BRET HARTE NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY LIBRARY The Gift of Walter C. Cox THE Deadwood Mystery. BY BRET HARTE. PUBLISHED BY THE GRAND COLOSSEUM WAREHOUSE CO. (Founded by Mr. Walter Wilson in 1869.) General Offices and Wholesale Warehouses: 60 & 70, JAMAICA STREET, GLASGOW. Branches in all the Principal Towns in Scotland. ?I3.4 b|r Great Jknbtttcob jUtjslaty By BRET HARTE. Part I. 'T was growing quite dark in the telegraph office at Cottonwood, Tuolumne Co., Cili- fornia. The office, a box-like enclosure, was separated from the public room of the Miners' Hotel by a thin partition, and the operator, who was also News and Express Agent at Cottonwood, had closed his window, and was lounging by his news-stand preparatory to going home. Accustomed as he was to long intervals of idleness, he was fast becoming bored. The tread of mud-muffled boots on the verandah, and the entrance of two men, offered a momentary excite¬ ment. He recognized in the strangers two prominent citizens of Cottonwood ; and their manner bespoke busi¬ ness. One of them proceeded to the desk, wrote a des¬ patch, and handed it to the other, interrogatively. " That's about the way the thing p'ints," responded his companion. i o THE GEE A T DEAD WO OD MYS TEE Y. " I reckoned it only squar to use hisdientikal words:" "That's so." The first speaker turned to the operator with the despatch. " How soon can you shove her through ?" The operator glanced professionally over the address ana the length of the despatch. " Now," he answered, promptly. " And she gets there— ?" " To-night; but there's no delivery until to-morrow." " Shove her through to-night, and say there's an extra twenty left here for delivery." The operator, accustomed to all kinds of extravagant outlay for expedition, replied that he would lay this pro¬ position, with the despatch, before the San Francisco office. He then took it and read it—and re-read it. He preserved the usual professional apathy—had doubtless sent many more enigmatical and mysterious messages— but, nevertheless, when he finished, he raised his eyes inquiringly to his customer. That gentleman, who en¬ joyed a reputation for equal spontaneity of temper and revolver, met his gaze a little impatiently. The operator had recourse to a trick. Under the pretence of misun derstanding the message, he obliged the sender to repeat it aloud for the sake of accuracy, and even suggested a few verbal alterations, ostensibly to ensure correctness, but really to extract further information. Nevertheless, the man doggedly persisted in a literal transcript of his message. The operator went to his instrument hesi¬ tatingly. "I suppose," he added, half-questioningly, "there THE GREAT DEADWOOD MYSTERY. 11 ain't no chance of a mistake. This address is Right- body that rich old Bostonian that everybody knows. There ain't but one ? " "That's the address," responded the first speaker, coolly. " Didn't know the old chap had investments out here," suggested the operator, lingering at his instrument. "No more did I," was the insufficient reply. For some few moments nothing was heard but the click of the instrument, as the operator worked the key with the usual appearance of imparting confidence to a somewhat reluctant hearer who preferred to talk himself. The two men stood by, watching his motions with the usual awe of the unprofessional. When he had finished, they laid before him two gold pieces. As the operator took them up, he could not help saying, " The old man went off kinder sudden, didn't he ? Had no time to write?" "Not sudden for that kind o' man," was the exaspe¬ rating reply. But the speaker was not to be disconcerted. " If there is an answer—." " There ain't any," replied the first speaker, quietly. " Why ? " " Because the man ez sent the message is dead." " But it's signed by you two." " On'y ez witnesses—eh?" appealed the first speaker to his comrade. " On'y ez witnesses," responded the other. The operator shrugged his shoulders. The business concluded, the first speaker slightly relaxed. He nodded 12 THE GREAT DEAD WOOD MYSTERY. to the operator, and turned to the bar-room with a pleasing social impulse. When their glasses were set down empty, the first speaker, with a cheerful condemnation of the hard times and the weather, apparently dismissed all previous proceedings from his mind, and lounged out with his com¬ panion. At the corner of the street they stopped. "Well, that job's done," said the first speaker, by way ®f relieving the slight social embarrassment of parting. " Thet's so," responded his companion, and shook his hand. They parted. A gust of wind swept through the pines, and struck a faint ASolian cry from the wires above theii heads, and the rain and the darkness again slowly settled upon Cottonwood. The message lagged a little at San Francisco, laid over half-an-hour at Chicago, and fought longitude the whole way, so that it was past midnight when the " all night" operator took it from the wires at Boston. But it was freighted with a mandate from the San Francisco office, and a messenger was procured, who sped with it through dark snow-bound streets, between the high walls of close-shuttered rayless houses to a certain formal square, ghostly with snow-covered statues. Here he ascended the broad steps of a reserved and solid-looking mansion, and pulled a bronze bell knob that, somewhere within those chaste recesses, after an apparent reflective pause, coldly communicated the fact that a stranger was waiting without—as he ought. Despite the lateness of the hour, there was a slight glow from the windows, clearly not enough to warm the messenger with indications of a festivity within, but yet bespeaking, as it were, some pro- THE GREAT DEADWOOD MYSTERY. 13 longed though subdued excitement. The sober servant, who took the despatch and receipted for it as gravely as if witnessing a last will and testament, respectfully paused before the entrance of the drawing-room. The sound of measured and rhetorical speech, through which the occa¬ sional catarrhal cough of the New England coast strug¬ gled, as the only effort of nature not wholly repressed, came from its heavily-curtained recesses ; for the occasion of the evening had been the reception and entertainment of various distinguished persons, and, as had been epi- grammatically expressed by one of the guests, "the history of the country" was taking its leave in phrases more or less memorable and characteristic. Some of these vale¬ dictory axioms were clever, some witty, a few profound,, but always left as a genteel contribution to the enter¬ tainer. Some had been already prepared, and, like a card, had served and identified the guest at other mansions. The last guest departed, the last carriage rolled away, when the servant ventured to indicate the existence of the despatch to his master, who was standing on the hearth¬ rug in an attitude of wearied self-righteousness. He took it, opened it, read it, re-read it, and said : " There must be some mistake ! It is not for me, call the boy, Waters." Waters, who was perfectly aware that the boy had left, nevertheless obedkntly walked towards the hall door, but Was recalled by his master. " No matter—at present !" "It's nothing serious, William?" asked Mrs. Right- body, with languid wifely concern. " No, nothing. Is there a light in my study ?" 14 THE GREAT DEADWOOD MTSTERV. " Yes. But before you go—can you give me a moment or two ? " Mr. Rightbody turned a little impatiently towards his wife. She had thrown herself, languidly, on the sofa, her hair was slightly disarranged, and part of a slippered foot was visible. She might have been a finely-formed woman, but even her careless deshabille left the general impression that she was severely flannelled throughout, and that any ostentation of womanly charm was under vigorous sanitary surveillance. " Mrs. Marvin told me to-night that her son made no secret of his serious attachment for our Alice, and that if I was satisfied, Mr. Marvin would be glad to confer with you at once." The information did not seem to absorb Mr. Right- body's wandering attention, but rather increased his im¬ patience. He said, hastily, that he would speak of that to-morrow; and, partly by way of reprisal, and partly to dismiss the subject, added— " Positively, James must pay some attention to the register and the thermometer. It was over 70° to-night, and the ventilating draught was closed in the drawing- room." " That was because Professor Ammon sat near it, and the old gentleman's tonsils are so sensitive." " He ought to know from Dr. Dyer Doit that syste¬ matic and regular exposure to draughts stimulates the mucous membrane, while fixed air, over 6o° invariably—" " I am afraid, William," interrupted Mrs. Rightbody, with feminine adroitness, adopting her husband's topic with a view of thereby directing him from it, " I'm afraid THE GEE A T DEAD WO OD MYSTERY. 15 that people do not yet appreciate the substitution of bouillon for punch and ices. I observed that Mr. Spon¬ dee declined it, and I fancied looked disappointed. The fibrine and wheat in liqueur-glasses passed quite un¬ noticed too." " And yet each half-drachm contained the half-digested substance of a pound of beef. I'm surprised at Spondee," continued Mr. Rightbody, aggrievedly. '' Exhausting his brain and nerve-force by the highest creative efforts of the Muse, he prefers perfumed and diluted alcohol flavoured with carbonic acid gas. Even Mrs. Faringway admitted to me that the sudden lowering of the temperature of the stomach by the introduction of ice—" "Yes, but she took a lemon ice at the last Dorothea Reception, and asked me if I had observed that the lower animals refused their food at a temperature over 6o°." Mr. Rightbody again moved impatiently towards the door. Mrs. Rightbody eyed him curiously. " You will not write, I hope ? Dr. Keppler told me to-night that your cerebral symptoms interdicted any pro¬ longed mental strain." " I must consult a few papers," responded Mr. Right- body, curtly, as he entered his library. It was a richly furnished apartment, morbidly severe in its decorations, which were symptomatic of a gloomy dyspepsia of art, then quite prevalent. A few curious, very ugly, but providentially equally rare, were scattered about; there were various bronzes, marbles, and casts, all requiring explanation, and so fulfilling their purpose of promoting conversation and exhibiting the erudition of 16 THE GEE AT DEAD WOOD MYSTERY. their owner. There were souvenirs of travel with a history, old bric-a-brac with a pedigree, but little or no¬ thing that challenged attention for itself alone. . In all cases the superiority of the owner to his possessions was admitted. As a natural result nobody ever lingered there, the servants avoided the room, and no child was ever known to play in it. Mr. Rightbody turned up the gas, and from a cabinet of drawers, precisely labelled, drew a package of letters. These he carefully examined. All were discoloured, and made dignified by age ; but some, in their original fresh¬ ness, must have appeared trifling and inconsistent with any correspondent of Mr. Rightbody. Nevertheless, that gentleman spent some moments in carefully perusing them, occasionally referring to the telegram in his hand. Suddenly there was a knock at the door. Mr. Rightbody started, made a half-unconscious movement to return the letters to the drawer, turned the telegram face downwards, and then, somewhat harshly, stammered— " Eh ? Who's there ? Come in!" " I beg your pardon, papa,'' said a very pretty girl, entering, without, however, the slightest trace of apology or awe in her manner, and taking a chair with the self- possession and familiarity of an habitat! of the room; " but I knew it was not your habit to write late, so I sup¬ posed you were not busy. I am on my way to bed." She was so very pretty, and withal so utterly uncon¬ scious of it, or perhaps so consciously superior to it, that one was provoked into a more critical examination of her face. But this only resulted in a reiteration of her beauty, and, perhaps, the added facts that her dark eyes were THE GEE A T DEAD WOOD MYSTER Y. 17 very womanly, her rich complexion eloquent, and hei chiselled lips full enough to be passionate or capricious, notwithstanding that their general effect suggested neither caprice, womanly weakness, nor passion. With the instinct of an embarrassed man, Mr. Right- body touched the topic he would have preferred to avoid. " I suppose we must talk over to-morrow," he hesi¬ tated, "this matter of yours and Mr. Marvin's? Mrs. Marvin has formally spoken to your mother." Miss Alice lifted her bright eyes intelligently, but not joyfully, and the colour of action rather than embarrass¬ ment—rose to her round cheeks. " Yes, lie said she would," she answered simply. ''At present," continued Mr. Rightbody, still awk¬ wardly, " I see no objection to the proposed arrangement." Miss Alice opened her round eyes at this. "Why, papa, I thought it had been all settled long ago. Mamma knew it, you knew it. Last July, mamma and you talked it over." "Yes, yes," returned her father, fumbling his papers; " that is—well, we will talk of it to-morrow." In fact, Mr. Rightbody had intended to give the affair a proper attitude of seriousness and solemnity by due precision of speech, and some apposite reflections when he should impart the news to his daughter, but felt himself unable to do it now. " I am glad, Alice," he said at last, " that you have quite forgotten your previous whims and fancies. You see we are right." " Oh, I dare say, papa, if I'm to be married at all, that Mr. Marvin is in every v/ay suitable." Mr. Rightbody looked at his daughter narrowly. IS THE GREA T READ WOOD MYSTER K There was not the slightest impatience nor bitterness in her manner; it was as well regulated as the sentiment she expressed. " Mr. Marvin is—" he began. " I know what Mr. Marvin is," interrupted Miss Alice, " and he has promised me that I shall be allowed to go on with my studies the same as before. I shall graduate with my class, and if I prefer to practise my profession, I can do so in two years after our marriage." " In two years?" queried Mr. Rightbody, curiously. " Yes. You see, in case we should have a child, that would give me time enough to wean it." Mr. Rightbody looked at this flesh of his flesh, pretty and palpable flesh as it was; but being confronted as equally with the brain of his brain, all he could do was to say, meekly, "Yes, certainly. We will see about all that to¬ morrow." Miss Alice rose. Something in the free, unfettered swing of her arms, as she rested them, lightly, after a half yawn, on her lithe hips, suggested his next speech, although still distrait and impatient. "You continue your exercise with the Health Lift yet, f see." " Yes, papa, but I had to give up the flannels. I don't see how mamma could wear them. But my dresses are high-necked, and by bathing I toughen my skin. See," she added, as, with a child-like unconsciousness, she un¬ fastened two or three buttons of her gown, and exposed the white surface of her throat and neck to her father, " I can defy a chill." the grea t dead wood mystery. Mr. Rightbody, with something akin to a genuine playful, paternal laugh, leaned forward and kissed her forehead. " It's getting late, Ally," he said, parentally, but not dictatorially. " Go to bed." "I took a nap of three hours this afternoon," said Miss Alice, with a dazzling smile, " to anticipate this dissipa¬ tion. Good night, papa. To-morrow, then." " To-morrow," repeated Mr. Rightbody, with his eyes Still fixed upon the girl, vaguely. " Good night." Miss Alice tripped from the room, possibly a trifle the more light-heartedly that she had parted from her father in one of his rare moments of illogical human weakness. And perhaps it was well for the poor girl that she kept this single remembrance of him, when, I fear, in after years, his methods, his reasoning, and indeed all he had tried to impress upon her childhood, had faded from her memory. For, when she had left, Mr. Rightbody fell again to the examination of his old letters. This was quite absorb¬ ing ; so much so that he did not notice the footsteps of Mrs. Rightbody on the staircase as she passed to her chamber, nor that she had paused on the landing to look through the glass half-door on her husband, as he sat there with the letters beside him and the telegram opened before him. Had she waited a moment later, she would have seen him rise and walk to the sofa with a disturbed air and a slight confusion, so that on reaching it he seemed to hesitate to lie down, although pale and evidently faint. Had she still waited, she would have seen him rise again with an agonized effort, stagger to the table, fumblingly 20 THE GREAT DEADWOOD MYSTERY. refold and replace the papers in the cabinet, and lock it; and, although now but half-conscious hold the telegram over the gas-flame till it was consumed. For had she waited until this moment, she would have flown unhesi¬ tatingly to his aid, as, this act completed, he staggered again, reached his hand toward the bell, but vainly, and then fell prone upon the sofa. But alas, no providential nor accidental hand was raised to save him, or anticipate the progress of this story. And when, half-an-hour later, Mrs. Rightbody, a little alarmed and more indignant at his violation of the Doctor's rules, appeared up®n the threshold, Mr. Right- body lay upon the sofa, dead 1 With bustle, with thronging feet, with the irruption of strangers, and a hurrying to and fro, but, more than all, with an impulse and emotion unknown to the mansion when its owner was in life, Mrs. Rightbody strove to call back the vanished life ; but in vain. The highest medical intelligence, called from its bed at this strange hour, saw only the demonstration of its theories, made a year before. Mr. Rightbody was dead —without doubt—without mys¬ tery—even as a correct man should die; logically, and endorsed by the highest medical authority. But even in the confusion, Mrs. Rightbody managed to speed a messenger to the telegraph office for a copy of the despatch received by Mr. Rightbody, but now missing. In the solitude of her own room, and without a con¬ fidant, she read these words : " Copy. " To Mr. Adams Rightbody, Boston, Mass. "Joshua Silsbee died suddenly this morning. His THE GREAT DEAD WOOD MYSTERY. 21 last request was that you should remember your sacred compact with him of thirty years ago. (Signed) " Seventy-Four. " Seventy-Five." In the darkened home, and amid the formal condol- ments of their friends, who had called to gaze upon the scarcely cold features of their late associate, Mrs. Right- body managed to send another despatch. It was ad¬ dressed to "Seventy-Four and Seventy-Five," Cotton¬ wood. In a few hours she received the following enig¬ matical response : "A horse thief, named Josh Silsbee, was lynched yesterday morning by the Vigilantes at Deadwood." Part II. The spring of 1874 was retarded in the Califomian Sierras. So much so, that certain Eastern tourists who had early ventured into the Yo Semite Valley, found themselves, one May morning, snow-bound against the tempestuous shoulders of El Capitan. So furious was the onset of the wind at the Upper Merced Canon, that even so respectable a lady as Mrs. Rightbody was fain to cling to the neck of her guide to keep her seat in the saddle ; while Miss Alice, scorning all masculine assist¬ ance, was hurled, a lovely chaos, against the snowy wall of the chasm. Mrs. Rightbody screamed ; Miss Alice raged under her breath, but scrambled to her feet again in silence. 22 THE GEE A T DEAD IVOOb MYSTER V. " I told you so," said Mrs. Rightbody, in an indignant whisper as her daughter again ranged beside her,—" I warned you especially, Alice—that—that—" " What ? " interrupted Miss Alice, curtly. " That you would need your chemiloons and high boots," said Mrs. Rightbody, in a regretful undertone, slightly increasing her distance from the guides. Miss Alice shrugged her pretty shoulders scornfully, but ignored her mother's implication. " You were particularly warned against going into the Valley at this season," she only replied, grimly. Mrs. Rightbody raised her eyes, impatiently. " You know how anxious I was to discover your poor father's strange correspondent, Alice ; you have no con¬ sideration." " But when you have discovered him—what then ?" queried Miss Alice. " What then ? " "Yes. My belief is that you will find the telegram only a mere business cypher. And all this quest mere nonsense." "Alice! why ,you yourself thought your father's con¬ duct that night, very strange. Have you forgotten ?" The young lady had not, but for some far-reaching feminine reason, chose to ignore it at that moment, when her late tumble in the snow was still fresh in her mind. " And this woman—whoever she may be," continued Mrs. Rightbody. "How do you know there's a woman in the case?" interrupted Miss Alice, wickedly, I fear. " How do—I—know—there's a woman?" slowly ejacu- THE GREAT DEAD WOOD MYSTERY. 23 lated Mrs. Rightbody, floundering in the snow and the unexpected possibility of such a ridiculous question. But here her guide flew to her assistance, and estopped further speech. And, indeed, a grave problem was before them. The road that led to their single place of refuge—a cabin, half hotel, half trading-post, scarce a mile away— skirted the base of the rocky dome, and passed perilously near the precipitous wall of the valley. There was a rapid descent of a hundred yards or more to this terrace-like passage, and the guides paused for a moment of consulta¬ tion, coolly oblivious alike to the terrified questioning of Mrs. Rightbody or the half-insolent independence of the daughter. The elder guide was russet-bearded, stout, and humorous ; the younger was dark-bearded, slight, and serious. " Ef you kin git young Bunker Hill to let you tote her 011 your shoulders, I'll git the Madam to hang on to me," came to Mrs. Rightbody's horrified ears as the expression of her particular companion. " Freeze to the old gal, and don't reckon on me if the daughter starts in to play it alone," was the enigmatical response of the younger guide. M iss Alice overheard both propositions; and before the two men returned to their side, that high-spirited young lady had urged her horse down the declivity. Alas, at this moment a gust of whirling snow swept down upon her. There was a flounder, a mis-step, a fatal strain on the wrong rein, a fall, a few plucky but unavailing struggles, and both horse and rider slid ignominiously down toward the rocky shelf. Mrs. Rightbody screamed. Miss Alice, from a confused debris of snow and ice, up- C4 the grea t dead wood mys ter k lifted a vexed and colouring face to the younger guide—a little the more angrily, perhaps, that she saw a shade of impatience on his face. " Don't move, but tie one end of the 'lass' under your arms, and throw me the other," he said quietly. "What do you mean by 'lass'—the lasso?" asked Miss Alice, disgustedly. " Yes, ma'am." " Then why don't you say so ? " " Oh, Alice !" reproachfully interpolated Mrs. Right- body, encircled by the elder guide's stalwart arm. Miss Alice deigned no reply, but drew the loop of the lasso over her shoulders, and let it drop to her round waist. Then she essayed to throw the other end to her guide. Dismal failure! The first fling nearly knocked her off the ledge, the second went all wild against the rocky wall, the third caught in a thorn bush, twenty feet below her companion's feet. Miss Alice's arm sunk help¬ lessly to her side, at which signal of unqualified surrender, the younger guide threw himself half-way down the slope, worked his way to the thorn bush, hung for a moment perilously over the parapet, secured the lasso, and then began to pull away at his lovely burden. Miss Alice was no dead weight, however, but steadily half-scrambled on her hands and knees to within a foot or two of her rescuer. At this too familiar proximity, she stood up, and leaned a little stiffly against the line, causing the guide to give an extra pull, which had the lamentable effect of landing her almost in his arms. As it was, her intelligent forehead struck his nose sharply, and, I regret to add, treating of a omantic situation, caused that somewhat prominent sign THE GREAT DEAD WOOD MYSTERY. 2j and token of a hero to bleed freely. Miss Alice instantly clapped a handful of snow over his nostrils. "Now elevate your right arm," she said, com- mandingly. He did as he was bidden—but sulkily. " That compresses the artery." No man, with a pretty woman's hand and a handful of snow over his mouth and nose, could effectively utter a heroic sentence, nor with his arm elevated stiffly over his head assume a heroic attitude. But when his mouth was free again he said, half-sulkily, half-apologetically, " I might have known a girl couldn't throw worth a cent." "Why ? " demanded Miss Alice, sharply. " Because—why—because—you see—they haven't got the experience," he stammered feebly. " Nonsense, they haven't the clavicle—that's all! It's because I'm a woman, and smaller in the collar-bone, that I haven't the play of the fore-arm which you have. See ! " She squared her shoulders slightly, and turned the blaze of her dark eyes full on his. " Experience, indeed! A girl can learn anything a boy can." Apprehension took the place of ill-humour in her hearer. He turned his eyes hastily away, and glanced above him. The elder guide had gone forward to catch Miss Alice's horse, which, relieved of his rider, was floundering toward the trail. Mrs. Rightbody was no¬ where to be seen. And these two were still twenty feet below the trail! There was an awkward pause. " Shall I pull you up the same way ? " he queried. Miss 26 THE GREAT DEADWOOD MYSTERY. Alice looked at his nose, and hesitated. " Or will you take my hand ?" he added, in surly impatience. To his surprise, Miss Alice took his hand, and they began the ascent together. But the way was difficult and dangerous. Once or twice her feet slipped on the smoothly-worn rock beneath, and she confessed to an inward thankfulness when her uncertain feminine hand-grip was exchanged for his strong arm around her waist. Not that he was ungentle, but Miss Alice angrily felt that he had once or twice exercised his superior masculine functions in a rough way; and yet the next moment she would have probably rejected the idea that she had even noticed it. There was no doubt, however, that he was a little surly. A fierce scramble finally brought them back in safety to the trail; but in the action Miss Alice's shoulder, striking a projecting boulder, wrung from her a feminine cry of pain, her first sign of womanly weakness. The guide stopped instantly. " I am atraid I hurt you ?" She raised her brown lashes, a trifle moist from suffer¬ ing, looked in his eyes, and dropped her own. Why, she could not tell. And yet he had certainly a kind face, despite its seriousness ; and a fine face, albeit unshorn and weather-beaten. Her own eyes had never been so near to any man's before, save her lover's; and yet she had never seen so much in even his. She slipped her hand away, not with any reference to him, but rather to ponder over this singular experience, and somehow felt uncomfortable thereat. Nor was he less so. It was but a few days ago that THE GREAT DEAD WOOD MYSTERY. 27 28 THE GEE A T DEA D WO OD MYSTER K he had accepted the charge of this young woman from the elder guide, who was the recognized escort of the Right- Thody party, having been a former correspondent of her father's. He had been hired like any other guide, but had undertaken the task with that chivalrous enthusiasm which the average Californian always extends to the sex so rare to him. But the illusion had passed, and he had dropped into a sulky practical sense of his situation, per¬ haps fraught with less danger to himself. Only when appealed to by his manhood or her weakness, he had forgotten his wounded vanity. He strode moodily ahead, dutifully breaking the path for her in the direction of the distant canon, where Mrs. Rightbody and her friend awaited them. Miss Alice was first to speak. In this trackless, uncharted terra incognita of the passions, it is always the woman who steps out to lead the way. "You know this place very well. I suppose you have Jived here long ?" « yes." "You were not born here—no?" A long pause. " I observe they call you ' Stanislaus Joe.' Of course that is not your real name?" (Mem. Miss Alice had never called him anything, usually prefacing any request with a languid, " O-er-er, please, mister-er-a!" explicit enough for his station. " No." Miss Alice (trotting after him, and bawling in his ear), " What name did you say ? " The man (doggedly), " I don't know." THE GEE AT DEAD WOOD MYSTERY. 29 Nevertheless, when they reached the cabin, after an half-hour's buffeting with the storm, Miss Alice applied herself to her mother's escort, Mr. Ryder. " What's the name of the man who takes care of my horse ? " " Stanislaus Joe," responded Mr. Ryder. " Is that all ?" " No ; sometimes he's called Joe Stanislaus." Miss Alice (satirically), " I suppose it's the custom here to send young ladies out with gentlemen who hide their names under an alias ?" Mr. Ryder (greatly perplexed), " Why, dear me, Miss Alice, you allers 'peared to me as a gal as was able to take keer—" Miss Alice (interrupting with a wounded dove-like timidity), " Oh, never mind, please !" The cabin offered but scanty accommodation to the tourists, which fact, when indignantly presented by Mrs. Rightbody, was explained by the good-humoured Ryder from the circumstance that the usual hotel was only a slight affair of boards, cloth, and paper, put up during the season and partly dismantled in the fall. " You couldn't be kept warm enough there," he added. Nevertheless Miss Alice noticed that both Mr. Ryder and Stanislaus Joe retired there with their pipes, after having prepared the ladies' supper with the assistance of an Indian woman, who apparently emerged from the earth at the coming of the party, and disappeared as mysteriously. The stars came out brightly before they slept, and the next morning a clear unwinking sun beamed with almost summer pow»r through the shutterless, window of their 30 THE GREAT DEADW00D MYSTERY. cabin, and ironically disclosed the details of its rude interior. Two or three mangy, half-eaten buffalo robes, a bear-skin, some suspicious-looking blankets, rifles and saddles, deal tables and barrels made up its scant in¬ ventory. A strip of faded calico hung before a recess near the chimney, but so blackened by smoke and age that even feminine curiosity respected its secret. Mrs. Riglitbody was in high spirits, and informed her daughter that she was at last on the track of her husband's un- known correspondent. " Seventy-four and Seventy-five " represent two members of the Vigilance Committee, my dear, and Mr. Ryder will assist me to find them." "Mr. Ryder!" ejaculated Miss Alice, in scornful astonishment. "Alice," said Mrs. Rightbody, with a suspicious as¬ sumption of sudden defence, " you injure youself—you injure me by this exclusive attitude. Mr. Ryder is a friend of your father's, an exceedingly well-informed gentleman. I have not, of course, imparted to him the extent of my suspicions. But he can help me to what I must and will know. You might treat him a little more civilly—or, at least, a little better than you do his servant, your guide. Mr. Ryder is a gentleman, and not a paid courier." Miss Alice was suddenly attentive. When she spoke again she asked, " Why do you not find something about this Silsbee—who died—or was hung— or something of that kind ?" " Child," said Mrs. Rightbody, " don't you see, there was no Silsbee, or if there was, he was simply the coiv* fidant of that—woman ! * THE GREAT DEADWOOD MYSTERY. 31 A knock at the door, announcing the presence of Mr. Ryder and Stanislaus Joe with the horses, checked Mrs. Rightbody's speech. As the animals were being packed, Mrs. Rightbody for a moment withdrew in confidential conversation with Mr. Ryder, and, to the young lady's still greater annoyance, left her alone with Stanislaus Joe. Miss Alice was not in good temper, but she felt it neces¬ sary to say something, " I hope the hotel offers better quarters for travellers than this in summer," she began. " It does." " Then this does not belong to it ? " " No, ma'am." " Who lives here, then?" " I do." "I beg your pardon," stammered Miss Alice, "1 thought you lived where we hired—where we met you — in—in—you must excuse me." " I'm not a regular guide, but as times were hard, and I was out of grub, I took the job." "Out of grub"! "job!" And she was the "job." What would Henry Marvin say ? it would nearly kill him. She began herself to feel a little frightened, and walked towards the door. " One moment, miss! " The young girl hesitated. The man's tone was surly, and yet indicated a certain kind of half-pathetic grievance. Her curiosity got the better of her prudence, and she turned back. " That morning," he began hastily, " when we were coming down the valley you picked me up twice." 