{"collection":"myth-cosmogony","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_67190/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_67190","id":"gutenberg_67190","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/67190","summary":null,"tags":["Category: American Literature","Category: Humour","Category: Mythology, Legends & Folklore","Category: Novels","Hell -- Fiction","Humorous stories"],"text":"Transcriber\u2019s Notes\n\nObvious typographical errors have been silently corrected. Variations\nin hyphenation have been standardised but all other spelling and\npunctuation remains unchanged. In particular the spelling of proper\nnames viz. Catharine of Arragon remain.\n\nIn chapter XI:\n\"By the bye,\" I put in, \"it seems to me the\nMorman has the biggest kick coming against\nhis wives' mothers, yet I've never heard a word....\n\nMorman is almost certainly Mormon or Mormon man.\n\nItalics are represented thus _italic_.\n\n\n\n\n                         THE ASBESTOS SOCIETY\n                              OF SINNERS\n\n\n\n\n                             The Asbestos\n                                Society\n                              of Sinners\n\n    Detailing the Diversions of Dives and others on the Playground\n           of Pluto, with some broken threads of Drop-stitch\n                 History, picked up by a Newspaper man\n               in Hades and woven into a Stygian Nights\u2019\n                            Entertainment.\n\n                                  BY\n                         LAWRENCE DANIEL FOGG\n\n                       MAYHEW PUBLISHING COMPANY\n                         92-100 Ruggles Street\n                             Boston, Mass.\n\n\n                            Copyright, 1906\n                                  by\n                         Lawrence Daniel Fogg\n\n                        _All Rights Reserved._\n\n\n                             Dedicated to\n                          JOHN KENDRICK BANGS\n      Who first made Hades a pleasant place of abode and aroused\n           in his reader a desire to go cruising on the Styx\n\n\n\n\n                               CONTENTS:\n\n\n  CHAPTER.                                PAGE.\n\n  I. THE SUMMONS FROM SATAN                   3\n\n  II. SHADY SINNERS OF THE STYX              15\n\n  III. JOHN BROWN\u2019S BODY AND THE BONES\n  OF JOHN PAUL JONES                         31\n\n  IV. HENRY THE EIGHTH AND HIS HAREM\n  IN HADES                                   47\n\n  V. WHAT METHUSELAH THINKS OF\n  DR. OSLER                                  63\n\n  VI. THE VIRGIN THRONED IN THE WEST:\n  A TABLOID TANGLE OF LOVE\n  AND HISTORY                                75\n\n  VII. \u201cBOSS\u201d TWEED ON TAINTED MONEY,\n  WITH SOME NONSENSE DEFINITIONS\n  OF FADS AND FINANCE                        95\n\n  VIII. HOW THE CREATION CENTERED ABOUT\n  A PETTICOAT: A REVISED VERSION OF\n  DARWIN\u2019S \u201cASCENT OF MAN\u201d                  107\n\n  IX. WHEN ADAM WAS A BOY: RANDOM\n  RECOLLECTIONS OF THE OLDEST\n  INHABITANT                                119\n\n  X. ELECTION DAY BEYOND THE STYX           129\n\n  XI. NOAH\u2019S PERSONALLY-CONDUCTED\n  EXCURSION TO EARTH                        143\n\n  XII. THE MAN WITH THE MEGAPHONE           153\n\n  EPILOGUE. THE LAND OF FULFILLED DESIRE    167\n\n\n\n\n                      _Pleasantries in Passing._\n\n\n_John Kendrick Bangs, House-boat-on-the-Styx, care The Century\nAssociation, New York\u2014Perhaps you, as self-elected jester at the court\nof the Son of the Morning, will wonder that a newspaper man should\ndeliberately set out on a pilgrimage to Hades. I have often been told I\nought to go there, but I pause on the banks of the Styx for reflection\nere I rush in where all but fools fear to tread. Yet in mirroring\nforth the doings of the diocese of Bishop Beelzebub, I shall cast no\nreflections save on the dead, who can reflect no more, and like that\nother clown, more famous than I, will \u201cuse the devil himself with\ncourtesy.\u201d Having been an iconoclast, and as it is only a step from the\nbreaking of idols to the smashing of trusts, I have had the temerity to\ndream of ending the monopoly of the particular section of the universe\nhitherto sacred to Lucifer and Bangs. As you have a copyright on Hades,\nyou could make it hot for me if I invaded your territory without\npermission, so I ask you for a \u201cdead head\u201d pass. I don\u2019t claim more\nthan my rightful share; there will still be room enough for both of us\nto roast chestnuts on the other side of the Styx._\n\n_Pardon this discomfiture of sense by nonsense, yet I am not going\nto make an excuse for this abuse of absurdities, for what is nonsense\nbut the flower of sense, the wine of wit, the harmony of humor sounded\nby an organ crankless, the pipe of Pan replaced by one of briar\nwood? But as Princess Scheherazade might have said: \u201cThat\u2019s another\nkind of a smoke as well as another kind of a story.\u201d Even in this\n\u201cStygian Nights\u2019 Entertainment,\u201d I cannot hope to equal her record of\na \u201cThousand Nights and One\u201d\u2014whether I mean spent in story-telling or\nsmoking in Hades I leave to your imagination. But then, I am not a\nwoman!_\n\n_As Hell has ceased to have a place in theology, there is no reason\nwhy the devil should not get his due in fiction. Emigration will set\nhis way as soon as the character of the Cimmerian climate becomes\ndefinitely ascertained, but my trip to Hades will be more than a\nclimatological tour. While in the interest of science, my subterranean\nexplorations ought to point a pun and tangle a tale._\n\n_Your \u201cfarthest south\u201d was to the Styx. I shall not linger there, but\nif I can elude Cerberus, I shall slip through the gates where we are\ntold to \u201cabandon hope,\u201d and take up my habitation in Hades, with daily\ncommutation to New York. Methinks the inquisitor of the fountain pen\nought to have as much fun from a frolic with the heroes of history in\ntheir present abode as the inquisitor of the fork and flame._\n\n_Nor do I fear that this Stygian sequel to \u201cthe history that is\nwritten\u201d will be shunned as something sacrilegious, for the average\nAmerican is so generous regarding bookmakers that he will buy anything,\nconcerning anything, at any time and in any place. He will not even\nregister a protest on the ledger of the Hotel Hereafter!_\n\n_If you will permit a newspaper man to go on a second \u201cPursuit of the\nHouseboat,\u201d I would like to dedicate this account of a trip to the\nplayground of Pluto to the man who blazed the way to Hell. May I have\na shady corner in Hades, with the degree\u2014three above zero\u2014of A. S. S.,\nmeaning, of course, member of the Asbestos Society of Sinners?_\n\n_Till death do us unite beyond the Styx, and assuring you of a warm\nreception, weatherwise and otherwise, when you too shall get a summons\nfrom Satan, believe me, happy to go_\n\n                                _After you, my dear Bangs_,\n                                   _LAWRENCE DANIEL FOGG_.\n\n  _Castle Craig,\n     The Hanging Hills,\n       Meriden, Connecticut.\n  All Fools\u2019 Day (April 1)._\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n_My dear Mr. Fogg\u2014Although many critics have given me Hades, I have\nnever recorded any exclusive claim to its possession. You are therefore\nwholly at liberty to go there yourself\u2014for literary purposes only, I\nhope\u2014in so far as I am concerned. As for the dedication, I feel highly\nhonored and send you my most cordial thanks for the compliment._\n\n                                      _Faithfully yours_,\n                                     _JOHN KENDRICK BANGS_.\n\n  _The Century Association,\n          New York, N.\u202fY.\n  Moving Day (May 1)._\n\n\n\n\n                        THE SUMMONS FROM SATAN.\n\n\n                              CHAPTER I.\n\n                        The Summons from Satan.\n\n\nWhile waiting for an assignment, in the local room of the New York\nUniverse, I began to while away the time by reading the fulsome\neffusions of the press agent of Greater Luna Park. They aroused in me\nthe spirit of covetousness\u2014I envied the press agent his vocabulary,\nwhich put the supply of superlatives into bankruptcy; and I was jealous\nof the success of Thompson & Dundy, whom I hoped some day to rival.\nTheir first success had come with \u201cA Trip to the Moon;\u201d why might not I\u2014\n\n\u201cGo to Hell,\u201d I read on the paper which the \u201ccopy\u201d boy just then thrust\ninto my hand. Before I could question him, the \u201cdevil\u201d had gone.\n\nI glanced suspiciously at my fellow-scribes to see who had perpetrated\nthe joke, if such it was, but no one seemed to be watching what effect\nthe command had upon me. I again examined the odd message. It was in\nthe handwriting of Mr. Burroughs, the city editor, so to him I went.\nHolding out the slip of paper, I said:\n\n\u201cI have just received an assignment to \u2018cover\u2019 a certain subterranean\nresort named after the box in which printers throw battered type, but\nas the route there is unfamiliar, I have come to you for instructions.\u201d\n\nThe \u201cczar\u201d of the city room frowned, but on reading the missive the\nfrown was succeeded by an amused smile.\n\n\u201cWho gave you this?\u201d he asked.\n\n\u201cThe \u2018devil\u2019.\u201d\n\n\u201cThat is evident from its contents. It must have been that new boy\nJake, who took the slip off my desk when a telephone call interrupted\nme as I was writing. Had I completed the message it would have read \u2018Go\nto Hellgate.\u2019 A wreck has just occurred there and our marine reporter\nhas telephoned for assistance. However, you are aware that I have made\nit a rule never to change an assignment. I make no exception in your\ncase to-night.\u201d\n\n\u201cWhat!\u201d I gasped.\n\n\u201cRemember also that this paper never accepts an excuse. You must either\nhand in your story or your resignation. Perhaps I ought to explain\nfurther, though the Universe has no place for the newspaper man who\ncannot achieve the impossible or for the reporter who wants a reason\nfor what he is told to do. We want men who can carry \u2018a message to\nGarcia\u2019\u2014or to Lucifer, if need be.\n\n\u201cThe ting-a-ling of my desk telephone at the psychological moment when\nI had unconsciously consigned you to a colder climate than that of New\nYork, was a summons from Satan. Why it didn\u2019t come through the medium\nof the \u2018printer\u2019s devil\u2019 is a mystery, unless His Majesty desired\nto show me that he is up-to-date in having a system of telephones\ninstalled by a famous electrician who recently crossed his wires and\nthe Styx. I tried to transfer him to the managing editor by telling him\nthat he had got a wrong connection, as my jurisdiction is limited, but\nhe assured me that Hades is less than a hundred miles from New York,\nwhich makes me responsible for what happens there! Not a very pleasant\nthought, is it?\n\n\u201cLucifer wants you to go to Cimmeria and interview Henry the Eighth.\nHis much-married Majesty is angry at the liberties the historical\nnovelists have taken with his wives and wants to divorce himself of\nhis wrath through the columns of the Universe. Satan also wishes us to\ndecide a dispute between Adam and Methuselah as to whom is the oldest\ninhabitant.\u201d\n\n\u201cBut how in the name of\u2014\u201d\n\n\u201cDon\u2019t say it,\u201d warned the city editor. \u201cThat word is always expressed\nby a blank in the paper, so you might as well leave it blank in your\nspeech. Besides, to say it would be justification for keeping you\ndown there, and we want that interview without fail, even if you have\nto write it on asbestos and deliver it to mortals at a seance of the\nSociety for Psychic Research. We want the work well done, so you will\nhave to take your chances of being scorched.\n\n\u201cDiscussions regarding Hades have waxed almost as hot as the subject\nof dispute itself. Most people believe it is built on the Turkish bath\nplan with departments of varying temperature. Those are the kind of\npeople who swallow the thermometer of Dr. Doubt and die by degrees. If\nyou find it as pleasant as John Kendrick Bangs did, you will want to\nstay and join the Stygian smart set, so I\u2019ll transfer your insurance\nfrom the Equality to the Rock of Gibraltar and see to it that your\nsister does not starve or freeze, whatever may be the climatic fate of\nher brother.\n\n\u201cDon\u2019t take the subway route to the under world, for then your chances\nof coming back would be grounded. You are to take the Twenty-third\nStreet Ferry for the Jersey shore. New York and Hell are said to be\nconvertible terms, but I\u2019ve never before heard New Jersey given that\ndistinction. However, Bangs says that\u2019s the route, and as he plays golf\nwith good intentions over there every summer, he ought to know.\n\n\u201cDon\u2019t take any baggage, except perhaps your sister\u2019s sunshade, as only\nshades and shady characters are permitted to cross the River Styx. You\nmore nearly come under the second category than any other member of the\nstaff, so I have chosen you. As you may need \u2018money to burn,\u2019 call on\nthe cashier for a \u2018sinking fund\u2019 before you start on your journey.\n\n\u201cBy-the-by, while you are in Hades you might ask John Paul Jones\nwhether he would prefer burial in New York, Washington, Annapolis,\nPhiladelphia or Ocean Grove. That would be a \u2018scoop\u2019 worth more than\nthe marital intemperance of the Mormon king. Get his signature so\nthat if \u2018our friends, the enemy,\u2019 cry fake we can show them \u2018what\u2019s\nin a name.\u2019 As Mr. Bangs, by the exercise of his imagination, was\nenabled to penetrate the Stygian regions, a newspaper man should have\nno difficulty in doing likewise by the exercise of his nerve; but if\nCharon bars the gate owing to your being still in the flesh, this will\nadmit you. It\u2019s a skeleton key.\u201d\n\nHalf an hour later I stood on the deck of a ferryboat which was plowing\nthe waters of the North River. Obedience to the commands of the \u201cczar\u201d\nof the city room soon becomes second nature to a newspaper man, and I\nhad often boasted that I would go anywhere on earth or under the earth\nif sent there by Mr. Burroughs. I squared my shoulders to the breeze\nfrom the bay and resolved that I would not fail now that I had been put\nto the test, even if\u2014A shudder finished the sentence; my mind stood\npalsied as I faced the Unknown.\n\nIt was a night of Stygian blackness, just the one to be chosen for such\na dark mission. We were now nearing the Jersey shore and could hear the\nlap of the waves on the piling in the slip. A blaze of light astern\nshowed that one of the boats was on its return trip. The hands of the\nclock on the ferry building pointed to midnight.\n\nOut of the inky blackness suddenly loomed a great battleship which\nstruck as much terror to our hearts as if it had been the Flying\nDutchman. Had it been a merchantman we should have thought it was\nindeed the famous phantom ship, for it displayed no lights and the\ndecks were deserted. Our captain signalled to reverse engines, but the\norder came too late. The two vessels collided with a mighty crash.\nThere was a rending of timbers, an inrushing of water, a cry of despair\nfrom the passengers, then a stampede for the life preservers.\n\nI had no sooner got a cork belt properly adjusted, as I thought, than\nthe ferryboat sank. The suction drew me down and down and down; then\nI shot up to the surface again, feet foremost. I expected that the\nlife belt would right me as soon as I came to the surface, but as I\ncontinued to hang head downward, the awful truth flashed over me\u2014the\nbelt had not been sufficiently tightened under my arms and had slipped\ndown. Convulsively I struggled, but in the effort only succeeded in\nswallowing more water. The blur of a thousand lights danced before my\neyes in the floating bubbles of the phosphorescent water, a roar as of\na mighty artillery thundered in my ears\u2014then all became a blank; in\nnewspaper parlance, I had ceased to be \u201clive matter.\u201d\n\nThat sinking fund with which I had provided myself before leaving the\nmundane earth must have carried me a long distance downward, for when\nI opened my eyes I was upon the banks of the River Styx. Presently\nCharon\u2019s yacht came in sight. There was no one on board but Captain\nCharon himself, for with the exception of Lazarus, John Kendrick Bangs,\nand myself, no round trip tickets have ever been issued to Hades.\n\n\u201cStep lively, please,\u201d yelled Charon, who had evidently been a Broadway\ntrolley conductor earlier in his career. His success in knocking down\nfares had prompted Satan to employ him to transfer \u201cfares\u201d over the\nRiver Styx. The American invasion has extended downward as well as\noutward. To hear the motto of New York on the banks of the Styx made me\nfeel quite at home, especially when Charon added: \u201cPlenty of room up\nfront.