the shot-tower. The sight + of you restores me to life. I shall not again dwell upon + self-destruction. Heaven bless the spirit of the hour.' + + "He buried his face in the Saint's pack, and hot tears + sprang forth from his vision. + + "'Beg pardon again,' observed Santa Claus, drawing himself + away. 'If you must weep, weep on my shoulder, not on my + pack. The toys are not painted in fast colors.' + + "And the two went down together." + + +IV + +The contribution of Mr. Davis was a most excellent sketch of the +inimitable Van Bibber, and told how on his way to a dance late one +evening during Christmas week he encountered, snuggled in a doorway near +the North River, a poor little street gamin nearly frozen to death. Van +Bibber saves the child's life by removing his dress-coat and wrapping it +up in it, the result being that he has to lead the cotillon at Mrs. +Winchley's clad in a fur-lined overcoat. It was a tender and touching +little literary gem, and was full of the fine sentiment and lofty +moralizing for which this author has always been noted. Its humor may +well be imagined. The little talk between Van Bibber and Travers in the +dressing-room as to Van Bibber's dilemma when he realized how his +impetuosity had led him into giving the boy his coat was a +characteristic bit, and ran somewhat like this: + + "'What the deuce shall I do?" he said, fanning his somewhat + flushed face with the silver-backed hand-mirror. 'I can't + lead the cotillon in my shirt-sleeves.' + + "'No, you can't,' assented Travers with a droll smile. 'What + an ass you were not to give him your fur-lined overcoat + instead.' + + "'It wouldn't have fitted him,' said Van Bibber, absently. + 'Poor little devil.' + + "'There's only one thing you can do, Van,' said Travers + after a moment's pause. 'Either don't stay, or dance in your + overcoat.' + + "'That's two things,' retorted Van Bibber. 'Of course I've + got to stay. I told Mrs. Winchley I'd lead her cotillon, and + I've got to do it. Do you suppose people would say anything + if I did appear in my overcoat?' + + "'Not if they had any manners they wouldn't,' said Travers. + 'Of course, it will be observed, but if they know anything + about good form they'll keep quiet about it.' + + "'Then it's settled,' Van Bibber said quietly. 'I'll wear + the fur overcoat, and to disarm all criticism I'll simply + tell everybody I have a fearful cold and don't dare take it + off. Come on--let's go down. It's half past one now, and + Mrs. Winchley told me she wanted to begin early, so as to + have it over with before breakfast.'" + + +V + +It was my pleasure next to have a Sherlock Holmes story from Dr. Doyle, +wherein the great detective is once more restored to life, and through +an ingenious complication discovers himself. His sudden disappearance, +which was never fully explained, did not really result in his death, but +in a concussion of the brain in his fall over the precipice which drove +all consciousness of his real self from his mind. Found in an +unconscious condition by a band of yodelers, he is carried by them into +the Tyrolese Alps, where, after a prolonged illness, he regains his +health, but all his past life is a blank to him. How he sets about +ferreting out the mystery of his identity is the burden of the story, +and how he ultimately discovers that he is none other than Sherlock +Holmes by finding a diamond brooch in the gizzard of a Christmas turkey +at Nice, where he is stopping under the name of Higgins, is vividly set +forth: + + "'And you have never really ascertained, Mr. Higgins, who + you are?' asked Lady Blenkinsop, as they sat down at Mrs. + Wilbraham's gorgeous table on Christmas night. + + "'No, madame,' he replied, sadly, 'but I shall ultimately + triumph. My taste in cigars is a peculiar one, and no one + else that I have ever met can smoke with real enjoyment the + kind of a cigar that I like. I am searching, step by step, + in every city for a cigar dealer who makes a specialty of + that brand who has recently lost a customer. Ultimately I + shall find one, and then the chain of evidence will be near + to its ultimate link, for it may be that I shall turn out to + be that man.'" + +Thus the story runs on, and the pseudo-Higgins delights his +fellow-guests with the brilliance of his conversation. He eats lightly, +when suddenly a flash of triumph comes into his deep-set eyes, for on +cutting open the turkey gizzard the diamond brooch is disclosed. He +seems about to faint, but with a strong effort of the will he regains +his strength and arises. + + "Mrs. Wilbraham,' he said, quietly and simply--'ladies and + gentlemen, I must leave you. I take the 9.10 train for + London. May I be excused?' + + "The eyes of the company opened wide. + + "'Why--must you really go, Mr Higgins?' Mrs. Wilbraham + queried + + "'It is imperative,' said he. 'I am going to have myself + identified. The finding of this diamond brooch in a turkey + gizzard convinces me that I am Sherlock Holmes. Such a thing + could happen to no other, yet I may be mistaken. I shall + call at once upon a certain Dr. Watson, of London, a friend + of Holmes's, who will answer the question definitely.' + + "And with a courteous bow to the company he left the room, + his usually pale features aglow with unwonted color." + +Of course, the surmise proves to be correct, and the great detective +once more rejoins his former companions, restored not only to them, but +to himself. It was one of the most keenly interesting studies of +detective life that Dr. Doyle or any one else has ever given us, and my +regret that the story is lost to the world amounts almost to a positive +grief. + + +VI + +The only other notable efforts in the book were, as I have already +indicated, from the pens of Andrew Lang and Rudyard Kipling, and as the +preceding stories were characteristic of their authors, so were these +equally so. I have not the time to more than suggest their tenor +briefly. Mr. Lang's story was one of his charming made-over fairy tales, +and he unfortunately introduced that most fearsome of dragons Fafner +into it. He was held, however, in captivity, and had the situation in +which Mr. Lang left him been allowed to remain undisturbed, all would +have been well, and "Over the Plum-Pudding" would not have met with +disaster. Mr. Kipling, however, chose to contribute a Mulvaney story, +and herein lay the whole trouble. Mulvaney and his two roystering +companions, Ortheris and Learoyd, start in on a Christmas spree, and +they do it in their own complete fashion, and Mr. Kipling never in his +life drew his characters more vividly and vigorously; but this time he +did it too vigorously. The three musketeers of the British army got +beyond his control, and it is the fact that when "Over the Plum-Pudding" +was ready for presentation to the public they broke loose from the story +in which they were supposed to be confined; went rushing and roaring, +regardless of the etiquette of the situation, through every other tale +in the book, found the bottle of whiskey which the nurse-maid in Mr. +Caine's story had left on the mantel-piece, drained it to the dregs, and +then, under the mad influence of the alcohol, _let Fafner loose_. + +Their fate may easily be imagined. They were at once destroyed by the +angry beast, who, after making a meal upon them, rushed like a +steam-engine through the Sherlock Holmes story, swallowing its +characters one and all as though they were naught but salted almonds; +breathed fire upon Meredith's shot-tower until it tottered and fell, a +smoking ruin; chewed up the frozen little gamin in the Van Bibber +sketch; withered Van Bibber and his overcoat and his friends by one +snorting blast of steam from his left nostril; and, in fact, to make a +long story shorter than it might be, strewed blue ruin from title-page +to finis of "Over the Plum-Pudding." It is the fact that on the morning +set for the presentation of the edition to the public, on opening my own +copy of the book there was not a character in it left alive; not a house +that had not been reduced to charred timbers and ashes; not a scene that +was not withered as by the flames of perdition, and where once had been +a strong portrayal of a scene of happy social revels, the ballroom of +Mrs. Winchley, where Van Bibber was to lead the cotillon, lay +Fafner--dead. Kipling's characters were too much for his digestion. + + +VII + +That is the story of "Over the Plum-Pudding." That is why it never +appeared. That is the explanation of the editor. I admit that in some +ways the explanation seems scarcely credible, but it is in every respect +truthful, and on my return from Manila I will prove it to all +suspicious-minded persons who may choose to doubt it, for I can show +them the copyright papers of the book, the advertisement of its +approaching publication, my contract with Messrs. Hawkins, Wilkes and +Speedway, and a few press notices I had myself prepared for its +exploitation. + +I can also prove that Mr. Kipling draws his characters so vividly and +vigorously that they stand out like real people before us, and certainly +if they can do that, there is no reason why they should not be able to +do all that I have claimed they did do. + + HORACE WILKINSON. + + + + +Bills, M.D. + + + + +Bills, M.D. + +A CHRISTMAS GHOST I HAVE MET + + +[Illustration: Decorative I] + +t was the usual kind of a Christmas Eve. The snow was falling with its +customary noiselessness, and the world was gradually taking on a mantle +of white which made it look like a very attractive wedding-cake. It was +upon this occasion that Old Bills materialized in my down-town study and +got me out of a very unpleasant hole. The year had not been a very +profitable one for me. My last book had been a comparative failure, +having sold only 118,000 copies in the first six months, so that instead +of receiving $60,000 in royalties on the first of November, as I had +expected, I had fallen down to something like $47,000. There was a +fraction of seven or eight hundred dollars--just what it was I cannot +recall. Then my securities had, for one reason or another, failed to +yield the customary revenue; some thirty or forty of my houses had not +rented; taxes had increased--in short, I found myself at Christmas-time, +with my wife and eight children expecting to be remembered, with less +than $80,000 that I could spare in the bank. + +To be sure, we had all agreed that this year we should avoid +extravagance, and the little madame had informed me that she would be +very unhappy if I expended more than $40,000 upon her present from +myself. My daughter, too, like the sweet girl that she is, said, with a +considerable degree of firmness, that she would rather have a check for +$10,000 than the diamond necklace I had contemplated giving her; and my +eldest son had sent word from college, in definite terms, that he didn't +think, in view of the hard times, he would ask for anything more than a +new pair of wheelers for his drag, three hunters, a T cart, a silver +chafing-dish set, and a Corot for his smoking-room. + +This spirit, as I say, permeated the household--even the baby babbled of +economy, and thought he could get along with ruby jackstones and a bag +of cats'-eyes to play marbles with. But even thus, as the reader can see +for himself, $80,000 would not go far, and I was in despair. There is no +greater trial in the world than that confronting a generously disposed +father who suddenly finds himself at Christmas time without the means to +carry out his wishes and to provide his little ones with the gifts which +their training has justified them in expecting. + +I was seated alone in my office, not having the courage to go home and +tell my family of the horrid state of affairs, or, rather, putting off +the evil hour, for ultimately the truth would have to be told. It was +growing dark. Outside I could hear the joyous hum of the busy streets; +the clanging of the crowded cable-cars, going to and fro, bearing their +holiday burden of bundle-laden shoppers, seemed to sound musically and +to tell of peace and good-will. Even the cold, godless world of commerce +seemed to warm up with the spirit of the hour. I alone was in misery, at +a moment when peace and happiness and good-will were the watchwords of +humanity. My distress increased every moment as I conjured up before my +mind's eye the picture of the coming morn, when my children and their +mother, in serene confidence that I would do the right thing by them, +should find the tree bare of presents, and discover, instead of the +usual array of bonds and jewels, and silver services, and horses and +carriages, and rich furs, and priceless books (the baby had cut his +teeth the year before on the cover of the Grolier edition of Omar +Khayyam, which, at a cost of $600, I had given him, bound in ivory and +gold, with carbuncles adorning the back and the title set in +brilliants)--discover, instead of these, I say, mere commonplace +presents possessing no intrinsic worth--why, it was appalling to think +of their disappointment! To be sure, I had purchased a suit of Russian +sables for madam, and had concealed a certified check for $25,000 in the +pocket of the dolman, but what was that in such times, hard as they +were! + +And you may imagine it was all exquisitely painful to me. Then, on a +sudden, I seemed not to be alone. Something appeared to materialize off +in the darker corner of the study. At first I thought it was merely the +filming over of my eyes with the moisture of an incipient and unshed +tear, but I was soon undeceived, for the thing speedily took shape, and +a rather unpleasant shape at that, although there was a radiant +kindliness in its green eyes. + +"Who are you?" I demanded, jumping up and staring intently at the +apparition, my hair meanwhile rising slightly. + +"I'm Dr. Bills," was the response, in a deep, malarial voice, as the +phantom, for that is all it was, approached me. "I've come to help you +out of your troubles," it added, rather genially. + +"Ah? Indeed!" said I. "And may I ask how you know I am in trouble?" + +"Certainly you may," said the old fellow. "We ghosts know everything." + +"Then you are a ghost, eh?" I queried, although I knew mighty well at +the moment I first saw him that he was nothing more, he was so +transparent and misty. + +"At your service," was the reply, as my unexpected visitor handed me a +gelatinous-looking card, upon which was engraved the following legend: + + U. P. BILLS, M.D., + "The Spook Philanthropist." + Troubles Cured While You Wait. + +"Ah!" said I, as I read it. "You'll find me a troublesome patient, I am +afraid. Do you know what my trouble is?" + +"Certainly I do," said Bills. "You're a little short and your wife and +children have expectations." + +"Precisely," said I. "And here is Christmas on top of us and nothing for +the tree except a few trifling gems and other things." + +"Well, my dear fellow," said the kindly visitant, "if you'll intrust +yourself to my care I'll cure you in a jiffy. There never was a case of +immediate woe that I couldn't cure, but you've got to have confidence in +me. + +"Sort of faith cure, eh?" I smiled. + +"Exactly," he replied. "If you don't believe in Old Bills, Old Bills +cannot relieve your distress." + +"But what do you propose to do, Doctor?" I asked. "What is your course +of treatment?" + +"That's my business," he retorted. "You don't ask your family physician +to outline his general plan to you when you summon him to treat you for +gout, do you?" + +"Well, I generally like to know more of him than I know of you," said I, +apologetically, for I had no wish to offend him. "For instance, are you +allopath, or a homoeopath, or some hitherto untrodden path?" + +"Something of a homoeopath," he admitted. + +"Then you cure trouble with trouble?" I asked, rather more pertinently, +as the event showed, than I imagined. + +"I cure trouble with ease," he replied glibly. "You may accept or reject +my services. It's immaterial to me." + +"I don't wish to seem ungrateful, Doctor," said I, seeing that the old +spook was growing a trifle irritated. "I certainly most gratefully +accept. What do you want me to do?" + +"Go home," he said, laconically. + +"But the empty tree?" I demanded. + +"Will not be empty to-morrow morning," said he, and he vanished. + +I locked my study door and started to walk home, first stopping at the +cafe down-stairs and cashing a check for $60,000. I had confidence in +Old Bills, but I thought I would provide against possible failure; and I +had an idea that on the way uptown I might perhaps find certain little +things to please, if not satisfy, the children, which could be purchased +for that sum. My surmise was correct, for, while Old Bills did his work, +as will soon be shown, most admirably, I had no difficulty in expending +the $60,000 on simple little things really worth having, between Pine +Street and Forty-second. For instance, as I passed along Union Square I +discovered a superb pair of pearl hat-pins which I knew would please my +second daughter, Jenny, because they were just suited to the immediate +needs of the talking doll she had received from her aunt on her +birthday. They were cheap little pins, but as I paid down the $1,800 +they cost in crisp hundred dollar bills they looked so stunningly +beautiful that I wondered if, after all, they mightn't prove sufficient +for little Jenny's whole Christmas, if Bills should fail. Then I met +poor old Hobson, who has recently met reverses. He had an opera-box for +sale for $2,500, and I bought it for Martha, my third daughter, who, +though only seven years old, frequently entertains her little school +friends with all the manner of a woman of fashion. I felt that the +opera-box would please the child, although it was not on the grand tier. +I also killed two birds with one stone by taking a mortgage for $10,000 +on Hobson's house, by which I not only relieved poor old Hobson's +immediate necessities, but, by putting the mortgage in my son Jimmy's +stocking, enriched the boy as well. So it went. By the time I reached +home the $60,000 was spent, but I felt that, brought up as they had +been, the children would accept the simple little things I had brought +home to them in the proper spirit. They were, of course, cheap, but my +little ones do not look at the material value of their presents. It is +the spirit which prompts the gift that appeals to them--Heaven bless +'em! I may add here, too, that my little ones did not even by their +manner seem to grudge that portion of the $60,000 spent which their +daddy squandered on his immediate impulses, consisting of a nickel extra +to a lad who blacked his boots, thirty cents for a cocktail at the club, +and a dime to a beggar who insisted on walking up Fifth Avenue with him +until he was bought off with the coin mentioned--a species of blackmail +which is as intolerable as it is inevitable on all fashionable +thoroughfares. + +But their delight as well as my own on the following morning, when the +doctor's fine work made itself manifest, was glorious to look upon. I +frankly never in my life saw so magnificent a display of gifts, and I +have been to a number of recent millionaire weddings, too. To begin +with, the most conspicuous thing in the room was the model of a steam +yacht which Old Bills had provided as the family gift to myself. It was +manifest that the yacht could not be got into the house, so Bills had +had the model sent, and with it the information that the yacht itself +was ready at Cramp's yard to go into commission whenever I might wish to +have it. It fairly took my breath away. Then for my wife was a rope of +pearls as thick as a cable, and long enough to accommodate the entire +week's wash should the laundress venture to borrow it for any such +purpose. All the children were fitted out in furs; there were four gold +watches for the boys, diamond tiaras and necklaces of pearls and +brilliant rings for the girls. My eldest son received not only the +horses and carriages and the Corot he wanted, but a superb gold mounted +toilet set, and a complete set of golf clubs, the irons being made of +solid silver, the shafts of ebony, with a great glittering diamond set +in the handle of each, these all in a caddy bag of seal-skin, the fur +shaved off. There was a charming little naphtha launch and a horseless +carriage for Jimmy, and, as for the baby, it was very evident that Old +Bills had a peculiarly tender spot in his ghostly make-up for children. +I doubt if the finest toy-shops of Paris ever held toys in greater +variety or more ingenious in design. There were two armies of soldiers +made of aluminum which marched and fought like real little men, a band +of music at the head of each that discoursed the most stirring music, +cannons that fired real shot--indeed, all the glorious panoply of war +was there in miniature, lacking only blood, and I have since discovered +that even this was possible, since every one of the little soldiers was +so made that his head could be pulled off and his body filled with red +ink. Then there was a miniature office building of superb architectural +design, with little steam elevators running up and down, and throngs of +busy little creatures, manipulated by some ingenious automatic +arrangement, rushing hither and thither like mad, one and all seemingly +engaged upon some errand of prodigious commercial import. Another +delightful gift for the baby was a small opera-house, and a complete +troupe of little wax prime donne, and zinc tenors, and brass barytones, +with patent removable chests, within which small phonographs worked so +that the little things sang like so many music--boxes, while in the +chairs and boxes and galleries were matinee girls and their escorts and +their bonnets and their enthusiastic applause--truly I never dreamed of +such magnificent things as Old Bills provided for the occasion. He had +indeed got me out of my immediate difficulty, and when I went to bed +that night, after the happiest Christmas I had ever known, I called down +the richest blessings upon his head; and why, indeed, should I not? We +had between $400,000 and $500,000 worth of presents in the house, and +they had not cost me a penny, outside of the $60,000 I had spent on the +way uptown, and what could be more conducive to one's happiness than +such a Yuletide Klondike as that? + +This was many years ago, dear reader, before the extravagant methods of +the present day crept into and somewhat poisoned the Christmas spirit, +but from that day to this Old Bills has never ceased to haunt me. He has +been my constant companion from that glorious morning until to-day, when +I find myself telling you of him, and, save at the beginning of every +recurring month, when I am always very busy and somewhat anxious about +making ends meet, his society is never irksome. Once you get used to +Bills he becomes a passion, and were it not for his singular name I +think I should find him a constant source of joy. + +It rather dampened my ardor, I must confess, when I found that the +initials of the good old doctor, U. P., stood for Un Paid, but if you +can escape the chill and irksomeness of that there is no reason why the +poorest of us all may not derive much real joy in life from the good +things we can get through Bills. + +In justice to the readers of this little tale, I should perhaps say, in +conclusion, that I read it to my wife before sending it out, and she +asserts that it was all a dream, because she says she never received +that rope of pearls. To which I retorted that she deserved to, +anyhow--but, dream or otherwise, the visitation has truly been with me +for many years, and I fear the criticism of my spouse is somewhat +prompted by jealousy, for she has stated in plain terms that she would +rather go without Christmas than see me constantly haunted by Bills: +but, after all, it is a common condition, and it does help one at +Christmas time in an era when the simple observance of the season, so +characteristic of the olden time, has been superceded by a lavish +expenditure which would bring ruin to the richest of us were it not for +the benign influence of Bills, M.D. + + + + +The Flunking of Watkins's Ghost + + + + +The Flunking of Watkins's Ghost + + +[Illustration: Decorative P] + +arley was a Freshman at Blue Haven University, and, like many other +Freshmen, had a wholesome fear of examinations. In the football field he +was courageous to the verge of foolhardiness, but when he sat in his +chair in the examination-room, with a paper covered with questions +before him, he was as timid as a fawn. There was no patent flying or +revolving wedge method of getting him through the rush-line of Greek, +nor by any known tackle could he down the half-backs of mathematics and +kick the ball of his intellect through the goal-posts, on the other side +of which lay the coveted land of Sophomoredom. Hence Parley, who had +spent most of his time practicing for his class eleven, found himself at +the end of his first term in a state of worry like unto nothing he had +ever known before. + +"It would be tough to fail at this stage of the game," he thought, as he +reflected upon what his father would say in the event of his failure. +"It wouldn't be so bad to flunk later on, but for a chap to fall down at +the very beginning of his race wouldn't reflect much credit on his +trainer, and I think it very likely the governor would be mad about it." + +"Of course he would!" said a voice at his side. "Who wouldn't?" + +Parley jumped, he was so startled. Nor was it surprising that even so +cool and physically strong a person as he should for an instant know the +sensation of fear. If you or I should happen to be lying off in our room +before a flickering log-fire, which furnished the only illumination, +smoking a pipe, reflecting, and all alone, I think we would ourselves, +superior beings as we are, be startled to hear a strange voice beside us +answering our unspoken thoughts. This was exactly what had happened in +Parley's case. Now that the football season was over, he realized that +too much time had been spent on that and too little upon his studies, +and conditions were all he could see in the future. This naturally made +Parley very unhappy, and upon this particular night he had retired to +his room to be alone until his blue spell should wear off. Several of +his classmates had knocked at his door, but he had made no response, and +in order further to give the impression that he was not within he had +turned out his gas and table lamp, and sat pulling viciously away at his +pipe, watching the flames on the hearth as they danced to and fro upon +the logs, which last hissed and spluttered away as if they approved +neither of the dancing flames nor of Parley himself. + +Straining his eyes in the direction whence the voice had seemed to come, +Parley endeavored to ascertain who had spoken, but all was as it had +been before. There was no one in sight, and the freshman settled back +again in his chair. + +"Humph!" he ejaculated. "Guess I must have fallen asleep and dreamed +it." + +"Not a bit of it," interposed the voice again. "I'm over here in the +arm-chair." + +Parley sprang to his feet and grabbed up his "banger," as the big cane +he had managed to hold to the bitter end in the rush of cherished memory +was called. + +"Oh, you are, are you?" he cried, controlling his fear with great +difficulty; and his voice would hardly come, his throat and lips had +become so dry from nervousness. "And, pray, how the deuce did you get +in?" he demanded, peering over into the arm-chair's capacious +depths--still seeing nothing, however. + +"Oh, the usual way," replied the voice--"through the door." + +"That's not so," retorted Parley. "Both doors are locked, so you +couldn't. Why don't you come out like a man where I can see you, and +tell the truth, if you know how?" + +"Can't," said the other--"that is, I _can't_ come out like a _man_." + +"Ah!" sneered Parley. "What are you then--a purple cow?" + +"I don't know what a purple cow is," replied the voice, in sepulchral +tones. "I never saw one. They didn't have 'em in my day, only plain +brown ones--cows of the primary colors." + +"Ah?" said Parley, smartly. The invisible thing was speaking so meekly +that his momentary terror was passing away. "You had blue cows in your +day, eh?" + +"Oh, my, yes!" replied the strange visitor; "lots of 'em. Take any old +cow and deprive her of her calf, and she becomes as blue as indigo." + +Here the voice laughed, and Parley joined. + +"You're a clever--ah--what?