32 THE GREAT DEAD WOOD MYSTERY. " I picked you up ?" repeated the astonished Alice. "Yes—contradicted me, that's what I mean. Cncf when you said those rocks were volcanic; once when you said the flower you picked was a poppy. I didn't let on at the time, for it wasn't my say ; but all the while you were talking I might have laid for you—" " I don't understand you," said Alice, haughtily. " I might have entrapped you before folks. But I only want you to know that Tin right, and here are the books to show it." He drew aside the dingy calico curtain, revealed a small shelf of bulky books, took down two large volumes, one of Botany, one of Geology, nervously sought his text, and put them in Alice's outstretched hands. " I had no intention—" she began, half-proudly, half- embarrassed. " Am I right, miss ? " he interrupted. " I presume you are, if you say so." " That's all, ma'am! Thank you." Before the girl had time to reply, he was gon^ When he again returned, it was with her horse, and Mrs. Rightbody and Ryder were awaiting her. But Miss Alice noticed that his own horse was missing. " Are you not going with us ? " she asked. "No, ma'am." " Oh, indeed 1" Miss Alice felt her speech was a feeble conventional¬ ism, but it was all she could say. She, however, dii something. Hitherto, it had been her habit to syste matically reject his assistance in mounting to her scat Now she awaited him. As he approached, she smiled THE GREAT DEADWOOD MYSTERY. 33 and put out her little foot. He instantly stooped ; she placed it in his hand, rose with a spring, and for one supreme moment Stanilaus Joe held her unresistingly in his arms. The next moment she was in the saddle, but in that brief interval of sixty seconds she had uttered a volume in a single sentence— " I hope you will forgive me !" He muttered a reply, and turned his face aside quickly as if to hide it. Miss Alice cantered forward with a smile, but pulled her hat down over her eyes as she joined her mother. She was blushing. Part III. Mr. Ryder was as good as his word. A day or two later, he entered Mrs. Rightbody's parlour at the Chry- sopolis Hotel in Stockton, with the information that he had seen the mysterious senders of the despatch, and that they were now in the office of the hotel waiting her pleasure. Mr. Ryder further informed her that these gentlemen had only stipulated that they should not reveal their real names, and that they should be intro¬ duced to her simply as the respective " Seventy-Four " and "Seventy-Five" who had signed the despatch sent to the late Mr. Rightbody. Mrs. Rightbody at first demurred to this; but on the assurance from Mr. Ryder that this was the only condi¬ tion on which an interview would be granted, finally con¬ sented. 34 THE GREAT DEAD WOOD MYSTERY. "You will find them square men, even if they are a little rough, ma'am; but if you'd like me to be present, I'll stop ; though I reckon if ye'd calkilated on that, you'd have had me take care o' your business by proxy, and not come yourself three thousand miles to do it." Mrs. Rightbody believed it better to see them alone. " All right, ma'am. I'll hang round out here, and ef ye should happen to hev a ticklin' in your throat and a bad spell o' coughin', I'll drop in, careless like, to see if you don't want them drops. Sabe ? " And with an exceedingly arch wink, and a slight familiar tap on Mrs. Rightbody's shoulder, which might have caused the late Mr. Rightbody to burst his sepulchre, he withdrew. A very timid, hesitating tap on the door was followed by the entrance of two men, both of whom, in general size, strength, and uncouthness, were ludicrously incon¬ sistent with their diffident announcement. They pro¬ ceeded in Indian file to the centre of the room, faced Mrs. Rightbody, acknowledged her deep courtesy by a strong shake of the hand, and drawing two chairs opposite to her, sat down side by side. " I presume I have the pleasure of addressing—* began Mrs. Rightbody. The man directly opposite Mrs. Rightbody turned to the other inquiringly. The other man nodded his head, and replied, " Seventy-Four." " Seventy-Five," promptly followed the other. Mrs. Rightbody paused, a little confused. "i have sent for you," she began again. "ic icam I presume I have the pleasure ot addressing—."—Page 34. 36 THE GREAT DEAD WOOD MYSTERY. something more of the circumstances under which you gentlemen sent a despatch to my late husband." "The circumstances," replied Seventy-Four, quietly, with a side glance at his companion, " panned out about in this yer style. We hung a man named Josh Silsbee down at Deadwood for hoss-stealin'. When I say we, I speak for Seventy-Five yer, as is present, as well as repre- sentin' so to speak seventy-two other gents as is scattered. We hung Josh Silsbee on squar, pretty squar, evidence. Afore he was strung up, Seventy-Five yer axed him, ac- .ordin' to custom, ef there was ennything he had to say, or enny request that he allowed to make of us. He turns to Seventy-Five, yer, and—" Here he paused suddenly, looking at his companion. " He sez, sez he," began Seventy-Five, taking up the narrative ; " he sez, ' Kin I write a letter ?' sez he. Sez I, ' Not much, ole man ; ye've got no time.' Sez he, ' Kin I send a despatch by telegraph ?' I sez, ' Heave ahead.' He sez—these is his dientikal words—'Send to Adam Rightbody, Boston. Tell him to remember his sacred compack with me thirty years ago.'" "'His sacred compack with me thirty years ago,'* echoed Seventy-Four. "His dientikal words." " What was the compact ?" asked Mrs. Rightbody, anxiously. Seventy-Four looked at Seventy-Five, and then both arose and retired to the corner of the parlour, where they engaged in a slow but whispered deliberation. Presently they returned, and sat down again. " We ailow," said Seventy-Four, quietly but decidedly, e that you know what that sacred compact was." THE GEE A T DEAD WOOD MYSTERY. 37 Mrs. Rightbody lost her temper and her truthfulness together. " Of course," she said hurriedly, " I know ; but do you mean to say that you gave this poor man no further chance to explain before you murdered him ? " Seventy-Four and Seventy-Five both rose again slowly and retired. When they returned again and sat down, Seventy-Five, who by this time, through some subtle magnetism, Mrs. Rightbody began to recognize as the superior power, said gravely, " We wish to say, regarding this yer murder, that Seventy-Four and me is equally responsible. That we reckon also to represent, so to speak, seventy-two other gentlemen as is scattered. That we are ready, Seventy- Four and me, to take and holt that responsibility now and at any time, afore every man or men as kin be fetched agin us. We wish to say that this yer say of ours holds good yer in Californy or in any part of these United States." "Or in Canady,"suggested Seventy-Four. " Or in Canady. We wouldn't agree to cross the water or go to furrin parts, unless absolutely necessary. We leaves the chise of weppings to your principal, ma'am, or being a lady, ma'am, and interested, to any one you may fetch to act for him. An advertisement in any of the Sacramento papers, or a playcard or handbill stuck unto a tree near Deadwood saying that Seventy-Four or Seventy-Five will communicate with this yer principal or agent of yours, will fetch us,—allers." Mrs. Rightbody, a little alarmed and desperate, saw her blunder. " I mean nothing of the kind," she said hastily. "I only expected that you might have some further details 2 38 TIIE GREAT DEAD WOOD MYSTERY. of this interview with Silsbee—that perhaps you could tell me—" a bold bright thought crossed Mrs. Righlbody's mind, " something more about her? The two men looked at each other. " I suppose your society have no objection to giving me information about her? said Mrs. Rightbody, eagerly. Another quiet conversation in the corner, and the return of both men. " We want to say that we've no objection." Mrs. Rightbody's heart beat high. Her boldness had made her penetration good. Yet she felt she must not alarm the men heedlessly. " Will you inform me to what extent Mr. Rightbody, my late husband, was interested in her?" This time it seemed an age to Mrs. Rightbody before the men returned from their solemn consultation in the corner. She could both hear and feel that their discussion was more animated than their previous conferences. She was a little mortified, however, when they sat down to hear Seventy-Four say slowly, "We wish to say that we don't allow to say how much." " Do you not think that the ' sacred compact' between Mr. Rightbody and Mr. Silsbee referred to her." " We reckon it do." Mrs. Rightbody, flushed and animated, would have given worlds had her daughter been present to hear this undoubted confirmation of her theory. Yet she felt a little nervous and uncomfortable even on this threshold of dis¬ covery. " Is she here now?" " She's in Tuolumne," said Seventy-Four, THE GREAT DEADWOOD MYSTERY. 39 "A little better looked arter than formerly," added Seventy-Five. " I see. Then Mr. Silsbee enticed hex away?" "Well, ma'am, it was allowed as she runned away. But it wasn't proved, and it generally wasn't her style." Mrs. Rightbody trifled with her next question. " She was pretty, of course ?" The eyes of both men brightened. "She was that!" said Seventy-Four, emphatically. "It would have done you good to see her," added Seventy-Five. Mrs. Rightbody inwardly doubted it; but before she could ask another question, the two men again retired to the corner for consultation. When they came back there was a shade more of kindliness and confidence in their manner, and Seventy-Four opened his mind more freely. " We wish to say, ma'am, looking at the thing, by and large, in a far-minded way—that ez yon seem interested, and ez Mr. Rightbody was interested, and was according to all accounts de-ceived and led away by Silsbee, that we don't mind listening to any proposition you might make, as a lady—allowin' you was ekally interested." " I understand," said Mrs. Rightbody quickly. " And you will furnish me with any papers." The two men again consulted. " We wish to say, ma'am, that we think she's got papers, but—" "I must have them, you understand," interrupted Mrs. Rightbody, " at any price! * "We was about to say, ma'am," said Seventy-Five slowly, ^ Ufaty Ccfnsi'derin' all things—and you being a Lady THE GREAT DEAD WOOD MYSTERY. ~—you kin have her, papers, pedigree, and guarantee for twelve hundred dollars! " It nas been alleged that Mrs. Rightbody asked only one question more, and then fainted. It is known, how¬ ever, that by the next day it was understood in Deadwood that Mrs. Rightbody had confessed to the Vigilance Com¬ mittee that her husband, a celebrated Boston millionaire, anxious to gain possession of Abner Springer's well-known sorrel mare, had incited the unfortunate Josh Silsbee to steal it; and that finally, failing in this, the widow of the deceased Boston millionaire was now in personal nego¬ tiation with the owners. Howbeit, Miss Alice, returning home that afternoon, found her mother with a violent headache. " We will leave here by the next steamer," said Mrs. Rightbody, languidly. " Mr. Ryder has promised to accompany us." " But, mother—•" " The climate, Alice, is over-rated. My nerves are already suffering from it. The associations are unfit for you, and Mr. Marvin is naturally impatient." Miss Alice coloured slightly. " But your quest, mother ? " " I've abandoned it." "But/have not," said Alice, quietly. "Do you re¬ member my guide at the Yo Semite, Stanislaus Joe? Well, Stanislaus Joe is—who do you think?" Mrs. Rightbody was languidly indifferent. " Well, Stanislaus Joe is the son of Joshua Silsbee." Mrs. Rightbody sat upright in astonisiimeut. Yes ; but, mother, he knows nothing of what we THE GREA T DEAD WOOD M YSTER Y. " 4f ■ know. His father treated him shamefully, and set him cruelly adrift years ago; and when he was hung, the poor fellow, in sheer disgrace, changed his name." " But if he knows nothing of his father's compact, of what interest is this ?" " Oh, nothing! Only I thought it might lead to some¬ thing." Mrs. Rightbody suspected that "something,"and asked, sharply, " And pray how did you find it out? You did not speak of it in the Valley." " Oh, I didn't find it out till to-day," said Miss Alice, walking to the window. " He happened to be here, and —told me." Part IV. If Mrs. Rightbody's friends had been astounded by her singular and unexpected pilgrimage to California so soon after her husband's decease, they were still more as¬ tounded by the information a year later that she was engaged to be married to a Mr. Ryder, of whom only the scant history was known that he was a Californian, and former correspondent of her husband. It was unde¬ niable that the man was wealthy, and evidently no mere adventurer; it was rumoured that he was courageous and manly; but even those who delighted in his odd humour were shocked at his grammar and slang. It was said that Mr. Marvin had but one interview with his father-in-law elect, and returned so supremely disgusted that the match was broken off. The horse-stealing storv, more or less 41 THE GREAT DEADWOOD MYSTERY. garbled, .ound its way through lips that pretended to decry it, yet eagerly repeated it. Only one member of the Rightbody family—and a new one—saved them from utter ostracism. It was young Mr. Ryder, the adopted son of the prospective head of the household, whose culture, manners, and general elegance fascinated and thrilled Boston with a new sensation. It seemed to many that Miss Alice should in the vicinity of this rare exotic forget her former enthusiasm for a professional life, but the young man was pitied by society, and various plans for diverting him from any 7nesalliance with the Rightbody family were concocted. It was a wintry night, and the second anniversary of Mr. Rightbody's death, that a light was burning in his library. But the dead man's chair was occupied by young Mr. Ryder, adopted son of the new proprietor of the mansion, and before him stood Alice, with her dark eyes fixed on the table. "There must have been something in it, Joe, believe me. Did you never hear your father speak of mine ? " " Never." " But you say he was college bred, and born a gentle¬ man, and in his youth he must have had many friends." "Alice," said the young man, gravely, " when I have done something to redeem my name, and wear it again before these people, before you, it would be well to revive the past. But till then—" But Alice was not to be put down. " I remember," she went on, scarcely heeding him, " that when I came in that night, papa was reading a letter, and seemed to be disconcerted." THE GEE AT DEAD WOOD MASTERY. 4, "A letter?" "Yes; but," added Alice, with a sigh, "when we found him here insensible, there was no letter on his person. He must have destroyed it." " Did you ever look among his papers ? If found, it might be a clue." The young man glanced toward the cabinet. Alice read his eyes, and answered— " Oh dear, no. The cabinet contained only his papers, all perfectly arranged—you know how methodical were his habits—and some old business and private letters, all carefully put away." " Let us see them," said the young man, rising. They opened drawer after drawer; files upon files of letters and business papers, accurately folded and filed. Suddenly Alice uttered a little cry, and picked up a quaint ivory paper-knife lying at the bottom of a drawer. " It was missing the next day, and never could be found. He must have mislaid it here. This is the drawer," said Alice, eagerly. Here was a clue. But the lower part of the drawer was filled with old letters, not labelled, yet neatly arranged in files. Suddenly he stopped, and said,"Put them back, Alice, at once." "Why?" " Some of these letters are in my father's hand¬ writing." " The more reason why I should see them," said the girl, imperatively. " Here, you take part and I'll take part, and we'll get through quicker." There was a certain decision and independence in her 44 THE GREAT DEAD WOOD MYSTERY. manner which he had learned to respect. He took the letters, and in silence read them with her. They were old college letters, so filled with boyish dreams, ambi¬ tions, aspirations, and Utopian theories, that I fear neither of these young people even recognized their parents in the dead ashes of the past. They were both grave, until Alice uttered a little hysterical cry, and dropped her face in her hands. Joe was instantly beside her. "It's nothing, Joe, nothing. Don't read it, please; please, don't. It's so funny—it's so very queer." But Joe had, after a slight, half-playful struggle, taken the letter from the girl. Then he read aloud the words written by his father thirty years ago. " I thank you, dear friend, for all you say about my wife and boy. I thank you for reminding me of our boyish compact. He will be ready to fulfil it, I know, if he loves those his father loves, even if you should marry years later. I am glad for your sake, for both our sakes, that it is a boy. Heaven send you a good wife, dear Adams, and a daughter, to make my son equally happy." Joe Silsbee looked down, took the half-laughing, half- tearful face in his hands, kissed her forehead, and, with tears in his grave eyes, said," Amen !" ****** I am inclined to think that this sentiment was echoed heartily by Mrs. Rightbody's former acquaintances, when, a year later, Miss Alice was united to a professional gentleman of honour and renown, yet who was known to be the son of a convicted horse-thiei. A few remembered THE GEE AT DEAD WOOD MYSTERY. 45 the previous Californian story, and found corroboration therefor; but a majority believed it a just reward to Miss Alice for her conduct to Mr. Marvin, and as Miss Alice cheerfully accepted it in that light, I do not see why I may not end my story with happiness to all concerned. fp dntidfj-lfattMfh jltkL A STRANGE STORY. BY F. C. BURNAND. ■>T was night. I was sitting in a brown study—my own. The subject of my meditation was a paper for a Christmas Annual. The candles gave an occasional sympa- 1/ thizing flicker. First one idea struck me, then V another, then a third. Each excellent in its way, but leading to absolutely nothing. I caught the ideas as they flew, and jotted them down on paper, as a collector spits moths with a pin. My ideas were all curious and remarkable specimens, but being once fixed on paper with a pencil, they only quivered for a time, and then were heard of no more. I had just spitted the twentieth specimen, and was looking over the lot to see what could be done with any one of them separately, or what use could be made of four or five together, and was reaching a point of blank despair, when I heard a ring at the front door bell. THE CRUTCH-HANDLED STICK. 47 Time, midnight. As a rule, I do not expect a visitor at midnight. The household was wrapped in slumber, and from what I knew of my household when wrapped in slumber, I felt pretty sure that a visitor might break the bell wire before he would catch a snore^s ear. I was certain of this, because once, and once only, I had mislaid my latch-key. I had left it on the table in the hall, and so I was on one side of the front door, and my latch-key on the other. At that moment, while standing on the doorstep of my house, I felt that there was no place like home at 2 a.m. on a cold wintry morning, with a drizzle of rain, and all the servants fast asleep. " Both child and nurse are fast asleep, [And closed is every door," as the glee has it (or " hasn't it" if my memory is defec¬ tive), before arriving at the inspiriting chorus— " Uprouse ye then, my merry, merry men. For 'tis our opening day." Opening ! Not a sign of it Again, as I was wondering whether my imagination had played me a practical joke, I heard the bell. Just one doubt about it this time. I was not certain. I had three flights of stairs to descend if I was to open it myself, and in a London house, even though it be home, I am always nervous at night about coming suddenly on blackbeetles. I have no objection to ghosts. I would rather meet a ghost than a burglar any night of the week. But I am far from sure whether I would not rather meet a burglar than a blackbeetle. We know of whom it i? re¬ ported that he is not so black as he has been painted. 48 THE CRUTCH-HANDLED STICK,\ We also know that in this case if the paint could be scratched off, we should get at an angel of quite another colour. But no one has ever yet reported of a blackbeetle that it is anything but naturally black, and a beetle,—the blackest and beetlest of all creeping things. Again the bell. This time not the slightest doubt about it. It was asking, " Is any one up?" and had not been answered. I roused myself into action. With a glass-shaded candle, I descended cautiously. No blackbeetles. Not a sound. Not a snore from below. Not a soul up : the only thing up was the door-chain, which remains on duty all night. Slowly and cautiously I undid the fastenings. Slowly, and still more cautiously, I opened the door. On the step without stood a man. A stranger, an utter stranger, to me. He begged my pardon for disturbing me at that un¬ earthly hour—that was his expression. He was not a burglar ; at least it occurred to me that no burglar would have been so considerate and polite as to have begun his work in this way. At the same time, this is a hint which might be useful to burglars who wish to conduct their business in a more pleasant and civilised manner than has hitherto been adopted. Claude Duval was a highway¬ man of the most polished school. Why should not there be a Claude Duval among burglars ? He could begin, " I beg your pardon, sir, for breaking in upon you at this hour, but I must trouble you for—" here he could mention such articles of value as he knew were in your bureau, or THE CRUTCH.HANDLED STICK. 45 your pantry, or your strong box, or your jewel-case, at the same time producing an elegant revolver. The stranger was not a Claude Duval. He was a thin, sallow man, of about the middle height, and of the same age as height, with a wan and worn expression, and a sad smile on his decidedly handsome countenance. He was in evening dress, of gentlemanly cut, neither swellish nor seedy. His eyes were expressive, but of what, I could not make out. There was something in his smile that struck me as peculiar; and, in fact, his whole bearing was that of a man who had seen better days and worse nights, and who could a tale unfold, that might, like any other long tail, make a considerable coil. " Sir," I said, in that most courteous manner which I inherit from my greatest-great-grandmother, whose por¬ trait, by Sir Geoffrey Pinxit, now hangs in my unique col¬ lection—(I may speak of it as unique, as it is the only picture I possess of any kind). " Sir," I said, " may I inquire, having come down for that purpose, what the deuce you mean by making this infernal noise at my door at this hour ? If I see a policeman—" He put up his hand with a deprecatory action, and his mild but piercing eyes beamed with a melancholy light as he interrupted me. " Sir," he said, in an accent which struck me as that of a distinguished foreigner who had been naturalized in this country for more than six months; " Sir, I have called upon you for your own benefit, not for mine. With this life, its joys and its miseries, I have no more to do. A mysterious influence has guided me here. I am about to quit this land for ever. Before I go, however. I have a So THE CRUTCH-HANDLED STICK. trust which I must deposit with some one : why not with you ? " " Why with me ?" I asked. "Why not? You are a member of the Honourable Guild of Fishmongers, are you not ?" " I am." "Then that is sufficient for me. You are a Fish¬ monger; therefore, you are an honest man. Shakespeare has said so. An honest man is Heaven's noblest work. Is that not so ?" I admitted it. " Then," he continued, " what is the deduction ? Deduct for yourself." I am no hand at arithmetic ; so I begged him to con¬ sider it as deducted, and to go on—about his business. I had only come down in my dressing-gown, and the cold wind was beginning to find me out—or find me in. "I wish," the stranger went on, "to make your fortune." " Indeed ?" I returned, beginning to be interested. " Here," and as he spoke he produced a roll of papers from the inside pocket of his ulster, "are the materials." " Shares ? Bonds ? " I inquired. "No, neither bonds nor stocks," he replied with a forced expression, " for both have been forms of punish¬ ment in their time. No ; this is," .... and here for a moment he seemed to stagger and turn pale, as he gasped . . . . " There are thousands of pounds in this. . . . Here—take—quickly . . ." And before I could stretch out my arms, he had reeled and fallen heavily forwards against me, knocking me backwards into the hall. In a second I was on my legs, suspecting some 7HE CRUTCH-HANDLED STICK. 51 ruse on his part; but no. The unhappy man lay appa¬ rently lifeless on the door-mat, with his feet on the threshold. His breathing—thank Heaven, he still breathed !—was heavy and laboured, and in his hand he clasped, with all the energy of tetanic convulsion, the roll of paper containing the thousands of which he had so recently spoken. My first impulse was to relieve him of the papers—lift him outside, and leave him on the door-step. My second was to drag him within, close the door, examine the papers while he was still insensible, and by their contents decide on my plan of action in his regard. I pulled him within. I closed the door, and put up the chain. The great bell of lit. Vitus-in-Vinctis, our parish church, tolled one. It seemeO to say decidedly, and without hesitation, " Yes ; you are right!" It seemed to sound a victory for me : it seemed in fact to sing out " WON!" The candle was burning low. While the light per- mitted, I attempted to force the papers from his grasp. No. Impossible. I was at a disadvantage, being fearful of tearing them. From time to time he rolled over, groaning heavily, and lay, with his hands clutching the precious documents hid¬ den beneath him, face downwards. What was to be done ? Something : and quickly, as Shakespeare has said, only expressing himself more poetically. After all what is poetry, but the art of colouring and enlarging a prose picture ? " If," I mused aloud, "I could only restore him to con¬ sciousness for a few minutes, if I could only dash some 52 THE CRUTCH-HANDLED STICK. water over him, or force a drop of brandy down his throat." He groaned, and over his upturned ghastly face there passed a sudden fitful light, a gleam of reviving intelli¬ gence. His parched lips moved, and he mouthed like a freshly-landed fish. " The brandy is in my study," I said to myself aloud ; " I do not like to go for it, and leave him here." I determined on one more effort. This time with more success. Either animation was returning, or I had hit upon the right way of lifting him. He staggered to his legs, leaning heavily on my shoulder, his lips still moving as though a drop of water would be the saving of his life. In this state I supported him to my study. Once there, I placed him in an arm-chair. On the table, at his elbow, were one bottle of whisky, one of brandy, a box of cigars, some soda-water, a lemon, and a small kettle of water with a spirit-lamp underneath. I poured out a glass of brandy. He sipped it. Opened his eyes, closed them, and would have been off again, had I not, with a promptitude which astonished myself, at once placed the glass to his lips. He drank. He awoke. " Where am I ?" he asked, then, after staring about wildly, he looked at me with a puzzled expression, and said, " Is it out?" "Is what out ? The candle ? " I returned. " The candle ? No, the tooth." " Whose tooth ?" * Mine." THE CRUTCH-HANDLED STICK. 53 "Tooth! I'm not a dentist." " No !" he exclaimed, dreamily, but evidently surprised at the information. Then—"where am I?" I informed him. He pushed back his hair, and pressed his hand to his forehead. " Yes," he said, "I remember. I am a teetotaller; but exceptin probat regulam. Even Father Matthew himself would take a drop—a mere drop—on such an occasion ; a voire sante, cher monsieurAnd he tossed off a glass of neat brandy, smacking his lips afterwards with im¬ mense gusto. My brandy is view.v cognac, and costs me five guineas a dozen. Clearly my visitor was a scholar. " Excellent brandy!" he exclaimed, filling another glass. I indicated the whisky and soda. "No, no," he replied, "too good for mixing. We'll come to whisky when we want an encore. A la voire ! Hoop lk !" and down went another glass. It was time to help myself, and I did so. So did he ; also to a cigar. So did I. It was half-past-one a.m., and here was I smoking and drinking in my own house, in my own sanctum, with a perfect stranger—a stranger at all events, but whether "perfect" or not, remained to be seen. He commenced talking on all sorts of topics—furni¬ ture, art, literature, zoology, geology, gambling, divinity, stock exchange ventures, politics, and, I am bound to confess, I found him a decidedly pleasant and agreeable companion. The night wore on. I hadn't an idea who he was, whence he came, or what his business might be in my house, in my study, at this time of night. 54 THE CRUTCH-HANDLED STICK. The small hours were getting larger and larger ; the quantities in the brandy and whisky bottles were becoming small by degrees, and beautifully less. Suddenly I brought him up with a jerk, so to speak. " Sir," I said, and my voice seemed to be produced with difficulty—perhaps I had caught cold—"may I ask what you are doing here?" " My benefactor, my preserver has a right to ask any¬ thing," he returned looking very serious. He lifted the brandy-bottle, it was empty; he took up the whisky- bottle, not a drop. He shook his head gravely, and rose from his seat—with some difficulty, as it seemed to me. I fancy I must have had a sudden bilious attack, or rheu¬ matism, perhaps caught at the street door, for I found myself unable to rise from my chair. I apologized for this apparent want of courtesy. " The explanation is quite unnecessary," said the stranger, in a sepulchral tone. " I have fulfilled my mission here. My time has come to an end. My life here, on this miserable planet is finished for ever. F arewell!" The lights burned hlue, there was a vapoury haze about the room that rendered everything indistinct. The figure was vanishing rapidly. Undismayed, I called out with sudden energy, " The manuscript! The papers that were to make my fortune ! Where—" " Here," he answered, in a low, melancholy tone. " I cannot leave them with you. Were I to do so, you would not thank me, for I should be compelled to haunt you every night until you had destroyed them." THE CRUTCH-HANDLED STICK. 5S " But their contents—" I cried, intending to say more, had he not cut me short. "Their contents explain mysteries of the past, the present, and the future," he said ; and again his form seemed to be melting away in the vaporous mist that encircled him. " The future !" I exclaimed. " Does it tell me anything about Turks, about Egyptian finance, about Russian Go¬ vernment Securities, Chilian Coupons, Erie Shares, and Bolivian Bonds ?" For I was in all these things, and had been much puzzled during the past year by the ups and downs, and chops and changes, in the political and financial world. " Everything," he replied; " but the life within me is almost extinct. I am called to another sphere. I must go. This is my last night on earth." " Then," I said, for my curiosity was aroused, " if it's your last, let it be a good 'un. Come," I added, beginning to be more at home with my visitor, who might have been either a ghost or a convict, " if you'll read your manuscript to me, Ell—I'll keep the life in you with another bottle of brandy—and another cigar." The offer was accepted. He opened the bundle, and read to me the following extraordinary extract from a diary, which I commenced to note down on the spot, taking it from him in shorthand. The next day I referred to my own notes, which,being almost illegible, I deciphered with considerable difficulty, owing probably to the pace of my writing, or to his indistinctness, or to the dim light, 56 THE CRUTCH-HANDLED STICK'. or to the supernatural spiritual influences c pervading the chamber on this extraordinary occasion. However, aided by my excellent memory, I managed to arrange in some sort of connected order this strange statement, which, if true, accounts for many events in the past, and may afford to those who are capable of reading between the lines, and seising a hint, an opportunity of realizing an enor¬ mous and colossal fortune. Should any of my readers, attain this most desirable end, through the study of this paper, let them, as the song says, " remember me," and give me a handsome percentage for the information. The Stranger's MS. N ote.—" There are more things in Heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy." Within the last few years the fashion has grown up of going about everywhere with a stick. To operas, theatres, clubs, concerts, private parties, every swell brought his own stick. The great rage, born of the latest fashion in decorative art, was for crutch-handled sticks. Never out of the fashion for a moment, I, too, being, as you see, still sufficiently young (all people are, I find, about the same age, except the very old ones, who really seem stationary), and tout a fait comme il faut, deter- * Is "spiritual influences" quite the correct expression ? Not on any account would we be rude, or for one moment suggest that our contributor is not in perfect bona fides-, but if "spiritual " were spelt with a final11 ous " instead of an "al," wouldn't it be more correct ?—Ed. THE CRUTCH-HANDLED STICK. 