\u201d\n\nA number of shades had stepped aboard the yacht. I was following them\nwhen Charon halted me.\n\n\u201cStop your whistling,\u201d he commanded. \u201cDo you think this is a Sunday\nschool picnic or a political rally? I don\u2019t believe you are eligible\nfor the journey, anyway. Hades is the only place within the fifty-mile\nlimit that is not a side show for New York tourists. This yacht\ntransports shades only.\u201d\n\n\u201cWell, you see,\u201d I began hesitatingly, \u201cLorimer says clothes don\u2019t make\nthe man, but that they make three-fourths of him, and this suit is of\nthe very latest shade of blue.\u201d\n\n\u201cI\u2019ve been told gray is fashionable just now,\u201d he commented,\ncritically. \u201cEverybody in Hades has the blues, so you won\u2019t be off\ncolor,\u201d he added, somewhat mollified.\n\n\u201cThen you know my ancestors are all shades,\u201d I pleaded, \u201cand our city\neditor says I have a shady reputation.\u201d\n\n\u201cA newspaper man!\u201d Charon gasped, his face growing pale. \u201cI\u2019ll have to\nlet you come aboard, or you will go back and \u2018roast\u2019 me, and I get all\nthe \u2018roasting\u2019 I can stand in Hades between trips. A newspaper man!\n\u201cNuff said. Jump aboard.\u201d\n\n\u201cWhere is the house-boat?\u201d I asked, ever on the lookout for \u201ccopy.\u201d\n\n\u201cEveryone nowadays asks that fool question,\u201d Charon retorted, angrily.\n\u201cI believe John Bangs, like George Eliot, is a woman, for he can\u2019t keep\na secret, while Harper & Brothers offer him royalties for it. Shortly\nafter the \u2018Pursuit of the House-boat\u2019 that craft disappeared from the\nriver and Sherlock Holmes with it. He went back to haunt Conan Doyle, I\nguess. I hope he won\u2019t come back again in a hurry, for he made no end\nof trouble with his inferences and his deductions.\u201d\n\n\u201cWhat\u2014\u201d\n\n\u201cNo more questions, if you please. I am not on the witness stand, nor\nwill I consent to be interviewed. Besides, talking is an infraction of\nthe rules of the Asbestos Society.\u201d\n\n\u201cDo they seek to muzzle the press?\u201d I asked indignantly.\n\n\u201cSo few newspaper men come this way that that isn\u2019t necessary,\u201d\nreturned Charon. \u201cWe have a free press. It is said that \u2018the devil\nfrequently becomes a publisher by way of diversion.\u2019 This is the Styx,\nnot the Delaware, and we are going to Hades, not to Philadelphia, thank\ngoodness! The order was framed to muzzle some one more formidable than\nreporters or devils\u2014woman!\u201d\n\n\u201cThe Asbestos Society is quite a suggestive name.\u201d\n\n\u201cIts formation was quite recent. A learned scientist up on the earth,\nby tapping on the ground to invoke Pluto, discovered extensive deposits\nof asbestos in Hades. As soon as the news reached the Styx, nothing\nwould satisfy \u2018Boss\u2019 Tweed but the formation of a society for the\npurpose of robbing cremation of its traditional terrors. As to wish is\nto have, every denizen of the domain of the departed is now wearing\nan asbestos suit. Dives must have his diversion, even if the devil is\ncheated out of his own.\u201d\n\nWe had crossed over the Styx. Charon quickly made fast to a wharf and\nprepared to disembark. As I landed I noticed on the dock a legend which\nread: \u201cAll hope abandon, ye who enter here.\u201d\n\nAt last I was in Hades!\n\n\n\n\n                      SHADY SINNERS OF THE STYX.\n\n\n                              CHAPTER II.\n\n                      Shady Sinners of the Styx.\n\n\nI was in the region of Outer Darkness to which the dead are banished to\nawait the judgment. All about me was a misty blackness so oppressive\nthat one felt as if wedged between mountains. My feet sank in the soft\nearth, composed of those good intentions with which I had helped to\npave the road to Hell. Voices of other days seemed to sound in my ears;\nout of the shadowy mist forms of ghostly men and women emerged and\nthen were lost to sight, swallowed up in the darkness. Perceiving a\nglimmering light in the distance I hastened toward it. A phantom house\nbarred my path, but I flitted through it as though it were not. A pale\ntwilight now made objects discernible and I breathed more freely, for\nI no longer stumbled over the good resolutions, which, being broken,\nblocked the pavement.\n\nA troop of spectres surrounded me and tried to stop my progress. Shades\nthough they were, their attentions were annoying and I tried to brush\nthem aside. My hands passed through shadows and the phantoms laughed in\nderision.\n\n\u201cWhat\u2019s the news?\u201d they cried again and again.\n\nI hadn\u2019t come to Hades to be interviewed, and knowing from the inside\nsome of its perils, I declined to relate what the upper world was\ndoing. This enraged the shades, who gathered about me threateningly.\nJust then one of my companions on the Styx yachting trip came to my\naid. His appearance seemed to inspire the spectres with terror, for\nthey all fled. The newcomer was talkative.\n\n\u201cDid you recognize in the leader of that band our old friend,\nDiogenes?\u201d he asked.\n\n\u201cNo, I never met the gentleman. Up on earth when any one is looking\nfor an honest man, he doesn\u2019t come to a newspaper office: he goes to a\ndetective agency.\u201d\n\nMy companion gave a scarcely perceptible start.\n\n\u201cDiogenes is no longer looking for an honest man. Poor fellow, he knows\nit\u2019s no use. He thought he had an honest man a few years ago in \u2018Boss\u2019\nTweed, but the politician fell from the high pedestal of the \u2018man\nhigher up\u2019 when he consented to pose for a caricature of himself by\nNast. Our friend of the tub and lantern has begun to wonder if when he\nfinds an honest man it will prove to be a bachelor girl! Not long ago\nPresident Harper sent a professor from the University of Chicago to\ntell Diogenes that he could have an honest man as soon as he had bled\nhim for another hundred million. So the philosopher is waiting for\u2014\u201d\n\n\u201cJohn D. Rockefeller!\u201d\n\n\u201cYour deduction, my dear journalist, does you credit.\u201d\n\nSomewhat piqued that I did not reply, the stranger said:\n\n\u201cWhy don\u2019t you express wonder that I knew you were a journalist? Watson\nalways does.\u201d\n\n\u201cThere is only one Watson,\u201d I protested. \u201cBesides, it has always\nseemed to me that he was singularly obtuse. Unless you lent him\nyour spectacles, Watson couldn\u2019t hold down a job in the city room\nof a New York daily for twenty-four hours. I\u2019m not a journalist,\nbut I acknowledge that \u2018newspaper man\u2019 is written all over me, from\nthe pencil in my pocket to my \u2018nose for news,\u2019 which is abnormally\ndeveloped. It\u2019s the easiest thing in the world to tell a newspaper man\nby his nose, an actor by his clothes and a detective by his cocaine\nsyringe. For instance, you are\u2014\u201d\n\n\u201cThe shade of Sherlock Holmes, just returned from a trip to earth. But\nI really died when I fell over the cliff. That fall made Conan Doyle\na Sir. He thought that if he could bring me back to life I would make\nhim an Earl. He tried to breathe in me the breath of life, but while\nthe dear public wept at my death, they viewed my resurrection with\nindifference. Ghost stories have been exorcised for all time, so I\u2019m\nback here for good.\u201d\n\n\u201cDid Satan send for you?\u201d\n\n\u201cYes, to assist him in ultimately securing the three persons on earth\nwhom he is most eagerly awaiting\u2014David Belasco, John Kendrick Bangs,\nand Marie Corelli.\n\n\u201cThe author of the \u2018Darling of the Gods,\u2019 in order to lend realism to\nthe final scene, made a compact with Satan to reproduce Hades on the\nNew York stage; in return he is to give his soul\u2014or his salary\u2014as soon\nas the play has run its course. That\u2019s the reason Belasco prolonged the\nrun of \u2018The Darling of the Gods,\u2019 even after it ceased to pay expenses.\nA theatrical advance agent, who is to transfer the entire production\nto Hades, was here several weeks ago and said that the thousandth\nperformance had been reached. Yo San, who is serving her thousand years\nof penance\u2014a year for each day of the play\u2019s run\u2014says she never would\nhave thought of being wicked if Belasco had not prompted her from the\nwings. The man who could write \u2018To lie a little is better than to be\nunhappy much\u2019 deserves a place alongside of George Washington.\u201d\n\n\u201cWhat! Is the father of his country here, too?\u201d\n\n\u201cOh, yes! they\u2019re all here. Washington is more of a father than ever.\nHe had no family in life, but he has one here larger than he likes\u2014the\nchildren of the only woman he never loved. It\u2019s strange how many women\ngo out of their way to remind George how he met defeat at their hands\nlong before he fought the British.\u201d\n\n\u201cEvidently women of those days didn\u2019t appreciate veracity.\u201d\n\n\u201cDon\u2019t throw that cherry tree at his head when you see him or he\u2019ll\nthink you have an axe to grind. He has never been able to find out who\nwrote that fable, \u00c6sop being dead and George Ade unborn. When he does,\nHades will be too hot to hold both of them, although of course there\u2019s\nno change of weather to speak of, as the mercury never seeks the bulb.\nIt is always trying to knock the roof off its glass house; that\u2019s the\nreason there is no throwing of stones in the under world.\u201d\n\n\u201cBut what has Satan against John Kendrick Bangs?\u201d\n\n\u201cHis Majesty likes to be taken seriously. Most practical jokers, you\nknow, resent a joke at their own expense. While he delights in playing\nwith men, to make fun of him is an offense which Satan cannot condone.\nThen you know Bangs sent me in \u2018Pursuit of the House-boat\u2019 and I\nfrustrated a great many plans of His Majesty.\n\n\u201cLucifer describes woman\u2014to disabuse your mind of the impression that\nI have held converse with his Satanic Highness, I will state that I\nam quoting Marie Corelli, his press agent\u2014Lucifer describes woman as\na frivolous doll of pink and white with long hair frequently not her\nown. He hates women, for they have made him what he is and keep him so,\naccording to Marie. \u2018Women,\u2019 he says, \u2018are much less sensitive than men\nand infinitely more heartless. They are mothers of the human race and\nthe faults of the race are chiefly due to them.\u2019 Considering that the\neternal feminine is so fond of him, I am surprised that the Evil One\ndoes not reciprocate, but then Lucifer was once an angel and we all\nknow that however angelic she of infinite variety may appear, she is\nnot an angel. I have heard men of moods and appetite talk of women in\nthe same strain as Lucifer and so have ceased to wonder that each woman\nknows one particular man\u2014usually her husband\u2014whom she describes as a\ndevil.\n\n\u201cLucifer had found out the truth of the Latin proverb which says \u2018Trust\nnot a woman, even when dead,\u2019 and as he didn\u2019t want any divided skirt\nrule, he had planned to have Capt. Kidd take them to Paris or to Italy,\nwhich Robert Burton says is a hell for women. Satan thought he was well\nrid of them until after the day of judgment, so you can imagine his\nburning rage when, following Bangs\u2019 orders, I brought them safely back\nto Hades. When the humorist leaves the earth it will be jumping out of\nthe frying pan of a vivid imagination into a very hot fire of reality.\u201d\n\n\u201cAnd Marie Corelli? I thought her \u2018Sorrows of Satan\u2019\u2014\u201d\n\n\u201cThat\u2019s just it. Through all the centuries Lucifer lacked a champion\nuntil Marie Corelli sat in judgment on the world and gave it fits after\nreading \u2018Paradise Lost\u2019 and losing her heart as well as her head\u2014as\nmany another girl has done\u2014to the angel who \u2018fell, never to rise\nagain.\u2019 Lucifer would have had no attraction for most women if he had\nnot fallen. Milton made him a hero, many persons have embraced him, but\nno one ever fully understood him except Marie, and great shall be her\nreward.\u201d\n\n\u201cHow can there be rewards in Hades?\u201d\n\n\u201cOh, we have our society here just as in the upper region, only the\nworld asks who a man is; here the Smart Set asks who he was. Caste is\nas strong here as in your Four Million and in our upper Ten Thousand.\u201d\n\n\u201cBut even yet I do not understand how the champion of His Satanic\nMajesty is to be rewarded.\u201d\n\n\u201cLucifer has long wanted a wife. Marie Corelli alone pleases his fancy,\nbesides possessing the necessary qualifications for the position. Here\nshe will be supreme; she will rule even the arch fiend himself. To her\nkings will bow and princes kneel. Won\u2019t she make it hot for some of the\nreviewers who \u2018roasted\u2019 her on earth! There is only one place where\nreviews live\u2014in Hell. There is a torridness of climate here which\nagrees with them. After all, Hades is no more than a caricature of your\nworld and the doings of men.\n\n\u201cYour society is but vanity; what, then, shall be said of the\nfestivities of Hades? We dine, and our Barmecide feast leaves a\nnauseating feeling of emptiness. Here amusement is the lash of\ncorrection. All is illusion; nothing is real. The fashions of all\nthe centuries flourish here at one time, for every fashion which has\nhad its day straightway goes to Hell. I sometimes think that is the\nprincipal reason why women are dissatisfied here; they had to follow\nthe fashion in vogue while they were on the earth and when a late comer\nappears in a new style hat or dress the other women suffer torments\nworse than any Satan could devise, especially on Easter Sunday.\n\n\u201cThe twilight of Hades forms a sort of X-ray which passes through the\nclothes and flesh and enables us to see into the heart and mind of one\nanother. The other day Paul Jones met George Washington, walking arm in\narm with King George the Fourth. He stopped to say:\n\n\u201cAdmiral, I\u2019m glad my children are giving you the honors which are\njustly yours.\u201d Yet as his mind was as an open book, Jones read his\nthoughts thus:\n\n\u201c\u2018Why couldn\u2019t that meddlesome Porter let well enough alone, instead of\nbringing a mummy from France to oust me from my place as first in the\nhearts of my countrymen?\u2019\u201d\n\nSherlock Holmes puffed reflectively on the shade of a cigar for a few\nmoments; then knocking off an imaginary ash, he continued:\n\n\u201cWhether matches are made in Heaven is a question, but they certainly\nare not made in Hell, despite the abundance of brimstone and the\npresence of Lucifer. Courtship is impossible where the heart betrays\nand fine words are belied by revealed thoughts, where the naked truth\ncannot be clothed in \u2018fig\u2019 language. When all reality has vanished,\nthere can be no delusion, so that men who seldom spoke in the other\nworld save to utter a falsehood have come to speak the truth here.\nThere is only one exception\u2014George Washington.\u201d\n\n\u201cYou are rather hard on\u2014\u201d\n\n\u201cRemember that Hades is the only land which holds the mirror up to\nnature. In the flash of the earth\u2019s footlights, we act our part in the\nplay of life to dazzle other men and blind them to our faults. Life is\na series of poses, each like the film of a moving picture which by the\njuggling of the operator suggests continuous action, though composed\nof many lifeless photographs. Our life is an optical illusion. We are\njudged by what men see us do and yet they perhaps never see us when the\nmask is off and we have forgotten to pose. We strike our attitude and\nthe world applauds or jeers. Only when life\u2019s candle is snuffed out\ndo we forget to pose, for then a great awe is upon us. What a haunting\nthought it is that \u2018the evil that men do lives after them\u2019! In life we\nhugged our sins to ourselves, guarding them zealously; so in death, why\ncannot they, like the good we do, be decently interred with our bones?\nWhen we are laid low, why must our sins go on a rampage of their own,\nboth in the upper and the under worlds? In Hades the mask has been torn\naway and we see man as he is, not as he would have us see him.\u201d\n\n\u201cThat must be diverting.\u201d\n\n\u201cHades is the best place in the universe for the study of history.