-- A clever It," he said. + +"You might call me an It if you wanted to," said the stranger. "Possibly +that's my general classification. To be more specific, however, I'm a +ghost." + +"Ho! Nonsense'" retorted Parley. "I don't believe in ghosts." + +"That may be," said the other, calmly. "I didn't when I was here, a +living human being with two legs and a taste for smoke, like you. But I +found out afterwards that I was all wrong. When you get to be a ghost, +if you have any self-respect you'll believe in 'em. Furthermore, if I +wasn't a ghost I couldn't have got in here through two closed doors to +speak to you." + +"That's so," replied Parley. "I didn't think of that. Still, you can't +expect me to believe you without some proof. Suppose you let me whack +you over the head with this stick? If it goes through you without +hurting you, all well and good. If it doesn't, and knocks you out, I +sha'n't be any the worse off. What do you say?" + +"I'm perfectly willing," said the voice; "only look out for your chair. +You might spoil it." + +"Afraid, eh?" said Parley. + +"For the chair, yes," replied the spirit. "Still it isn't my chair, and +if you want to take the risk, I'm willing. You can kick a football +through my ribs if you wish. It's all the same to me." + +"I'll try the banger," said Parley, dryly. "Then if you are a +sneak-thief, as I half suspect, you'll get what you deserve. If you're +what you claim to be, all's well for both of us. Shall I?" + +"Go ahead," replied the ghost, nonchalantly. + +Parley was more surprised than ever, and was beginning to believe that +It was a ghost, after all. No sneak-thief would willingly permit +himself to be whacked on the head with any such adamantine weapon as +that which Parley held in his hand. + +"Never mind," said he, relenting. "I won't." + +"Yon _must_, now," said the other. "If you don't, I can't help you at +all. I can't be of service to a person who either can't or won't believe +in me. If you want to pass your examinations, whack." + +"Bah! What idiocy!" cried Parley. "I--" + +"Go ahead and whack," persisted the voice. "As hard as you know how, +too, if you want to. Pretend you are cornered by a wild beast, and have +only one chance to escape, and whack for dear life. I'm ready. My arms +are folded, and I'm sitting right here over the embroidered cushion that +serves as the seat of your chair." + +"I've caught you, there," said Parley. "You aren't sitting there at all. +I can see the embroidered cushion." + +"Which simply proves what I say," retorted the ghost. "If I were not a +ghost, but a material thing like a sneak-thief, you couldn't see through +me. Whack away." + +And Parley did so. He raised the banger aloft, and brought it down on +the spot where the invisible creature was sitting with all the force at +his command. + +"There," said the ghost, calmly, from the chair. "Are you satisfied? It +didn't do me any damage; though I must say you've knocked the embroidery +into smithereens." + +It was even as he said. The force with which Parley had brought the +heavy stick down had made a great rent in the soft cushion, and he had +had his trouble for his pains. + +"Well, do you believe in me now?" the ghost demanded, Parley, in his +surprise and wrath, having found no words suited to the occasion. + +"I suppose I've got to," he replied, ruefully gazing upon the ruined +cushion. "That's what I get for being an idiot. I don't know--" + +"It's what you get for pretending that you can't believe all that you +can't see," put in the ghost, "which is a very grave error for a young +man--or an old one, either, for that matter--to make." + +Parley sat down, and was silent for a moment. + +[Illustration: PARLEY CONVERSING WITH THE INVISIBLE GHOST] + +"Well," he said at length, "granting that there are such things as +ghosts, and that you are one, what the deuce do you come bothering me +for? Just wanted to plague me, I suppose, and get me to smash my +furniture." + +"Not at all," retorted the ghost. "I didn't ask you to smash your +furniture. On the contrary, I warned you that that was what you were +going to do. You suggested smashing me, and I told you to go ahead." + +Parley couldn't deny it, but he could not quite conceal his resentment. + +"Don't you think I'm bothered enough by the prospect of a beautiful +flunk at my exams, without your trickling in through the doorway to +exasperate me?" he demanded. + +"Who has come to exasperate you, Parley?" said the ghost, a trifle +irritably. "I haven't. I came to help you, but, by Jingo! I've half a +mind to leave you to get out of your troubles the best way you can. Do +you know what's the matter with you? You are too impetuous. You are the +kind of chap who strikes first and thinks afterwards. So far your +experiments on me have kept me from telling you who I am and what I've +come for. If you don't want help, say so. There are others who do, and +I'll be jiggered if I wouldn't rather help them than you, now that I +know what a fly-away Jack you are." + +The spirit with which the visitor uttered these words made Parley +somewhat ashamed of his behavior, and yet no one could really blame him, +under the circumstances, for doing what he did. + +"I'm sorry," he said, in a moment, "but you must remember, sir, that at +Blue Haven there is no chair in manners, and the etiquette of a meeting +of this sort is a closed book to me." + +"That's all right," returned the ghost, kindly. "I don't blame you, on +the whole. The trouble lies just where you say. In college people study +geology and physiology and all the other 'ologies, save spectrology. +Most college trustees disbelieve in ghosts, just as you do, and the +consequence is you only touch upon the relations of man with the spirit +world in your studies of psychology, and then only in a very incomplete +fashion. Any gentleman knows how to behave to another gentleman, but +when he comes into contact with a spook he's all at sea. If somebody +would only write a ghost-etiquette book, or a 'Spectral Don't,' people +who suffer from what you are pleased to call hallucinations would have +an easier time of it. If I had been a book-agent, or a sneak-thief, or a +lady selling patent egg-beaters which no home should be without, you +would have received me with greater courtesy than you did." + +"Still," said Parley, anxious to make out a good case for himself, "most +of 'em wouldn't walk right into a fellow's room and scare him to death, +you know." + +"Nor would I," said the ghost. "You are still living, Parley, as you +wouldn't have been if I'd scared you to death." + +"Specious, but granted," returned Parley. "And now, Mr. Spook, let's +exchange cards." + +"I left my card-case at home," laughed the spirit. "But I'll tell you +who I am and it will suffice. I'm old Billie Watkins, of the class of +ninety-nine." + +"There is no Watkins in ninety-nine," said Parley, suspiciously. + +"Well, there _was_," retorted the spirit. "I ought to know, because I +was old Billie myself. Valedictorian, too." + +"What are you talking about?" demanded Parley. "Ninety-nine hasn't +graduated yet!" + +"Yes, it has," returned the ghost. "Seventeen ninety-nine, I mean." + +Parley whistled. "Oh, I see! You're a relic of the last century!" + +"That's it; and I can tell you, Parley, we eighteenth-century boys made +Blue Haven a very different sort of a place from what you make it," said +Billie. "We didn't mind being young, you know. When we had an +eight-oared race, we rowed only four men, and each man managed two oars. +And there wasn't any fighting over strokes, either; and we'd row anybody +that chose to try us. The main principle was to have a race, and the +only thing we thought about was getting in first." + +"In any old way, I suppose?" sneered Parley. + +"You bet!" cried the spirit, with enthusiasm. "We'd have put our +eight-oared crew up against twenty Indians in a canoe, if they'd asked +us; and when it came to rounders, we could bat balls a mile in those +days. A fellow didn't have to make a science out of his fun when I was +at Blue Haven." + +"And what good did it do you?" cried Parley. + +"We held every belt and every mug and every medal in the thirteen +States, that's what. We laid out Cambridge at one-old-cat eight times in +two months, and as for those New York boys, we beat 'em at marbles on +their own campus," returned the ghost. + +Parley was beginning to be interested. + +"I'd like to see the records of those times," he said. + +"Records? Bosh!" said old Billie Watkins. "You don't for a moment +believe that every time we played a game of marbles or peg-top, or rowed +against a lot of the town boys, we sat down and wrote up a history of +it, do you? We were too busy having fun for that. Oh, those days! those +days!" the ghost added, with a sigh. "College wasn't filled with +politicians and scientific fun-seekers and grandfathers then." + +"Grandfathers? More likely you were forefathers," suggested Parley. + +"We've become both since," said Watkins. "But we were boys then, and +glad of it." + +"Aren't we boys now?" queried Parley. + +"Yes, you are," replied the ghost. "But you seem to be doing your best +to conceal the fact. As soon as a lad gets into college now he puts on +all the airs of a man. Walks, talks like a grave man. Eats and drinks +like a grave man. Why, I don't believe you ever robbed the president's +hen-coop in your life!" + +"No," laughed Parley, "never. For two reasons: it's easier to get our +chickens cooked at the dining-hall, and Prex hasn't got a hen-coop." + +"Exactly. Even our college presidents aren't what they were. Never +hooked a ham out of his smoke-house, either, I'll wager, and for the +same reason-- Prex hasn't a smoke-house. All the smoking he does is in +the line of cigars. But all this hasn't got anything to do with what I +came here for. I came to help you, and I've seen enough of the way +things are done in colleges these days to know that in the other +respects of which I have spoken you are beyond help. Besides, this help +is personal. You are worried about your examinations, aren't you?" + +"Well, rather," said Parley. "You see, I've been playing football." + +"Precisely," said Watkins. "And you've put so much time into learning to +do it scientifically and without using your feet, as we did, that you've +let everything else go." + +"I suppose so," said Parley, sullenly. + +"That's it," said old Billie Watkins. "Now that everything's science, +there isn't time for a boy to do more than one thing at a time, and he's +got to choose between his degree and seeing his picture in the papers as +an athlete. Well, it's not your fault, maybe. It's the times, and I'm +going to help you out. I always try to help somebody once a year. It's +my Christmas gift to mankind, and this year I've decided to help you out +of your fix. Last year I helped Blue Haven win the debating championship +as against our traditional rivals. This year I should have tried to get +Blue Haven to the fore in the boat-race, but everybody about here was +so cocksure of winning it didn't seem to be necessary. I'm sorry now I +didn't know it was all men's bluff and not boys' confidence. I might +have helped the little men out. Still, that's over, and you are to be +the gainer. _I'll pass your examinations for you._" + +"What?" cried Parley, scarcely able to believe his ears. + +"I'll pass your examinations for you," repeated the ghost. "It won't be +hard. As I told you, I was valedictorian of my class." + +"But how?" asked Parley. "You couldn't pass yourself off for me, you +know." + +"Never said I could," returned Billie Watkins. "Never wanted to. I'd +rather be me, floating around in space, than you. What I propose to do +is to stand alongside of you, and tell you the answers to your +questions." + +"But what will the professors say?" demanded Parley. + +"How will they know? They won't be able to see me any more than you +can," said the ghost. "It's easy as shooting." + +"Well, I don't know if it's square," said Parley. "In fact, I do know +that it isn't; but if I get through this time I won't get into the same +fix again." + +"That's just the point," returned the ghost. "You're young, in spite of +your trying not to be, and you've got into trouble. I'll help you out +once, but after that you'll have to paddle your own steam-yacht. I +suppose you scientific watermen wouldn't demean yourselves by paddling a +canoe, the way we used to." + +"I'm sure I'm very much obliged, Mr. Watkins," said Parley. + +"Oh, botheration!" cried the ghost. "_Mister Watkins!_ Look here, +Parley, we're both Blue Haven boys--somewhat far apart in time, it's +true, but none the less Blue-Havenites. Don't 'mister' me. Call me +Billie." + +"All right, Billie," said Parley. "I'll go you, and after it's all over +I'll be as much of a boy as I can." + +"That's right," said the ghost of old Billie Watkins, and then he +departed. At least I presume he departed, for from that time on to the +day of the examinations Parley did not hear his voice again. + +What happened then can best be explained by the narration of an +interview between Parley and the ghost of old Billie Watkins on the +night of the concluding examination-day. Sick, tired, and flunked, poor +Parley went to his room to bemoan his unhappy fate. In no single branch +had he been successful. Apparently his reliance upon the assistance of +Watkins's ghost had proved a mistake--as, in fact, it was, although poor +old Watkins was, as it turned out, no more to blame than if he had never +volunteered his services. + +Flinging himself down in despair, Parley gave way to his feelings. + +"That's what I get for being an ass and believing in ghosts. I might +have known it was all a dream," he groaned. + +"It wasn't," said the unmistakable voice of Watkins, from the chair, +which had been repaired. + +Parley jumped as if stung. + +"You're a gay old valedictorian, you are!" he cried, glowering at the +chair. "Next time you have a Christmas gift for mankind, take it and +burn it, will you? A pretty fix you've got me into." + +"I'm sorry, Parley," began the ghost. "I--" + +"Sorry be hanged!" cried Parley. "If you hadn't made me believe in you, +I might have crammed up on my Greek and Latin anyhow. As it is, it's a +Waterloo all around." + +"If you won't listen--" the ghost began again. + +"I've listened enough!" roared Parley, thoroughly enraged. "And if there +was any way in which I could get at you, I'd make you smart for your +low-down trick!" + +"To think," moaned the ghost, "that I should see the day when old Billie +Watkins was accused of a low-down trick--and I tried to help him, too." + +"Tried to help me?" sneered Parley. "How the deuce do you make that out? +You didn't come within a mile of me, and I've not only flunked, but I've +lost a half-dozen bets on my ability to pass, just because I believed in +you." + +"I _was_ within a mile of you," retorted the ghost, indignantly. "I was +right square in front of you." + +"Then why the dickens didn't you answer the questions? I read 'em out +so loud that old Professor Wiggins sat on me for it." + +"I know you did, Parley," said the ghost, meekly. "And I'd have answered +'em if I could. But I couldn't." + +"Couldn't?" cried Parley. + +"Regularly just couldn't," said the ghost. + +"A valedictorian couldn't answer a question on a Freshman's paper?" +cried Parley, scornfully. + +"No," said the ghost. + +"Fine memory you must have! Do you know what a-b, ab, spells?" sneered +Parley. + +"I do, of course," retorted the ghost, angrily. "A-b, ab, spells +nothing. But that doesn't prove anything. I remember all I ever learned +at Blue Haven, but I've made a discovery, Parley, which lets me out. You +ought to have told me, but, my dear fellow, college begins now just +about where it used to leave off." + +"What?" queried Parley, doubtfully. "What do you mean?" + +"Why, it's plain enough, Jack! Can't you see?" said Watkins. "What +would make a valedictorian in my day won't help a Freshman through his +first year now. Times have changed." + +"Oh, that's it--eh?" said Parley, somewhat mollified. "It isn't only the +fellows that have changed and their sports, but the curriculum--eh? That +it?" + +"Precisely," rejoined old Billie, with a sigh of relief that Parley +should understand him. "I'm beginning to understand, my boy, why you +fellows have to be little men and not boys. No average boy could pass +any such stiff paper as that, and I found myself as ignorant as you +are." + +"Thanks," said Parley, with a short laugh. "I think you ought to have +found it out before leading me into accepting your Christmas gift, +though." + +"It was you who should have found out and told me," retorted the ghost. +"All I can say is that in my day I'd have got you through with flying +colors." + +"Well, I'm much obliged," said Parley. "I'll get out of it somehow, but +it means hard work; only, Mr. Spook, don't be so free with your +Christmas gifts another time." + +"I won't, Jack," said the spirit--"that is, I won't if you'll forgive me +and stop calling me mister. Call me Billie again, and show you've +forgiven me." + +"All right, Billie, my boy," said Parley. "We'll call it square." + +And the unhappy ghost wandered off into the night, leaving Parley to +fight his battles alone. Whether he has turned up again or not, I am not +aware, but, from my observation of Jack Parley's ways ever since, I +think he really did learn something from his contact with Billie +Watkins's ghost. He has been a good deal of a boy ever since. As for +Watkins, I hope that the genial old soul off in space somewhere has also +learned something from Jack. If the old chaps and the youngsters can +only get together and appreciate one another's good points, and how each +has had to labor towards the same end under possibly different +conditions, there will be a greater harmony and sympathy between them, +and they will discover that, in spite of differing times and differing +customs, 'way down at bottom they are the same old wild animals, after +all. There is no more delightful spectacle anywhere than that to be +seen at a college gathering, where the patriarchs of the fifties and the +Freshmen of the present join hand-in-hand and lark it together, and it +is this spirit that makes for the glory of Alma Mater everywhere. + +So, after all, perhaps the meeting of Jack Parley and old Billie +Watkins's ghost had its value. For my part, I can only hope that it had, +and leave them both with my blessing. + + + + +An Unmailed Letter + + + + +An Unmailed Letter + +BEING A CHRISTMAS TALE OF SOME SIGNIFICANCE + + +[Illustration: Decorative I] + +called the other night at the home of my friend Jack Chetwood, and found +him, as usual, engaged in writing. Chetwood's name is sufficiently well +known to all who read books and periodicals these days to spare me the +necessity of adverting to his work, or of attempting to describe his +personality. It is said that Chetwood writes too much. Indeed, I am one +of those who have said so, and I have told _him_ so. His response has +always been that I--and others who have ventured to remonstrate--did not +understand. He had to keep at it, he said. Couldn't help himself. Didn't +write for fun, but because he had to. Always did his best, anyhow, and +what more can be asked of any man? Surely a defence of this nature +takes the wind out of a critic's sails. + +"Busy, Jack?" said I, as I entered his sanctum. + +"Yes," said he. "Very." + +"Very well," said I. "Don't let me disturb you. I only happened in, +anyhow. Nothing in particular to say; but, Jacky, why don't you quit for +a little? You're worn and pale and thin. What's the use of breaking +down? Don't pose with me. You don't have to write all the time." + +He smiled wanly at me. + +"I--I'm only writing a letter this time," he said. + +"Oh, in that case--" I began. + +"You can't guess whom to?" he interrupted. + +"Me," said I. + +"No," he retorted. "Me." + +"I don't understand," said I, somewhat perplexed. + +"Myself," laughed Chetwood. + +"You are writing a letter to--to--" + +"Myself," said he. "Truly so. Odd, isn't it? Wait a few minutes, old +man, and I'll read it to you. Light a cigar and sit down just a minute +and I'll be through." + +I lit one of Chetwood's cigars. They are excellent. I have heard one +expert pronounce them "bully." They are, and of course while I smoked I +was happy. + +At the end of a half-hour's waiting, the silence broken only by the +scratching of Chetwood's pen and by my own puffings upon the weed, he +wheeled about in his chair. + +"Well, that's finished," he said, and he glanced affectionately and, I +thought, wistfully about his charming workshop. + +"Good," said I. "You promised to read it to me." + +"All right," said he. "Here goes." + +And he kept his word. I reproduce the letter from memory. Like all +copy-mongers, he began it with a title double underscored, and I +reproduce it as I heard it: + +"LETTER TO MYSELF + +"ON CHRISTMAS GIVING: A HINT + + "MY DEAR JOHN,--As the Christmas holidays approach it has + seemed to me to be somewhat in the line of my duty to write + to you not only to wish you all the good things of the + season, but to give you a little fatherly advice which may + stand you in good stead when the first of January comes + about. I have observed you and your ways with some + particularity for some time; in fact, since that very happy + day, nearly twenty years ago, when you entered upon the + duties of citizenship, with twenty-one years and a birthday + gift of $500 from your father to your credit. The twenty-one + years had come easily and had gone easily. All you had had + to do to acquire and to retain them was to breathe and to + keep your feet dry. The $500, which represented so much toil + on your father's part, came to you quite as easily. You saw + the check, and you realized the possibilities of the sum for + which it called, but I do not think you ever realized the + effort that produced that $500. I judge from the way you let + it filter through your fingers that you thought your + generous father picked the money up from a pile of gold + lying somewhere in the back yard of his home. I do not know + if you recall what it went for, but I do. Some of it went + for a half-dozen sporting pictures of some rarity that you + had long wished to hang on the walls of your den. More of it + went for rare first editions of books whose possession you + had envied others for no little time. A portion of it was + spent on sundry trinkets which should adorn your person, + such as studs, scarf-pins, a snake ring, with ruby eyes--a + disgusting-looking thing, by the way--to encircle your + little finger. There were also certain small things in the + line of bronzes, silver writing implements, a jug or two of + some value that you had cast your eyes upon, and which you + were quick to acquire. Do you remember, my dear Jack, how + delighted you were with all that you were able to buy with + that $500, until the bills came in and you found that the + consciousness of a $500 backing had led you into an + expenditure of a trifle over $900? You were painfully + surprised that day, Jacky, my boy, but, as I have watched + you since you let it go at that, you never learned anything + from those bills. Indeed, what you call your cheerful + philosophy, which led you to console yourself then with the + thought that the stuff you had bought on credit if sold at + auction would bring in enough to pay the deficit, has clung + to you ever since, and has served you ill--very ill--unless + I am wholly mistaken. You would strike any other man than + myself were he to venture to call you a second Mr. Micawber, + but Johnnie, dear, that is what you are--and you are even + worse than that, John. Let me assure you of the fact. _You + are something worse._ You are a modern Dick Turpin! Don't be + angry at my saying so. Merely understand that I am telling + you the truth, and for your own good, and I'll explain the + analogy. I cannot call a man a modern Dick Turpin without + explaining why I do so. + + "Turpin was a highwayman, as you know. He mounted his horse + and went out upon the highway, and whatever he wanted he + took. He had no greater powers of resistance in the face of + temptation than others had in the face of him. You, John, + are much the same, even if you do not realize the fact. You + mount the steed called Credit, and you go out upon the + highways, and whatever you see that you happen to want you + take--don't you, Jack? It is true that, sooner or later, + you pay, but so did Turpin. Turpin paid with his life. You + will pay with yours, and that is why I write you, for the + constant anxiety to meet the obligations of your thefts--for + that is what they are, John; we cannot blink the fact--this + constant anxiety, I say, is sapping your strength, + undermining your constitution, destroying slowly but surely + your nerves, and sooner or later you will succumb to the + strain. Is it worth the price, my boy? + + "I can imagine you asking what all this has to do with + Christmas and the season of Peace on Earth and Good Will to + Man. You think I am merely cavilling, but I am not. It has + this to do with it: It involves my Christmas present to you, + which is important to me and I trust will be so to you. I am + not going to give you a gold watch, or a complete edition of + Thackeray, or a set of golf clubs this year, and, being a + man, I cannot knit you a worsted vest as your sister + might--or as some other fellow's sister might. All I can + afford to give you this year is a hint, and I shall not wait + until Christmas morn to hand it over to you, because it + would then lack value. I send it to you now, when you need + it most, and, if you accept it, when the Christmas chimes + begin to sound their music on the frosty air you will thank + me for it perhaps more than you do now. + + "Don't be a highwayman this year, John. Never mind what + Solomon said; think of what I say. Solomon was a wise man, + but he lived in a bygone age. Take thought of the morrow, my + boy. Don't consider the lilies of the field, but come down + to real business. Don't mount your prancing horse Credit + and hold up some poor jeweller for a silver water-pitcher + for your brother George when you know that on January 1st + the jeweller will probably ask you for a _quid pro quo_, and + for which _quid_ you will be compelled to compel him to wait + until April or May. And remember that, if your dear wife + could have her choice, she would infinitely prefer your + peace of mind to the sables which you propose to give her at + Christmas, bought on a credit which, however pleasing + to-day, is sure to become a very pressing annoyance + to-morrow. + + "Then, my dear man, there are your children. What a joy they + are! What a source of affectionate pride; what a source of + satisfaction, and how they trust you, Jack. You remember the + trust you placed in your father. You have never slept since + you had to do for yourself as you