57 mined to purchase a stick of this description—" Crutch- handled." On the first of . . . (month partially obliterated, but it looks like April. Date totally illegible), I went to a stick and umbrella shop. " I want a crutch-handled stick," I said. The shopman, a curmudgeonish-looking old man, with a dirty, bald speckled head, and wearing horn-rimmed spectacles, paid me no sort of attention, being deeply engaged at that moment with a customer, who could not make up his mind as to the purchase of a singularly hand¬ some gold-mounted, highly polished stick of some rare wood unknown to me. I was on the point of turning away and walking out of the shop, when, lying among a second-hand lot of rubbish, I saw an ebony crutch-handled stick, dull from loss of polish, but with a peculiar handle, which caused a marked difference between it and all other sticks. The handle represented a viper with its mouth open. It might have been an accidental resemblance, though this would hardly be, as there was nothing dental—whether acci or other¬ wise about it, being simply a viper shape with a mouth open—no eyes, no tongue—and, in fact, just as I have sketched it, nothing more. " What," I asked, " is the price of that stick ? " The old curmudgeon paid no more attention to me than if I had been one of the second-hand bundle, bound up with a lot of other sticks. His daughter, however, a plain girl, with remarkably good eyes and a neat figure, timidly observed that her father would soon be disengaged, that these sticks, having only arrived wholesale that very 58 THE CRUTCH-HANDLED STICK. morning, had not yet been priced, but that, if I would select one, she would go to her father and get his answer. I selected my friend the viper. I tried it. I held it in my hand. I seemed to cling to it. I pressed on it; I leant on it, and found it very good security. It wanted no cutting down. It was just suited to my stature. It required only a little rubbing—that was all, and, having once got it in my possession, I somehow felt an affection for it which prevented my parting with it. " I should like to know," I said to the girl, " how much your father wants for this." " Let me take it to him, sir, I will inquire." " No, thank you, I would rather not part with it lest some one else should take fancy to it. I will wait," I added, with a glance at the old man, who was still bar¬ gaining about the valuable walking-stick with the unde¬ cided customer. " I wish that fellow would settle at once and have done with it," I said to myself. Scarcely had the thought occurred to me, than the old shopman's face beamed. The customer had settled to buy it at the price named, and there was the money. "Now I trust he'll attend to me, confound him !" I muttered. •• What is it, sir ? " asked the old man. He was at my elbow. Could he have overheard my remark? Impos¬ sible ! I was not in the habit of thinking aloud. "This stick," I said, "how much?" " Oh!" he grumbled, evidently suspecting that I was THE CRUTCH-HANDLED STICK. 59 a connoisseur in sticks, and that there was something specially valuable in my selection. " I can't let that stick go for an ordinary sum." "Well, how much ?" I repeated. " Three pounds," was his answer. "Absurd," I exclaimed. " It may be absurd, sir," he replied nettled, " but that is the price, and not a penny less." I eyed it regretfully. I was either to buy it at that price, or leave it. " Well," I said, " I've taken a fancy to the stick." " Fancies are expensive," said the old man, grimly, as he gave change to his customer, and bowed him out of the shop. " I wish," I said enviously, " that that rich person would come back and make me a present of this stick." The customer had returned while I was speaking. I had not seen him. I blushed, colouring up to the roots of my hair, as he must have heard my remark, for which I murmured an apology. " I was only joking," I began, but he did not seem to know that I was addressing him, and going straight to the old shopman he said, " I want to give that stick as a present to that gentle¬ man there. It is three pounds. Here are three pounds." " I cannot permit, sir," I exclaimed, overwhelmed b) this extraordinary generosity on the part of an entire stranger. " I really cannot permit you to—" "You are very welcome, sir," returned the stranger. " I don't know why I give it you. I haven't the slightest 60 THE CRUTCH-HANDLED STICK. idea. It is an impulse. There is the stick in your hands. It is yours." " I wish my funds were sufficient to make you some return as a memento of your kindness," I said, putting my hand into my waistcoat-pocket. I started. There was something there. I mean, that when I left my home there had been in my pocket seven and sixpence, and an empty sovereign purse. Now there was the seven and sixpence sure enough and the purse was full. I examined it. Real sovereigns. " I find I have some change with me," I said, " now I must insist on you permitting me to give you some little memento." " My dear sir," laughed the customer, " you are very good. The fact is I deal here regularly, and there is only one thing I should like in this house, and that, I fancy, is beyond either your means or mine to pur¬ chase, because old Mr. Busk won't part with it. It's a chiming clock, value about a hundred and eighty guineas, that has been in his family for years, and stands now on the staircase." "Ah," said Mr. Busk, determinedly, " money doesn't buy that clock of me. I leave it to my children, as it was left to me by my mother, and to her by her grand¬ mother.'' " I wish you would part with it, Mr. Busk," I said. "Well," said Mr. Busk, quite suddenly, and, indeed, before I had got the words out of my mouth, " I will part with it. You shall have it." " No !" exclaimed both the customer and myself, utterly THE CRUTCH-HANDLED STICK. 61 astonished at the marvellous rapidity of this change of sentiments. " You don't mean it ?" " I do mean it," replied Mr. Busk resolutely, and wnh a tinge of annoyance in his manner, as though resenting our implied doubt of his sincerity ; " you shall have it." " But, father—" implored his daughter. "No," he answered, putting her aside, "I have said it. He shall have it." " The price ?" I inquired. "The price?" inquired the customer. Mr. Busk turned on the latter sharply, and said," Look here, don't you interfere. I ain't selling it to you. I'm parting with it to him" and he pointed to me. " But," I said, " I'm afraid I can't pay a hundred and eighty guineas for it; and, however much I may wish it, I don't suppose you would give it me as a present," Mr. Busk seemed to jump at the idea as a solution of a knotty point. " Yes, I will," he shouted, violently. " It is yours. Take it." The customer stared, so did Miss Busk. Clearly, her father had gone mad. " Father, consider—" she began, almost crying. " I have considered," returned Busk, savagely. " I give him that old clock. I don't know why I give it, but I do give it. It's an impulse." " Thank you, very much," I said mildly, for I was puzzled and bothered by this second gift. " I should like some of your men to bring a cart and move it away at once, and they can take it to this gentleman's address." The door at the back opened, and in came three men 62 THE CRUTCH-HANDLED STICK. in dirty shirt sleeves, from their work of umbrella-making and stick-cutting, etc. " Here we are, sir," they said, and at once, opening another door, leading into the passage, they went to work with a will, and in a quarter of an hour or less they had hoisted this old relic of the past on to a cart, and were bearing it off toward Portman Square, where the customer had given his address. " But," said the latter, " I must really repay you—" " Whenever you like," I said; " it has cost me nothing." Mr. Busk did not seem to heed our presence in the shop, and made no further remark on the clock trans¬ action. It had gone out of his mind, or he had no mind for it to go out of. His daughter was weeping in a corner. " Recompense her" I whispered to the rich customer. " How much," he whispered back again. |ij ©flpr by j. w. deforest. ■—♦—- HE senator had made his bargain, but he still pondered it dubiously at odd moments, and occasionally played with a disposition to break it. " Of course I am free to cut loose," he muttered, lolling back in his easy-chair, with the ir air of a man who tries to believe that he is master of the situation. "At all events, I am not bound to stand by my bond, if—the Other Fellow doesn't stand by his." He had an aversion, we may suspect, to thinking dis¬ tinctly of his partner in agreement, or to calling him by his name. Hence perhaps it was that, even in the solitude of his own room, even in the privacy of his own soul, he alluded to him as "the Other Fellow." "It is a monstrous offer," continued Senator Wesley, puffing away at a thirty-cent cigar. " I haven't the least idea that he can carry it out. If he doesn't fulfil it to the 72 THE OTHER FE1I01V. minutest particular, I shall feel perfectly free to cut loose from him." But as he thought over the events of the day it seemed to him probable, and even alarmingly certain, that the Other Fellow was indeed discharging his part of the compact. The same men who up to yesterday were sending him urgent dunning letters had mailed him thankful receipts and solicited a continuance of his custom. Who paid them ? His banker had not only returned him his protested notes cancelled, but had noti¬ fied him that a draft of ten thousand dollars had been passed to his credit. Who sent it ? The senator smiled as he thought how astonished Mr. Bursary must have looked over that paper, and how he might perhaps have smelt of it to see if he could detect an odour of brimstone. Moreover, how was it that Mace, the importer, had all of a sudden taken a fancy to give him baskets of cham¬ pagne and boxes of Havanas ? Did the old fellow want some change made in the tariff? Or had he set his grocery soul upon the project of getting a United States senator to one of his dinner parties ? Or were these showers of luxuries results of the princely interference of the Other Fellow? At all events—and here Mr. Wesley took a cautious, investigating puff,—there seemed to be no flavour of- sulphur in the cigars. Had he perceived such a taint, how quickly would he have thrown down the abominable weed, and abjured his tremendous bar¬ gain ! At least, so he thought, and quite distinctly, too, absurd as the thought seemed. Meantime, it is not at all certain what he would have done in such a case. There are times and circumstances when a certain sort of man THE OTHER FELLOW. 73 would rather smoke brimstone regalias than none at all. /• Presently the senator fell into a more cheerful, and, as he said to himself, a more rational frame. Why should he wonder at his newly-blossomed prosperity, and attri¬ bute to it any roots deeper than the healthful soil of earth ? Had he not simply accepted yesterday evening the presidency of the Great Consolidated Railroad Com¬ pany ? Was not his honest, above-board salary there¬ from a clear twenty thousand a year ? Was he not at the head of one of the wealthiest and most influential com¬ binations of capital in the whole republic? And voters, too !—voters by the wardful ! There were ten thousand workmen, more or less, under his direction ; they could turn the scale in more than one congressional district which he named to himself; they might change the political complexion of a potent State which he knew of. To be sure, his duties as president were rather nomi¬ nal than real; he was something like the Queen of Eng¬ land,—he was a ceremony. He knew nothing whatever about railroads ; could not say whether locomotives were high-pressure or low-pressure; could hardly tell an H rail from a T. Nothing whatever would he have to do with purchases, or rates of fare, or payment of coupons, or division of profits. It was some other fellow—and probably that Other Fellow—who really had rule. His own business was merely to let himself be called presi¬ dent, to lend all the dignity of his character and office to the Great Consolidated, and to see that its interests did not suffer in the councils of the nation. For these things was he to draw his twenty thousand a year, and to get 74 THE OTHER FELLOW'. that respectable commission on the new bonds, second mortgage. All the same, his power was indisputably great, and his revenue promised to be enormous. No wonder that merchandising men hurried in their receipts, and reve¬ rentially begged him to order more. Probably the Great Consolidated had traded at their counters over night, or had simply and straightforwardly drawn its auriferous finger over his debits. Likewise with Bursary, the banker, and Mace, the importer. There was no need of supposing anything other-worldly, or even extraordinary, to account for the fact that a railroad president, with ever so much a year, should find himself out of debt. No wonder, either, that all of a sudden all sorts of men should obviously regard him with increased deference ; no wonder, for instance, that his brother senators had that day hearkened to him with an attention and respect which they had never before accorded. As he thought of these things, and of the solid pecu¬ niary causes which undoubtedly lay at the bottom of them, he drew a deep sigh of repose and satisfaction. What a restfulness there was in being out of debt, and especially out of that confounded land speculation, with its mire of sinking values and of mortgages ! What a joy it was to have his pockets once more full, and in fact running over! What a luxury to smoke such cigars, and not even think of the expense sufficiently to say, Curse it! " I have made a ten-strike!" he laughed aloud. " And I am one of the youngest members of the senate ; yes, and upon my soul, one of the best-looking." He was indeed, as United States senators go, a man of THE OTHER FELLOW. 75 considerable personal charms. More than one lovely femi¬ nine lobbyist had called on Senator Matthew Wesley with the intent of captivating, and had gone away capti¬ vated, feeling that she would gladly give up her claim and its shadowy millions for the slenderest chance of that man's impecunious love. More than one youthful lady, fresh and undefiled from the bosom of her home, had watched him with bright eyes from the gallery, and said to her intimate friend, or shyly thought to herself, " Isn't he splendid ?" Well, the place perhaps lent its glory to him, and added to the brilliance of his natural halo. To my masculine optics he was not so much beautiful as un¬ commonly good-looking. His broad shoulders, capacious chest, and mighty limbs needed about twenty pounds off to make them Apollonean. There was the merest atom too much of double chin appended to his otherwise comely aquiline countenance. His expression was manly and intelligent, certainly, but a little too domineering, and a little hardened. On the other hand (what was then unusual in our upper house), he retained in his cheeks something of the smoothness and bloom of youth, and sported on his head an abundant crown of glossy hair. Take him all in all,—his upright vigour, his chestnut curls, and his senatoriality,—he might fairly be called a handsome man, if indeed one ought not to say splendid. Of a sudden the senator's cigar, though only half smoked out, tasted badly. It seemed to him that there was, in fact, a flavour of brimstone about it. He threw it into the fire, where, instead of burning quietly, as a pigar should, it blazed up in a blue flame and disappeared ?6 THE OTHER FELLOW. almost in a moment. What was the matter with it,—or with him ? He had only heard a strange foot in the passage and an extremely gentle tap on his door. The most commonplace circumstances will sometimes affect us singularly, and give us irrational, not to say unearthly, impressions. Healthy and muscular and broad of chest as the senator was, it cost him an effort to say audibly, " Come in." The man who entered did not seem the sort of man to inspire fear. He was, to be sure, attired in solid black from head to foot, like that mysterious personage who frequented the witch-meetings of early New England, and whose office it seems to have been to record the names of neophytes in a large volume. But, after all, it was only a morning-suit of black cheviot; it was such a suit as many a quiet business man wears to his office. And that—a quiet business man—is just what he would have been taken for by any one who did not know better, as perhaps the senator did. The appearance of the stranger was not only quiet, but at first sight very attractive. His expression was viva¬ cious, cultivated, and agreeable, barring that he some¬ times threw out a glance of startling keenness, verging on the dissective and satirical. His carriage was graceful, noiseless, alert, supple as dancing, and yet daintily well bred. His features were Oriental ; his complexion a dark and clear pallor; his eyes black, serene, and penetrating. It was impossible to guess his birthplace, unless indeed he might be a Philadelphian, or possibly a Baltimorean. It was equally difficult to divine his age, except so far as to say that he seemed to be in the prime of life. The THE OTHER FELLOW. 77 smile with which he entered was so courteous, and at the same time so clever, that any one who did not know liim (as the senator did) would have called it fascinating. "You have a charming suite of rooms," he said, glancing with the air of a virtuoso over Wesley's carved furniture, bronzes, and other costly nicknacks. "Yes ; and preciously am I in debt for them ! " grumbled the senatorial sybarite, who could not help wanting to quarrel with something or somebody, so fretted was he by the presence of his visitor. " I should suppose that all that must now be by¬ gones," smiled the—the Other Fellow. I may as well state here that I have only an un¬ supported suspicion as to the real name of this personage, and shall therefore usually mention him by the title which was oftenest accorded to him in Wesley's thoughts and conversation. "It is a by-gone matter,—the financial embarrass¬ ment,—is it not?"he added, in a tone of business-like insistence, qualified by his gracious smile. " Oh—yes—certainly," stammered the senator. " I forgot myself. I am so used to being dunned, you know 1 The truth is that I haven't heard the cry of the creditor to-day, and suppose I am out of the woods." " I thought we must have seen to all those little matters," nodded the visitor. " Of course, too, you got a notice from the bank,—one half of your salary paid in advance." " But, really, you ought to have taken the bills out of the ten thousand," urged the honourable, who was curiously anxious not to be paid too much, and indeed THE OTHER FELLOW. felt just then as if he would like not to be paid any¬ thing. " Oh, trifles, trifles ! " smiled the Other Fellow. "You don't yet know what it is to be president of a railroad. We don't count so close in our corporation. And now,—if you will excuse me,—as to business ? " The conscript father turned deadly pale before this suggestion. It seemed as if he must have understood that " business " meant nothing less than mounting a chariot of fire and dashing into the mouth of a volcano, or some still hotter orifice. " I have hardly been able to do much as yet," he gasped. " Only talked a little in private with senators." "Yes, very good," bowed the Other Fellow approv¬ ingly. " The most telling work is done in private. Of course you haven't had time to accomplish much. You can't expect to build your Rome in a day." The senator cringed. He was of honourable descent, and he represented a most honourable ancient State, and he had hitherto been an honourable legislator. It did not at all please him to have this bill—this huge piece of jobbery and trickery and bribery—called his Rome. And yet, on reflection, so it must be. Was he not president of the Great Consolidated, and in receipt of its unstinted salaries and perquisites ? "It will hardly do for you, the chief of our corpora¬ tion, to speak or vote in favour of our bill—your bill." The visitor said this with a brisk, clear, positive utter¬ ance, which was evidently the natural speech of a clear" prompt, vigorous mind. By way of assent the senator shook his head—his big THE OTHER FELLOW. T* and once virtuous and still respected head—with great energy. " By all means not," responded the Other Fellow, in a tone which was thoroughly business-like, though not without a flavour of the sardonic. One might divine that, even while he felt obliged to treat of legislative corruption in a sensible and practicable spirit, it still afforded him entertainment. " Well, let us hear what you have to suggest, secre¬ tary," observed the honourable. " I should like to see exactly how far your views accord with mine." The actual manager of the Great Consolidated was not abashed by this assumption of independence and even of superiority on the part of the nominal manager. In his lucid, instructive, professional way, and smiling his sarcastic yet playful smile, he went on to give the con¬ script father a policy. " You will, of course, be an example of modesty, self- abnegation, and dignity. It will be well to say, in a few of your best sentences, that, as a legislator, you can do nothing for this bill. But in private, as an interested individual, as the lawful trustee of our interests, you must necessarily be our advocate. You know all these gentle¬ men, and you have the right to approach them, and you will not fail to use it. There must be confidential com¬ munications, hopeful views and expectancies, suggestions of public profit; yes, and of private profit. There must be argument where argument is best, a promise of voters where those are needed, and something on the nail where that has to be. Of course, no one expects you to bother with scrip and greenbacks. Give m« the names and 8o THE OTHER FELLOW. probable amounts, and I will see to the settlements. We must not be nice, and we must not be stingy. The directors don't expect to get much work for nothing. Carpet-baggers, etc., must live, as well as other men." " And you really think we will have to allow some dirty jobbery ?" groaned Wesley, staring weakly at the secretary. He had hitherto proudly imagined himself a man of immense moral muscle ; but he felt very feeble as he gazed into the depths of those intelligent eyes, and into the mazes of that sardonic smile. " What is the other company allowing ? The other company must be beaten. You have heard of the necessity of fighting fire with fire." " I should think a lady might push some of these inquiries with advantage," sighed the honourable, looking about him for somebody to hold the hottest end of his poker. " I will send you half-a-dozen," said the Other Fellow, the scoff of his smile softening into mocking hilarity. " Dear, lovely, innocent creatures ! There is nothing like an Eve for a tempter." Even the troubled senator could not help grinning for a moment. He had been sorely and also amusingly beset by apple-offering Eves during his term in the Eden of state-craft. "Well, it must be done, and it will be done!" he declared, much cheered by this hope of help from guardian angels. "I trust so; no reasonable doubt of it," replied the visitor. "And now as to your personal affairs? Has everything been cleared up?" THE OTHER FELLOW. Si " Everything. I don't know why I shouldn't be per¬ fectly jolly. Only a bachelor is apt to be lonely, I suppose you know. I shall have to set up either a wife or a valet." "Both are procurable. I should recommend the valet, as being the least trouble." " Exactly. Yes, I want a valet, or rather a man of all work : a fellow who can cook as well as shave and brush clothes ; a fellow who can do a lot of things," insisted the senator, feeling a grim need of distractions. " Yes, I want a valet—a Frenchified sort of valet." "So I have understood," said the Other Fellow. Mr. Wesley stared. How had the man understood it ? Not heretofore from the senatorial lips, certainly. " And I have taken the liberty to bring you just the person " continued the secretary: "a man who can shave, make a vol-au-vent, do anything. He is waiting in the hall below." The senator did not want to say, " Call him up," but somehow or other, he could not help saying it. There¬ upon appeared, gently stepping and obsequious, a tall, brown, grave man of uncertain age, glossily black in hair and duskily black in eyes, and clothed, like the secretary, in black from head to foot. His name, he said, was Blasorious, his parentage Transylvanian, and his native language Latin. But he spoke English without hesitation or foreign accent, and professed besides a knowledge of several other vulgar tongues. " I don't know about hiring a college professor," remarked the senator, somewhat daunted by so much learning, and moreover instinctively afraid of this sable Blasorious. 82 THE OTHER FELLOW. rt "S only profess couriership," meekly bowed the linguist. " I am merely a courier, glad to turn valet. I shall be humbly thankful to enter your service, sir." The senator did not want him. He looked from the ' black suit of the courier to the black suit of the railroad secretary. It seemed to him that there was a dark and wizard conspiracy between these two sombre costumes. But all the same, and for reasons which he could not formulate, he engaged Blasorious. Then the interview terminated, and the honourable Wesley presently retired to rest, if rest he could find in those days. In the morning, thanks to Transylvanian cookery, he had a most delicious breakfast. There was, to be sure, one ugly moment. It was when Blasorious removed the covers, and the senator, looking up at his dusky eyes> seemed to see sparks issuing from them, followed by a very little smoke. For a breath he half expected that blue flames and an odour of sulphur would arise from the d'shes. But the exquisite flavour of the breakfast made amends for that instant of disagreeable foreboding. There never had been, to his knowledge, such ambrosial cafd an lait, such a bijtec aux pommes, such a galantine de volatile, such a bottle of sauteme. Wesley went up ta the senate hall in high spirits, and fought (confidentially) for the Great Consolidated like a Trojan. In the evening an equally wonderful dinner, all French and strange and exquisite, restored his jaded powers. Only there was Blasorious glooming over the table like an Afreet, and sparkling and smoking alto¬ gether too much out of his awful eyes. The senator THE O'mER FELLOW. «3 began to call him (quite to himself at first) " Blazes." He thought seriously of discharging him, in spite of his unparalleled cookery and handiness. But there were reasons against that ; he never quite understood what they were, only that they were sufficient. One act of independence, however, he did allow himself: he decided that he would not revel in the company of Blazes alone. It became his habit, in these opulent days, to invite a friend or so to dinner, and frequently to breakfast. And of these guests, by the way, the secretary was never one. He was only another Blazes, even more distasteful than the Transylvanian himself, and not to be seen on any account except under stress of necessity. We must not forget, in these scenes of affluence and festivity, the bill of the Great Consolidated. We lack, it is true, the space and the necessary familiarity with affairs of statesmanship to speak of it as fully as it deserves. But we can say that it prospered, thanks to the eloquence (confidential) of out senator, and to the outspoken, manly, noble utterances of patriots who saw the need of just such a measure. It went smoothly from stage to stage; it was read a first time, a second time, and, for aught I know, a tenth time ; it throve in a style fit to gladden the heart of a nation. Not understanding the minutite of all this success, we had better thus record it in one satisfactory lump. But the senator had to work hard to secure his triumph. He had to buttonhole in the halls, and to beckon into the cloak-room, and to circulate from desk to desk, and to dine and wine at his lodgings, not a little. He had to see a great deal of certain ladies who saw a 84 THE OTHER FELLOW. great deal of certain honourables. It was all very trying to him until he met Mrs. Wilhelmina Norman, the pretty young widow of an army officer, left on the world with, only a four-hundred dollar pension, and driven thereby to take such gleanings of labour as might be dropped in her way by careless mankind. She was a lobbyess, alas, but a very interesting one, and also very pitiful—Mr. Wesley did not divine how interesting and pitiful until one day, after a private and strictly business interview with her, he noted that her delicate blonde face was pale and weary, and that her blue eyes had the humble pathos of eyes which have recently wept. "What is the matter, Mrs. Norman?" he inquired, with great gentleness, for she put him in mind of a sister whom he had lost—lost out of the world. " I am afraid you are over-working on our account. Are you ill ?" The voice of compassion sapped the barriers of womanly reserve, and tears flowed in spite of a struggle to bar them, though they flowed silently. Oh, the sensi¬ bility to pity and tenderness of a woman from whom a great love has been withdrawn, leaving her alone in life. " Ah, my dear lady," said the senator, with compunc¬ tion, " I have done harm instead of good! I beg your pardon." Little by little the story of her grief, or rather of a single one of many griefs, came out. She had been treated with an impertinence, which she would not de¬ scribe, by a man so great that she hardly dared murmur his nurne. " And it is all because I am in this business !" she sobbed, hysterically. " Oh, I hate it 1 I hate it 1" THE OTHER FELLOW. 85 The senator was not a good man himself, but he reddened with wrath over the tale. Yet what could he do ? The influential personage in question could not be punished, and must not even be affronted. Nor could poor, pretty Mrs. Norman be spared from her thorny but all-important labours. The bill, the priceless bill of the Great Consolidated, was at stake. " Ah, my dear lady," he groaned, " I pity you ! It is a horrid shame. You are too good for this work. But that is just it. It is your very innocence, and freshness, and modesty that make you strong here. These men are used to brazen women, and are little influenced by them. But you—just because you are a lady in demeanour and soul—you are potent. You are the mightiest of all our helpers. I will see that you are well rewarded for your trouble—yes, and your troubles. Don't abandon us." The result of this interview, or rather the result of the senator's compassion and gentleness, was that Mrs. Norman believed him to be one of the best of men, and gave him her simple confidence and worship. And because she did that, and because he became aware of it, he began to put her higher in his soul than all other women. If Wesley could in these days have seen only Mrs. Norman, or even only his comparatively tough and unsympathetic table intimates, he would have been, on the whole, a comfortably minded legislator, in spite of his hated labours for the Great Consolidated. But there, at every meal, indeed haunting his lodgings at all hours, was that infernal, smoky-eyed Afreet of a Blasorious. There, too, dropping in every evening, was that sable- 86 THE OTHER FELLOW. suited, sardonic secretary, the most potent and intimi¬ dating sprite of the two. By the way it was impossible for him to justify to himself or to anybody else the sin¬ gular fear in which he held these two beings. They did not seem to produce any special impression upon his habitual guests or his chance visitors. He felt tolerably sure of this, for he watched anxiously to see. From time to time, moreover, he would sound people on the subject. " Odd-looking fellow, that valet of mine," he observed to paunchy, crimson-wattled Judge Mulberry, taking good care, of course, that Blazes was out of hearing. "Yes, rather ; what is he?" gobbled Mulberry, pitch¬ ing into theperdrean truffe at a tremendous rate. "A Transylvanian. Speaks Latin as his mother tongue." " Bless my soul ! " stared Mulberry. " By Jove, I' l keep a Latin professor of cookery myself, if I could afford it. Wesley, you ain't going to send off that partridge yet, are you ? The next dish can't be half so good." " But have you ever remarked his eyes ?" inquired the senator, helping the judge to the remaining perdreau. " I half think the man is a gipsy." "What's the matter with his eyes?" mumbles Mul¬ berry, his great mouth full of partridge and truffles. " Why, really, I hardly know," stammers Wesley " Perhaps it's the expression : something like sparks, you know, followed by smoke." Mulberry's own eyes (which certainly had no sparks nor smoke in them, being altogether too watery) were lifted in astonished inquiry to his entertainer's face. THE OTHER FELLOW. 87 "Look here, Wesley!" he warned, in a stertorious voice, " you'd better look out for yourself. Your nerves are getting out of order. A number of men have remarked it. Come, now, shove that burgundy over here, and ring in your next course and go at it like a man." "Ah—well," sighed the senator incompris, tinkling his solid silver bell (chased with the figures and names of the four evangelists), and then averting his eyes from the door, so that he might not see the entering Blasorious. The rest of his dinner passed in something like a great sandy desert of thirst. Mulberry drank everything on the table, except water, and ready risked going home tipsy, all to spare his friend's nerves. Then, still out of pure kindness, he hiccoughed, " Wesley, my boy, let's go to the theatre and see the ballet.'' " Very good," agreed the senator. " Anything to get away from that confounded Blazes ! " " What! your man ?" stared Mulberry. " If you don't like him, why don't you ship him ? " The unhappy president of the Great Consolidated made no reply. It was impossible to explain to his friend, and, in fact, it was impossible to explain to himself, why there was no possibility of turning off Blasorious. " I didn't mean Blazes," he stammered. " I was thinking of that Other Fellow; I mean that confounded secretaiy. He is here nearly every evening." " Oh, I dare say ! Business out of hours be hanged ! I never attend to anything after session." " And then he is such a disagreeable chap ! " con¬ tinued Wesley, plaintively. 