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diff --git a/75226-0.txt b/75226-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..5829653 --- /dev/null +++ b/75226-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,2920 @@ + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 75226 *** + + + + + + +LIGHT INTERVIEWS WITH SHADES + +ROBERT WEBSTER JONES + + + + + LIGHT INTERVIEWS + WITH SHADES + + BY + ROBERT WEBSTER JONES + + [Illustration] + + Publishers DORRANCE Philadelphia + + COPYRIGHT 1922 + DORRANCE & COMPANY, INC. + + MANUFACTURED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA + + + + +CONTENTS + + + I BLUEBEARD TELLS WHY HE KILLED WIVES 11 + + II QUEEN ELIZABETH DISCLOSES WHY SHE NEVER MARRIED 20 + + III JOHN PAUL JONES AND A GROGLESS NAVY 29 + + IV JOSHUA ADVISES DAYLIGHT SAVING 37 + + V KING SOLOMON’S FAMILY VACATION TRIP 43 + + VI BRIGHAM YOUNG ENDORSES WOMAN SUFFRAGE 50 + + VII HIPPOCRATES ON MODERN DOCTORS 56 + + VIII METHUSELAH GIVES LONGEVITY SECRETS 66 + + IX JESSE JAMES TALKS ON TIPPING 75 + + X SHAKESPEARE MENTIONS MOVIES 80 + + XI ADAM CONDEMNS PRESENT FASHIONS 88 + + XII CAPTAIN KIDD SPEAKS ON TAG DAYS 96 + + XIII ALFRED THE GREAT TRIES TO FIND PROSPEROUS KING 102 + + XIV OLD KING COLE GIVES VIEWS ON PROHIBITION 111 + + XV KING HENRY VIII ADMITS SOME MATRIMONIAL MISTAKES 116 + + XVI DON QUIXOTE SAYS HE “WASN’T SO CRAZY AS SOME MODERN REFORMERS” 123 + + XVII PHARAOH SOLVES SERVANT PROBLEM 129 + + XVIII NERO DISCUSSES JAZZ 137 + + XIX LORD BACON MUSES ON CIPHERS 145 + + + + +LIGHT INTERVIEWS WITH SHADES + + + + +I + +BLUEBEARD TELLS WHY HE KILLED WIVES + + +I drew this assignment to interview the shade of Bluebeard because our +girl reporter backed out at the last minute,—said she had no objection to +a nice, ladylike assignment such as getting Pharaoh’s daughter to talk +about Annette Kellerman or having a chat with Joan of Ark, or whatever +Mrs. Noah’s name was, but she balked at calling on a wife murderer who +had never been introduced. + +If I had not been warned in advance I should have thought this was surely +an impostor—a barefaced one, too, for he wore no beard—to whose room I +was ushered by a bellboy of the Olympus Hotel. + +“Surprised at my appearance, eh?” he chuckled. “Everybody is. Expect to +see a ferocious-looking monster with a long blue beard and a bowie knife +sticking out of his belt. It’s about time the folks down below got the +real facts, not only of my appearance but of my character. That’s why +I’ve consented for the first time to talk for publication. I want to be +set right in the eyes of those mistaken mortals. You are a young man and +unmarried, I presume, from your happy, carefree countenance. Well, then, +here is a thing I hope you’ll learn by heart: where singleness is bliss +’tis folly to have wives. I’ve tried it and I know. I, too, was once a +happy, cheerful, careless bachelor, like Adam, you know. And like Adam I +didn’t get my eyes opened until after marriage. By the way, speaking of +Adam, did you ever pause to think that not until marriage came into the +world did man have to dig for a living? Yet I digress. What I started out +to say was that marriage is an excellent institution, but like all good +things, it can be overdone. My mistake was in being too idealistic. I had +resolved to find the ideal, the perfect wife, the kind you read about in +poetry (a perfect woman, nobly planned, to warn, to comfort and command). +Well, my first wife laid too much emphasis on the ‘command.’ She took it +literally. I found I had made a mistake and decided to bury it. If at +first you don’t succeed, try, try again. Clementina was her name. She was +not of a trustful nature. Invariably her first greeting on my returning +home late at night took the sharply interrogatory form: ‘Where have you +been?’ Frequently I would have been glad to tell her, only I could not +remember. It has been said that ‘absence makes the heart grow fonder,’ +but it did not seem to work out that way worth a cent at three o’clock +in the morning. We had words, she seeking to obtain what she termed the +‘last’ one. But still there were always more to follow. + +“I came in time to feel that I did not possess that treasure of +treasures, a wife’s perfect confidence in her husband. One night, I +remember, I started to get into bed with my overcoat on. It was merely a +bit of harmless absent-mindedness. But Clementina continued to refer to +the trifling incident daily, and nightly, for weeks afterwards. She even +communicated the circumstance to friends and relatives, including her +maternal parent, who naturally had no interest in the subject. When we +were invited out to dinner she employed the incident as a conversational +topic. I begged her to desist. She refused. I realized that it was high +time to ‘try again.’ I need not go into details. But Clementina ceased +to trouble and the weary was at rest. The coroner was a personal friend +of mine. I had voted for him in three different precincts, and he kindly +brought in a verdict of ‘justifiable uxoricide,’ or something of that +sort, and everything was nice and comfortable. + +“That was Clementina. Now let me see—let me see—who came next? Susannah? +No, she was Number Three, I’m pretty sure. My memory isn’t what it used +to be, but if I only had my old card index here I could tell you in +two seconds. Sapphira? No, she came later. Oh, now I’ve got it: Maria. +Yes, I had to get rid of Maria within a year. Nice, amiable girl she +was, too, in most respects. Always had the meals on time, never hauled +me out at night to call on the new neighbors, would rather darn socks +for her husband than crochet a new sweater for herself, and had an +impediment in her speech. I’d often heard there were such women, with +impediments in their speech, but had never met one before. I thought it +was a recommendation, but I was mistaken. It only made her take that +much longer to say what she was going to say, anyway. When Maria and +the impediment clashed it was always Maria that finally won out. But it +took time. Verbally Maria required a long time to pass a given point, +but she kept on until she passed it. Maria had one great fault. You’re +not married, young man, and you may not grasp this defect in all its +hideousness. But this was it: she always talked to me when I was trying +to shave. + +“At that time I wore a beard, but no side-whiskers, and I shaved every +morning before breakfast. It was Maria’s invariable habit to stand +at the bathroom door and engage in conversation—or rather monologue +interspersed with questions. In consequence I got to spending more money +for court-plaster than for shaving soap. A man stopped me on the street +one day, gave a second look at my liberally-scarred countenance, and +hailed me as a fellow graduate of Heidelberg. Finally, I decided that +this business had gone on long enough. I gave Maria fair warning. The +very next morning she stuck her head in at the door, just as I was trying +to steer around a pimple below my right ear, and told me not to forget +to bring home those lamb chops for dinner. I cut a gash an inch long and +dropped the razor on the floor. That was Maria’s farewell appearance. +There was no demand for an encore. The coroner kindly found that the +impediment in her speech had stuck in her throat and she had choked to +death. He was a good scout. + +“And now we come to Susannah, Number Three, Series N. G. Susannah started +out splendidly. She came highly recommended. I thought she was going to +be one of the best wives I ever had. But, like all the others, she soon +disclosed a fatal failing. I call it ‘fatal’ because it always turned +out that way for all my wives. It may seem a trifle to you, young man, +but that’s because you’ve never been married. The trouble was this, and +it soon got on my sensitive nerves: the only time I could get Susannah’s +absorbed, undivided attention was when I talked in my sleep. Then, I +have reason to believe, she would sit up and listen by the hour. But at +other times she might as well have been totally deaf, so far as paying +attention to what I was trying to say was concerned. She always seemed +to be thinking of something—I hope it wasn’t somebody—else. I’d start +telling her about a business deal I’d just put through with some fellows +up at Bagdad, or begin discussing the chances of the Damascus ball team +for winning the pennant next year, and before I’d talked ten minutes I’d +see as plain as day that she wasn’t hearing a word I said. + +“She’d contracted the crocheting habit, too—I don’t know where she +picked it up—and she’d work away, whispering to herself and nodding at +me every now and then, until I thought I’d go wild. One night while I +was right in the midst of telling her a funny story I’d heard at the +Khayyam Country Club, she actually interrupted me to remark that she’d +just found a new way of purling 14 by casting off 11 and dropping 34, +or something of the sort, and I just up and—and— Well, there’s no need +to harrow your feelings. Suffice it to say that I added one more to the +Association of Former Mothers-in-Law of Bluebeard. Whenever one of my +wives departed this life rather suddenly the ex-mothers-in-law always +held a sort of indignation meeting. Sometimes they passed resolutions, +too. But it didn’t seem to do any good. Just advertised the fact that I +was a widower again. Didn’t seem to prejudice the girls against me. In +fact, one leap-year I had to get a lot of rejection slips printed, like +the magazine editors use, for replying to proposals. I read somewhere +once that it always made a fellow popular to get a reputation as a +lady-killer, and I seem to have proved it. + +“And so it went. All the undertakers in town were trying to stand in +with me. But I thought they went a little too far when they adopted +a set of appreciative resolutions and invited me to address their +annual convention. Some folks have no sense of propriety. The preachers +showed more tact. It’s true that one offered to do all my marrying +on the basis of a yearly contract, but that was a strictly private, +business arrangement, the same as I had with the firm of caterers and +liverymen which supplied both cakes and camels. I could go on all +night telling you about my other wives and the causes of their sudden +shufflings-off—Sapphira, who objected to my smoking in the front +parlor; Anastasia, who believed the adjective ‘annual,’ as applied to +house-cleanings, meant every week; Boadicea, who was strong for women’s +rights, but refused to go downstairs first to tackle the burglar; Sheba, +who took me along when she went shopping and parked me for two hours +outside a department store; Delilah the Second, who wanted to cut my +hair so as to save enough money to get herself a new winter hat, as if +my overhead charges weren’t high enough already. These are just a few +samples from my souvenir collection of matrimonial misfits that I happen +to recall offhand. The proverb says, ‘A word to the wives is sufficient,’ +but I never found it so. Not by a long shot. I found action more +effective than words. They say bigamy means one wife too many; but so +does monogamy sometimes. If my experience helps other married men I shall +be glad to have given this interview. I like to talk, because nowadays I +feel I can do so without interrupting some wife or other. Just one word +more, and then good night: + +“There is no marrying in heaven. Fools rush in where angels fear to +tread.” + + + + +II + +QUEEN ELIZABETH DISCLOSES WHY SHE NEVER MARRIED + + +“Nothing would have induced me to talk for publication,” said Queen +Elizabeth, as she negligently lit a cigarette and with a graceful gesture +invited me to take a seat, “if you hadn’t printed that interview with +that horrid old Bluebeard last week. They used to say that I was a +heartless coquette, and that all the men were losing their heads over me. +Well, if a young man had come to ask me, around the year 1588, why I had +never married—as you have just done—he’d have lost his head in just about +the time it would have taken the chief executioner to respond to a hurry +call. But times have changed and we change with them. History has done +many cruel wrongs to my memory, and I want to be set right. I didn’t stay +single for lack of proposals, I can tell you. Why, before I was sixteen +the front yard of our palace looked like a college campus, it was so full +all the time of young men carrying flowers and boxes of candy and ringing +the doorbell, wanting to know if Princess Elizabeth were in. I had every +other girl in England jealous of me, if I do say it myself. But I saw too +much of marriage at home. My father did enough marrying for the whole +family. + +“Life got to be just one stepmother after another. I began to lose +count. I decided that one member of the family had given enough of a +boost to the institution of matrimony, and it didn’t need any further +endorsement from me. I soon appreciated the truth of the saying, ‘Man +proposes.’ I got so many proposals I had my maids of honor knit a lot +of mittens to hand to the fellows as a souvenir. Finally the men saw I +was in earnest and let me alone; that is to say, most of them. A few +foolish fellows continued to write poetry (that is what they called it) +and send presents, but my mind was made up and I refused to change it. It +was about this time that our court fool remarked that woman’s favorite +occupations were changing her mind, her clothes and her name. And about +five minutes afterward he changed his permanent address to the Tower of +London. All the world’s a stage, as my friend Shakespeare used to say, +and ninety-nine out of a hundred men consider themselves perfectly +equipped for the rôle of comedian. But it’s possible to be too fatally +funny. + +“Now, about that interview with Brother Bluebeard last week. I suppose +he thought _he_ was funny when he said about the only time a man gets +his wife’s absorbed, undivided attention is when he talks in his sleep. +But that’s about the only time a man says anything worth listening to. +It just made my blood boil—that man Bluebeard calmly talking about the +wives he’d killed. Not that I believe half of it. He was only boasting. +And that reminds me: there used to be an organization called the +Ananias Club. But who ever heard of a Sapphira Club? There wouldn’t be +enough members to hold a meeting in a telephone booth. But ‘all men are +liars,’ and married ones have more ready-made opportunities. It has been +estimated that in a married lifetime of forty years the average man will +be called upon to answer the perfectly reasonable inquiry, ‘Where have +you been?’ 14,610 times. This calculation allows for 365 answers in each +ordinary year and 366 in leap-years. And when her husband replies to her +altogether proper interrogation, too often the wife realizes, like the +Queen of Sheba, that the half has not been told her. + +“From Ananias to Munchausen and down to the modern press agent, the +experts at exaggeration have all been men. Fishermen’s tales and sailors’ +yarns are proverbial. A woman trying to tell a lie feels like a fish out +of water, and at the first opportunity flops back into the ocean of truth. + +“There’s another slander on women I’d like to say a few words about, +and that’s the charge of talkativeness. Men have always flocked to the +talkative professions like ducks to water. Most lawyers and barbers are +men. Are there any women auctioneers? There are few women preachers. +There was a time when all the talking in the world was done by one man, +but there was no conversation until the arrival of Eve. She did the +listening. It is essential to conversation that there be a listener, and +man’s happiness was not complete until there was somebody to hear him +talk. The average husband loves to deliver home lectures on baseball in +summer and politics in winter. Here we have the reason for the popularity +of women’s clubs. No man being present, they have a chance to talk. Go +into any church Sunday morning and what do you see? An audience composed +principally of women listening to a man talking. The recording angel +who tries to keep up with a man has to be an expert at taking lightning +dictation. One of the newest works in three large volumes is entitled, +‘Last Words of Great Men.’ The edition makes no pretensions to being +complete. That, of course, would be impossible when we have had so many +great men, all of them talking steadily to the last. But it is worth +noting that we have only meagre records of the last words of any great +woman. Poor thing! With her husband, and a man doctor and a clergyman at +her bedside, what chance would she have? + +“I’ll admit that there have been a few of the so-called great men of +history who have not been noted for their love of talk, but when such +a man is discovered everybody calls attention to him as if he were a +genuine curiosity of nature. He is usually given a nickname indicative of +his peculiarity, such as William the Silent, and people travel miles to +get a look at him. Practically every man is Speaker of the House, and in +his case the title is no misnomer. For instance, it’s a question whether +all the ancient martyrs put together ever said as much about their +sufferings as one modern man with a boil on his neck. Man even goes ahead +and invents new languages like Esperanto and baseball, and golf. + +“Wives of great men most remind us that they talked all of the time, +and departing left behind them words that were not worth a dime. Isn’t +that what one of your own American poets said? Sounds something like it, +anyway. + +“But you wanted to know just why I never married. Well, it was because +of these nasty flings at women by the men that I’ve just been speaking +of. If they say such things before marriage, what won’t they say after? +They’re always talking about women’s curiosity, starting with Eve and the +apple. I suppose if there had been a _Saturday Eden Post_, Adam would +have written alleged jokes about it or run a funny department called +‘Musings of a Married Man.’ I blame that Eve and her apple story for this +eternal joshing about feminine curiosity. You needn’t look surprised, +young man. I’m talking twentieth not sixteenth century language these +days, and since yours is a family newspaper probably it’s just as well +that I am. When I was queen you’d have thought the English language +consisted principally of proper nouns and improper adjectives. We called +a spade a spade, and then some. If a lady disliked a gentleman she didn’t +say he was a mean old thing. She began by calling him a diabolical +blackguard and horse thief, and then gradually grew abusive. + +“Woman’s curiosity! All the census-takers and private detectives and +professional Paul Pry’s who stick their noses into other people’s +businesses are men. So are all the explorers, the individuals who are so +curious to find out what’s going on at the other end of the earth that +they can’t content themselves at home. If, in the history of the world, +a woman has ever been seized by an overwhelming desire to see what the +North Pole looks like, she has cleverly concealed the fact. While the +men were organizing North Pole and South Pole expeditions, and relief +expeditions, and expeditions to rescue the relief expeditions, the +wives and mothers remained patiently on the job at home. And when the +missing discoverers came back covered with hero medals, and suffering +from chilblains, and writer’s cramp, and lecturer’s sore throat, and +coupon-clipper’s thumb, the women never asked why heroine medals seem +so scarce these days. Talk about curiosity! There’s a universal inquiry +which is being put by some man to some woman in some part of the world +at every second of every minute of the twenty-four hours, and it is +this: ‘What did you do with that LAST money I gave you?’ There it is +again, that insatiable curiosity of man which will not let him rest. Man +is a perambulating question mark, the personification of the rising +inflection, a chronic case of interrogationitis. And he has the nerve to +talk about woman’s curiosity!” + +“How about Sir Walter Raleigh?” + +“Ah, young man, there are exceptions to every rule, and a woman is +generally willing to take an exception. Walter was an awfully nice +fellow, at first, but I was dreadfully disappointed in him. Do you know, +that business of the velvet cloak and the mud puddle was only what you +would call a grandstand play? I found out later. It was his last winter’s +cloak, and he was just on his way to the Charing Cross rummage sale to +give it away, when he happened to meet me. I know it’s so, because I +got it straight at the meeting of the Westminster Sewing Society from +the Countess of Leicester’s sister-in-law, who said she was told by the +cousin of a woman who knew an intimate friend of a friend of Walter +Raleigh’s aunt. And she said he actually laughed about it afterward! + +“Do you wonder I stayed single? Perhaps I’ve said too much already, but +one word more and I am finished. Do you know, young man, why women say +marriage is a lottery? It is because they draw most of the blanks.” + +Subdued, but with a sigh of relief, I withdrew hastily from the royal +presence, feeling that “man’s inhumanity to man” wouldn’t be a marker to +what would have happened to Queen Elizabeth’s husband. + + + + +III + +JOHN PAUL JONES AND A GROGLESS NAVY + + +“Interview your great-uncle and find out what he thinks of our modern +navy,” said the city editor. + +“My great-uncle?” I asked. + +“Admiral J. Paul Jones. Wasn’t he one of your distinguished relatives? +You’ve got the same name.” + +“Oh, Uncle John? I believe we are related, but he was one of the rough +specimens—sort of a piece of bark on the family tree—other side of the +family, you know.” + +“Well, you may find his bark worse than his bite.” + +“Which planet is his shade living on now, do you know?” + +“Neptune, I presume.” + +And that is where I found him. He gave me genial greeting. + +“Shiver my timbers, but I’m glad to see you. Come alongside and cast +anchor, my lad, and tell me what wind blew you here.” + +I explained that the mighty world below was palpitating for a few timely +remarks from its old fighting hero. + +“Fire away, then,” he replied. “What’s the first question?” + +“Do you believe, Admiral,” I asked, “that a navy can be run on water—that +is to say, of course, the ships have to run on water ... but I mean the +men. Do you think——” And then I got tangled up and came to a full stop, +for the expression on the old sea dog’s face was a mixture of puzzlement +and pugnacity. + +“What do you mean?” he roared. “Not to give the men water in place of +grog?” + +His attitude was positively menacing. I began to grow nervous. + +“Why—er—that is the idea, Admiral. Do you believe it is possible to +conduct a navy efficiently on prohibition principles?” + +“Prohibition? Never heard the word before. And now that I have heard it +I don’t like the sound of it. What are you jibbing and windjamming in +this way for? Come right out and run up your true colors. Do you mean to +tell me that anybody is seriously proposing to do away with grog in the +American Navy? I’d hang the dastardly rascal from the yard-arm. Walking +the plank would be too good for him.” + +“Well, Admiral, you might as well know the whole truth. Grog has not +only been abolished in the Navy (and that took place some years ago), +grog has been abolished throughout the country. Liquor can neither be +manufactured nor sold anywhere in the United States.” + +Perhaps I should have broken the startling news to the old fellow more +gently. But instead of the expected outburst of anger he sat stunned, +still as a statue, or a speak-easy in Harlem. + +For two minutes or more he kept silent. Then he spoke. “Say it again,” he +muttered in a weak tone, “and say it slow.” + +I complied. + +“No grog for them as fights the battles, no whiskey, no brandy, no +shandy-gaff, no Jamaikey rum, nothin’ but milk and water. What kind o’ +putty-faced swabs—But I needn’t ask. I see it now. You’ve been conquered +by them Turks and water-drinking Mohammedans. But who’d have thought it?” +And he shook his grizzled head disconsolately. “No whiskey, no brandy, +no shandy-gaff, no Jamaikey rum,” he went on muttering to himself as in +a daze, over and over again, until I thought it might be advisable to +recall him to himself. + +“America thinks a great deal of you, Admiral,” I interrupted his +melancholy monologue. “The nation cherishes the memory of your thrilling +exploits. It will never forget your heroic deeds.” + +The old Admiral brightened up a bit at this, but quickly relapsed into +his melancholy mood. “No whiskey, no brandy—” he began again, when I +tried the effect of another diversion. + +“The nation is still safe, Admiral, and it has the largest number of +ships and sailors in its history. The recent great war produced its +heroes, too. We do not lack for defenders, you will be glad to know, if +ever America is assailed again.” + +“Yes, I’ve heard something about it,” he grumblingly admitted. “There’s a +new-fangled cowardly sort of craft that goes under water and stabs in the +back, a regular assassin, I call it. Farragut and Perry and some of the +boys went down to perform at a seance in Philadelphia the other night, +and they heard a lot of talk about your new naval heroes that have made +us back numbers. There was Sims, and Daniels, and Benson, and—and—Admiral +What’s-his-name? I can’t just think of it. Gray? No, that’s not it +exactly. Admiral—Admiral—” + +“Not Grayson?” + +“Yes, that’s it, Rear Admiral Grayson. His flagship was the _George +Washington_, I believe. And Admiral Denby, what did he do? I just can’t +recollect on the moment.” + +“Mr. Denby is not an Admiral; he’s the Secretary of the Navy. He’s not +supposed to go to sea. He sits at a desk, instead of standing on a deck.” + +“Oh, I see. But Rear Admiral Grayson? I wish you would describe some of +his exploits to me.” + +“Well-er—that’s a little difficult to explain, Admiral Jones, for you +have been so long out of touch with our system. Admiral Grayson is really +a doctor, and—” + +“You mean the admirals say he is a doctor and the doctors say he is an +admiral?” + +“Oh, no, Admiral, not so bad as that. He is a medical admiral, not a +fighting admiral. Rear Doctor—I mean Rear Admiral—Grayson was a naval +surgeon, and he has been regularly promoted to the post of rear admiral. +His job was looking after the President’s health, and all agree that he +tendered good service.” + +“Oh, a medical admiral, eh?” grumbled the old sea dog in a disappointed +tone. “So that’s what he is. I can see him now, standing on the bridge of +the good ship _Calomel_, stethoscope in hand, studying the symptoms of +the approaching foe, writing the battle orders on prescription blanks +and getting ready to fire a volley of quinine pills, three times a day +before meals, at the hated enemy. I can see him taking the temperatures +of the crew before going into action, and then, with a lancet in one hand +and a scalpel in the other, preparing to repel boarders. I can see him +charging the enemy (five dollars a visit, half price for office calls, +consultations fifteen, operations, what you’ve got), I can hear the +ringing words of command to candidates for vaccination: ‘Present arms.’ +I can see him, with his trusty clinical thermometer and his rapid firing +hypodermic, bravely—” + +“You’ve got the wrong idea, entirely, Admiral Jones,” I hastened to +interrupt. “It’s different from your day. None of our admirals do any +hand-to-hand encounters. There are no more clashes at close quarters. +Sometimes ships fight each other four or five miles apart.” + +The grizzled veteran looked as if he scarcely understood what I was +saying. + +“No coming together with grappling irons, and fighting it out fair and +square with pistols and cutlasses on the quarterdeck? A modern naval +battle is just a long-distance artillery duel between Sunday School +classes composed of total abstainers, as likely as not commanded by a +specialist on whooping cough and measles? I guess it’s a good thing I +shuffled off when I did. In my time a sea fight was more a matter of men +than of machinery. I wouldn’t know how to go about it today. Everything +is changed. I’m sure I’d forget to order a double round of hot lemonade +for all the crew, instead of a stiff glass of grog, before going into an +engagement. I must tell Farragut about it. I suppose they wouldn’t let +him say anything stronger than ‘_Darn_ the torpedoes,’ or ‘Oh, fudge,’ +if he were down on the job today. And Commodore Perry: ‘We have met the +enemy and made ’em all sign the pledge.’ That’s the sort of message +he’d be expected to send nowadays. I suppose with all these new-fangled +inventions you’ve been telling me about, wireless, and range-finders, +and searchlights, and turbines, and seaplanes and torpedoes and all the +rest of ’em, a fellow has to stay sober to work ’em. In my day we always +considered that a man fought better when he was about three sheets in the +wind. I don’t say our ways were perfect, but I’m sure I wouldn’t feel +at home on one of your big floating machine shops. I’d forget myself +sometimes and want to get close enough to the enemy to see him without a +telescope—or a stethoscope. + +“Well, you’ll have to excuse me now, my lad. I have a date with Lord +Nelson for three o’clock, to join in the historic and comforting ceremony +known as splicing the main brace. I’ll break the news to him about what +you’ve just been telling me. He’ll need a bracer after he hears it.” + +And as the old hero hobbled away I could hear him muttering to himself: +“No whiskey, no brandy, no shandy-gaff, no Jamaikey rum; water, water +everywhere, but not a drop o’ drink.” + + + + +IV + +JOSHUA ADVISES DAYLIGHT SAVING + + +“How about an interview with one of the shades on daylight saving?” I +suggested timidly, as the city editor was racking what he calls his brain +in search of a suitable assignment. + +“Right! Get hold of one of the old astronomers, Galileo, or Ike Newton, +or—or—” + +“How would Joshua do?” + +“Joshua? You don’t mean Josh Whitcomb? He wasn’t a real character. He was +only—” + +“No, I mean the Biblical Joshua—fellow who made the sun stand still. +That’s what our modern clock-fixers are trying to do. And as the pioneer, +the original inventor of the scheme, a few views on his twentieth century +imitators ought to be interesting.” + +“Go to it. He can’t make the situation any more confusing than it is +already.” + +I found the ancient prophet reclining under his own vine and fig tree, +studying a brightly colored seed catalogue. With alacrity he accepted my +invitation to talk for publication. + +“Daylight saving, eh?” he mused. “It’s odd how you moderns never seem +to get any ideas of your own. Always the same old thing over again. +There’s nothing new under the sun. And now you’re trying to beat old +Tempus Fidgets with what you imagine is a brand new scheme, but really is +older than Solomon’s mother-in-law. What do you expect to get out of it, +anyway?” + +I started to explain how getting up an hour earlier in the morning +through putting the clocks ahead gave us an additional hour of daylight +at the other end of the day, when the old prophet cut in: “Just fooling +yourselves, eh, a great, big game of make-believe by grown-ups in order +to have a little more time for play? You move the clock forward and +pretend it’s an hour later, by general agreement? Well, why don’t you +extend the idea while you’re about it and apply it to other things +besides clocks and time?” + +“What, for instance, Mr. Joshua?” + +“Well, take the thermometer, an instrument that’s been invented since +my time. When I lived on earth we never suffered much from either heat +or cold, because we hadn’t any thermometers to tell us that we were +uncomfortable. If it were one hundred and ten in the mighty scarce shade +out on the desert, we didn’t know it. Eighty-five or a hundred and +fifteen—it was all the same to us. We never had any hot waves. There were +no daily lists of heat victims. The thermometer liar was unknown. Nobody +was initiated into the Ananias Club for boasting that the thermometer on +his back porch hadn’t in fifteen years varied a degree from the official +weatherman’s. We may have felt a little warmer under the mantle some +days than others, but we couldn’t tell in degrees how uncomfortable we +were, and so we were spared a lot of suffering. It’s the thermometer +that makes you moderns take such a morbid interest in the weather. +If you hadn’t any means of measuring the heat and the cold, why, you +wouldn’t care anything about them. I was a prophet, but I never went so +far as to dare to prophesy the weather. I knew my limitations. But your +government guessers, backed up by their thermometers, seem willing to +take any chances. Now, I suppose it’s too much to expect you to abolish +your worrisome thermometers entirely, but why not take a hint from your +daylight saving business and tinkering with the clock twice a year, and +do a little fixing of your thermometers? + +“For example? Well, for a beginning you would have to adopt a new kind +of thermometer with changeable or removable figures. On April first of +each year let everybody mark his thermometer down ten degrees. That is to +say, the present figure ninety would be replaced by eighty, and eighty by +seventy, and so on. The first hot spell would prove the practicability +of the device. The scheme is purely psychological, of course, but so is +daylight saving. Under the old pessimistic thermometer, which has done so +much to encourage the Society for the Promotion of Justifiable Profanity, +the temperature, we will say, would be eighty-five degrees in the shade, +provided you could find any. But according to the marked-down thermometer +it would be only seventy-five, just warm enough to sit comfortably on +the front porch and smoke your pipe and read the paper while your wife +was washing the dishes in the kitchen. Then in mid-July along comes +what, under the old arrangement, would have been a regular scorcher, +with the mercury registering ninety-two and all the meteorological +Munchausens in town down at the corner drugstore boasting that their pet +instruments were registering one hundred and two plus, in the shade. But +the optimistic thermometer, operating under the universal heat-saving +law, would record only eighty-two degrees. And everybody would be +comparatively cool and comfortable. In fact, you would practically never +have it ninety degrees in your climate. + +“Think what that would mean to perspiring humanity! For we all know how +the thermometer affects our feelings. And the optimistic thermometer +would work just as well in winter as in summer. It would only be +necessary to mark it up ten extra degrees in October. Then you would +have mighty few zero days. The saving in coal would be tremendous, for +we all regulate the heating apparatus by the thermometer instead of the +feelings. The optimistic thermometer in winter would register seventy +degrees in the living room when the old-fashioned instrument would have +made it only sixty. Isn’t that as sensible as daylight saving?” + +“It is certainly a novel idea, Mr. Joshua,” I replied in a non-committal +tone. “You seem to be carrying out to the logical extreme the Scriptural +theory that as a man thinketh in his heart so is he. Do you know of any +other practical application of the principle?” + +“It is capable of indefinite extension,” responded the ancient prophet. +“Take the matter of people’s ages. Lots of folks are so sensitive on the +subject that it makes them unhappy and others are discriminated against +in business or the professions because they happen to be a year or two +past an arbitrary age limit and have a bit of gray in their hair. Now, +why not by common agreement let everybody over the age of forty mark down +his or her age ten years? We are all as old, not as we look or feel, but +as we think we are. If we can say it is only five o’clock when it’s six, +then we can assume we are only fifty years old when, according to the +strict, literal calculation, we are really sixty. Let’s give psychology a +chance.” + +“Fine idea, Mr. Joshua. Make believe that it’s an hour later or earlier +than it is, that it is ten degrees hotter or colder than it is, and that +we are all ten years younger than the record says. We live largely in a +world of self-delusion anyway. That is what makes living endurable. You +would only carry the principle a little farther, if I understand you. But +there’s one little device for human happiness I wish you would add to the +others.” + +“And that is?” + +“A barometer that will always predict fair weather when I want to play +golf Sunday morning and rain if my wife wants me to go to church.” + +But from the look the prophet gave me I saw that Joshua couldn’t be +joshed with impunity, and leaping into my astral airplane I glided back +to good old terra firma. + + + + +V + +KING SOLOMON’S FAMILY VACATION TRIP + + +“My wife has just told me where we are going to spend my summer +vacation,” remarked the city editor. “It’s been said that nothing is +absolutely certain in this world, but it’s as sure as anything can be +that I’m going to spend my three weeks just where the missus tells me. +We never have any discussion on the subject at our house—none of that +mountains or seashore business George Ade wrote about, ending in a +compromise on the wife’s favorite mountains. But it’s always a relief +when the suspense is over and the annual announcement by friend wife is +made. + +“And that reminds me; how about an interview with one of the shades on +the modern vacation, summer resorts and all that sort of thing? Got +anybody in mind for it? Noah? No, that trip of his was no summer vacation +picnic. Suppose you ask Solomon how he managed the annual vacation +business with all those wives of his. They tell me he was the wisest man +that ever lived, and I’ll say he needed to be?” + +I was gratified to find the shade of the former monarch and much-married +man not at all averse to talking for publication. “You see,” he observed +with an apologetic smile, “I don’t often get the opportunity to talk +without being interrupted. It’s quite refreshing to have an appreciative, +interested listener. Fortunately you have come on the very day when +the Wives and Daughters of Solomon Association is holding its annual +convention, and the mothers-in-law also are attending in their capacity +of honorary members. They haven’t the privilege of voting—only of +speaking from the floor—but that’s quite satisfactory. They don’t care +where they speak from so long as they speak. + +“And so, as I have said, we can have a cozy little chat. What did you +want me to talk about? Summer vacations? My boy, I could tell you things +about the trips I have taken in my capacity as a multiple husband that +would dissuade you from matrimony ever after. But I do not wish to relate +all the harrowing details. I’ll just give you a hint. + +“Well, to start at the beginning, during the first few years of my +married life the summer vacation germ spared our happy home. But as I +gradually added more wives to my collection, an agitation was begun to +get me to take them away somewhere for the summer. The wives began to +find fault with the Jerusalem climate. + +“They started to criticise what they called the stuffy little rooms +of the royal palace. They suggested that other families were closing +their houses, or renting them furnished for the summer, and going +to the shore of the Mediterranean, where resorts had sprung up that +advertised paradoxically cool breezes and a hot old time. They made life +so miserable for me that finally one day, after a committee of wives +had presented the subject and threatened that they would all go away to +Mediterranean City on their own hook if I didn’t consent, I yielded. + +“And then ensued such a season of preparation as I hope I shall never +have to go through again. Four hundred new trunks bought, four hundred +new summer outfits ordered. The palace as if by magic became filled +with seamstresses and fitters and millinery architects and all sorts of +strange women I had never seen before. You couldn’t walk down the front +stairs without stumbling over a seamstress or two. + +“The parlor, the living room, the library, all seemed full of sewing +societies. Perfect strangers thronged the halls, their mouths full of +pins, and tape measures hung around their necks. + +“And then, the night before we were to depart, a special committee +of wives called on me to exhibit the standardized bathing suit they +had decided upon and get my official O. K. At first I was inclined to +criticise—and then I reflected what a very, an exceedingly small thing it +was to quarrel about—and graciously gave my consent. + +“The next day we left Jerusalem for Mediterranean City. And we created +some