slept when he did for you. + You didn't know a care then; you had no worries in those old + days; you knew your home was yours and that every reasonable + thing you could wish for he would give you to the full + extent of his means. That confidence was not misplaced, and + all that you have to-day you'd willingly give up for that + sweet peace of mind that was yours while he was with you. + God bless him and his memory. Do you realize, Jack, that you + occupy that same relation to your children? They believe in + you as you believed in him. And are you meeting your + responsibilities as he met his? Think it over. Of course, + for instance, Tommie wants a complete railway system, with + tracks and signals and switches and nickel-plated rolling + stock, and all that--but can you afford to give it to him? + And Pollie--dear little Pollie--what right-minded little + Pollie does not want a doll; a great yellow-haired, + blue-eyed, pink-cheeked doll, with automatic insides and an + expensive trousseau? But can you really afford to give it to + her? Do you remember when you were a baby how you wanted the + moon, and yelled for it lustily? And do you remember how you + didn't get it, and how you sobbed yourself to sleep, and + how, in spite of it all, you waked up the next morning all + smiles and sunshine, with no recollection of ever having + wanted the moon? And do you realize that if your daddy + _could_ have given it to you he _would_ have done so? Do you + recollect how, ever since that happy time, you have wanted + the earth, and how you haven't got it, and how fortunate you + are, and how happy you are without it? So it is, and so it + will be with your children. These things do not change. My + beloved boy, a serene, unworried father, next to a serene + and happy mother, is God's most gracious gift to childhood, + at Christmas or at any other time. If January finds you + petulant and nervous over a bill you cannot pay for Tommie's + Christmas railway and for Pollie's Yuletide doll, then has + the 25th of December brought woe instead of joy into your + home; strife instead of peace, and good will to man is not + to be found there. In January the pure, sweet, simple little + minds will wonder at you, Jack. The little hearts will love + you just the same, but the little minds will wonder at your + irritability, and they will still hold to that beautiful + trust. And you? Well, you'll toss about at night, sleepless + and worried, and if you are of the right sort, as I hope and + believe you are, you will ask yourself if you are worthy of + the confidence the little ones place in you. Your mistaken + notions of generosity may have imperilled your household. + Given health and strength and ideas, you may be able to keep + on and make all right, but who knows at what moment you will + have to give up the fight? Why should you invite care and + worry? Why not come down to the serious facts and insure the + happiness of all who depend upon you by following out a sane + and sensible plan of living and of giving? My dear boy, + don't you know you are doing wrong in being unjustifiably + ostentatious in your giving? I have likened you to Turpin. + You will laugh this off. You aren't a thief--at least you + cannot believe that you are one; but there is something + worse even than being a thief, and I fear you are verging + upon it. + + "Frankly, Jack, I am afraid you are a snob. Yes, sir, a + plain snob; and if snobbery is not worse than thievery, I + know nothing of life. I'd rather be a straight-out, sincere, + honest, unpretending thief than a snob, my dear boy. + Wouldn't you? Let us look into this. The thief is the + creature of circumstances. He is what he is because his + environment and his moral sense, plus his necessities, + require that he shall do what he does. But the snob--what + compelling circumstances make a snob of a man? Why should he + make a pretence of being what he is not? Why should he give + things he cannot afford to give unless it be that he desires + to make an impression that he has no right to? The thief + banks on nothing. The snob takes advantage of his supposed + respectability. Bless us, Jacky, aren't we worse than they + are? + + "Read your Thackeray, old chap. See what he said about + snobs. _He_ never inveighed against the submerged soul that + never had a chance. He never, with all his imputed cynicism, + made a slimy thing of those who fell, as Dickens did. He + struck high. He exploited the vices of those who might do + him real harm. He took the high man, not the low man, for + his target, and he struck home when he struck at snobbery. + And he struck a blow for purer, sweeter living, and men may + call him cynic for all time, but I shall never cease to call + him brave and true for what he did for you and for me, as + well as for all other men. + + "Put yourself in the crucible, Jack. Find out what you are + and what you may be, and don't try to make yourself appear + to be generous when you are simply financially reckless. + Don't rob your creditors in the vain hope that you are + living up to the spirit of the hour, and don't rob yourself. + You are not living up to that spirit. You are degrading it. + God knows I love you more than I love any living thing + except my wife and children, but let me tell you this: the + man who gives more than he has a right to give is a thief in + the eyes of conscience, and, worse than that, he is a snob, + and a mean one at that. Adapt your giving to your + circumstances. Do what you can to make others happy, but at + this season do not, I beg of you, try to do what you can't + in an effort to appear for what you are not. + + "The happiness of your children, of your wife, of yourself, + is involved, and when that happiness is attacked or + weakened, then is the whole spirit of Christmas season set + aside, and the selfishness of the posing impostor put in + its place. Always your affectionate self, + + "JOHN HENRY CHETWOOD." + +When Chetwood had finished I puffed away fiercely upon my cigar. + +"Good letter, Jack," said I. + +"Yes," said he, tearing it up. + +"Don't do that," I cried, trying to restrain him. + +He smiled again and sighed. "It's--gone," said he. "Gone. Forever. I +shall never write it again." + +"You should have sent it to--to yourself," said I. "I have thought +sometimes that such a letter should be written to you." + +"Possibly," said he. "But--it's gone." And he tossed it into the +waste-basket. + +"It's a pity," said I. "You--you might have sold that." + +"I know I might," said he. "But if it had ever appeared in print I +should have been immortally mad. It's a libel on myself. Truth--is +libellous, you know." + +"It might have been rejected," I said, sarcastically. + +"That would have made me madder yet," said Chetwood. + +"Still--you realize the--ah--situation, Jack," I put in. + +"Well," said he, with a laugh, "Christmas is coming, and when the fever +is on--I--well, I catch it. I want to give, give, give, and give I +shall." + +"But you are imperilling--" I cried. + +"I know, I know," he interrupted, gently. "God knows I know, but it is +the fever of the hour. You can't stave off an epidemic. It's not my +fault; it's the fault of the times." + +"Nonsense," I retorted. "Can't you stand up against the times?" + +"I can," said he, complacently lighting a cigar. "But I sha'n't. We'll +all go to ruin together. The man who tries to stand up against the +spirit of the times is an ass. I lack the requisite number of legs for +that." + +"Well," I put in, "I wish you a merry Christmas--" + +"I shall have it," said he, cheerily. "The children--" + +"And the New Year?" I interrupted. + +"It isn't here yet," said Chetwood. "And I never cross a bridge until I +come to it. Take another cigar." + +Nevertheless, I went from Chetwood that night rather happier than I +ought to have been, perhaps. His letter, even though he did not choose +to mail it to himself, showed that he was thinking--thinking about it; +and I was glad. + +What if all men were to consider the questions that Chetwood raised? + +Might not the meaning of Christmas, with all its joy and all its beauty, +and all its inspiration-giving qualities, once more be made clear to +man? I for one believe it would, and I venture to hope that the old-time +simplicity of the observance of the day may again be restored unto us. + +"God bless us all!" said Tiny Tim. + +When the simpler, happier Christmas time, which is a joy, and not a +burden, comes back to us, then will Tiny Tim's prayer have been +answered. + + + + +The Amalgamated Brotherhood of Spooks + + + + +The Amalgamated Brotherhood of Spooks + +A LETTER TO THE EDITOR + + +[Illustration: Decorative I] + +t is with very deep regret that I find myself unable to keep the promise +made to you last spring to provide you with a suitable ghost story for +your Christmas number. I have made several efforts to prepare such a +tale as it seemed to me you would require, but, one and all, these have +proved unavailing. By a singular and annoying combination of +circumstances in which only my unfortunate habit of meeting trouble in a +spirit of badinage has involved me, I cannot secure the models which I +invariably need for the realistic presentation of my stories, and I +decline at this present, as I have hitherto consistently declined, to +draw upon my imagination for the ingredients necessary, even though +tempted by the exigencies of a contract sealed, signed, and delivered. +It is far from my wish to be known to you as one who makes promises only +to break them, but there are times in a man's life when he must consider +seriously which is the lesser evil, to deceive the individual or to +deceive the world, the latter being a mass of individuals, and, +consequently, as much more worthy of respect as the whole is greater +than a part. Could I bring myself to be false to my principles as a +scribe, and draw upon my fancy for my facts, and, through a prostitution +of my art, so sickly o'er my plot with the pale cast of realism as to +hoodwink my readers into believing what I know to be false, the task +were easy. Given a more or less active and unrestrained imagination, +pen, ink, paper, and the will to do so, to construct out of these a +ghost story which might have been, but as a matter of fact was not, +presents no difficulties whatsoever; but I unfortunately have a +conscience which, awkward as it is to me at times, I intend to keep +clear and unspotted. The consciousness of having lied would forever rest +as a blot upon my escutcheon. I cannot manufacture out of whole cloth a +narrative such as you desire and be true to myself, and this I intend to +be, even if by so doing I must seem false to you. I think, however, +that, as one of my friends and most important consumer, you are entitled +to a complete explanation of my failure to do as I have told you I +would. To most others I should send merely a curt note evidencing, not +pleading, a pressure of other work as the cause of my not coming to +time. To you it is owed that I should enter somewhat into the details of +the unfortunate business. + +You doubtless remember that last summer, with our mutual friend Peters, +I travelled abroad seeking health and, incidentally, ideas. I had +discovered that imported ideas were on the whole rather more popular in +America than those which might be said to be indigenous to the soil. The +reading public had, for the time being at least, given itself over to +moats and chateaux and bloodshed and the curious dialects of the lower +orders of British society. Sherlock Holmes had superseded Old Sleuth in +the affections of my countrymen who read books. Even those honest little +critics the boys and girls were finding more to delight them in the +doings of Richard Coeur de Lion and Alice in Wonderland than in the +more remarkable and intensely American adventures of Ragged Dick or +Mickie the Motorboy. John Storm was at that moment hanging over the +world like the sword of Damocles, and Rudolf Rassendyll had completely +overshadowed such essentially American heroes as Uncle Tom and Rollo. I +found, to my chagrin, that the poetry of Tennyson was more widely read +even than my own, even though Tennyson was dead and I was not. And in +the universities whole terms were devoted to the compulsory study of +dramatists like Shakespeare and Moliere, while home talent, as +represented by Mr. Hoyt or the facile productions of Messrs. Weber & +Fields, was relegated to the limbo of electives which the students might +take up or not, as they chose, and then only in the hours which they +were expected to devote to recreation. All of which seemed to indicate +that while there was of course no royal road to literary fame, there was +with equal certainty no republican path thereto, and that real +inspiration was to be derived rather under the effete monarchies of +Europe than at home. To Peters the same idea had occurred, but in his +case in relation to art rather than to literature. The patrons of art in +America had a marked preference for the works of Meissonier, Corot, +Gerome, Millet--anybody, so long as he was a foreigner, Peters said. The +wealthy would pay ten, twenty, a hundred thousand dollars for a Rousseau +or a Rosa Bonheur rather than exchange a paltry one hundred dollars for +a canvas by Peters, though, as far as Peters was concerned, his canvas +was just as well woven, his pigments as carefully mixed, and his +application of the one to the other as technically correct as was +anything from the foreign brushes. + +"You can't take in the full import of a Turner unless you stand a way +away from it," said he, "and if you'll only stand far enough away from +mine you couldn't tell it from a Meissonier." + +[Illustration: "I THOUGHT A MILE WAS THE PROPER DISTANCE"] + +And when I jocularly responded to this that I thought a mile was the +proper distance, he was offended. We quarrelled, but made up after a +while, and in the making up decided upon a little venture into foreign +fields together, not only to recuperate, but to see if so be we could +discover just where the workers on the other side got that quality which +placed them in popular esteem so far ahead of ourselves. + +What we discovered along this especial line must form the burden of +another story. The main cause of our foreign trip, these discoveries, +are but incidental to the theme I have in hand. Our conclusions were +important, but they have no place here, and what they were you will have +to wait until my work on _Abroad versus Home_ is completed to learn. But +what is important to this explanation is the fact that while going +through the long passage leading from the Pitti Palace to the Uffizi +Gallery at Florence we--or rather I--encountered one of those phantoms +which have been among the chief joys and troubles of my life. Peters was +too much taken up with his Baedeker to see either ghosts or pictures. +Indeed, it used to irritate me that Peters saw so little, but he would +do as most American tourists do, and spend all of his time looking for +some especial thing he thought he ought to see, and generally missing +not only it, but thousands of minor things quite as well worthy of his +attention. I don't believe he would have seen the ghost, however, under +any circumstances. It requires a specially cultivated eye or digestion, +one or the other, to enable one to see ghosts, and Peters's eye is blind +to the invisible and his digestion is good. + +Why, under the canopy, the vulgar little spectre was haunting a +picture-gallery I never knew, unless it was to embarrass the Americans +who passed to and fro, for he claimed to be an American spook. I knew he +was not a living thing the minute I laid eyes through him. He loomed up +before me while I was engaged in chuckling over a particularly bad +canvas by somebody whose name I have forgotten, but which was something +like Beppo di Contarini. It represented the scene of a grand fete at +Venice back in the fifteenth century, and while preserved by the +art-lovers of Florence as something worthy, would, I firmly believe, +have failed of acceptance even by the catholic taste of the editor of an +American Sunday newspaper comic supplement. The thing was crude in its +drawing, impossible in its coloring, and absolutely devoid of action. +Every gondola on the canal looked as if it were stuck in the mud, and as +for the water of the Grand Canal itself, it had all the liquid glory +under this artist's touch of calf's-foot jelly, and it amused me +intensely to think that these patrons of art, in the most artistic city +in the world, should have deemed it worth keeping. However, whatever the +merit of the painting, I was annoyed in the midst of my contemplation of +it to have thrust into the line of vision a shape--I cannot call it a +body because there was no body to it. There were the lineaments of a +living person, and a very vulgar living person at that, but the thing +was translucent, and as it stepped in between me and the wonderful +specimen of Beppo di Somethingorother's art I felt as if a sudden haze +had swept over my eyes, blurring the picture until it reminded me of a +cheap kind of decalcomania that in my boyhood days had satisfied my +yearnings after the truly beautiful. + +I made several ineffectual passes with my hands to brush the thing away. +I had discovered that with certain classes of ghosts one could be rid +of them, just as one may dissipate a cloud of smoke, by swirling one's +outstretched paw around in it, and I hoped that I might in this way rid +myself of the nuisance now before me. But I was mistaken. He swirled, +but failed to dissipate. + +"Hum!" said I, straightening up, and addressing the thing with some +degree of irritation. "You may know a great deal about art, my friend, +but you seem not to have studied manners. Get out of my way." + +"Pah!" he ejaculated, turning a particularly nasty pair of green eyes on +me. "Who the deuce are you, that you should give me orders?" + +"Well," said I, "if I were impulsive of speech and seldom grammatical, I +might reply by saying Me, but as a purist, let me tell you, sir, that +I'm I, and if you seek to know further and more intimately, I will add +that who I am is none of your infernal business." + +"Humph!" he said, shrugging his shoulders. "Grammatical or otherwise, +you're a coward! You don't dare say who you are, because you are afraid +of me. You know I am a spectre, and, like all commonplace people, you +are afraid of ghosts." + +A hot retort was on my lips, and I was about to tell him my name and +address, when it occurred to me that by doing so I might lay myself open +to a kind of persecution from which I have suffered from time to time, +ghosts are sometimes so hard to lay, so I accomplished what I at the +moment thought was my purpose by a bluff. + +"Oh, as for that," said I, "my name is So and So, and I live at Number +This, That Street, Chicago, Illinois." + +Both the name and the address were of course fictitious. + +"Very well," said he, calmly, making a note of the address. "My name is +Jones. I am the president of the Amalgamated Brotherhood of Spooks, +enjoying a well-earned rest from his labors on his savings from his +salary as a walking delegate. You shall hear from me on your return to +Chicago through the local chapter, the United Apparitions of Illinois." + +"All right," said I, with equal calmness. "If the Illinois spooks are as +Illinoisome as you are, I will summon the board of health and have them +laid without more ado." + +[Illustration: "HE VANISHED IN SOMETHING OF A RAGE"] + +Upon this we parted. That is to say, I walked on to the Uffizi, and he +vanished, in something of a rage, it seemed to me. + +I thought no more of the matter until a week ago, when, in accordance +with an agreement with the principal thereof, I left New York to go to +Chicago, to give a talk before a certain young ladies' boarding-school, +on the subject of "Muscular Romanticism." This was a lecture I had +prepared on a literary topic concerning which I had thought much. I had +observed that a great deal of the popularity of certain authors had come +from the admiration of young girls--mostly those at boarding-school, and +therefore deprived of real manly company--for a kind of literature +which, seeming to be manly, did not yet appeal very strongly to men. In +certain aspects it seemed strong. It presented heroes who were truly +heroic, and who always did the right thing in the right manner. Writers +who had more ink than blood to shed, and a greater knowledge of +etiquette than of human nature, were making their way into temporary +fame by compelling chaps to do things they could not do. I rather like +to read of these fellows myself. I am no exception to the rule which +makes human beings admire, and very strongly, too, the fellow who poses +successfully. Indeed, I admire a _poseur_ who can carry his pose through +without disaster to himself, because he has nothing to back him up, and, +wanting this, if by his assurance he can make himself a considerable +personage he falls short of genius only by lacking it. But this is apart +from the story. Whatever the general line of thought in the lecture, I +was, as I have said, on my way to Chicago to deliver it before a young +ladies' boarding-school. I should have been happy over the prospect, for +I have many warm friends in Chicago, there was a moderately large fee +ahead, and there is always a charm, as well, in the mere act of standing +on a dais before some two or three hundred young girls and having their +undivided attention for a brief hour. Yet, despite all this, I was +dreadfully depressed. Why, I could not at first surmise. It seemed to +me, however, as though some horrid disaster were impending. I +experienced all the sensations which make four o'clock in the morning so +dreaded an hour to those who suffer from insomnia. My heart would race +ahead, thumping like the screw of an ocean greyhound, and then slow down +until it seemingly ceased to beat altogether; my hands were alternately +dry and hot, and clammy and cold; and then like a flash I knew why, and +what it was I feared. It suddenly dawned upon my mind that, by some +frightfully unhappy coincidence, the address of Miss Brockton's Academy +for Young Ladies, whither I was bound, was precisely the same as that I +had given the vulgar little spook at Florence as my own. I had entirely +forgotten the incident; and then, as I drew near to the spot whereon I +was to have been made to suffer through the machinations of the local +chapter of the Amalgamated Brotherhood of Spooks, my soul was filled +with dread. Had Grand-Master-Spook Jones's threat been merely idle? Had +he, even as I had done, dismissed the whole affair as unworthy of any +further care, or would he keep his word?--indeed, had he kept his word, +and, through his followers in the Amalgamated Brotherhood, made himself +obnoxious to the residents of Number This, That Street? + +[Illustration: THE SPECTRE BRASS-BAND] + +My nervous dread redoubled as I neared Chicago, and it was as much as I +could do, when the train reached Kalamazoo, to keep from turning back. +And the event showed that I suffered with only too much reason, for, on +my arrival at the home of the institution, I found it closed. The door +was locked, the shades pulled down, the building the perfect picture of +gloom. Miss Brockton, I was informed, was in a lunatic-asylum, and two +hundred and eighty-three young girls, ranging from fourteen to twenty +years of age, had been returned to their parents, the hair of every +mother's daughter of them blanched white as the driven snow. No one +knew, my informant said, exactly what had occurred at the academy, but +the fact that was plain to all was that, some two weeks previous to my +coming, the school had retired at the usual hour one night, in the very +zenith of a happy prosperity, and gathered at breakfast the next morning +to find itself wrecked, and bearing the outward semblance of a home for +indigent old ladies. No one, from Miss Brockton herself to the youngest +pupil, could give a coherent account of what had turned them all gray in +a single night, and brought the furrows of age to cheeks both old and +young, nor could any inducement be held out to any of the pupils to pass +another night within those walls. They one and all fled madly back to +their homes, and Miss Brockton's attempted explanation was so incredible +that, protesting her sanity, she was nevertheless placed under +restraint, pending a full investigation of the incident. She had, I was +informed, asserted that some sixty ghosts of most terrible aspect had +paraded through the house between the hours of midnight and 2 A.M., +howling and shrieking and threatening the occupants in a most terrifying +fashion. At their head marched a spectre brass-band of twenty-four +pieces, grinding out with horrid contortions and grimaces the most awful +discords imaginable--discords, indeed, Miss Brockton had said, alongside +of which those of the most grossly material German street band in +creation became melodies of soothing sweetness. The spectre rabble to +the rear bore transparencies, upon which were painted such legends as, +"Hail to Jones, our beloved Chief!" "Strike One, Strike All!" and, "Down +with Hawkins, the Grinder of Ghosts!" This last caused my heart to sink +still lower, for Hawkins was the name I had given the vision at +Florence, and I now understood all. It was only too manifest that I was +the cause of the undoing of these innocents. + +My lie to Jones had brought this disaster upon the Brockton Academy. The +dreadfulness of it appalled me, and I turned away, sick at heart, only +to find myself face to face with the horrid Jones, grinning like the cad +he had proved himself. + +"Well, you have done it," I cried, trembling with rage. "I hope you are +proud of yourself, venting your spite on an innocent woman and two +hundred and eighty-three defenceless girls." + +He laughed. + +"It was a pretty successful haunt," he said; "and possibly, now that +Mrs. Hawkins and your daughters--" + +"Who?" I cried. "Mrs. What, and my which?" + +"Your wife and children," he replied. "Now that the local chapter has +attended to them, maybe you'll apologize to me for your boorish behavior +at Florence." + +"Those people were nothing to me," said I. "That was a boarding-school +you have driven crazy. I was merely coming here to lecture--" + +I immediately perceived my mistake. He could now easily discover my +identity. + +"Oho!" said he, with a broad, grim smile. "Then you lied to me at +Florence, and you are not Hawkins, but the man they call the spook +Boswell among us?" + +"Yes, I am not Hawkins, and I am the other," I retorted. "Make the most +of it." + +"I thought that was rather a large family of girls for one man to have," +rejoined Jones. "But see here--are you going to apologize or not?" + +"I am not," I cried. "Never in this world nor in the next, you miserable +handful of miasma!" + +"Then, sir," said he, firmly, "I shall order a general strike for the +Amalgamated Brotherhood of Spooks, and the strike will be on until you +do apologize. Hereafter you will have to derive your inspiration from a +contemplation of unskilled spooks, and, if I understand matters, you +will find some difficulty in raising even these, for there is not one +that I know of who doesn't belong to the union." + +[Illustration: "THE THING FELL OVER LIMP"] + +With that he vanished, and I sadly made my way back to my home. Once at +my desk again, I turned my attention to the work I had promised you, +and, to my chagrin, discovered that while I had in mind all the +ingredients of a successful Christmas story, I could not write it, +because Grand-Master-Spirit Jones had kept his word. One and all, my +selected