83 THE OTHER FELLOW. " Disagreeable ?" dissented Mulberry. " I don't find him so. One of the most gentlemanly, entertaining, bright fellows that I have ever met. I'd like to have him along." The senator did not take up the question. If he had gone into it, and had stated what he suspected as to the secretary, or even what he had plainly discerned in him, Mulberry would simply have pooh-poohed at it all, and advised him, with his burgundied breath, to take care of bis nerves. " Staggering old crapulence !" he said to himself, looking askant at his wheezing, heavy-footed friend. " He has three bottles in him this very minute, and preaches austerities and macerations to me." At this moment Blasorious entered, and said, in his bass-drum voice and excellent English, " Gentlemen, the carriage is ready." " What! " exclaimed Wesley, in downright terror, remembering that he had not ordered a carriage. " That's all right, Blazes," put in the undisturbed Mulberry, as little surprised as three bottles of wine need be. " You are the softest-footed and quickest-witted man in your line of life that I ever saw. There's a dollar for you. I wish it were a hundred." Blasorious thanked him in grateful double-bass, and pocketed the gratuity in the most commonplace fashion, as if he had been any ordinary domestic. They now went out to the carriage, the judge bunting against the senator several times during the brief journey, and meanwhile lecturing him on the perils of the jovial bowl. THE OTHER FELLOW. Sg "What are you staring at, Wesley ?" he demanded, when they reached the pavement. " I wanted to see who that was on the box," explained the senator, with the air of a man who is not yet quite free of suspicions. " Why, it's the coachman, of course ! " grumbled and gasped Mulberry, as he struggled into the vehicle with the aid of Blasorious. " Hang these Washington car¬ riages 1 Their doors remind me of the eye of the scrip¬ tural needle. Only an anaconda can twist into one without scraping his coat-tails off. What are you craning out of the window for, Wesley ? " "Who was that got onto the box?" asked the senator, actually trembling with terror. " I'm sure that somebody got on to the box." " Let him, and let him stay there !" puffed the judge. "No room for him inside, after we're in. I dare say it's some bosom friend of the nigger—or perhaps an appli¬ cant after your signature." " Oh, it's that infernal Blazes ! " groaned Wesley. " What is he following me for ? " " Going to spend that dollar on a ticket, probably. But why shouldn't he attend us ? We shall want him to help us out, with all this blubber and burgundy aboard." " Oh, well, it's all right," sighed the senator, wearied of his comrade's stupidity, and attributing it to the three bottles. " I don't care so much for him. I was afraid it was the Other Fellow." " Well, I wasn't," said the judge, and chuckled a good deal over his own wit, which, by the way, seemed rather vapoury to him next morning. 90 THE OTHER FELLOW. It is not necessary to describe the stale marvels of the theatre. One can perhaps best give an idea of the enter¬ tainment by stating that Judge Mulberry went fast asleep in his box, and snored out a whole wine cellar of opinions, while the senator passed his time in anxiously watching the audience to see if he could discern the dreaded visage of the Other Fellow. It was surely not a pleasant life that he was leading. I hardly know which he liked least—his yesterdays, or his to-days, or his to-morrows. And yet he was flush of money, and potent in great affairs, and high in dignity ; he was an object of jealousy to more than one stronger man, and of envy to many a happier one. Perhaps his health was shaken a little, though he would not admit it. He certainly did not look quite well —not as well as a few days previous, when he was "poor, but honest." He was as broad and muscular as ever, but there were haggard lines on his countenance, and there was an anxious expression in his eyes. His doctor, old Wedderbume, met him, stopped him, stared at him, and said, " Working too hard, ain't you ? Do you sleep well ? " "Now look here !" protested the senator peevishly, " I suppose Mulberry has been talking to you about me, confound him! " The doctor said, " No," but Wesley didn't believe him. He was quite confident in these days that this man and that one and the other one talked about him, and always to his disadvantage. " Oh, I know Judge Mulberry ! " he laughed excitedly. , He's a babbling old busybody. He's been spreading a THE OTHER FELLOW. 91 report that my nerves are shaky. A man always says that of his friend when his own hide is as full as a Spanish wine-skin." Old Wedderburne roared, rubbed his hands prodi¬ giously over the joke, and kept on studying the senator out of the corners of his wrinkled eyes. " Very good on Mulberry," he giggled. " I shall have to tell him that. By the way, Wesley, don't you really need a little stimulus ? " " Well, perhaps I do," conceded the senator. " I am taking something." "Yes—what ?" asked the doctor. "That's the main point. What kind of stuff is it ? " Little by little Wesley confessed to light potations of various good wines, with a glass of brandy and water now and then, or possibly whisky instead. " Too much variety," gently commented old Wedder¬ burne. " Mixing drinks in that way won't do. You'll spoil your stomach next, and then you won't sleep. Which one of all these things suit you best ? " " I—I think whisky—good old Bourbon." " Then stick to plain whisky, senator. Try that,—just for a while, you know,—and put a little quinine in it. You know our air,—very malarious. Good morning." " Confound these doctors ! " muttered the senator, as he hastily walked off in the opposite direction, though he was going nowhere in particular. " Always hinting that a fellow is an interesting case! However, I'll try the whisky,—yes, and the quinine. Does he want to gag me down to a thimbleful ? What does Mulberry go talking about me for i What does he know about it! If he 92 THE OTHER FELLOW. were in my place, and saw the people I have to see, he would get into a hogshead of mixed drinks and live there." Turning a corner, he stumbled upon Blasorious, marching along with a cigar box under his arm, all with the most commonplace air possible. How can even a superior man endure such encounters with equanimity and patience? For a moment the senator forgot his terrors in his rage, and broke out upon the valet like an indignant lion. " What do you mean, sir ?" he demanded. " I want to know, once for all, what is the purpose of this beha¬ viour !" " I was carrying home these regalias, sir," replied Blazes, apparently much dismayed, as well as astonished. " You sent me for them, sir." " That's all right," quavered and choked the senator. " But that isn't what I'm talking about. You know as well as I do. What are your eyes so infernally black for ? And what makes you sparkle them so ? " If Blasorious were an imp of any sort, he was certainly a timorous one, or else he had a knack of counterfeiting timidity. Looking more surprised than ever, and also more alarmed, he stammered out, " A great many people in my country have black eyes, sir. I didn't know that I sparkled them." " They sparkle like Tophet! " declared the senator. "And that isn't the worst of it ; you make smoke come out of them." Blasorious, apparently in utter confusion of mind, rubbed his optics with the back of his hand. " Oh, that's the way you stop it, is it ? " stared Wesley, THE OTHER FELLOW. 93 "Well, now, don't let's have any more of it. Carry the cigars home. And look here ! let me have quinine and whisky for dinner, or I'll know the reason why." Blasorious, who had probably never before heard of such a table drink, gave him so broad a stare that the senator trembled even in his moment of victory, and was glad to turp away. " There he goes, blazing and smoking again !" he muttered. " One of us two will burn up some day. But I'll talk to him about it. I will speak. I'm not going to be flamed at and vapoured at in silence. And I'll speak to the Other Fellow too. I don't care what he is. I'll say my say about these things, if I ajn nothing but a human being." That evening the secretary of the Great Consolidated called on him to discuss the chances of the bill. He was as clear, as business-like, as clever, and, one might say as epigrammatic as usual. " Everything has been done that a corporation can do," he said. " I believe that you have done everything lhat a senator can do. Nothing is left but prophecy. Shall we win ? " " How can I tell ?" grumbled Wesley, who had resolved, as we know, on some sort of rebellion against— one hardly knows what. " Why do you expect me to prophesy ? " " When a man can't see through the veil himself, it is a relief to get another man to pretend to see through it," smiled we secretary. " Look here, now, I'm tired of this," protested the senator, though with less pluck than he had hoped to 94 THE OTHER FELLOW. muster. What's the sense of your saying, We men I You know what you are, and you know what I know." " True, in this business, I am not a man,—I am an agent," conceded the Other Fellow, without changing a muscle of his spiritnel countenance. " Yes you are an agent,—a devil of an agent!" said Wesley, turning pale. " Then, what do you talk about being a man for? I call it hypocrisy, I do. I don't like it." " Oh, I have certain claims to the character," the secretary continued to smile, though he looked a little surprised,—perhaps at being detected, the senator thought. " I have my human motives and objects. I want to accumulate property for the sake of—well, its influence. That is passably human." " Property ! influence ! My gracious, how little I seem to care about those things now ! " groaned Wesley. " A week ago I was mad to be mighty and rich. And here I am both, and I don't care. What is wealth ? A delusion ! " "Almost the only real property that we have is the yesterday which we enjoyed and haven't yet forgotten," philosophized the Other Fellow. "Did you enjoy your yesterday?" sternly asked the senator. The poor, bewildered, horrified man was think¬ ing of indefinite periods passed amid wailings and gnash- ings of teeth. " It wouldn't seem very fine to a United States senator." " How would it seem to a senator of hell ?" It appeared to Wesley that he had the fellow there. But the secretary merely smiled, lit another of the cor¬ poration cigars, and replied, " Senator, you are a deeper THE OTHER FELLOW. 95 man than I even supposed. I am not accustomed to meet Congressmen who interest themselves in other-world mysteries. Some day I should like to take a drive with you, and compare philosophies and theologies. Just now —well, I must get back to the office. Good night to you." Office ! Where was his office ? Where did the hypo¬ critical wretch pass his nights ? Our poor friend Wesley believed that it was deep under ground. Really, it must be very uncomfortable to have familiar acquaintance with a demon or two, though ever so high-toned in their demeanour, and courteous in their approaches, and instructive in their conversation. Just think of such an Avernian couple, free to drop in upon you at any moment; shedding a faint scent of brimstone through your rooms in spite of all their eau de Cologne ; sparkling and smoking occasionally out of their too brilliant and expressive eyes ; taking an interest in your temporal welfare, which makes you tremble all the more for your futurities ; and treating your natural fretfulness with the composed urbanity of a cat playing with a disabled mouse ! It is my belief that no man who finds himself delivered to such company can be otherwise than ex¬ tremely miserable. In these distresses the senator went much for com¬ fort, as troubled men do go, to a woman. Under im¬ mense grief we often forget to cry for help, and long mainly for sympathy. When we most keenly feel that we are failures, then do we most need the presence of a worshipper. In poor little Mrs. Norman, who knew well what pangs there are in sorrow, the afflicted senator tound one who could divine and could saothe. More- 96 THE OTHER FELLOW. over, she bowed before him; she undisguisedly looked up to him as the greatest man of her acquaintance, if not of her era ; to him, the consciously fallen and prostrate, she offered the fragrant incense and sweet sacrifice of adoration. To a Congressman who is utterly cast down and bruised in spirit, there may be something inexpressibly soothing and precious in the love of a female lobbyist. And that consolation—altogether ineffective practically, but still brimming full of mercies—was the possession of our harassed senator. " I wish you were well," the fair, gentle little lady said to him. "If you were only well, you would be happy. You are so able, so influential, so successful! If you could get rid of this—this something that prays on your strength, you would be perfectly contented and cheerful. Don't you know that you would?" she insisted, with that pretty smile of mingled authority and propitiation which is characteristic of the woman who has been married. The senator was so attracted by the smile that he answered tenderly, " I should still lack one thing to per¬ fect happiness." Mrs. Norman half-divined his meaning, and a rose or two bloomed in her cheek. But he did not continue in this happy, pastoral strain. Of a sudden, the flood cf his troubles rolled back upon him, and he began to talk, or rather babble, about them, in the broken fashion of one who speaks out of a nightmare. "But, Mrs. Norman, I can't get well, as you call it. You don't know my—my complaint. It is one that people THE OTHER FELLOW. 9? don:t cure of. Nonsense ! I am well enough. It isn't health that I want. It is ease " "What?" whispered the lady, full of eagerness to know and to console. " Persecution," he dared to explain. " I am followed and watched," he added, looking about him. " There is a conspiracy. Oh, it is useless to talk,—useless to tell you this. You can't help. For Heaven's sake, don't repeat this!" But Mrs. Norman must talk. "Followed?" she inquired. " Why don't you inform the police ? How dare anybody conspire against a United States senator ! Do let me talk about it. Perhaps I can advise, woman as I am." It overjoyed her to think, or hope, that perhaps she could help him. The emotion sent new roses into her delicate cheeks, and a liquid radiance into her blue eyes, making her momentarily beautiful. The senator, deeply touched and interested, leaned forward, and seized her slender hand, and imprinted on it a kiss of gratitude, near akin to love. Then, seeing he had greatly agitated her, he said, " Forgive me. I could not help thanking you at once. You shall know some day how much I respect and prize you." Mrs. Norman's breath came so thick that for twenty seconds she could not speak ; and during that brief inter¬ val the sombre flood once more rolled over the senator's head. " Ah, there are too many of them !" he groaned. "At first there was one ; then only two ; but now there are half a dozen. The poiice ! " he scoffed ? " what could the police do ? If we had archangels for police, to be 98 THE OTHER FELLOW. sure! But I don't know of any angels in Washington. I don't believe one has been here these twenty years- except you, Mrs. Norman." "And I am a lobbyist," she laughed, seeking to turn all into a joke, and so distract him from his troubles. " There are worse people than lobbyists," he said, grimly, "and some of them are United States senators. No wonder I am followed and compassed about with a great cloud of—oh, such witnesses ! " Glancing here, with an air of fixed horror, at one end of her tiny parlour, he rose suddenly and hurried away, scarcely muttering a good night. Running to her win¬ dow, she presently saw him walking rapidly down the street, occasionally looking over his shoulder. Then, before seeking her rest, she knelt down and sobbed a prayer for him. The senator had told the truth in his sad confessions to the only being for whom he now cared. During the last twenty-four hours the creatures who haunted and harassed him had increased in numbers and waxed mighty in power of torment. Besides the secretary and Blasorious, there were other black-vestured personages who seemed to have the right to follow him everywhere, walking close behind him in the streets, sitting opposite him in the street-cars, and even intruding among the sacred arm-chairs of the senate-chamber. Often and often he wondered what his fellow-members and fellow- citizens thought of seeing him attended by such a sombre committee. " Will it be supposed," he said to himself, with a desperate laugh, " that I am running for the presi¬ dency of Tophet ?" THE OTHER FELLOW. 99 On the morning after the above interview with Mrs. Norman, while he was making his last appeals (confiden¬ tial) to his fellow conscript fathers in favour of the bill, one of these fuliginous gentlemen attended him at every step, whispering the keenest suggestions and the aptest phrases. It is impossible to describe his horror at this dark proximity, or his wonder at the wicked cleverness of these assistances. How glad he would have been to get rid of the creature, and yet how poorly he would have argued without him ! In vain did he shake his head, wave his hand majestically, and mutter, " Go out of the cloak-room ! " The agent—or whatever we ought to call him—seemed to know that he was privileged, and would not depart. And, what was strangest of all to Wesley, he could not perceive that other senators objected to the fellow's presence, or appeared in the least surprised at it. The bill passed. With all this marvellous lobbying, how could it help passing? It went to the House, and Senator Wesley went with it, and the dusky agent also. There likewise it passed, and without debate. It was as good as law. The corporation of the Great Consolidated rejoiced in all its members, from the sprucest white- cravated director down to the greasiest oiler of axles. But did the successful and now opulent president share in the wide-spread gratulation ? He hastened away from the scene of his triumph with the air of a rogue who believes himself followed by detectives. Seeing the secretary—that awful Other Fellow—approaching hi:n with a smile of congratulation, he actually dodged dowr a side hall, and ran away from him, his face wearing an expression of horror which passers-by never forgot 100 THE OTHER FELLOW. Reaching the city, he entered a lawyer's office, and made his will, down to the very witnessing and sealing. His whole estate, one is agreeably surprised to learn, he left to Mrs. Wilhelmina Norman. Next, he stepped in at old Wedderburne's office, not so much because he thought himself in need of medical care as because he wanted to shake off a tall man in black velvet, who followed him persistently. " Well, Wesley, how are you to-day ?" asked the doctor, staring at him with rather an unpleasant fixedness. The senator leaned forward, and replied in an agitated whisper, " Is that fellow a friend of yours?" "Which fellow?" murmured Wedderburne, without even turning to look in the direction indicated. " Why, good Lord ! this foreigner here ; this chap in the opera costume,—long feather in his cap." "Speak out, senator," said the doctor, cheeringly. " You needn't restrain yourself on his account. There's no harm in the poor, silly fellow, and I don't think he understands English." "And there's his infernal dog!" groanad Wesley, with unalloyed terror. " That infernal, big, black brute of a dog 1 By Jove, it's Mephistopheles ! No, it isn't; it's Blazes. It's Mephistopheles and Blzrcs in one. Doctor, I always suspected it." He said this with such an agony of conviction and horror that the seasoned old physician felt teats of pity come into his eyes. " Now, look here, my dear friend, don't be worried,' he said, " There's no harm in these chaps. Plenty of men have seen them, and haven't been hurt by them, THE OTHER FELLOW. 101 Don't get agitated about a simpleton in fancy ball cos¬ tume. I know how to manage these jokers." "But what are you going to do with him?" pleaded the trembling senator. " There he stands, the infernal scoundrel, waiting for me. And there are more of them in the street. Don't you hear them ? They've been call¬ ing after me all the way from the Capitol." " Let them call," said Wedderburne. " You are too tired to attend to their nonsense now. You are worn out, senator, with this incessant work. What you want is sleep." " Sleep! I can't sleep. Give me some whisky, doc¬ tor. Perhaps I could sleep on your sofa, if I had some whisky." " Try a little chloral first. The whisky can wait." With much difficulty the doctor persuaded his patient to take a dose of chloral, and then gently led him home. Blasorious opened the door, and the senator uttered a shriek. Wedderburne whispered some errand to the valet, and the latter hurried away at his usual speedy pace. " You see I can manage these fellows," nodded the doctor. " Now, come up-stairs with me. I'll put you to bed, and sit up with you." But the senator could not sleep. " Where is the whisky ?" he begged. " I can't shut my eyes without it." At last a wine-glass of liquor was given him, strongly dosed with bromide of potassium. Now came a dolorous struggle between the strength' of the medicine and the strength of the possession. The: senator tossed and tumbled for hours, cursing his haunting; 4 102 THE OTHER FELLOW. tormentors, striving to rise and fly from them, praying pite- ously for strong drink, and then again cursing or weeping. Eventually he fell into a succession of short dozes, from which he started up screaming with terror. After each waking the doctor gave him beef tea, or other small doses of nourishment. But still the persecutors came, and the immense horror continued. The room swarmed with men in black costume, attended by huge black dogs or indes¬ cribable monsters. The personage whom Wesley chiefly dreaded, however, was the secretary of the great railroad corporation, or, as he constantly called him, the Other F ellow. " Don't let him in ! " he implored. " Don't let him come near me ! He brought all the others. He com¬ mands them. They only want to carry me away because he bids them. There ! don't you see him sitting in the window? He wants me to jump out with him." Then, after a long pause, addressing the tempter, " Jump out yourself, if you like it! " " That's right," observed the doctor, almost smiling. "That's the way to treat those fellows. Now try a little more beef tea, Wesley, and then take another nap." There was a slumber now which seemed likely tn last. The doctor leaned back in his chair, watched hij patient with eyes of satisfaction, and smiled like a seraph. He believed, with the great joy of a physician in such moments, that he had beaten a terrible malady. Five minutes later, Judge Mulberry softly entered the room, and whispered to him that Mrs. Wedderburne had been taken seriously ill. THE OTHER FELLOW. '°3 " How can I leave this man ?" gasped the doctor. " You know what has got him." " Oh, I know,—expected it," said the judge. " Go and look to your wife, and come back here. I'll see to Wesley." But the judge was elderly, and had dined copiously. After a time—he never knew how long—he awoke from a refreshing nap, and found his patient gone. The next that was known of the senator he knocked gently about ten in the evening, at the door of Mrs. Norman's parlour. He was dressed with unusual care, and there was a pleasant smile on his face. " Why, Mr. Wesley ! " she exclaimed, delighted to see him, late as it was. " Come in. How well and gay you are looking ! Success suits you, doesn't it now ? " "Yes, I am very well and very happy," he replied, gazing about him with a rapt expression, as though the air were full of ravishing sights. "And I am all the happier for not being too late to see you, my dear lady." A sweet illusion had come over the terrible judgment which afflicted this unhappy misdoer. It is possible enough that for him, as for other men who have been in his lamentable case, the figures of demons and tormen¬ tors had changed delusively into shapes of celestial sweet¬ ness and brightness, perhaps playing on those golden harps which Bunyan heard ringing from the walls of the heavenly city. " I am perfectly happy," he repeated, still smiling. " I should say that the air was full of fairies,—lovely fairies. And you are the loveliest of them all." She laughed heartily, and also blushed heartily, as she was wont to do. She had not a suspicion but that he 104 THE OTHER FELLOW. was speaking with jocose exaggeration, and talking of fairies figuratively, meaning thereby pleasant thoughts, or triumphant hopes. " And now, my dear child, I have one simple thing to say to you," he added, fixing his eyes upon her with in¬ describable longing and tenderness. " I have learned to admire you and love you. Will you be my wife ? " All unknowing that this was a voice out of the land of shadows and great darkness, she leaned forward in obe¬ dience to its irresistible summons, and lay upon his heart. He put his arm around her, drew her firmly against his breast, and kissed her once. Then, of a sudden, he started ; his face assumed an expression pf unutterable aversion and horror ; he stared at her neck as if he saw it twined with deadly reptiles. " Oh, my God ! " he exclaimed, pushing her from him. " And you, too ! " In the next moment he had reached an open window, and disappeared through it with a loud cry. Mrs. Norman shrieked also, but she did not faint. In one minute she had rushed down three stories and reached the granite pavement below. There she saw Blasorious lifting up the body of her lover, and gazing with a fixed, dusky stare into his lifeless eyes, while from a carriage which halted at that moment came a darkly-attired per¬ sonage, whom she recognized as the secretary. "Is he dead?" she asked a dozen times, with loud sobs and gaspings, while they lifted the suicide into the vehicle. " Oh, what made him do it ? " " An overworked brain," whispered the secretary out of the window, "is what we shall have to sav. Drive on!'' Ifnllj-lljftij* By HENRY S. LEIGH. 7Y heart—my hand—my life—my all—with rapture I surrender'd : My worldly goods, though very small, with >ij tender vow I tender'd. My hopes were easy to deceive; too late I see it clearly.— She rather loved me, I believe; she never loved me dearly. By heaps of amatory rhymes I proved that I adored her ; And, in the olden happy times, they hardly ever bored her. My happiness I thought secure; I wooed her so sincerely.— She rather loved me, I am sure; she never loved me dearly. Across the meadow, side by side, how oft we went a- roaming, I n merry May, at eventide—poetice, the " gloaming." We talked, as other folks may do, about the weather merely.— She rather loved me, it is true; she never loved me dearly. ill (mJESI 106 HALF-WAY. But, when my passion held the sway, my gifts of con¬ versation Were exercised in such a way as challenged emulation. Alas ! my wisdom and my wit were wasted very nearly.— She rather loved me, I admit; she never loved me dearly. A day appeared—ah, bitter day! on which there came another j And, in a free and easy way, she bade him "ask her mother." I can't complain, for girls will act full often very queerly.— She rather loved me, that's a fact; she never loved ms dearly. % {Ijtitsummer Ifitjlft $ Jkrmtm; OR, THE COUNT DE QUIXO MIXO'S DREAM, BY J. GOMPERTZ MONTEFIORE. ; Review. His grammar was from " Murray" _ ed : his composition neat; while to read his " Scorpion Slashers" was a most refreshing treat. His language was -within the law—his scorn like thunder fell i and, what was more, the Count knew (pretty fairly) hozt to spell! To scarify a social wrong his pen was nevtj lax ; and he knew the whole of Latin, from Vobiscum up to Pax! And if he'd hostile critics, he could well afford to flout 'em, though authors of the second-class can hardly do -without'em ! But now, just at the juncture we have chosen for this tale, the Count's prestige in Grub Street circles seemed about to fcil.- -f HE Count de Quixo Mixo was an author of renown, anil wrote for all the " fashionable'' journals in the town; contributing the " Scan- dalettes"' (as many victims knew) to that charitable "Weekly" called The Billings- Io8 A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S SCREAM. He had to write a Christmas book for Mistletoe an\ Holly—rather funny, rather sorry, rather ghostly, rather jolly. But, somehow, all his pristine skill forsook h's harassed brain, and he wasted fourteen quires of " draft ' and twenty quills—in vain. "Alas!" he cried, "my art is gone—my memory deficient; and this when just a touch of ghosts alone had been sufficient! Oh, aid me, Muse! and thou, sweet Punch/" (for such he then was drinking), "provide me with a Subject, pray!"—and then he fell a-thinking. From thinking he fell musing ; and from musing into Sleep is a natural transition, neither curious nor deep. And while he slept, he dreamt that he was in the British Navy, and mutinied because his "junk" had far too little gravy / But, just as they were hanging him, regardless of his cltoak, the Count de Quixo Mixo, very happily, awoke. And by his lonely couch there stood a disconcerting ghost, in the semblance of a damsel fair enough to form a toast. Her dress was Westbourne Grove-y, and her bonnet was unique, representing, as it did, the latest millineering freak—a complete Dessert of costly fruit served up on golden feathers, watched over by a painted sparrow, ready for all weathers / Her cheeks were of a colour quite im¬ possible to tell, for, in truth, this ghostly demoiselle was what they call a Belle. Her gloves were not extravagant (they only had twelve buttons), while her shoes were— ah, well, never mind—revenons a 710s " 77iutto7is I" "What do you here?" the Count exclaimed, while shudders racked his bones; " I beg that you will tell yout tale in words instead of groans—" A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S SCREAM. 109 "I've come," the spectre slowly said," to help you in your strait, and to tell you what to write about, before it be too late. You have to write a Christmas tale ; but, though your best you try, you cannot find a subject :— Well, that same I can supply." " Indeed !" quoth Quixo Mixo," if you can, you'll have my thanks ; but I trust it's not the usual thing—Brim¬ stone, Creeps, and Clanks?" " Of course it's not ! " the Ghost replied, and quite severely frowned; " the theme to suit a mortal pen in mortal realms is found. Now, I'm the pet of West- bourne Grove—(the female pet, I mean: the beau of that locality, no doubt, you oft have seen?)—and my object is to find a Grub Street author so defiant as to put his pen to anything, just as suits his client. I now choose you, great Quixo, to avenge my earthly grief, by abusing Madame Billorteux, that millineering thief! " Last year she made a dress for me : I gave her all the stuff! but though I sent her forty yards, she said 'twas 'not enough !' and then (her tearful eyes with calculation over-brimming)—' I really couldn't stand a lady buying her own trimming!' And so she bought one hundred yards (I paid for that, at least) of a sort of spangled some¬ thing much in fashion—in the East. She ' tried' the dress a score of times (and always came at dinner); and sometimes said I grew ' too fat,' and sometimes, 'Pray, grow thinner !' But when she felt convinced that she had got my proper measure, she took the dress away, and said she'd finish it at leisure / " I never saw it more ; nor was the stuff returned to me ; the Bill of thirty guineas odd was all she let me see; no A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S SCREAM. and though my father settled it, he also settled me, and, very shortly after, I became the ghost you see ! Now, I want you, as an author, to well ventilate such matters, and with your trenchant satire tear that milliner to tatters ! You could not have a better theme ; don't say your brains are banished—I have given you a subject: write upon it!"—and she vanished. ******** The Count de Quixo Mixo, much relieved to be alone, tried to go to sleep once more, when— Goodness gracious ! what a groan! *##**#** a groan the like of which the Count had never heard before ; while, to make the matter worse, it came from his side of the door ; for when a groan, apparently, is wrung from twenty tabbies, who have just that very minute scratched the arms of forty babbies, who were sweetly watching sixty strong sawfilers ply their trade, to the great disgust of eighty lions (not a bit afraid though a hundred healthy elephants are practising a roar)—then, perhaps, 'tis quite as soothing if performed zw/side the door ! The Count de Quixo Mixo (quite devoid of childish fears), had the hardihood at once to put his fingers in his earsj but his courage served him little, for beside his couch there stood A Beauty of the Olden Time, in not the sweetest mood. She hardly waited for the questions Quixo Mixo put— viz., " Who are you and what d'ye want ?"—but fiercely stamped her foot. A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S SCREAM. in "A Beauty of the Olden Time, in net the sweetest mood."—Page no f 12 A MIDSUMMER MIGHT'S SCREAM, " You say you want a ' subject' for your story ?