\nSocrates is here but his philosophy, as well as his wife, has deserted\nhim; he is now a chronic kicker. Moses strikes his rod on the rocks in\nvain, for molten lava flows instead of water; the result of his rage\nis seen at Vesuvius, the devil\u2019s chimney. Pontius Pilate is forever\nwashing his hands, but the red blood flows afresh. Shakespeare tells\nhim that the damned spot will not out. Eve is setting the fashion in\nfig leaves and serpentine dresses, but like her earthly descendants, is\ndiscontented, although she takes a certain spiteful satisfaction in the\nfact that the number of women in Hades is on the increase. Methuselah\nis hunting for the fountain of perpetual youth. He wants to be a boy\nagain and his favorite poem is \u2018Backward, turn backward, O Time, in\nthy flight.\u2019 He suffers a periodic attack of second childishness every\nthousand years.\u201d\n\n\u201cAnd John Paul Jones?\u201d\n\n\u201cPoor Paul! he never will forgive me for disturbing his bones.\u201d\n\n\u201cI thought Ambassador Porter\u2014\u201d\n\n\u201cDo you mean to say that Watson hasn\u2019t told the world about my last\nand greatest case? Why, that was the very reason I returned to earth!\nAmbassador Porter came over to England and besought Sir Arthur Conan\nDoyle to find the dead sea dog. Only one man could do it\u2014myself.\nLucifer refused to give me up, but Dr. Doyle matched his cunning with\nthat of His Satanic Majesty, gave him a dose of cocaine, and won.\nWatson says each case is more difficult than the last, but I do pride\nmyself that this exploit would have baffled every one save the great\nSherlock Holmes. By a series of deductions I came to the conclusion\nthat the bones of John Paul Jones would be found wrapped in tinfoil,\nencased in a leaden coffin, swimming in alcohol under a stable. With\nthis information it was easy for Porter to do the rest. As Watson says:\n\u2018It was all so absurdly simple!\u2019\u201d\n\n\u201cTell me your story.\u201d\n\nAt sight of my note book the detective shook his head.\n\n\u201cI commissioned Watson to do that, but Conan Doyle, who owns the\ncopyright, may wish to give the Ambassador the credit until he comes\nto join us on the banks of the Styx. I never did seek notoriety, but\nDr. Doyle, while waiting for patients who never came, reversed the\nusual practice of physicians; he brought a dead man to life, and of\ncourse I was so grateful that I took cocaine to drug my modesty and\u2014the\nliterary market.\u201d\n\n\u201cThe latest news we had of you on earth was that you had retired to\nstudy bee-farming on Sussex Downs.\u201d\n\n\u201cBee-farming? That is the most unkind sting of all! Then Sussex must\nreach down to Hades, for here I am, Oslerized and ostracized. James\nPayne calls books the chloroform of the mind and so I have been\nembalmed between covers, and \u2018finis\u2019 written for my epitaph. Never\nmind, it is a matter of indifference to me now that I have had my\nrevenge on that pirate.\u201d\n\n\u201cPirate!\u201d I gasped.\n\nHolmes laughed at my horrified tone.\n\n\u201cYou forget that I\u2019m English,\u201d he said. \u201cWhen I pointed out to Porter\nthat the way to fame lay in a dead man\u2019s shoes I paid off a score of\nmore than a century\u2019s standing. Maybe you are not aware that when a\nbody is disturbed after being once buried, its soul must inhabit the\nOuter Darkness a thousand years longer than the original decree. Let us\nsee how the admiral bears up under the shock. In Wishland that is an\neasy matter. Paul Jones, I desire your presence.\u201d\n\nA moment\u2019s pause, then out of the twilight flitted the spectre of a\nman in naval dress. A husky voice came to us as from the throat of a\nphonograph:\n\n\u201cA thousand years more! No quarter! No quarter! \u2018I had only just begun\nto fight!\u2019\u201d\n\nThe detective laughed mirthlessly.\n\n\u201cWhat a merry place is Hades! Imagine a thing and you have it. Think,\nand at once the thought takes visible form. Truly, this is a land of\nmagic that needs no Aladdin\u2019s lamp. Behold the jugglery of fulfilled\ndesire\u2014that is John Paul Jones!\u201d\n\n\n\n\n                       JOHN BROWN\u2019S BODY AND THE\n                       BONES OF JOHN PAUL JONES.\n\n\n                             CHAPTER III.\n\n          John Brown\u2019s Body and the Bones of John Paul Jones.\n\n\nThat Paul Jones was not alone soon became evident. With his coming,\nother ghostly forms had taken shape in the semi-gloom and the admiral\nbecame the centre of a throng which included the greatest men of all\ntime\u2014the only great men, in fact, for one must die before he can be\naccorded any measure of greatness. Only in the perspective of the past\ndoes a man loom large in the vision of the present.\n\n\u201cIt were better to be a live politician than a dead hero,\u201d observed\nPaul Jones, reading my thoughts. Then he sighed.\n\n\u201cBut you are honored on earth and even here,\u201d I said, with a glance\naround the circle at the illustrious members of the Asbestos Society of\nSinners.\n\n\u201cEarthly honor is but hysteria,\u201d Jones replied wearily. \u201cYet, \u2018twas\never thus. One is usually crushed by the honors showered upon him, as\nwere the Romans in attending the banquet of Emperor Elagabalus, who\nrained roses upon his guests until all were buried and smothered by\nthe flowers. Like them \u2018bouquets\u2019 are thrown at me when I am dead, of\nwhich I would have been more appreciative while living. Yet \u2018bouquets\u2019\nare preferable to \u2018brickbats,\u2019 even though they do not make so lasting\nan impression. Hades, as you will soon learn, is more of a news centre\nthan London, and so I have heard that in recent years the city hall\nof New York was draped in mourning for Hiram Cronk, last survivor of\nthe War of 1812, whose only claim to fame was that he did not die\nsooner. If earthly honors died on earth I wouldn\u2019t complain, but they\nare all reproduced in Hades, which is a burlesque of the upper world.\nEver since Ambassador Porter found a body which he thought might have\nlooked like me had I looked like that body, I have been given homage by\nevery man in Hades. The joke of the matter\u2014if a Scotchman may take an\nIrish bull by the horns and joke at his own funeral\u2014is that there is no\ncertainty about the body being mine.\u201d\n\n\u201cDo you doubt it in the face of\u2014\u201d\n\n\u201cWhen face to face with a dead doubt, don\u2019t look a gift corpse in the\nmouth,\u201d interrupted the admiral dryly. \u201cHad Porter done so, he would\nhave discovered two gold teeth, and I really must insist that if that\nbody is mine, those teeth were filled after I died. In the old days,\nbefore the doctors invented appendicitis, I did not mind swallowing all\nthe grape sent with the enemy\u2019s compliments, but I always did draw the\nline at the dentist\u2019s chair, and any manipulator of the forceps would\nhave struck a snag had he investigated my corpse too closely. Perhaps\nI ought not to complain, for it may be that if I keep my mouth shut I\nshall get a decent funeral, and unfortunately this is supposed to be my\nfuneral.\u201d\n\n\u201cBut the proofs,\u201d I remonstrated.\n\n\u201cMy dear fellow, it is easy to pile up proofs on a dead man, for he\ncannot rise up to refute them. Here is a dead body; Paul Jones is\ndead: therefore, this must be Paul Jones. That may be logic but it is\nnot common-sense. Yet this text-book reasoning is no more absurd than\nthe \u2018proofs.\u2019 First of all, there was the absence of a coffin plate;\nhad the body been missing instead of the name it would have been more\nworthy of notice. An autopsy has revealed traces of the disease of\nwhich I died, and this after a hundred years! If they were as expert\nin diagnosing the living as they are in cutting up the dead, fewer of\nthe mistakes of the doctors would have to be buried from sight and\nmind. Then these learned savants triumphantly point to the height as\na sure proof that this is the body of Jones and not of Smith, though\nboth families are so numerous that the bones of one more or less\ndoesn\u2019t matter save as a museum exhibit\u2014from which fate may the Stars\nand Stripes protect me! It seems from this deduction that I was the\nonly person ever born into the world who ever attained to a stature of\nfive feet and seven inches. That\u2019s what a man gets for measuring up to\nthe standard! The most remarkable coincidence of all is that neither\nuniform nor sword was found. Evidently Paris makes it a custom to bury\nits dead, civilian and officer alike, in a shroud of mystery, epaulets\nand gold stripes.\n\n\u201cReally, the only proof distilled is that the body was found floating\nin alcohol. I was so fond of that preservative in life, according to\nthe historical novelists, that if a dead body can move of its own\nvolition, I know mine would have sought out the alcohol. It may be the\nbody of John Jones or John Smith, or it may be the remains of some\nJohnny Craupaud of a century ago; who knows? A slip of genealogy has\nlost thrones and made more than one man get off the earth.\u201d\n\n\u201cAt least you must concede it is not often that many cities squabble\nover the honor of giving sepulture to a man\u2019s remains.\u201d\n\n\u201cAfter a century of neglect,\u201d retorted Jones, \u201c\u2018history repeats\nitself,\u2019 as my friend Tom Heyward will tell you.\u201d\n\n    \u201c\u2018Seven cities warred for Homer being dead\n    Who living had no roof to shroud his head!\u2019\u201d\n\n\u201cIt\u2019s a wonder some of those cities did not foresee the coming events\nof which Homer was the shadow and make a play for Jones. Now, Seward,\nit\u2019s your turn. Come, Tom, speak your little piece.\u201d\n\n    \u201c\u2018Great Homer\u2019s birthplace seven rival cities claim;\n    Too mighty such monopoly of fame.\u2019\u201d\n\nPaul Jones was about to speak when he was interrupted by a newcomer who\nchanted:\n\n    \u201c\u2018Seven wealthy towns contend for Homer dead\n    Through which the living Homer begged his bread.\u2019\u201d\n\n\u201cThat is Mr. Anon,\u201d whispered Lord Bacon. \u201cShakespeare is quite jealous\nof him, for Anon claims to be the most voluminous author in the world\nand, like Byron\u2019s reviewer, has \u2018just enough learning to misquote.\u2019 He\nseldom quotes anyone correctly, not even excepting himself, but in this\nhe is not unlike those other authors whom excess of egotism persuades\ninto signing their names to that which would be their own had not some\none said it before.\u201d\n\n    \u201c\u2018Heed him not, gentle sirs,\n    \u2019Tis but the fool,\u2019\u201d\n\nobserved Shakespeare.\n\n\u201cI ought to give you a pension for making my sayings so well known;\nI notice you never quote your own sentiments because mine answer all\npurposes so much better.\u201d\n\nIt was Lord Bacon who spoke.\n\n\u201cI was talking of you, I grant that,\u201d retorted Shakespeare. \u201cShall I\nrepeat it? My wife says that it\u2019s only by a hair\u2014\u201d\n\n\u201cYou two men are always quarreling,\u201d interrupted Anon. \u201cPlease keep the\nage of Anne from his lordship\u2019s notice, for she hath a way to fry his\nBacon. My lord, you should never judge a poet by his hair.\u201d\n\n\u201cNor yet by his feet,\u201d interrupted Longfellow; \u201calthough if a poet\nlooks well to his feet there are no heights to which he cannot climb.\u201d\n\n\u201cI accept the measure of your judgment,\u201d went on Anon calmly. \u201cAs for\nthe lady, Delilah\u2019s barber stunt convinced Samson it isn\u2019t wise to tell\nthe truth to a woman.\u201d\n\n\u201cYet I must insist,\u201d continued Lord Bacon, \u201cthat Shakespeare is rather\nshy of hair to be a real poet. Of course, I have heard the story that\nAnne Hathaway, after a conference with Delilah, sought to reduce the\nstrength of the Samson of letters by cutting his name from Shakespeare\nto Shakspeare and trimming his hair to make assurance doubly sure, but\nLot\u2019s wife, in looking backward, has recommended that the pig-tale be\nswallowed with a grain of salt. My dear Willie, your poetry has pains\nin its feet, your rhyme has received the absent treatment, and your\nrythm, like your hair, is lacking.\u201d\n\n\u201cOh, well, hair doesn\u2019t grow on brains,\u201d retorted the claimant to\n\u201cHamlet.\u201d\n\nBut Anon was not to be out-argued, and continued:\n\n\u201cA hirsute chrysanthemum growing on a man\u2019s head is more likely to\nindicate a quarterback Freshman on the gridiron than a hunchback poet\non the Mount of Parnassus. As for the poet\u2019s other extreme, metrical\nfeet are not always symmetrical.\u201d\n\n    \u201cYou\u2019ve told it all\u2014so for a spell\n      For more rhymes where\u2019s the reason?\n    Besides, just now we are in h\u2014\u201d\n\n\u201cThat\u2019s blank verse,\u201d interrupted Shakespeare.\n\n\u201cYou mean damn!\u201d interjected Lord Bacon, profanely. \u201cLet me lend you\nthe metres, Bill, so that you may measure up to my standard, or else\ncork the rythmic bottle and spill no more mimic blood of red ink.\u201d\n\n\u201cThe gas man is the only person who controls my metre,\u201d said the\nBard of Avon, chuckling at his own wit. \u201cYou quite sweep me off my\nmetaphorical feet. That may not be original, but I have no aspirations\nin the direction of originality.\u201d\n\n\u201cThe last broker who arrived from Wall Street says that you are too\nfull of quotations to be original,\u201d sneered Lord Bacon.\n\n\u201cHave you forgotten that you once said \u2018a man that hath no virtue in\nhimself ever envieth virtue in others?\u2019 Bartlett allows you seven\npages, while he gives me more than a hundred. Familiarity breeds\nimitators. Even in quotations, you follow after me.\u201d\n\n\u201cIf you wear so long a face, you\u2019ll stub your toe on your chin,\u201d\nobserved Anon, noting that Lord Bacon was getting the worst of his\ncontroversy with Shakespeare. \u201cNever mind Bill\u2019s raving. Burton\ntells him he larded his lean books with the fat of others\u2019 works.\nMaybe that\u2019s the reason why he gives his readers mental dyspepsia;\nto inwardly digest \u2018Hamlet\u2019 would disagree with the stomach of an\nostrich. After all, the world knows that Shakespeare was not a man but\na syndicate, to which I was the largest contributor. I\u2019ll call the man\na plagiarist who says I\u2019m a liar.\u201d\n\nNo one cared to knock off the verbal chip which Anon had put upon his\nshoulders, so Paul Jones resumed:\n\n\u201cHave I equalled Homer\u2019s record?\u201d\n\n\u201cOf course,\u201d I answered; \u201cyou, as an American, couldn\u2019t stand being\nbeaten by a foreigner like Homer, even though you are both dead ones.\nYou are claimed by New York, Philadelphia, Washington, Arlington,\nRichmond, Fredericksburg, Annapolis, and Ocean Grove. I believe there\nare a few other cities whose names have escaped my memory. Have you any\npreference in the matter?\u201d\n\n\u201cIt\u2019s odd no one has thought about consulting me before. I could have\nsettled the controversy at once. France did not treat me or my bones\nvery well, yet I can\u2019t say I am glad to leave there. It isn\u2019t very\npleasant to be dead, but it\u2019s worse to have people squabble over your\nbody. I wonder if Porter ever heard the adage \u2018Let the dead rest in\npeace,\u2019 and that other one \u2018Cursed be he who moves my bones!\u2019 You\u2019ve\nseen two dogs fight over a bone, but you never saw the bone fight. I am\nnothing but bones.\u201d\n\n\u201cNew York\u2019s claim\u2014\u201d\n\n\u201cI hope they won\u2019t bury me in New York. I\u2019ve heard it said that the\nmetropolis is noisy enough to wake the dead and it is certain that my\npresence would make Captain Landais turn over in his grave. I always\ndid bore Landais and so if I invaded the territory of the tired, St.\nPatrick\u2019s cemetery would yawn and give up its dead.\u201d\n\n\u201cHad you been a politician,\u201d observed Matt Quay, \u201csome faction of our\nparty would long since have unearthed one of your letters in which you\nhad selected your burial place.\u201d\n\n\u201cYou have not yet told me your choice,\u201d I reiterated, remembering the\ncity editor\u2019s parting words.\n\n\u201cI would rather be embalmed in the throbbing heart of the sea, with\nwhich my own heart beat so long in unison. My grave has been unmarked\nfor a century, so why not forever? I would prefer to be commander of\nthat greatest army of all, the unknown dead, whose resting place is\nmarked only by monuments of billows and flowers of feathery spray. A\nbridal veil of silver surge is as elaborate a shroud as I desire.\u201d\n\n\u201cHow about cremation?\u201d\n\n\u201cWe\u2019ll get enough of that down here some day, so it is useless to\nundergo the \u2018roasting\u2019 process twice. Yet it has its advantages.\nSoldiers and sailors don\u2019t get much time for godliness, you know, and\nas cleanliness is next to it, cremation might\u2014\u201d\n\n\u201cJohn Brown\u2019s body lies a smouldering in\u2014\u201d\n\nThat was as far as Mr. Anon could proceed, for he had fired John\nBrown\u2019s anger. That worthy said he was hanged if he were going to allow\nanybody to \u201croast\u201d him by any such incendiary remark.