group of spooks went out on strike. They absolutely refused to +pose unless I apologized to Jones, and by no persuasions, threats, or +cajoling have I been able since to make them rise up before me, that I +might present them to my readers with that degree of fidelity which I +deem essential. My home, which was once a sort of spirit club, is now +bare of even a semblance of a ghost worth writing up, and, conjure as I +may, I cannot bring them back. The strike is on, and I am its victim. +But one miserable little specimen have I discovered since my interview +with Jones, and so unskilled is he in the science of spooking that I +give you my word he could not make a baby shiver on a dark night with +the temperature twenty below zero and the wind howling like a madman +without; and as for making hair stand on end, I tried him on a bit of +hirsute from the tail of the timidest fawn in the Central Park zoo, and +the thing fell over as limp as a strand from the silken locks of the +Lorelei. + +That, my dear sir, is why I cannot give you the story I have promised. I +hope you will understand that the fault is not my own, but is the result +of the evil tendency of the times, when the protective principle has +reached the ultimate of tyrannous absurdity. + +While Jones is at the head of the Amalgamated Brotherhood my case is +hopeless, for I shall never apologize, unless he promises to restore to +poor Mrs. Brockton and her two hundred and eighty-three pupils their +former youthful gayety and prosperity, which, I understand upon inquiry, +he is unable to do, since the needed patent reversible spook, who will +restore blanched hair to its natural color and return the bloom of youth +to furrowed cheeks, has not yet been invented; and I, the only person in +the world who might have invented it, am powerless, for while the +boycott hangs over my head, as you will see for yourself, I am bereft of +the raw material for the conducting of the necessary experiments. + + + + +A Glance Ahead + + + + +A Glance Ahead + +BEING A CHRISTMAS TALE OF A.D. 3568 + + +[Illustration: Decorative J] + +ust how it came about, or how he came to get so far ahead, Dawson never +knew, but the details are, after all, unimportant. It is what happened, +and not how it happened, that concerns us. Suffice it to say that as he +waked up that Christmas morning, Dawson became conscious of a great +change in himself. He had gone to bed the night before worn in body and +weary in spirit. Things had not gone particularly well with him through +the year. Business had been unwontedly dull, and his efforts to augment +his income by an occasional operation on the Street had brought about +precisely the reverse of that for which he had hoped. This morning, +however, all seemed right again. His troubles had in some way become +mere memories of a remote past. So far from feeling bodily fatigue, +which had been a pressingly insistent sensation of his waking moments of +late, he experienced a startling sense of absolute freedom from all +physical limitation whatsoever. The room in which he slept seemed also +to have changed. The pictures on the walls were not only not the same +pictures that had been there when he had gone to bed the night before, +but appeared, even as he watched them, to change in color and in +composition, to represent real action rather than a mere semblance +thereof. + +"Humph!" he muttered, as a lithograph copy of "The Angelus" before him +went through a process of enlivenment wherein the bell actually did +ring, the peasants bowing their heads as in duty bound, and then +resuming their work again. "I feel like a bird, but I must be a trifle +woozy. I never saw pictures behave that way before." Then he tried to +stretch himself, and observed, with a feeling of mingled astonishment +and alarm, that he had nothing to stretch with. He had no legs, no +arms--no body at all. He was about to indulge in an ejaculation of +dismay, but there was no time for it, for, even as he began, a +terrifying sound, as of rushing horses, over his bed attracted his +attention. Investigation showed that this was caused by an engraving of +Gerome's "Chariot Race," which hung on the wall above his pillow--an +engraving which held the same peculiar attributes that had astonished +him in the marvellous lithograph of "The Angelus" opposite. The thing +itself was actually happening up there. The horses and chariots would +appear in the perspective rushing madly along the course, and then, +reaching the limits of the frame, would disappear, apparently into thin +air, amid the shoutings and clamorings of the pictured populace. Three +times it looked as if a mass of horseflesh, chariots, charioteers, and +dust would be precipitated upon the bed, and if Dawson could have found +his head there is no doubt whatever that he would have ducked it. + +"I must get out of this," he cried. "But," he added, as his mind +reverted to his disembodied condition, "how the deuce can I? What'll I +get out with?" + +The answer was instant. By the mere exercise of the impulse to be +elsewhere the wish was gratified, and Dawson found himself opposite the +bureau which stood at the far end of the room. + +"Wonder how I look without a body?" he thought, as he ranged his +faculties before the glass. But the mirror was of no assistance in the +settlement of this problem, for, now that Dawson was mere consciousness +only, the mirror gave back no evidence of his material existence. + +"This is awful!" he moaned, as he turned and twisted his mind in a mad +effort to imagine how he looked. "Where in thunder can I have left +myself?" + +As he spoke the door opened, and a man having the semblance of a valet +entered. + +[Illustration: "'GOOD-MORNING, MR. DAWSON'"] + +"Good-morning, Mr. Dawson," said the valet--for that is what the +intruder was--busying himself about the room. "I hope you find yourself +well this morning?" + +"I can't find myself at all this morning!" retorted Dawson. "What the +devil does this mean? Where's my body?" + +"Which one, sir?" the valet inquired, respectfully, pausing in his +work. + +"Which one?" echoed Dawson. "Wh--which--Oh, Lord! Excuse me, but how +many bodies do I happen to have?" he added. + +"Five--though a gentleman of your position, sir, ought to have at least +ten, if I may make so bold as to speak, sir," said the valet. "Your golf +body is pretty well used up, sir, you've played so many holes with it; +and I really think you need a new one for evening wear, sir. The one you +got from London is rather shabby, don't you think? It can't digest the +simplest kind of a dinner, sir." + +"The one I got from London, eh?" said Dawson. "I got a body in London, +did I? And where's the one I got in Paris?" he demanded, sarcastically. + +"You gave that to the coachman, sir," replied the valet. "It never +fitted you, and, as you said yourself, it was rather gaudy, sir." + +"Oh--I said that, did I? It was one of these loud, assertive, noisy +bodies, eh?" + +"Yes, sir, extremely so. None of your friends liked you in it, sir," +said the valet. "Shall I fetch your lounging body, or will you wish to +go to church this morning?" he continued. + +"Bring 'em all in; bring every blessed bone of 'em," said Dawson. "I +want to see how I look in 'em all; and bring me a morning paper." + +"A what, sir?" asked the valet, apparently somewhat perplexed by the +order. + +"A morning paper, you idiot!" retorted Dawson, growing angry at the +question. The man seemed to be so very stupid. + +"I don't quite understand what you wish, sir," said the valet, +apologetically. + +"Oh, you don't, eh?" said Dawson, amazed as well as annoyed at the man's +seeming lack of sense. "Well, I want to read the news--" + +"Ah! Excuse me, Mr. Dawson," said the valet. "I did not understand. You +want the _Daily Ticker_." + +"Oh, do I?" ejaculated Dawson. "Well, if you know what I want better +than I do, bring me what you think I want, and add to it a cup of coffee +and a roll." + +"I beg your pardon!" the valet returned. + +"A cup of coffee and a roll!" roared Dawson. "Don't you know what a cup +of coffee and a roll is or are? Just ask the cook, will you--" + +"Ask the what, sir?" asked the valet, very respectfully. + +"The cook! the cook! the cook!" screamed Dawson. His patience was +exhausted by such manifest dulness. + +"I--I'm sincerely anxious to please you, Mr. Dawson," said his man; "but +really, sir, you speak so strangely this morning, I hardly know what to +do. I--" + +"Can't you understand that I'm hungry?" demanded Dawson. + +"Oh!" said the valet. "Hungry, of course; yes, you should be at this +time in the morning; but--er--your bodies have already been refreshed, +sir; I have attended to all that as usual." + +"Ah! You've attended to all that, eh? And I've breakfasted, have I?" + +"Your bodies have all been fed, sir," said the valet. + +"Never mind me, then," said Dawson. "Bring in those well-fed figures of +mine, and let me look at 'em. Meanwhile, turn on the--er--_Daily +Ticker_." + +The valet bowed, walked across the room, and touched a button on a +board which had escaped Dawson's vigilant eye--possibly because his +vigilant eye was elsewhere--and, with a sigh of perplexity, left the +room. The response to the button pressure was immediate. A clicking as +of a stock-ticker began to make itself heard, and from one corner of the +bureau a strip of paper tape covered with letters of one kind and +another emerged. Dawson watched it unfold for a moment, and then, +approaching it, took in the types that were printed upon it. In an +instant he understood a portion of the situation at least, although he +did not wholly comprehend it. The date was December 25, 3568. He had +gone to bed on Christmas eve, 1898. What had become of the intervening +years he knew not--but this was undoubtedly the year of grace 3568, if +the ticker was to be believed--and tickers rarely lie, as most +stock-speculators know. Instead of living in the nineteenth century, +Dawson had in some wise leaped forward into the thirty-sixth. + +"Great Scott!" he cried. "Where have I been all this time? I don't +wonder my poor old body is gone!" + +And then he started to peruse the news. The first item was a statement +of governmental intent. It read something like a court circular. + +"It is pleasant to announce on Christmas morning," he read, "that the +business of the Administration has proven so successful during the year +that all loyal citizens, on and after January 1, will be paid $10,000 a +month instead of only $7600, as hitherto. The United States Railway +Department, under the management of our distinguished Secretary of +Railways, Mr. Hankinson Rawley, shows a profit of $750,000,000,000 for +the year. Mr. Johnneymaker, Secretary of Groceries, estimates the +profits of his department at $600,000,000,000, and the Secretary of War +announces that the three highly successful series of battles between +France and Germany held at the Madison Square Garden have netted the +Treasury over $500,000 apiece--no doubt due to the fact that Emperor +Bismarck XXXVII. and King Dreyfus XLVIII. led their troops in person. +The showing of the Navy Department is quite as good. The good business +sense of Secretary Smithers in securing the naval fights between Russia +and the Anglo-Indians for American waters is fully established by the +results. The twenty encounters between his Indo-Britannic Majesty's +Arctic squadron and the Czar's Baltic fleet in Boston Harbor alone have +cleared for our citizens $150,000,000 above the guarantees to the two +belligerents; whereas the bombardment of St. Petersburg by the +Anglo-Indians under our management, thanks to the efficient service of +the Cook excursion-steamers direct to the scene of action, has brought +us in several hundred millions more. It should be quite evident by this +time that the Barnum & Bailey party have shown themselves worthy of the +people's confidence." + +Dawson forgot all about his possible bodily complications in reading +this. Here was the United States gone into business, and instead of +levying taxes was actually paying dividends. It was magnificent. + +One might have thought that the unexpected announcement of the +possession of an income of $120,000 a year would be sufficient to +destroy any interest in whatever other news the _Ticker_ might present; +but with Dawson it only served to whet his curiosity, and he read on: + +"The acquirement of the department stores by the government in 2433 has +proven a decided success. Floorwalker-General Barker announces that the +last of the bonds given in payment for the good-will of these +institutions have matured and been paid off. This, too, out of the +profits of four centuries. It is true that the laws requiring citizens +to patronize these have helped much to bring about this desirable +effect, and some credit for the present wholly satisfactory condition of +affairs should be given to Senator Barca di Cinchona, of Peru, for +having, in 2830, introduced the bill which for the time being covered +him with execration. The profits for the coming year, on a conservative +estimate, cannot be less than eighteen trillions of dollars--which, as +our readers can see, will add much to the prosperity of the nation." + +"Worse and worse!" cried Dawson. "Floorwalker-General--compulsory +custom--eighteen trillions of dollars!" And then he read again: + +"It will be with unexpected pleasure this Christmas morning, too, that +our citizens will read the President's proclamation, in view of the +unexampled prosperity of the past year, ordering a bonus of $15,000 gold +to be delivered to every family in the land as a Christmas present from +the Administration. This will relieve the vaults of the national +Treasury of a store of coin that has been somewhat embarrassing to +handle. The delivery-wagons will start on their rounds at six o'clock, +and it is expected that by midday the money will have been wholly +distributed. Residents of large cities are requested not to keep the +carriers waiting at the door, since, as will be readily understood, the +delivery of so much coin to so many millions of people is not an easy +task. It is suggested that barrels of attested capacity be left on the +walk, so that the coin may be placed into these without unnecessary +delay. Those who still retain the old-fashioned coal-chutes can have the +gold dumped into their cellars direct if they will simply have the +covers to the coal-holes removed." + +Dawson could hardly believe the announcement. Here was $15,000 coming +to him this very morning. It was too good to be true, he thought; but +the news was soon confirmed by the valet, who interrupted his reading by +bursting breathlessly into the room. + +"What on earth are we going to do, Mr. Dawson?" he cried. "The Christmas +present has arrived. The cart is outside now." + +"Do?" retorted Dawson. "Do? Why, get a shovel and shovel it in. What +else?" + +"That's easier said than done, sir," said the valet. "The gold-bin is +chock-full already. You couldn't get a two-cent piece into the cellar, +much less three thousand five-dollar gold pieces. They'd ought to have +sent that money in certified checks." + +Dawson experienced a sensation of mirth. The idea of quarrelling as to +the form of a $15,000 gift struck him as being humorous. + +"Isn't there any place but the gold-bin you can put it in?" he demanded. +"How about the silver-bin, is that full?" + +"I don't know what you mean by the silver-bin," replied the valet. +"People don't use silver for money nowadays, sir." + +"Oh, they don't, eh? And what do they do with it--pave streets?" + +The valet smiled. + +"You are having your little joke with me this morning, Mr. Dawson," he +said, "or else you have forgotten that all we do with silver now is to +make it into bricks and build houses with 'em." + +"Well, I'll be hanged!" cried Dawson. "Really?" + +"Certainly, sir," observed the valet. "You must remember how silver +gradually cheapened and cheapened until finally it ruined the clay-brick +industry?" + +"Ah, yes," said Dawson. "I had temporarily forgotten. I do remember the +tendency of silver to cheapen, but the ruin of the brick industry has +escaped me. This house is--ah--built of silver bricks?" + +"Of course it is, Mr. Dawson. As if you didn't know!" said the valet, +with a deprecatory smirk. + +"Ah--about how much coal--I mean gold--have we in the cellar?" Dawson +asked. + +"In eagles we have $230,000, sir, but I think there's half a million in +fivers. I haven't counted up the $20 pieces for eight weeks, but I +think we have a couple of tons left, sir." + +"Then, James-- Is your name James?" + +"Yes, sir--James, or whatever else you please, sir," said the valet, +accommodatingly. + +"Then, James, if I have all that ready cash in the cellar, you can have +the $15,000 that has just come. I--ah--I don't think I shall need it +to-day," said Dawson, in a lordly fashion. + +"Me, sir?" said James. "Thank you, sir, but really I have no place to +put it. I don't know what to do with what I have already on hand." + +"Then give it to the poor," said Dawson, desperately. + +Again the valet smiled. He evidently thought his master very queer this +morning. + +"There ain't any poor any more, sir," he said. + +"No poor?" cried Dawson. + +"Of course not," said James. "Really. Mr. Dawson, you seem to have +forgotten a great deal. Don't you remember how the forty-seventh +amendment to the Constitution abolished poverty?" + +"I--ah--I am afraid, James," said Dawson, gasping for breath, "that I've +had a stroke of some kind during the night. All these things of which +you speak seem--er--seem a little strange to me, James. There seems to +be some lesion in my brain somewhere. Tell me about--er--how things are. +Am I still in the United States?" + +"Yes, sir, you are still in the United States." + +"And the United States is bounded on the north by--" + +"Sir, the United States has no northerly or southerly boundary. The +Western Hemisphere is now the United States." + +"And Europe?" + +"Europe has not changed much since 1900, sir. Don't you remember how in +the early years of the twentieth century the whole Eastern Hemisphere +became European?" + +"I remember that we took part in the division of China," said Dawson. + +"Oh yes," said James, "quite so. But in 1920 don't you recall how we +swapped off our share in China, together with the Dewey Islands, for +Canada and all other British possessions on this side of the earth?" + +"Dimly, James, only dimly," said Dawson, astonished, as well he might +be, at the news, since he had never even imagined anything of the kind, +although the Dewey Islands needed no explanation. "And we have +ultimately acquired the whole hemisphere?" + +"Yes, sir," replied James. "The South American republics came in +naturally in 1940, and the Mexican War in 2363 ended, as it had to, in +the conquest of Mexico." + +"And, tell me, what are we doing with Patagonia?" + +"One of the most flourishing States in the Union, Mr. Dawson. It was +made the Immigrant State, sir. All persons immigrating to the United +States, by an act of Congress passed in 2480, were compelled to go to +Patagonia first, and forced to live there for a period of five years, +studying American conditions, after which, provided they could pass an +examination showing themselves equal to the duties of citizenship, they +were permitted to go wherever else in the States they might choose." + +"And suppose they couldn't pass?" Dawson asked. + +"They had to stay in Patagonia until they could," said James. "It is +known as the School of Instruction of the States. It is also our penal +colony. Instead of prisons, we have a section of Patagonia set apart for +the criminal element." + +"And the negro?" asked Dawson. "How about him?" + +"The negro, Mr. Dawson, if the histories say rightly, was an awful +problem for a great many years. He had so many good points and so many +bad that no one knew exactly what to do about him. Finally the +sixty-third amendment was passed, ordering his deportation to Africa. It +seemed like a hardship at first, but in 2863 he pulled himself together, +and to-day has a continent of his own. Africa is his, and when nations +are at war together they hire their troops from Africa. They make +splendid soldiers, you know." + +"What's become of Krueger and--er--Rhodes?" Dawson asked. "Turned +black?" + +James laughed. "Oh, Rhodes and Krueger! Why, as I remember it, they +smashed each other. But that is ancient history, Mr. Dawson." + +"Jove!" cried Dawson. "What changes!" And then an idea crossed his mind. +"James," said he, "pack up my luggage. We'll go to London." + +"Where?" asked James. + +"To the British capital," returned Dawson. + +"Very well, sir," said James. "I will buy return tickets for Calcutta at +once, sir. Shall we go on the 1.10 or the 3.40? The 1.10 is an express, +but the 3.40 has a buffet." + +"Which is the quicker?" Dawson asked. + +"The 3.40 goes through in thirty-five minutes, sir. The 1.10 does it in +half an hour." + +"Great Scott!" said Dawson. "I think, on the whole, James, I won't try +it until to-morrow. Calcutta, eh!" he added to himself. "James," he +continued, "when did Calcutta become the British capital?" + +"In 2964, sir," said James. + +"And London?" queried Dawson. + +"I don't know much about those island towns, sir," said James. "It's +said that London was once the British capital, but sensible people don't +believe it much. Why, it hasn't more than twenty million inhabitants, +mostly tailors." + +"And how many citizens does a modern city have to have, to amount to +anything, James?" asked Dawson, faintly. + +"Well," said James scratching his head reflectively, "one hundred and +sixty or two hundred millions, according to the last census." + +"And New York reaches to where?" Dawson asked, in a tentative manner. + +"Oh, not very far. It's only third, you know, in population. The last +town annexed was Buffalo. The trouble with New York is that it has +reached the limits of the State on every side. We'd make it bigger if we +could, but Pennsylvania and Ohio and New Jersey won't give up an inch; +and Canada is very jealous of her old boundaries." + +"Wisely," said Dawson. And then he chose to be sarcastic. "Why don't +they fill in the ocean with ashes and extend the city over the Atlantic, +James? In an age of such marvellous growth so much waste space should +be utilized," he said. + +"Oh, it is," returned the valet. "You, of course, know that all the West +Indies are now connected by means of a cinder-track with the mainland?" + +"And is the bicycle-path to the Azores built yet?" demanded Dawson, +dryly. + +"No, Mr. Dawson," replied James. "That was given up in 2947, when the +patent balloon tires were invented, by means of which wheelmen can +scorch wherever they choose to through space, irrespective of roads." + +Dawson gasped. "For Heaven's sake, James," he cried, "I need air! Bring +up the bodies, and let me get aboard one of 'em and take a sleigh-ride +in Central Park. I can't stand this much longer." + +The valet laughed heartily. + +"Sleigh-rides have gone out in the Central Park, sir. When Mr. Bunkerton +started his earth-heating-and-cooling plant snow was practically +abolished hereabouts, Mr. Dawson," said he. "It's never cold enough for +snow--always about seventy degrees." + +"Ah! The earth is heated from a central station, eh?" asked Dawson. + +"Heated and cooled, sir. What with the hot and cold air running through +flues from Vesuvius and the north pole into a central reservoir, an +absolute mean temperature that never varies from one year's end to +another has been obtained. If you wish to take a sleigh-ride you'll have +to go to Mars, sir, and just at present the ships running both ways are +crowded. They always are during the holiday season. I doubt if you could +secure passage for a week." + +"Bring up the bodies!" roared Dawson. "I can't express myself in this +disembodied state. Mean temperature everywhere; income provided by +government; no taxes; no poor; gold dumped into the cellar; houses built +of silver; sleigh-riding at Mars. _Bring up the bodies!