—here it is :— " Why wasn't I inserted in the Beauty-List of ' Quizz ' ? "Just tell me that, you author, you! You write for Folly Fair ?—Why wasn't / belauded from my shoelets to my hair ? " My locks, I think, are ' Radiant' ? my figure is Divine'? my nose, if not retroussl, still is piquant, I opine? D'ye mean to say my eyes are weak?—No!— fawn-like, if you please; and my' movements' are replete with stylish elegance and ease ? I think that when I smile I joy, and when I frown I murder ?—they say I lack esprit — Ha ha! now what can be absurder? My enemies have said,too, that I cannot ' flirt' a fan : I trust I'm not des¬ pised for that—considering I CAN? " Why, has not all the Park gone crazy if perchance I've felt too lazy for my morning's canter round the Row, where critics so abound ? " (The Count de Quixo Mixo most politely answered "Yes"; though this second ghost fatigued him not a little, we confess): " And, if these things are true (as, since I say them, so they are), just tell me if you can, sir—or, more rightly, if you dare—why my praises were not sounded in the Folly Fair's array of that favoured herd of self-sufficient Beauties of the Day ? " And, while I am about it, I will speak of something more :—My photograph has not appeared at any public store / I never see my tinted face, or attitude so languish, ing, put up for sale at any shop :—I say it's simply A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S SCREAM. 113 anguishing! And so it is to think that out of envy, spite, and malice, they never set my face in squibs and crackers at the Palace ! " I'm sure my eyes would look quite soft and sleepy o'er my muff; and I know I could be hired as a " Photographic Puff! "D'ye think I couldn't manage to be taken for an Actresst—in highdress, low-dress, ball-dress, fur-dress, tight-dress, loose-dress, lack-dress ? "D'ye think the charms of Fireworks, by me should ne'er be tasted—and that Rockets, Squibs, and Cath'rine Wheels on my face would be wasted ? " " But, madam, if you'll pardon me—your husband—'' "—Cease such folly ! He must enjoy to see my face next that of ' Pet' or 'Polly ' ?—he cannot but delight to think that Jones, and Brown, and Green, his pretty wife in tights or Roman-candles oft has seen !!! It cannot fail to raise his pride whene'er he takes a walk, to see my figure in the shops, and hear the shop-boys talk :—1 Now this is Mrs. So-and-So,—just doesn't she look nice ? She's quite the Pet of Leicester Square; and— sixpence is the price !' " How likely to increase his joy and confidence in woman, to hear her ' points,' so well described by ev'ry common showman! How likely 'tis to raise his true respect for her still higher, when of his wife's dear features every cad may be a buyer! How likely, too, to make his entertainment go off well, when his wife herself concludes it—as the Great Skyrocket Belle !!! " How likely, to the warmth of husband's love, to add sweet fuel tis to suffer that which once had been fit subject for a duel 2 U4 A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S SCREAM. " Oh, why was I not HONOURED thus, but left to die unknown !"—and here the hapless beauty gave her soul-distracting groan. This finished Quixo Mixo, and he started up in bed :— "Avaunt! you Vulgar Creature: Go away!"— that's what he said. With not a blush (!) she disappeared, and left the Count to think how he best could write a Christmas Flight, called Beauty on the Brink ! —When, suddenly, another ghost—an ancient dame this time—came gliding to the bedside, and began to moan in rhyme. " Who are you, and what d'ye want ?" (Count Quixo longed to shake her :) " I'm Madame Bulge, of Conduit Street, the famous Hoop-skirt Maker. You want a theme?—you have it now : abuse the present dress; and Madame Bulge and all her heirs your name will ever bless." "Why, what's amiss with dresses now?" " Why, what's a miss without 'em ?" " You must be more explicit, ma'am; / don't know much about 'em." "You surely see how tight they are (the fashion's happ'ly recent), how shamefully—well, really, I might almost say, indecetit I Just tell me—would you feel in¬ clined to let your wife or daughter display her shape for City apes' approval, scorn, or laughter? Would you feel glad to hear it said, while walking with a lady, ' Bill, the figure's not so bad; but, well, the waist is shady / ' " Would you feel proud to own the belle whose form A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S SCREAM. 115 makes idle chatter for the snobs of Piccadilly—for your butcher, baker, hatter ? Would you feel glad to marry her whose shape each low-born critic has oft discussed o'er pots o' beer, with skill quite analytic ? " Can Man rejoice to hear the voice of any common churl passing judgment on the figure of his wife or modest girl ? " You lack a ' subject—write me up, and write tight dresses down; my hoops, if not perfection, still are modest —that you'll own ? Write gently, though ; be not too harsh, nor make your words too strong : just tell the girls, that if they think 'tis pretty—they are wrong ! " By force of Truth, destroy the hopes by dress¬ makers engendered ; show maidens that by modest dress the sweeter they are rendered!" " I will!" cried Quixo Mixo, " if you'll only go away, and let me get a little sleep before the break of day. You ven¬ geance-seeking ghosts are so monotonous (excuse me—)" " Pll leave you, sir, this minute, if my wish you'll not refuse me ?—" " I'll think of it." " (I knew you would !)" " And then, perhaps—" " (You're very good !)" " I'll cast about—" " (Yes, yes, I knew it!)"... . " —And find some other man to do it! ! " With a groan more soul-distracting than mere language can explain, the Spectre died away, and left the Count alone again. Ii6 A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S SCREAM. The duration of his solitude was shorter than before: in two minutes, Quixo Mixo heard a rapping at the door; and foreseeing what it was (another ghost, of course), he cried, " Oh, make yourself at home, I beg; don't mind me: come inside!" Obedient to his summons, the intruder now appeared ; and this time it was a Gentleman, with whiskers and a beard. "Who ar eyou, and what d'ye want ?" (the old familar question:) " You look as if your sole complaint is chronic indigestion ! " "You're right," the Spectre moaned; "'tis true, I'm sick with costly 1 feeds'—with eating twenty times as much as any mortal needs. My wif? has had the honour to be styled a ' London Hostess,' and so, you'll understand, a weekly gorge our daily boast is! We have to give rich dinners, with at least a dozen courses ; and, in fact, my pots and pans engulph a third of my resources. The contents of our dishes cannot well be called extensive; but a little goes a long way—when that little is expensive ! (Experience has taught me that to figure well in print, a London Hostess only has to take this little hint. For, if she gave a modest meal, a good and wholesome feed, Zounds ! what an Epitaph her friends in Folly Fair would read— "' This paragraph is sacred to the memory of One iwho, by fraud and false pretences, our Praise in Pica won; but we grieve to say her place is now among our Social Sinners, since she Wilfully Persists in giving Inexpen¬ sive Dinners!'") " 1 pity you !" cried Quixo ; " but your wife I pity more, A MIDSUMMER MIGHT'S SCREAM. 117 for I know myself that dinner-giving is a dreadful bore." " It is not that," the Ghost replied ; " the bore I do not mind; it is the cost of all the things a ' Hostess ' has to find. One half the money spent on wine, on entrees, and dessert, would fill a pauper's heart with joy, and—no digestion hurt I One quarter of the income thrown away to 'make a show,' would cause the wheels of honest toil quite easily to go !—'You want a ' subject write on this —cry down such costly meals, and teach these ' London Hostesses ' that •HUNGER STILL APPEALS'! " I have spoken :—'tis for you to make some use of what I've said, and to found ' A Tale of Christmason 'A Tale of Want of Bread'! '" The Ghost, with indigestion slowly creeping o'er his face, gave the hollowest of moans, and slowly melted into space. "He's very right," thought Quixo, "and I've half a mind—but, there!—what on Earth's the good of preaching while they've still their 'FOLLY FAIR?"' ********* He was startled by the clank of chains, and then, to his surprise, the room was simply filled—with Ghosts of ev'ry sort and size :— " Good gracious !" shouted Quixo, " I am in for it, it seems. Alas! I never longed so much for bright Aurora's gleams. Look here, you ghostly malcontents, I'm rather sick of you-but, as I must, I'll lie and listen; please to ii8 A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S SCREaM. make that do. So,' Who are you, and what d'ye want ?' No; don't all talk together: 'twould raise a ghostly storm the ' Flying Dutchman ' scarce could weather !" The Senior Ghost ('as we suppose) came forward, and he sighed— " We hear you want a subject ?" "No, 1 don't!" Count Quixo cried. u Yes, you do ! Don't be deceitful, nor neglect your proper duty ; but divest your mind of Skirts and Hoops, and Aggravated Beauty; for if you dared to write their wrongs, you'd raise no end of fusses—while you'd do the World a favour if you wrote on " Cabs and 'Busses!" " I won't !" said Quixo Mixo. " Yes, you will! Don't be ferocious; just think of London cabs—now aren't they perfectly atrocious ? "You want a cab : if very wet, you're lucky if you get it; if very fine, they're either full or ' going home,' you bet it.' But if by chance you find a man who con¬ descends to take you, he'll either go to sleep at once or all to pieces shake you. " Crafty fellow, well he knows that if you cry ' Go faster !'—sixpence more is pretty sure, or else he'll telt the master. While, if you say, ' Don't beat your horse, I'm not in any hurry] he'll vow he's lost a ' paying job,' and charge his fare to Surrey I " The cab itself, how sweet it smells, how clean its every seat; but, gracious, how particular he is about your feet! "' Be keerful o' them kusshons, please, for this 'ere keb is new !'—a statement very often made, but very A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S SCREAM. 119 seldom true. The horse—poor beast!—it goes in such a lame, unhappy way, that you sit in mortal terror of the R.S.P.C.A ! " Those busses, now, how nice they are: I love to mount the top, despite the danger—and the 'cad's' abuse when called upon to stop ! And, if you like contagion, suffocation, loss of purse— and rather wish to miss your train, why get inside the hearse ! "You want a subject ?—write on this : no longer can I stay; but, no doubt, my friends have, one and all, a few short words to say." The chorus of the ghostly crew uprose, confused and weird:—lest day should dawn, all spoke at once, as Quixo Mixo feared :— " You want a Subject ?—" " Theme ?—" " Device ?—" " Plot ?—" " Inspiration ?—" " Tale ?—» " I'll give you one '—" " I'll give you ten!—" " We'll give you half a bale I—" " Make fun of Servants—show their trick v '' " No ; pity their hard fate—" "Cry down the Cyprus Treaty—" " Bah ! praise Beaconsfield the Great!—" " Cut up the host whose stuffy rooms he fancies so elastic—" " Far better to abuse his wine, and call his chairs ' fantastic—'" 120 A MIDSUMMER NIGHTS SCREAM. " Be careful not to spare a Lord by language meta phoric—" "Apologise for noble Rakes, whose follies are his¬ toric—" " Be sure you harass the Police, and call them idle duffers—" " Now, don't forget to give our Civil Guardians well- earned ' puffers—'" ********* " It seems to me," quoth Quixo, " that your subjects ate too stale-. I've written on them all, and still the manuscript's for sale." The senior Ghost remaining, gave a start, and groaned aloud, " In writing for the public, sir, you must not be so proud." " I am not proud, but puzzled : I don't know what to write ; but still, I thank you kindly, you have helped me (!!!)—Now, good night." * * * * * * * * The chilly dawn dispersed the Ghosts ere Quixo finished speaking, and found him in anathema some con¬ solation seeking. " I've lost my sleep," the Count exuaimed, "through nil this ghostly ' patter;' but, never mind : for twenty Christmas tales I now have ' matter.' I wonder what they'll give me? Messrs. Jones and Jinks are wealthy, and their ready-?noney system, to my mind, is very healthy! Now, five pounds for a sketch on Hoops will settle Jackson's bill ; while an essay on that Firework Belle would pay me better still ? I really think I'd make a hit (say six pound ten, or more), if I ridiculed the folly A MIDSUMMER MIGHT'S SCREAM. til of that ' Millineering' Bore. A pungent jest at Servants, too, would fetch a tidy sum ; and as for Cabs and Busses, Mat is worth ten pounds—by Gum ! "Here ! give me paper, pens, and ink—no longer I'll delay : I'll write, revise, and copy out Six Christmas tales this day! " Hurrah ! I thought my luck would come ; my brain could ne'er He fallow: I'll date my fortune from this night, and take a house at "HALLO!" ****#*«■«* A timid knocking at the door dispelled his dream ecstatic ; and Quixo Mixo cried " Come in ! " in manner quite emphatic :— A small, dishevelled Printer's Boy, with eyes composed of blinks, came slowly in, and murmured, " I'm the boy from Jones and Jinks !" "Aha !" cried Quixo Mixo : " I expected this. Well, well!—just inform your masters that, while walking out last week, I fell, end hurt my knee so badly that I really couldn't writs ! But my tale shall be in Mistletoe and Holly, by to-night. Here's sixpence lor yourself, my lad; just say my sketch is funny, and—" " I'm much obliged," the boy replied (and buttoned up the money), " but—if you will excuse me, sir, I may as well just mention, that—you do not seem to know — exactly—]ones and J inks' intention. They sent me here—" " I know they did—to beat me down a little ! Just tell them that of Twenty Pounds I won't abate a tittle I My ' subject' is too good for that—my literary fame—" 122 A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S SCREAM. "No doubt, sir; but you've been so long, they've just scratched out your name ! 1 ! !" ********* The Count de Quixo Mixo gasped, wheezed, guggled, sneezed, and choked— " Scratched out my name f you rascal! " "Ah!—your 'order' is revoked ! Wo have found a quicker writer, and to-day we go to press —" " Gracious Goodness ! " shouted Quixo, " then this is a pretty mess ! " "Mr. Quill .... has 'done' our story : shall I tell you what it is ?—" But the boot of Quixo Mixo showed him downstairs with a WHIZZ 1!! Xttmuam JE was "a-sailing and a-sailing," as the song goes, in the three-master Maria Jane, of Salem—a-sailing to the Mediterranean Sea with a cargo of Western lard, to be b'iled down and bottled into olive oil. I had some notions aboard with which I reckoned to take the Eyetalian folks down, and make a dollar or so, but about two weeks out we got catched in a storm. Didn't it blow some ? You'd better believe it did ! In less'n five minnits the ship's boom stood on its beam ends, the topmast got slewed round and tangled in the rudder chains, the binnacle riz up and tore round, and the flying-jib was keelhauled three times to leeward ; they double-reefed the transoms and un¬ shipped the jibber-jib, goin'under water ninety feet, more or less, every time. Finally they let the boats down, and everybody tumbled into 'em head fust, and tumbled out again putty everlastin' quick. I was orfully seasick, so I didn't know nothing under the canopy where we was, and I wasn't no great hand anyway to tell latitude and longi- 124 KNOWARE. tude the best of times. Anyway, I was kinder slopped ashore after a while on to a sandy beach : I knew, after a spell, it was an island, but then I only knowed it was dry land. All the rest was drownded ; and if it was to be, it's jest as well, it appears to me ; for if somebody else had come ashore and had undertook to write travils there too, mebbe we shouldn't have told jest the same story; 'tain't often two folks do see things alike, and then the papers would have took it up and jawed back and forth about it, and called names : there'd have been a dreadful stir made everywhere to find out which feller lied and which didn't, and all about both on 'em. I'd have seen more'n four different stories about where I was born and brought up, who married my great-grandfather, and how her fust husband's brother told a lie, so't was certain I oughter; and I dare say some folks would ha' had the cheek to say there wa'n't no sech island as Knoware down on any map; jest as if you could strain the Atlantic Ocean through a colander and pick out all the islands, like flies outen a pan of milk. I'm glad I was alone : 'twould have saved lots of trouble in the world if there hadn't never but one man wrote history : who cares if he did lie about them old times ? 'twouldn't ha' hurt nobody : and there's lots of dusty, musty, ridic'lous rubbish folks quarrel about all their days, and snatch up into big library-rooms, and pay good money for, that wouldn't have never been round if there'd been just one man to tell about it, and when he died another had took it up right there, and fetched it along. However, mebbe there's a Providence in it; there is in most things. There's got to be somethin' for KNOW ARE. 125 lazy folks to do, and they may jest as well fight over them old battles as get into new ones, to my way of thinkin'. Well, to come back, there I was : and fust I knew, a man picked me up, bundled me over his shoulder, and in a wink I was put to bed, and dosed good with hot soup and sherry wine, and warmed up with a good fire blazin' away on the hearth. There was a woman settin' by the fire, and when she see I was comin' round, she up and asked if I wanted anything, in respectable English. That tickled me. I never could see the use of forrin tongues. I thanked her polite enough, and said I'd kinder like the mornin' paper. She stared, and hollered "John ! " Well, he come in, and 'twas the very fellow who fetched me up out of the water. I knew him by his all- fired red hair. I suppose I'd oughter have got up and fell on his neck, or tumbled on to my knees and said somethin' hifalutin' to him ; but I was real stiff; so I said, " Hullo ! " He larfed right out. "You're pretty lively, ain't ye?" he said, for all the world like a Dedham man : that sounded good. I come from Dedham myself. I'd ben in the tin trade, peddlin' on't round the country quite a spell before I took to tradin' in notions. " You'd better b'lieve I'm lively," sez I. " But say, look here ! I want the mornin' paper." He larfed right out again. " No such institootions here, sir. Ain't permitted." "Jerusalem ! no mornin' paper in a free country ?" " Thanks be to praise, this ain't a free country," sei 126 KNOW A RE. he; "not by a long shot. We were all dead sick of liberty, free speech, and all that eagle-o'-freedom talk afore we come here and settled. No, sir! We've got a real, old-fashioned, six-foot, big, smart, respectable, cut- your-head-off-in-a-wink king; a real fatherly despot,now, I tell ye ! " "I should think so ! " sez I. "No mornin' paper !" " Not a paper. No report of all the dirt and wicked¬ ness in the country comin' in to disagree with your break¬ fast, and lie around for the children to read and find out how they do it. No big scandal skippin' about from lie to lie like a bee on a balm patch, makin' folks talk about things they hadn't never ought to think of, and the wicked ones smack their Bps over their own sort o' stuff glorified, so to speak, in print. No advertisin' lies about cure-all medicines, and cloth that's jest give away. No railroad accidents to give you the thumps jest readin' of 'em, and scare your wife to death hearin' about 'em." " And no politics ?" I put in. "Not a darned politic, as old Joe Bowers said; we don't have 'em here. I tell you, man, we've got a king, and we have to behave ourselves." " Dear me ! dear me ! and don't you never hanker for the immortal institootions of your native land, the ever- lastin' freedom of a democratic gover'ment, the power of the ballot-box, the people's choice of them that makes the people's laws, the liberty of speech, the free eddooca- tion, the voluntary church system, the " He broke in quite sudden, jest as though he sort o' surmised I was quotin' Squire Smiles's Fourth-o'-July oration-^ • KNOWARE. 127 "Freedom! Sho! Freedom of everybody to do what they've a mind to, to lie about everybody else, to gamble and spekerlate with their own money and other people's; to fall in love with other folks' wives, and shoot them that makes love to their'n ; power of a ballot- box, where the most has their way, not the best; and the most are an awful bad lot in a free country, I tell ye, ef they ain't elsewheres, and they pick out their own sort to make laws to suit 'em. I've seen it work. What's liberty of speech and free press but licence to say and print all sorts of vile things about folks in one day's paper and take 'em back in the next, when they've done the mis¬ chief? What's public eddoocation but puttin' a power to do evil into hands that don't know no better than to up an' dc it ? Starvin' their bouies to swell their poor misedble conceited brains ; onfittin' of 'em to do real work that calls for thews and sinners; spilin' their stomachs till they can't eat decent vittles, and their stomachs take revenge on the exasperatin' brains, and they grind in an' out like a set o' cog-weeels, and grind each other to achin' bits. I swan ! it makes me sweat to think on't." " Oh, keep cool! " sez I, " and fetch me a drink." "Well," sez he, passin' his hand acrost his face, as though to clear somethin' away, " I did get consider'ble woke up, didn't I ? You see, this island io settled by a parcel o' folks from America who sort o' mistrusted that th' eagle o' freedom was showin' crow feathers ; so we set up here, and things are run in a little different shape from what they was there. As soon as you get spry, I'll take ye round." 123 KNOW ARE. "Well, whilst I do lie here, can't you give me some- thin' to read ? Time hangs heavy." " What'll you have ?" " Oh, a real rousin' sensation novel '11 do." John grinned, an' said, "Are by law forbidden. There's a few fust-class stories by them fellers acrost the water, and now and then one in Ameriky, but there ain't no blood-an'-thunder printed or imported here, sir." " But how do the women folks stand that ?" " Bless your soul! we don't teach our women to read." " You oncivilized lot! " sez I. " Not much ; it's accordin' to reason. You don't catch our people squabblin' about women's rights, and woman suffrage, and all sorts of trash and stuff; the women stay to home and take care of their houses after the old- fashioned way. We don't have no ' monotonous exist¬ ence' here ; if they're dull, why, they can slap the children when they're naughty, and hug 'em when they're good. We have real live boys and girls round, I tell ye ; none o' them little memoir fellers that die out of pure goodness, nor no infant prodigies. The women don't have novels nor poetry, nor sewin'-machines, nor news¬ papers, so they haven't got nerves to speak of, and their hands are kept out of mischief." I groaned inwardly to think of the superior female I'd left to Dedham, who 'ficiated as my wife, and had neurology, speritooalism, soinethin' on the brain, and hated men. She knows Latin an' German, and plays on the pianny to kill ; but we buy our bread an' things to the bakery : she don't think rich vittles is good for the human system anyhow. I think lots of Cynthy Minervy's KNOW A RE. intellect an' smartness in that line. I'm willin' to support such a ornament to the sex. I don't stay to home much, and I don't think our Freddie '11 livelong: he's got a spine in his back, and lung difficulty, and stomach trouble, though he was fetched up on what she calls " strict hygienic principles "—fed on bran bread, beans, turnips, raw apples, and sech like ; soused into cold water every day of his life, winter an' summer ; practised in them gymnastic tricks till it made me crawly to see him throwed onto the chandelier an' left hangin' by one little hand, set on his head in the corner, hung up by one leg to the bed post, and lots of other things to strengthen his muscles that nigh scared him—an' me too—to death. Cynthy Minervy means to take to lecturin' when he dies ; she knows how ; but ef he don't die a-doin' on't, she calculates to cure him by a winch and pulley riggin' attached to his bed, which goes by clock-work, and bein' fastened to his hair and great toes, gently but firmly hauls at him all night, so's't he's as much as an inch taller in themornin'. She expects to straighten his back out that way, but things don't always fadge in this world, specially inventions, and you see this pullin' pulls out the muscles putty thin, and, C. M. says, " destroys the capillary attraction of the coat of the stomach from extension and attenuation." (I guess that's it. I've said it over consider'ble often.) Freddie cries some under treatment, and then she detaches him, lays him over her knee, and " reverses the magnetic currents," as they say in Boston. Mother didn't call it that, but it amounts to the same thing in the end. I think Freddie will die, though. Perhaps lied fetter; it's quite a chore for him to live. And somehow »30 KNOW ARE. I'm weak-minded about the little feller ; seems as if he'd ought to be took in somebody's arms and blessed. Cynthy Minervy don't know how ; but she's a very superior woman. I expect she will make an amazin' smart lecturer. I don't really think she'll live long in my house ; I ain't up to her lofty sphere, and she 'pears to be lookin' round for a spirit mate. She talks a good deal about a pardner of the soul, a congenial mind, and all that; so, knowin' her sort, I'm prepared and resigned for what's comin'. It '11 seem kinder comfortable to get back onto my own level again, I declare for't. But I seem to be wanderin' away from the subject. John fetched me a novel, one o'Scott's—not Commentary Scott, but another man—and I don't know when I've relished a book so much : it was full as good as Jenison Dennett or Urbanus Bobb's great works. I larfed right out the fust thing when I woke up next day, a-thinkin' how that old Antiquary got come up with about his Roman camp. I see by daylight that John's house was dreadful comfortable and pleasant: big rooms, with soft sofys and comfortable chairs all round, warm-lookin' carpets, open fire-places, bright picturs, and lots of flowers set about. There was'n't no real reg'lar shut-up parlour; they jest used the hull house to live in. I b'lieve in askin' what you want to know: questions is cheap; but John wouldn't talk till after breakfast. He said he'd got to get strengthened up to talk to a Dedham man that sold tin. I.and ! what a breakfast we had ! " My wife knows how to cook," sez he ; and I guess she did. There was KNOW A RE. four children to the table, all girls, rosy as apples, and happy as clams at high tide. They talked and larfed and ate all they wanted-—good things to eat, too ; juicy beefsteak, mealy potatoes, splendid bread and butter, and the best of milk. By-'n'-by John and I went to walk. His name was John Smith: every body in his street was named John Smith. In the next street they were all Peter Gray ; in another, Sam Clark. " Why, it must make orful confusion," sez I. " Not at all," sez John. " It's the best of ways. We want to kill out scandal, efso be we can ; and you know women is women everywhere, and talk they will ; but it makes it pecooliar hard to fix their talk on any one sinner when there's a hundred or more of the same name ; and the women don't have no other name to the end of the chapter. My wife '11 be Mrs. John Smith till she's a widder." " But the children ?" " Oh, they're numbered in every family just as thej come." " But the letters ?" "We don't have any. Nobody knows how to write here but the Public Secretary. We don't have foreign mails, and we all live right here. There's a few farmers round in the country, but the P.S. stands ready to write a note for any body ; then he makes a copy of it, and posts it on the town pump for three weeks. You've no idee what a sight of trouble it saves : nobody gets in a passion and says what he can't get back ; nobody writes letters that get twisted to mean two things; and there ain't no •32 KNOW A RE. old squabbles laid up on paper to rake out and fetch in evidence some future time. Wc go in for peace here." As we walked abroad I see a great many plcasant- lookin' houses, but no public buildin's. "Where's your Insane Asylum?" sez I. " Haven't got any." " But what do you do with your crazy folks ? " " Hang 'em." " For mercy's sakes ! you must be kep' busy," sez I, real horrified with sech talk. " My, no. You know, in the States, when any body does any thing real bad, they prove 'em by course of law to be insane ; we think an ounce o' prevention is worth ten pound of cure, so we hang 'em before they do any¬ thing. The idee ruther keeps folks in their senses, toe. As for the women, what with no tea, no novels, no readin' or writin', they don't lose their minds, as they call 'em. If they up and have the hysterics, why, there's the sea; we jest pitch 'em in at a rope's end, and pull 'em out when they've got composed. It's a sure cure." " And where's your hospital ?" " We don't need one. We haven't got a doctor around,, sir. People don't get sick much here. If they do, we' nurse 'em up at home with herbs and things, and if they' can't be cured, they die ; we've all got to die sometime,, and we think it's easier to die off nateral like, than be- plagued to death with drugs and doctors." By this time I was real thirsty, so I said I wanted drink. " All right; here's the town pump." KNOW A RE. 133 " Oh, I don't mean water; a julep or a sling would be about right." "Can't have it," scz he, as positive as thunder; "no sech in this kingdom." " Why, you gave me sherry yesterday." " Out o' your own flask, and you see the bottom of that." " But what do you do in sickness?" " Do without ; our folks think it's a heap better to die of a decent fever or a respectable cholera, than to iearn the taste of liquor and live to be drunkards." "Why, how you do talk! " sez I. " Supposin', now, one of your own childern was took sick, and you see 'em dyin' for want of a little stimulatin' ?" " They won't do it ; besides, I'd ruther have 'em die of anything than the tremens." I see 'twa'n't no use to argue with him. When a man is sot on a thing, words is no use ; so I took a drink of water and went along. The streets were clean as a new pin, and mortal still, though you could hear little folks laughin' and cacklin' in the cool gardens and pleasant housen by the side of the way. "Where air your public schsols ?" sez I. " Here," sez he, stopping before a long low house, like a shed some, that seemed to be fixed up with rows o' hogsheads, among which several men was steppin' round and talkin' out loud, one at a time ; " there's the school." " But I don't see no childern." " No ; you can't see through a millstone no more'n the next man. We head up the boys at six years old in \>ig barrels, and feed eddoocate 'em through the bung- 5 KNOW A RE. hole till the age of twenty. They're extension barrels, so's't the boys can grow." I was took aback. I was kinder riled. " What! '* sez I, "all your boys in barrels! None o'them things folks lay sech stress on in teachers' conventions—no home influences, no manly sports, no everlastin' friendships, no Sunday-schools, no—" Here I sort o' give in ; breath seemed to peter out. But he took up the talk : "No, sir! Cats and pigs and chickens live out all their days in peace here ; nobody's a tyrant over mother and the girls from dawn to dark ; no broken bones nor cracked skulls. Our boys don't never get drownded, blowed up with powder, tangled up in burr saws, split with hatchets, spilled offn horses, run over in the streets, nor jammed to bits under fire-engines. We don't have boys swearin' and spittin' on every street corner; strainin' their backs a-boat-racin' and their tempers bettin'; no colleges to upset their manners and morals, and let 'em herd together like swine, and then turnin' of 'em loose on a world lying in wickedness, as our old parson used to call it. Nobody here's killed at base-ball, nor mangled nuther. Marbles, peanuts, and fire-crackers never pester us. We have peace." " How delightful," sez I, kinder involuntary. " More'n all that, we don't never have no divorces. Them boys come out at twenty year old so orful meek and pleasant and grateful, their wives don't have no trouble with 'em at all." " Good gracious, Smith, you don't give in to petticoat gov'ment here, do ye ? " "Well, why not ? The women want somethin'to dq KNOW A RE. to make 'em feel mighty; why shouldn't they govern the men ? It pleases them an' don't hurt us." " But it's degradin' to a man. Never, sir, would I put up with that. I will be master, I tell ye, in my own house. I will be minded, right off, in the fam'ly. Man is the nateral head of all things, and must be give up'to." I said this real fierce, and John give me the queerest look you ever see. Ef I ain't mistook he actooally winked at me. What could he mean? He patted my shoulder sorter friendly, and said, " There ! there 1 I know how 'tis with ye. You no need to demonstrate here ; we're all used to it; it's a matter of course, as you might say. Don't say no more; I understand." I declare for't, I scurce could guess what he was up to ; but he went on : " Girls, you see, don't need no schoolin'. They don't learn nothin' but house-work, sewin', takin' care of childern and sick folks, singin', and fussin' in the garden; their mas teach 'em all that." " But where's your jail ? your prison ? your court¬ house ?" " Nowhere, thanks be to praise ? If a man kills any body, we give him a spade and a bag of potatoes, and take and row him off to a desolate island, and leave him there to fann it I tell ye, he puts to and digs ! But farmin' for a livin' is capital punishment, wuss'n hangin', a long sight—a real state of sin an' misery." " I hope you've got plenty of islands," sez I, kinder sneerin.' '36 KNOW ARE. " Plenty for that puppus, sir. There ain't no great of murderin' done here, for we don't allow no fire-arms of no kind around in this place." "No guns nor pistols? How in the world do you shoot mad dogs ?" " We don't have no dogs, so there ain't no mad ones." "No dogs ! Why, don't ye know they're the faithful friend of man, as the readin'-book sez ?" "We know they bite folks and make 'em die in torters, ravin' mad. That ain't our kind of faithful friends. Be¬ sides, we have fust-rate mutton here, and that's better'n hydrophoby." Dear me! what a cuss-tomer this feller was ! He met ye at every turn jest as pat! 