\n\n\u201cChoke him off,\u201d came the chorus from all sides. \u201cHere\u2019s a rope. String\nhim up.\u201d\n\nThis brought up such unpleasant recollections of the past that John\nBrown subsided. I hastened to pacify him by observing:\n\n\u201cYou have no cause for disquiet, for your bones lie peacefully in the\nAdirondacks at North Elba.\u201d\n\n\u201cHush!\u201d warned Holmes. \u201cThat word always invokes Napoleon.\u201d\n\nThe Corsican had indeed materialized. He glared at me as he said:\n\n\u201cPeace at Elba? If you found peace there, you accomplished more than\ndid the great Napoleon, and that were impossible.\u201d\n\n\u201cAh, but you see I hadn\u2019t met my Waterloo,\u201d I retorted. Wellington\nlaughed tauntingly.\n\n\u201cNeither had I when I went to Elba,\u201d supplemented Bonaparte, and then\nand there I met my Waterloo at the hands of Napoleon. It is poor policy\nfor a writer of history to dispute the maker of it, though I am aware\nthe historical novelists hold other views. For a moment it seemed as if\nWellington\u2019s tantalizing mirth would precipitate another battle between\nthe illustrious warriors. Then the two men shook hands, looking like\ntwo prize fighters about to enter the ring. Nothing happened, however,\nand with a trace of disappointment in his tone,\u2014for immortals are very\nlike mortals and he dearly loved a fight,\u2014Paul Jones went on:\n\n\u201cIt is a good thing I\u2019m dead, for living heroes always get restless and\ntumble from the clay pedestal on which an admiring public places them.\nHeroes should be handled with care, for they are perishable goods. Both\nDewey and Dowie have had their day. Dewey turned his house over to\nhis wife so the sheriff couldn\u2019t get it, as many another man has done\nbefore and since. Evidently the dear public didn\u2019t believe the two\nwere one, for the hero-worshippers swept him to obscurity on a tidal\nwave of regretful tears. I wonder if he said it was all Mrs. Dewey\u2019s\nfault. You know it is more difficult to manage a wife in America\nnowadays than it was in the days of Solomon, when the wives were so\nfrequent that a man couldn\u2019t remember which one was to blame.\u201d\n\n\u201cThe English still claim that you were a pirate,\u201d I observed.\n\n\u201cI feel quite honored at so illustrious an accession to our ranks,\u201d\nsaid Captain Kidd.\n\nThe admiral smiled.\n\n\u201cStop your Kidding,\u201d he said to the pirate. \u201cI believe my conduct was\nunsatisfactory to them on several occasions when I bearded the lion in\nhis channel. The English are queer. They made Captain Pierson a baronet\nfor getting defeated.\u201d\n\n\u201cIf we had had Paul Jones,\u201d said Lord Nelson, \u201cwe would have made him\nprime minister and buried him in Westminster Abbey. England is the most\ngrateful of all nations.\u201d\n\n\u201cYou need not remind me of the ungratefulness of republics,\u201d rejoined\nJones. \u201cI have experienced it, though I am not a living example. But,\nmy lord, I wish I had had you pitted against me in the days of \u201977; I\nwould dearly have loved to have exchanged shots with you.\u201d\n\n\u201cYou are too kind,\u201d drawled Nelson, lifting his monocle to his blind\neye. \u201cI really can\u2019t see you in that light.\u201d\n\n\u201cYou have an eye single to your own interest,\u201d I said to Nelson; then\nturning to Jones:\n\n\u201cWe have swung around the circle and you haven\u2019t yet told me\u2014\u201d\n\n\u201cWe will leave it to Roosevelt,\u201d replied the admiral. \u201cWhether it is\nJohn Brown, John Jones or Johnny Craupaud, he will see that the body\ngets a square deal\u2014box!\u201d\n\n\u201cHow about your epitaph? I would suggest: First in war, last in peace,\nand at present in the hearts of his countrymen, to mark the tomb of the\nfather of the American navy. That epitomizes your whole career.\u201d\n\n\u201cI do not want to usurp Washington\u2019s paternal honors. Of course all\nepitaphs are written by Mephisto, \u2018the father of liars,\u2019 as you\nknow, but if mine were to be truthful, my tomb would bear the simple\ninscription:\n\n    \u201cPause, stranger, yet weep not,\n    For here lies the body of\n    John Paul Jones\u2014perhaps!\u201d\n\n\n\n\n                     HENRY VIII. AND HIS HAREM IN\n                                HADES.\n\n\n                              CHAPTER IV.\n\n                  Henry VIII. and His Harem in Hades.\n\n\n\u201cQuaker worship may be as appropriate as any other kind on Sunday,\u201d\nobserved William Penn, \u201cbut this silence is getting on my nerves. Why\ndon\u2019t you say something funny, you humorists? What\u2019s the use of having\nfamous funny men in this society if they cannot enliven Hades on a dull\nSabbath?\u201d\n\n\u201cI\u2019m not in the humor to be humorous to-night,\u201d said Bret Harte, who\nwas busily engaged in making \u201cCondensed Novels\u201d by tearing to shreds\nwithout reading, their contents from the title page to the finis; book\nreviewing they designate it up on earth.\n\n\u201cDo you call that wit?\u201d sneered Eugene Field.\n\n\u201cIf you can define the difference between wit and humor, I\u2019ll promise\nto laugh the next time you see things at night,\u201d retorted Harte.\n\n\u201cEternity is too short for definitions, except to a philologist,\u201d\nevaded Field. \u201cAsk Dick Whately; the archbishop of Dublin is the only\nman who discriminates English synonyms.\u201d\n\n\u201cI know when you don\u2019t ask me,\u201d replied the doctor. \u201cConsult Webster.\u201d\n\n\u201cMortal cannot live by wit alone,\u201d commented that philologist.\n\n\u201cBeing immortal, I can,\u201d said Johnson.\n\n\u201cMark that down, Boswell, even if Shakespeare does object to the\ndoctor\u2019s company on the Mount of Parnassus. A man of perpetual\ninspiration ought to use a fountain pen, but in the absence of a point\nto Johnson\u2019s wit, Demosthenes will lend you a pebble.\u201d\n\n\u201cAs I live in a glass hot-house, I never throw stones,\u201d gurgled the\norator, after a vain effort to clear his throat of a pill from the\nlaboratory of Nature.\n\n\u201cOn earth I always kept a box of bon mots on my chimney piece,\u201d put in\nSydney Smith.\n\n\u201cIf they had been chocolate bon bons, you would have been a sustaining\nfavorite among the ladies,\u201d chuckled King Henry the Eighth.\n\n\u201cWhere knowledge of women is concerned, I bow to your marital\nMajesty,\u201d acquiesced Smith. \u201cMere man never becomes a post-graduate on\nfemininology, but he can manage to get up a bowing acquaintance with\nwomen after he is married to six of them. It seems to me that Utah\nwould be a good place to study her \u2018of infinite variety.\u2019 I have often\nthought that much of Solomon\u2019s wisdom came from his three hundred\nwives.\u201d\n\n\u201cWith such a match-making father,\u201d I put in, my newspaper instinct\nscenting \u201ccopy,\u201d \u201cI have often wondered why good Queen Bess never\nmarried.\u201d\n\n\u201cI\u2019m sorry Elizabeth didn\u2019t keep up the family reputation,\u201d answered\nthe king, \u201cbut I guess she thought I did marrying enough for the whole\nfamily. Besides, Bess had her hands full ruling the kingdom and her\ntemper without attempting to rule a husband. However, I never could\nunderstand why she turned a deaf ear to Sir Walter\u2019s pleading. He wooed\nher so long with his eyes that she asked him one day why he was such a\nmute, inglorious Raleigh. He replied that a beggar who is dumb should\nchallenge double pity. As many another man has done since then, the\nsilent lover lost his head over a woman.\u201d\n\n\u201cThat\u2019s the King James version,\u201d retorted Sir Walter. \u201cIt seems to me\nthat your Majesty should confine yourself to rattling the skeletons in\nyour own Bluebeard\u2019s closet.\u201d\n\n\u201cI see you have a sharp tongue to match the edge of the axe which\nbrought you to your knees. You had a reason for what you did on earth,\nbut you lost your reason along with your head when you left the upper\nworld. By the shade of Anne Boleyn,\u201d went on the king, becoming more\nand more enraged as he proceeded, \u201cwere we on earth, your insolence\nshould cause you to swing from Tyburn\u2019s tree.\u201d\n\n\u201cYou can\u2019t string me up,\u201d sneered Raleigh. \u201cNo man ever made a monkey\nof me.\u201d\n\n\u201cNo, but a woman did. You can\u2019t cloak what you did for Elizabeth. Now\nAnne\u2014\u201d\n\n\u201cYou forget yourself,\u201d angrily interrupted Anne Boleyn, who had just\ncome upon the scene.\n\n\u201cBut you won\u2019t allow me to forget you!\u201d ruefully retorted the king.\n\n\u201cIt\u2019s time you came home, Henry. You\u2019ve been keeping altogether too\nlate hours at the club recently and I\u2019ve come to take you home.\u201d\n\n\u201cBut I had promised to take tea with Catharine Parr,\u201d rebelled Henry.\n\u201cYou know she is rightfully my wife.\u201d\n\n\u201cReally? You forget that decrees of divorce are not binding in Hades,\nwhether they have been executed by the hangsman or by the justice.\u201d\n\n\u201cI appeal to Judge Blackstone.\u201d\n\n\u201cThis is altogether without precedent, but I must support the lady,\u201d\nresponded the jurist, gallantly.\n\n\u201cThen take her. Bless you, my children. I\u2019ve no hard feelings, Anne.\nMay no decrees of court or fate terminate your second union. I\u2019ve\nsampled the wine of her womanhood, Judge, and as wine improves with\nage, it ought to be even better now than it was some hundreds of years\nago.\u201d\n\n\u201cIt isn\u2019t every man who would give his wife a recommendation,\u201d\ndiplomatically remarked Blackstone, alarmed at the construction Henry\nhad placed on his gallantry, and noting that Anne Boleyn seemed pleased\nthereby. \u201cI fear, however, that Satan would object to any but Lucifer\nmatches in Hades, so until you strike brimstone, Anne here is still\nyour wife.\u201d\n\n\u201cHow about the others?\u201d groaned Henry.\n\n\u201cYou must settle that with them,\u201d evaded the jurist. \u201cI think one wife\nwould be enough for me, but as you have made your harem, you can\u2019t lie\nout of it.\u201d\n\n\u201cHenry!\u201d The tone was threatening. The king meekly arose and cast an\nappealing glance at me.\n\n\u201cI would be delighted to have your company,\u201d he said. \u201cIn the olden\ndays I should have commanded, but Anne has taken the command from me.\nYou know I want you to denounce those hysterical novelists who have\ntaken liberties with my wives.\u201d\n\n\u201cI\u2019d like to see them take liberties with me,\u201d aggressively brindled\nmadam.\n\n\u201cThey couldn\u2019t do that,\u201d soothingly replied his Majesty. \u201cNo, they\npainted you in your true colors: a study in black and white.\u201d\n\n\u201cWhere do you live?\u201d I inquired.\n\n\u201cOn Eighth Avenue, of course,\u201d returned the king, as if that were a\nforegone conclusion. \u201cLucifer named and numbered the streets after\na recent visit to New York. Ward McAllister wanted me to live in\napartments at Twenty-third Street and Fifth Avenue, but the \u2018skidoo\nset\u2019 was not exclusive enough for me and I said I would live on Eighth\nAvenue or go back to England. Charon wouldn\u2019t listen to that, as he\nsaid I had given him only a single trip ticket. So I am domiciled on\nEighth Avenue, which we have now reached. Here I live with my six\nwives.\u201d\n\n\u201cSix?\u201d I exclaimed, as we entered the royal palace. \u201cI thought it was\neight wives. Why did they call you Henry the Eighth if it were not\nbecause of the number of your consorts? The only thing we Americans\nknow about you is that you had more wives than the law allows, and\ninstituted a church to enable you to get another.\u201d\n\n\u201cAmerica?\u201d muttered the king. \u201cI don\u2019t remember where that is. Down\nhere, however, we refer all questions of geography to Atlas. My dear,\nwon\u2019t you ask him to come here if he isn\u2019t too weary from carrying on\nhis shoulder the chip of a world which no one will knock off.\u201d\n\nBut Her Grace did not move.\n\n\u201cYour church was instituted too late to be binding on me,\u201d she said,\nher nose becoming an acute retrousse. \u201cThe word obey didn\u2019t cut any\nfigure in our matrimonial contract.\u201d\n\n\u201cIf I once chopped off your head, as the historians say, you\u2019ve snapped\nmine off since,\u201d grumbled his hen-pecked Majesty.\n\n\u201cMy head was divorced from my shoulders. I should have preferred the\ncourts of law to courting the axe.\u201d\n\n\u201cThere! don\u2019t cry or you will cause the carpet to mildew. My dear,\nnever try to salt down a man\u2019s affections with briny tears.\u201d\n\nA queenly woman entered the room. I arose to greet her. The king\u2019s fat\ninterfered with his gallantry; besides, the woman was his wife, which\nexplains while it does not justify.\n\n\u201cMy sister and my wife,\u201d said Henry, presenting me to Catharine of\nArragon. \u201cIt\u2019s the only case on record where a woman, after promising\nto be a man\u2019s sister, became his wife. Do you wonder that I began\nto feel quite rich in family relations? Although I murdered my\nsister-in-law, I left it to the punsters to murder the mothers-in-law\nwho came after me.\u201d\n\n\u201cThe historians say that my fall from kingly favor was a matter of\nconscience,\u201d mused Her Grace. \u201cDidn\u2019t the still small voice make itself\nheard when you severed the bonds of matrimony with your little hatchet?\u201d\n\n\u201cNot at all, Catharine. I left my conscience on the executioner\u2019s block\nto flirt with yours!\u201d\n\n\u201cAnd married again!\u201d\n\n\u201cOf course. Matrimony always had much attraction for me, although I\nrealize that a man had better fall into the sea than fall in love\nand marry. A corpse devoured by crabs is no less harrowing than the\nspectacle of a man devoured by love, and it is better to multiply\ncrabs than to multiply sinners and fools. Matrimony is a foretaste of\npurgatory to which no man should be called upon to submit before death.\u201d\n\n\u201cNo wonder you got dyspepsia and gout from indulging your taste.\u201d\n\n\u201cThere you are again, Anne, throwing ancient history in my teeth. Did\nyou ever hear how I got rid of the gout?\u201d\n\nI shook my head.\n\n\u201cAh, thank goodness, one incident of my life has escaped the novelists.\nLucifer is compiling a mammoth work \u2018Every Man His Own Historian\u2019 to\nwhich we are all contributing. It promises to to be one of the \u2018six\nbest sellers.\u2019 Permit me to read a chapter from my autobiography:\n\n\u201cI must have fallen asleep upon my throne. I dreamed that a great\niron safe had fallen upon my feet and awoke to find a hideous-looking\ncreature seated complacently upon my bandaged foot. I groaned and tried\nto shake him off, but he still clung there and the weight of his body\nseemed to be pushing red-hot needles into the swollen flesh.\n\n\u201cHe took off his cap with a courtly bow.\n\n\u201c\u2018Allow me to introduce myself as Mr. Gout, M. D.,\u2019 he said.\n\n\u201c\u2018What! you are Mr. Gout, who is responsible for my sufferings and you\nactually have the impudence to come here! Why, oh my foot!\u2019\n\n\u201c\u2018Do you know why I am so attentive to you?\u2019\n\n\u201c\u2018From pure cussedness, confound you! Ow-oh, I wish you would keep your\nattentions to yourself.\u2019\n\n\u201c\u2018That\u2019s the way of the world. A man is indiscreet, and when he has to\npay the penalty, lays the blame on some one else. My duty is to remind\nyou that you cannot abuse this body with impunity.\u2019\n\n\u201cThe hideous creature began to jump up and down on my foot. Maddened by\nthe pain, I picked up a heavy dictionary lying near and hurled seventy\nthousand words bound in calf at him. The aim was too low and Webster\nfell over my foot. Then I fainted. The Gout had gone!\u201d\n\n\u201cNow that you have disposed of Dr. Gout, let us go back to our original\nsubject\u2014women,\u201d I said, smiling. \u201cA man who has had six wives ought to\nhave some knowledge of the feminine character.\u201d\n\nJust then John Heyward entered. The king turned to him.\n\n\u201cJust in time, fool,\u201d he said. \u201cAnswer our American friend: What is a\nwoman?\u201d\n\n\u201c\u2018A rag and a bone and a hank of hair.\u2019 That sounds like a\nbefore-treatment advertisement, but is really original with Kipling.\nAs for myself, although a fool, I don\u2019t attempt to designate a woman\nby a descriptive tag, as if she were a special brand of chocolates. To\nman, woman is a sphinx endowed with a voice. He never gets more than\na telephonic acquaintance with her, and the woman always hangs up the\nreceiver and monopolizes the transmitter.