_ Do you hear? +The mere idea is wrecking my mind. Give me something physical, and give +it to me quick." + +[Illustration: "THREE VILLANOUS-LOOKING BODIES, AND A FOURTH, WHICH +DAWSON RECOGNIZED AS HIS OWN"] + +Dawson's emotion was so overpowering that the valet was really +frightened, and he fled below, whence he shortly reappeared, pushing +before him a small wheeling vehicle in which sat three villanous-looking +bodies, and a fourth, which Dawson, with a gasp of relief, recognized +as his own. + +"I thought you said I had five of these things?" he demanded, inspecting +the bodies. + +"So you have, sir. The one you wear for evening, sir, is being pressed. +You fell asleep in it the other night, sir, and got it all wrinkled." + +"That golf fellow's a gay-looking prig!" laughed Dawson. "Let me try him +on." + +The valet stood the body up, and, opening a small door at the top of the +skull, ingeniously concealed by the hair, invited Dawson to enter. +Without even knowing how it came about, Dawson soon found himself in +full possession. Then he walked over to the glass and peered in at +himself. + +"Humph!" he said. "Not much to look at, am I? Bring me a driver." + +James obeyed, and Dawson tried the swing. + +"Why, the darned thing's left-handed!" he said, after some awkward work. +"I don't like that." + +"You picked it out for yourself, sir," replied the valet. "You said a +left-handed player always rattled the other man, and, besides, it was +the only one you ever had that could keep its eye on the ball." + +"Let me out! Let me out!" screamed Dawson. "I don't like it, and I won't +have it. I'm suffocating. Open my head and let me out." + +The valet unfastened the little door, and Dawson emerged. "What's that +tough-looking one for?" he asked, after a pause, during which his brain +throbbed with the excitement of his novel experience. + +"Prize-fights," said James. + +"And the strange-looking thing that appears to have been designed for a +fancy-dress ball?" + +"Nobody knows what you intended that for, Mr. Dawson. You had it sent up +yourself from the bodydasher's last week, sir." + +"Well, take it away," roared Dawson. "This may be 3568, but I haven't +lost my self-respect entirely. Give it to--ah--give it to the children +to play with." + +"Really, Mr. Dawson," said the valet, anxiously, "wouldn't I better ring +up the President and have him send a doctor here from the Department of +Physic? You seem all astray this morning. There aren't any children any +more, sir." + +"Wha--what? No _children_?" cried Dawson. + +"They were abolished three centuries ago, sir," explained the valet. + +"Then how the deuce is the world populated?" demanded Dawson. + +"It was sufficiently populated at the time the law abolishing children +was passed, sir." + +"But people die, don't they?" + +"Never," replied the valet. "When Dr. Perkinbloom discovered how to +separate man's mental from his physical side, by means of this little +door in the cranium, all the perishable portions of man were done away +with, which is how it is, sir, that, for convenience' sake, after the +world was as full of consciousness as it could be comfortably, it was +decided not to have any more of it." + +"But these bodies, James--these bodies?" + +"Oh, they are manufactured--" + +"But how?" + +"That, sir, is the secret of the inventor," replied the valet, "a secret +which he is permitted by our government to retain, although the +factories are maintained under the supervision of the Tailor-General." + +Dawson was silent. He was absolutely overpowered by the revelation. + +"James," he said, after a pause of nearly five minutes, "let me--let me +back into my old self just for a moment, please. I--I feel faint, and +sort of uncomfortable. I feel lost, don't you know. I can grasp some of +your ideas, but--Christmas without children! It does not seem possible." + +The valet respectfully raised up the original Dawson, opened the little +door in the top of its head, and Dawson slipped in. + +"Now lock that door," said Dawson, quickly, once he was safe inside. The +valet obeyed nervously. + +"Give me the key," said Dawson. "Quick!" + +"Yes, sir," said James, handing it over, eying his master anxiously +meanwhile. + +Dawson looked at it. It was a fragile bit of gold, but gold did not +appeal to him at the moment, and before the valet could interfere to +stop him he had hurled it far out of the window into the busy street +below, where it was lost in the maze of traffic. + +"There," said Dawson; "I guess you'll have a hard time getting me out of +this again. You needn't try. And meanwhile, James, you can kick those +other bodies out into the street and dump the gold into the river; after +which you may present my compliments to your darned old government, and +tell it that it can go where the woodbine twineth. A government that +abolishes children can go hang, so far as I am concerned." + +James sprang towards Dawson as if he had been stung. His face grew white +with wrath. + +"Sir," he hissed, passionately, "the words that you have spoken are +treason, and merit punishment." + +"What's that?" cried Dawson, wrathfully. + +"Treason is what I said," retorted the valet, aroused. "If I thought you +were in your right mind and knew what you were saying, I should conduct +you forthwith to the police-station and inform against you to the +Secretary of Justice." + +"Get out of here, you--you--you impertinent ass!" cried Dawson. "Leave +the room! I--I--I discharge you! You forget your position!" + +"It is you who forget your position," returned the valet. "Discharge me! +I like that. You might just as well try to discharge the President of +the United States as me." + +Here the valet gave a scornful laugh, and leered maddeningly at Dawson. +The latter gazed at him coldly. + +"You are my servant?" he demanded. + +"By government appointment, at your service," replied James, with a +satirical bow. "You have overlooked the fact that the government since +1900 has gradually absorbed all business--every function of labor is now +governmental--and a man who arbitrarily bounces a cook, as the ancients +used to put it, strikes at the administration. Charges may be preferred +against a servant, but he cannot be deprived of his office except upon +the report of a committee to the Department of Intelligence. As the +President is your servant, so am I." + +Dawson sat down aghast, and clutched his forehead with his hands. + +"But," he cried, jumping to his feet, "that is intolerable. The logic of +the thing makes you, while your party is in power--" + +"Your governor," interrupted the valet. "Come," he added, firmly. "You +called me an impertinent ass a moment ago, and my patience is exhausted. +I shall inform against you. If you aren't sent to Patagonia before +night, my name is not James Wilkins." + +He laid his hand on Dawson's shoulder roughly. A shock, as of +electricity, went through Dawson's person. His old-time strength +returned to him, and, turning viciously upon the impudent fellow, he +grasped him about his middle with both arms, and, after a struggle that +lasted several minutes, dragged him to the window and hurled him, even +as he had the key, down into the street below. + +This done, he fell unconscious to the floor. + + * * * * * + +A year has passed since the episode, and Dawson has become the happiest +man in the world, for on his return to consciousness, instead of +finding himself in the hands of a revengeful valet, backed by a +socialistic government, the past had been restored to him and the future +relegated to its proper place. It was only the other night that he spoke +of the value of his experience, however. + +"It has made me happier, in spite of my many troubles," he said. "If +there's anything that can make the present endurable it is the thought +of what the future may have in store for us. A guaranteed income, and a +detachable spirit, and no taxes, and a variety of imperishable bodies +are all very nice, but servants with the manners of custom-house +officials, and children abolished! No, thank you. Curious dream, +though," he added, "don't you think?" + +"No," said I, "not very. It strikes me as a reasonable forecast of what +is likely to be if things keep on as they are going. Especially in that +matter of our servants." + +"Maybe it wasn't a dream," said Dawson. "Maybe, time having neither +beginning nor ending, the future is, and I stumbled into it." + +"Maybe so," said I. "I think, however, you'll have some difficulty in +finding that $15,000 again." + +"I don't want to," observed Dawson. "For don't you see I'd find James +Wilkins's dead body beside it, and, in spite of its drawbacks, I prefer +life in New York to the possibility of Patagonia." + + + + +Hans Pumpernickel's Vigil + + + + +Hans Pumpernickel's Vigil + + +[Illustration: Decorative H] + +ans Pumpernickel was for many years regarded by his friends and +neighbors in the little town of Schnitzelhammerstein-on-the-Zugvitz as +the most industrious boy they had ever known. Where Hans came from no +one knew. He had appeared in Schnitzelhammerstein-on-the-Zugvitz when he +was not more than six years old. His name was all that he would confide +to the curious. + +"I'm Hans Pumpernickel," he had answered, in response to the inquiries +of the inquisitive. "But where I came from is neither here nor there." + +Some said that this statement was only half true, though many others +believed it wholly. Certain it is, however, that if one has a +hailing-place, a native town, it must be either here or there. If it is +not here, it must be there, said some; but Hans never took the trouble +to say anything further on the subject. + +"And what are you going to do to live?" asked the Mayor's wife, who took +a great interest in the pretty little stranger when first she saw him. + +"Breathe," said Hans, simply. "For you see, ma'am, I cannot live without +breathing, and so I have decided to do that." + +The Mayor said that this was impudence; but the good lady, who had made +that somewhat crabbed old person's life more happy than he deserved, +only laughed, and said that she thought it was droll, and only wished +her little boy, who was stupid like his father, could have said +something as bright. + +"But you cannot breathe unless you eat," the Mayor's wife had said, when +Hans had spoken. "What are you going to eat?" + +"I do not know," said Hans. "What have you got?" + +Again the Mayor growled "Impudence!" and again did the good lady laugh. + +"We have sausages and cake and apples," she said. + +"Then," said Hans, "I will have some sausages and cake and apples." + +"But we don't give away things of that kind," said the lady. "Those who +would eat must work." + +"I cannot work unless I breathe," said Hans; "and you yourself have said +that I cannot breathe unless I eat. Therefore, if you would have me +work, you must let me eat." + +"Logic!" cried the Mayor, beginning to take an interest in Hans. "Give +the boy an apple." + +So Hans was given the apple, and he ate it so thoroughly that the Mayor +decided that he was just the boy to do little errands for him, for +thoroughness was a quality he greatly admired, and from that time on +Hans lived in the Mayor's family; and when the stupid little son of that +exalted personage ran away from home and became a cabin-boy on a +man-of-war, the Mayor adopted Hans, and he took the place of the boy who +had gone away, refusing, however, much to the Mayor's sorrow, to change +his name from Pumpernickel to Ehrenbreitstein, which happened to be the +last name of the Mayor. + +"Pumpernickel was I born," said Hans, "and Pumpernickel will I remain. +Why should I, a Pumpernickel who am bound to make a name for myself +sooner or later, take the name of some one else, and shed the lustre of +my fame upon _his_ family?" + +All of which was very sensible, though Mayor Ehrenbreitstein did not +appreciate that fact. + +So Hans went on making himself very useful to the Mayor and his wife. He +would shell pease in the morning for the Lady Mayor, and in the +afternoon he would write speeches for the Mayor to deliver on public +occasions; and people said that as a public speaker the Mayor was +improving, while all who had the pleasure of dining with the head of the +city frequently complimented the Lady Mayor upon the excellence of the +pease served at her banquets. In every way was Hans satisfactory to all +for whom he worked. After a while such confidence did he inspire in his +employers that Frau Ehrenbreitstein let him do all her shopping for her, +and most of the Mayor's duties were intrusted to the boy. He could +match ribbons and veto or approve the doings of the aldermen of +Schnitzelhammerstein-on-the-Zugvitz with equal perfection. The ribbons +he matched and the worsteds he chose for his kind mistress always looked +well, and the lady soon became in the popular estimation a person of +unusually good taste, while the vetoes and other public papers were so +well phrased that even his opponents were forced to admit that the +magistrate was right. + +Hans bore all his prosperity with modesty, and for the fifteen years +during which he faithfully served his employers he developed no conceit +whatsoever, as many a weaker boy might reasonably have done, and, +barring one peculiarity, none of the eccentricities of the truly great +ever manifested themselves. This one peculiarity excited much curiosity +among those who had heard of it, but despite all questionings Hans +declined to say why he had it. It was a peculiarity that was indeed +peculiar. It was noticed that from the time he first ate with the family +of the Mayor he would set apart one full third of every dainty that was +placed upon his plate, and when the meal was over he would take it away +from the table rolled up in a napkin. For instance, if at breakfast +three sausages fell to the lot of Hans, he would eat two of them, and +the third he would wrap up in a napkin, and take it to his room. So it +was with everything else that came his way. Out of every three apples +one would go untouched into the napkin; and later, when he began to earn +a little money, one-third of it also would be saved. It was noticed, +too, that on every Friday afternoon Hans would send away a big box by +the express carrier, but to whom the box was sent no one could learn. +The express carrier would not tell, and Hans himself, when asked about +it, would say to the one who asked him: + +"Let me see. You are in what business?" + +"I am a baker," or, perhaps, "I am a butcher," the inquisitive one would +say. + +"Then," said Hans, "if I were you, I would stick to baking or to +butching, and not embark on enterprises which are not allied to the +making of bread or the slaughter of roast beef." + +The people so addressed would turn away chagrined, but with proper +apologies; and when they apologized Hans would say, with a smile, "Pray +don't mention it," so kindly that the meddlers would be pacified, and no +ill feeling ever resulted from the young boy's request that they mind +their own business. + +At the end of the fifteen years of faithful work, however, a great +change seemed to come over Hans. He began to show a great distaste for +the labors that he had hitherto spent his time in performing. When Frau +Ehrenbreitstein gave him a skein of pink zephyr to take to town to +match, he would try to beg off, and when he could not beg off he did +worse. He went to town and brought back, not the new skein of pink +zephyr that his mistress wanted, but a roll of green and yellow +wall-paper, and, when she expressed surprise, he said that that was the +best he could do. + +"But I didn't want wall-paper," cried the Lady Mayor. + +"Well, you never told me that," said Hans. "You said, I admit, that you +wanted pink zephyr; but then one might wish for that and still want a +roll of green and yellow wall-paper." + +"Are you crazy?" returned the good lady, much mystified. + +"I think not; and the mere fact that I _think_ not shows that I am not," +Hans replied, "for the very good reason that if I had lost my mind I +could not think at all." + +"Very well," said Frau Ehrenbreitstein, reassured by this perfectly +logical answer. "You may go and shell the pease." + +Whereupon Hans went down into the kitchen and shelled the pease, only he +retained the pods this time, and threw the pease to the pigs. + +"It is very evident to me," observed his good mistress to her husband +that night, when the pods were served at dinner, "that Hans Pumpernickel +has something on his mind." + +"Yes, my dear," answered the Mayor. "I know he has, and I know what it +is." + +"He is not in love, I hope?" said Frau Ehrenbreitstein. + +"Not he!" cried the Mayor. "He is thinking about what I shall say to the +Emperor next week when his Imperial Majesty and the Chancellor pass +through Schnitzelhammerstein-on-the-Zugvitz on their way to the +Schutzenfest at Wuertemburger-Darmstadt. I have told Hans that the +imperial train stops at our station to water the engine, and during the +five minutes or so in which the Emperor honors our burg with his +presence it is only fitting that I, as Lord Mayor, should greet him with +an address of welcome. It will be the opportunity of my life, and the +boy is trying to enable me to be equal to it. Heaven forbid that he +should fail!" + +This explanation eased the mind of the Mayor's wife, and she refrained +from asking Hans to shell pease and match zephyrs until after the +Emperor had come and gone. Unfortunately, however, this was not the +real cause of the trouble with Hans, as the speech he wrote for the +Mayor to deliver to his imperial master showed; for, to the dismay +of Mayor Ehrenbreitstein, when the Emperor's train stopped at +Schnitzelhammerstein-on-the-Zugvitz, and he had unrolled the address +Hans had written, he discovered that Hans had not written a speech at +all, but a comic poem, in which his Imperial Majesty was referred to as +a royal turkey-cock, with a crow like the squeak of a penny flute. The +poor Mayor nearly expired when his eyes rested on the lines Hans had +written; but he went bravely ahead and made up a speech of his own, +which his Majesty fortunately did not hear, owing to the noise made by +the steam escaping from the engine whistle. + +When the Emperor had departed, the Mayor returned home in a rage, and +you may be sure that Hans could not get in a word edgewise even until +his employer had told him what he thought of him. + +"Excuse me," said Hans, when the Mayor had finished, after an hour's +angry tirade--"excuse me, but would you mind saying that over again? I +was thinking of something else." + +"Say it over again?" shrieked the Mayor. "Never. I shall never speak to +you again." + +"But what have I done?" asked Hans, so innocently that the Mayor +relented and repeated his tirade, and then Hans broke down. + +"Did I do that?" he said. "Then it is very plain that I need a +vacation." + +"I think so," retorted the Mayor. "You may take the next thousand years +without pay." + +"One year will be sufficient," said Hans. "Though I thank you just as +kindly for the others." Then he wept, and the Mayor's wife took pity on +him, and asked him to tell her what it was that had so occupied his mind +of late that he had committed so many grievous errors, and Hans told her +all. + +"It's my great-great-great-great-great-granduncle's fault," he sobbed. + +"Your what?" cried his mistress. + +[Illustration: "HE'S THE WORST BABY YOU EVER SAW"] + +"My great-great-great-great-great-granduncle, the perpetual baby," said +Hans, wiping his eyes. "He's the worst baby you ever saw. He yells and +howls and howls and yells all the time, and if he is left alone or put +down for a moment he has a convulsion of rage that is terrible to +witness. He breaks his toys the minute he gets them, and for fifteen +years he has made a slave of my poor father, who has not let the child +out of his lap in all that time." + +"Fifteen years?" cried Frau Ehrenbreitstein. "What _do_ you mean? How +old is this baby?" + +"Three hundred and forty-seven years, six months, and eight days," said +Hans, ruefully, consulting a pocket calendar he had with him. "During +my time with you," he added, "I have supported them. Father is alone in +the house with the infant; we could not afford a servant, and the child +yells so all the time that my father cannot get employment anywhere. It +was this that drove me out into the world to earn a living for them. +When I got only my food and bed, I shared my food with them, sending off +a third of it every week. Then when money came along, I gave them a +third of that; but the baby is as bad as ever, and father has written to +say that he can stand it no more, and I must return home or he will send +the baby to me here." + +"But, mercy me!" roared the Mayor, who had come in and heard the story, +"why doesn't the child grow?" + +"He can't," sobbed Hans. "His mother once made a wish that he might +always remain a baby, and it happened that she made the wish at the one +instant of the year when all wishes are granted by the fairies." + +"Nonsense," said the Mayor. "There are no fairies." + +"Indeed, there are," said Hans. "There is my +great-great-great-great-great-granduncle, the baby, to prove it. He's a +little tyrant, and he has worn out every generation of the family since, +making them look after him. It's terrible, and in trying to think what +to do to relieve my poor father and still support myself I have +neglected everything else, and that is why I--boo-hoo!--I wrote the +wall-paper and matched a pink Emperor with a green and yellow comic +poem." + +"Poor lad!" said the Mayor's wife. "Poor lad! It is a cruel story." + +"It is that," agreed the Mayor. "But cheer up, Hans. If there is an +instant in every year when wishes are always granted by the fairies, why +don't you wish the baby as he ought to be at the right moment?" + +"That's the trouble," said Hans, sadly. "There are many instants in a +year, and the lucky moment changes every twelve months. It is never the +same. I wish, and _wish_, but never at the right moment. Sometimes I +forget it; the instant comes and is gone, though I don't know it." + +"Well," said the Mayor's wife, "there is but one thing you can do. That +is, to devote a whole year to nothing else but that wish. I shall fix +you up a chair in the kitchen, give you a pipe, and on New-Year's +morning you may begin. You shall have no other duties but to wish for a +restoration of things as they should be. You will be sure to hit the +right moment if you are faithful to your work." + +"As I always am," said Hans, drying his tears. + +[Illustration: "IT WAS A WEARY VIGIL, BUT HE WAS TRUE"] + +And so it was that Hans Pumpernickel began his long vigil. He sat in the +kitchen, silent, smoking, gazing at the ceiling, wishing. It was weary +work indeed, but he was true, and last year, on the sixteenth day of +July, at half-past one o'clock in the morning, his fidelity was +rewarded, though he did not know it until the next morning, when the +expressman brought him a message from his father to the following +effect: + + "_July 16, 1893._ + + "MY DEAR HANS,--Don't worry; everything is serene again. At + half-past one o'clock this morning, just as the clock + struck, your great-great-great-great-great-granduncle began + to grow at a most rapid pace. I had hardly time to drop him + when he was taller than I, and twice as stout as I am told + you are. A beard sprouted on his face with equal rapidity, + and, just as I thought to ask him what he was going to do + next, he gave a deafening shout of laughter and disappeared + entirely. The whole affair didn't last more than five + seconds. The spell has been removed, and the perpetual baby + is no more. Come over and see me, and we'll celebrate our + emancipation. + + "Affectionately your daddy, + "RUPERT PUMPERNICKEL." + +Hans read this letter with a joyful face, and rushed up-stairs to tell +the Mayor and his faithful helpmate of his good fortune, and there was +great rejoicing for several days. Then Hans visited his father, and the +two happy creatures spent weeks and weeks rambling contentedly about the +country together, at the end of which time Hans returned to +Schnitzelhammerstein-on-the-Zugvitz, where, the Emperor having retired +the Mayor on a liberal pension for his attentions and kind expressions +of regard in the speech Hans did not write for him, he was chosen to +succeed his former master. + + + + +The Affliction of Baron Humpfelhimmel + + + + +The Affliction of Baron Humpfelhimmel + + +[Illustration: Decorative E] + +verybody said it was an extraordinary affair altogether, and for once +everybody was right. Baron Humpfelhimmel himself would say nothing about +it for two reasons. The first reason was that nobody dared ask him what +he thought about it, and the second was that he was too proud to speak +to anybody concerning any subject whatsoever, unless questioned. That he +always laughed, no matter what happened, was the melancholy fact, and +had been a melancholy fact from his childhood's earliest hour. He was +born laughing. He laughed in church, he laughed at home. When his father +spanked him he roared with laughter, and when he suffered from the +measles he could not begin to restrain his mirth. + +The situation seemed all the more singular when it was remembered that +Rudolf von Pepperpotz, the previous Baron Humpfelhimmel, and father of +the Laughing Baron, as he was called, was never known to smile from his +childhood's earliest hour to his dying day, and, strangest of all, was a +far more amiable person, despite his solemnity, than the present Baron +for all his laughter. + +"What does it mean, do you suppose?" Frau Ehrenbreitstein once asked of +Hans Pumpernickel, her husband's private secretary, of whom you have +already had some account. + +"I cannot tell," Hans had answered, "and I have my reason for saying +that I cannot tell," he added, significantly. + +"What is that reason, Hans?" asked the good lady, her curiosity aroused +by the boy's manner. + +"It is this," said Hans, his voice sinking to a whisper. "I cannot tell, +because--because I do not know!" + +And this, let me say in passing, was why Hans Pumpernickel was thought +by all to be so wise. He had a reason always for what he did, and was +ever willing to give it. + +"They say," the good Lady Ehrenbreitstein went on--"they do say that +when last winter the Baron while hunting boars was thrown from his +horse, breaking his leg and two of his ribs, they could not be set +because of his convulsions of laughter, though for my part I cannot see +wherein having one's leg and ribs broken is provocative of merriment." + +"Nor I," quoth Hans. "I have an eye for jokes. In most things I can see +the fun, but in the breaking of one's bones I see more cause for tears +than smiles." + +And it was true. As Frau Ehrenbreitstein had heard, the Baron +Humpfelhimmel had broken one leg and two ribs--only it was while hunting +wolves and not in a boar chase--and when the Emperor's physician, who +was one of the party, came to where the suffering man lay he found him +roaring with laughter. + +"Good!" cried the physician, leaning over his prostrate form. "I am glad +to see that you are not hurt. I feared you were injured." + +"I am injured," the Baron replied, with a loud laugh. "My left +leg--ha-ha-ha!--is nearly killing me--hee-hee!--with p-pain, and +if I mistake not, either my heart--ha-ha-ha-ha!--or my +ribs--hee-hee-hee!--are broken in nineteen places." + +Then he went off into such an explosion of mirth as not only appeared +unseemly, but also deprived him of the power of speech for five or six +minutes. + +"I fail to see the joke," said the physician, as the Baron's laughter +echoed and reechoed throughout the forest. + +"Th-there--hee-hee!--there isn't a-any joke," the Baron answered, +smiling. "Confound you--ha-ha-ha-ha!--oho-ho-ho!--can't you see I'm +suffering?" + +"I see you are laughing," the physician replied--"laughing as if you +were reading a comic paper full of real jokes. What are you laughing +at?" + +"Ha-ha! I--I d-dud-don't know," stammered the Baron, vainly endeavoring +to suppress his mirth. "I--I don't feel like laughing--hee-hee!--but I +can't help it." And off he went into another gale. Nor did he stop +there. The physician tried vainly to quiet him down so that he could set +the fractured bones, but in spite of all he could do for him the Baron +either would not or could not stop laughing. When he was able to move +about again it was only with a limp, and even that appeared to have its +humorous side, for whenever the Baron appeared on the public streets he +was always smiling, and when the Mayor ventured to express his sympathy +with him over his misfortune the Baron laughed again, and mirthfully +requested him to mind his own business. + +Then it was recalled how that ten years before, when the famous Von +Pepperpotz Castle was destroyed by fire, the Baron was found writing in +his study by the messenger who brought the news. + +"Baron," the messenger cried--"Baron, the chateau is burning. The flames +have already destroyed the armory, and are now eating their way through +the corridors to the state banquet-hall." + +The Baron looked the messenger in the eye for an instant, and then his +face wreathed with smiles. + +[Illustration: "MY CASTLE'S BURNING, EH? HA-HA!"] + +"My castle's burning, eh? Ha-ha-ha!" was what he said; and then, rising +hurriedly from his desk, he hastened, shouting with laughter, to the +scene, where no one worked harder than he to stay the devastating +course of the flames. + +"You seem to be pleased," said one who noticed his merriment. + +The Baron's answer was a blow which knocked the fellow down, and then, +striking him across the shoulders with his staff, he walked away, +muttering to himself: + +"Pleased! Ha-ha-ha! Does ruin please anybody--tee-hee-hee! If the churls +only--tee-hee!