'Twas exasperatin'; so sez I, " Where's the bank ?" " Haw ! haw ! " laughed John. " That's Yankee all over. Money, sir, the Scripter sez, is the root of all evil—" " It don't say that, now I tell ye!11 I put in, direct, glad enough to trump his trick. " Well, it doos in my Bible." " What '11 you bet?" " Bet! there ain't no bettin' permitted here. I should be set to pumpin' at the town pump three hours a day for three weeks if I should bet you a peanut." " Well! well! well ! I won't stick to it; but I tell ye what Scripter doos say : ' The love o' money's the root of all evil!'" " Oh, pshaw ! what's the differ'nce? Well, we think the love on't can't be without the critter itself: so we KNOW ARE. *37 don't have no money ; therefore no banks, no notes, no checks, nor renewals, nor interest, nor nothin'/' " But how do ye buy things ? " "We change round, jest as folks used to before money was made : 'tain't always a close fit, but it's better'n all the wear an' tear of bills and credit, defaultin' and embezzlin'. I tell ye it comes hard for a feller to embezzle sheep and cows and sech: they won't pocket." " But supposin', as you say, things don't fit ? say you want suthin t'other man's got, and he don't hanker after what you've got : how about that ? " " Oh, I can go without, I guess ; food an' clothin' we always manage to have a plenty ; ;ve live right along, an' don't worry about the futur'. Jest you notice the folks in the street; do they look like Dedham folks? Not much." Sure enough they didn't. The men was easy-goin', pleasant, smilin', broad-shouldered fellers as ever you see; and the women—gracious! they was as rosy and fair-complected as a posy bed, and straighter'n bean poles ; but dressed dreadful queer. " You don't pan out no great on clothes here, do ye ? " sez I, kind of smilin' like. "Well," sez he, "we have enough to keep good and warm, and we call 'em good-lookin'." I must own the women folks looked sort of slimpsy : folks was wearin' hoops when I left Dedham—all but Cynthy Minervy, and she had on a Bloomer rig. 'Twas handy ; I don't deny but what 'twas handy; but it did look mortal curious. But she said, " The needs of «3S KNOIVA RE. hygienic science, and the true nurture of the physical, demand freedom of the osseous structure and bounding space for vital pulsation, lest the divine Me be incar¬ cerated in effete human bonds." I guess that's it; it's quite a spell sence I've seen Cynthy ; she's found liberty, and I don't follow her round a sight. Well, the women here did look consider'ble like statooary females, but I didn't say so, an' he went on : " No fashions here, sir, I tell ye. Them kind o' gowns was ordered to begin with, and kep' right along ; they can have 'em any colour they're a mind to, and they can wear any kind of flowers and leaves that grow in their hair or their bunnets, and some of 'em do fix up amazing smart, now I tell ye." " Law, yes. I know the kind ; there is some women has it hard ; they'll begin to prink and smirk and fix up like lightnin' from the time they're three year old till they die, even if they be old maids." " That's another blessing in disguise we dispense with in this country," said John, a-larfin'. "No old maids? Do tell! Why, how do ye prevent it ? " " Why, it's thought best, for the sake of peace, that everybody should be married ; so folks keep an eye out, and when one man sees a young feller that's suitable like for his girl to marry, he goes and talks to his folks about it, private. If they're willin', he goes an' tells the king ; if they ain't willin', why, that's the end on't ; but if they be, the king he jest sends his head man to tell that young feller he ain't on no account to marry that par¬ ticular girl; he can make love to anybody else he's a KNOW A RE. 139 mind to, but that girl is forbid. Then the head man he goes to the girl's mother, an' says he's heerd that girl is makin' eyes at that young man, and the king don't approve of it, so she'd better be looking elsewheres. It's reckoning on natu^, you see : there's lots of human natur1 in everybody. Why, the very minnit them two young folks hear how that they ain't on no account to have nothin' to do with each other, they pitch right in. I never know"d it to fail, not one time. And then, when they're ready to tie the knot, some of their pas or mas that's up to time advises of 'em to petition the king, and after a spell he gives in and they're married. Ain't that icute ? " " It doos beat all. But how do you come out even, I'd like to know ?" " Oh, there's mostly a chance for everybody, what with widowers; if there is any surplus, why, we colonize 'em on Garden Island, Snd set 'em to raising small fruits and poultry. That keeps them busy, you see; there ain't any men folks to quarrel about, nobody else's affairs to gossip over; and if a man happens to want a wife, why, he can go over there, if he gets a permit, and looks about him, and the presiding widder settles the matter." " Well! well! well! I never did see sech a place ; no strong-minded females, no littery women, no votin', no log-rollin', no lobbyin'! But look a-here, how did ye start your king ? It's as great a wonderment to me how they start kings as how they start yeast." " Why, you see, there wa'n't but about thirty of us at first, all picked men and friends ; and we didn't any of 140 KNOW ARE. us want to run the thing— we was dead tired of bein' sovereign people ; so we looked round a spell, here and there, and finally hit on a real smart, honest, capable fellow, with a good healthy wife, and made him an offer, and he took it up. We swore to hold him up, and have his children come after him, and we give him power enough to keep folks straight. After we got runnin', why, some of us fixed up a ship and went back for a few more picked hands ; perhaps we fetched away, take 'em big and little, fust an' last, a couple o' hundred : we've lived here twenty year now ; nobody's ben this way before you ; we're out o' the tracks entirely, and we're well off and happy. I tell you, this is livin'." " But where's your meetin'-house ?" He turned round a sharp corner, and we come to a large low house without any steeple, opened a door, and stepped right in : it was a real big room, with pleasant red carpets and kind of cream-coloured walls, easy cushioned chairs standin' thick on the floor, and a kind of a readin'-desk behind a long table that had a dark red cloth on it, and some low wide white vases onto each end, fairly drippin' with flowers. There was little recesses betwixt the windows, with curtains to 'em, here and there drawed together. " Them is for folks that want to come here day¬ times and say their prayers. It's private like and still, you see, in them little alcoves, and we never keep the doors locked." All the wall was hung with pictures; I couldn't begin to tell 'em all; but the house was bright and pleasant and sweet and warm beyond anything I ever KNOWARE. see. Seemed jest as i£ it was home. I could ha' set there all day. "Got a good preacher?" sez I. " We don't have preachin'. Our minister he jest reads the Bible, whatever part he thinks best; then we have singin'—everybody sings—and he prays once or twice." "Well, if he's like some folks to home, he'll do more preachin' in one prayer than '11 last ye a week. My ! I've heerd Parson Styles tell the Lord as much about other folks and the 'fairs of the nation as though He was a perfect stranger to 'em." "We don't have no such prayin' here, for we have prayers out of a book, the best out of all the good old books, and a good many right out of the, Bible. Once in a great while he reads a sermon out of somebody's printed ones, but not very frequent." " What on airth does he do week-days ?" " Why, he goes round visitin' folks, talkin' to 'em friendly, and tryin' to straighten 'em out, or seein' to the sick. We all see he don't want for clothes and food for his family, and so that's off his mind." "This is a curious place enough," sez I. "But I'm fairly hungry with so many idees pourin' in on me. Ain't there a place round here where you can get things to eat ? " "Yes, the baker's over in the square." So we come around a ways, and got to a real clean, light store in a big white buildin'. There was two or three small tables near to the windows, and as we set down a nice waiter-boy came up to 'tend to us. 142 KNOW ARE, "What will you have?" sez John. " Well, a piece o' pie and cheese, I guess," sez I. " Pie! " hollered John. " Pie 1" shrieked the waiter-boy. They couldn't have looked more thunder-struck if I'd asked for prussic acid or a drink of strychnine tincture. " Well," sez I, strivin' to speak calm, " what's to pay now ? I said pie." " Why, it's a penal offence to make a pie in this country, and a hangin' matter to eat it," sez John, in real sober earnest. " Thunder ! " sez I ; " what's that for ? " " Oh, my deluded friend, don't you know that pie is at the bottom of our former country's demoralisation ? Don't you know that pie was the germ of the Revolution, the instigator of the war of 1812, the inspirer of rebellion? Don't you know that pie is a concretion of 'riginal sin and actual transgression ? that pie and prison are cause and effect ? that this seductive but fatal viand has des¬ troyed the American stomach and disintegrated the American brain, till the whole country is a mass of political corruption and mora) decay ? Don't you know pie is—" "Oh, stop! do«stop!" sez I. "I've eat pie sence I was born, and I ain't a jail-bird or a fool yet." " But jest think what you might have been on better and hullsomer food : you might have been a Solon, an Aristides, a Homer, a George Washington." "I'd a sight ruther be a tin peddler. Do drop pie, and give me somethin' to eat, if you've got any thing short o' corn fodder; I can't stomach that." KNOW ARE. Well, they fetched in bread—fresh bread, jest as white and light and sweet as you want to see, a pat o' butter hard and yellow as wax, a big glass pitcher of cream, a dish of white strawberries, a basket of red cherries, and a comb of honey clear as water. I ain't goin' to go back on pie—I'd jest as soon think of sassing my grandmother—but, I tell you, a dish of white straw¬ berries, with a leetle mite of clover honey jest trickled round amongst 'em, and thick cream poured clean up to the top of the saucer, and sech bread crumbled in, comes putty near to bein' good eatin'. John laughed to see me pile in. "'Most as good as pie?" sez he. " Pretty near," sez I, betwixt the mouthfuls. Well, sir, I can't have no time nor room to say more, for I ain't one that holds the pen of a ready writer—it comes hard. But ef I was to take time, I could tell vollums about that country. I had to come away, for I had settlin' up to do in Dedham ; but it's my purpose to go back, wind an' weather permittin', some time or 'nother. Cynthy Minervy's gone out to Illinois for a spell. Dedham folks do say there's ben a speritooal here lecturin', who seemed to be round consider'ble, 'long of her; and Parson Styles kinder hinted to me 't I'd better foller her up, for she sort o' let on to him that I'd up and left her, and 'twas good cause for divorce ; and Illinois, ye knew ! But I said, sez I, " Let her went, parson. Ef Cynthy Minervy's tired o' me, why, I ain't the man to hender her bein' happy her own fashion. I sha'n't never interfere; and 111 take Freddie 'long o' me." The parson said I was a remarkable generous 144 KNOW A RE. man, a self-denyin' feller as ever was. Parsons don't know everything. But ef Cynthy Minervy doos git a divorce, as sure as guns I shall put for Knoware as quick as I can charter a fishin' smack. I see I've all along dropped into Dedham kind o' talk ; it comes so nateral, I suppose. I've ben and traded off my Unabridged for a copper tea-kettle and Tupper's Proverbs, so that I haven't had no help about words ; but then that book of Ph'losophy doos beat all, and Dedham water is death on tin kettles. And when all's said and done, them words is the best that tells what you mean to say the easiest, short bein' better than long, jest as quick blows is better'n slow ones. Ef any body'd like ^o go to Knoware along o' me. passage and outfits can be obtained at the lowest prices, very reasonable, by applyin' right off to B. Munn Chowson, Dedham, Mass. |ij farb—% J)r«am. BY HENRY S. LEIGH. 7Jr% WAS fain to discover some gift for my fair, sxjf (Which was ;o easy matter to choose). I perchance would have sent her some 1 locks of my hair But my locks are too scanty to lose. Should I proffer some trinket—a novel—some gloves— Or deposit some rhymes at her feet ? Nay, to startle the dearest and last of my loves I would sit for my carte de visile. The resolve that had flashed through my fancy at e'en Re-appeared in my slumbers at night. Never yet such a series of horrors, I ween, Filled the soul of a sleeper with fright. I was wafted in visions—I cannot say how— To some weird and sequestered retreat; Where, accosting a Stranger, I asked with a bow — " Can I sit for my carte de visile f " 146 my carte—a feverish dream. Could I dream that the Stranger so meek and so mild Was a Fiend in the likeness of Man ? He returned my salute ; he benignantly smiled; He politely responded, "You can !" Such a picture of artless yet elegant ease I was charmed, I acknowledge, to meet; So I said, " Will you point out the chair, if you please, Where I sit for my carte de visite ? " In a trice, like a criminal bound on the rack, I indented that engine of pain ; While a cunningly-fashioned machine at my back Played a march on the base of my brain. Quoth a voice, " Take a natural attitude, Sir : Do not wobble so much, I entreat. It will ruin the negative, mind, if you stir While you sit for your carte de visite I became like a rock ; but the voice in mine ear Gently muttered, " That's better, no doubt: But your smile is a little spasmodic, I fear, And I don't like your chin sticking out!" 1: ******■»« I awoke with a struggle—my blood running cold— As it runs while my dream I repeat. If my reader should relish the tale that I've told— Let him sit for his carte de visite 1 Ha$i$ firmer'* JBtmum. HENEVER I pass that dingy tour-story building on Nassau Street in which Barry and I first established ourselves as attor¬ neys and counsellors at law, I am led to wonder what has become of Moses Clymer. Eighteen years ago, when Barry and I occupied the back-room on the third floor of this building, Moses did a thriving business in the apartment directly opposite. I say thriving, because many persons passed in and out of that apartment, so that the bell, which was fastened over the top of the door, kept up an almost continuous ringing. Everybody who ascender' the stairs to the third story appeared to enter Clymer's room. I recall now, with a sad smile, the numerous disappointments we suffered because of this singular partiality which was displayed for Moses's office. A score of times, at least, during the first day or two following our removal to the building, Barry raised his eyes from the pages of " Pendennis," listened a moment I4S MOSES CLYMEE'S BUSINESS. to the sound of footsteps on the stairs, and then dropping " Pendennis " and seizing a pen, fell to covering a sheet of legal cap with his own signature. A brief moment of delightful expectancy, while the footsteps paused on the landing without; a spasm of hope that at last a client had come ; and then the tinkling of the bell over Moses's door, and a sudden sinking of spirits in the manly breasts of Barry and Bushnell. Following these dashed hopes, a dashed exclamation from the senior member of the firm, a resumption of " Pendennis," and unbroken silence. Yet it was not of vital importance that clients should come to Barry and Bushnell. They were still young men whose parents regarded them as boys, and whose good fortune made it unnecessary for them to take any thought of the morrow. They knew that their bread, buttered with tolerable liberality, would be forthcoming, whether clients came or not. Yet it was somewhat embarrassing, at the expiration of three weeks, to „e forced to acknow¬ ledge that neither man, woman, nor child had made application for their professional services. To this embarrassment was added a touch of exasperation at the thought of Moses Clymer's steady stream of callers. " Wonder if he's a lawyer ? " said I, one day, breaking the silence which had followed the sound of the bell. " I think not," answered Barry. " He would have a sign if he were." " Perhaps he is a note-shaver," suggested I. " Possibly. He does a rushing business, whatever its character. I purpose to keep my eyes open and find out what it is." Barry attempted first to get his eyes open by interro- MOSES CLYMER'S BUSINESS. '49 gating the other occupants of the building. Not one ol them could tell how Moses Clymer earned his livelihood. Opinion was divided. Firman and Co., the stationers on the first floor, did not know that there was such a man as Clymer in the building—so close the intimacy which life in a metropolis breeds ! Dickerson and Smith, engravers, second floor front, believed Mr. Clymer to be a lawyer. Jennison Brothers, lawyers, second floor back, sup¬ posed Clymer was a physician. (In support of this con¬ clusion, they cited the fact of having seen a number of consumptive-looking men pass into his room.) Doyle, stenographer, fourth floor, was inclined to the opinion that Clymer was an insurance agent, with some interest in real estate. By the time Barry had made an end of his inquiries, he found that his eyes were not opened with respect to Moses Clymer's occupation. His curiosity however, was whetted to a keener edge. The testimony of the Jennisons, whom Barry and I hated cordially, first, because they were lawyers, and, second, because they were lawyers with clients—the tes¬ timony of the Jennisons, I repeat, corresponded precisely with what we ourselves had observed. Not only did consumptive-looking men pass into Moses Clymer's office, but men, also, whose general appearance hinted of indigestion, and possibly biliousness. Without the aid of a very vivid imagination, one found it easy to associate all manner of diseases with Moses's callers. Moreover, there was a certain dilapidated air about them—a shabbi- ness of dress and a uniform uncleanliness of person— which suggested at once the need of tonics and soap. Obviously Mr. Clymer's business, whatever it might be. ISO MOSES CLYMER'S BUSINESS. gave him acquaintance with a very peculiar class of people. There was a certain negative resemblance traceable in them all, and some points even ot' positive likeness. Apart from their usually shabby clothes and the decayed appearance already mentioned, it was noticeable that they frequently carried rolls of paper in their hands, which they left behind them upon emerging from Moses's room. Barry was pleased to devote much time to speculation regarding our neighbour across the hall. When his inquiries had served only to sharpen his curiosity, he determined to pay Moses a visit. This he did, but with¬ out satisfying himself as to the nature of the business carried on by Mr. Clymer. " There isn't any thing in the room," said he, " to indicate what the man does. A desk or counter stands in the middle of the floor. This is shielded by a ground- glass top, like the teller's desk in a bank. At one end of the room is a partition six or seven feet high, with three doors, all of which were closed. I noticed a big safe and numerous packages of papers, evidently manuscripts, arranged on shelves behind the counter.'- " Did you see Moses ? " I inquired. " Yes, and talked with him—asked him to lend me a tack hammer. He said he hadn't one. Then one of his mysterious-looking callers came in and seated himself, without speaking a word. Evidently he was waiting for me to clear out, so I cleared." This visit left us more in the dark than ever. Barry, who delighted in mystery, began straightway to weave a romance about the bald head of Moses Clymer. That MOSES CL YMER'S B US/JVESS. 151 he was neither a lawyer, doctor, merchant, nor priest, was no longer a disputed question ; that his buttons would count down to a thief seemed strongly probable. Un¬ limited leisure, which professional duties did not inter¬ rupt, gave Barry the opportunity to prosecute his inves¬ tigations with untiring vigour; and the more he inves¬ tigated, the more knotty appeared the problem. The consumptive-looking callers continued to pass in and out; the bell rang at irregular intervals throughout the day. Now and then we met Moses in the hall or upon the stairs, but his business remained a matter of mystery. At the end of a month, Barry, who had made a number of visits to the room across the hall, but with no better results than those attending the first, g.ave up the riddle in despair. And thereupon, as it happens sometimes with the more complex riddles of life, came an answer to this one from a source least expected. Moses Clymer entered our office one morning, and announced that he wanted legal advice. Barry thrust the book he was reading—Poe's " Tales" —under a pile of papers, and, as the senior member of the firm, turned to his first client. As the junior member of the firm, I picked up a copy of the " Session Laws," and looked becomingly grave. "Vat is to charge for advice ? " inquired Moses. " That will be determined after you have stated your case," replied Barry. " Voll, ten, te case vas like dis. Suppose a man vas come to you, and sells you a piece of werse •'* " A piece of what ? " interrupted Barry. " A piece of werse—poetry, you know." !?2 MOSES CLYMER'S BUSINESS. Poetry! Was this, then, the mysterious merchandise in which Moses dealt ? I kept the " Session Laws" before my eyes, but did not discover that I held the volume upside down. Barry's composure was simply astonishing. " Verse," said he. " Exactly. Well ?" "Veil, you pays dis man for te piece of werse, and den you finds out dat he stole it all from a book. Nowvas dere no laws vich vill get back te morey vich you pays to dat man ? " " Let me understand you fully," said Barry, with the air of a veteran counsellor. "You purchase a literary article, believing it to be an original production. After you have paid for it, you discover it to be a plagiarism." " A vich ?" interrogated Moses, doubtfully. " A plagiarism—a stolen production." " Yes, dat vas it. Stole out of a book. And I ad¬ vanced two tollars and feefty cents on dat piece of werse 1" " You bought the verses for two dollars and a half?" "No, no. I buys notings. I loans te money, and takes te werses for security. And dey vas stole out ot a book 1" This remarkable revelation, this sudden flood of light upon the mystery which had hitherto enveloped Moses Clymeds business, produced no visible effect on Barry. One might have supposed that he had known what that business was for years, and that from his childhood up he had been familiar with pawnbrokers' shops, where the fancies of the brain, instead of overcoats and watches, were accepted as security for loans. For myself, I MOSES CLYME R'S BUSINESS. 153 found it impossible to longer feign an interest in the in¬ verted volume of " Session Laws," and closing the book, made no further attempt to conceal my amazement. Barry proceeded to probe his first client with polite but searching interrogatories. " Your business, then, as I understand it, is that of a pawnbroker, and you make loans upon literary articles." " Yes, dat vas it," replied Moses. " Are you not frequently imposed upon ?' inquired I, wondering how in the name of reason a man could detect a plagiarism who did not know the meaning of the word. " Imposhed upon ?" repeated Moses, raising his eye¬ brows. "Veil, I never vas imposhed upon before. Vil- liam he knows vat is good and vat is bad. He can tell vat is stole, as I can tell gold from brass. Villiam he knows all vat is in te books, but he vas mistaken about dat piece of werse." " I take it that William is your critic ?" said Barry. " Yes, Villiam he decides vat an article is vorth. I knows notings about any of them. You might bring me Bj ron or Shakespeare—it vas all te same to me. But it was not all te same to Villiam." " What do you do with the articles that are not re¬ deemed ?" I asked. " Ve sells 'em—very sheap, very sheap indeed Dere vas leetle profit in our business, and I advanced two tollars and feefty cents on dat piece of werse !" Barry checked further curiosity, that he might regard the case from a professional point of view. " This opens up a very intricate question of law, Mr. Clymer. I shall need some time to consider it. O •54 MOSES CL YMER'S BUSINESS. course, if a suit were begun, the expenses would be greater than the amount of your claim." "Veil, it is not te money so much as te example vat I vants. If te law could punish dis fellow, I vill not care if it takes all of te two tollars and feefty cents." Moses here rose from his seat, and Barry informed him that he would be prepared to express an opinion when he had given the case proper attention. " Doesn't this beat anything you ever heard of," he exclaimed, as the ringing of the bell announced Moses's entrance into his own room. I thought it did, unquestionably. Barry, I fear, did not devote much time to a con¬ sideration of the legality of his first client's claim ; but his interest in the case was certainly profound. He came into the office on the day following Moses's visit, and ex¬ claimed, triumphantly— " I have been in to see Clymer, and to-morrow we shall have an opportunity of learning as much as we please about his business." On the morrow, accordingly, Barry and I called upon our neighbour across the hall. " Valk right into Villiam's office," said Moses, as we entered the room. Barry, who seemed to have made himself thoroughly familiar with the place, led the way to one of the small compartments of which he had spoken, and I followed. There we found " Villiam," otherwise Mr. William Cramp- ton, with his feet, encased in shabby gaiters, resting upon the ink-stained top of a pine table. He was a man of fifty or thereabouts, who might have been anything to MOSES CLYMER'S BUSINESS. 153 accord with the particular surroundings in which he was seen. With a white cravat and clothes of ecclesiastical cut, you would have set him down as a clergyman. In a checkered shirt, with a diamond sufficiently large and lustreless, you might have mistaken him for a bar-tender. In Moses Clymer's inner office he could be nothing but a critic. Ten minutes' conversation revealed the fact that Mr. Crampton was a man of wide reading, undoubted culture, and superior critical taste. The same length of time served also to reveal the execrable quality of the tobacco which he used, and the astonishing quantity of beer. An earthen pitcher of this latter beverage was applied to his lips at intervals of four or five minutes, and the diminu¬ tion of the contents during one of these draughts was something truly surprising. We stood the smoke man¬ fully, however, and forgave the periodical interruptions occasioned by the beer. Mr. Crampton's conversation was worth these minor drawbacks. " This business surprises you, no doubt," said he, laying down the pitcher tenderiy. " Well, yes, it does," rejoined Barry. " Moses, here, has been engaged in it six or seven years. The old fellow must have made a snug little fortune during that time. He gets hold of his wares for almost nothing, and sells them always for a fair price. His profits last year amounted to more than three thou¬ sand dollars." " You say that he sells his wares always for a fair price. Where does he find a market ?" inquired I. " With some of the magazines and newspapers. He 156 MOSES CLYMER'S BUSINESS. makes arrangements with the editors, who pay him so much a year, and get in return a given number of articles in prcse and verse. He runs no risk. The periodicals take the chances as to the availability of the pieces they receive. Of course there must be proper discrimination used in deciding what articles we shall accept here ; but when that is done, Moses is sure of his profits." " Then," said Barry, " the success or failure of Clymer rests altogether with you ?" "Well, Moses is certainly not a judge of literary work, and he leaves that to me. But I am not entitled to all the credit—not by any means. I occupy simply the position of a reader on a periodical publication—which, I may explain, was my calling before I became asso¬ ciated with Moses. After I had decided favourably upon an article, and the thirty days during which it is held subject to redemption have elapsed, then it is passed into the hands of Mr. Peters." Here Crampton refreshed himself with another draught of the beer. He then continued : " Mr. Peters is our polisher. By that I mean that he prepares the unredeemed pieces for the press. His duties are very much more laborious than are mine, and he is justly entitled to a goodly share of the credit. He takes a piece of verse, for example, rubs it down, so to speak, throws out or adds to it a stanza, props up a limping line, smooths out the rhythm, and corrects the faulty rhymes. That is what we call polishing. A prose article is put through a similar process, and sometimes even entirely re-written. The ideas, you see, are worth saving." At this point Moses opened the door and laid a manu MOSES CLYMER'S BUSINESS. *57 script upon the critic's table. The critic thereupon drew inspiration from the pitcher, and then proceeded to pass judgment on the verses. Barry and I watched him with undisguised interest. " Our rhymsters nowadays," said he, " are little better than echoes. They give us musical lines, but their thoughts are all borrowed. Here, for instance, are some neatly constructed stanzas, but we find the ideas to be wonderfully familiar. Our author says : ' Now hope is dead and joy is fled, Earth is barren, life is vain ; For with anger toward my love Worse than madness racks my brain.' That would be better if we could forget the lines of Cole¬ ridge, " And to be wroth with one we love Doth work like madness in the brain.' " "The author may have been unconscious of the pla¬ giarism," suggested Barry. " Very true," answered Crampton ; " but that uncon¬ sciousness proves his want of originality. His ideas are the outgrowth of his reading simply. He falls into the ruts which the wheels of other chariots have made. He finds it infinitely easier to pluck the fruit which has ripened in another's mind than to sow the seed of fresh thought, and nourish it to fructification. He drinks of twenty streams, and then gives us a flavour of them all. That flavour is sometimes excellent, but rarely new." With this illustration, Mr. Crampton took another drink of the beer. Then, still scanning the pages of the manuscript, be continued : I *} . I <|8 MOSES CL YMER 'S BUSINESS. " Here is another striking example of what I meaa The writer of these verses sings, ' When golden thoughts bring in their train Sad thoughts which still are sweet.' That is Wordsworth, and I cannot say that it is an im¬ provement. The dead laureate puts it, ' In that sweet mood when pleasant thoughts Bring sad thoughts to the mind.' " " Have you pashed on dat piece of werse ?" inquired Moses, thrusting his head through the door. " It will do," answered Crampton. " Vat shall I say about it dat is bad ? " "Too much of Coleridge and Wordsworth." With this, Moses took the manuscript and withdrew. "What amount will be advanced on that piece?" inquired Barry. " I really couldn't tell," answered Crampton. " Moses takes charge of that, you see. You might step around be¬ hind the desk, and watch him while he makes the loan." Barry and I were glad enough to act upon this sug¬ gestion. We found one of the consumptive-looking gentlemen, whose appearance had once led to the belief that Mr. Clymer was a physician, engaged in earnest con¬ versation with trie pawnDroker. " Really, Moses, you ought to make that an even two dollars. Eight stanzas, you see. Rhythm smooth, and rhymes all perfect." " One tollar and seeventy-feeve cents is all vat I can allows," rejoined Moses, decisively. " But you advanced two dollars on those sonnets last week. These verses are much better than those " MOSES CLYMER'S BUSINESS. i$9 " Dere vas too much of Cooleridge and Vadsvorth in em," rejoined Moses, disparagingly. " Dat is vat ails 'em—too much of Cooleridge and Vadsvorth. I will gives you one tollar and seeventy-feeve cents." This offer was finally accepted, and Moses made out the ticket and paid over the money. Then he returned to us, saying, " Ve cannot affords to pay too much on articles like dat. Dere is not demand enough, you see, and dere vas too much Cooleridge and Vadsvorth in 'em." "Are any of these manuscripts ever redeemed?" asked Barry, when we had returned to Crampton's room. " Yes, occasionally," replied the critic. "The writer can redeem them at any time within thirty days, and occasionally he avails himself of this privilege." Crampton here availed himself of the privilege of moistening his lips at the mouth of the pitcher. " The articles which are brought to Moses," he re¬ sumed, " without first having been submitted to an editor, constitute only a small part of what we receive. By far the larger proportion of the manuscripts are those that have been returned to the authors as unavailable. We take them, polish them, and sell them to less exacting publications." " Mr. Clymer must feel his absolute dependence on you and Peters," suggested Barry. " But he also makes us feel our dependence upon our own exertions," was the rejoinder. " We receive no salary for our work, but a given percentage on the articles which are published. If I decide favourably on a poem, and that poem is thrown out by the editor to whom A/OSES CLYMER'S BUSINESS. Moses carries it, then the sum which was originally advanced to the author is deducted from my percentage.'' " In other words," said I, " Clymer is willing to share the profits but not the losses of his business." " It amounts to about that, and yet Peters and I are well paid for our work. You see, we are able to select from a varied assortment, and to get the kind of matter which is suited to a particular publication. It rarely happens that we make a mistake." " Or that you advance money on verses taken from a book," observed Barry, with a smile. "The case which Moses has laid before you is the only one of that nature which ever occurred. Sometimes we have had stolen articles brought to us—all pawnbrokers' shops must expect that—but we have invariably detected the theft. The plagiarisms are usually glaringly appa¬ rent. Some months ago, I remember, a chap presented Byron's ' Maid of Athens,' and wanted two dollars on it." Crampton was interrupted at this point by a thumping on the partition wall, while a voice from the adjoining compartment said, " I want a two-syllabled word that is synonymous with ' endeavour.'" "'Attempt,'" rejoined Crampton, after a moment's reflection. Then, addressing us, he added, " That is Peters. Suppose we step in and see him." We found Mr. Peters hard at work polishing a poem. He was a younger man than his associate, with a pro¬ minent nose, which his biographer would probably call Roman, and with the hair and shirtfront of a genius. By way of illustrating the nature of his work, he read us HOSES CLYMER'S BUSINESS. :fe some verses, first as they had been received by Motes, and afterward as they came out of the polishing process. Before we left the room, I obtained permission to make a copy of these stanzas in both forms, which I have pre¬ served up to the present time. While the lines possess little of poetic merit, I may nevertheless be pardoned for presenting them hare as illustrative of Mr. Peters's man¬ ner of work. In the original form they read as follows : SHERRY WINE. a 1 will drink this ambei -hued, > Ripe, and rare old sherry To the maiden whom I loved— Fair was she and merry— Loved and wooed so long ago : When it was I scarce may know. I will drink io those old times When to breathe was pleasure ; When my heart, like sweetest rhyme, Beat to Love's own measure ; When the dreams of youth were mine, Amber-hued, like this wine. From the goblet I will drain Time's forgotten flavour, Taste those happy days again, Sweetened by Love's own favour— Days when through Loves magic hand*. Life ran all in golden sands. What if love be at an end. Life no longer merry, Still I'll drink and drink again, In this rare old sherry, To the girl I loved and wooed When the world was arv^er -hued i 16* MOSES CL YMER 'S BUSINESS. I'dished by Peters, the verses read thus: A SONG. I will drink this amber-hued. Aromatic sherry To the girl I loved and wooed— Modest maiden merry— Loved and wooed so long ago : When it was I scarce may know. I will drink to those old times When to breathe was pleasure; When my pulse in rhythmic rhymes. Beat to Love's own measure; When the dreams of youth were mint), Amber-hued like sherry wine. From the goblet I will drain Time's forgotten flavour; Taste those golden days again, Sweetened by Love's favour, While I feel the draught divine Warming all my blood like wine. What if love be at an end, Life no longer merry, Here's a true and trusty friend, Aromatic sherry ; Truer than my love, I know. Many, many years ago. " You will observe," said Peters, when he had finished reading the verses, "that there is substantially little change in the second copy of the poem. One or two imperfect rhymes are corrected—as, for example, ' times * and 'rhyme' in the second stanza—and some redun¬ dant syllables are dispensed with to preserve the metre. MOSES CLYMER'S BUSINESS. 