\u201d\n\n\u201cListen to the words of a wise fool who wears a dunce cap for a crown,\u201d\napproved Henry. \u201cRight you are, Heyward, and one woman is very much\nlike another.\u201d\n\n\u201cI beg to differ,\u201d said the poet. \u201cWomen are different, not only in\ntheir baptismal labels, but in that some women have a husband and\nothers have a cat. Women have often been compared to cats, but did\nyou ever contrast cats and men? Thomas never throws his mother in the\nface of his wife. He keeps his own whiskers trimmed and stays home\nnights. He does not come back to the partner of his bosom at three A.\nM. with a diagonal gait and an asinine gayety, chewing the butt of a\ncigar and talking in a tongue that is as unsteady as his legs. Nor does\nTommy slam the door in fourteen languages when Kitty asks how that\nblonde hair came on his coat. But we\u2019re all human. If you\u2019re hunting\nfor a perfect woman, stop\u2014she\u2019s dead; if for a perfect man, you\u2019re a\nfool. Elijahs are no longer translated without being prepared for the\nundertaker. Yet methinks that if one could forget other folks\u2019 mistakes\nas easily as one\u2019s own, there would be less scandal.\u201d\n\nHe turned to Catharine Parr.\n\n\u201cOne thing has always puzzled me. Why is it that women prefer to be old\nmen\u2019s darlings, that you enjoy being clouds in the sunset\u2019s glow rather\nthan in the noontide glory?\u201d\n\n\u201cThe setting sun always gives a golden lining to the clouds it\nembraces, but to drop the figurative\u2014we are soaring rather high\u2014and\ncome down to earth, women marry old men so that they may soon become\nwidows.\u201d\n\nHenry nervously tried to adjust an imaginary crown that weighed heavily\non his head.\n\n\u201cSeymour plucked the weeds from the garden of your widowed life before\nthe first blade of grass had pushed up from a newly-made grave. O\nInconstancy! O Woman! Of two things, one. Orpheus went to Hell to find\nhis wife. He failed to win her from her refuge in the shades because\nhe looked back to discern her features. Had Euridice retraced the path\nfrom Hell without bringing with her surcease from domestic woe, Orpheus\nwould have wished her back down that familiar track. I wish he would\npay us another visit. I\u2019d loan him five of mine.\u201d\n\n\u201cWhich wife would you retain?\u201d asked Catharine Howard.\n\n\u201cCatharine,\u201d answered Henry, diplomatically.\n\nAll three who bore that name beamed with gratification.\n\n\u201cCatharine is always at Parr,\u201d continued the king. His fondness for\npunning nearly proved his undoing.\n\n\u201cI\u2019m not below Parr,\u201d angrily exclaimed Catharine of Arragon. \u201cI come\nbefore her.\u201d\n\n\u201cNo, you came,\u201d corrected the king. \u201cIt\u2019s merely a question of tense.\nMany a woman promises to be a sister to the devil who has never\nreceived a proposal.\u201d\n\n\u201cThat\u2019s a good one on you!\u201d laughed the fool. \u201cHer Grace of Arragon\npromised to be a sister to you! What do you say to that?\u201d\n\n\u201cMy answer is written in history. \u2018The Lord gave and the Lord hath\ntaken away,\u2019 for which \u2018blessed be the name of the Lord.\u2019 I replaced\nmy wives, so that the supply would always equal the demand. I believed\nthat as long as the Lord took, it was my duty to take.\u201d\n\nThe king paused long enough to drink a cup of pink tea and to eat some\nbreaded calves\u2019 brains for inspiration.\n\n\u201cWhen trouble comes,\u201d continued Henry, \u201csome people fly to matrimony,\nthinking drink too vulgar.\u201d\n\n\u201cYour troubles have been many, judging by your marital intemperance.\u201d\n\n\u201cThey were, but my troubles always came singly,\u201d chuckled the king. \u201cAs\nfast as I executed one, another came, but I made sure I was off with\nthe old head before I coveted the new.\u201d\n\n\u201cThe only bright thing an American can remember to have heard Punch\nsay is \u2018don\u2019t\u2019 when matrimony is on the horizon, but then Punch is\nEnglish and England has no Ali Ben Theodore\u2014peace to his Strenuosity\u2014to\nturn the throne into a pulpit for dissertations on vital statistics\nin the hope that he may make census taking an unnecessary burden\nof government. Modern philologists were seriously considering the\nadvisability of eliminating the word \u2018papa\u2019 from the dictionary, when\nthe leading exponent of the life effective raised the question as to\nwhy mamma\u2019s lap wasn\u2019t filled. When the president becomes advance agent\nfor the stork hope is born, but if the stork continues to be derelict\nin its duties, we might give the eagle a trial in an endeavor to have\nthis statistical indictment set aside.\u201d\n\n\u201cWhat does Mr. Roosevelt know about the rights of unattached\nbachelors?\u201d asked Catharine the Third. \u201cHe isn\u2019t a bachelor and never\nwas one; he was born domestic and to the domestic man nothing ever\nhappens\u2014except the buying of more cradles.\u201d\n\n\u201cA woman\u2019s tongue is as full of sharp points as a porcupine,\u201d observed\nHenry, who was inordinately fond of epigrammes. \u201cBut never mind,\nKittens, I am the last man in the world who would deprive you of\nwoman\u2019s inalienable rights\u2014love, license, and the pursuit of man.\u201d\n\n\u201cTheir Majesties are looking well and youthful,\u201d I said, with a gesture\nthat included all the wives of the much-married king.\n\n\u201cOne never grows any older in Hades,\u201d answered Henry. \u201cThat explains\nits attraction for women, and why the devil has so many votaries among\nthe fair sex!\u201d\n\n\u201cAn exclamation point often hides a pointless period. When a man talks\nepigrammatically about woman, it is a sign that he doesn\u2019t understand\nher.\u201d\n\nAnd being a woman, Catharine Parr had the last word.\n\n\n\n\n                       WHAT METHUSELAH THINKS OF\n                              DR. OSLER.\n\n\n                              CHAPTER V.\n\n                 What Methuselah Thinks of Dr. Osler.\n\n\n\u201cO that mine adversary had written a book!\u201d\n\n\u201cThe most miserable man in Hades is no longer Job but Methuselah,\u201d\nwhispered Anon. \u201cEver since Dr. Osler celebrated his departure for\nEngland by proposing a wholesale slaughter of the innocent aged,\nMethuselah has had to take a seat on the sinners\u2019 bench. It was\nformerly considered an honor to be an old man, even in Hades, but now\nit is a disgrace not to have died young. The other day, Cain, who is\nthe bad boy of the underworld, gave Methuselah as a birthday present\na collection of thirty-six bottles of chloroform, one for each sixty\nyears of his earthly age. Then the lad, who is Satan\u2019s chief imp, put a\nplacard on Methuselah\u2019s back reading \u2018Oslerized.\u2019\u201d\n\n\u201cThere comes a time in every man\u2019s life when he wishes for Herod\u2019s\npower, that he might order all children killed\u2014except his own!\u201d\nmuttered the old man. \u201cBut I had my revenge: I was Abel to raise Cain\nover a foot.\u201d\n\n    \u201cUnder a spreading chestnut tree,\n    The ancient jokesmith lies,\u201d\n\nhummed Longfellow.\n\n\u201cThat is a prehistoric relic which leaked from the Ark when we grounded\non Mt. Ararat,\u201d volunteered Noah. \u201cI sprung that \u2018raising Cain\u2019 joke on\nMrs. Noah, but you know a woman has no sense of humor and she said she\nhad her hands full without working the adoption degree.\u201d\n\n\u201c\u2018O, that mine adversary had written a book!\u2019\u201d reiterated Methuselah.\n\n\u201cHe has; your wish is fulfilled.\u201d\n\nIt was a newcomer who spoke. All eyes were turned upon him as\nMethuselah asked:\n\n\u201cWho are you?\u201d\n\n\u201cA. Hasbeen, M.D., late secretary of the Os-slurs Chloroforming\nInstitute of Baltimore. To-day I became a back number\u201460\u2014which entitled\nme to a painless passing, the an\u00e6sthetic being administered by Dr.\nSenile. But there was no need of the old men getting angry at what Dr.\nOsler said about them. He intended it only for advertising purposes.\nHaving got himself talked into notoriety, his publishers have announced\nthat a book by the doctor is in press.\u201d\n\n\u201cThen am I revenged indeed! \u00c6sthetic as he is, Dr. Osler will wish that\nhe had taken an an\u00e6sthetic before the book reviewers get through with\nhim. Oh, for the fatally facile pen of the bright and bitter Corelli!\u201d\n\n\u201cAnthony Trollope says he said it first.\u201d\n\n\u201cOh, the idea is itself old enough to be chloroformed,\u201d explained Dr.\nHasbeen. \u201cOsler has been trying to explain that it was all a jest, but\nthe public refuses to take him in earnest: a comedian never can become\na tragedian. It only goes to show that, although Barnum may be right\nin his opinion that the American people like to be fooled, they won\u2019t\nswallow a joke that is thrust down their throats and smile over it, and\nthey do not want their sense of the ludicrous drugged by an overdose of\nchloroform.\u201d\n\n\u201cI may be a member of the silent majority,\u201d went on Methuselah, \u201cbut\nthis insult to age would put speech in the most chapfallen mummy,\nhowever it might be pressed for time. Notified to quit thinking at\nforty and to stop living at sixty! Why, in my day, a man hadn\u2019t cut\nhis wisdom tooth then! I\u2019m inclined to think that Dr. Osler still has\nsome teeth to cut. Man, like wine, improves with age. Before making\nthat speech the doctor should have put on his old slippers; then nobody\nwould have known where the shoe pinched him.\u201d\n\n\u201cI wonder how long it took Osler to sober up after that intemperate\nspeech? Nobody ever heard of him until he approached the danger line of\nencroaching years. What has he been doing in the past? Doubtless he is\nno different from the ordinary man, who remains a dormant factor until\nhe comes to years of discretion, which is more likely to be sixty than\nsixteen. Before that time, he courts women and wine more assiduously\nthan wisdom and common sense.\u201d\n\n\u201cA man\u2019s early life is too much taken up with breach-of-promise cases,\ndivorces and the stock exchange to care whether or not the world owes\nhim a living or to take the trouble to collect it. Though the financial\nacumen of Humpty Dumpty does not make Wall Street tremble, it tumbles\nto a good thing long before he takes a fall to himself. The bears come\nout of their pits and the bulls leave their greenbacks to seek other\nand greener goods to devour.\u201d\n\n\u201cYou know \u2018there is no fool like an old fool,\u2019\u201d I ventured to quote.\n\n\u201c\u2018Young men think old men are fools; but old men know young men are\nfools\u2019; they\u2019ve been there themselves,\u201d retorted Methuselah.\n\n\u201cIt is easy to mould even stubborn facts by applying the sparks from\nthe thought anvils of dead men\u2019s minds, which the world accepts because\nthe men are dead and not because the sparks burn with living truth.\n\n\u201cProverbs, not men, should be sacrificed on the altar of antiquity.\n\n    \u201c\u2018At thirty man suspects himself a fool;\n    Knows it at forty and reforms his plan.\u2019\u201d\n\n\u201cThank you, Young,\u201d said Methuselah, gratefully. \u201cYour \u2018Night Thoughts\u2019\nhave shed light on a dark subject. Young is older in wisdom than his\nname implies, for a man does not get his mental equilibrium until the\npendulum is swinging to the west, and he becomes too old to wallow in\nchampagne or to eat lobster suppers with a peroxide blonde. A man\u2019s\nlegs may be in a forced retreat to the grave, but his brain remains\nmore active in the world\u2019s service than that of the youngster under\nforty, who develops the muscle in his arms at the expense of the gray\nmatter in his brain. It is only the callow youth who suffers from\nsoftening of the brain. The man at sixty has more dollars in his cellar\nand more sense in his garret than the fool of thirty has cents in his\npocket. Yet youth and age are not antagonistic; they are like the two\nparts of a pair of scissors in the work of the world: \u2018useless each\nwithout the other.\u2019\u201d\n\n\u201cDon\u2019t you think that Dr. Osler promulgated his theory of earthly\neradication at the suggestion of a feminine relative?\u201d\n\n\u201cThat would not be surprising. Women are apt to see the defects of an\naged man of talent and the merits of a young fool. It is possible that\nsome woman in the Osler family is weary of being an old man\u2019s darling\nand wants to squeeze him out, unless he can produce the elixir of\nFaust.\u201d\n\n\u201cThat\u2019s the solution. The women are determined to have something to\nsqueeze, even if they have to stifle their embraces in chloroform and\nlet their affections go to \u2018weeds.\u2019 Woman is a poppy that exhales\nher perfume only in the shade. It may be that somebody else has said\nthat after me, for Osler implies that the oldest inhabitant is only a\nreminiscence of what isn\u2019t so. Who was the author, Bartlett?\u201d\n\n\u201cThat is not a \u2018Familiar Quotation,\u2019\u201d answered Bartlett, after a\nhurried consultation with Dr. Johnson and Roget. \u201cTherefore, it must\nbelong to Anon; he claims everything to which other people cannot prove\ntheir title. It seems to me that you are getting so independent that\nyou even rebel against your metaphors. You call woman a fragrant poppy\nin the shade, in apparent ignorance of the fact that in Hades, where\nall women have shady characters, there is no perfume. You poets can\nscent everything but the bloom of truth.\u201d\n\n\u201cOh, well, you\u2019re not so fragrant,\u201d said Anon, slangily. \u201cYou only\ngathered a posie of other men\u2019s flowers, while I furnished the thread\nwhich bound them. But we have lost the thread of this discourse. It\nseems to me that if the lethal chamber were to become popular, a man\nwould have to begin putting his affairs in order almost as soon as he\nhad ceased to ask his mother-in-law if he might kiss his wife.\u201d\n\n\u201cThat\u2019s one thing which has struck me as odd,\u201d I said. \u201cWhat particular\nplace of torment has been reserved for the mothers-in-law? I haven\u2019t\nseen one since I came to Hades.\u201d\n\n\u201cNor are you likely to do so,\u201d chuckled Anon. \u201cMothers-in-law go to\nParadise without any preliminary probation. Adam had no mother-in-law,\nyou know, so he insisted that he wasn\u2019t going to put up with any one\u2019s\nelse. Lucifer was glad to accede to Adam\u2019s request for banishing these\nmarital appendages, for he feared that if he allowed the mothers-in-law\nto enter Hades, he would be out of a job within twenty-four hours. No\nman ever doubted that his wife\u2019s mother could outpoint the devil.\u201d\n\nI glanced in alarm at Dr. Roget, who appeared to be choking, but soon\nI discovered that he was merely swallowing half a dozen pages of his\n\u201cThesaurus\u201d preparatory to communicating his ideas to us. He spoke\nslowly, biting off a word, chewing it until it was thoroughly digested,\nand then spitting it forth with the retort of a verbal bomb. His speech\nlasted as long as the paper held out, which he later explained by\nsaying that he never could speak without notes.\n\n\u201cIf the world knew that the mother-in-law is a rarer bird in Hades than\na political blackbird hanging over both sides of the fence under the\nplum tree, the earth would be depopulated faster by that news than by\nthe Oslerized process. Charon would have to charter all the world\u2019s\nwarships for transports and each man in Hades would have to make a\njack o\u2019 lantern of his skull to prevent being run down by the crowd\nof onrushing shades. Hades would no longer be a country of suburban\ncottages but a Hell of Harlem flats.\u201d\n\n\u201cWe are wandering farther away from the subject under discussion than\nany convention of preachers I ever knew,\u201d said David. \u201cIsn\u2019t it about\ntime we had a text? I would suggest: \u2018And Saul took the sword and fell\nupon it.\u2019\u201d\n\n\u201cYou see I didn\u2019t have Dr. Osler for a medical adviser,\u201d explained\nSaul. \u201cIn my day, when we wanted to shorten the duration of our stay on\nthat planet called the earth, we cut it. Methinks an opiate would have\ndeadened the edge of the sword when I walked the plank.\u201d\n\n\u201cDr. Osler has gone me one better,\u201d said David. \u201cHe has revised the\nPsalms to read: The days of a man are two score years, and if, by\nreason of any extraordinary fund of vitality, he shall linger around\nuntil he is three score without the ten, he had better get a hustle on\nand remove himself, for he is in the way of some one else.