--only knew--ha-ha-ha-ha!" + +That was it! If they only knew! And no one did know until after the +Baron had died without children--for he had never married--and all +his possessions and papers became the property of the state. Through +these papers the secret of the Baron's laughter became known to the +good people of Schnitzelhammerstein-on-the-Zugvitz, and through them +it became known to me. Hans Pumpernickel himself told me the tale, +and as he has risen to the exalted position of Mayor of +Schnitzelhammerstein-on-the-Zugvitz, an honor conferred only on the +truly good and worthy, I have no reason to doubt that the story is in +every way truthful. + +"When Baron Humpfelhimmel died," said Hans, as he and I walked together +along the beautiful sylvan path that runs by the side of the Zugvitz +River, "I am sorry to say there were few mourners. A man who laughs, as +a rule, is popular, but the man who laughs always, without regard to +circumstances, makes enemies. One learns to love a person who laughs at +one's jests, but one who laughs at funerals, at conflagrations, at +beggars, at the needy and the distressed, does not become universally +beloved. Such was the habit of Fritz von Pepperpotz, last of the Barons +Humpfelhimmel. If you were to go to him with a funny story, none would +laugh more heartily than he; but equally loud would he laugh were you to +say to him that you had a racking headache, and should it chance that +you were to inform him you had been desperately ill, his mirth would +know no bounds. Even in his greatest frenzies of rage he would smirk and +laugh, and so it happened that the popularity which you would expect +would go with a mirthful disposition was the last thing in the world he +could hope for. I do not exaggerate when I say that Baron Humpfelhimmel +could not have been elected office-boy to the Mayor on a popular vote, +even if there were no opposing candidate. Now that it is all over, +however, and we know the truth, we have changed our minds about it, and +already several hundred of our citizens have raised a fund of twenty +marks to go towards putting up a monument to the memory of the Laughing +Baron. + +"Fritz von Pepperpotz, my friend," said Hans to me, in explanation of +the situation, "laughed because he could not help it, as a statement +found among his papers after he died showed. The statement contained the +whole story, and in some of its details it is a sad one. It was all the +fault of the grandfather of the late Baron that he could do nothing but +laugh all his days, that he died unmarried, and that the name of Von +Pepperpotz has died off the face of the earth forever, unless some one +else chooses to assume that name, which, I imagine, no one is crazy +enough to do. The only thing that could reconcile me to such a name +would be the estates that formerly went with it, but now that they have +become the property of the government the house has lost all of its +attractions, retaining, however, every bit of its homeliness. +Pumpernickel is bad enough, but it is beautiful beside Von Pepperpotz." + +Here Hans sighed, and to comfort him, rather than to say anything I +really meant, I observed that I thought Pumpernickel was a good strong +name. + +"Yes," Hans said, with a pleased smile. "It certainly is strong. I have +had mine twenty-five years now, and it doesn't show the slightest sign +of wear. It's as good as the day it was made. But to return to the Von +Pepperpotz family and its mysterious affliction. + +"According to the Baron's statement, while he himself could not restrain +his mirth, no matter how badly he felt, his father, Rupert von +Pepperpotz, could never smile, although he was a man of most genial +disposition. Just as Fritz was ushered into the world, grinning like a +Cheshire cheese--" + +"Cat," I suggested, noting Hans's error. + +"Cat, is it?" he said. "Well, now, do you know I am glad to hear that? +I always supposed the term used was cheese, and positively I have lain +awake night after night trying to comprehend how a cheese could grin, +and finally I gave it up, setting it down as one of the peculiarities of +the English language. If it's Cheshire cat, and not Cheshire cheese, +why, it's all clear as a pikestaff. But, as I was saying, just as Fritz +was born grinning like a Cheshire cat, his father Rupert was born +frowning apparently with rage. He was the most ill-natured-looking baby +you ever saw, according to the chronicles. Nothing seemed to please him. +When you or I would have cooed, Rupert von Pepperpotz would wrinkle up +his forehead until the furrows, if his nurse tells the truth, were deep +enough to hide letters in. + +[Illustration: "RUPERT WAS ALWAYS MERRY"] + +"And yet he was rarely cross, and never disobedient. It was the +strangest thing in the world. Here was a being who always frowned and +never laughed, and yet who was as obliging in his actions as could be. +As he grew older his active amiability increased, but his frown grew +more terrible than ever. He became a great wit. As he walked through +the streets of Schnitzelhammerstein-on-the-Zugvitz he was always merry, +though none would have guessed it to look at him. He had a pleasant +voice, and his neighbors all said it was a most startling thing to hear +in the distance a jolly, roistering song, and then to walk along a +little way and see that it was this forbidding-looking person who was +doing the singing. + +"How Rupert got Wilhelmina de Grootzenburg to become his wife, +considering his seeming solemnity, which made him appear to be +positively ugly, nobody ever knew. It is probable, however, that it was +sympathy which moved her to like him, unless it was that his ugliness +fascinated her. Rupert himself said that it was not sympathy for his +inability to laugh or smile, because he did not want sympathy for that. +He didn't feel badly about it himself. He never had smiled, and so did +not know the pleasure of it. Consequently he didn't miss it. Smiling was +an idiotic way of expressing pleasure anyhow, he said. Why just because +a man thought of a funny idea he should stretch his mouth he couldn't +see. No more could he understand why it was necessary to show one's +appreciation of a funny story by shaking one's stomach and saying Ha-ha! +On the whole, he said that he was satisfied. He could talk and could +tell people he enjoyed their stories without having to shake himself or +disturb the corners of his mouth. When little Fritz was born, and did +nothing but laugh even when he had the colic, the solemn-looking Rupert +observed that the baby simply proved the truth of what he said. + +"'What a donkey the child is,' he cried, 'to spoil his pretty face by +stretching his mouth so that you almost fear his ears will drop into it! +And those wild whoops, which you call laughter, what earthly use are +they? I can't see why, if he is glad about something, he can't just say, +"I'm glad about so and so," mildly, instead of making me deaf with his +roars. Truly, laughter is not what it is cracked up to be.' + +"'Ah, my dear Rupert,' Wilhelmina, his wife, had said, 'you do not +really know what you are talking about! If you could enjoy the sensation +of laughing once you would never wish to be without it.' + +"'Nonsense!' replied the Baron. 'My father never laughed, so why should +I wish to?' + +"Now, then," continued Hans, "according to Fritz von Pepperpotz's +statement, there was where Rupert was wrong. Siegfried von Pepperpotz +had known what it was to laugh, but he had not known when to laugh, +which was why the family of Von Pepperpotz was afflicted with a curse, +which only the final dying out of the family could remove, and there lay +the solution of the mystery. It seems that Siegfried von Pepperpotz, +grandfather of Fritz and father of Rupert, had been a wild sort of a +youth, who smiled when he wished and frowned when he wished, no matter +what the occasion may have been, and he smiled once too often. A +miserable-looking figure of a man once passed through the village of +Schnitzelhammerstein-on-the-Zugvitz, selling sugar dolls and other +sweets. To Siegfried and his comrades it seemed good to play a prank on +the old fellow. They sent him two miles off into the country, where, +they said, was a rich countess, who would buy his whole stock, when in +reality there was no rich countess there at all, so that the old man +had his trouble for his pains. + +"That he was a magician they did not know, but so he was, and in those +days magicians could do everything. Of course he was angry at the +deception, and on his return to Schnitzelhammerstein-on-the-Zugvitz he +sent for the young men, and got all of them to apologize and buy his +wares except Siegfried. Siegfried not only refused to apologize and buy +the old man's candies, but had the audacity to laugh in his face, and +tell him about a wealthy old duke who lived two miles out on the other +side of the village, which the magician immediately recognized as +another attempt to play a practical joke upon him. + +"'Enough, Siegfried von Pepperpotz!' he cried, in his rage. 'Laugh away +while you can. After to-day may you never smile, and may your son never +smile, and may your son's son, willing or unwilling, smile smiles that +you two would have smiled, and so may it ever go! May every third +generation get the laughter that the preceding two shall lose, according +to my curse!' + +"This made Siegfried laugh all the harder, for, not knowing, as I have +said, that the old man was a magician, he had no fear of him. Next day, +however, he changed his mind. He found that he could not laugh. He could +not even smile. Try as he would, his lips refused to do his bidding. + +[Illustration: "SIEGFRIED VON PEPPERPOTZ GREW ILL OF IT"] + +"It ruined his disposition. Siegfried von Pepperpotz grew ill over it. +The greatest doctors in the world were summoned to his aid, but to no +avail. If the curse had ended with him he might not have minded it so +much, but after the discovery that from the day of his birth his son +Rupert was no more able to laugh than himself he began to brood over the +affliction, and shortly died of it; and when Fritz found out from a +paper he discovered in a secret drawer in the old chest in the chateau +what the curse was--for Siegfried never told his son, and alone knew +from what it was he suffered, and that it was perpetual--he resolved +that there should be no further posterity to whom it should be handed +down. + +"That," said Hans, "is the story of Baron Humpfelhimmel's affliction." + +"And a strange story it is," said I. "Though I don't know that it has +any particular moral." + +"Oh yes, it has!" said Hans. "It has a good moral." + +"And what is that?" I asked. + +"Don't laugh at your own jokes," he replied. "If Siegfried von +Pepperpotz had not laughed when the magician came back, he never would +have been cursed, and this story never would have been told." + + + + +A Great Composer + + + + +A Great Composer + + +[Illustration: Decorative A] + +mong the best-known residents of Schnitzelhammerstein-on-the-Zugvitz +when Hans Pumpernickel first appeared in that beautiful city were three +musicians--Herr von Kaerlingtongs, who was the only, and consequently the +best, violinist in town, Dr. Otto Teutonstring, and Heinrich Flatz, who +had played the 'cello once before the King of Prussia with such effect +that the king said he'd never heard anything like it before. The town +was naturally very proud of the trio, and particularly of Dr. +Teutonstring, who, though far from being a muscular man, had once played +the bass-viol for sixteen consecutive hours in the musical contest at +the Schnitzelhammerstein carnival, beating by one hour and twenty-two +minutes the strongest and most enduring bass-viol player in Germany. +They were the most amiable old gentlemen in the world. It very seldom +happened that they failed to agree, which was rather wonderful, because +it often happens, unhappily, that musicians grow jealous of one another, +and say and do things that make it impossible for them to live together +peaceably. You may not all of you remember that famous and very sad +instance of the lengths to which this jealousy is sometimes allowed to +run wherein Luigi Sparragini, the well-known Italian violinist, in his +rage at the applause received at a concert by his rival, Siegfried von +Heimstetter, broke a Stradivarius violin valued at a thousand pounds +over Von Heimstetter's head, to be rebuked in return by Von Heimstetter, +who induced Sparragini to look at the mechanism of a grand piano he had, +letting the cover fall on the other's head as soon as he had poked it +in, thereby utterly ruining the piano and severely injuring Sparragini's +nose. + +Nothing of this kind, as I have intimated, ever marred the serenity of +the three amiable musicians of Schnitzelhammerstein-on-the-Zugvitz. + +"We have no cause each other to be jealous of," Herr von Kaerlingtongs +had said. "I the fiddle play; they the fiddle do not play." + +"True," observed Heinrich Flatz. "The potato just as well the watermelon +might be jealous of. If I the fiddle played, then might I Von +Kaerlingtongs be jealous of. Therefore also already can the same be said +regarding Teutonstring. In no manner are we each other the rivals of." + +In all of which, as Hans Pumpernickel said to me, there was much +common-sense. "Discord is not music," said he, "and if these men were +discordant they would not be musicians. If they were not musicians they +would have to make a living in some other kind of business. They are not +fit for any other kind of business, wherefore they are wise as well as +amiable." + +The consequence of all this harmony between the three dear old gentlemen +was that they were always together. They practised together, and on +public occasions they played together, and their fellow-townsmen were +delighted with them. At weddings they played the wedding-marches, each +as earnestly as though he were playing a solo. At the Mayor's banquets +they were always present, adding much to the pleasure of these sumptuous +repasts by the soft and beautiful strains which they discoursed. "I am +not a king," said Mayor Ehrenbreitstein upon one of these occasions; +"but if I were, I could not hear better music. We have an orchestra +without a court. What more can we desire?" + +"Nothing," said Hans Pumpernickel, "unless it be another tune." + +"A good idea," cried one of the aldermen. "Let us have another tune." + +And so the cry would go about the board, and the three happy old +gentlemen would good-naturedly go to work again and play another tune. +It came about very naturally, then, that whenever a rival band of +musicians, desirous of wresting the laurels from the respective brows of +Herren Von Kaerlingtongs, Teutonstring, and Flatz, came to +Schnitzelhammerstein, they found them so strongly intrenched in the +affections of the people that, while they lived and played in harmony +together, no others could hope to make a living from music in that +community. They rapidly grew rich; for it came to pass that, with the +exception of house rent, and new strings for their instruments, and +other mere incidentals of a musician's work, they had no expenses to +pay. Their food cost them nothing, they attended so many banquets; and +when, occasionally, a day would come upon which no breakfast, luncheon, +or dinner required their services, it was always found that they had +carried away enough fruit and cake and other dainties from the affairs +that had been given to last them through such rare intervals as found +them without an engagement. + +In other respects, too, did these worthies show themselves entitled to +be called wise. Some five years after they began to grow famous in +Schnitzelhammerstein-on-the-Zugvitz some of their admirers suggested +that they ought not to confine themselves to the small town in which +they had waxed so great, but should go out into the world and dazzle all +mankind by the brilliance of their playing. + +"The great orchestras of Austria," said one of these, "do not content +themselves with laurels won at home. They travel into far countries, +and win fame and fortune all the world over. Why do not you go?" + +"We will talk it over," Herr Teutonstring replied. "I for one am opposed +to making such a trip, because I am an old man, and my bass-viol is +heavy." + +"Can you not send it about by freight?" said the man who proposed the +scheme. + +"Would you send your child by freight?" asked Herr Teutonstring. + +"I would not," returned the other. + +"No more can I send my bass-viol by freight," said Herr Teutonstring, +fondly twanging the strings of his huge instrument. "This is my whole +family. I love it as I would a child for whom I must care; as a father +who has helped me to become what I am. Nevertheless, we will talk it +over." + +And they did talk it over, and as a result decided that the world, +if it desired to hear them play, must come to +Schnitzelhammerstein-on-the-Zugvitz. + +"If we go," said Herr Von Kaerlingtongs, "who will provide music for +Schnitzelhammerstein-on-the-Zugvitz?" + +"Who, indeed?" said Heinrich Flatz, gazing at the floor after the +manner of the truly wise man. + +"Since you have both asked that question," said Herr Teutonstring, "out +of mere politeness I must answer it. My answer is, briefly, I haven't +the slightest idea." + +"But some one must," persisted Von Kaerlingtongs. + +"Yes," said the others. + +"Then one of two things must happen," said Von Kaerlingtongs. "Either by +our absence the people of this town must be deprived of good music, +which would be very ungrateful of us, who have gained so much profit +from them, or they must discover that there are others who can play as +well as we do, whereby we would cease to be the greatest in the +world--which strikes me as bad policy." + +"Von Kaerlingtongs," said Heinrich Flatz, with tears of joy in his eyes, +"you are not only a musician, you are a thinker." + +"Do not flatter me, my dear Flatz," said Von Kaerlingtongs, modestly. +"You do not know what a struggle it is to me to keep from giving way to +pride." + +"Well, I agree to all that you have said," said Herr Teutonstring; "and +I have to add that, as we are only young in spirit, and as my bass-viol +is very heavy, I think we should be content to remain at home." + +"Particularly," added Heinrich Flatz, "in view of the fact that there +can be but one result. We should succeed. Now where is the gratification +in success? Simply in the knowledge that you have succeeded. We know +that now. Wherefore why should we put ourselves to inconveniences simply +to find out what we already know? Does a man with a pantryful of tarts +go seeking tarts? He does not--" + +"If he is wise," said Herr Teutonstring. + +"And we are wise," added Herr von Kaerlingtongs. + +"Which settles the point. We'll stay at home," said Herr Flatz. + +And they did, and subsequent events showed the wisdom of their +course, for in less than a year's time the King came to +Schnitzelhammerstein-on-the-Zugvitz. + +Some said that he stopped there merely because there was a better +luncheon-counter at the railway station than anywhere else along the +road. Others persisted that his Majesty had heard of the marvellous +powers of the three musicians, and, being fond of music, had travelled +all the way from the capital, a distance of more than a hundred miles, +to hear them. However this was, the fact remained that the King +announced that for two hours he would be the guest of the little city +concerning which we have spoken so much. The town naturally was all of a +flutter, and great preparations were made to receive his Majesty. + +"I will make a speech," said the Mayor, "and our orchestra can serenade +his Majesty." + +"The serenade is a good idea," said Hans Pumpernickel, innocently. +"Shall I inform Herr Teutonstring and his fellow-players that that is +your opinion?" + +"As a rule, I avoid having opinions," said the Mayor, "but in this +instance I think it is safe to hazard one. You may inform the +gentlemen." + +"And the speech?" suggested Hans. + +"We'll see about that," said the Mayor. "If I can get a good one, I +shall deliver it." + +"Very well," said Hans. "I'll try to think of something for you to say. +Meanwhile I'll see Von Kaerlingtongs." + +Hans did as he said, and, despite their wisdom, the three musicians were +as much in a flutter as the rest of the city. To play before the King +was an unexpected honor, although Heinrich Flatz affected to treat it as +quite an ordinary thing. + +"He is a very fair judge of music," said Flatz, patronizingly, "for a +King. I think that, after all, we'd better do our best." + +"Yes," said Von Kaerlingtongs, "you are right, as usual, though I will +say right here that, in doing my best, I am actuated as much by my +loyalty to my art as by any other motive. I _always_ do my best." + +"And I also," put in Teutonstring. "Now the question that arises is what +is our best?" + +"That _is_ indeed the question," said Herr Flatz. "I, having already had +the honor to play before his Majesty, am perhaps better fitted than +either of you to say what he likes. When I was so distinguished I played +Djorski's Symphony in B Minor. Therefore I contend that that is what we +should play. His Majesty remarked that he had never heard anything like +it before. He would doubtless like to hear it again. Therefore I say +that is the thing for us to play." + +"Ordinarily," said Teutonstring, "I can agree with Herr Flatz, but this +time I cannot. _I_ am at my best in Darmstadter's Oratorio. There can be +no question about it that the bass-viol is at its highest, most +ennobling point in that composition, which is why I say let us have the +Oratorio. The King, having heard the Symphony in B Minor, would +naturally rather hear something else. The Symphony, no doubt, would +awaken pleasant memories, but the Oratorio would give him something new +to remember in the future." + +"There is much in what you say, Herr Teutonstring," put in Von +Kaerlingtongs. "There is also much in what my dear friend Flatz says; but +it seems to me that there is more in what I have to say than in the +combined suggestions of both of you. The Symphony in B Minor is +excellent, the Oratorio is quite as excellent, but neither of them comes +up to Dboriak's Moonlight Sonata, which, when I play it, makes me feel +as though the whole world lay at my feet--as if I were the King of all +creation. Now I am a man; the King is a man; we are both men. It is but +natural to suppose that if this Sonata makes me, a man, feel like the +King of all creation, it will also make that other man, the King, feel +the same way. What is our object in playing before the King? To please +him. How can we best please him? Simply by making him feel that he is +the King of all creation. Perfectly simple, my dear Flatz. Plain as a +pikestaff, Teutonstring. Therefore let us play Dboriak's Moonlight +Sonata." + +It was thus that the three musicians, who had always hitherto agreed, +came to have the first difference of their lives, and what made it seem +worse than all was that this difference occurred at a time which seemed +to them in their secret hearts to be the greatest event of their lives. +Perhaps it was the very importance of this event that made each of them +firm in his belief that he was right and the others wrong. Neither would +yield to the others, and an hour before the arrival of the royal train +found Flatz determined to play the Symphony, Teutonstring determined to +play the Oratorio, and Von Kaerlingtongs equally immovable in his +determination to play the Moonlight Sonata, and nothing else. They +labored with one another in vain. Doctor Teutonstring tried to win over +Herr Flatz, saying that if together they should play the Oratorio they +could let Von Kaerlingtongs render the Sonata without much harm, since +the bass-viol and 'cello together could drown the sounds of the violin. +Herr Flatz would agree to a combination of two against one only in case +the Symphony were selected, and when the King arrived no change +whatsoever had been made in the determination of the musicians. Ruin +stared them in the face, but each preferred ruin to a base surrender of +what he thought to be for the best. + +Of course, as the King alighted from the train the people cheered, and, +when the Mayor rose to greet him with the speech he had to make, they +cheered again, but these cheers were as nothing to those which greeted +the appearance of the musicians. Many nations had kings; all cities had +mayors; what city had such an orchestra? No wonder they cheered. + +And then the serenade began. + +Herr Flatz resined his bow and began the Symphony in B Minor, while Von +Kaerlingtongs and Teutonstring, equally determined, started in on the +opening measures of the Sonata and Oratorio respectively. + +[Illustration: "THE THREE FIDDLED WITH ALL THEIR STRENGTH"] + +"It's something new they've got up for the occasion," whispered the +people, as the three men fiddled away with all their strength. + +"A most original composition!" said the King to the Chancellor. + +"I never heard such discord in my life," said a small boy on the +outskirts of the crowd. + +Still they kept on. The Symphony and the Oratorio were longer than the +Sonata, so that Von Kaerlingtongs soon found himself outdone by his +fellow-players, but, nothing daunted, he played the Sonata over again. +And so it went, until, with a final grand burst of notes (I was almost +about to say harmony), they stopped. + +"Magnificent!" said the King. + +"A really classic composition," murmured the Chancellor. + +And the people shrieked with delight. + +The musicians, perspiring with excitement, stood overcome with surprise. +They had succeeded beyond their wildest hopes, but the King brought them +to their senses in a minute by asking: + +"What is the composer's name?" + +"What'll we tell him?" moaned Teutonstring. "It will never do to confess +what we have done now." + +"I'm sure I don't know," returned Flatz, with a shiver. + +"The composer's name, sir," replied Von Kaerlingtongs, more ready of wit +than the others--"the composer's name is--ah--is--" + +"Well?" said the King, impatiently. + +"It is Kaerlingteutonflatz," said Von Kaerlingtongs. + +"Give him a thousand marks," said the King, "and distribute a thousand +more to these gentlemen," he added. + +And then the royal party proceeded on its way. + +As for the composer, Kaerlingteutonflatz, he was never heard of again; +but several other eminent musicians modelled their music after his, and +obtained a renown that was not only world-wide, but has lasted until +this day. + +The three musicians of Schnitzelhammerstein-on-the-Zugvitz, when they +had recovered from their surprise and excitement, began to smile, and +never stopped until they died--and I am not certain that they stopped +then--nor did they ever confide their secret to any one but Hans +Pumpernickel, who in turn confided it to me, so that this is really the +first time the public has been let into the secret origin of what was +then the music of the future and what is to-day the music of the +present. + + + + +How Fritz Became a Wizard + + + + +How Fritz Became a Wizard + + +[Illustration: Decorative I] + +t was a lovely summer afternoon at Schnitzelhammerstein-on-the-Zugvitz, +and Hans Pumpernickel and I, having little else to do, idled along the +sylvan path that for five or six miles follows the winding course of the +famous little river. Hans was in a very talkative mood that day. He had +quite recently been re-elected Mayor of the town in which he lived, +after a hard campaign of six weeks, during which time he had not been +allowed to say anything, for fear of spoiling his chances of reelection. + +"And now that it is over, and I am safely in office once more, I am +going to make up for lost time," he said. "Having kept silent for six +weeks, I shall now talk three times as much as usual for three. I am fat +with suppressed conversation, and I must get rid of it, or I shall +burst." + +So, as I have told you, he was very talkative, and on that afternoon he +told me enough stories to fill an encyclopaedia, most of which, I regret +to say, I have forgotten, but some of which, also, I remember perfectly. +The one telling how Fritz von Hatzfeldt became a wizard was one of these +latter, and it seemed to me quite good enough to tell to you. It came +about in this way. When nearing the point where the celebrated Baron +Laubenheimer, at the risk of his life, once plunged into the Zugvitz to +rescue Johanna Johannisberg from drowning--a heroic act, the story of +which I hope some day to tell you--we perceived walking ahead of us a +strange-looking old gentleman, clad in a long, flowing robe with a +border embroidered with mystic figures. He wore spectacles--or, rather, +the rims of spectacles, without glass; for, as I learned afterwards, +though his eyes were in good condition, his ideas as to the dignity of +his profession compelled him to appear as wise as possible, and he had +discovered that nothing imparts to the face of man so much of the +appearance of wisdom as spectacles. + +"That," said Hans Pumpernickel, in response to my question, "is our town +wizard, Fritz von Hatzfeldt, and I may add that the town has never had a +better one. When I was running for Mayor this last time against +Pflueger, who, as you may remember, was the opposing candidate, Von +Hatzfeldt was consulted by my friends as to my chances; for, as town +wizard, it is his duty to prophesy. His answer was wonderfully quick, +and absolutely accurate. 