163 In the main, however, the verses are alike. That couplet, ' Days when through Love's magic hands Life ran all in golden sands,' smacks a little too strongly of Tennyson to pass muster. I have, therefore, thrown it out, although I cannot say the iubstitution is an improvement." " Your work must be very laborious, Mr. Peters," suggested Barry. "It is what I may term 4headachey,'" was the re¬ joinder. " Still, I get along tolerably well, and do not feel justified in swearing except when a parody on Poe's ' Raven' turns up, or a new version of ' The Bridge ol Sighs.'" Before Barry and I mr.de an end of our visit, we passed around behind the counter, where Moses was engaged in assorting the numerous packages of manu¬ scripts. " On te top shelf, dere," said he, " vas stories, nice stories, vich ve sells very sheap. You vas never seen nicer stories any vheres. On te next shelf vas werses —love werses. Dey vas really beautiful and sheap. On dis shelf here vas werses on ' Spring' — and dey vas sheap too. Dose pelow vas all on deaths. You could not read one of dem vidout veeping, dey vas so beautiful and so sheap! Ven somebody in your family dies, dis is te place vhere you can find nice poetry vat vill comfort you. And it vill cost you only a leetle. Dat large package vas all pieces on te 4 Old Year.' Dat one next to it vas on vine and other drinks. Dis package here vas made up of sonnets—ve 164 MOSES CL YMER 'S £ OS/MESS. gives 'em away, almost. Every thing vat you sees vas nice and sheap ! " " And not too much of Coleridge and Wordsworth in them ?" said Barry, with a smile. " Oh my, no ! " returned Moses, warmly. " Dere vas no Cooleridge, no Vadsvorth, in any of 'em. Peters he vas take all dat out." When at last we took leave of the pawnbroker, Barry announced that he would be prepared to express an opinion on the merits of Moses' case in the course of a week ; and Clymer again assured us that he would cheerfully pay the whole of the two dollars and fifty cents, if by so doing he could make an example of the impostor who had obtained a loan on verses taken from a book. I regret to say that Barry did not keep his word. Mr. Clymer was left in doubt as to whether he possessed the right to institute legal proceedings against the p'agiarist. And not many weeks afterward we discovered that he had moved from the room across the hall to parts un¬ known. The firm of Barry and Bushnell may now be found in a more aristocratic neighbourhood than of old. Yet I never pass that dingy building on Nassau Street without wondering what has become of Moses Clymer. And I never turn to the poetry in a periodical without reflecting that perhaps these self-same stanzas have secured a loan of two dollars from Moses, have been favourably passed upon by Crampton, and have had the Coleridge and Wordsworth taken out of them by Peters, MARK TWAIN'S NIGHTMARE. 6 (I)ark Immms lfiig|tari A STORY OF HAUNTING HORROR. f ILL the reader please to cast his eye over the following verses, and see if he can dis. cover anything harmful in them ? " Conductor, when you receive a fare, [passenjare Punch in the presence of the A blue trip slip for an eight- cent fare, [fare A buff trip slip for a six-cent A pink trip slip for a three- cent fare, [passenjare Punch in the presence of the CHOKU.". Punch, brothers! punch with care ! Punch in the presence of the passenjare !" I came across these jingling rhymes in a newspaper, a little while ago, and read them a couple of times. They 9 MARK TWAIN'S NIGHTMARE. took instant and entire possession of me. All through breakfast they went waltzing through my brain ; and when, at last, I rolled up my napkin, I could not tell whether I had eaten anything or not. I had carefully laid out my day's work the day before—a thrilling tragedy in the novel which 1 am writing. I went to my den to begin my deed of blood. I took up my pen, but all I could get it to say was, " Punch in the presence of the passenjare." I fought hard for an hour, but it was useless. My head kept humming, " A blue trip slip for an eight-cent fare, a buff trip slip for a six-cent fare," and so on, and so on, without peace or respite. The day's work was ruined—I could see that plainly enough. I gave up and drifted down town, and presently discovered that my feet were keeping time to that relentless jingle. When I could stand it no longer I altered my step. But it did no good ; those rhymes accommodated themselves to the new step, and went on harassing me just as before. I returned home, and suffered all the afternoon ; suffered all through an unconscious and unrefreshing dinner; suffered, and cried, and jingled all through the evening ; went to bed and rolled, tossed, and jingled right along, the same as ever; got up at midnight frantic, and tried to read ; but there was nothing visible upon the whirling page except " Punch ! punch in the presence of the pas¬ senjare." By sunrise I was out of my mind, and every¬ body marvelled and was distressed at the idiotic burden of my ravings,—" Punch ! oh, punch! punch in the pre¬ sence of the passenjare !" Two days later, on Saturday morning, I arose, a tottering wreck, and went forth to fulfil an engagement MARK TWAIN'S NIGHTMARE. 3 with a valued friend, the Rev. Mr. , to walk to the Talcott Tower, ten miles distant. He stared at me, but asked no questions. We started. Mr. talked, talked, talked—as is his wont. I said nothing, I heard nothing. At the end of a mile, Mr. said,— " Mark, are you sick ? I never saw a man look so hag¬ gard and worn and absent-minded. Say something ; do!" Drearily, without enthusiasm, I said: " Punch, brothers, punch with care ! Punch in the presence of the passen- jare!" My friend eyed me blankly, looked perplexed, then said, " I do not think I get your drift, Mark. There does not seem to be any relevancy in what you have said, certainly nothing sad; and yet—may-be it was the way you said the words—I never heard anything that sounded so pathetic. What is " But I heard no more. I was already far away with my pitiless, heart-breaking " blue trip slip for an eight-cent fare, buff trip slip for a six-cent fare, pink trip slip for a three-cent fare ; punch in the presence of the passenjare." I do not know what occurred during the other nine miles. However, all of a sudden Mr. laid his hand on my shoulder and shouted,— " Oh, wake up ! wake up ! wake up ! Don't sleep all day ! Here we are at the Tower, man. I have talked myself deaf and dumb and blind, and never got a re¬ sponse. Just look at this magnificent autumn landscape ! Look at it 1 look at it 1 Feast your eyes on it! You have travelled ; you have seen boasted landscapes elsewhere. Come, now, deli vet an honest opinion. What do you say to this?" 4 MARK TWAIN'S NIGHTMARE. I sighed wearily, and murmured,— "A buff trip slip for a six-cent fare, a pink trip slip for a three-cent fare, punch in the presence of the passenjare." Rev. Mr. stood there, very grave, full of concern, apparently, and looked long at me ; then he said,— " Mark, there is something about this that 1 cannot understand. Those are about the same words as you said before ; there does not seem to be anything in them, and yet they nearly break my heart when you say them. Punch in the—how is it they go ? " I began at the beginning and repeated all the lines. My friend's face lighted with interest. He said,— "Why, what a captivating jingle it is! It is almost music. It flows along so nicely. I have nearly caught the rhymes myself. Say them over just once more, and ■then I'll have them, sure." I said them over. Then Mr. said them. He mad* -one little mistake, which I corrected. The next time and the next he got them right. Now a great burden seemed to tumble from my shoulders. That torturing jingle •departed out of my brain, and a grateful sense of rest and peace descended upon me. I was light-hearted enough to sing; and I did sing for half-an hour, straight along, as we went jogging homeward. Then my freed tongue found blessed speech again, and the pent talk of many a weary hour began to gush and flow. It flowed on and on, joyously, jubilantly, until the fountain was empty and dry. As I wrung my friend's hand at parting, I said,— " Haven't we had a royal good time 1 But now I re¬ member, you haven't said a word for two hours. Come, come, out with something 1" MARK TWAIN'S NIGHTMARE. 5 The Rev. Mr. turned a lack lustre eye upon me. drew a deep sigh, and said, without animation, without apparent consciousness,— " Punch, brothers, punch with care 1 Punch in the presence of the passenjare ! " A pang shot through me as I said to myself, " Pool fellow, poor fellow ! he has got it now." I did not see Mr. for two or three days after that. Then, on Tuesday evening, he staggered into my presence, and sank dejectedly into a seat. He was pale, worn ; he was a wreck. He lifted his faded eyes to my face, and said,— " Ah, Mark, it was a ruinous investment that I made in those heartless rhymes. They have ridden me like a nightmare, day and night, hour after hour, to this very moment. Since I saw you I have suffered the torments of the lost. Saturday evening I had a sudden call, by telegraph, and took the night train for Boston. The occasion was the death of a valued old friend who had requested that I should preach his funeral sermon. I took my seat in the cars and set myself to framing the dis¬ course. But I never got beyond the opening paragraph ; for then the train started, and the car-wheels began their ' clack-clack-clack-clack ! clack-clack-clack-clack!' and right away those odious rhymes fitted themselves to that accompaniment. For an hour I sat there and set a syl lable of those rhymes to every separate and distinct clack the car-wheels made. Why, I was as fagged out, then, as it I had been chopping wood all day. My skull was splitting with headache. It seemed to me that I must go mad if I sat there any longer; so I undressed and went 6 MARK TWAIN'S NIGHTMARE. to bed. I stretched myself out in my berth, and—well, you know what the result was. The thing went right along, just the same. ' Clack-clack-clack, a blue trip slip, clack-clack-clack, for an eight-cent fare; clack-clack-clack, a bluff trip slip, clack-clack-clack, for a six-cent fare, and so on, and so on, and so on-punch in the presence of the passenjare !' Sleep ? Not a single wink ! I was almost a lunatic when I got to Boston. Don't ask me about the funeral. I did the best I could, but every solemn indi¬ vidual sentence was meshed and tangled and woven in and out with ' Punch, brothers, punch with care, punch in the presence of the passenjare.' And the most distressing thing was that my delivery dropped into the undulating rhythm of those pulsing rhymes, and I could actually catch absent-minded people nodding time to the swing of it with their stupid heads. And, Mark, you may believe it or not, but before I got through, the entire assemblage were placidly bobbing their heads in solemn unison, mourners, undertakers, and alL The moment I had finished, I fled to the ante-room in a state bordering on frenzy. Of course it would be my luck to find a sorrowing and aged maiden aunt of the deceased there, who had arrived from Springfield too late to get into the church. She began to sob, and said,— "' Oh, oh! he is gone, he is gone, and I didn't see him before he died !' " ' Yes !" I said,' he is gone, he is gone, he is gone— oh, will this suffering never cease!' "' You loved him, then ! Oh, you too loved him 1' " ' Loved him! Loved who ?' 'l 'Whv, my poor George! my poor nephew 1' MARK TWAIN'S NIGHTMARE. '• * Oh—him / Yes—oh, yes, yes. Certainly—certainly. Punch—punch—oh, this misery will kill me !' '"Bless you! bless you, sir, for these sweet words ! % too, suffer in this dear loss. Were you present during his last moments ?' *" Yes ! I—whose last moments ?' " ' His. The dear departed's.' '"Yes! Oh, yes—yes —yes! I suppose so, I think s3 And so he did let me in—for three thalers. I knocked at the door. " Herei.i kommen sie," cried a familiar voice within. I entered. The old boy (I do not mean the veteran before men¬ tioned, but "Bizzy," who is not so very old after all, but this is a term of endearment) was seated at breakfast when I entered. Everything he takes is of the plainest and most simple description. His Friihstuck (breakfast) consists invariably of two sausages, or, as they are termed in the Bavarian, sassingers, fried ; a pipkin full of sauer-kraut, which he eats with a dessert-spoon, as you might do gooseberry fool; some snitchins (small pieces) of crusty bread ; some hunks of raw schenken ; a couple of slices of a kinchin (a species of young kid); and the whole washed down with a sparkling draught of Bitter- •wasser fresh from the Halle of the Great Friedrich. Breakfast is my meal," is a favourite saying of the Prince, whom, from what I have seen of his prowess with the knife and fork, as Talleyrand said of the Duke of Meckienburgh, " J'aimerais mieux I'entretenir une semaine qu'une quinzaineAfter all, where, now-a-days, shall we find such wit, such epigram, as issued daily from the lips of the ex-Bishop of Autun on every opp-Autun- itv ? (This sent Bizzy into fits.) Close at hand hung his enormous pipe and tobacco bag. A small barrel-organ is in the corner, for the Trince is not without accomplishments, and some of his sonnets are far from execrable. Prose is his forte— or " his fort, as he would say, with his irrepressible love for a warlike jeu de mot—and, knowing this, I came to him ; 14 HOW IT WASN'T DONE. for was it not evident that a story by Prince Von Bismarck, would be an immense "go?" His boots, his jack-boots (whyjack and not John? and why is not a familiar petit nom attached to every article of attire ? thus, my Jack boots, my Tom trousers, my Harry hat, my Timothy tie, my Willy waistcoat, my Gregory [greatcoat, and so forth—quite a wardrobe family! This in itself is a notion for a fairy tale—or, more properly speaking, for a fairy tailor. But to pro¬ ceed ; for, if we don't proceed, how shall we ever get on ? "Forwards!" as Prince Von Bismarck would say, and on we goes again !) His jack-boots (as I was observing when I was inter¬ rupted by an idea) were before the fire. I do not notice this as anything very remarkable ; had they been behi?ul the fire, I might have felt myself bound to ask for an explanation. His sword was by his side. His spurs were on the easy chair. I found this out, by sitting down upon them suddenly, and have a vivid impression of their sharpness. The room was elegantly but plainly furnished. A brown paper—not a common brown paper, but some¬ thing equally simple—was on the wall, and there was a dado running all round. By the way, apropos of dado, 1 must tell a story, even if, like Charles the First, I lose my head for it. What a lot of stories he told, poor man ! Well, sir, I knew a bourgeois who, having just come in for some money, determined to employ a fashionable architect, and build such a house! " You'll have a dado, I suppose ?" said the architect to him. HO IV IT IVASN' T D ONE. 15 The worthy millionaire pondered. " A dado running round the room looks pretty," con¬ tinued the architect. " Ah ! it may look pretty, hut they must make a con¬ founded noise. I'd as soon have a peacock." He had heard of a dodo, which he thought was a species of Peruvian duck. He had also heard of Mr Whistler's Peacock Room. Dodo was in his idea the drake, and Dada the duck in the species. Of course, I told this story to Prince Von Bismarck myself, and he nearly choked. In fact, he so overdid the laughing, that I am almost convinced he didn't under¬ stand the story, for apart from his profession, he is not a clever man. But this entre nous. What I came to hire about was a Paper on Military Tactics. '' I'm your man!" he exclaimed, sticking a fork into a Bassinger. Then he came at once to business. " Wie vicl?" he asked, with a cunning expression of his left eye. I told him, adding, " 1st das genug ? " " Genug" he cried, almost beside himself with plea¬ sure, for he is not really a rich man, and as he lives on his soldier's pay, he is glad to eke out a trifle here and there unprofessionally. " Bringen Sie mir etwas Brief- papier und cine Feder/" By which command he intended to exhibit his readiness to contribute at once. "Bravo, Von!" said I, for I am on sufficiently inti¬ mate terms to drop the Prince and sink the Bismarck. " You needn't begin it now. Das ist unnolhig. Guten Mor gen, Herr; schonen sie sick;" " I'm doing nothing now," he said, " and quite ready 16 HOW IT WASN'T DONE. to commence at once," and so saying he seized a huge steel pen, and drew towards him the bottle of red ink. " Doing nothing!" I retorted slyly, " that's impossible; you can never be idle, as you are always Bizzy." He guffawed at this, and was immensely tickled. " Bizzy" you will understand, is a petit 7iom, an abbrevia¬ tion of Bismarck, as Dizzy is of D'Israeli. He insisted on my waiting to see him put pen to paper, or as he says in Vitechnpellen Hanoverian (a kind of humorous slang now used among tire students), " Ich bin juster goat putten der penti der pafxrenP but I assured him that I trusted him implicitly, and would be responsible to my employers (you, gentlemen) for his bona fides. When I had got half-way downstairs, and was con¬ gratulating myself on the successful result of my inter¬ view, I heard my name called out from above in a hoarse whisper, and, looking up, saw Bizzy's head craning after me over the balustrade of the landing. " I say," he whispered, earnestly, " You couldn't give me a trifle on account, could you ? " I was obliged to reply that I could not, as I had not been entrusted with special powers. " Oh, all right," he replied, looking, I thought, con¬ siderably disappointed. " All right. It is of no conse¬ quence. Guten Morgen." And he returned to his room, humming the refrain of one of the Emperor's popular hymns, " IVir werden heimweh bis morgen nicht gehen / " Whether this concluding incident will account for his non-performance of contract, I am unable to state dis- inctly, but I have my suspicions. HOW IT WASN'T DONE. Bizzy has sold me, and I regret it. One of these days it may be in my power to do him a good turn. The mouse helped the lion. Interview No. 2, for a similar object. " Good morning, your majesty," I said, in my most courtly manner. Ig was 4 a.m. on a fine summer morning, and the Emperor of Brazil had already been up half-an-hour, studying a treatise on the Colorado Beetle. " I can only give you five minutes," replied the Emperor, " as I am off to the N orth. I want to see how they carry coals to Newcastle. What is it?" " Sire," I replied, coming straight to the point, as a man of business should, " how about a paper for our magazine ?" " What sort ?" "Anything." " That's nothing." " Then something connected with Brazil," I suggested, by way of bringing him to book, or rather to the subject in hand. " Hum ? Brazil. How would Nuts do ? " " Nuts," I was compelled to reply, regretfully. " Nuts have been done. 'Nuts to Crack' have formed the staple commodity of joke-books at the festive season for years." " Well, I have plenty of subjects." " Of course vour Imperial Majesty has plenty of sub¬ jects." He smiled. "Not quite new, that joke." He was evide ntly a little annoyed at my having re- HOW IT WASN'T DOXE. jected "Nuts to Crack "on the ground of there being a want of novelty about it. I bowed. While His Majesty was reflecting, I had time to look round the room. There was everything there, from models of ironclads to the latest invenions in rat-traps and Pulvermacher's bands, breech-loaders, revolvers, whips, mangles (models of), coal-shafts, stained glass, oyster shells, cutlery, port¬ able pigstyes, corkscrews, printing-presses, Norwegian sausage machine (model of), steam-engines, torpedoes, asphalte pavement, bird whistles, launches, refrigerators, portmanteaux, dumb-bells, American harmoniums, tele¬ scopes, conjuring tricks, threshing machines, pig-calls, telephones, ticket wickets, tent-pegs, etc., etc. There was hardly space to move about in. The clock struck the quarter. " Time's up," exclaimed the Emperor, as a gentleman- in-waiting entered to announce the imperial brougham. " I never keep the horses waiting," His Majesty explained to me. " But will your Imperial " " I'll see about it," he replied, as he rushed down¬ stairs, adding from the hall, " I'll write." Then he dashed through the open glass doors, an j before I could collect my hat, my stick, my gloves, anIje Jklp iljnt JKfrn'l A STORY WITH A LAWSUIT. BY MARK TWAIN. OOR, sad-eyed stranger! There was that about his humble mien, his tired look, his decayed-gentility clothes, that almost reached the mustard-seed of charity that still remained, remote and lonely, in the empty vast- ness of my heart, notwith¬ standing I observed a port¬ folio under his arm, and said to myself, Behold, Provi¬ dence hath delivered his servant into the hands of another canvasser. Well, these people always get one interested. Before I well knew how it came about, this one was telling me his history, and I was 28 THE ECHO THAT DIDN'T ANSWER. all attention and sympathy. He told me something like this My parents died, alas! when I was a little, siniess child. My uncle Ithuriel took me to his heart and reared me as his own. lie was my only relative in the wide world; but he was good and rich and generous. He reared me in the lap of luxury. I knew no want that money could satisfy. In the fulness of time I was graduated, and went with two of my servants—my chamberlain and my valet—to travel in foreign countries. During four years I flitted upon careless wing amid the beauteous gardens of the distant strand, if you will permit this form of speech in one whose tongue was ever attuned to poesy; and indeed I so speak with confidence, as one unto his kind, for I perceive by your eyes that you too, sir, are gifted with the divine inflation. In those far lands I revelled in the am¬ brosial food that fructifies the soul, the mind, the heart. But of all things, that which most appealed to my inborn aesthetic taste was the prevailing custom there, among the rich, of making collections of elegant and costly rarities, dainty objets de vertu, and in an evil hour I tried to uplift my uncle Ithuriel to a plane of sympathy with this exquisite employment. I wrote and told him of one gentleman's vast collec¬ tion of shells ; another's noble collection of meerschaum pipes ; another's elevating and refining collection of unde¬ cipherable autographs; another's priceless collection of old china ; another's enchanting collection of postage stamps—and so forth and so on. Soon my letters yielded fruit. My uncle began to look about for something to 29 make a collection of. You may know, perhaps, how fleetly a taste like this dilates. His soon became a raging fever, though I knew it not. He began to neglect his great pork business ; presently he wholly retired ana turned an elegant leisure into a rabid search for curious things. His wealth was vast, and he spared it not. First he tried cow-bells. He made a collection which filled five large salons, and comprehended all the different sorts of cow-bells that ever had been contrived, save one. That one—an antique, and the only specimen extant—was possessed by another collector. My uncle offered enor¬ mous sums for it, but the gentleman would not sell. Doubtless you know what necessarily resulted. A true collector attaches no value to a collection that is not com¬ plete. His great heart breaks, he sells his hoard, he turns his mind to some field that seems unoccupied. Thus did my uncle. He next tried brickbats. After piling up a vast and intensely interesting collection, the former difficulty supervened; his great heart broke again ; he sold out his soul's idol to the retired brewer who possessed the missing brick. Then he tried flint hatchets and other implements of Primeval Man, but by and by discovered that the factory where they were made was supplying other collectors as well as himself. He tried Aztec inscriptions and stuffed whales — another failure, after incredible labour and expense. When his collection seemed at last perfect, a stuffed whale arrived from Greenland and an Aztec inscription from the Cun- durango regions of Central America, that made all former specimens insignificant. My uncle hastened to secure these noble gems. He got the stuffed whale, but another 30 THE ECHO THAT DIDN'T ANSWER. collector got the inscription. A real Cundurango, as pos¬ sibly you know, is a possession of such supreme value that, when once a collector gets it, he will rather part with his family than with it. So my uncle sold out, ana saw his darlings go forth, never more to return ; and his coal-black hair turned white as snow in a single night. Now he waited, and thought. He knew another dis¬ appointment might kill him. He was resolved that he would choose things next time that no other man was collecting. He carefully made up his mind, and once more entered the field—this time to make a collection of echoes. " Of what ?" said I. Echoes, sir. His first purchase was an echo in Georgia that repeated four times; his next was a six- repeater in Maryland ; his next was a thirteen-repeater in Maine ; his next was a nine-repeater in Kansas ; his next was a twelve-repeater in Tennessee, which he got cheap, so to speak, because it was out of repair, a portion of the crag which reflected it having tumbled down. He believed he could repair it at a cost of a few thousand dollars, and, by increasing the elevation with masonry, treble the re¬ peating capacity ; but the architect who undertook the job had never built an echo before, and so he utterly spoiled this one. Before he meddled with it, it used to talk back like a mother-in-law, but now it was only fit for the deaf and dumb asylum. Well, next he bought a lot of cheap li^le doubled-barrelled echoes, scattered around over various States and territories; lie got them at twenty per cent, off by taking the lot. Next he bought a perfect Gatling gun of an echo in Oregon, and it cost a fortune THE ECHO THAT DIDN'T ANSWER. J! I can tell you. You may know, sir, that in the echo market the scale of prices is cumulative, like the carat- scale in diamonds ; in fact, the same phraseology is used. A single carat-echo is worth but ten dollars over and above the value of the land it is on ; a two-carat or double-barrelled echo is worth thirty dollars ; a five-carat is worth nine hundred and fifty; a ten-carat is worth thirteen thousand. My uncle's Oregon echo, which he called the Great Pitt Echo, was a twenty-two carat gem, and cost two hundred and sixteen thousand dollars—they threw the land in, for it was four hundred miles from a settlement. Well, in the meantime my path was a path of roses. I was the accepted suitor of the only and lovely daughter of an English earl, and was beloved to distraction. In that dear presence I swam in seas of bliss. The family were content, for it was known that I was sole heir to an uncle held to be worth five millions of dollars. However, none of us knew that my uncle had become a collector, at least in anything more than a small way, for aesthetic amusement. Now gathered the clouds above my unconscious head. That divine echo, since known throughout the world as the Great Koh-i-noor, or Mountain of Repetitions, was discovered. It was a sixty-five carat gem. You could utter a word and it would talk back at you for fifteen minutes, when the day was otherwise quiet. But behold, another discovery was made at the same time; another echo-collector was in the field. The two rushed to make the purchase. The property consisted of a couple of qmalt hills with a shallow swale between, out yonder 7 32 THE ECHO THAT DIDN'T A iSlVEE. among the back settlements of New York State. Beth men arrived on the ground at the same time, and neither knew the other was there. The echo was not all owned by one man ; a person by the name of Williamson Bolivar Jarvis owned the east hill, and a person by the name of Harbison J. Bledso owned the west hill; the swale between was the dividing line. So while my uncle was buying Jarvis's hill for three million two hundred and eighty-five thousand dollars, the other party was buying Blcdso's hill for a shade over three million. Now, do you perceive the natural result? Why, the noblest collection of echoes on earth was for ever and ever incomplete, since it possessed but the one half of the king echo of the universe. N either man was content with this divided ownership, yet neither would sell to the other. There were jawings, bickerings, heart-burnings. And at last, that other collector, with a malignity which only a collector can ever feel toward a man and a brother, pro¬ ceeded to cut down his hill ! You see, as long as he could not have the echo, he was resolved that nobody should have it. He would remove his hill, and then there would be nothing to reflect my uncle's echo. My uncle remonstrated with him, but the man said, " I own one end of this echo ; I choose to kill my end ; you must take care of your own end yourself." Well, my uncle got an injunction put on him. The other man appealed and fought it in a higher court. They carried it on up, clear to the Supreme Court of the United States. It made no end of trouble there. Two of the judges believed that an echo was personal property, because it was impalpable to sight and touch, and yet THE ECHO THAT DIDN'T ANSWER. 