\u201d\n\n\u201cLike an emetic, one thing brings up another,\u201d put in Methuselah,\nanxious to throw up his grievance. \u201cHaving told us it is one\u2019s duty to\ndismiss himself from the world, this authority very kindly suggested\nthat a particular an\u00e6sthetic would be the best means for one\u2019s\ntransfer out of time. The edict has gone forth: All out at sixty. When\nthe census-taker makes his rounds, he will say: \u2018Age, if you please?\nSixty? Kindly step into the asphyxiation chamber or into the ambulance\nwhere you will find a bottle awaiting you. Good-night\u2019. Night, when\ndeep sleep falleth upon man, has come too early. When a babe, he\nsmelleth the bottle afar off and lo! children cry for the soothing\nsyrup which the man would fain put away. Before his eye is dimmed by\nthe sunset glow, the light of his life is quenched in four ounces of\nchloroform.\n\n\u201cAccording to this medical expert,\u201d continued Methuselah, \u201cwhen a man\nproposes to celebrate his sixtieth birthday by emigrating beyond the\nStyx, he is to buy a ticket and pay for it with poison or pistol. He is\nthen fit only for the doctor and the refuse heap. Has it come to this?\nNo twentieth century painless surgery for me, thank you. Long life is\nno longer a thing to long for. I would prefer to be kissed not by the\ndews of night but by the salutation of the glorious morning.\u201d\n\n\u201c\u2018Rejoice, O young man, in thy youth,\u2019\u201d exclaimed Solomon, who still\nthe wisest of men, had hitherto kept silent. He was addressing\nMethuselah. \u201cOne may no longer tarry until his beard is grown and his\nhair is dyed. No longer may he come to his grave in a full age like as\na shock of corn cometh in his season, and though it may go against the\ngrain, the Grim Reaper stalks through the field, stopping up the ears\nwith Osler\u2019s Death Drugs.\u201d\n\n\u201cThe doctor is an homeopathist,\u201d observed Sherlock Holmes, in a tone so\ndecided that it left no question for argument.\n\n\u201cI\u2019m not Watson,\u201d I responded, \u201cbut of course I know you want some one\nto ask you how you know. Just to be accommodating, allow me to inquire\nhow you can tell that Dr. Osler is an homeopathist when you haven\u2019t\neven the ashes of his cigar to analyze? Do you mean because of small\ndoses?\u201d\n\n\u201cNo; like cures like. Old men being a drug on the market, it takes\na drug to remove them. Had he consulted me I would have recommended\ncocaine instead of chloroform.\u201d\n\n\u201cDo you think that Dr. Osler will take his own medicine when the frost\nis on the temples and the an\u00e6sthetic\u2019s handy?\u201d\n\n\u201cDoctors never do. That may be because of professional etiquette, but\nit is more likely that the physicians recognize the truth of the saying\nabout self-preservation being the first law of nature. Some doctors\nare so conscientious that they would rather be murdered by another\nphysician than commit suicide themselves. You may depend upon it that\nthere is no chloroform in Dr. Osler\u2019s family medicine chest; he keeps\nit only for his patients!\u201d\n\n\n\n\n[Illustration: _The Virgin Throned in the West. Chapter VI_]\n\n\n                       THE VIRGIN THRONED IN THE\n                       WEST: A TABLOID TANGLE OF\n                           LOVE AND HISTORY.\n\n\n                              CHAPTER VI.\n\n The Virgin Throned in the West: A Tabloid Tangle of Love and History.\n\n\nIt was with no little trepidation that I mounted the steps of the\nsummer palace of Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth, and knocked timidly at\nthe door. Had I not been somewhat dazed by the nature of my mission,\nI might have noticed an electric bell somewhere around, but who ever\nheard of a bell on a palace door? That would be in violation of all\nethics of the made-to-order novel. I had determined to see nothing\nbut what I wished to see and to brush the dust from my knowledge of\nroyalty\u2014gleaned from the historical novels which tell of everything\nunder the sun except history\u2014so I bridled my patience and gave my\nimagination a free rein. That\u2019s a hobby of mine.\n\nAs I closed my eyes and waited with an unuttered prayer that there\nmight be no dungeon beneath this castle wall, I felt a queer sensation\nin my left side. Twice before I had undergone a similar experience.\nOnce I had called an imperious maiden \u201cmy queen\u201d and the lover who is\nin the background of every girl butted into the foreground and knocked\nme out of the centre of the stage. The other occasion is too painful to\nrecall and not at all humorous, so I will lose the thread of memory and\nresume the thread of my discourse.\n\nI believe I left myself on the palace portico, with my hands clasped\nover the hollow place caused by a missing rib, which is the only legacy\nleft by an ancestor who was too fond of stolen pippins. Since then I\nhave become convinced that the ache was owing to an uneasy conscience;\nbut then I thought it was only my heart. Outside the palace I had one\nkind of heart disease; would I contract the other kind within the\nwalls I had forgotten that it takes two to make a contract and had\nreckoned without my queen and with an utter disregard of the rules of\nmathematics. But there are exceptions to rules; why not to rulers?\n\nI continued to stand outside the palace. Perhaps you wonder at that,\nbut the reason is simple: the door was closed and, moreover, it was\nlocked. I am no Sherlock Holmes, nor do I smoke, so I couldn\u2019t deduce\nfrom the ashes of a cigar how I could get that door between me and the\nstreet. There was nothing to do but wait.\n\nAnd wait I did. Somehow, I didn\u2019t mind it, for you see I was waiting\non a queen. I had waited on other girls with more impatience and more\ncandied sweetness. Every woman\u2019s idea of a sensible man is one who\nwill make a fool of himself over her and if it pleases her, he doesn\u2019t\nobject to playing court jester. That\u2019s what we men are here for\u2014to\nprevent women from being bored by the society of their own sex.\n\nFinally I was admitted. Just how I seem to have forgotten. Let me\nrecall my lessons in memory-training-by-the-aid-of association:\n\nRule one is to begin at the beginning. Eve began it; she added Adam;\nunited they stood: over an apple paring they fell; that\u2019s it\u2014I took a\ntumble to myself, which is neither slang nor a figure of speech. I had\nbeen leaning against the door, and as my spirits grew more heavy, it\nwas more than the door hinged on. We parted company and as I lay upon\nthe floor I felt quite prostrated over it. I lost my dignity and my\nwatch; then I lost my time but not my temper, although I had fallen\ninto a compost of lime and sand left as a trap by one of the palace\nworkmen.\n\n\u201cAre you hurt?\u201d inquired a man-of-arms, as I picked myself out of the\nmortar.\n\n\u201cOh, no,\u201d I answered, the ready tears starting sympathetically. \u201cI\u2019m\nnot hurt but I feel rather mortified!\u201d\n\nWhen I told the man in waiting that I had come to see the queen, he\nlooked doubtful and made a half audible remark about somebody rushing\nin and about downtrodden angels. It was an unfamiliar quotation and as\nI had no copy of Bartlett\u2019s handy, I did not take his \u201cposie of other\nmen\u2019s flowers\u201d to myself. Had there been any stairs on which to fight I\nmight have emulated the \u201cgentleman of France,\u201d but I come from another\ncountry where elevators have killed romance as well as other things.\n\nAnother wait. I still smarted from contact with the lime, and feeling a\nhumiliating sense of my own unworthiness, I meekly made myself small.\nWhen She entered I began to shrivel until I felt like unleaded agate\nafter being thrown into the \u201chell box.\u201d\n\nGood Queen Bess is every inch a queen, even to her feet. \u201cSweet and\ntwenty\u201d she was\u2014at one time; I can vouch for the qualifying adjective,\nif not for the noun, and to be sweet is better than to be queen, for to\nbe queen it is only necessary to be born beneath a canopy embroidered\nwith the regal R. Although I thought of Shakespeare\u2019s phrase, I did not\ngive utterance to the invitation which preceded it; you recollect the\nline: \u201cThen come kiss me, sweet and twenty.\u201d\n\nIt isn\u2019t given to every man to be as bold as Shakespeare, even though\nhe may be more alive to present opportunities.\n\nNow, according to court etiquette, a subject dare not address his\nsovereign until he is spoken to, so I simply stood and looked\nunutterable things. Her gaze fell. The pause was becoming embarrassing.\n\n\u201cWell,\u201d she said finally.\n\nThat wasn\u2019t what I had expected at all. All the books I had ever read\nabout queens had quoted the ruler thusly: \u201cHer Majesty is graciously\npleased to incline her ear that she may hear the prayer of her\nservant.\u201d I noticed that her ears kept their normal position, but I was\nnot inclined to be fastidious: the queen had spoken!\n\nMy lips being now unlocked, I told who I was.\n\n\u201cOh, to be sure,\u201d Her Grace said, with ready recollection. \u201cYou are\nthe novelist who said so many nice things about me in \u2018The Virgin\nThroned in the West.\u2019 You possess the first requisite of a courtier: a\nknowledge of the gentle art of flattery. Your compliments\u2014\u201d\n\n\u201cSpare me, good Queen,\u201d I interrupted. \u201cI must confess that I wrote\nthat eulogy before I had seen your Majesty.\u201d\n\nThe queen frowned just a little.\n\n\u201cWhy need you have said that?\u201d she asked. \u201cEven an immortal queen is\nenough like her mortal sisters not to relish a stab at vanity. You men\npraise us women and then ruffle our hair by saying you didn\u2019t mean it.\nOf course, we forgive you, but to forget is not so easy. Under the\nscar, the wound still aches.\u201d\n\nEver since then I have believed that a man should be arrested for\nexposing the naked truth.\n\n\u201cIn that book you also paid tender tribute to the babies, though I fail\nto see what they have to do with an old maid queen who achieved fame\nbut not matrimony. Let us hope that tribute, at least, is sincere.\u201d\n\n\u201cNo, only sentimental. I wrote that eulogy far from the maddening\nchild, with naught but memory to lend wings to the imagination. I love\nto play with other people\u2019s toddling darlings until there is a cry of\ndistress from the interior department, in which case distance lends\nenchantment to the point of view. I have not always said nice things\nabout babies, for, as I heard Methuselah say, there comes a time in the\nlife of every man when he sighs for the power of Herod that he might\norder all children killed. Methuselah excepted his own; I don\u2019t.\u201d\n\n\u201cThat is cruel,\u201d Her Serenity observed.\n\n\u201cI crave Your Grace\u2019s pardon,\u201d I disagreed; \u201cit is true: that is all.\u201d\n\n\u201cTruth never masquerades in the domino of drollity.\u201d\n\n\u201cThy reproof, O Queen, is deserved. Would that I were Boswell to\npreserve in the amber of biography the gems which fall from the lips of\na Doctress Johnson.\u201d\n\n\u201cScribe, know you not that a woman would rather you praised her face\nthan her mind, and her bonnet rather than her \u2018blue stockings\u2019? Why\nwrite what you don\u2019t believe?\u201d\n\n\u201cHad my eyes been gladdened by the sight of your charms, fair Queen,\u201d\nI boldly asserted, \u201cI should have thrown off the fetters of prose and\nsoared to the Mount of Parnassus, there to coronate you in verse with\nfeet iambic.\u201d\n\n\u201cPerhaps the feet might limp\u2014I mean they would, of course, be limpidly\nlyrical. But my poet laureate, don\u2019t metrically measure My Majesty.\nCork the rhythmic bottle and all shall be forgiven. And now you may\ntell me your mission.\u201d\n\n\u201cI\u2019ve come to interview you,\u201d I blurted out, instinctively putting my\nhand on my vest pocket, in which was a bottle of aromatic spirits of\nammonia. But Her Grace has a spirit of her own and needed none of mine.\nThere was no evidence of vertigo.\n\n\u201cDon\u2019t be alarmed,\u201d I hastened to say. It was a needless assurance, but\naccording to all precedent, I was expected to make the observation. \u201cI\nwrote the interview before I came down here to see you, and it is now\nin type with a turn rule at the end for fear it should not measure up\nto expectations. This call is a mere matter of form.\u201d\n\n\u201cBut how\u201d\u2014\n\n\u201cThat\u2019s a secret. Instead of answering your question, allow me to ask\nyou another. Suppose you were again an earthly ruler with unlimited\npower, what would you do?\u201d\n\n\u201cI hardly know,\u201d she confessed naively and added: \u201cBut I think my first\nmove would be to curb the freedom of the press by pensioning off all\nthe newspaper men, so that we celebrities might have our fanciful fads\nwithout being interviewed. Not that I object to the interview or to the\ninterviewer. \u2018Truth is stranger than fiction\u2019\u2014to most men.\u201d\n\n\u201cAnd fiction is more interesting than truth and much more believable\u2014to\nmost women,\u201d I retorted. \u201cYou know Heine says that woman is at once\napple and serpent. I have never dissented from that view, for apple\nsass and serpents\u2019 tongues have always been the desserts woman serves\nup to man. Eve plucked the first fruit from the forbidden tree, but\nmany another fair hand has since robbed the genealogical orchard. Thus\ndo we ape our ancestors.\u201d\n\n\u201cPoor Eve!\u201d sympathized the queen. \u201cHer daughters have often taken a\nbite of the enticing apple, but unlike their mother, it does not open\ntheir eyes to man\u2019s true nature.\u201d\n\n\u201cI have often wondered,\u201d I went on, not heeding the amused smile of\nher Majesty, \u201cwhy God didn\u2019t make a dozen women instead of one out of\nAdam\u2019s rib, but I\u2019ve come to the conclusion that Eden would no longer\nhave been Paradise to Eve if she had had a rival.\u201d\n\n\u201cWhere is man\u2019s boasted chivalry?\u201d suddenly asked Elizabeth. \u201cSir\nWalter never struck a woman with the whip of sarcasm.\u201d\n\n\u201cWith his cloak wrapped about her, she couldn\u2019t feel the sting of\nsatire,\u201d I retorted.\n\n\u201cDid you ever hear how I repaid Sir Walter for his gallantry? We had\ngone to London to attend the coronation of King Edward the Seventh. One\nof the streets we had to cross was so muddy that we paused in dismay. A\nnewsboy brushed up against me. Taking the papers from under his arm I\ntossed them into the street.\u201d\n\n\u201c\u2018Tut! tut! keep on your coat, Sir Walter,\u2019 I said. \u2018Allow me to pilot\nyou to yonder pavement dryshod.\u2019\u201d\n\n\u201c\u2018Who says that chivalry is dead?\u2019 quoth Sir Walter.\n\n\u201c\u2018Am I not dead?\u2019\u201d I asked.\n\n\u201c\u2018Good Queen Bess will never die,\u2019 responded the baronet, with ready\nwit. Then he laughed as the newsboy picked up his papers from the muddy\nstreet, loudly bewailing the prank of the wind which had spoiled his\nstock in trade.\u201d\n\nElizabeth again did violence to my conceptions of royalty by laughing\nat her own wit; then she said:\n\n\u201cSir Scribe, it seems to me that you haven\u2019t progressed well with your\ninterview. You haven\u2019t once indulged in those misfit personalities\nwhich bring your American papers so many libel suits. When I received\nyour card I anticipated that I should be discussed by myself and\ndissected by you. I expected you would be concerned as to whether my\nancestors belonged to that little company of gentlemen who jumped from\ntree to tree in Africa and was prepared to tell you, as I have told\nDarwin, that even a baboon can have a respectable daughter!\u201d\n\nBeing a blue point is not conducive to successful interviewing, so I\nshook off my lethargy and asked as to her favorite flower.\n\n\u201cThat is better,\u201d approved her Grace. \u201cI have two favorites\u2014bachelors\u2019\nbuttons and mock orange blossoms.\u201d\n\n\u201cIf not yourself, who would you rather be?\u201d\n\n\u201cThe author of one of the six \u2018best sellers.\u2019\u201d\n\n\u201cWho is your favorite character in history?\u201d\n\n\u201cI really must decline to answer.\u201d\n\nI did not press the point, for one naturally looks for modesty in a\nVirgin Queen.\n\n\u201cDo you mind telling me in what epoch you would have chosen to live?\u201d\n\n\u201cThe reign of Terrible Teddy, by all means. Hesiod says there are five\nages of the world; how is yours designated: golden, brazen, or\u2014?