sensation. I headed the procession, followed by the Mesdames +Solomon mounted on the four hundred camels. Then came a detachment of +mothers-in-law on army mules (they were invited to come in relays during +the summer) and the first instalment of the baggage train brought up the +rear. + +“The second instalment was to come next day with the things the wives had +forgotten and sent back for. And other baggage trains were to follow from +time to time during the summer, as needed. + +“We were several days upon the journey. Before leaving I had not felt +that I needed a vacation, but before we finally arrived at Mediterranean +City I was ready for the rest cure. + +“You see, traveling in those days was not like what it is now. A camel +with shock absorbers and air-cushion springs might be a comfortable +vehicle, I should imagine, but in his primitive state a camel’s motion is +quite different from that of a limousine or a parlor car. Rubber heels +had not been invented or I would surely have had our camels equipped with +them. + +“We had to camp out along the roadside several nights, and none of +the wives were used to that. And they did not hesitate to express +their feelings. We had started out with a goat among our numerous +menagerie, but at an early stage of the proceedings he escaped into the +desert—doubtless in search of peace and quiet. + +“However, he was not missed. I took his place. It was a rôle to which, in +spite of my royal rank, I was accustomed. Everything that went wrong—and +that meant practically everything that happened from start to finish—was +blamed on me. I was even accused of having planned and perpetrated the +excursion, when I had never had the slightest notion of leaving Jerusalem +until they suggested it. Finally my patience was exhausted, and I up and +told them if they didn’t like it they could go to Jericho. Then, as now, +Jericho was far from being an ideal place of summer residence, and their +complaints gradually ceased. + +“Well, we finally arrived at Mediterranean City, and then our sorrows +began in earnest. I don’t know whether you have ever had any practical +experience with the Mediterranean mosquito. I have never been quite able +to forgive Noah for bringing ’em into the ark. A reception committee +of these pests met us at the city gate and escorted us to the Hotel +Paymore—so we were stung twice—when we arrived and when we paid the bill +on our departure. + +“The first hitch came when the clerk started assigning the rooms. It +seems there were only some two hundred with an ocean view—and four +hundred wives demanding a room apiece. The clerk threw up his hands and +appealed to me. He had heard of some puzzling problems I had solved in +my capacity as the world’s champion wise man—I threw up my hands and +appealed to the proprietor. And he joined in the pleasing indoor pastime, +known as passing the buck, by sending in a riot call for the police. But +they didn’t come. They were men of long experience, and they knew better +than to come between man and wives. + +“The upshot was that we drew lots for the first night, the arrangement +after that being to take turns occupying rooms with the ocean view. +As for myself, with my usual benign disposition, I took a six-by-nine +chamber—a room commanding a splendid prospect of the great desert. But I +had learned not to be too particular. + +“I cannot say that I enjoyed my first and only family summer vacation. +Think of four hundred wives wanting to be taken out rowing every day! +Think of being required to affix wriggling angle-worms to four hundred +separate and distinct fish-hooks! I need not enter into details. These +samples are sufficient. + +“It is enough to say that after the regular vacation period was over +I was compelled, on the advice of my chief physician, to enter the +Jerusalem Sanitarium and Rest Cure in order to recuperate. It was ‘never +again’ for me. + +“I hear there is some complaining today among married men over having +to take their wives to the seashore or the mountains. But they should +pause to consider that their experience, at worst, can be only one +four-hundredth as strenuous and wearing as was mine. I remember the day +we got back home to the palace in Jerusalem. Every last one of those +wives was so glad to be back that she went up to her room and had what +she called ‘a good cry.’” + +“And what did you do, Your Majesty?” + +“Oh, I went down cellar and took a smile.” + +And, notwithstanding my citizenship in the dryest nation on earth, I felt +that Solomon had richly earned that spirituous solace. + + + + +VI + +BRIGHAM YOUNG ENDORSES WOMAN SUFFRAGE + + +“I’ve got a job for you that’s some assignment. You say _you_ always +have to suggest the subjects for these interviews with the shades. Well, +here’s one for you that I thought of last night all by myself. Interview +Collector Brigham Young on woman suffrage.” + +“Collector Young? I can’t quite recall on the moment. Let’s see: what did +he collect?” + +“Wives. Had one of the largest modern collections on record. When they +were young used to call ’em his souvenir spoons. You may have a tough +time getting him to talk, but if you succeed it ought to be hot stuff. I +can imagine what Brigham Young would think of woman suffrage.” + +But my usually infallible city editor was wrong on both points. Collector +Young was not averse to talking for publication, and his views on woman +suffrage were quite different from those he might have been presumed to +hold. + +“Take a seat. Glad to see you,” he exclaimed with all the affability +I had been accustomed to receive during my adventures in interviewing +illustrious spirits. “Thought I mightn’t wish to talk for publication? +Why, I’ll talk for anything. Mighty glad of the opportunity. I talk +now on the slightest provocation. Sometimes when there’s nobody else +to talk to I talk to myself. Do you realize, young man, what it was to +have forty-nine wives, simultaneously, and just about how much chance a +husband had to get in an occasional remark edgewise? And as for getting +the last word in a more or less animated discussion! Why, it always +looked as if there never were going to be any last word. + +“But after my extensive and varied matrimonial experience, as I have +said, you can imagine the amount of pent-up opinions, the quantity of +suppressed conversation I still have in my system. For thirty-two years +my principal rôle in life was that of silent listener. Think of having +to sit still and listen to forty-nine separate and distinct, and largely +contradictory, reports of the meeting of the Mount Zion Missionary and +Sewing Society! Think of listening every Sunday afternoon to forty-nine +individual criticisms, chiefly destructive, of the feminine fashions +observed in the congregation! Imagine the position of a so-called head +of the house who could never utter a word without interrupting somebody +or other! But the most maddening experience I had to undergo was when +they all came down with the crocheting craze at the same time—or else +the knitting mania—another form of feminine insanity—it’s all one to me. +When the spell was on they wouldn’t talk to anyone else or let anyone +else talk to them. It put them out of their count, they said. But they’d +sit there in the front parlor—the whole regiment of them—and knit away, +muttering some mysterious words to themselves. And never condescending +to explain to a mere man what it was all about. They declared that would +be ‘casting purls before swine.’ The click-click-click of the needles, +forty-nine pairs of them all going at once, would sound like a knitting +mill running full blast. And they always knitted in the evening, the +time they insisted on my being at home. Said it made them nervous to be +left alone in the house at night. Why, the forty-nine of them could have +talked an ordinary burglar to death in half an hour and robbed him of his +tools. But they thought they ought to have a man’s protection.” + +“That reminds me, Mr. Young, of something I wanted to ask you before I +knew you were going to be so courteously communicative. You will pardon +me, I know, but I have often wondered how certain things were managed +in such a-er-er—such a numerous establishment. For instance, the average +husband with only one wife expects to be asked where he has been when +he returns home late at night, but if he had forty-nine matrimonial +partners, why, er-er—” + +“You want to know whether they would all ask him at once? No, sir. +That wasn’t the arrangement. We had committees for all such matters. +Otherwise there would have been intolerable confusion. It would never +have done in the world. A husband might inadvertently give twenty or +thirty different—er-er—explanations of his unavoidable tardiness, and +then when they got to comparing notes there would have been trouble. As +I have said, we had committees. There was a committee on late returns +and excuses, a committee for seeing that husband wore his rubbers to the +office, a committee for reminding him to get his hair cut, a committee +on new hats and gowns for summer and other seasons, a committee to get +him to put on the screen doors in May, a committee to remind him about +birthdays one week in advance, a committee for—oh, everything you can +imagine. It was like a Legislature or Congress—except that instead of one +there were forty-nine Speakers in the House.” + +“Very interesting, Mr. Young, I am sure. But I was instructed to get your +views on woman suffrage. Do you approve of women voting?” + +“I don’t quite like the form of your question. Put it this way: do I +object to women voting? I do not, for two reasons: first, I know better, +after my extensive experience, than to object to anything women want to +do, since it can do no good; and second, since women run things, anyway, +to suit themselves, the act of voting is merely a symbol or ceremony of +registration of their power. They were the real rulers before they got +the ballot, and the vote isn’t going to change the situation any. The +only hitch I see will come if the women can’t make up their minds as to +just what and whom they want to vote for. I suppose in states where women +have never voted before there may be a little trouble with those who +have changed their minds after casting their ballot and want to get it +back for a minute to add a postscript. But on the whole I don’t see why +any man—any married one at least—should object to woman suffrage. Since +the average voter gets his instructions from a political boss, anyway, +it might be more convenient to have that boss in the family. Woman is +assuming new duties and responsibilities every day. The hand that used +to roll the baby carriage now rolls the cigarette.” + +“You have spoken, Mr. Young,” I remarked as I rose to depart, “as if the +wife were always the ruler, the autocrat of the home. Are you aware that +the Census Bureau now officially recognizes the husband as the head of +the house?” + +Brigham smiled sadly as he replied: “Yes; but they only take a census +once in ten years.” + +And I tiptoed silently from the pathetic presence of one who had married +not wisely, but too much. + + + + +VII + +HIPPOCRATES ON MODERN DOCTORS + + +“What did you say about a hip-pocket?” queried the city editor +suspiciously. “I want a drink as much as any man, but since prohibition +arrived no camel has had anything on me. I believe in respecting the law +even if—” + +“I didn’t say anything about a hip-pocket,” I cut in. “I said it might +be a good scheme to interview old Hippocrates, the Father of Medicine, +and find out what he thinks about modern doctors and surgeons and +professional etiquette and whether times have improved any since he was +in active practice a couple of thousand years ago. What do you think of +the idea?” + +“Go to it,” responded the C. E., “but be careful he doesn’t try to charge +you ‘for professional advice.’ Make him understand that we’re doing the +favor, not he. He ought to be glad of the free advertising. He’ll say at +first he doesn’t want any publicity—it is unethical. See if he doesn’t. +These doctors are all alike. I know ’em.” + +Much to my surprise the city editor’s cynical prediction was verified +by my victim’s opening remarks. “You want me to talk for _publication_, +young man?” said the Father of Medicine. “You’re sure you’re not a +representative of an eastern publishing house who has been authorized +to place a few copies of a new encyclopedia with a selected number of +the most prominent citizens, absolutely free of charge, on payment of a +dollar down and five dollars a month for twenty years?” + +Somewhat mystified, I replied in the negative. + +“And you’re not demonstrating from purely philanthropic motives—the only +charge being for packing and postage—a new tonic guaranteed to make the +baldest pate blossom into a Paderewski?” + +“No, sir, I’m not an agent of any kind. I have nothing to sell.” + +“You are certain you are not promoting the sale of a new absolutely +talk-proof safety razor for married men whose wives insist on conversing +while they are trying to shave themselves? Or a new hip-pocket Testament +holding one pint? Or a machine for manufacturing cigars at home, in +anticipation of the next Great Reform? Or a self-spelling typewriter +for business college graduates? You are not selling stock in a gold +mine in Iceland at fifty cents par today, but price to be raised +positively next Monday at ten o’clock to a dollar and a half, all shares +guaranteed non-assessable and non-returnable? You are not the agent for a +combination snow-shovel and lawn-mower, especially designed for the North +American climate, transposable at a moment’s notice? You are not selling +diamond-studded coupon clippers for profiteers or self-finding collar +buttons, or—” + +“My dear sir, I have nothing to sell at all. I am a reporter and I want—” + +“Oh, a reporter? Well, why didn’t you say so at first, instead of causing +all this confusion and waste of breath? I’ve been so bothered with +agents of every sort lately that I can’t sleep nights. I told one that +the other day and he pulled a bottle out of his bag and tried to sell me +an infallible cure for insomnia. I resolved not to let another one into +my house. But you’re a reporter, eh? That’s a refreshing novelty around +here. Come in. + +“But you must know that I never talk for publication. I have never done +such a thing in my entire professional career. It would be entirely +contrary to the ethics of my sacred calling. Somebody might say I was +trying to advertise myself. You know doctors can’t be too careful. We +never advertise. We may occasionally consent, under pressure, to the +publication of an item in the society column saying that ‘Dr. Theophilus +Sawbones of 52896 Arnica Avenue has returned after a two weeks’ trip to +Atlantic City and resumed his practice.’ But that isn’t advertising. +That’s news. You never see a surgeon, for instance, descending to the +low commercial plane of your merchants, and announcing in a display +advertisement: ‘Cut rates all this week at Dr. Carvem’s. Now is the +time to get that appendix cut out. All operations marked down. Special +bargains in tonsils.’ + +“No, sir. We have an exalted code of ethics in our profession, I am happy +to say, dating from the time when I founded the practice of medicine. But +if you are sure a few timely remarks from me will not be misinterpreted +and regarded as an attempt on my part to get into the limelight, I am +at your service to the extent of about a column and a half, offered for +acceptance at your regular rates, to be run next reading matter.” + +“I am certain, doctor,” I responded, “that the world will attribute +no self-promoting motives to one enjoying your long and honorable +reputation. Do you note many changes in the practice of medicine since +the days when you were in the harness?” + +“Well,” responded Hippocrates as he thoughtfully stroked his long beard, +“there seem to be more different kinds of doctors nowadays than we had +in 400 B. C. We didn’t know anything about specialists in our time. We +were not merely general practitioners; we were universal practitioners. + +“Suppose, for instance, a prosperous citizen of Athens had the gout, +indigestion, corns, heart murmur, rheumatism, torpidity of the liver +and clergyman’s sore throat—seven ailments in all. He sent for me and I +treated all his diseases at the same time. While he had a combination of +diseases, we knew any good doctor would understand the combination. + +“I felt his pulse, looked at his tongue, and told him he was working too +hard—just as one of your modern doctors would do. It always pleases a +prosperous citizen to be told that he is working too hard—and we aim to +please. If I thought he would like a trip somewhere, I recommended a run +over to Rome during the Coliseum season. They used to have some mighty +good shows at the Coliseum. If he preferred to take his vacation at home, +then I recommended a trip for his wife. I told him not to eat so much and +to take more exercise, and to cut out the worry, and then collected my +fee of two drachmas, and went on to the next vic—I mean, the next patient. + +“But take that same prosperous citizen today. How many specialists would +he have to call in before he could consider his case properly attended +to? Seven diseases, seven specialists, you say? Oh, more than that. First +thing he’d have to send for the primary diagnostician, if he wished to +do it in thoroughly up-to-date style. Well, the primary diagnostician +would come in to find out, first, what was the matter with him. He looks +the patient all over and takes flash-light pictures of his interior, +makes a card index of all the things the matter with him and then calls +in his stenographer and dictates a circular letter to a collection of +specialists, asking them to drop around at their leisure and confirm his +diagnoses. And do _they_ proceed then to treat the patient? Not for a +minute. They are the secondary diagnosticians. Each has his specialty and +wouldn’t dream of encroaching on any other specialist’s territory. The +gout man looks only for gout—and he finds what he is looking for. The +indigestion expert does the same—and it can’t escape his eagle eye. It’s +the same all down the line. + +“When the seven secondary diagnosticians have finished their job the +patient is presented with seven neatly-inscribed charts, showing the +general plan and location of his various troubles—and seven courteously +worded communications beginning with precisely the same words: ‘For +professional services to date.’ + +“Now it’s time to call in the specialists who administer the treatment. +Seven more of ’em. Why, nowadays the house of a rich man who’s got +something the matter with his insides looks like the convention hall of +the American Medical Association during a well-attended session. And +that’s not all. You not only have to have a different doctor for each +disease, but a whole lot of brand-new diseases we never heard of in my +time have been invented. Back in the old days in Athens there were only +about a dozen ailments a fellow could acquire. If he escaped these he +never had to call in a doctor. But today, as any specialist will tell +you, there are about fifty-seven varieties of throat trouble alone. You +can have eighty-six different things the matter with your liver, while +the various kinds of indigestion, plain and fancy, would fill a book. In +our time, too, we did mighty little tinkering with the human frame with +tools and things. We knew about the appendix, but we failed to perceive +its commercial possibilities. We thought it had been put there for some +wise purpose—but it didn’t occur to us that it might be a financial one. +The price of a modern appendicitis operation would have supported one of +our old Greek physicians in luxury for three years. + +“It was the same with tonsils. We’d as soon have thought of cutting off a +man’s tongue as taking out his tonsils. Every young doctor had to take an +oath—the _Hippocratic_ oath, _I_ called it—that he would give everybody +the benefit of his services without regard to money. Nowadays if doctors +take the oath I presume a good many of them keep their fingers crossed. +I agree that when a doctor is called out of his bed in the middle of the +night, to treat an old fellow who is suffering from nothing except fatty +degeneration of the pocketbook, it’s quite a temptation to relieve him of +a substantial share of that trouble. Some folk think they aren’t getting +full attention unless they are charged enough to make them feel it in +the pocket nerve. Increased wages of workingmen are bound to enlarge the +number of millionaire medicos.” + +“So, you think, Doctor, the practice of medicine has become somewhat +commercialized since your day?” + +“Oh, no. Not at all. I did not wish to reflect on my successors. That +would not be professional. I’m simply sorry that back in 400 B. C. we +were not alive to our opportunities. Think of our allowing Croesus, the +richest man that ever lived, to go around with his appendix intact! Why, +I sat up with him all one night when he had acute inflammation of the +imagination and thought he saw pink Egyptian crocodiles crawling up the +window-shades, and only charged him two dollars! + +“No, understand me. I’m not finding fault with the twentieth century +doctors. I’m only envious of their opportunities. Your modern doctor +dashes around town in his automobile and calls on twenty patients a +day. I had an old ox team, non-self-starting, that couldn’t take the +smallest hill on high and had a maximum speed on the level of two miles +an hour. While I was attending a patient at one end of Athens a patient +at the other end had time to get well without my assistance. That was +discouraging to any young fellow just as his practice and professional +beard were beginning to grow. And nowadays they tell me you have +allopaths, and homeopaths and osteopaths—but you must remember that all +paths lead to the grave.” + +“Why is that last joke just like you, Doctor?” I interposed in +self-defense. + +“I give it up. Why is it?” + +“Because it dates from at least 400 B. C.” + +And the look Hippocrates gave in return made me thankful he wasn’t my +family doctor. I knew he would rejoice to write me a prescription of ten +grains of strychnine, three times a day, to be taken before meals. + + + + +VIII + +METHUSELAH GIVES LONGEVITY SECRETS + + +It’s odd how often in interviewing the old-timers and ancient shades +one’s preconceived ideas get a jolt. In my mind’s eye I had a vision of +Methuselah, for instance, as an antediluvian figure with a Santa Claus +beard and a general air of decrepitude. The door was opened in response +to my ring by a smartly dressed, smooth-shaven individual, who certainly +looked as if the burden of age sat lightly upon his shoulders. + +“I should like to see Mr. Methuselah,” I said. “That is, if he is able to +see callers today. If he’s having his nap, or not feeling very spry this +morning, I can come again.” + +“Come again? I guess not. You see me right now. I was going over to the +Olympus Club to play a round of golf, but I’ll be glad to give you half +an hour. Walk right in. What can I do for you?” + +“My city editor wanted an interview on how to attain long life, but I +must have got hold of the wrong Mr. Methuselah. I want the one who +lived nine hundred and sixty-nine years, the world’s champion oldest +inhabitant. Surely you’re not—” + +“I’ll say I am. I’m the only original, the guaranteed +nine-times-centenarian and then some. I know what you expected to see: +an old fossil with snowy whiskers and numerous wrinkles, walking with a +couple of canes and dressed in a single garment like an old-fashioned +nightshirt. You were prepared to have me give my reminiscences, to wheeze +out, between painful breaths, that the old days were far better than +anything we have now, to roast the younger generation, and wind up by +attributing my longevity to abstaining from booze and the use of tobacco +in any form. You were all ready to put down that I can read fine print +without glasses and can remember events of nine hundred and fifty years +ago as if they happened only yesterday. Oh, I know you newspaper fellows +and I’ve read so many interviews with centenarians I could write one +myself with my eyes shut. My advice to anybody who wants to live to be a +hundred, to say nothing of nine hundred and sixty-nine, is, ‘Don’t.’ And +as for reminiscences, my motto is, ‘Forget it.’ I haven’t any very happy +recollections of my long-drawn-out stay on earth. Existence is pleasant, +but it is possible to have entirely too much of a good thing. + +“Take our married life, for instance. At the start everybody said it +was a regular love story. But even a love story that stretches out +into a serial of over nine hundred chapters gets a trifle monotonous. +You’ve never heard of Mrs. M. She wouldn’t tell her age even to get +her name into the Bible. I remember when they first started taking +the census. The census taker came to our house and camped out three +years. Couldn’t get all the facts of our family any other way. And we +had to board him all that time. Well, his wife’s sister belonged to +the Daughters of Eve Foreign Missionary Society, the same one my wife +did, and Mrs. M. said she just knew that if she gave her age, why, +that mean old thing would know it within half an hour, and it would be +all around town before the day was over. And she just wouldn’t give +it. I gave him all the dope about the other members of the family, my +great-great-great-etc.-grandchildren and the close relations on my wife’s +side who’d been living with us for three hundred and fifty years (close +was no name for it), but I balked when it came to the question of Mrs. +M.’s age. The fact was, she was only about four hundred and twenty-five, +or thereabouts, at the time, but you know how women are—so blamed +sensitive about something that men are proud of—and so I told him to go +and get the information from headquarters. + +“Well, it happened to be a bad combination that day. It was wash-day, +and the cook had just left, after being with us for a hundred and eighty +years, and quite a number of the children had the measles and the +whooping cough and one thing another, and Mrs. M. happened to have a mop +in her hand at the time, and—But here I am reminiscing away and I said I +wouldn’t. Let’s get back to business. What did you want me to talk about?” + +“I’d like you to explain how you’ve kept so young-looking and feeling +after all these years.” + +“That’s easy. I’m just following the new policy of you folks down below +and carrying it out to its logical extreme. The modern idea is to regard +age as merely a state of mind. Simply refuse to grow old and you’ll find +it’s easy enough to stay young. Is your hair getting gray? Never say dye. +Is your hair falling out? Get it bobbed. Don’t try camouflaging your +face, but keep young inside. Joshua has the right dope: let’s have some +lifetime saving. Half a century ago a man was old at forty and a woman +put on a cap and sat in the chimney corner when she turned thirty. A +girl was an old maid at twenty-five. Today you think there’s something +wrong with a grandmother who can’t jazz and nobody knows the meaning of +‘declining years.’ And nobody is too old to decline a cigarette or a +dance. They used to say a man ought to retire at seventy. Now it’s hard +to get him to retire at midnight, if there’s a good show left in town. +Folks are just beginning to enjoy life at sixty. + +“All I’ve done is to follow you folk’s example and refuse to be old at +nine hundred and sixty-nine. If I can do it, everybody can. How does +this jibe with my advice not to try to live to be a hundred, you may +ask. That’s perfectly consistent. The way to live long is not to bother +about it. I wouldn’t have been five hundred if I’d tried to keep up with +the advice of all the insurance experts. I speak from experience. Take +the ‘no breakfast’ cranks, for instance. I went without breakfast for +one hundred and twenty-five years and I didn’t know what was the matter +with me. Then I tried taking a couple of pounds of beefsteak and half a +dozen baked potatoes before breakfast every morning, and I felt like a +new man. Then, once at the beginning of a century—I forget which one—Mrs. +M. got me to swear off on tobacco for a hundred years. We used to make +our so-called good resolutions at the start of a century, not of a year, +the way you do. The first hundred years may be the hardest, she said, +but ‘see how much better you’ll feel.’ Well, I stuck it out about sixty +years, and then the whole family came around and besought me on bended +knee to go back to hitting the pipe. They said life in our once happy +home was getting to resemble a bear garden or a peace conference or a +free-for-all prize fight. Better to smoke than to fume. And so I got out +the old pipe and smoked up for another six hundred years. + +“I wish I’d kept a card index of all the health fads I’ve seen come and +go. Once the vegetarians had their inning. Somebody said the secret of +health was to eat nothing but onions. It would have been pretty hard to +keep the secret. Then we were told to eat only fruit. And once all the +cranks decided on an exclusive diet of nuts—sort of cannibalistic when +you come to think of it. One winter they said we’d all be healthier with +the minimum of underwear—the short and simple flannels of the poor. +Another rule for living long was to almost freeze yourself every morning +taking a cold bath—I remember one winter I qualified for a zero medal. +I ate baled hay and fried sawdust and all sorts of breakfast foods for +two or three centuries, under the impression that they were the elixirs +of eternal youth, and then one day I found I was getting so weak and +wobbly on my pins I cut ’em all out and went back to a good dose of real +food, three times a day, to be taken at mealtime. I quit the fads and +fancies, ate everything that came my way and let ’em fight it out among +themselves. And I broke the world’s record for dodging the undertaker. + +“But, as I remarked before, I can’t say I’d advise anybody to try to +be even a single centenarian, to say nothing of scoring nine. Think of +paying for nine hundred birthday presents your wife gave you, not to +mention several thousand contributed by the children and grandchildren +and other descendants. Why, one birthday I got ninety-three pairs of +slippers, most of ’em, of course, a size too small—must have thought +I was a centipede. Then there’s a good deal of competition among +centenarians, and that leads to jealousy and hard feelings. For instance, +I’d always predicted the weather by my rheumatiz (although I could +never tell when there was going to be a storm at home). I got quite a +reputation by it. And then an upstart centenarian over at Ararat, a young +fellow only about three hundred years old, claimed it always rained when +his corns hurt him—or the other way round—and took away about half my +visitors. He boasted that he had a set of infallible corns, and every +morning he’d get out a bulletin such as ‘Fair and warmer,’ or ‘Cold +weather with snow.’ A regular fakir, he was. Honest folk just considered +him one of those excess prophets. But he seemed to guess right about +fifty per cent of the time, and when he was wrong people gave him credit +for his good intentions. His whole stock in trade was his corns. Any good +chiropodist could have reduced him to bankruptcy in five minutes. But he +put up a bluff and got away with it and made folks think he was the real +Oldest Inhabitant.” + +“One more question, Mr. Methuselah: how do you account for the fact that +folks lived so much longer in your time than they do nowadays?” + +“Well, there were no automobiles and telephones and germ theories, and +revenue officers and apartment houses and phonographs and piano-players +and rolled hose and alarm clocks and table d’hôte dinners, for one thing, +and for another, we didn’t try to compress five hundred years of living +into a fifty years’ existence. We didn’t cover any more distance over the +highway of life than you moderns do, but we took more time to do it in. +We walked instead of ran, and picked flowers along the wayside and paused +now and then to admire the scenery. And rich or poor, young or old, we +got out of life exactly what you do—a living. And now I must ask you to +excuse me. I promised to play nine holes with Noah before luncheon. How +would you like to carry my golf sticks?” + +I respectfully declined, pleading a previous engagement. I have played +many rôles in my time, as a reporter, but I felt I must draw the line at +caddying for Methuselah. + + + + +IX + +JESSE JAMES TALKS ON TIPPING + + +On receiving the city editor’s assignment to interview the shade of +Jesse James on the tipping custom, I carefully removed my watch, purse +and scarfpin and left them in my desk, for even my brief experience with +dwellers in the astral region had taught me that they haven’t greatly +changed their habits and modes of living since their departure from +earthly scenes, and I couldn’t afford to run any risk. But I soon found +that I needn’t have taken the precaution, for in almost his first words +the famous bandit and all-round bad man showed me that he had thoroughly +reformed. + +“Want me to talk about tipping, eh?” he growled. “Well, I throw up +my hands. I’m through with the bandit business. I’m a has-been, a +second-rater, and I don’t mind admittin’ it. I suppose you know that we +shades go back to earth now and then to see how things are comin’ along, +take a hand in ’em, too, if we feel like it. Sometimes we play one-night +stands for the mejums. Captain Kidd had a job all last season at a kind +of continuous performance seance in Boston. Took all sorts of parts, from +Julius Cæsar to Andrew Jackson. One night he was materializin’ as John +Bunyun, and he couldn’t find his chewin’ tobacco or something, and he +kind o’ forgot himself and he used the particular brand of language that +Bunyun didn’t and—well, that ended the Massachusetts engagement. We don’t +all go in for performin’. Personally, I prefer just to go around the old +places and mix in with the crowds and compare old times to these, but I’m +not going back again for a while. My last trip was a little too much for +me. I got a shock and I guess I need a good long rest. + +“I’d heard considerable about this tipping business, pro and con, but I +thought it just meant slippin’ the colored waiter a nickel if he happened +to be extra spry and accommodatin’. That’s the way it used to be out in +Missouri back in seventy-nine. But tipping today! Yours truly and his +gang was called bandits, and train robbers, and highwaymen, and I don’t +know what all, when we was carryin’ on our profitable little business of +forty years ago, but we had nothing on the members of the Amalgamated +Association of Tip Extractors of 1922. We were pikers, that’s all, +plain, everyday pikers. We had no organization, no system, no nothing. +It was just about the difference between running a peanut stand and a +billion-dollar trust. I suppose if we were operatin’ today with our +old gang we’d have a cash register and an addin’ machine and a private +telephone exchange and a card index of past and prospective customers +and a publicity department, to see that the papers got our names and +pictures straight. But, shucks! Even then we couldn’t compete with the +great national hold-up game that’s going on all the time. On that last +trip down below I was never so discouraged and humiliated in my life. I +sat in a hotel restaurant and watched a head waiter at work. From the +professional standpoint it was beautiful. Nothing could have been more +artistic. But it made me feel blue, made me realize how I had neglected +my opportunities. There he stood, no mask on his face, no gun in his +hand, dressed in a swallowtail and biled shirt, takin’ toll so fast he +hadn’t time to count it. Everybody gave up, without a murmur. And the +next day, too, he was there at the same old stand, as if there wasn’t any +such thing as a sheriff within fifty miles. No look-out men on guard, no +disguise, no frisking the victims for concealed weapons. The folks just +handin’ out the coin as meek as lambs. It was a revelation to me. In +the old days we never stayed two days in the same place, nor two hours +neither, believe me. But somebody said that head waiter had been on that +same job for fifteen years. Fifteen years! I’d have owned the state of +Missouri if they’d let me alone that long. + +“It made me positively sick to see how the hold-up boys are getting away +with it so easy these days, and a friend recommended an ocean trip. ‘Take +a run over to Europe and back,’ he says. ‘You’ve never been to sea and +it’ll do you good.’ The day I boarded the boat I asked a stranger who +had the next cell to put me wise to this tipping business, because I +wanted to do the right thing. ‘Five dollars to your stateroom steward,’ +he said, ‘and five to the saloon steward.’ ‘I don’t drink any more,’ I +said. ‘Saloon means dining room.’ ‘Oh, all right,’ I said. ‘And two-fifty +to the deck steward and the same to the library steward. The smoke room +steward will expect a couple of dollars and the boy who blacks your +boots about one-fifty. Bath steward, two dollars. Card room steward, one +dollar. And of course you’ll tip the barber and anyone else who does you +a service.’ + +“Going into the washroom, the first sign I saw read: ‘Please tip the +basin.’ And I walked right out and went to bed for two days. The waiter +brought in all my meals—a dollar tip a meal. When I had recovered enough +to sit on deck in one of them overgrown Morris chairs, I couldn’t +get that tipping idea out of my head. A friend introduced me to a fat +fellow in uniform. I didn’t catch the name, but automatically handed +him fifty cents and then learned that he was the captain. The day we +arrived at Liverpool the passengers were all drawn up on deck and so were +the pirates—excuse me, I mean the crew. Then came the ringing words of +command: ‘Present alms!’ And we handed over all the coin we had left. I +only wished Captain Kidd had been there. He’d have learned something new +about his old game. + +“I confess I had thought some of going back into the hold-up business, +just to keep my hand in, but never again now. Too much competition, and +I’m too old to learn new ways. Good-bye, young man, and if you want to +say a good word for an old man who never did you any harm, put this in +your article: + +“‘Jesse James may have had his faults, but he was different from some of +the folks who are now carrying on the business—he never robbed the same +man twice.’” + + + + +X + +SHAKESPEARE MENTIONS MOVIES + + +The thought of interviewing a gentlemanly genius like William Shakespeare +after stacking up against such remote and formidable characters as +Bluebeard, Brigham Young and Jesse James was most refreshing, though it +took some nerve after all to tackle the world’s champion dramatic poet. I +had feared he might be slightly disinclined to talk, not being familiar +with the ways of modern journalism, but I was speedily set at ease on +that point. + +“Not talk for publication?” said the shade of Shakespeare, as he resumed +his seat in his Morris chair upon my entrance, and tried to look like +his pictures. “Not talk for publication? Did you ever know an actor, +playwright or a poet who wouldn’t? And I’ve been all three, and a +theatrical manager thrown in. It’s quite a while since I trod the boards, +or walked the ties, but I’ve managed to keep fairly in touch with the +times from frequent trips down below to oblige my mediumistic friends. +There’s a great boom on just now. I could get an engagement every night +in the week, and a pair of matinées, if I cared to perform. But there’s +nothing in it. If they’d let me perform in my own plays it would be +different. But there’s not much demand for them, it seems. All they’ll +let me do is play the tambourine in a dark cabinet and scribble on slates +and turn tables—just vaudeville I call it. And I see they’re beginning to +censor my plays and cut out all references to booze on account of the new +prohibition law. They made one of my actors quit giving the line: ‘I can +call spirits from the vasty deep.’ Said it gave a wrong impression and +tantalized men in the audience who thought the speaker was referring to +his private stock down cellar. Well, all the world’s a stage—and the last +time I was down I noticed most of the girls seemed to believe in making +up for their parts. Talk about fresh paint! + +“But you wished me to compare modern theatrical conditions with those of +my day. This is an age of specialists, but as I have said, when I was on +earth, ‘One man in his time plays many parts.’ I used to write a play, +hire a company, rehearse it, take the leading part myself, sell tickets +at the door, usher, beat the bass drum, fill the lamps and sweep out. +I’ve died on the stage and two minutes later gone up into the top gallery +to bounce a couple of rowdies. But we were all trained to versatility +in those days. No women were allowed to act, you know. You can’t imagine +how nice and peaceful it was in our companies. Nobody ever threatened +to quit because the type of his name on the posters was an eighth of +an inch smaller than somebody else’s. Nobody ever cried all over the +stage because somebody made disparaging remarks about his complexion or +said his teeth showed he was ten years older than he claimed. But there +were disadvantages, too, from the absence of the girls. Men had to take +feminine parts. And you take an Ophelia, for instance, who chews tobacco +and is drunk half the time, and it’s hard to invest the part with the +genuine pathos it demands. I remember one time I hired a tall, gawky +youth to play the part of Desdemona. He was all right the first week, +but after that his voice suddenly began changing, and it sounded like a +phonograph record that’s had a fall and got twisted. A Desdemona with a +deep bass voice that switches to a shrill soprano without warning and +then back again to the husky rumbling in the space of thirty seconds is +bound to incur adverse criticism. + +“I once had a Lady Macbeth, too, who had a habit of smoking his pipe +behind the scenes while waiting for his cue. And one time, when he +got the call, he absent-mindedly forgot to put his pipe away. It is +entirely contrary to tradition for Lady Macbeth to smoke a pipe in the +sleep-walking scene, and I had to dispense with his services the next +Saturday night. And barring absent-mindedness, he was the best Lady +Macbeth I ever had, too. I suppose our performances were pretty bum. +But there were no daily newspaper dramatic critics then, and we didn’t +know how rotten we were. Ignorance was bliss, both for us and for our +audiences. We were handicapped, also, by lack of scenery. Our property +man had a sinecure. The only ‘set’ we had consisted of a couple of +kitchen chairs and a tin pan—the latter for the thunder. We used the +chairs for thrones or mossy banks or anything else that happened to be +needed. The audience had to picture the rest of the scenery. There was +no curtain and the orchestra consisted of one performer. That insured +harmony in the orchestra. Our equipment was ahead of your modern +companies in only one respect: that of costumes. We always had plenty of +costumes, such as they were. The last time I was down below I attended +a musical comedy performance, and I was pained to observe how badly +handicapped the management was in the matter of costumes. There weren’t +half enough to go around. And the thermometer was below zero, too. As +I said, we always had enough costumes, because we used the same ones +in every performance. Everybody, from Romeo to old King Lear, wore an +antiquated red bathrobe and slippers. At least we managed to keep warm. +Unlike your modern managers, we never had to hang out the ‘Standing room +only’ sign. Nobody would have gone if he couldn’t get a seat. But I’ve +been told that nowadays theater audiences will stand for anything. I can +believe it after seeing some of your plays. As I have remarked in one of +my own compositions, ‘Sweet are the uses of advertisements.’ + +“But to return to our discussion. The present generation has witnessed a +wonderful addition to the dramatic art. I refer to the moving pictures. +You thought I wouldn’t be for them? I am. I think they’re wonderful. I +only wish we’d had them in my day. I’d have been able to retire about +ten years sooner. You see, the highest salary I ever got was about +twenty-five a week, and out of that I had to pay my board and traveling +expenses—everything but hauling trunks to the hotel. Then I went into +the producing game and did a little better. But even then, some Saturday +nights, the ghost didn’t walk—except the one in Hamlet. I understand the +average salary of a modern moving picture actor is a million dollars +a year and accident insurance. Newcomers learning the business draw +down nominal pay of five thou’ a week. Small my-lord-the-carriage-waits +parts get only two thousand a week, and so on down to the supes and +scene-shifters and deckhands struggling to support their families on a +hundred or so a day. I figure that the salary of a first-class movie +actor for one year would have supported in luxury all the actors of my +day for their entire lifetimes. And they’d have saved money. In my day +an actor was about the next thing to a professional pauper. Like the +dentist, he eked out a hand-to-mouth existence, but unlike the dentist he +didn’t often have the opportunity of filling an aching void—his stomach. +Life was just one bill collector after another. When anybody was needed +to play the rôle of the half-starved apothecary in Romeo and Juliet there +was no trouble finding a fellow who looked the part. There was always a +rush of volunteers for the banquet scenes—if real food was provided. But +I don’t begrudge your modern actors their prosperity. I only wish the +stuff had been handed around a little earlier. That’s all.” + +“Are you so enthusiastic over the movies, Mr. Shakespeare, that you like +to have them produce your own plays? Or is that sacrilege?” + +“I’d like to have my plays in the movies if they’d produce them +properly. But what makes me sore is to have them leave out all the pep. +When a play is transferred from the book or the stage to the movie, +certain necessary changes should be made. The first requirement of the +picture play is action. There’s no place for talk. Now, if they’re +going to have my plays in the movies, I wish they’d popularize ’em. For +instance, in my day there wasn’t an actor who knew how to throw a pie. +Nobody could fire a pistol without ever taking aim—the way the movie +actors do it. I hate to see my plays fail just for lack of a few pies +and pistols, artistically handled. When one of my productions is put on +the screen they engage some long-faced tragedian who’s immersed in great +gobs of gloom all the time—some impressive individual with a St. Bernard +voice that’s entirely wasted in the movies. What I say is: get somebody +like Charlie Chaplin for Romeo and Mary Pickford for Juliet, Mary Carr or +Nazimova for the nurse, and put some punch into it. Take Hamlet: imagine +Ben Turpin and his fat side kick as grave diggers! What a rattling good +duel Doug Fairbanks and Bill Hart could pull off with pistols at forty +paces! If they’re going to have my plays in the movies, then have movie +actors give them; that’s all I say. And make them real movie plays while +they’re about it.” + +“One question more, Mr. Shakespeare. You have described most graphically +the seven ages of man. In view of femininity’s wonderful progress, could +you not give me a parting message on the ages of woman?” + +The great dramatist pondered deeply for a moment and then replied in an +impressive tone. “Woman has only two ages nowadays,” he said with a sigh. +“Her real one and the one she uses to vote.” + +His air of finality showed me that our interview was at an end. + + + + +XI + +ADAM CONDEMNS FEMININE FASHIONS + + +I had been assigned to interview Eve on the feminine fashions of 1922, +but the maid said she was out, and so I had to fall back on old Adam +instead. I approached the father of the race not without diffidence, +feeling so painfully young and fearing he would not care to talk for +publication, but his opening remarks set me entirely at ease. + +“Not care to be quoted!” he exclaimed. “I’m mighty glad of the +opportunity. I don’t have one so often, now that Eve stays home so much. +You see, she calls only on people of the first families, and they’re not +very numerous around here. The neighbors say she gives herself airs, +and so they don’t call on her. It’s been a lasting source of grief +that she’s ineligible to join the Daughters of anything. She arrived +too early on the scene. It used to be awfully galling to her to hear +the women all talking about their family trees and boasting of their +ancestors, and swapping lies about what their great-great-grandfathers +said to George Washington at the battle of San Juan Hill, or whatever +it was, and giving an expurgated edition of what George Washington said +to Lord Cornwallis, as handed down to posterity in the family records. +Eve used to sit in a corner and weep while the Daughters of the Mexican +Revolutions or the Granddaughters of Russian Independence (to be eligible +for the latter you must have an ancestor who shot at least one grand +duke, five assassinations making you an ace; and if your relative +happened to pot a Czar your social position is assured forever) were +spinning their yarns and trying to make each other jealous. But now she’s +organized a new society, the Mothers of Humanity, and she’s president, +secretary, treasurer and chairman of the committee on membership. She’s +away this afternoon calling on Mrs. Methuselah and they’re trying to get +up some scheme that will induce all the women they want to blackball to +apply for membership. + +“Yes, poor Eve has had a pretty hard time right from the start, and I +don’t believe her descendants have appreciated what she did for them. +I’ll say this for her: she’s been as true as steel, even if she hasn’t +always kept her temper so well. It’s a fact that after that first little +unpleasantness she always kept a broomstick handy for any peddler who +might come along trying to sell ‘nice eating apples,’ but consider +the provocation! There we were, nicely settled in the garden, no work, +nothing to do but step out in the yard and help ourselves to all the +fruit and vegetables in sight. All the trees and vines were of the +self-cultivating variety. We’d never even heard of the high cost of +living. No family to support. No neighbors to scrap with. No money, and +no pockets to put it in if we had had, but, glorious thought! No bills +to pay. We had our little disagreements, of course. The first day she +arrived, Eve said I’d been doing the dishes the wrong way, letting ’em +all go until the end of the month and then turning the hose on ’em out +in the front yard; she insisted on washing ’em after every meal. But, as +I said, who was there to know the difference? She had to learn the names +of all the animals, and she was especially glad to hear about the bear, +so that she could tell me what I was as-cross-as when I got the grip that +first winter. + +“Yes, life is real and wife is earnest, but, as I said, ours was very +happy. The first quarrel? I don’t know that I remember just what it +was about. I recall a dispute over Eve’s new bathing suit, which was +intensified by my innocent remark that it was an exceedingly small thing +to quarrel about, but I think our initial serious disagreement occurred +when I respectfully declined to go into hysterics over Cain’s first tooth. + +“And this reminds me: our first social event in Eden was little Cain’s +inaugural bawl. I’m sure you’ll pardon me for getting that off my mind at +this stage of the interview. If I tried that joke on Eve once I tried it +fifty times, and every time I was met by the same blank stare. I’ve been +waiting seven thousand years to tell it to somebody who would appreciate +it. Thank you for smiling. I was the originator of the saying that women +have no sense of humor. Man was made to mourn, and he never realizes it +so keenly as when he hears a woman try to tell a funny story. I could +talk to you all day about Eve, the only girl I ever loved—because there +wasn’t any other. It didn’t take us long to get out of the Garden that +time—principally because Eve didn’t have to wait to dress. Today it would +be a different story. If clothes had been in vogue in the year one I +suppose I might have waited two hours down in the front hall while Eve +was getting ready and packing the trunks—and then probably I’d have had +to go back two or three times for something she thought she’d forgotten +after we got outside. Well, what I started to say was that little Eve +bore up bravely under her misfortunes. She put up a splendid bluff. +I’ll say that for her. Why, do you know, instead of sitting down and +bewailing her hard fate after being put out of the Garden, she actually +gave a coming out party! I certainly admired her nerve, one day, when +I overheard her telling the new neighbors that Eden was all very well +for young couples just starting housekeeping, but the neighborhood was +getting so crowded and it was so near the zoo that we just really had to +move. And then she remarked that she had never been able to get me to +take enough exercise anyway and she thought gardening would now be just +fine for me. It takes a woman to carry a thing off like that. Women are +the world’s champion bluffers and yet we men think we know how to play +poker. Why—” + +“Excuse me, Mr. Adam, but I was asked to get an interview on feminine +fashions of 1922, and whether you think they have changed for the better.” + +“Oh, beg pardon, I’m sure. But when I get talking about Eve my tongue +runs away with me. I suppose all married men are that way. It’s so +delightful sometimes to have the chance of talking without feeling that +you’re interrupting anybody. Feminine fashions, eh? Well, I’ve seen some +changes in the last seven thousand years. I thought nothing could shock +me any more, but I’ve had a few stiff jolts the last few months. I guess +I’m not as strong as I used to be. Back in the old days, in the garden, +fashions weren’t so much. That was before the trouble, but after we +moved, plain, simple fig-leaves became passée, hopelessly old-fashioned +and out-of-date. I read a book the other day entitled ‘How to Dress on +Nothing a Year.’ That described our case exactly, in the early, happy, +carefree days. There wasn’t a dressmaker in the world. If anybody had +mentioned the word ‘modiste’ I’d have thought it was some new kind of +animal I’d overlooked in taking the census. I wouldn’t have known what he +meant. Ever have a sewing woman come to your house and stay a week at a +time and always sit down with the family at table and be a damper on the +conversation? Well, that’s one trouble we never experienced. Eve never +came home from a walk in the woods and remarked carelessly that she’d +just seen a hat downtown that could be bought for a song, and then it +turned out that the song was ‘Old Hundred.’ Not for a minute. Nobody gave +a hang in those days what others might be wearing as the latest style. +We knew they might wear more, but they couldn’t well wear any less. When +anybody wanted a Spring or Fall outfit, all he had to do was to go out +in the woods and pick a new suit off a tree. If you were getting a bit +shabby and resolved to dress better in the future, you just turned over a +new leaf. + +“Then came moving day, and what a change! First crack out of the box +the girls all began clamoring for clothes, real clothes. I remember one +hot day—the thermometer would have been registering about ninety-five, +if there had been one—the girls all set up a howl for furs—furs, mind +you, with the sun hot enough to boil a cold storage egg. I tried to +reason with ’em. ‘You don’t mean furs,’ I said, ‘you mean bathing suits +or peek-aboo waists or mosquito netting. This is summer, the hottest +weather since the year one. The heat has affected your brains. Go take +a swim in the Euphrates and cool off.’ But they insisted that they knew +what they were talking about, and so there was nothing for it but I must +shoulder my old club and go off and kill a bear and a couple of foxes and +a mink and fit ’em all out with a set of furs to wear while most folks +were busy trying to dodge sunstrokes. That was the start, I believe, of +this modern movement of the girls, wrapping themselves up in ‘summer +furs’ just as soon as the weather gets hot enough. That next winter Eve +and the girls started going around in the snow and ice in low shoes and +short, open-work stockings and wish-bone waists and pneumonia sleeves, +and defying the doctors. And that’s the worst of it, that’s what makes me +mad. The girls do defy every last rule of health when it comes to dress +and get away with it. The strongest man that ever lived couldn’t do it +without a call from the undertaker, but the girls seem to thrive on their +foolishness. + +“The fashions of 1922! Well, looking at them pro and con, without +blinders or smoked glasses or anything at all, I may say that they have +nothing on the fashions of the year one. And the fashions of the year one +(I am merely stating the naked truth) had nothing on anybody. One word +more, and I trust you are strong enough to stand it: It’s all right for +the women to be eager rivals, but they ought to draw the line at trying +to outstrip each other.” + +The next thing I knew I was in the ambulance headed for the Olympus +Homeopathic Hospital. Old Adam had done his worst. + + + + +XII + +CAPTAIN KIDD ON TAG DAYS + + +“Yes, I have observed that your country is now experiencing one of +those unprecedented waves of crime for which it is justly celebrated,” +remarked Captain Kidd as he unsheathed a huge bowie knife and proceeded +to cut off a man’s dose of particularly black eating tobacco. “For a +nation that’s been so busy makin’ the world safe for democracy you don’t +seem to be doing much to make it unsafe for the gunmen and stick-up +artists. A few months ago everybody was talkin’ about the ‘uplift.’ And +now they’re trying to dodge the hold-ups. I was down below the other +night. Had a date at a Philadelphia seance. And the moment I appeared the +whole audience started bombarding me with questions about the location +of my buried treasure. I didn’t tell ’em, of course, but I did give ’em +some good advice for the present emergency. I told ’em that any man who +carried more than carfare and lunch money in his pockets these days, +and nights, was a fool. And I also suggested that anybody who buried +his treasure in a sand bank instead of a savings bank or a safe deposit +vault was entitled to admission to the nearest home for the feeble-minded +without an entrance examination. + +“I went out for a walk down Chestnut Street and in going four blocks had +my pocket picked three times. The fellow who was supposed to be looking +after that other block must have been off his beat. I got scared and +wanted to hustle back up here, but to oblige the medium I stayed over +until the next day. I took another walk, down Market street this time, +and found it was a tag day. There were female hold-up artists at every +corner. I turned over what the pick-pockets had missed the night before +and made my escape. Terra firma is no place these days for a reformed +pirate. It reminds him too painfully of the many good bets he overlooked. + +“Sometimes, especially after I’ve been readin’ of the activities of your +cabaret waiters, bootleggers and Pullman porters, I can’t help thinkin’ +that history has been too hard on us plain, unornamental pirates. We had +to pick up a livin’ best we could. We didn’t have our tools and equipment +provided for us. We had to furnish our own cutlasses and pistols, while +your modern waiters and porters have their trays and whisk-brooms anyhow +supplied free of charge. There wasn’t an unwritten law, either, that +anybody who didn’t cough up freely was a piker, and we had the greatest +difficulty sometimes in getting a victim to produce. Folks found all +sorts of mean little schemes for hiding away their valuables. That’s why +we had to invent the ingenious device known as ‘walking the plank’ to +make ’em give till it hurt. But nowadays it’s amazing to me to see the +way the people hand over without even a pistol clapped at their heads. +They’re meek as lambs. The pirate business would have been a lot less +wearing on the nerves if the public had co-operated then the way it does +now. + +“Holding up a shipload of passengers used to be a complicated, annoying +business. First, we’d run up the black flag with the skull and crossbones +on it. Then we’d fire a round shot across the vessel’s bows to bring her +to. We’d paint our faces sometimes to make ourselves look as horrible as +possible, and taking a pistol in each hand and a cutlass in our teeth, +board the ship and line up the passengers and crew in a row. By the time +we’d gone through their pockets and searched the cabin and lugged out the +strong box we’d put in an eight-hour day, straight time. Hard, exhausting +work, and all because people hadn’t been properly trained in those days +to hand over quickly and gracefully so that we could get on to the next +job. + +“If I were flying the Jolly Roger today on my old pirate ship, with my +crew of hard-boiled sinners around me, possibly we’d find merchant and +passenger ships pestering us to come and take their money away from +them. I’d be taking a quiet snooze in my cabin, maybe, when the bosn’s +mate would wake me up and say: ‘Cap’n, a vessel on the starboard bow +has just signalled for us to stand by and it will send over a boatload +of treasure.’ And we’d have to get a cash register and a card index of +customers and a press agent, to see that the papers got our names and +pictures straight, as Jesse James suggests, and an ad writer to put a +piece in saying: ‘Why go elsewhere to be robbed? Come to old reliable +Captain Kidd & Co., Inc., and be immediately relieved.’ But at that I +don’t suppose with my old-fashioned ideas I’d be able to compete with +your up-to-date hold-up games. + +“I guess the best plan, if I were ever able to resume business, would +be to start a ‘drive’ or hold a tag day. From the way the public gives +up, I don’t know but a drive for a $100,000 fund to establish a home +for worn-out pirates would bring in a lot of coin. First thing I’d get +up a dinner for my executive committee of one hundred. You can’t start +anything without a lot of eating these days. Then we’d have a daily +luncheon to receive reports from the captains of the various teams, +winding up with a mass meeting where we’d take up a collection and +announce the result of the house-to-house canvass. Still, a general tag +day might bring in more money. I’d have pretty girls at all the street +corners to pin a miniature artificial lemon on every contributor to the +Captain Kidd Refuge for Reformed Robbers. What do you think?” + +“There are many excellent causes, Captain, that have adopted these +devices to raise money and I hope you don’t intend to reflect upon them.” + +“Oh, not at all, not at all. But don’t you think yourself that the idea +has been worked a little hard? It’s all right for the public to give to +the things it knows about, but I was thinking it was becoming such an +easy mark I might as well have my share. What I object to is being set +down in history as the world’s champion pirate and all around bad man, +when the fact is I was naturally the most peaceable individual you ever +met. The trouble is, I was born about a hundred years too soon. If I were +in business today I wouldn’t be a pirate; I’d be a head waiter in a New +York hotel, with a foreign accent but able to understand all languages. +Money talks. Probably I’d have served an apprenticeship at the place +where they check your hat and coat. + +“If I wasn’t a head waiter I’d be a steward on an ocean ship. Perhaps +I’d feel more at home on the sea anyway. I was talking to my old friend, +Jesse James, the other day and he said the difference between him and the +modern professional tip extractor was that he never robbed the same man +twice. But I suppose his successors believe that anybody who is worth +doing at all is worth doing well. One of these days the American people +will probably adopt a new Declaration of Independence against foreign +waiters and resolve to give the enemy no quarter—and no half dollar +either. They’ll change the old naval hero’s slogan to ‘Don’t give up +the tip.’ ‘Millions for good meals, but not one cent for tribute.’ ‘All +things come to him who waits.’ Well, I’m sorry for the waiter if he ever +gets all that’s coming to him. Ta, ta! young man.” + +And as he hobbled off to splice the main brace I could hear the old +fellow muttering to himself: “And they used to call me a pirate!” + + + + +XIII + +ALFRED THE GREAT TRIES TO FIND PROSPEROUS KING + + +“You want me to talk about modern monarchs!” Alfred the Great responded +with a trace of irritation. “Why don’t you ask me to talk about the +snakes in Ireland or the best method of preserving hen’s teeth? Why +not interview me on the habits of the dodo? How about a little chat +concerning that common domestic animal, the long-toed diplodocus, or that +popular indoor pet, the megatherium? Let’s discuss that numerous class of +estimable citizens, the mound builders. Let’s—” + +“I beg pardon, your Majesty,” I hastened to interrupt, “but I had no +intention of offending. I know kings are very few and far between these +days, but I thought your views on the two or three who have managed to +survive would be most interesting to the present generation. You yourself +were such a mighty monarch, so generally respected for your honesty and +ability and bravery and regal appearance, that I am sure—” + +“There, there, say no more,” he replied with condescending affability, +“I am just a trifle sensitive, I suppose, on the subject. When I see +so many of my brothers sacrificed to the onrushing tide of democracy, +naturally it makes me a bit sad. + +“It’s just a month,” continued King Alfred, as he lighted his long +meerschaum and settled down comfortably in his armchair, which was +fashioned like a throne, “it’s just a month since I took my first trip +down below to see how the earth had been getting along in my absence of +a thousand years plus. And I am frank to confess I found some changes. +I went down under the auspices of a spiritualist who wanted me to tell +a woman’s club how to make griddle cakes. I suppose you’ve read about +the time I let the cakes burn in the farmer’s cottage and the housewife +bawled me out when she came back. It’s in every school reader. Well, +the next day I called in my chief cook and had him show me how to make +griddle cakes that would melt in your mouth. There’s no trick at all to +it, really. The only thing is you must keep your mind on it. That time +in the cottage I got to thinking about a new way to fight the Danes, and +the first thing I knew there was a smell like burning rubber and the old +dame rushed in and called me down. I’d have ordered her off to instant +execution, but just then our side needed all the votes it could get, and +I didn’t know whether her husband would thank me or be annoyed. + +“Sometimes you can make a hit with a husband by giving his wife a +ten-year sentence in jail, and again it makes him peevish—particularly +if he has to do his own housework. So I spared her that time. Where was +I? Oh, yes, as I was saying, I went down to tell the club how to make +griddle cakes. After I’d filled that date I decided to take a little +trip around the capitols of Europe and call on my cousins, the kings and +queens. You know every king is supposed to be at least a cousin of every +other one—that’s why we have such strained relations so often in royal +circles. Well, I decided first to project my astral body up to Moscow, +the ancient capitol of Russia. I’d never traveled that far during my +previous existence on earth, because I couldn’t spare the time—our wars +were a continuous performance. Arrived at the palace, I walked right up +to the front door and was going in when a big fellow, roughly clad, his +countenance concealed beneath a tangled growth of whiskers, barred my +passage. + +“‘Who do you want to see?’ he inquired gruffly. + +“‘Whom do I want to see?’ I said, ‘Why—’ + +“‘No, _who_, not _whom_,’ he returned. ‘Anybody who uses good grammar is +bourgeois and an enemy of the Commune. Down with fool laws and rules. +This is the land where all speak and do as they choose.’ + +“‘But you’re not letting me speak as I choose,’ I retorted. ‘How’s that +for consistency?’ He said anyone who was a Bolshevik, whatever that +was, didn’t have to be consistent. Consistency was a jewel. Jewelry was +wealth. The Bolsheviki were opposed to wealth and private property in +any form. I was about to force my way past this lunatic when a number of +other rough-looking persons, armed with guns and bayonets, rushed out of +the palace and surrounded me. + +“‘I want to see the king!’ I exclaimed. And immediately by their faces, +or as much of them as I could see peeping out from beneath the whiskers—I +saw that something was wrong. + +“‘He wants to see the Czar,’ they shouted, and then laughed in a way +that made my blood run cold. ‘There are no more kings. They’ve been +abolished.’ And one huge fellow, drawing a long knife out of his belt, +shook it menacingly under my nose and began to cross-examine me. It took +me about one-fifth of a second to make up my mind to be about the most +enthusiastic revolutionist and all-around king hater that ever was +born. ‘What did you want to see the Czar for, eh?” he asked. ‘I want to +kill him,’ I replied. And a chorus of cheers rent the air. But it was an +exceedingly narrow escape. I learned later that the Czar was no more, +that the country was being ruled by a little band of lunatics calling +themselves Bolsheviki, and that it was a crime even to utter the word +king unless a strong adjective was put before it. + +“I couldn’t understand it at the time, but I didn’t wait to investigate. +I decided to get back to civilization by the shortest route, and so I +projected my astral body over to Poland. To save time, I’ll just say +that Poland was as benighted as Russia. No king. Then I hopped over to +Jugo-Slovakia, I believe you call it. Same thing there. On I sped over +the kingless countries of the Balkans and up to Budapest. A big sign on +the front door of the palace: ‘Beggars, Peddlers and Kings Not Admitted +to This Building.’ I moved on. I went hopefully to Vienna. Picking up a +newspaper, I read these headlines: ‘Open Season for Aristocrats Begins. +In First Day’s Shooting Twenty-nine Counts and Forty-three Barons Bagged. +Slaying Parties Now Favorite Winter Sport. Special Prize Offered by +Government to First Person to Kill King.’ Two minutes later I was on my +aerial way to Berlin. Here, at least, I was sure I should find royal +autocracy firmly entrenched. But as I went up the palace walk one glance +told me that Germany, too, had cast off her royal rulers. Sitting on the +front steps in his shirtsleeves, smoking a corncob pipe, was a slouchy, +unshaven citizen whom I mistook for the janitor. In the old days you know +no such uncouth specimen of humanity would have been permitted within +half a mile of the palace. And who do you think he turned out to be? +The President of the German Republic. A harness-maker, or cobbler, or +something of the sort. I learned that, as in Russia, the very name of +king was tabooed. Just a day or two before a prominent author had been +executed for absent-mindedly remarking that he was fond of collecting his +royalties. In a German deck of cards instead of having a king they have +two knaves. So I lit out for France. Here I found they hadn’t had a king +for many years. I inquired anxiously about my old kingdom, England. ‘Oh, +they have something over there they call a king,’ I was told. ‘You might +cross the Channel and have a chat with him. It would cheer him up.’ + +“I decided to act on the hint. I didn’t see many changes in London. I +thought I recognized some familiar faces among the cab horses. I got an +audience with King George by pretending to be the business agent of +the Pavers’ and Rammers’ Union. Labor is all-powerful in England today +(where is it not?) and George sent word to walk right in the minute he +got my card. He was wearing that morning the fool dress uniform of an +Honorary Vice-President in the Royal Hibernian Highlanders, Ltd. As soon +as we were alone in his private office and I disclosed my identity, he +fell on my neck and wept, and called me Uncle Alf. It was very affecting. +‘You’re the only king left that I can talk confidentially to,’ he said, +‘and you’re not really alive. It used to be that almost every country +in Europe had its king and royal family. Everybody with a drop of royal +blood in his veins was on the public payroll. It kept me busy exchanging +birthday greetings with my fellow monarchs. I got a stack of letters from +them every day. Today the annual convention of the European Kings’ Mutual +Benefit Association could hold its meetings in a telephone booth. Where +have they all gone? Some are dead and others wish they were. + +“‘There’s not much to choose between the mighty dead and the mighty near +dead,’ King George continued. ‘Cousin Mohammed, the last I heard of him, +was running an elevator in a Swiss hotel. Cousin Ferdinand was an old +clothes man in Naples. Cousin Ludwig had got a job as janitor of an +apartment house—determined to be an autocrat to the end. Cousin Wilhelm +was engaged in writing his auto-obituary and reading a book on ‘St. +Helena As a Health Resort.’ Cousin Charles got upset and left for good. +All the retired kings I know are retiring indeed. About the quickest way +to unpopularity these days is to proclaim the divine right of kings. Even +my oldest boy feels it, poor Wails. ‘Uneasy lies the head that wears a +crown.’ The man who wrote that knew what he was talking about. It makes +the poorest nightcap on record. I’ll s’y. + +“‘I feel comparatively safe myself,’ he went on, ‘because I’m not +and never have been a real king. I draw the salary and hold the +title and wear tailor-made uniforms without doing the work. I have +no real authority. Why, I can’t dictate to anybody except the court +stenographer—when she’s not too busy scrutinizing her nose. Shall I tell +you who’s the real boss of Buckingham Palace? (Whisper) The wife. I can’t +even spend my own money as I choose. Freedom of the ‘shes’ and all that +sort of thing. Also, there’s an Hereditary Keeper of the Royal Purse, +and whenever I want any coin I have to apply to him. You’ve heard of the +‘king’s touch’? Well, that’s it. George is the ruler of England, all +right, but his first name is Lloyd, not King.’ + +“‘And is there any genuine autocrat left on earth?’ I asked King George. +‘Anybody to carry on the traditions of the old absolute monarchs?’ + +“‘Just one,’ he replied, ‘and he’s not called a king. His title is +President. His name is—’ + +“‘George! George!’ a shrill voice interrupted his Majesty. ‘Did you get +that pound of sugar I sent you for?’ + +“‘I told you I wasn’t an absolute monarch,’ George said, as he motioned +me to depart while the departing was good. But I wonder whom he meant +when he said there was only one world autocrat left?” + +As I took my leave I could not even hazard a guess. + + + + +XIV + +OLD KING COLE GIVES VIEWS ON PROHIBITION + + +The city editor’s assignment read: “Interview Old King Cole if sober (I +mean the king, not you) and get his photo and pictures of the pipe, the +bowl and the three fiddlers, if possible, for a nice layout. Stir him up +on prohibition.” + +I found His Majesty at his home at the corner of Rye and Bourbon Avenues, +planet of Jupiter, next door to Bacchus and across the street from +Gambrinus. I entered his presence not without trepidation, for I had +never interviewed a real king before, although I am personally acquainted +with several apartment house janitors and the policeman on our beat. +But I needn’t have feared, for he received me with the utmost urbanity. +Dressed in a purple robe, he was sitting in a chair of state and looked +every foot a king. I just had time to note his typical poker face, +suffused with a royal flush, when he gave me greeting. + +“Sit down and have something,” he exclaimed. “What’ll it be? Tea, +lemonade, beerine or just a drink from the old town pump? Here’s a new +soft bottled beverage that’s having quite a run with the boys. It’s made +of ginger, red pepper, turpentine, cocaine, yeast and chewing tobacco. +Here’s another drink the boys call the ‘lame mule,’ because it hasn’t any +kick. Ha, ha! Would you like to have some more of my jokes?” + +“In just a few minutes, Your Majesty, but business before pleasure. I +have been asked to interview you on the subject of prohibition, but I had +no idea that booze was under the ban up here.” + +“Oh, yes, we had to follow the fashion. Queen Cole, as you may not know, +has been president of the West Jupiter W. C. T. U. for years, and when +America did the Sahara act, why there was nothing to it but we must give +prohibition a whirl too. But I dunno. I kind of think we’ll be back on +the old basis again some day. + +“Sometimes, however, I can’t help wondering what’ll be the next great +reform. Abolishing tobacco, prob’ly. The fellows who never succeeded +in learning to smoke are getting busy already, I see. If I called for +my bowl today I wouldn’t get it, and I suppose along about week after +next, if I call for my pipe, somebody will tell me that all tobacco is +prohibited except Wheeling tobies containing less than half of one per +cent of the real thing. I can still call for my fiddlers three, but the +next thing I know they’ll be locking me up for running a cabaret without +a license and a cover charge. + +“You never can tell where those measly reformers will break out next. One +of these mornings you’ll pick up the paper and read: ‘Association for the +Prohibition of Lemon Pie Introduces Bill in Congress. Alarming Increase +in Indigestion Attributed to Seductive Delicacy. New Law Provides for +Right of Search of Pantries.’ There’d be a lot of kicks, but what’s +the use? Folk would go around wearing buttons inscribed: ‘No Pie, No +Work.’ Orators would point out that the workingman must have his pie. +Schoolboys would go on strike. New England farmers would protest that +their breakfasts had been spoiled. But the pie amendment would be slipped +in some appropriation bill as a joker, and then good-bye pie. + +“That would be only a starter. The scheme to have the government +prescribe what you shall eat and drink and smoke is only beginning to get +up speed. Every domestic menu will have to be O. K’d by the Secretary +of the Interior. There will be laws to make everybody go to bed at ten +and get up at six, to prohibit the wearing of blue neckties with red +whiskers, to compel the printing of all baseball reports in English, and +to force pedestrians to wear license numbers, front and rear, and give +three loud honks on approaching congested cross-walks. + +“You’ll have to get up in the morning by the official whistle, eat +breakfast according to the food controller, ride to work in a government +street car, work so many hours, play a round of golf on the public links, +don a Bureau of Health mask to kiss your wife when you get home, eat +another government meal, sit on the front porch and smoke a tobaccoless +cigar, fight the mosquitos awhile—remembering the anti-profanity +amendment to the old Federal Constitution—and then go to bed when the +curfew sounds, being careful not to transgress the state anti-snoring +law. That’s what you’re coming to. + +“‘Old King Cole was a merry old soul.’ Ah, my boy, I’m afraid the +emphasis is going to be on the ‘was.’ I try to keep up the bluff that I’m +enjoying myself; it’s a tough task. Take away my pipe, and my bowl, and +my fiddlers three, and you can have my job as king. A king will have no +more fun than a commoner. But here comes the Queen. Sh! Sh! Not a word of +this to Her Majesty. + +“Yes, my dear, this young man and I have just been having a chat +about the delights and benefits of prohibition. As I was saying, what +a glorious thing it is to think that husbands who used to hang around +bar-rooms after office hours will now spend their evenings at home, +sitting by the fireside reading Woodrow Wilson’s ‘History of the American +People’ in nine volumes, net, and drinking hot lemonade. Must you go +so soon? Well, good-bye. And listen: if you must print what I said, +perhaps you’d better not use my name. Just say ‘one of our most prominent +citizens,’ or something. Farewell.” + +And as I stepped into the cockpit of my ethereal airplane I reflected +that some kings, after all, are no different from other men. + + + + +XV + +KING HENRY VIII ADMITS SOME MATRIMONIAL MISTAKES + + +“King Henry the Eighth wants to see you,” said the city editor as I +reported for duty. “Says he doesn’t think we’re giving him a square deal. +We’ve printed interviews with Solomon and Bluebeard and Brigham Young, +all much-married men, and let them make their explanations to put them in +a better light with posterity, but for some reason he can’t understand +we’ve passed him up. Better see what the old boy has to say.” + +“Yes,” said His Majesty, as he motioned me graciously to a seat in his +reception room, “I thought it only due to myself to make a statement for +publication, particularly since you have been interviewing some of my +noted—er—er—competitors, or perhaps I should say fellow-sufferers, and +setting them right with the public. Not that I consider them exactly in +my class, of course. Unlike Solomon and Bro. Young, I did not believe +in what I might call numerically-simultaneous matrimony, nor like +Mr. Bluebeard did I think a man justified, whatever the provocation, +in resorting to the most extreme measures himself and taking the law +into his own hands. Let everything be done strictly according to law, +was my motto. I defy anyone, in the case of my wives, to find the +coroner’s verdict defective. I am not saying there is not such a thing +as justifiable uxoricide. But I can’t understand how a man could get up +his nerve to do it. Certainly, speaking for myself, after being bossed by +the first five, I’m sure I didn’t feel like raising my finger, or even +my voice, against Mrs. Henry Tudor VI. If they lost their heads I do not +think the whole blame should rightly rest on me. It takes two to make +a quarrel. There were faults on both sides—especially theirs. History +records the—that is—rather sudden shufflings-off of my several spouses, +but it doesn’t tell the real reasons therefor. Sometimes it seems to +me that the history of my case must have been written either by old +bachelors or by members of the women’s rights association. Certainly if +experienced married men had done the job they wouldn’t have left out all +the extenuating circumstances.” + +“As what, Your Majesty?” + +“Well, did you ever see any reference in history to the annual earthquake +at St. James’ Palace known as the Fall house-cleaning cataclasm? Of +course you haven’t. And yet we husbands were afflicted with the same +epidemics in those days, that seem so far away, as you are now.” + +“I never thought of it before, Your Majesty. With the canning and +house-cleaning seasons over, a modern married man begins to realize just +how the soldiers felt the day the armistice was signed.” + +“Precisely. Even though he knows the trouble is bound to recur when the +germs get in the air again next Fall. But the man who has been married to +only a limited extent can’t begin to sympathize with a case like mine. +The first few wives are the hardest. + +“Take this matter of house-cleaning. Every wife has her own system, her +exclusive, copyrighted plan of offensive campaign which differs from +everybody else’s. My first wife, for example, believed in moving all the +furniture out of the dining room into the hall on the very first day +of the attack and then served all meals for two days in the form of a +stand-up free lunch in the butler’s pantry. The regular hall furniture +was moved into the parlor to make room for the dining room furniture. +Consequently the place was so cluttered up there was nowhere to sit down. +But of course all husbands, even when house-cleaning is not prevalent, +have to stand a good deal. My second wife, as soon as she was inaugurated +in office as secretary of the interior and speaker of my house, reversed +all the precedents of her predecessor. When the house-cleaning epidemic +arrived she collected all the furniture in the palace and piled it up in +the dining room. On fine days during the upheaval I got a hand-out on +the back porch and on wet days I ate in the cellar. I had just become +fairly accustomed to this domestic arrangement when Wife III, Series A, +appeared on the scene with some entirely different and equally ingenious +scheme for turning the house downside up. So it went, each new domestic +administration having its own peculiar policies, not only with reference +to house-cleaning but to all forms of domestic discipline. I was willing +enough to obey—I realized that is the first duty of soldiers and +husbands—but I had work keeping track of the orders. I perceived then why +so many married men were volunteering for my new army to fight in France: +they wanted to get where there would not be quite so much discipline. + +“As I was saying, I got mixed on my orders and was constantly making +mistakes. Wives so often fail to realize that accidents will happen to +the best regulated husbands. For instance, Wife No. 1 had a rule that I +must be in by eleven o’clock, but might stay out till twelve if I could +tell just where I’d been. Wife No. 2 changed the hour to ten and No. +3, if I recall correctly, fixed it at ten-thirty. It’s not strange if +occasionally along late in the evening I got a trifle mixed as to which +administration was in office at that precise moment and consequently +strayed a bit from the prescribed schedule. I could not always be sure +whether I was supposed to be running on eastern or central standard time. +As a result the first unvarying greeting that met my ears on my arrival +home was apt to assume the sharply interrogatory form. I always answered +whenever I could distinctly remember. At least I did my best. Matrimony +is paved with good intentions. + +“There were other disadvantages, also—connected with what I now perceive +to have been my mistaken matrimonial policy—which may not occur to +persons of more limited experience. For instance, how many realize that +I was virtually at the mercy of a soviet of my wives’ relations? When +a wife happened to shuffle off did her relatives immediately conclude +that they were no longer my connections by marriage? They did not. They +still considered themselves close relations—even closer, when I sought +to borrow money from them. After a few matrimonial administrations I +had enough ‘in-laws’ to fill a convention hall. Indeed, they did form a +sort of mutual benefit association and used to meet and pass resolutions +of condemnation on me and condolence with the new incumbent every time I +happened to change wives. Sore, of course, because they weren’t invited +to the wedding. But I had to draw the line somewhere. In those days, as +now, they used to term it ‘solemnizing’ a marriage, although that word +‘obey’ in the ceremony was a joke. And half the time I felt just like +a sort of comic supplement. In all my voyaging on the seven seas of +matrimony I can recollect very few times when I was allowed to do any of +the steering. Looking back, life seems to have been just one wife after +another. Why did I do it? Well, I read in the newspapers the other day a +supposedly sensational story of a Boston man who got married while under +the influence of hypnotism, but I couldn’t see that the case contained +any unusual feature.” + +“Speaking of matrimony, Your Majesty (as you have just been doing so +extensively), have you any advice to offer? What do you consider the +lucky month for marriage?” + +“Young man,” replied the king in solemn tones as he arose to bid me +adieu, “I don’t know anything about that. But I can tell you this: there +are at least six unlucky ones. That is as far as I experimented.” + +And though I possessed only one-sixth of his matrimonial experience, I +shook the aged monarch’s hand in silent sympathy before tiptoeing from +his pathetic presence. + + + + +XVI + +DON QUIXOTE SAYS HE WASN’T SO CRAZY AS SOME MODERN REFORMERS + + +As the trim figure in a neatly fitted sack suit arose to greet me +with an odd mixture in his manner of ancient courtesy and the modern +“glad hand,” my face must have betrayed my surprise at his unexpected +appearance for he exclaimed: “Astonished, eh? Most earth folk are. Seem +to expect to see the shade of Don Quixote de la Mancha togged out in his +old cast-iron clothes and helmet with a sword for a walking stick. They +fail to make allowance for the fact that we shades progress, just like +you people down below. We try to be as up-to-date as possible. I suppose +you thought, too, you were going to interview a harmless lunatic and +listen amusedly to his rambling conversation and perhaps have the fun of +joshing him a bit. Well, I’m happy to say I’ve got over my delusions, +or illusions or whatever they were. And shall I tell you what cured me? +Why, watching the antics and performances of some of you down on earth. +My motto is thoroughness. I want to do every job up in the most complete +style. I will either be the champion, the record-holder, the biggest in +the bunch or else nothing at all. I may once have been in a fair way +to becoming the world’s most inspired idiot and champion all-round, +catch-as-catch-can professional ‘regulator,’ but I’m now a has-been, a +second-rater. There’s too much competition. I’m ashamed of myself. I +throw up my hands and quit. Do you understand me?” + +“Well, not entirely, Don Quixote. What modern competitors or successors +have you got?” + +“Do you have to ask that?” he replied. “Why, I can get materialized and +take a run below and in five minutes see more fellows crazier than I ever +was than I can count. Or I can just stay up here and read the newspapers. +I was reading only this morning of a bill that’s going to be introduced +in the Maine Legislature to prohibit women from wearing high-heeled +shoes. They used to call me a fool reformer, but I never was quite so +idiotic as to try to reform women’s dress in the slightest particular. +Trying to dictate feminine fashions would be just about as sensible as +attempting to sweep back the ocean. The next thing they know somebody +will be trying to tack an amendment on to the Constitution forbidding +women to wear furs in summer and low shoes and open-work waists in +winter. I see one writer calls the anti-high-heels measure ‘Quixotic.’ +That shows all he knows about me. I was accused of being slightly off at +one time, but nobody ever charged me with utter imbecility. And I see +that some other professional set-’em-all-rights are going to put the ban +on tobacco—if they can. They’ll have some hard sledding. But I was glad +to observe that a judge had the sense to turn down an application for a +charter from an anti-tobacco association. The society’s announced object +was to make the growing, manufacture, sale and use of tobacco illegal. I +held my breath until I found what the judge did. + +“And what did the judge do? Opening a fresh box of Havanas, he carefully +selected a long, slender, chocolate-colored panatela, with a red and +gold waistband, cut off the end with his gold-mounted clipper, fished a +match out of his vest pocket, struck it on the ink-stand, applied the +blaze to the end of the cigar, blew a fragrant cloud of incense to the +ceiling in worship of the spirit of justice and perfect impartiality, +gave a great big sigh of measureless content, and then proceeded to write +an opinion on the subject that did my heart good to read. In dignified, +judicial terms he affectionately advised the anti-tobacconists to go +soak their venerable heads; he reminded them that the most admirable +and wholly beneficial occupation of the human species is minding its own +business; and intimated that so long as the court should continue to +enjoy unimpaired intellectual vigor and be in full possession of all its +faculties, it would never authorize a movement to regulate the personal +conduct of rational adult beings by organized idiocy. + +“It was an elegant set-back for the chronic busybodies, but I haven’t +much hope it will be permanent. Mark my words, those fellows are only +getting ready to break out in some new place. If they can’t prohibit +tobacco they’ll attack chewing gum or ice cream soda. One of these +days I expect to pick up the paper and read: ‘New Sundae Law Proposed. +Association Opposed to Ice Cream Soda in Any Form Applies for Charter.’ I +may have made a few mistakes that time when I was supposed to be a little +off my balance, but I never made the same mistake twice. I tilted at +those old windmills, as they turned out to be, but I didn’t respond to an +encore. Some of your modern reformers are continually butting their heads +against stone walls, and if their heads weren’t so thick they couldn’t +get away with it. + +“Folks laugh at that account of my exploits and adventures, but they +don’t stop to notice that there are lots of fellows running around loose +who are ten times funnier than Don Quixote ever was. For instance, I +understand you have a good many Congressmen-at-large. There are societies +already comprising some fifty-seven and one-half varieties of butters-in, +advocating all kinds of reforms, including the prohibiting of flowers +from growing on Sunday. The first thing we know they’ll be having +each new Congress decide whether men shall wear their hair pompadour +or brushed down (if they have any), rule on the question of visible +suspenders in summer and settle the length of moustaches, coats, sermons, +stockings, lawns, skirts, soft drinks and hatpins. And of course there’ll +be a law compelling all persons to wear long faces. + +“Now, I may have been a bit erratic at one time, but I never got up a +Society for the Prevention of Public Enjoyment. The trouble with lots of +your reformers is, that not satisfied with being ‘off’ themselves, they +want to drive other folks crazy. They’re doing it. Take that proposed +state anti-snoring law out in Oklahoma. It’s going to declare any person +a public nuisance who keeps other folks awake at night with solos by his +nasal organ. But nobody dreams of interfering with the scoundrel who +dashes along the street in his automobile at two A. M. with his muffler +cut-out. I see you’re surprised at my keeping tab on things down below. +There’s a reason. It gratifies me to realize that if I were back on earth +I should have no trouble procuring a certificate of perfect sanity after +the way so many folks are behaving. I see one man was paid $300,000 for +pounding another man who got $200,000 for letting him do it. And the very +persons who contributed to that fund kick the loudest about the high cost +of living. And yet they used to call me unsound! Puck said a mouthful +when he remarked: ‘What fools these mortals be.’ The world is a place of +perpetual change, and yet lots of women continue cheerfully to give up +two dollars a curl for a ‘permanent’ Marcel wave. Foolish men are less +concerned with how many miles they can get out of a gallon than with how +many smiles they can get out of a quart. + +“But what showed me more clearly than anything else whither you earth +folks are drifting was a sign, on my last trip, outside a butcher’s: +‘Tongue, 48 cents a pound; brains, 33 cents.’ If tongue is getting to be +worth so much more than brains, then I’m glad I shuffled off when I did.” + +And as I volplaned back to earth I wondered also why our topsy-turvy +world ever considered Don Quixote loco. + + + + +XVII + +PHARAOH SOLVES SERVANT PROBLEM + + +All the way to King Pharaoh’s house I kept wondering how I should +enter the presence of decayed royalty. More modern monarchs, I knew +from my reportorial experience, were frequently regular fellows whom +it was perfectly safe to offer to shake hands with and perhaps, after +a brief acquaintance, to slap on the back and ask for the loan of +a cigarette or the “makin’s.” But the thought of conversing with a +four-thousand-year-old personage who had retired from the king business, +yet retained his former notions of dignity and grandeur, filled me with +awe. Imagine my astonishment, therefore, when in response to my ring at +the front door it slowly opened about half an inch, as if someone were +trying to peek out and size up the visitor, and then a moment later it +was thrown back and a commanding figure, who I knew from his pictures was +none other than Pharaoh himself, stood in the doorway with a smile of +welcome. + +“Come right in,” he exclaimed. “I was afraid at first you might be +a walking delegate of the Dish-Breakers’ Union.” And there stood the +erstwhile mighty monarch clad in a long blue-checked apron, the kind that +pins up over the shoulders with a couple of thing-a-ma-jigs and comes +’way down below the belt. His sleeves were rolled up above his elbows and +he had the general appearance of a cross between a chauffeur who had been +digging in the garden and a butler who had taken an automobile apart and +was now trying to put the pieces back again. + +“Your Majesty,” I began, with a low obeisance, but that was as far as I +got with my speech of introduction. + +“Come right out in the kitchen,” he interrupted affably, “and we can have +a chat while I’m doing up my dishes. I understand you want to interview +me on the servant problem. You’ve come to the right shop. I can talk +feelingly on the subject. In the course of forty-five centuries of +experience I’ve hit all the high spots, from the time when I had fifteen +hundred cooks and chambermaids in the house and six hundred charioteers +in the royal garage down to the cruel present, when I’m reduced to doing +my own work. The servant problem! I’ve solved it. I could send you out +of here so chock full of information about it that you couldn’t walk +straight. Have a smoke? Mrs. Pharaoh objects to my smoking a pipe and +washing the china at the same time (she complained at dinner of a decided +flavor of nicotine in the soup) but there’s no reason why you shouldn’t +light up while I’m finishing the job. Then, after I manicure the knives +and forks, massage the sink, and take a brief and exhilarating spin +around the dining room with my new six-cylinder carpet sweeper, I’ll have +nothing to do but fix the oatmeal for tomorrow morning, in the jackpot or +whatever you call it, put it on to boil and I’ll be at your service. + +“Yes, it may seem to you like considerable of a comedown,” said his +former majesty when we were comfortably settled in armchairs in the +library, “but during the last few days, since I let the sole remaining +servant go, I’ve been experiencing the first real peace I’ve known in +just four thousand five hundred and sixty-two years. Quite a long time +when you come to think of it. You ask me to define the servant problem +and then comment upon it. Let me tell you some of our recent troubles +with ‘domestic assistants.’ That’s what they want to be called nowadays. +Oh, yes, we have servants up here. This isn’t exactly heaven, you know. +Somebody has said that voyaging on the sea of matrimony is all right +until the cook wants to be captain. Well, our cooks have all wanted to +be commanders-in-chief with the pay, pretty near, of active admirals. And +among them they’ve mighty near wrecked the ship. The next to the last +we got, No. 19, promised to be the light of our existence. The light +went out one night and never came back. Her testimonials said she was a +very good cook. They must have been referring exclusively to her moral +character. Her successor was described as ‘a perfect treasure’, but, +according to the proverb, ‘Riches take wings,’ and she was no exception. +In her case, however, it was just as well. She claimed to have cooked ten +years for John D. Rockefeller. And it did not occur to us until later +that Mr. Rockefeller is a chronic sufferer from dyspepsia. + +“This wasn’t home any more. It was getting to be a one-night lodging +house for ‘domestic assistants.’ You mustn’t call ’em servants, you know, +not since they’ve organized. And they certainly are sticklers for union +rules, union hours, union wages. Why, our last laundress (excuse me, +I should say ‘garment ablutionist’), refused to wash any except union +underwear. Fact! And now I hear they’re agitating for the three-shift or +platoon system, like the firemen, each set on duty eight hours. Well, +the other day we reached a crisis when Cook 20 served notice that +she’d quit unless we built an addition to the garage to accommodate her +runabout, and threw in an extra allowance for gasoline. I decided to fire +the whole bunch: the ‘upstairs girl’ (whom I’d often consigned to the +lower regions), the waitress (who believed all things ought to come to +her while waiting), and the cook (who was always getting everybody else +into hot water, but wouldn’t put her own hands in). So I made a clean +sweep (something we could never get any of the servants to do) and I’ve +been walking delegate of the Husbands’ Labor Union, and ‘kitchen police’ +myself, ever since. And it’s been as peaceful and quiet around here as +the Sahara Desert. I haven’t enjoyed myself so much since the day the +business agent of the Children of Israel Pyramid Builders’ Union fell off +the top of Cheops and they had to dig him out of the sand with a derrick. + +“There are various ways of solving the so-called servant problem. +Speaking from an experience of roughly four thousand years, I should say +the best way is to do your own work. It is a lot less work in the long +run. But if you are determined to have servants, then you must adopt the +modern viewpoint, treat ’em like the high-priced specialists that they +are and fix up a regular schedule providing that the mistress shall have +at least one evening out a week and the use of the parlor on the nights +the maids aren’t entertaining. Our last cook had ‘Wednesday’ engraved +on her visiting cards (it was her receiving day), and when her cousin +was released from the penitentiary after serving six months for petty +larceny (he stole a Ford), she gave him a coming-out party that kept the +neighborhood awake until three o’clock in the morning. I read somewhere +the other day that under the modern system employers and servants are to +treat each other as equals—but I don’t believe the servants will do it. +They’re getting too proud for that. We made the experiment of having the +cook sit with us at the dining table, but it didn’t work out very well. +We were kept so busy waiting on her that we didn’t get half enough to eat +and she criticized the way in which I took my soup. A better plan would +be to have all the family eat at the second table. + +“But speaking of servant troubles back in Egypt a few thousand years +ago—those were the happy days. Suppose one of the palace cooks threatened +to quit because she could get two kopecks more a week and every Sunday +out from a lady on the next street. We just told her to pack up without +waiting to get dinner; there were about forty-nine more cooks in the +kitchen. We had so many at one time that it took six to fry an egg. There +was one disadvantage, we had the worst soup I ever tasted—too many cooks, +you know—but there were lots of benefits from always having plenty of +help. It’s true the kitchen on Saturday night looked like a convention +of the Policemen’s Mutual Benefit Association, with all the cops calling +on the girls, but it made us feel quite safe from burglars. The modern +housewife is handicapped because she can’t exert her authority. If she +has several servants she’s afraid to fire one because the rest might +quit. And if she has only one she can’t fire her because she doesn’t know +where she’d get another. Even administering a mild reprimand nowadays +means that you’ll have to do your own washing. It’s rather different +from the times when I was king and had a list of penalties hung up in +the kitchen as a warning. Tough pie-crust meant three months in jail and +the cook who burnt the toast was thrown to the crocodiles. I had three +servants standing behind my chair at dinner—and nowadays servants won’t +stand for anything. They trembled at my slightest frown—nowadays they +give me the shake. Every time I passed they’d salaam and chant: ‘Preserve +our gracious ruler.’ Today they’d be shouting: ‘Can the king!’ + +“And so I say times haven’t merely changed; they’re turned upside down. +And the folk we used to call servants are on top. What are we to do? +Why, if we want to be free and independent and rich and enjoy ourselves, +we’ll beat ’em at their own game, we’ll join the Bread Molders’ Union +or become kitchen chemists or garment ablutionists or general domestic +aides-de-camp—the real successors of royalty. There are only two ways to +solve the servant problem: do your own work or go out and do somebody’s +else’s. I tell you—beg pardon, I smell something burning in the kitchen.” + +Out we dashed, to find the helpless oatmeal suffering a martyr’s fate. +Pharaoh contemplated the ruin for a moment and it inspired his parting +word: + +“Good-bye, young man, and perhaps if more people did their own work for +a while they would learn, after all, to have some sympathy for servants. +We can’t get along without ’em. The servant girl may be a perpetual +conundrum, but civilization isn’t ready to give her up.” + + + + +XVIII + +NERO DISCUSSES JAZZ + + +I shuddered as the city editor announced my assignment. True, I had +tackled departed desperadoes and undesirable citizens whom I feared about +as much in the spirit as in the flesh, but they were different. None of +these could be such a formidable customer to interview as an ex-emperor +who was notorious for his callous cruelties. + +But duty is duty, and I donned my bullet-proof vest, put a revolver in +my hip-pocket with a bottle of non-spirituous nerve tonic which a kind +physician prescribed for me, and sallied forth to my waiting plane. + +Five minutes later I was sitting calmly in the presence of the former +imperial tyrant. The ordeal of introduction I had so much dreaded +proved to be nothing. I had found the ex-emperor as approachable as a +presidential candidate two months before the convention and as willing +to talk for publication as a grand opera star who’s just lost another +$10,000 necklace. + +Could this be the old monster I had read about, I wondered, as +overflowing with welcome he invited me to make myself thoroughly at home. + +“What do you want me to talk about?” he asked. “Modern music and +musicians? Delighted. Then you still regard me as an expert? I am +gratified to hear it. I had feared that some slanderous stories that were +circulated might have prejudiced you earth folk against me. + +“Perhaps a few words of explanation might not be amiss. You have heard, +no doubt, about the time when, as the popular phrase has it, I fiddled +while Rome burned? The opposition made a good deal of that circumstance +at the next election. They said I ought to have got out and hustled with +the firemen, regardless of the fact that I did not belong to their union. +Every man to his trade, I say. The firemen played on the flames and I +played on the violin. + +“Possibly, on looking back now that it is all over, I might have made a +happier selection of the composition I performed on that occasion. It was +entitled ‘Keep the Home Fires Burning,’ a forerunner of a popular piece +which I believe is not entirely unknown in your own country today. But +that was a mere bit of thoughtlessness. + +“The extent of that conflagration, also, has been much exaggerated. +It was confined to a few old garages in the suburbs upon which, oddly +enough, I had taken out insurance only a couple of days before. One of +those remarkable coincidences which do occasionally occur in real life. + +“My political enemies tried to make a good deal out of it, but I am glad +to say they were unable to prove anything. My candidates for the Forum +were elected by the largest majorities on record. And if that isn’t +vindication, what is?” + +“Very interesting, Mr. Nero. But how did you come to take up music as a +study and attain such remarkable proficiency?” + +“I took up music in the first place as a remedy for baldness. I was +troubled considerably with falling hair and dandruff and I had observed +that all professional musicians were endowed with flowing locks. I looked +into the subject. I talked to the court barber and to several performers +on the violin, clarionet and bass drum, with names ending in ‘off’ and +‘sky,’ who had lately come to Rome from other countries. One musician +informed me that five years before he had been so bald that flies trying +to skate over the shiny surface would fall and break their legs, but +he was now wearing his hair in a Dutch pompadour. He was a skilled +performer on the classic lyre. + +“I cannot say that the study and performance of music had a similar +effect in my case, no appreciable change being noted in the hirsute +adornment of my dome of thought, though my wife’s mother did refer to my +musical efforts as hair-raising—but there were other compensations. As a +result of my daily practicing on the violin—or rather nightly, my hours +being from about one to three A. M. as a rule—the price of real estate in +the neighborhood dropped twenty-five per cent, and I was able to buy in +some very desirable properties I had long had my eye on—for a song. (No +pun intended.) It was about this time that some one originated the saying +concerning making Rome howl. + +“I also played at the Rome Asylum for the Insane every Saturday +afternoon, and they were just crazy to hear me. One Friday night five of +the inmates committed suicide and my political opponents, as usual, tried +to make capital of the occurrence. + +“But these little things did not interfere with my purpose to become +a finished musician—even though unkind critics said they wished I had +finished. And speaking of criticisms, there were some that hurt me to +the quick though I suppose history does not regard me as an especially +sensitive creature. One of my favorite compositions was entitled ‘Through +All Eternity.’ I presume you are acquainted with it. It is still popular. + +“I asked a young woman one day if she would like to hear me play ‘Through +All Eternity,’ and she replied that that would be her idea of—well, I +don’t like to say it, but you doubtless recall the classic definition of +war as promulgated by one of your most conspicuous generals. It was a +cruel saying. + +“But you wished for my opinions on modern music and musicians. I don’t +know that I am qualified to judge; not if what I heard the other night +is music nowadays. A couple of the boys who were being materialized by a +friend of Sir Oliver Lodge inveigled me into going along and attending +what the advertisements said was a concert. + +“As the first number on the programme, it was announced the orchestra +would give an imitation of ‘jazz,’ whatever that is. There was a crash +like a pantry shelf full of dishes coming down, followed by a noise that +was a combination of a battle and a boiler shop. I thought the roof would +fall in next, and I was just preparing to slide out when the man next to +me remarked reassuringly: ‘The agony is over.’ + +“There wasn’t a musical note or a hint of harmony in the whole slam-bang +from start to finish. A couple of kids with hammers and an old tin-pan +could have achieved the same effect. People paid two dollars and a half +a seat to hear that, when they could hire a small boy to run a stick +along a picket fence for ten cents. They called that music, and yet the +neighbors used to kick when I played ‘Way Down Upon the Tiber River’ and +‘There’s No Place Like Rome’ on my violin at three o’clock in the morning. + +“Then a young woman with a low dress and high voice came out and screamed +like a patient at a painless dentist’s. One of the papers next morning +said she had a sweet voice, but ‘lacked execution.’ She wouldn’t have +lacked it very long if she’d lived when I was Emperor. The final number +on the programme was a performance on the ukelele by a pair of harmless +looking youths whose appearance belied their real natures. + +“I have read in my ‘Pocket Chesterfield’ that a gentleman is one who +never inflicts needless pain or suffering on others. They were not +gentlemen. In my day we occasionally used racks and thumb-screws and +other instruments of necessary torture, but we knew nothing about +ukeleles. They had not been invented. Has your country no Society for +the Prevention of Cruelty to Audiences? But it is unnecessary to ask. + +“Yet you moderns have one advantage over us ancients when it comes to +music, and I am willing to admit it: the phonograph. It is much more +satisfactory than any human singer or player, because you can shut it off +without hurting its feelings. It has a patent stop—something the tenor or +soprano lacks. If you get up at a concert and request the soloist in the +middle of a song kindly to cease as her effort is making you exceedingly +nervous, you are simply reserving a seat for yourself in the patrol wagon. + +“But at home with the phonograph all you’ve got to do is to push the +little lever and it quits. You can enjoy its concerts without having to +put on a clean white shirt and an open-face vest and a dinner coat. You +can wear the same clothes you did at breakfast or sit around in an old +bathrobe with your collar off and listen to Mary Garden gargle. If you +did that at the grand opera house it would be sure to excite remark. + +“And now you must excuse me, young man. I’ve promised to play tonight +at the Mount Olympus firemen’s ball and I must have a little time to +rehearse my piece—‘I’m a Roman in the Gloamin’.’ Perhaps you know it? By +the way, are you a musician yourself? But you must be. Everybody is, +more or less.” + +“No, sir. I can’t play anything.” + +“Oh, you must be mistaken. Are you married?” + +“Yes, sir.” + +“Then to preserve the domestic harmony, you must be used to playing +second fiddle.” + +As I staggered down the stairs I felt that I had richly earned a Nero—I +mean a hero, medal. + + + + +XIX + +LORD BACON MUSES ON CIPHERS + + +“I’ll tell you one bet you’ve overlooked in your ramblings around with +shades,” remarked the city editor, “and that’s the chance to get the +right answer to that Shakespeare-Bacon controversy. I was reminded of +it last night when I happened across that old story of the woman who +said to her husband: ‘When I get to heaven I’m going to ask Shakespeare +if he really wrote those plays.’ ‘But suppose Shakespeare isn’t there?’ +returned her husband. ‘Then you can ask him,’ she replied. Have you heard +any of the spooks discussing the question?” + +“I’ve never even heard it mentioned,” I responded. “You may remember I +had a chat with Mr. Shakespeare himself some time ago on the subject of +the movies, but there was something in his attitude that kept me from +asking what might have been embarrassing questions. And besides, as is +quite common with these shades of the mighty, when they once get started +talking it’s pretty hard to get a word in edgewise. I believe it would +be better to tackle Lord Bacon and see what he has to say about it. If +he has a grievance he’s a lot more likely to talk than the man who’s +generally accepted as the author of Shakespeare’s works.” + +I approached the eminent Lord Chancellor, jurist and philosopher with +considerable trepidation, but like all the truly great his modesty and +affability quickly put me at my ease. + +“You wish to know who was the real author of the works attributed to +Shakespeare, eh?” he replied, with a smile of amusement. “So they’re +beginning to raise the question down on earth, are they? I thought those +ciphers might puzzle ’em for a few hundred years yet. Well, and who do +they think wrote ’em?” + +“Some persons say you did, Lord Bacon, and others attribute the +authorship to the Earl of Dudley and other of your contemporaries. A +Detroit man got permission to dig in the bed of the river Wye for the +head of the Earl, which was supposed to be buried there, together with a +box of manuscripts that would prove him to be the real Shakespeare.” + +“Hum, hum,” mused his lordship. “I guess somebody else lost his head that +time. Well, all you tell me is extremely interesting, I’m sure. And I +presume even Will Shakespeare has his partisans, too, who insist still +that the uneducated village lad from Stratford who used to hold horses +in front of the London theaters for a living—and then served his term as +a ‘chaser’ on the stage during the supper hour in vaudeville—that this +strolling actor was actually the author of the immortal plays bearing his +name?” + +“Oh, yes, your lordship, Shakespeare would probably win by a large +majority, if the matter were left to a popular vote.” + +“Excuse me if I smile. The thought is highly amusing. I don’t believe I +am quite ready, as yet, to present any formal claim to the authorship, +but if I were free to speak I could— But, pshaw! What’s the difference? +There are plenty of similar cases of masquerading authors in even later +English literature which no mortal has yet discovered. By the way, has +any question been raised, to date, about the so-called Dickens novels? +There hasn’t? Everybody takes it for granted that they were written +by Charles Dickens, the young, untrained reporter, who never had any +education after he was twelve years of age, who worked in a blacking +factory when he was ten? Well, well. You surprise me. Has nobody found +any ciphers yet in his work? Not a one? Well, then look out for a +sensation one of these days. Ciphers have always been my hobby, but long +before I found any cryptic corroboration for my theory in Dickens’ works +I was pretty sure who really wrote them. Can you think of a certain +great statesman, like myself, but who flourished in the Victorian era, a +dignified, austere personage who might not like to be known as the author +of humorous works, but who might have got Dickens to lend his name for +the purpose? You can’t? Try again. Well, I’ll make a suggestion: William +E. Gladstone. Don’t smile. Wait until you hear the proofs. Gladstone +had a contemporary and rival, Disraeli, who published novels under a +pen name. Later Disraeli used his own name and the fact did not help +his reputation as a statesman. Each of the principal so-called Dickens +novels deals with some great proposed reform, such as the abolition +of imprisonment for debt, the improvement of penal institutions and +poor-houses, removal of delays in the law, the cutting of red tape in +government offices, the wiping-out of the wretched Yorkshire schools. + +“Gladstone was a born reformer. For a long time I was pretty sure that +Dickens could not have written these books, but I never associated +them with Gladstone until one day I happened to hit upon a cipher—as +conclusive a one, I think, as any that have been discovered in the +works of Shakespeare. Just before this I heard of the finding of the +manuscript of a letter written by Gladstone to his firm of publishers, +relating to the use of the name ‘Murdstone’ as one of the chief +characters in ‘David Copperfield.’ After writing a number of novels +Gladstone evidently felt that he would like to leave some more obvious +clue to their real authorship than a cipher, and apparently his intention +had been to call this character ‘Mirthstone,’ a sort of pun upon his +own name. But his publishers must have objected to the device as too +transparent, for we find him replying: ‘Very well. Then Murdstone let it +be.’ Another clue was afforded by the name of the ‘literary man with a +wooden leg’ in ‘Our Mutual Friend,’—Silas Wegg. Here we have the initials +in full in their regular order, ‘W. E. G.’ + +“And now,” continued Lord Bacon, “we come to the real cipher, buried in +the first of his longer stories, the ‘Pickwick Papers.’ I call it the +Ivy Green Cipher. Why this poem of three stanzas was inserted in this +book has long puzzled students of Dickens. The ostensible excuse for +its introduction was its recitation at an evening party at Manor Farm, +Dingley Dell, by the aged clergyman of the place, name not given, who +posed as its author. But the poem has absolutely nothing to do with the +plot of the story. Just write these first five lines, as I dictate, will +you? + + ‘Oh, a dainty plant is the ivy green, + That creepeth o’er ruins old, + Of right choice food are his meals I ween, + In his cell so lone and cold. + The wall must be crumbled, the stone decayed—’ + +“Now, kindly take your pencil and write down the first letter of the +first line’s last word, the second letter of the second line’s last word, +the third letter of the third line’s third word from the last (a not +uncommon variant in ciphers of this character) and the fourth letter of +the fourth line’s last word. Those four letters, in this order, spell +GLAD. Now glance along the next line for the word that would form the +second syllable of a proper name. The next to the last word is STONE. +And there you have the conclusive clue to the authorship of the Dickens +novels!” + +“That seems to be a clincher, your lordship,” I said, “and I am sure your +theory will create a sensation down below when the earth-dwellers hear of +it. But will you not tell me whether you are the author of ‘Hamlet’ and +the other immortal plays?” + +“You may remember,” he replied with an enigmatic smile, “Sir Walter +Scott’s answer to the lady who asked whether he wrote the ‘Waverly +Novels,’ when they were appearing anonymously? ‘I did not write them,’ +he rejoined, ‘but if I did I would not tell you.’ Some very curious +circumstances were connected with the writing of the works called +Shakespeare’s, and one day the world may learn of them. What’s in a name? +A rose by any other name would still cost twenty-four dollars a dozen on +Fifth Avenue.” + +Then his lordship bowed me into my waiting astral plane. + + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 75226 *** |