33 was purchasable, saleable, and consequently taxable ; two others believed that an echo was real estate, because it was manifestly attached to the land, and was not remov¬ able from place to place ; other of the judges contended that an echo was not property at all. It was finally decided that the echo was property; that the hills were property; that the two men were sepa¬ rate and independent owners of the two hills, but tenants in common in the echo; therefore defendant was at full liberty to cut down his hill, since it belonged solely to him, but must give bonds in three million dollars as in¬ demnity for damages which might result to my uncle's half of the echo. This decision also debarred my uncle from using defendant's hill to reflect his part of the echo, without defendant's consent; he must use only his own hill ; if his part of the echo would not go, under these circumstances, it was sad, of course, but the court could find no remedy. The court also debarred defendant from using my uncle's hill to reflect his end of the echo, with¬ out consent. You see the grand result! Neither man would give consent, and so that astonishing and most noble echo had to cease from its great powers; and since that day that magnificent property is tied up and un¬ saleable. A week before my wedding day, while I was still swimming in bliss, and the nobility were gathering from far and near to honour our espousals, came news of my uncle's death, and also a copy of his will, making me his sole heir. He was gone ; alas ! my dear benefactor was no more. The thought surcharges mv heart even at this remote day. I har.aecl the will to the earl; I could hot 34 THE ECHO THAT DIDN T ANSWER. read it for the blinding tears. The earl read it; then he sternly said, " Sir, do you call this wealth ?—but doubtless you do in your inflated country. Sir, you are left sole heir to a vast collection of echoes—if a thing can be called a collection that is scattered far and wide over the huge length and breadth of the American continent. Sir, this is not all; you are head and ears in debt; there is not an echo in the lot but has a mortgage on it! sir, I am not a hard man, but I must look to my child's interest. If you had but one echo which you could honestly call your own—if you had but one echo which was free from incumbrance, so that you could retire to it with my child, and by humble, painstaking industry cultivate and improve it, and thus wrest from it a maintenance, I would not say you nay ; but I cannot marry my child to a beggar. Leave his side, my darling; go, sir ; take your mortgage- ridden echoes and quit my sight for ever." My noble Celestine clung to me in tears, with loving ms, and swore she would willingly, nay, gladly, marry me, though I had not an echo in the world. But it could not be. We were torn asunder—she to pine and die within the twelvemonth, I to toil life's long journey sad and lone, praying daily, hourly, for that release which shall join us together again in that dear realm where the wicked cease from troubling and the weary are at rest. Now, sir, if you will be so kind as to look at these maps and plans in my portfolio, I am sure I can sell you an echo for less money than any man in the trade. Now this one, which cost my uncle ten dollars, thirty years ajo, and is one of die sweetest things in Texas, 1 will let you nave fur THE ECHO THAT DIDN'T ANSWER. 35 " Let me interrupt you," I said. " My friend, I have not had a moment's respite from canvassers this day. I have bought a sewing machine which I did not want; I have bought a map which is mistaken in all its details; I have bought a clock which will not go; I have bought a moth poison, which the moths prefer to any other beve¬ rage ; I have bought no end of useless inventions, and now I have had enough of this foolishness. I would not have one of your echoes if you were even to give it to me. I would not let it stay on the place. I always hate a man that tries to sell me echoes. You see this gun ? Now take your collection and move on; let us not have bloodshed." But he only smiled a sad, sweet smile, and got out some more diagrams. You know the result perfectly well, because you know that when you have once opened the door to a canvasses the trouble is done, and you have got to suffer defeat. I compromised with this man at the end of an intoler¬ able hour. I bought two double-barrelled echoes in good condition, and he threw in another, which he said was not saleable because it only spoke German. He said, "She was a perfect polyglot once, but somehow her palate got down." JTmmottb i«t JHnmunb* OLOMON SCHAFF was a cunning knave, Eager to make and ready to save, Fond as a barber might be of a " shave," If only the law its sanction gave Now the reason for this recital Is merely to show that in saving his pelf This cunning sharper outwitted himself, And met with a fit requital. DIAMOND CUT DIAMOND. On his fortieth birthday Solomon Schaff Began to dream of a " better half." And to tire of his bachelor living; Of course, as he was abnormally thin, He fancied a fair one with double chin. " I'm lean and she's fat, There's profit in that," Quoth he ; "I get more than I'm giving." " Courtship's a very extravagant thing," Said Solomon Schaff. '' She'll look for a ring, For bonbons, bouquets, and all that; But shall / waste my cash On such profitless trash ? No, indeed, I'm too sharp for a flat!" Howe'er, when the wedding day drew near, Mr. Schaff was seized with a bright idea, So he found out an artist needy. " I want a portrait,you want some cash," Ihiefly he said to young Rubens Flash ; " A half-length will do, That's half-price for you, You'd better agree, you're so seedy." Well, Flash was in want, so the bargain was struck. " Ho ! ho !" said Solomon, " I'm in luck! " And he scarce could smother a titter. Flash worked away like a busy elf, But he whistled softly and laughed to himself, As he gazed at his scheming sitter. 3» DIAMOND CUT DIAMOND. A week had sped, then, to Schaffs delight, Flash wrote thus : " Your picture is finished quite, And sent as you gave me direction, Most carefully packed, to Miss Caroline Recdj Please hand to the bearer the price as agreed, And be sure, worthy friend,, Such a presefit must tend To increase her respect and affection? Quickly the cheque was written and sent, And the evening brought Solomon, well content, To sit by the side of his charmer; But, alas ! what a cruel reversal is this ! She turns away from his proffered kiss, And with looks of scorn, She bids him " Begone ! " As if his mere presence could harm her. " What is it ? " poor Solomon, wondering cries. The lady surveys him with wrathful surprise, Then suddenly raising a curtain : " Your present! " in angriest tones she exclaimed ; And there stood a picture most showily framed, But veiled in a shadow uncertain. Nearer, still nearer, then Solomon drew, But he started aghast—what is this meets his view, A half-length the artist had painted ; But, dreadful to tell, the half that Flash chose Began at Sol's watch chain and stopped at his toe? 'Twas too fearful a joke ! Poor Schatf never spoke, But prone on the carpet he fainted. 39 My story is told— Miss Reed, stern and colas Would listen to no explanation : And Solomon's life Was uncheered by a wife, To his own great chagrin and vexation. " But he started aghast—what is this meets his view ?' Jfylpniro jlljafcutsIPs dsriiffotb; OR, THE MYSTERIOUS DIPLOMA. A STORY TO BE TAKEN WITH RESERVE. HEN it snows in Nevada it blows; but the desert earth, under the fallen snow, is usually warm enough to cause the snow to adhere to the heels of boots in great rough buttons, which when they fall off the heel, leave upturned in the foot¬ prints of the walker sharply defined and dirty impres¬ sions of various ack-heads and heel-taps. When it snows and blows in Nevada the climate out of doors, though bracing, is not really plea¬ sant to most persons. It is not one of those blows to which you can turn your back, unless you would whee I- E PI-IRAIM SHAD WELL'S CER TI PICA TE. 4! about and turn about like the legendary Mr. James Crow; because, owing to the mountain-valley topography of the State, the wind becomes bewildered, like the eddy¬ ing waters of an overflowed river, and knows no constant channel ; hence, except through the remembered know¬ ledge of natural laws, it is difficult to realize whether the snow is going up, coming down, or commingling crosswise and " through ither," like a cotillion in a frenzy. During such a storm in a mountain silver-mining town the citizens who are not underground (both the quick and the dead) are in the house, or hastily slamming doors behind them, and rushing, with up-turned coat- collars, humped shoulders, and contracted necks, along the street to other doors, which they slam and through which they rush with stamping feet and steaming breath, like locomotives down-breaking into the round-house. There is a creaking of wooden shell-houses, a trembling and a singing of loose window-sashes, a whirling of old boxes and empty kegs along the street, in short races, as gust after gust sends them hither and thither with the changing blasts; and through it all the grunting black hog goeth placidly wading about, with a horn of white snow on his ebon snout. On such a day the saloon, by which we mean the whiskey-mill, is the head-quarters—perhaps, more exactly, the stomach-quarters—of mountain society. Here is com fort —the truth is the truth ! Here is warmth, and seats, good cheer, bad language, old jokes, new jokes, all sorts of character, and a thoroughly entrenched scorn of the howling white-robed battling of the elements. The hot water steams upon the stove; the alcoholic amusements 43 EP1IRAFM SHADWELUS CERTIFICATE. shine behind their painted labels, like the well-groomed steeds of the sun-driver ; the pale yellow of exotic limes and lemons rises in miniature pyramids, on bases of up¬ turned crystal glasses, at each side or in front of the great mirror, which reflects the supple shoulders, wriggling elbows, and elaborately done back-hair of the Adonis who mixes " the poisons," and polishes, with rapid napkin, the glittering goblet whose late contents cost the buyer just " two bits," or a quarter of a dollar. Here are news¬ papers of all sorts, from all parts, in several languages; a place to sit yourself down and put your North American feet as high as your centennial head, while the backs of your legs, away up, are comforted by the glowing stove, as you absorb the news of many lands. Here are pic¬ tures on the walls, some of which are valuable as art, and others which show to the artistic mind that art is valuable—when you find it. Here the isolate wits of the camp come with their newest "good thing;" and here the anxious unapprecia- tive man comes, day after day, in his hopeless hunt after what it is that " the fellows laugh so damnation loud at," when he " don't see nothin'." Here is the charming fellow, who is not only unconsciously " witty in himself, but the cause of that which wit is in other men." Here is the club, the lecture-room, the town-meeting, the academy, and the forum of the camp. Here, if you can keep sober, and if you love your fellow-man as a young healthy mother loves her twin babies, you can observe, and observe, and "get your money back." Here you may find that the undaunted offspring of the Aryan is at one moment the brightest, crispest, and sweetest of EPHRAIM SHADWELL'S CERTIFICATE. 43 hoary nature's infinitude of infants, and at another mo¬ ment, sour and unsavoury as any demoralized infant can be. On one of those days I have hinted at, in one of those places I have just described, there sat a man in the middle of the room, away from the stove and distant from the bar, with his feet on one of the green-baize- covered round card-tables, and legs crossed so that his boot-toes formed a V about on a level with his eyes. He was leaning back on the two legs of his chair, with his soft black hat pulled carefully over the eye that was toward the stove and the company, and his two hands, palm to palm, shoved easily between his thighs. Sitting thus, he seemed to take sight through the V of his boot-toes, as he leisurely, silently, and, no doubt, reflectively puffed slowly at a strong cigar, sending the smoke, by a peculiar pouching of his nether lip, in thin curls past that one of his eyes which had no hat over it. There was a circle about the stove warmly discussing a mixture of important questions, while coolly discussing various warm mixtures; hasty straight drinkers at the bar came and went, and wiped their moustaches; but our friend sat at the table absorbed, and oblivious to all surroundings. Doubtles? words fell upon his ears—words mixed and various as the fantastic lines of the growing frost-work on tin window in the wall opposite to his elevated toes—but seemingly he heeded not, or hearing heard not. Suddenly, from the small Babel of talk that sur¬ rounded the stove a sharply-defined enunciation said : " Now, boys, just let me tell you the truth. I'll tell you the real truth about it." 44 EPHRAIM SHAD WELL'S CERTIFICATE. * Don't you do it!" came in a rolling deep bass from our unmoved friend by the table. " Don't do what ? " asked the volunteer man of truth at the stove, after a startled pause. " Don't tell the truth. Don't, my friend ; don't try it" " Why ?" questioned several of the crowd who had now turned their attention to the man at the table. " Because it's dangerous!" answered the deep bass voice. " The d—1 it is!'' exclaimed the falsetto of a profane " stove-herder." "Yes, sir. A lie you can live down—it is the truth that hurts." And he dropped his feet off the tabic, changed his hat from the side to the back of his head, threw away the remnant of his cigar, and turned, facing his interrogators. Leaning his elbow upon the table, he further remarked : "And you see before you a living monument of the fact that truth is dangerous." Just here a man came from the storm without, slam¬ ming through the door, stamping the snow off his heels, shaking the white flakes from his hat and coat, while making the announcement with a " Wh-o-o-h !" that "The white fly is just a-swarmi«'." " Give us a drink," to the bar-keeper. Then, to the rrowd around the stove: " Here, you fellers, quit herdin' that stove, an' come take a drink." To this invitation a majority of the company arise respond; but our friend at the table keeps his seat, lean¬ ing back in his chair, and permitting his hand to fall negligently over the edge of the table. "Come up an' stand in." "No; excuse me. I'm not dry, thank you, an' I'm EPHRAIM SHAD WELL'S CERTIFICATE. 45 smoked out," answers the man at the table. "Drink hearty, an' never mind me." " No, never mind him. He's a monument, he says." "Yes, a livin' monument o' the fact that truth is dangerous ? an' when you fellers get done throwin' your¬ selves outside o' them drinks, I'll explain myself, if you choose to listen." " All right. Here we go"—which means that they do not go, but stand still and drink. " What was that ?" said he who had just treated, by which act he was temporary foreman of the jury. " What was that you fellers were on as I came in ? I want to hear it." " Well, sir, I was about—that is, I was willing—to relate a circumstance on telling the truth. In fact, I wanted to speak a piece on the dangers of veracity—but it's not amusing, and perhaps not suited to this audience." " Well, go ahead on it," said the volunteer foreman. " Whoever don't like it can take a spin round the square, and drop in again in time for the next drinks." Thus encouraged, our friend began : "I've just been back home in the States—just returned. I hadn't been home for near twenty years ; an' when I left home I was a wild boy who—so some old wise ones said —was born to come to no good. So's I was sayin', I thought I'd be particular fine, high-tone, good behaviour, go to church, listen to the sermons, 'n' all that sort o' thing, just to show these old prophets they were no judges o' human prospects. Well, I got to tellin' one day about California 'n' Nevada—an' I'd been tellin'more or less, off an' on, little by little, how it was in the gold mines, 'n 46 EPHRAIM SHAD WELL'S CERTIFICATE. about big bears, big punkins, an' big things generally; but this particular time I got to talkin' about Nevada,'n' abou travellin' through the State, across the mountains, an' the valleys, an' the sage-brush, an' the alkali flats, etc. An' this what I was tellin' was at a family house, to a party o' neighbour men, women, an' children, who'd been invited by some relations o' mine to see the distinguished gentle¬ man 'from California;' an' there was one young feller there—a sort o' lawyer-lookin' bright kind of a chap—an' he kept his eye on me while I was talkin', an' I was in a high old humour for talk, you bet, an' a-puttin' up lip like a pet parson at a petticoat quiltin'. An' after I sort o' narrowed down to a barren place in my lead, an' there wasn't much sayin' by nobody, this young feller sidled down to me, an' said he'd be happy to have me come up to the club. "' Club!' says I. ' What club ?' " ' The Special,' says he. Special what?' says I. f" Special Literary,' says he. 'Art, poetry, romance, humour, wit, wisdom, and—and—veracity.' '"When is it?' " ' Every Saturday evening,' says he. Where is it?' "'At the club-rooms. I'll come for you.' All right,'says I. 'Special Literary goes—though what in thunder Special Literary is on I don't know.' " ' O !' says this smart young feller, ' we'll make it easy for you to find out ; an' I think the members will all be pleased to see you, particularly Judge ShadwelL Haven't you met the judge ?' EPHRAIM SHAD WELL'S CERTIFICATE. 47 '"I reckon not. D on't remember any Shadvvells in mine.' " ' Ah !'—an' he called it ' awh '—' he's chairman of the club—gay old gentleman, splendid intellect—be pleased to meet you.' "An' then the young man hurried away to some other point in the room, an' left me sittin' beside a nice-lookin honest country lass, who could only say ' yees' an'' noo, as soft as poached eggs; an' that always knocks my con¬ versational powers flatter 'n a water-soaked newspaper. I tell you, boys, well-regulated society is terrible on a man—terrible, terrible!" Here the gentleman drew his chair toward the stove, as though the far-off memory of " well-regulated society " pervaded his system with the solemn chilliness of an empty church. "Well, go ahead an'tell us how you got along with that young woman," said a red-haired man on the oppo¬ site side of the stove. " Got along with that young woman ! I couldn't get along with her. There wasn't nothin' of her but bread an' butter, an' some home-made-up dry-goods. There was no intellect into her. She was a rare young female—raw, I might say. But then she might ha' done better with a less distinguished man ; I'm always willin' to make al¬ lowance. I know that every person hasn't crossed the continent, nor lived on beans straight—an' such persons can't be expected to ' know beans.'" " Well, then, you wound up business—twenty-five cents on the dollar—at that social party, and got away from there. Then what did you do ? " queried the volun¬ teer foreman. " O Lord I Jake, close that door." 48 EPHRAIM SHAD WELL'S CER TIFICA 7 E. " Yes, I'll close this door soon's I get these nubs of iced snow out of the way," answered Jake, jamming and rattling the door to force away the accumulation of soiled icy snow. " What did I do ? Why, I went to that club. An' there I found a room carpeted all off nice, an' a marble mantel-piece, an' everything fine an' easy for a feller who can endure a good deal o' rest an' settin' round. There were newspapers round on the tables, an' several cases o' books standin' against the wall; an' one o' the leadin' members kept a sort o' magazine-news-paper-peanut- literary pop-shop down-stairs on the ground floor, an' he had some barrels in his cellar—sacrament wine an' medi¬ cal purposes, you know!—an' these Special Literary ducks could have somethin' good when they'd a mind to call for it. Well, I was introduced in among these chaps as the'gentleman from California,' an' I bowed round an' pranced in among 'em, an' flourished my white cambric pocket table-cloth, like a sweet young Methodist preacher at a camp-meetin'. Then I was specially introduced to Honourable Judge Ephraim Shadwell, an' we all took seats. While I was splittin' my coat-tails apart to sit down, I prospected the Honourable Ephraim Shadwell. an' says I to myself—inwardly, you know—' Old Shad, if you ain't a " Smoove Eph," then it's my treat.' An' this put me in mind of it. So I remarked, ' Gentlemen, can't we have somethin'—somethin' to take?' an' I went down into my breeches'-pocket after the collateral ; but there is where I missed it, an' forgot myself, an' thought I was back here again in a whiskey-mill. They like somethin' to take back there's well's we do here, but they suck it EPITRAIM SLIA D WELLS CER TIFICA TE. 49 more on the sly—for the sake o' the risin' generation they call it. Now, you all—most all—know that I don't like liquors " "Oh no!" shouted a chorus of voices. "You ain't got no talent for whiskey—no place to put it ! It's some¬ body else—man with the light red nose, perhaps." " Unless they are very choice, pure, an' well-handled." ' Ah ! " " An' when I strike a thing o' that kind in a gentle¬ manly company, I don't deny it, I am happy. I suppose it's all wrong, pernicious, pauperizing, an' all that sort o' thing, but I tumble to it naturally ; an' on this occasion I was way up—everything was lovely, as Ophir when she booms ! "Well, as I was the distinguished stranger, of comse the heft o' the talk soon came to me. They wanted t hear about California, an' I give 'em California—now, you bet I did! I told 'em all that I thought everybody must know, an' had known, about the country, an' it seemed news to them. Then I told 'em some things about California which I think nobody knows, an' never will know. You have to do these things, you know, in good society, to make yourself interesting. Then, this young feller who had been with me at the party, and was at that moment leanin' his elbows on the back of Old Shad's high chair, which was right a front o' me—he says, lookin' at me, 'Tell us about your trip in Nevada—that one you told at the party the other night!' 'Yes,' says Old Shad; 'that Nevada is a very strange country, by all accounts. I should, for one—and I assume to speak for all present—be much gratified to learn about that ?o E PIIR AIM SHAD WELL'S CERTIFICATE. country from a gentleman so well qualified by nature and experience to represent it. Be pleased to proceed, sir.' " When Old Shad made me that little speech, and leached his hand to the table for his glass o' liquor, there was a dignity, a grace, a full fitness about him that made me think him a born judge." u J udge o' what ? " " Of everything. An inspector of the universe. A man, sir, capable, by turns, of microscopic atomization, on the one hand, and of being a cosmographer of worlds on the other! " " The d—1! don't he sling a dictionary jaw-bone ? " queried a sotto voce. " Old Shad—you've seen fellers like Old Shad ! but you haven't seen many. He was the most innocent and attentive-lookin' middle-aged person I ever saw. His face seemed to fairly beam with attention and respect toward me ! His lively little black eyes were laughed back into his head by two circles o' wrinkles, which yet waited round the front doors to get a chance to poke 'em in the ribs if they ever came out again. He had a circular alkali-flat on top o' his head, with a little black bunch o' grease-wood in the middle of it. Then, his face was shaved clean, and he was, except his eyes, as pretty a countenanced gentleman as ever I saw. One of those fatherly persons who never forget that all good men are twice a boy, an' forever a little youthful. He was some fatter than there was any need of, an'—he wasn't a blonde. When he said, 'Be pleased to proceed!' I proceeded EPHRAIM SHADWELLS CERTIFICATE. 5' '"Gentleman," says I,'the Sage-brush is the Won¬ der-land of grown-up children. Its history is to the active intellect of North America what the reading of the Nine Books by Herodotus was to the pulse of young Athens—the stimulus to greater daring and deeper dig¬ gings. What the poet and the painter have done for the rude ages prior to gunpowder, which gave us the pictures of the battle-axe, the claymore, the scimitar, the long-oared galley, and the castle-crowned cliff, the coming American, combining in himself the artist and the artisan, must do for the long processions which followed the sun by day and watched with the stars by night, among the great rocks and dim vistas of the weird mirage-haunted wilder¬ ness. The rough-forged long barrel of the immortal sharp-shooter—that aspiring swamp-blackbird, from whose sweet throat Liberty first warbled and Freedom learned to whistle, and the wand coiled round with the detonating taper of the ox-driver's whip, must be inwoven with our heraldic designs, until after ages, sir, shall learn that the sacred is the true and tried—the useful still the holiest.'" " You was putting it up pretty steep, wasn't you ?" inquired the foreman. " I should say I was ! Old Shad's face was bewitchin me with rosy dawn of unborn compliment. It wasn't often I got an audience like that. I was talkin' then, not about California, but about Nevada, an' it seemed like 1 was called upon to speak a piece for the ' Gal I left behind me,' an' I waltzed in with all the fine points I'd ever heard of—an' could remember at the time. But I he d myself right down to the cold truth—only fwshing 52 EEHRAIM SHAD WELLS CERTIFICATE. it occasionally, like the top of a snowy sunset mountain with the roseate alpenglow of our rarified atmosphere. "' Gentlemen,' I continued, ' when our remotest pre¬ historic ancestors hacked their wild mysterious story in the ragged yet regular edges of the world-wide scattered flinty arrow-heads, they little knew that unborn ages of a quickened intellectuality would prospect among their ' float' for the after-thought of the soul's immortal long¬ ings. And when the ancestral fathers of this young republic, sitting upon the ragged edge of the new-born constitutional conscience, dared to weigh down our infant treasury to purchase from "The Man of Destiny" that mystery of empire known as Lousiana, little they dreamed that an after-time of quicker intellect would prospect amid the drifting snows and whirling dusts of an arid waste, and find— find what ? All, gentlemen, the rock-ribbed coffers of a world—the treasury of nations now that are, and of others yet to come ! "' Gentlemen,' says I, ' permit me. We'll drink. Here's to the boys at the front—The Prospectors ! '"Now, gentlemen,'says I, after we drank and were seated, ' these men who have discovered these great mines and bofiattzas have fought a battle no less glorious than that fought by the classic youth who dressed their har in the mountain-gorge, where still the hot springs bubbled up, whispering to heroic hearts," This is Thermopylae/" . "' But, alas ! these modern heroes in the mountain- passes of the Desert-land did not need to dress their hair in the throat of death, because they were sure of having it lifted and dressed after death, with all the honours of barbaric pomp, while their bones were left to be dragged EPHRAIM SHAD WELLS CERTIFICA'l E. 53 to the galloping midnight music of the prairie-wolf, into the distant waste behind the veil of the night's dim circle. Not the "untutored" was their only foe, for him they tutored after a while—but want and storm, and houseless, homeless, loneliness, and unrequited waiting ; and some¬ times Death came softly down upon his black wings with the glances of the sweet-faced moon, and made the lonely sleeper's dream eternal in the sage. "' Gentlemen,' I continued, ' to give you an idea of the vicissitudes of climate, and the houseless hardships of the earlier days in Nevada, before the peculiarities of the climate were understood, I will relate, now, the simple and truthful tale which my young friend has asked for, in which request he has been kindly joined by your honour and the entire company. "' It was, if I remember right, in the winter of 1866 7, or 1867-8, I'll not be sure which—but no matter, it was one time or the other—I found myself in B , which then was a new and active mining-camp, and is now, though no longer new, still active. The mud in the town, owing to the late rains, the stirring people and newly broken earth, was disagreeably deep. I met Johnson. 'Johnse,' said I, 'what are you on, an' where are you bound for?' "'I'm on the prospect,' says he,'an' I'm bound for Reveille.' "'How?' says I. '"In a waggon,' says he. "' When ?' says I. '" To-morrow,' says he. -' I'll go with you,' says 1. 54 EPHRAIM SUAD WELL'S CERTJFICA TE. "' It's a whack,' says he. "'So next morning we harnessed up his two little mules to a light waggon and started through the mud.' "'Heavy rolling in the mud, I suppose,' asked the judge, very politely. "' Very much so, indeed,' I responded, about as politely.] "•Johnse's team was willing, but it was small, and though that waggon had nothing in it but our blankets and two or three hundred pounds of grub, etc., we were all day and until midnight going sixteen miles; and when we camped the old snow was so deep and crusted that the little mules wouldn't move another step—co there we hung up, in the deep snow.' "'How far did you say that was from where you started ?' asked a member, who seemed to be takin' notes in the fly-leaves of a book. '•' About sixteen miles.' •" Mules are no better in the snow than in the mud,' said the judge, with his little black eyes twinklin' at me. " ' About the same. Well, we stayed there till morning —mules not a thing to eat but a lick or two of flour, and we a bite of raw fat bacon. In the morning, however, the night-frost having left the snow crusted, we rolled out on solid footing. In about two hours we got to some good grazing and water, and camped, to let the animals feed and to cook something for ourselves. Then we rolled along in first- rate style to another camp at H . After we got out of that snow we had no trouble with anything that day but the dust.' EPHRAIM SHAD WELLS CERTJLICA TE. 55 " 1 Dust !' exclaimed the judge, drawin' his chair up closer to me, and glowin' upon me with admiration. " * Yes. Johnse did not feel very well, so he lay down in the waggon-box (it was a common light dead-axe waggon), with his head toward the tail-board. I was driving, and after a while I looked back over my shoulder, and there was old Johnse fast asleep on the flat of his back, and the two hind-wheels of the waggon just rolling the dust into his face.' "' Heavy dust ?' from the judge. '"Yes; the dust was piling on to him. Each side of his nose was all filled up level with his eyebrows— all smooth.' "' Singular country !' remarked the judge. " ' Most remarkable climate on earth,' says I. " ' One would think so,' said the feller who was takin' notes. " ' Well, we stayed all night at H., and next morning we started by the valley trail for Reveille, intending to get there that night; but we didn't make it.' "' Why so ? more mud ?' asked the judge. "'No, no more mud ; but about noon the sun came down so hot that the little mules fairly melted on their feet, and there was no go in them, so we hung up for the night at the Springs.' "' How far were you from B., at the Springs ?' asked the feller who was takin' notes. "' Let me see,' says I ; " thirty-four an' twenty-four i= fifty-eight—yes, fifty-eight miles.' "'The next day you proceeded to Reveille?' queried the iudge. 56 EPURAIM SHAD WELL'S CER T1FICA TE. "' Oh, no. That night they brought an ox-driver into camp, with his feet frozen.' Frozen!' shouted a member who had not spoken before. "' Yes, sir ; frozen, and badly frozen. And they were still freezing by the fire, after he was brought in, because a freeze continues till the thaw sets in, and the thaw does not set in until the heat has time to penetrate ; and when you are lying before a fire out of doors, in a cold bright starlit night, one side chills about as fast as the other thaws.' "'Yes, that's true,'said the judge,'when a man is lying out.' " I thought he put a curious little quaver on the last word but one o' that remark, but it was so slight I passed it by an' went on with my story. "' Yes, gentlemen, feet that have been tramping in the wet snow all day freeze very suddenly, in the change ol temperature which takes place as the sun is going down in high altitudes. And when a boot and sock once be¬ come like solid ice the jig is up. There is no more motion for the foot, which clumps lifelessly and helpless at the end of the leg. A casing of cast metal is not more im¬ movably fitted on that which it surrounds than is a frozen boot to a freezing foot. You might as well pull at one of the bronze boots on the statue of Jackson, as attempt to draw such a boot. The poor fellow, in this case, having become conscious, as he clumped about the desert in the