\u201d\n\n\u201cThis is the age of folly\u2014the folly of flesh,\u201d I answered. \u201cHigher\ncritics deny the decalogue and bone Jonah\u2019s fish until it resembles\nan eel. Even our modern writers play ping pong with hearts and the\nseventh commandment, for to them love is nothing unless it brings\nin ten per cent royalty. Society has become sensuous; we are having\nrather too much of the body. The corsage serves no purpose but to\nhide the heart; bosom and back are bared before the footlights while\ngartered grace trips tantalizingly in the limelight. Soul has sunk\nbeneath the seductions of the senses. The demon of desire so entices\nmen that for the amorous allurement of Kipling\u2019s Vampire\u2014the woman who\ndid not care\u2014they would go to Hell and consider the trip an enjoyable\nexcursion. Has virtue fled to hide its blushes in a nunnery and is\nthere no longer a shrine of sex? Is \u2018Don Juan\u2019 to be deified and\n\u2018Camille\u2019 to be glorified? Will\u2014but in deference to Colonel Comstock, I\nreally must desist.\u201d\n\n\u201cWherefore so pessimistic\u2014jaundiced or jilted?\u201d\n\n\u201cMore likely I\u2019m dyspeptic.\u201d\n\n\u201cDon\u2019t deny it; a lost love is the only justification of a man\u2019s being\na misanthropist and a misogynist.\u201d\n\n\u201cWon\u2019t you kindly translate or at least tell me the language? Emerson\nalways was a voiceless sphinx to me and foreign tongues are not\narticulate to ears deafened by the slang of the streets.\u201d\n\n\u201cDon\u2019t be silly! Your idiomatic Americanisms make muddy the well of\nEnglish undefiled, but methinks the water is the clearer and the more\nsparkling after each stirring up.\n\n\u201cIf you will promise no more interruptions, I will continue my lecture:\nYour eyes are too far gazing into the bygone to know to-day\u2019s bliss\nor to foresee a confident tomorrow. You are forgetting that while\nlife roots in the past, it flowers in the present. To never exchange\nloving glances with the maiden of the moment, but to dishonor the day\nby looking off into the eyes of some dream darling who cannot come to\nyour bosom is like another Enoch Arden\u2019s hopeless gaze for a sail that\nnever brings him again to the kisses of Annie Lee. If I mistake not,\nyour name is a patent of your English ancestry, but without that leaf\nfrom your family tree, I should recognize you as a countryman; to be\nloyal to a sweetheart clasped and lost is possible only to the man\nwhose cradle rocked between the English Channel and the Irish Sea. The\nAnglo-Saxon alone of all peoples can become a martyr to a memory.\u201d\n\nWhatever will power I possessed was necessary to keep my eyes away from\nthe \u201cmaiden of the moment.\u201d English blood may be phlegmatic enough to\nturn into ice water, but a twenty-years\u2019 acquaintance with American\ngirls will thaw the most frozen cardiac organ and render it susceptible\nto the wiles of any witch of a woman who in other days might have\nhanged at Salem. Elizabeth\u2019s very voice was a caress and sometimes a\nman forgets to pray, \u201cLead me not into temptation!\u201d\n\n\u201cThe sweeter memories are in themselves,\u201d I murmured, \u201cthe more loth\none is to share them with another. If it please Your Grace, we won\u2019t\ndiscuss the\u2014the \u2018other girl.\u2019 When a man proposes and the woman\ndisposes of him by a verbal spanking, sending him away, it may be to\nthe embraces of another girl, it may be to cherish a memory, he is\nseldom in a frame of mind inculcated by gospel precepts. Gratitude\ncomes later. Yet whether a man marries or whether he remains true to\nhis ideal, he never loves any other woman quite so much as she who was\npitiless to his pleading. Man\u2019s heart is not like a Manhattan hall room\nwith space for only one pair of shoes under the bed, but it is a St.\nRegis, in which there are no vacant guest chambers. The cosiest corner\nof a man\u2019s heart is always reserved for the woman who has refused his\nhand.\u201d\n\nHer Majesty threw up her hands in a pretty gesture of mock dismay.\n\n\u201cA misogamist also! I am just dying with curiosity to know what\nterrible things my sex have done to you to make you a hater of men,\nof women and of marriage. Because some sunflower of a girl has turned\nher face to another son is no excuse for you to sulk behind a cloud.\nThis may be the age of folly, as you claim, but don\u2019t you think that\nthe greatest fool is he who allows a slip of a girl to rob him of his\n_couleur de rose_ spectacles? Come now, \u2019fess up! Aren\u2019t you making a\nhobby of being a hypochondriac? If you linger among the graves of the\ngloaming with a heart so full of shadows and eyes so abrim with tears\nthat you cannot see beauty as it is born, you corrupt the present. If\nyou fellowship with to-day, it will bestow upon you its purple. If you\nbid away the hour that is here to make you happy, all the grief of\nNiobe will not win it back again. To-day is a nomad who tarries awhile,\nthen folds his tent and whistles away on his happy gypsy journey, never\nto return.\u201d\n\n\u201cAren\u2019t we getting rather too philosophical for actors in an _opera\nbouffe_ and too solemn for characters in an hysterical novel; nobody\ntakes history seriously nowadays. This is the hour of hyperbole as\nwell as the age of folly and my indictment of fleshly fools should be\ntaken _cum grano salis_. I am not so wrapped about by the despairs of\nnight that I can get no glimpse of the dawn. I despise not the outward\nbeauty, nor do I put contempt upon flesh nor call it unclean. I wield\nno surgeon\u2019s scalpel to dissect desires which passion into degeneracy.\nYet I deplore that man, who may stature divinely great, should stoop\nto crucify the mystery of the flesh in permitting the sanctities of\nthe soul to be overshadowed by sensuality, in making vulgar that which\nshould be hallowed. Yet humanity is no windfall apple; despite the\nblemishes on the rind, the core continues sound. However pessimistic a\nman may be, he must acknowledge that the influence of virtue is more\nfar reaching than the contagion of vice. Jean Valjean in the Paris\nsewer was the optimist who originated the New Thought movement; like\nhim, I feel instinctively that somewhere beyond the present darkness is\nthe sunshine of life and safety.\u201d\n\n\u201cIt seems to me, sirrah, that you are rather inconsistent.\u201d\n\n\u201cYou women have enjoyed a monopoly of that comfortable privilege\naltogether too long, and the time has come when man can dispute your\nprerogative.\u201d\n\nThe asbestos tablets I had brought with me were rapidly being filled\nwith hieroglyphics which looked like the original Greek and to\nunderstand them needed an acquaintance with Pitman; I must economize on\nmy questions.\n\n\u201cThe one indispensable interrogation in an interview is how you spend\neach waking moment of the day,\u201d I hinted. \u201cNo post-mortem recollections\nwould be complete without that.\u201d\n\n\u201cTo be a queen is to lead the life effective as well as the life\nstrenuous. This is one day\u2019s doings in the role of Regina, as ticked\noff by the hours\u2014figuratively, of course, for you are aware that there\nare no clocks in Hades:\n\n\u201c10 A. M.\u2014\u2018Good morning.\u2019\n\n\u201c11 A. M.\u2014Sampling new breakfast foods.\n\n\u201c12 M.\u2014Reading the Cimmerian Chatterbox and the Stygian Smart Set.\n\n\u201c1 P. M.\u2014Writing autographs to be auctioned off at New York sales rooms.\n\n\u201c2 P. M.\u2014Dinner.\n\n\u201c3 P. M.\u2014Yachting on the Styx.\n\n\u201c4 P. M.\u2014Sixty minutes with Her Majesty\u2019s diary.\n\n\u201c5 P. M.\u2014Dictating an historical novel to Sir Isaac Pitman.\n\n\u201cBy-the-bye,\u201d she broke off suddenly, \u201cSir Isaac has become afflicted\nwith writers\u2019 cramp and I need someone to take his place. You are that\nsomeone.\u201d\n\nI knelt, expecting to feel the flat end of a sword laid upon me, but\nher Grace simply twined a lock of my blonde hair around her finger.\n\n\u201cArise, Sir Scribe,\u201d she said, glancing around apprehensively. \u201cYour\nattitude is that of a lover proposing to his mistress, and as a penalty\nfor posing in the upper world, Mephisto has decreed that whatever\nattitude a man assumes in Hades, he must set it to words or to music. I\nam going to be merciful and you may make of your proposal a frayed-out\nphonograph record which will repeat \u2018I love you\u2019 without variation. The\nwarmth of your protestations may melt the wax? You need have no fear of\nthat. You would be more likely to break the record; we do not use wax\ncylinders, but rubber. As for making you my official scribe, the touch\nof royalty is sufficient to confer knighthood. Since poor Walter took\nthat \u2018sharp remedy\u2019 for all diseases, I have shunned the sword.\u201d\n\nCuriosity is my besetting sin\u2014it is by no means a woman\u2019s\nprerogative\u2014and as it has been one of my fads to read a person\u2019s\ncharacter by a glance at his or her hands, I bowed in humble gratitude\nat the honor conferred upon me, but not without an upward look at the\nfair hand poised gracefully above me. That fleeting glance told me\nmuch. Certain chroniclers of the period Before Darwin tell us that\nmarks were made on the hands of men\u2014and women?\u2014that the sons of men\nmight know them. As the passage occurs in Job, some higher critics\ninterpret the marks to mean boils, but we palmists know better.\nPalmistry is Cupid masquerading in a scientific costume; it gives a man\na valid excuse for holding a girl\u2019s hand. Of course even a scribe can\u2019t\ntake such liberties with a queen, although the cunning of chiromancy\nprompted me to attempt a revelation of Her Majesty\u2019s character. Just\nwhat I found in the hand that swayed the destinies of the world She\nmade me promise not to tell. \u201cGod save the Queen\u2014\u201d and the Gentle\nReader!\n\nAfter detailing her destiny, I arose with a muttered apology for\nconsuming so much of her time.\n\n\u201cIt isn\u2019t only time that is consumed in Hades, but if you wish to go,\nyou may,\u201d assented Her Grace. \u201cI never argue with a bored sign post\nabout the distance to the street.\u201d\n\nI bowed and left. Outside was a sign which read: \u201cTo New York\u2014twenty\nmiles.\u201d I stood a moment and pondered. Twenty miles expressed a\nnearness which made Hades a suburb of the metropolis! The call of the\ncity was insistent, the lure of Broadway beckoned to the white lights\nand the clang of trolleys, but all about me were unfolding the wonders\nof the unknown Stygian country. I did not dispute the distance, nor did\nI heed the mute command. I simply turned my back on the sign post and\nwalked away from the imperative pointing finger.\n\n\n\n\n                        \u201cBOSS\u201d TWEED ON TAINTED\n                       MONEY, WITH SOME NONSENSE\n                          DEFINITIONS OF FADS\n                             AND FINANCE.\n\n\n                             CHAPTER VII.\n\n \u201cBoss\u201d Tweed on Tainted Money, with Some Nonsense Definitions of Fads\n                             and Finance.\n\n\nThe Asbestos Society of Sinners was in session. The subject of debate\nwas, \u201cResolved that gold may be yellow, but it is not tainted.\u201d\n\n\u201c\u2018An Englishman\u2019s hell is want of money,\u2019\u201d mused Carlyle, repeating\nwhat he had said while a denizen of earth.\n\n\u201cIt\u2019s too bad he gets Hades in both the upper and lower worlds,\u201d\nobserved \u201cBoss\u201d Tweed, who as the reincarnated Dives handled the gavel.\n\u201cUnfortunately, that condition is not confined to any one country.\nWendell Phillips once said that if an American saw a silver dollar on\nthe other side of Hell he would jump for it.\u201d\n\n\u201cIs that why you came here?\u201d asked he whose only claim to fame was that\nan ass had spoken to him.\n\n\u201cBaalam\u2019s itchy palm spoiled him for a prophet,\u201d observed Tweed,\naddressing the chairman, and ignoring that individual. \u201cNo, gentlemen,\nit wasn\u2019t one dollar that brought me here. It was $10,000,000 or\n$100,000,000; I forget which.\u201d\n\n\u201cA cypher more or less makes no difference,\u201d put in Carlyle, cynically.\nHe evidently thought this a side-splitting English joke, for he laughed\nat his own wit.\n\n\u201cThat depends whether there is a point back of it,\u201d asserted Dr.\nJohnson.\n\n\u201cTruly these be tainted times, if we can place any dependence in the\nNew York correspondence of the Cimmerian Chatterbox,\u201d volunteered\nTweed. \u201cPoor Diagones has had to give up his quest for an honest man:\nnot being in the trust, he cannot buy any oil for his lantern. But even\na searchlight wouldn\u2019t help him in these days. An honest man never gets\nwithin the rays of the calcium; he is too busy picking the pockets of\nthe people.\u201d\n\n\u201cOil and money will come uppermost at last in the caldron of watered\nstocks underneath which are the fires of Hell, for both are Standard.\u201d\n\n\u201cI don\u2019t see how tainted money can be made from refined oil.\u201d It was\nSolomon the wise who spoke.\n\n\u201cTainted money, like crude oil, may be refined,\u201d asserted Tweed. \u201cYet\neven crude oil is not to be despised, for it accrues interest and some\nof the taint can be carbolized by sending bad rum to the heathen.\nIt matters not what denomination tainted money is in, although the\nBaptists ought to be able to wash some of the taint away. In to-day\u2019s\nissue of the Stygian Siftings, I read that a certain sect who won\u2019t\ntrust any other denomination to read their Bible for them, say that\nthe pilfered pelf of frenzied financiers is all right if it be used\nfor good purposes. It isn\u2019t even necessary to keep the dirty dough in\na separate flour barrel from the certified wheat; they are willing to\nconvert tares and all into breakfast food. It resolves itself into a\ncase of homeopathic treatment\u2014the use of tainted money to remove a\ngreater taint.\u201d\n\n\u201cBribery, which in evening dress is called graft, has become such\na popular pastime that the refusal of a man to touch money offered\nhim leads one to the conclusion that it is not tainted but merely\ncounterfeit,\u201d said Shylock, as he tried to hide some degraded ducats in\nhis blouse. \u201cThey wouldn\u2019t let me shed one drop of blood, yet to-day\nthe American capitalist gets his pound of flesh by bleeding the people.\u201d\n\n\u201cIt\u2019s a wonder Atlas wasn\u2019t exposed for holding up the earth,\u201d mused\nAnon. \u201cSince the days of the gods, many a man has had his shoulder put\nout of joint trying to do the same stunt, but the weight of the world\nis still cause for worry.\u201d\n\n\u201cSo deep-rooted in the universe is graft,\u201d asserted Tweed, \u201cthat the\nchairman of an investigating committee, in making his report, went to\nthe Jersey shore and looking out to sea, wrote: \u2018I can see no graft.\u2019\nEven then he forgot the ship-building trust and also overlooked the\nunimportant fact that his very words were grafted from Lord Nelson.\u201d\n\n\u201cWho was the first grafter?\u201d\n\n\u201cAdam would have been had he been tempted with a plum instead of with\nan apple.\u201d\n\n\u201cGraft,\u201d explained Noah, surnamed Webster, \u201cis a botanical term for\n\u2018splitting straws\u2019 in the garden politic. Its principal fruits are\nplums, leafing out in \u2018long green.\u2019 A grafter is a captain of industry\nwho has been found out.\u201d\n\n\u201cAll men bow to the despotism of the dollar,\u201d said a well-known\nanarchist with an unforgivable name. \u201cIt is no longer the divine right\nof kingship, but the divine right of dollarship, to rule the earth.\nThe rulers of old had their armies and forced obedience; the rulers of\nto-day have their money bags and buy it.\u201d\n\n\u201cThe dollar,\u201d declared Alexander Hamilton, \u201cis the corner-stone of our\negotistic civilization, and the dollar is terribly hard. Its hardness\nmay make it better as a corner-stone but does not especially fit it for\nuse as a pillow for tired humanity.\u201d\n\n\u201cGrowing socialistic, eh? My dear Alexander, you have been exclusive\nowner of six feet of land long enough to be cured of that fanciful fad.\u201d\n\n\u201cFads,\u201d interposed Worcester, noting that Webster was ready with a\ndefinition and anxious to forestall him, \u201cis a diversion of the wealthy\nand the only game on which Parker Brothers have no copyright. It is\nplayed similar to \u2018Pit\u2019 and \u2018Bluff,\u2019 although it is not confined to\nWall Street.\u201d\n\n\u201cFancies,\u201d declaimed Johnson, \u201cis a vivid imagination diluted with\nprinters\u2019 ink for the purpose of converting the skeleton in the family\nflat into $1,500 cash. Usually the man who has ancestors doesn\u2019t court\ninvestigation.