'Who will be elected,' said he, 'Pumpernickel +or Pflueger?' 'Yes,' said they, 'that is the question.' 'I will consult +the stars,' said Von Hatzfeldt, withdrawing to his observatory. Now, his +predecessor, Rosenstein, would have taken a week to return his verdict, +but Von Hatzfeldt's strong point is quickness. He remained with the +stars no longer than two hours, and then, emerging from his observatory, +he said, 'I have consulted, and the heavens tell me that the name of our +next Mayor will begin with the letter P.' And it was so. Pumpernickel +was elected, and Pflueger was defeated. Was not that an extraordinary, +even a wonderful prophecy?" + +"Very," I assented. "That man must be a genius; I should like to meet +him." + +"I think it can be arranged," said Hans. "I will ask him if you may." +And he hurried on to overtake the wizard. In a moment he returned. + +"Well," I said, "does he consent to my meeting him?" + +"Yes," said Hans. "Only, with his customary wisdom, he says that, to +meet him, you should be coming towards him from in front. He says that +people can only be said to meet when face to face. 'You do not meet the +man who walks behind you, Mr. Mayor,' he said; 'but if your friend will +take a short-cut through the woods to the old rock two hundred paces on, +he can then approach me from before, and then we shall meet." + +"That suits me," said I, and, making the cut through the woods, I +reached the rock, turned back, and soon stood face to face with the +wizard. "I am glad to know you," said I, as Pumpernickel introduced us. + +"I was about to make a similar remark myself," returned Von Hatzfeldt, +"but concluded not to, and for this reason: to tell you that would be +to tell you something you already knew. If I had not been glad to meet +you, I could have turned aside and avoided the meeting. Now, my notion +of the duties of a professional wizard is that he should tell people +only those things which they do not know, and should avoid wasting his +breath in imparting useless information." + +"A very sage observation," said Pumpernickel. + +"And what else did you expect?" queried the wizard, gazing through his +unglazed spectacles upon the Mayor. "Mark you, Mr. Mayor, it is the +business of wizards to make sage observations. You might as well try to +purchase a diamond necklace of a green-grocer as look for unwise remarks +from a professional wizard." + +"I'll test his powers of prophecy now," said Hans to me, in a whisper. + +"Do," I replied. "I shall be delighted, for I never met a real prophet +before." + +"Ah, Herr Wizard," said Hans, addressing Von Hatzfeldt, "what do you +think about the weather?" + +"It is very fair--now," replied the wizard. + +"Now, eh?" said Hans. "Then you think it will not always be so?" + +"No," replied the wizard, glancing up into the heavens. "No. To you +there is nothing in the skies to foretell a change, but to me there is +much. Before the winter is over, Hans Pumpernickel, we shall have snow. +I read it in the stars." + +"Stars?" I cried. "By day?" + +"And why not?" returned the wizard. "Do you think because you do not see +them that therefore the stars are all destroyed?" + +To this I had no answer, and before I could recover myself Fritz von +Hatzfeldt had passed on. + +"Isn't he a wonder?" said Pumpernickel. + +"He is more than a wonder," I replied. "He is a +four-hundred-and-tender"--a joke, by the way, which Hans Pumpernickel +did not appreciate. + +"Whence do your wizards come?" I asked. + +"There is no rule," Pumpernickel answered. "The wisest person in town is +generally selected, though, as for Fritz, he studied wizardry under +Rosenstein. It was curious the way it happened. Fritz was the son of a +farmer, who sent him to school when he was very young, and at the age of +five he could read so well that he couldn't be got to leave his books +and help gather in the crops. At seven his father, in a fit of anger at +what he termed the boy's laziness, turned him out of doors, and Fritz +came to Schnitzelhammerstein to seek his fortune. The first position he +held was as boy in a butcher-shop, but he had to give that up, because, +having gone for weeks without sufficient food, his appetite was a +serious menace to the butcher's stock, which the butcher did not +discover until Fritz had eaten one whole side of beef. Then he became +candy-puller for a molasses-candy-maker, who employed him without +counting upon his sweet tooth. This he was compelled to give up after +having consumed two weeks' salary's worth of candy in two days. It was +this second rebuff that brought him to Rosenstein's notice. While +standing in his laboratory one morning the wizard heard a piping little +voice cry out, 'Excuse me, sir, but don't you want an assistant?' + +"'An assistant what?' asked Rosenstein. + +"'An assistant whatever you are,' returned the owner of the little +voice, who was none other than Fritz. + +"The answer pleased Rosenstein. He recognized wisdom in it; for that it +was wise no one will deny. + +"'Don't you know what I am?' he asked. + +[Illustration: "'YOU ARE A VERY NICE OLD GENTLEMAN'"] + +"'Yes,' said Fritz. 'You are a very nice old gentleman.' + +"Rosenstein laughed. 'True,' he said. 'But I am also the town wizard.' + +"'Then will I be the assistant town wizard,' said Fritz. 'What do +wizards do--whiz?' + +"'I'll take you in for a week and let you see,' said Rosenstein, and +little Fritz was employed to do errands. But alas for him! The wizard, +though he liked him much, could not afford to keep him. He had not +counted upon Fritz's appetite any more than the butcher had, and again +was the boy sent forth. This time, however, he was sent forth in a +kindly way. 'You are a good boy, Fritz, and I like you, and I think you +would make a good wizard some day, for you have a wise way about you for +your years, but I am too poor to feed you. I will say to you, however, +that if you ever make your fortune in this world, then will I be glad +to receive you back again and point out to you the path you should +pursue if you would some day succeed me in my office. Make your fortune +first, my boy, then come to me.' + +"'Can't I stay if I lose my appetite?" asked Fritz, mournfully. + +"'Ah, but you mustn't do that,' the wizard answered. 'An appetite is a +splendid thing--a fortune in itself--but you must also have another +fortune in itself to maintain it. Go, my boy, and bless you!' + +"Poor Fritz! This last failure discouraged him wofully. He had no money, +no home, nobody to go to. His condition was a dreadful one; but the +Fates had a happy life in store for him. He wandered out along this very +path up to the big rock, and sat down to meditate, and as he meditated +he observed, as the tide of the river went down, it uncovered the +entrance to what appeared to be a huge cavern. 'Humph!' said Fritz. +'Looks like a cave. Maybe I can use that for a place to live in. There +may be one or two dry spots inside where I could sleep, and I could +always come out at low tide if I wanted to. There's house rent saved, +anyhow.' + +"Speaking thus, he climbed down into the cavern, and, as he had hoped, +found plenty of dry places, and from that time on it became his home. He +occasionally made a few marks by doing chores for people around about +Schnitzelhammerstein, and with them he supplied himself with food and +furniture. The spring-time came, and with it a freshet which completely +covered up the entrance to the cavern night and day, high tide or low, +and Fritz found himself shut up in his strange home for two whole dreary +months. Escape was impossible. The sole sustenance he had was an +occasional fish he caught in some of the pools. + +[Illustration: "THE LITTLE FELLOW MUSED OFT AND LONG THEREON"] + +"It was not until he had been in this cavernous prison for five weeks +that he noticed a most unique thing about it. _Night and day it was +always brilliantly lighted!_ On the Monday night of the fifth week this +singular fact flashed upon the boy's mind. How was it? Whence could the +light come? It was not sunlight, because that would not shine by night. +What, then, was the secret of the light in the cave? The little fellow +mused oft and long thereon, and finally he reached a conclusion, which, +like all his conclusions, was a wise one. + +"'This is worth investigating. I will investigate,' he cried. +'Meditation is good in its way, but if a thing is past mental +comprehension, then investigation of an active sort is in order. In the +first place, the light does not come from above; it streams in through +that chink in the rock off to the left. I will slide through that chink +and see what is to be seen.' + +[Illustration: "IT NEARLY BLINDED HIM"] + +"In an instant he had done so, and--there lay his fortune. Lying upon +the soft earth floor of the adjoining cave was a diamond, dazzling in +its lustre, and large as a hen's egg. So brilliant was it that all about +it was lighted up as though by electricity. In a second Fritz pounced +upon it and held it aloft. It nearly blinded him, but he held on to it +like grim death. It was his, and only his. His fortune was made. + +"Three weeks later the waters subsided, and Fritz went forth into the +world with his diamond." + +"But," said I, "a diamond like that would be very hard to sell, and +people might not understand how it had come into the possession of a +small boy who had always been poor." + +"True," said Pumpernickel, "and Fritz thought of that. 'Too sudden +riches fly suddenly away,' he observed. 'I will proceed slowly.' _He +didn't show that diamond to any one until he had made his fortune._" + +"Then how--how did he make his fortune?" I asked. + +"He sold its light," said Hans. "It does not sound probable, but it is +true. In those days we had no gas or electricity to light our public +squares or ballrooms or libraries, and Fritz, noting this, bought a +small lantern with ground-glass sides, so that the diamond could shed +its light without itself being seen, and, putting his diamond into it, +rented it out for public meetings, for ballroom illumination--in fact, +to any who stood in need of a strong, powerful light. Scientists from +all Germany flocked in to see it, and besought him to divulge the secret +of the light, but he would not until he had accumulated a fortune, and +then he let the world into his confidence. Meanwhile he had gone back +to Rosenstein, and had learned the art of being a wizard, and when +Rosenstein died he was unanimously called to fill the vacancy." + +"And what became of the diamond?" + +"That," said Hans, "is a mystery. Some say that Von Hatzfeldt has it +yet, but burglars who have searched his house high and low a thousand +times say that he hasn't it." + +"And he--what does he say?" + +"He declines to speak of it," said Hans, simply. + +"Well," said I, "that is a very remarkable tale." + +"Yes," said Hans, "but then Fritz von Hatzfeldt is a very remarkable +wizard, for how a man can be as wise as he and know so little passes all +comprehension." + + + + +Rise and Fall of the Poet Gregory + + + + +Rise and Fall of the Poet Gregory + + +[Illustration: Decorative O] + +ne night after dining with Hans Pumpernickel at his house in +Schnitzelhammerstein-on-the-Zugvitz, I recalled to his mind that he had +promised some time to introduce me to the three sages of the town--the +only persons residing there who at all approached Fritz von Hatzfeldt, +the wizard, in wisdom. + +"True," said he, "I did promise that, and if you like I will take you to +them this evening. They are a wonderful trio, and between you and me, I +really think they know more in a day than Von Hatzfeldt does in a year. +The maxims of Otto the Shoemaker alone contain wisdom enough to set ten +wizards up in business. Did you ever hear any of Otto the Shoemaker's +maxims?" + +"No," said I. "I never even heard of Otto the Shoemaker. Does he write +maxims?" + +"Not exactly," replied Hans, filling his pipe and putting on his hat. +"He cannot write, but he can speak. He says maxims." + +"How interesting!" I observed, following Hans's example and putting on +my hat and filling my pipe also. "I should like to hear some of them." + +"You shall," replied Hans. "Here is one of them: 'One never misses one's +shoes until he has to do without them.' That, you see, is undeniable, +and is full of wisdom. Then there was this one addressed to his son: +'Rise in the world, but be careful how. The man who goes up in a balloon +cannot stay up after the gas gives out. Therefore, my son, rise not up +at random, even as the balloonist does, but rather move up slowly but +surely, like him who builds a tower of rock beneath him, and is thus +able to stay up as long as he pleases.'" + +"Wonderful," said I. "And you say that this philosopher, this deep +thinker, this Maximilian, is content to remain a shoemaker?" + +"Yes," Hans answered, "he is, for, as he himself once said, 'The throne +itself rests upon society merely, but upon what does society stand? +Boots and shoes! I make boots and shoes, wherefore I am the cornerstone +of the empire.'" + +"I must meet this Otto the Shoemaker," was my response, and to that end +Hans Pumpernickel and I went out to the little back street where Otto +the Shoemaker, Eisenberg the Keysmith, and Jurgurson the Innkeeper, the +three sages of the town, dwelt peacefully and happily together in +neighborly intercourse. We found them having a quiet little gossip after +tea. Eisenberg was leaning out of his shop window, his long, white clay +pipe unfilled in his hand, lovingly discoursing to Otto the Shoemaker, +who, clad in his leather apron, hung upon his every word as though each +were a pearl of thought, and to Jurgurson the Innkeeper, who sat +opposite him with a look upon his face which indicated how much he +marvelled at the wisdom which bubbled out of Eisenberg's lips like water +from a geyser. + +"It is as I tell you," Eisenberg was saying; "thought is the key to +every mystery; wherefore I, being the maker of keys of all sorts, +necessarily manufacture thoughts. It is a part of my business. Why, +therefore, should the world express surprise at my being a thinker?" + +"Wherefore, indeed?" replied Jurgurson; "or me, too? As the keeper of +the inn is it not for me to dispense entertainment for man and beast? Is +not wisdom the entertainment of many men, and do not many men come here? +Why should I, too, then, not have wisdom on draught just as likewise I +have ginger-ale and lemonade?" + +"You are both right," put in Otto the Shoemaker. "And as for me, what? +This: the labor of the shoemaker is confining. I am kept at my bench all +day. I must have exercise or I die; with my body busy at my trade, what +can I exercise else? My wits--yah! That is, then, the cause of no +surprise that I, too, am sagacious." + +"We have never said anything more wise," said Eisenberg, proudly, and +the others agreed with him. + +At this point Hans presented me to the sages. + +"Gentlemen," he said, after he had given to each an appropriate +greeting, "I have brought with me one who wishes to know you. He is an +American and a poet." + +"Ach!" cried Eisenberg. "An American--that is good. A poet? Well we +shall see. That is not always so good. Do you write, sir?" + +"Occasionally," I answered. + +"Good," said Otto. "That is better than often." + +"True," assented Jurgurson, "though not so good as hardly ever." + +I laughed. "You do not seem to think much of poets," said I. + +"We do not say that," said Otto. "We do not know you as a poet, and so +we do not pass judgment. When one says because one or two, or even two +thousand, shoemakers are bad, all shoemakers are bad, one speaks +foolishness. So with the poets. Because Heinrich von Scribbhausen writes +bad stuff, you do not therefore write bad stuff. A poet should be +judged, not by his shoes, but by his poems. I, a shoemaker, must not be +judged by my poems, but by my shoes, which points a moral, and that +moral is, what is sauce for the goose is not always sauce for the +gander. The gander may be a person who makes fine clothes. The goose +should not be judged by his clothes, but the gander should; therefore, +never judge a man for what he ain't." + +"Bravo!" cried Jurgurson. "I could not have spoken more wisely myself." + +"Nor I," said Eisenberg. "Yet I could add somewhat. You do not print +your poems?" + +"Of course," I replied, "and why not?" + +"It is a great risk," sighed Eisenberg. "Particularly for poets, for, as +Otto has well said, the world cannot judge a man for what he is not; so +if a shoemaker print a bad book of poems, there is no risk. The poems +will be judged as the work of a shoemaker, and, though bad, may still be +good for a shoemaker to have written; but for a poet to print bad poems, +that is as risky as for a shoemaker to make bad shoes." + +At this point my guide, Hans Pumpernickel, feeling perhaps that the +conversation was not exactly pleasant for me, in spite of the undoubted +wisdom of the sages' remarks, handed his tobacco-pouch to the keysmith, +having observed that Eisenberg's pipe was empty. + +"Thank you, no," said Eisenberg, handing it back, "I do not smoke +tobacco. It is tobacco which makes of smoking an injurious pastime. To +me the pleasure of smoking is the caressing of a pipe, the holding of it +in one's hands, the occasional putting of it into one's mouth and +puffing. Therefore I keep my pipe to caress, to hold, to put into my +mouth, and to puff upon. The tobacco, which does not agree with me, I +never use." + +Otto and Jurgurson beamed proudly upon their fellow-sage. It was evident +that in him they recognized the centre of all wisdom. + +"But as for poets," said Eisenberg, turning to me, "I should like to +tell you about Gregory--the poet Gregory. Did you ever hear of him?" + +"No," said I. + +"Ah! See then!" cried Eisenberg. "It proves my point. He is unknown +already, and all for why? Because his poems were printed, for until +they were printed they were not unknown." + +"Magnificently put!" cried the shoemaker. + +"Logical as logic itself!" said the innkeeper. + +"And what is the story of Gregory?" I asked, interested hugely and +almost as enthusiastic over the whimsical wisdom of the keysmith as his +fellow-wiseacres. + +"Gregory," said Eisenberg, "was the first name. His last name I shall +not give you for two reasons. The first reason is that, if I gave it to +you, I should betray a confidence reposed in me by his family. The +second reason is that I have forgotten it. That is the sad part of it +all. When a name begins to be forgotten by one, or even two persons, its +trip to oblivion is rapid. Even I, who used to worship him as a poet, +have forgotten the name he made for himself." + +The keysmith sighed sorrowfully as he spoke, and I began to believe with +him, though without knowing the reason therefor, that Gregory's cause +was indeed a lost one. There was silence for a full minute, during which +Eisenberg puffed thoughtfully upon his empty pipe, blowing imaginary +clouds of smoke out into the air, and then he spoke. + +"Gregory was not of high birth, but early in life his parents saw that +he was not destined to follow successfully the career of a peasant. He +was of an inquiring mind. He was not content to know that grass was +green and water wet. He wished to know why grass was green and water +wet, and when, in response to questions of this nature, his father, a +practical person, would send him out to the stables to milk the cows, or +to the grindstone to sharpen the scythe, Gregory's soul revolted within +him. 'You will never make a peasant,' said his father. 'Not a peasant of +the fields,' the boy replied, 'but a peasant of learning, perhaps. I +would not mind milking the cow of knowledge, and filling the pail of my +mind with lactated information; nor should I mind sharpening my wits +upon the grindstone of thought.' And at these words his father would +stare at him and say that one who had such command of mysterious +language did not need Greek to conceal his thoughts from his hearers; +and he would add an invitation, which Gregory perforce always accepted, +to retire to the fagot-room with him and receive corporal punishment at +his hands. So it went for several years, during which Gregory read +everything that came within reach, until finally one morning he said to +his father: 'Why do you persist in making a peasant of me when I wish to +be a poet? What is the odds to you? Nay, more, father, do not the words +peasant and poet both begin with a P and end with a T? What difference +can it make if the ends be the same?'--which so enraged his father that +Gregory was disowned by him, and another boy adopted in his place. + +"Then Gregory came here to Schnitzelhammerstein-on-the-Zugvitz, and at a +time when Rudolf von Pepperpotz, the solemn Baron of Humpfelhimmel, +happened to stand in need of a secretary and librarian. How it came +about that Gregory was so unfortunate as to obtain the position is +neither here nor there. Suffice it to say that he became the secretary +and librarian of the Baron, and from that time on he was happy. He lived +among books, and while at times he found his duties arduous, he was +nevertheless content, for he was a philosopher." + +"I'd rather be content than eat," said the innkeeper. + +"Indeed, yes," said Otto, "for entertainment is better than dyspepsia, +and poor eating comes more of the one than the other." + +"By careful economy," continued Eisenberg, "Gregory soon managed to +amass a little fortune, and then he felt he might safely venture to +write a little himself, and he did so. He wrote poems about the moon, +odes to commonplace things, like scissors and dust-pans, but he was wise +enough not to publish any of his verse. Then he married, and +occasionally he would recite his verses to his wife, who said they were +magnificent. She in turn repeated them to her friends, and they said, as +she had, that they were unsurpassed. Still Gregory would not print them, +though it soon got noised about that he was a great poet. And so it +went. Finally, finding himself subjected to great temptation to print +his writings, he put everything he had written into a casket, and, +having a small closet constructed in the walls of his house, he placed +the casket in that closet, locked the iron door upon it and threw away +the key. Time went on, and people daily, their curiosity excited, talked +more and more of Gregory's poetry; they even sent delegations to him, +requesting him to have his rhymes printed, but he was faithful to his +resolution, and when he died he was looked upon as a great writer, +without having printed a line. Time passed and his reputation grew. +Three generations passed by. His children and their children and their +children's children came, lived, and died, and constantly his fame +increased, and people said, 'Ah, yes; so and so is a great poet, but the +poems of Gregory! You should have heard them. They were sublime.' + +"But two years ago there came an unhappy day. Some one laughed at the +mention of Gregory's name and cast doubt upon the tradition that he had +written, and his great-grandson, foolishly, I thought, and recklessly, +as has since been proved, offered to prove the truth of the tradition by +opening the closet which for a century had remained closed, and +publishing the writings of his ancestor. I was sent for as keysmith to +open the door, and when it was opened there stood the casket, and in the +casket were found the poems. + +"'Let that suffice,' said I to his great-grandson. 'You have proved your +point.' + +"'I will prove it to the world,' said he. 'I will publish the poems.'" + +Here Eisenberg sighed. + +"He did so," he resumed mournfully, "and another idol was shattered. The +poems were the worst you ever read, and from that time on the name of +Gregory the poet began to sink into oblivion, where it now lies. Had his +descendants been less weak, his name would still have remained a +household word, such is the force of tradition. As it is, the printed +volume is the best testimony that the great poet Gregory was nothing but +a commonplace rhymester whose name was not worthy of remembrance. + +"And that, sir," concluded Eisenberg, bowing politely to me, "is why I +say that a poet who does not publish runs less risk of failing as a poet +than he who does publish." + +And I? Well, how could I deny that Eisenberg was right? He had proved +his point only too well, and even that night, on my return home, I went +to my little portfolio and utterly destroyed the dozen or more poems I +had written that day. If you will take my word for it, you will think +them greater than you might if you insisted upon reading them. + +"What think you?" asked Hans, as we went home? "Are they not wise?" + +"Wiser than the Three Men of Gotham who went to sea in a bowl," said I, +"for I do not believe that Otto, Eisenberg, or Jurgurson would go to sea +at all." + +"True," was Hans's comment, "for as Otto well says in one of his maxims, +'For a sailor with his sea-legs on there is nothing like the sea, but +for a shoemaker who lives by shoes alone, dry land is by much the +solider foundation.'" + + + + +The Loss of the "Gretchen B." + + + + +The Loss of the "Gretchen B." + +A TALE OF A PIRATE GHOST, FOUND FLOATING IN A WATER-BOTTLE. + + +I + +THE DISCOVERY + + +[Illustration: Decorative I] + +t was a very pleasant evening in July. Hans Pumpernickel, who had just +laid down the duties of Mayor of Schnitzelhammerstein-on-the-Zugvitz, +after having filled that lofty office for eight years, was walking with +me along the river-front at its busiest point. + +"Let us go out on the wharf," said Hans, as we neared its entrance. +"When I was a small boy I used to take pleasure in sitting upon the +twine-piece of the wharf and letting my legs dingle over." + +I scratched my head for a moment before I saw exactly what he meant by +"twine-piece" and "dingle." + +"You speak English very well, Pumpernickel," said I; "but what you +should have said was 'string-piece' and 'dangle,' not 'twine-piece' and +'dingle.'" + +"But," he protested, "is not a piece of twine a piece of string?" + +"Yes," I replied; "but--" + +"Then why may not a 'twine-piece' be a 'string-piece'? And as for +'dingle,' is it not the present tense of the verb 'to dingle'? Dingle, +dangle, dungle--like sing, sang, sung? You would not say 'letting him +sang'--it would be 'letting him sing'; wherefore, why not say 'letting +my legs dingle over,' and avoid saying 'letting my legs dangle over'?" + +"Oh, well, have it your own way," said I; and, having reached the end of +the wharf, we sat down there, and shortly found our legs "dingling" over +the water in the most approved style. + +"It is a hard sort of a seat," said I, after a moment or two of silence, +as we gazed upon the river flowing by. + +"True," said Hans, philosophically, "though it is not made of hard wood. +Let us take a boat and have a row." + +I agreed, and we hired a small skiff and paddled idly down the stream. +We had not gone far when the bow of our craft bumped up against +something which scraped against the side of the boat as we passed. + +"What was that?" said Pumpernickel. + +"I don't know," said I, indifferently. "Nothing, I guess." + +"What nonsense you talk sometimes!" he retorted. "It must have been +something. We'll retreat and see." + +Suiting the action to the words, Hans backed water with his oars, and in +the dim light of the moon we soon descried the object of our search--a +curious old earthen vessel floating in the river, bobbing up and down +very much like a buoy. It looked like a water-bottle of two centuries +ago, and, indeed, upon investigation turned out to be such. + +"Aha!" cried Hans, triumphantly, as I lifted the bottle into the boat, +"it _was_ something, after all. I knew it could not be nothing. Is it +empty of contents?" + +I turned the vessel bottom side up, and nothing came out of it, but +there was a distinct thud within which betrayed the presence of some +solid substance. + +"It is not empty of contents," said I, giving it another shake, "but it +hasn't any table to show what those contents are." + +"Oh, we don't need a table," said Hans, failing to appreciate the subtle +humor of my remark. "Just shake it out." + +With a sigh over my lost joke, I did as I was bidden, and soon, after a +vigorous shaking and the removal of a cork which I had not previously +noticed, the substance within issued forth through the bottle's neck. + +"Dear me," said I. "It appears to be manuscript." + +"Let me see," said Hans. "Ah," he observed, "it is writing. Why did you +say it was manuscript?" + +"That is writing," I explained. + +"That may be," said he, "but why waste your tongue on three syllables +when two will do?" + +I ignored the question and put another. + +"Can you read it?" I asked. + +"With difficulty," he said, "by this light. Let us return to my rooms +and see if we can decimate it." + +"Decipher, decipher, Hans," said I. + +"As you will," he retorted, with a sweep of the oars which brought us +under the shadow of the wharf. + +Tying our boat, we hastened back to Pumpernickel's rooms, and within a +half-hour of our find we were busily engaged in translating the +extraordinary narrative of Captain Hammerpestle, commander of the +_Gretchen B._, a ship that, as we learned from the captain's story, was +once of ill-repute, later of pleasant memory, and finally the central +figure of an ocean mystery never as yet solved, though at least two +hundred and fifty years had passed since she was given up for lost. + +The story was in substance as follows: + + +II + +THE TALE OF CAPTAIN HAMMERPESTLE + +The end is approaching, and I, Rudolf Hammerpestle, of Bingen, third +owner and captain of the ill-starred _Gretchen B._, formerly known as +the _Dutch Avenger_, will shortly find a watery grave in sixty-eight +fathoms of the Atlantic, ninety miles west of the rock of Gibraltar. + +The _Gretchen B._ is sinking, and the pirate ghost is at last a victor, +though I have given him a pretty fight these many days. Had it not been +for my own stupidity in employing a foreign crew, all might yet be well, +and I am impelled in my last moments, for we are sure to go to the +bottom within two hours, to write out this story merely in the hope that +it may some day reach my fellow-men, tell them of my horrible fate, and +possibly warn them against my errors. If I had stuck to my own +countrymen, if I had employed Hans Stickenfurst and good old Diedrich +Foutzenhickle and their like for my officers and crew, instead of the +idiot Pat Sullivan and his twin, Barney O'Brien, and others of that ilk, +I should now be nearing port that I shall never reach, instead of +sinking, slowly sinking, into the mysterious depths of the great ocean. + +I have locked myself within my cabin so as to be free from interruption, +and it is highly probable that, having tightly closed my port and +calked up the door-cracks and key-hole, I shall be able to gain an extra +hour for the writing of this tale even after the _Gretchen B._ has +disappeared beneath the waves, to be hid forevermore from the eyes of +man. When the tale is finished I shall place it within my trusty +water-bottle, open the port, thrust it forth into the sea, and trust to +Heaven that it may rise to the surface and ultimately make some port +where it may be read and published, I devoutly hope, by some house of +standing. + +And now, as every story should begin at the beginning, let me go back to +the time when I first took charge of the _Gretchen B._ It was five years +agone, on the 7th day of May, 1635, that the _Gretchen B._ was purchased +by her present owners, and I, Rudolf Hammerpestle, of Bingen, appointed +her commander. It was with a light heart, a full crew, and sixty barrels +of Schnitzelhammerstein claret that I set out from Bingen on the 27th +day of May, 1635, for London, where the claret was to be sold to the +public as medicinal port--its nutty flavor, its bouquet, and other +properties favoring the illusion. All went well with us until we +reached the sea, when one night, after our second day on the ocean, +feeling faint from the effects of the sun, for I had had a hard day of +it, I tapped one of the barrels of my cargo for a taste of the claret. +Understand, I was not in any sense taking away from the full measure +which was due to the purchaser in London, for I intended to replace what +I had taken with water--so slight in quantity, too, as not to affect the +flavor appreciably. Imagine my consternation to find the liquid turned +sour and thin--so thin that under no circumstances could it ever pass +muster as medicinal port. I was horrified. Ours had always been an +honorable firm. What was to be done? My employers' reputation was at +stake. If that claret had ever been delivered at London as port they +were ruined. I determined to run the _Gretchen B._ to Naples, and there +dispose of my cargo as Chianti, to which, with the infusion of a little +whale-oil for appearance' sake, it could be made to bear a remarkable +resemblance. + +This done, I retired to my cabin to reflect. What could it have been +that had wrought such a change, for on leaving Bingen the wine was +sweet and good? I locked my door so as to be undisturbed, for I cannot +think when there are others about; but hardly had I seated myself at my +table when, upon the honor of a sea-captain, a ruffianly person, +noiseless as a cat, _walked through the massive oaken barrier I had but +just fastened to_! + +"Who--what are you?" I cried, aghast, the spectral quality of the +apparition being at once manifest. + +"Oh!" he retorted. "It seems to me it's more to the point for _me_ to +ask that question. You are the interloper." + +"It is my cabin," I said, indignantly. + +"Oh, is it?" he sneered. "Since when?" + +"Since the seventh day of May," I replied. "I am the commander of this +craft." + +"Pooh!" said he, harshly. "Do you know who I am?" + +"I've asked you once," said I, trying hard to appear calm and sarcastic. + +"Well, I almost hate to tell you," he said, throwing off his coat, +whereon I was filled with consternation to observe that his belt held +four wicked-looking blunderbusses and six cutlasses of razor edge. +"You're not a bad fellow, and your hair will turn white when I tell you; +but since you ask, so be it. Your hair be upon your own head. _I am the +ghost of Wouter von Rotterdaam!_" + +"You?" I cried, clutching wildly at my locks, not to keep them from +turning white, of course, but to steady my nerves, for in the name I +recognized that of one of the most successful pirates, and the bloodiest +in his way. + +"Ay, I!" he replied, impressively. + +"But--who--what do you here on board the _Gretchen B._?" I cried. + +"_Gretchen_ nothing," he said. "This is the _Dutch Avenger_, upon which, +after her capture, six months ago, I was hanged, and which, my dear +Hammerpestle, I shall haunt till she fills her destiny, which is +_there_!" + +The word "there" was pronounced in sepulchral tones, and with Von +Rotterdaam's forefinger pointed downward. I shivered from top to toe, +but quickly recovered. + +"If _I_ cannot have the _Dutch Avenger_, at least none other shall have +her," he added. + +"You are mistaken, Mr. von Rotterdaam," I said, politely. "You have +taken the wrong boat, sir. This is not the _Dutch Avenger_, but the +_Gretchen B._, of Bingen." + +"She has not always been the _Gretchen B._, of Bingen," he replied. + +"I know that, my dear sir," I observed, "but her previous name was the +_Anneke van der Q_." + +"_Anneke van der_ bosh!" he ejaculated, with a laugh. "That is what they +told you, and you swallowed the bait. They knew precious well your +people wouldn't buy her if they had ever guessed she'd once been the +terror of the seas as the _Dutch Avenger_ of everywhere, the ubiquitous +ranger of the deep, Captain Wouter von Rotterdaam, better known as the +Throat-Cutter of the Caribbees." + +"Is that the truth?" I replied. + +"As a pirate, I scorn lies," he answered. "We don't need 'em in our +business. Get your carpenter to plane off the name on her stern and +see!" and even as he spoke he disappeared, fading away through the +closed door. + +I was nearly prostrated by the revelation, but, hoping for disproof, I +rushed up on deck, summoned the carpenter, and ordered the name +_Gretchen B._ planed off the stern. Alas! there beneath the innocent +letters lay the horrid proof of the truth of the spectre's story, the +words _Dutch Avenger_, flanked on either side by skull and cross-bones. + +Again I sought my room, to recover, and to my added distress Von +Rotterdaam had returned, an ugly look on his face. + +"You've changed your course!" he said, savagely. + +"I know it," said I. "My cargo is spoiled for the original market. I am +taking it where it is salable." + +He was very wroth. + +"I was not aware that you were so clever a man," said he, after a +moment, calming down. "I perceive that my attempt to ruin you +interlopers at the outset is to be attended with some difficulty. You +have individual resources upon which I had not counted." + +"Ah!" said I. "It was you who turned the claret sour?" + +"It was," he replied--"as a part of my revenge. And, mark you, Captain +Hammerpestle, no cargo shall ever reach its destination unspoiled while +I have a bit of the old spook left in me. Where are we bound now?" + +"To Naples," said I, incautiously, and I further foolishly unfolded my +plan to dispose of the cargo as Chianti. + +"See here, captain," he said, pleadingly, "give up this honest seafaring +business and come out as a pirate, won't you? You're too clever a chap +to be honest. Keep the _Dutch Avenger_ going as a terror, and, by Jingo, +sir, I'll stand by you to the last." + +My answer was the lighting of a sulphur candle in the hope of exorcising +him, and, going on deck, I ordered the name _Gretchen B._ restored, +merely to emphasize my determination to have no part in his foul schemes +of piracy. + +I must now pause in my narrative for a moment, and see how far we have +settled in the water. It may be I shall have to write somewhat less in +detail so as to finish the tale before I am destroyed by the inrush of +the sea. + + * * * * * + +It is as I feared. The rippling surface of the ocean is already lapping +the lower edge of my circular port window, and one or two drops have +leaked within. It will not be long, I fear, before the water from below +will burst the decks and dash against my door, when, of course, we shall +sink the more rapidly, but if the walls of my cabin, and they are +unquestionably strong, Von Rotterdaam having had them made bullet-proof, +of wrought-iron--if these can withstand the pressure of the water for a +half-hour after we are submerged, I am quite confident I can finish the +story in time to bottle it up and launch it safely through the port. + + * * * * * + +After many days of difficulty we passed the Strait of Gibraltar, and on +the 18th of July were safely anchored in the Bay of Naples, where I sold +the claret, which Von Rotterdaam had changed into water, as the latest +mineral product of the Schnitzelhammerstein Spa. + +But from the hour of my refusal to compromise with my honor and become +the successor and partner of Von Rotterdaam in the profession of piracy +we had trouble on board. + +Letting my cargo alone, he introduced a system of haunting my crew, so +that at the end of several years not a German-speaking sailor was +anxious to ship with me, except at ruinously high wages. I found some, +but not many, and finally I was reduced to the followers of the two men +I have already mentioned--Hans Stickenfurst and Diedrich +Foutzenhickle--men who had never known fear, and who, when Von +Rotterdaam haunted them, merely laughed and blew the vile-smelling smoke +from their pipes into his face. But while the pirate ghost was powerless +to fill the men with fear, he did arouse a great interest in the stories +of his booty which he told. Night after night, lying in my cabin, I +could hear him in the forecastle telling them tales of his prowess, and +giving forth vague hints as to where vast treasure was hid which might +become theirs if only I would come around and become his successor. The +night we entered port I overheard a compact made between them, that on +the next outward voyage they would first reason with me and persuade me, +if possible, to accept his proposition, and, failing in that, to seize +the ship, put me in the long-boat, turn me adrift, and place themselves +subject to Von Rotterdaam's orders. + +That was a year ago. Since then, until this ill-fated voyage +(by-the-way, as I look up the water is clear over the port window, and +is beginning to trickle in under the door, so I must again +hasten)--until this ill-fated voyage, I was not again on the sea, and +having in mind the threats of my crew, which they do not even now know +that I overheard, I secured for this voyage the crew of an Irish bark, +discharging all my previous men. + +"I will at least have men who do not understand Dutch or German," I +thought, "and for this voyage shall be comparatively safe. To insure +against a possible turning adrift in the long-boat, I shall likewise +sail without it." + +Alas for all my expectations! While neither Sullivan nor O'Brien, as I +had supposed, was acquainted with the native tongue of Von Rotterdaam, +that talented ghost could speak English with as fine a brogue as ever +gilded speech; and, worse than this, Sullivan, the carpenter, was a +fly-away fool. Genial, full of good stories, and an excellent carpenter +(the deck beneath my feet is bulging upward), he was absolutely without +foresight, and it is to him I owe my present plight. + +It happened this afternoon. The day had been absolutely calm and still. +Not a ripple on the sea, not a breath of wind to stir even the frayed +hemp in the rigging, and yet down, down, down we are sinking, _for +Sullivan has sawed a hole in our bottom big enough to let a man +through_! + +I didn't suppose he would do it, but he has; and because last night +while he and Rafferty, my second mate, were smoking in the forecastle, +Von Rotterdaam's spirit rose up before them, and, arousing their +cupidity, led them astray. + +"For the love of the shaints!" cried Rafferty, as the ghost appeared, +"phwat are you?" + +Rotterdaam replied, "A spherit of the poirate Von Rotterdaam; and here +where I stand, directly below me, in five fathoms of water, lies a +million in treasure." + +"Go on!" cried Rafferty. + +"'Tis true," retorted Von Rotterdaam. "And if at noon to-morrow you will +cut away enough of the ship's bottom to let yourselves through the +hole, with a rope tied about you so that you can be hauled back again, +it will be yours." + +"Blame good pay for a shwim," said Sullivan. "A million phwat--pounds or +francs, sorr? They's some difference betune the two." + +"Exactly," returned Von Rotterdaam. "And they're pounds sterling, ingots +of gold, and priceless jewels." + +"Phwy don't yees tell the ould man?" asked Rafferty, referring to me. + +"Because," replied Von Rotterdaam, "he would keep it all for himself. +You gentlemen, I am sure, will divide it justly among all." + +"Thrue for youse," said Sullivan, with a laugh. "And phwere do you come +in?" + +"I have no further use for dross," replied Von Rotterdaam; and I judge +that at that moment he faded from their sight, for almost immediately he +appeared in my cabin. I was tired and irritated, so I said nothing, +pretending to be asleep, never for an instant believing that Sullivan +would do so foolish a thing. + +"He doesn't ever think of consequences; but he's not such an ass as to +cut a hole a yard square in the bottom of this ship," I said to myself; +and then, worn out, I really slept. How it happened I do not know; +possibly that infernal ghost in some manner drugged me; but it was not +until five minutes after midday, just three hours ago, that I awoke, and +my heart stood still as I heard the action of a saw deep down in the +hold. + +"Heavens!" I cried, starting up. "The idiot's at it!" + +A deep, baleful laugh greeted the remark. It was from Von Rotterdaam. + +"He is! And I am revenged!" he said, in tones which seemed to come from +the centre of the earth, and then he vanished--I hope, forever. + +I rushed madly out and called for Sullivan, but the only answer was the +grating of the saw's teeth. (Dear me! how dark it is getting! I must +really not linger with details.) My only answer was the grating of the +saw's teeth upon the bottom of my devoted vessel. Shrieking, I clambered +down into the hold, but too late. Just as I got there the yard square of +planking was burst in by the waters, and the vessel was doomed. + +"Well, captain," I said to myself, a great calm coming over my soul, +"it's all up with you; now think of others. Those at home, not hearing +from you, will be worried. Go to your cabin, and, like a dutiful man, +make your report." + +This I have done, and this narrative is my report. I hope it will reach +its destination in safety, and that the world may yet learn that in the +hour of peril, which has but one conclusion, I have been faithful and +calm. + +It is now the 16th day of June, 1640. I shall never see the 17th, and +I am resigned to my fate. And now for the bottle ... now for the +cork.... Blithering cyclones! the door is cracking open ... and +now--one--two--three--to open the port ... wait. I must put in one +final P.S. In case this story ever reaches the land, will the finder +kindly be careful in correcting the proof and see that my name is +spelled correctly? There is just a moment in which to write it +plainly--RUDOLF--with an F, mark you, not a PH, and HAMMERPESTLE with +two M's. And so--the port.... + + * * * * * + +There the story ends, and here it is for the world to see. What +followed Captain Hammerpestle's last word we can only surmise. +Pumpernickel and I have been faithful to the trust unwittingly +committed to our care by one who has been dead for a trifle over +two hundred and sixty years. We have only to add that those who do +not believe that the story is true can see the water-bottle at the home +of Herr Pumpernickel at Schnitzelhammerstein-on-the-Zugvitz at any time; +but as for the manuscript and the ghost of the pirate Von Rotterdaam, we +do not know where they are. The latter we have ourselves never seen, and +the former was, as usual, mislaid by the talented young person who +undertook to make a type-written copy of it for us a few days after our +discovery. + +THE END + + + + +By JOHN KENDRICK BANGS + + THE IDIOT AT HOME. Illustrated. + + THE BOOMING OF ACRE HILL. Illustrated. + + COFFEE AND REPARTEE and THE IDIOT. In One Volume. + Illustrated. + + THE ENCHANTED TYPEWRITER. Illustrated by PETER NEWELL. + + THE DREAMERS. Illustrated by EDWARD PENFIELD. + + PEEPS AT PEOPLE. Passages from the writings of Anne + Warrington Witherup, Journalist. Illustrated by EDWARD + PENFIELD. + + GHOSTS I HAVE MET, and Some Others. Illustrated by PETER + NEWELL. + + A HOUSE-BOAT ON THE STYX. Being Some Account of the Divers + Doings of the Associated Shades. Illustrated. + + THE PURSUIT OF THE HOUSE-BOAT. Being Some Further Account of + the Doings of the Associated Shades, under the Leadership of + Sherlock Holmes, Esq. Illustrated by PETER NEWELL. + + THE BICYCLERS, and Three Other Farces. Illustrated. + + A REBELLIOUS HEROINE. Illustrated. + + MR. BONAPARTE OF CORSICA. Illustrated by H. W. MCVICKAR. + + THE WATER GHOST, and Others. Illustrated. + +(16mo. Cloth, Ornamental, $1.25 per volume.) + + PASTE JEWELS. Being Seven Tales of Domestic Woe. With an + Illustration. 16mo, Cloth, Ornamental. $1.00. + + COBWEBS FROM A LIBRARY CORNER. Verses. 16mo, Cloth, 50 + cents. + + THREE WEEKS IN POLITICS. Illustrated. 32mo, Cloth, + Ornamental, 50 cents. + + COFFEE AND REPARTEE. Illustrated. 32mo, Cloth, Ornamental, + 50 cents. + + * * * * * + +HARPER & BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS + +NEW YORK AND LONDON + +_Any of the above works will be sent by mail, postage prepaid, to any +part of the United States, Canada, or Mexico, on receipt of the price._ + + + + +American Contemporary Novels + +EASTOVER COURT HOUSE + +By HENRY BURNHAM BOONE and KENNETH BROWN + +_This is the first of the twelve One-a-Month American Novels to be +published during 1901._ + + +"If each of the novels of American life by American authors which +Messrs. Harper & Brothers project for the current year proves as good as +'Eastover Court House,' the twelve volumes will constitute a decided +addition to American fiction."--_Detroit Free Press._ + +"Its charm lies in the constant succession of strongly drawn pictures of +life. One chapter after another presents these scenes, as sharply +outlined and deep in shadows as an artistic photograph. The book ... is +absolutely fascinating."--_Louisville Courier-Journal._ + +"Set in the midst of the fox-hunting and cross-country regions, there is +the hoof-beat of the galloping hunter all through the story, which is +full of dry humor and vivid pen-pictures of life."--_Horse Show +Monthly._ + +"The horse stories are the best since David Harum's, and quite as +laughable as his."--_Chester Times._ + +_Comments from various reviewers:_ + + "A good story well told." + + "Strong and absorbing." + + "Warm with life, with the passions and emotions ... of + Virginia." + + "Wholesome, true to life." + +_Post 8vo. Cloth, Ornamented, $1.50_ + + + + +THE SENTIMENTALISTS + +By ARTHUR STANWOOD PIER + +_This is the second of the twelve One-a-Month American Novels to be +published during 1901._ + + +"A novelist who sets out to depict a character like Becky Sharp is +likely to come to grief. Hence it is surprising that Mr. Pier has not +failed in portraying the social exile, Mrs. Kent. The novel is strong +and clever."--_Pittsburg Commercial-Gazette._ + +"It is a very clever novel. There is story to it; there is apt phrasing +and clear delineation of character; there is much incisive and +delightful epigram."--_Evening Sun_, New York. + +"If the cleverest parts of this work had been entirely cut out, we +should have called it one of the cleverest novels of the +season."--_Brooklyn Daily Eagle._ + +"The book is characterized throughout by keen analysis and a delightful +tense of humor."--_Chicago Tribune._ + +_Comments from various reviewers:_ + + "Mrs. Kent is distinctly American." + + "As interesting and unique as Becky Sharp." + + "The book will be a success." + + "A rattling good story." + + "A vivid study of contemporary social life." + + "One of the cleverest novels of the season." + +_Post 8vo. Cloth, Ornamented, $1.50_ + + + + +MARTIN BROOK By MORGAN BATES + +_This is the third of the twelve One-a-Month American Novels to be +published during 1901._ + + +"It is written in a style unknown nowadays, ... with an impressive power +revealed at each crisis of the tale, which makes the pulses stir and the +eye glisten. What a book for the opening of the twentieth +century!"--Julian Hawthorne, in the _Journal_, New York. + +"A very striking book, and one that I am quite sure will take an +enviable place in line with record-breakers. It is the third of the +'American Novel Series,' and is entitled 'Martin Brook.' I finished it +at one sitting, so intense was my interest in it."--_Buffalo +Commercial_, N. Y. + +"The third of the 'American Novel Series,' 'Martin Brook,' by Morgan +Bates, appeals to the best in man and woman, and is a credit alike to +author and publishers.... 'Martin Brook' is indeed an American novel, +and of the best kind."--Philadelphia _Daily Evening Telegraph_. + +"One's interest is caught and held by the hero from the moment of his +first appearance in its pages.... There has not been a stronger scene +(the library scene) written to revive the interest of jaded novel +readers for many a day."--_N. Y. Commercial Advertiser._ + +"The story is told in a vigorous manner and is certainly out of the +common run of fiction as it is told nowadays."--_New York Sun._ + +_Comments from various reviewers:_ + + "One of the most refreshing and natural of novels." + + "As good as it is charming." + + "A story of depth, color, and action." + + "It is refreshing to light upon a story like 'Martin + Brook.'" + +_Post 8vo. Cloth, Ornamented, $1.50_ + + + + +A VICTIM OF CIRCUMSTANCES + +By GERALDINE ANTHONY + +_This is the fourth of the twelve One-a-Month American Novels to be +published during 1901._ + + +"It plunges the reader directly into the social whirl of New York, and +the hand that detains one there all through an intensely interesting +succession of functions, flirtations, and incidents, ... is the hand of +one who has seen something whereof she writes."--_New York World._ + +"There is more than one thinly disguised portrait in its pages--so we +are told."--_Mail and Express_, New York. + +"Bobby Floyd is probably the most disagreeable and wholly exasperating +cad ever put into an American novel.... There is love-making all through +the book."--_The Times_, Washington, D. C. + +"They fall in love amid most delightful surroundings of tennis, boating, +and driving."--_Exchange._ + +_Comments from various reviewers:_ + + "Devoid of problems or mental complications." + + "A book for a summer day." + + "Has the correct New York social atmosphere." + + "Decidedly a fascinating book about attractive people." + + "Full of touch-and-go conversation." + + "They all revel in smart talk and repartee." + +_Post 8vo. Cloth, Ornamented, $1.50_ + + + + +DAYS LIKE THESE + +By EDWARD W. TOWNSEND + +_This is the fifth of the twelve One-a-Month American Novels to be +published during 1901._ + + +"Mr. Townsend has given us a novel that is a strong and vigorous picture +of contemporary New York. He tells his story with the gayety and charm +and light-hearted high spirits of one to whom the passing show of life +is still full of interest, and he succeeds in interesting the reader. +There is not a dull line in the book."--_New York Journal._ + +"The love story is well told, but the chief interest of the novel lies +in its contrasted pictures of New York life--from Fifth Avenue to Hell's +Kitchen."--_Cleveland Plain-Dealer._ + +"Mr. Townsend has made a very striking and daring use of his experience +as a newspaper man.... He has gone about his business with vigor and +decision.... There is hardly a chapter which does not stand out through +sheer force of the author's fund of anecdote and observation and +humor."--_New York Commercial Advertiser._ + +"It is an eminent success.... We recall very few novels of the past year +that we have read with such sustained interest."--_The Churchman_, New +York. + +_Comments from various reviewers:_ + + "The book has countless good things." + + "'Days Like These' is full of life and New York." + + "A kaleidoscopic yet homogeneous picture of modern New York + life." + + "His pictures are vivid and true." + + "Mr. Townsend writes incisively, vigorously." + +_Post 8vo. Cloth, Ornamented, $1.50_ + +HARPER & BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Over the Plum Pudding, by John Kendrick Bangs + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK OVER THE PLUM PUDDING *** + +***** This file should be named 34553.txt or 34553.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/3/4/5/5/34553/ + +Produced by Annie McGuire. 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