\u201d\n\n\u201cInvestigation,\u201d defined Roget, \u201cis a popular kind of bookkeeping begun\nafter the race is lost and the money is spent; a locking of the safe\ndeposit doors after the deposits are safe in the cashier\u2019s pocket. As\nthe sins of the fathers are visited upon the children, Adam, being\nfatherless, is the only man in Hades whom the Stygian Insurance Company\nwould guarantee immune from the epidemic of investigation which has\nbeen transplanted from the upper to the lower world. But even Adam\nsuffered exposure before he plucked the \u2018long green\u2019 from the fig tree.\u201d\n\n\u201cIn England insurance is called assurance, but the name better applies\nto American directors, whom it assures a life of luxury. The policy\nholder believes insurance is a legacy, but his widow discovers it is a\nlaw suit. Life insurance is a bogie at which everybody not in a glass\ncoffin throws a stone. It is old, tried and true: too old to notice you\nafter you\u2019re dead; true\u2014to its officers; and tried\u2014in the courts. It\nmakes sick loans which have the effect of paralyzing the tongues of its\nofficials or sending them to Europe in search of health.\u201d\n\n\u201cKnowledge is no longer power,\u201d denied Webster; \u201cwealth has taken its\nplace. Even both ends of Wall Street can be made to meet. At one end is\nthe aspiring finger of Trinity Church, pointing to the sky, and at its\nfoot is a cemetery. At the other end is the first station on the road\nto Brooklyn and\u2014another cemetery!\u201d\n\n\u201cGold itself is pure,\u201d observed Portia, LL.D.; \u201cit becomes defiled only\nin passing through dirty fingers. Tainted money may be exchanged for\ngold that isn\u2019t greasy at the mint and no questions asked. The filth\nfrom the bad man\u2019s fingers doesn\u2019t take away the value of the larcenous\nlong green, or of the sullied silver.\u201d\n\n\u201cIn my time,\u201d said Tweed, \u201cwe didn\u2019t ask whether money was tainted\nbefore we took it. There\u2019s time enough for an investigation after\nthe trust treasure is spent, and suspicious specie never becomes\npenitential pesos until after money has ceased to talk. Riches are\npromised to the righteous man\u2014which we all are until the newspapers\nfind us out. Every millionaire secured his wealth honestly with two\nexceptions, neither of which are noted in the newspapers.\u201d\n\n\u201cYou know it is said,\u201d observed C\u00e6sar, \u201cthat it is easier for a camel\nto go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the\nkingdom of heaven.\u201d\n\n\u201cIf that includes Cleopatra\u2019s needle, there is still hope for the rich\nman,\u201d put in Marc Antony.\n\n\u201cA note of protest won\u2019t pay your debts, so what\u2019s the use of all this\noutcry about opprobrious opulence?\u201d asked Tweed. \u201cWho can scent from\nafar the possibilities of graft quicker than the man who is counting\nup his censurable coin? Among the crowd in full cry after a fleeing\nburglar with his pockets full of soiled silver, none shouts \u2018stop\nthief\u2019 more lustily than the pal who did not get his share of the\nplunder. In the rustle of the competitor\u2019s greenbacks which are tainted\nwith the tears of women and the blood of men, no capitalist hears the\ncry of the widow and orphan more quickly than he who is seeking to\nshear the fleece of an innocent and confiding lot of lambs swallowed in\nthe vortex of frenzied finance.\u201d\n\n\u201cHow about the tainted tricks of politics?\u201d I asked. \u201cI might have\nbeen a politician myself if I hadn\u2019t been converted and so became a\nnewspaper man instead.\u201d\n\n\u201cYour position is now more hopeless than ever, for you not only know\nall the tricks of the politician, but those of the newspaper man as\nwell,\u201d retaliated Tweed.\n\n\u201cMoney, the devil\u2019s pass key, has securely locked more than one\nskeleton safely away in the family closet,\u201d I continued. \u201cAfter all,\nwe can\u2019t get along without the disreputable dough. If a rotting log\nnurture a bank of violets, it would be folly to despise the flowers\nbecause they sprang from a tainted source.\u201d\n\n\u201cIt would be well if the twentieth century had a Lycurgus,\u201d commented\nPlutarch. \u201cFor the purpose of sapping the foundation of avarice, he\ncalled in all the nefarious nuggets and decreed that iron should be\nused as current coin. If modern millionaires had to drive a yoke of\noxen to carry home each $88 in dividends, the iron would enter their\nsouls far more readily than into their pocketbooks.\u201d\n\n\u201cThe profits of plunder ought to be checked.\u201d\n\n\u201cSo they are. A check is drawn for each man who has his price, to\nstop him from branding his neighbor a thief. Never analyze the gold\ngiven as a gift. Does it matter which cow gave the skimmed milk if we\nget the cream? If our pocketbook is made corpulent enough to choke\nour scruples, shall we inquire if our benefactor has cobwebs on his\nconscience? A man\u2019s criminality ought not to be based on the size of\nhis bank account.\u201d\n\n\u201cGreed and graft have always been blood money relations,\u201d I said. \u201cIn\nthe dawn of history Adam owned the whole world except one little tree\nand he wouldn\u2019t be happy till he got that.\u201d\n\n\u201cBut I never became a millionaire,\u201d muttered the first man,\ndisconsolately.\n\n\u201cYou would have been a multi-billionaire if you had held onto all your\nreal estate. But perhaps, like Ann Drew Karnagee, you thought it a sin\nto die rich after living in the tainted atmosphere of affluence.\u201d\n\n\u201cThen there was C\u00e6sar. He ran up a supper bill of twenty-five million\nin four months. My authority? Never mind; it\u2019s all down somewhere.\u201d\n\n\u201cYou are right,\u201d agreed Plutarch. \u201cThe turning of tarnished tin into\ntrust treasure isn\u2019t confined to any one decade. Even Prometheus was\nguilty of petty larceny, for he stole fire from heaven and\u2014\u201d\n\n\u201cIf you grasp the burning ploughshare of ill-gotten gains, do not\ncomplain if it sears your palms and scorches your brain and petrifies\nyour heart.\u201d Thus spoke Judas and departed.\n\n\u201cMortals say that money cannot be carried beyond the grave,\u201d explained\nTweed; \u201cbut there is spirit money as well as spirit men. Grafter Judas\nhanged himself to get rid of thirty pieces of silver\u2014foolish man! How\nlittle fitted he would have been for life in New York; on the board\nof aldermen, for instance, or as a district boss. We New Yorkers are\nfrequently afflicted with itching palms, but money never burns our\nfingers as it does that of Judas in Hades. He throws it away, but it\nalways returns to his grasp. If I had been empowered with the same\nnecromancy on earth, I could have been president of the United States.\nPossessing Judas\u2019 faculty, I could have paid each man his price and yet\nthe money would always have returned!\u201d\n\n\u201cIn the scales of God,\u201d declaimed Portia, \u201ccharity will outweigh gold,\nunless Dives and Lazarus have changed places since the last tidings we\nhad of them.\u201d\n\n\u201cFor all that,\u201d concluded Tweed, \u201cthe only objection I ever found to\ntainted money was that \u2018taint enough! A little thieving is a dangerous\nthing; graft much or you\u2019ll taste the penitentiary spring. Though\nJustice is blind, she isn\u2019t deaf, and he who can jingle the most gold\nusually wins his case. The man who sent me to the island said, \u2018I hope\nto see you in hell some day,\u2019 and I\u2019ve wondered ever since which of us\nhe was doubtful about getting here.\u201d\n\n\n\n\n                       HOW THE CREATION CENTERED\n                     ABOUT A PETTICOAT: A REVISED\n                     VERSION OF THE FIRST CHAPTER\n                           OF DARWIN AND THE\n                            ASCENT OF MAN.\n\n\n                             CHAPTER VIII.\n\n How the Creation Centered about a Petticoat: A Revised Version of the\n            First Chapter of Darwin and the Ascent of Man.\n\n\nAll was quiet along the Styx. The river banks were deserted. C\u00e6sar had\nbeen called to court to testify against a counterfeiter who had been\npunching his head, and Charon took advantage of the Roman\u2019s absence to\ncall upon his wife Calpurnia, famed as being the only woman of whom it\nwas said she was above suspicion. Charon\u2019s craft, which to-day happened\nto be no more than an ordinary rowboat, was pulled up on the bank. In\nhis haste to depart, the ferryman had even left his oars lying loose\nin the locks. I was considering the advisability of attempting to row\nback to Harlem when my attention was diverted by three dogs swimming in\nthe placid waters of the Styx. Sitting astride them with all the ease\nof a circus clown was a boy whose forehead was branded thus: $\u2014\u2014. It\nwas the mark of Cain; therefore this must be the bad boy himself.\n\nAs they drew nearer, I discovered that there was only one dog instead\nof three; it was the many-headed Cerberus. All went well until Cain\npulled the dog\u2019s tail. Then the nearest head snapped at the lad so\nquickly that he disappeared down its throat. Jonah had now arrived on\nthe scene, and enraged at this infringement on his copyright, he caught\nthe canine by its hind legs and holding it aloft, shook it vigorously.\nCain dropped out of the centre cavity in the dog\u2019s delta with a lighted\nstogie between his teeth. He tossed the nicotine nugget to Jonah and\nbade him take the canine to the pound of Pluto.\n\n\u201cCharge it up to Pa,\u201d the bad boy said airily. Jonah continued to hold\nout his hand.\n\n\u201cNo credit is given in Hell,\u201d he sneered. \u201cYou\u2019ve got to cash in all\nyour checks.\u201d\n\nCain put his hand in the outstretched palm, but instead of the expected\ngold, he dropped therein the burning Stygian stogie.\n\nWho polluteth his lips with blasphemy? Who imperilleth his\nparliamentary standing? Who yelleth in Sanskrit and Yiddish? Ask of the\nboy; he is of age and can speak for himself.\n\nAnd speak for himself he did.\n\n\u201cDespite the doubts cast upon my parentage by Darwin, I am Adam\u2019s son,\u201d\nhe said, in response to my question. \u201cBut, say, I\u2019m an angel with wings\nfull grown compared with what Pa was when he was a boy.\u201d\n\n\u201cDo tell me about the time Adam was a boy,\u201d I implored. In imagination\nI saw a spilling of red ink over the first page of the New York\nUniverse: \u201cAdam\u2019s Own Story of the Rise and Fall of Man.\u201d\n\n\u201cDad and Darwin do beat creation,\u201d Cain commented. \u201cThe delineator\nof the \u2018Descent of Man\u2019 says that the earth grew as naturally as a\nmushroom on a dung heap. Since hearing of it, Topsy has been giving\nherself airs under the impression that as she \u2018just growed,\u2019 she was\nthe first woman. Adam says he doesn\u2019t mind being called a myth by the\nhigher critics, but when an Afro-American minister proves by logic as\nindisputable as a proposition in Euclid that the oldest inhabitant was\na black man, and when Topsy lays claim to being his wife, he thinks\nit\u2019s about time to draw the color line. Job tried to comfort Pa by\ntelling him that it is better to be a myth than a martyr, for martyrs\nare burned that myths may live.\u201d\n\n\u201cAnd Mother Eve?\u201d\n\n\u201cOh, she is an allegory, too. The legend of the lady of the pippins\nwas generated into the genius of Genesis for the sole purpose of\nstimulating the cerebral cells of the clergymen whose imaginations have\nbecome stunted by much raking for Greek roots. Despite the ancient\nscandal when she listened to the solo of the serpent\u2014and the result\nproved so disastrous woman has never been inclined to listen to any\nvoice but her own since that distant day\u2014Eve actually asked Adam to\nbuy her one of those serpentine dresses the next time he went to\nVanity Valley-on-the-Hudson. Pa replied that because other women were\nreverting to the original clinging fig-leaf garb, was no reason why she\nshould advertise her shame to the world.\n\n\u201c\u2018To be fashionable is better than to be a Puritan mother,\u2019 Eve\nretorted. A woman can find comfort in a new garter or a picture hat\neven when a scandal is hanging over her backbone.\u201d\n\n\u201cThen the episode of Eden\u2014\u201d\n\n\u201cEve\u2019s appetite for apples, which gave the world dyspepsia and all the\nills to which flesh is heir, has been thrown up in her face ever since\nthe world began. Come to think of it, though, Darwin says there never\nwas any beginning.\u201d\n\n\u201cDarwin has had his day,\u201d I observed. \u201cHis teaching is now obsolete.\nSome day I\u2019m going to write a book\u2014everybody does these days\u2014and I have\nalready copyrighted the title, so literary pirates may beware. It is to\nbe called \u2018The Ascent of Man.\u2019 No more is man the old Adam, the Eden\nof his perfect behind him forbidding its gardens of delight. In his\npresent imperfect is the creative hauntings of the perfect he is yet\nto be. As in the old days the man said, \u2018The woman\u2019\u2014so it is the woman\nwho has given man the new birth. Creation always did centre about a\npetticoat, fables and creeds to the contrary notwithstanding.\u201d\n\n\u201cI asked Mother Eve about her childhood the other day, and she seemed\nlamentably ignorant of her younger days.\u201d\n\n\u201cIf Adam hadn\u2019t gone to sleep there would have been no women in the\nworld,\u201d I put in. Having a reputation as a confirmed misogynist, I felt\nthat I must live up to it whenever occasion offered.\n\n\u201cThe queer part of it,\u201d mused Cain, \u201cis that he never woke up when the\nsurgical operation was being performed and that, too, in the days when\nan\u00e6sthetics kept themselves hid in unpressed poppy pods. Catch a woman\nletting anybody take a rib from her without her knowing it!\u201d\n\n\u201cIf woman is so wide-awake, how was it that Eve lost her certificate of\ncharacter by getting drunk on apple cider?\u201d\n\n\u201cWith the permission of Darwin and the rest, I will give you a revised\nversion of the creation by the first higher critic\u2014Cain, son of Adam\nand Eve:\n\n\u201cIn the beginning chaos created Cosmos.\n\n\u201cAnd Cosmos continued to apply cosmetics to the face of the Globe\nand\u2014Darwin was too busy to take notice.\n\n\u201cAnd it came to pass that without Darwin to hold the universe in check,\nrevolution arose; from revolution came evolution and evolution evolved\ninto molecules which came into contact with protoplasm and by natural\nselection the latter survived and became a plastic cell which in turn\nthrew a fit and degenerated into the primordial germ, which is the\ngerm of truth. This selection was so unnatural that it did not survive\nprotogene and to swallow this up there came an ocean of eocene.\n\n\u201cAnd it came to pass that in the aeon of eocene there was enwombed in\nthe chaotic chasm, later called Siam, a Simiad who was to show his\nrelationship to the octopus by embracing the earth. And this Simiad\ngrew according to his own fancy and\u2014Darwin still slumbered.\n\n\u201cAnd the merry morn tagged the shadows of night and became \u2018it\u2019. The\nnumber of the evening hours was eleven and of the day was twelve.\nEleven and twelve make twenty-three\u2014that\u2019s the sum that spells\n\u2018skidoo\u2019. And the night departed in haste.\n\n\u201cAnd in the time when it seemed good to him, Darwin awoke and made\ntwo great lights, the greater arc to rule the day and the lesser\nincandescent to rule the night. And Darwin was the greater and\nProfessor Huxley was the lesser; he made Herbert Spencer also.\n\n\u201cAnd behold! the man, because he had within him all other men, spoke\nHenry James English in all its simplicity from his birth up. Mother\nEarth sang lullabies to him, but the man was sore vexed at his\n_mater\u2019s_ nonsense verses and comic opera lyrics; he swore a Saxon\noath. That being the first word he had uttered, the man was called\nAdam. And all in the world there was none other like him.\n\n\u201cNow when the evening and the morning were the fifth day, Darwin began\nto sit up and take notice. He took a leaf from Adam\u2019s birth record\nand by soaking it in alcohol over night, words became visible and he\nread that in the primordial epoch when in the transition period Adam\nwas a kangaroo, a woman started to sprout from the seed of truth, but\nthe coming man thought she had better lie a little longer, and so\nhe stunted her truth-telling for all time by thrusting her into the\ntobacco pouch of his kangaroo hide, knowing that there is no stunt like\ntobacco.\n\n\u201cEve was content to come after man for three reasons; first, she knew\nit was fashionable to arrive late; second, she was timid and wanted\nMr. Adam to see how the land lay now that the waters had been divided;\nthird, she was having some clothes made for her debut and even with the\nassistance of Prof. Huxley, Tailor Darwin had not been able to get them\nready on time.\n\n\u201cThough eternal despairs deepened their nights about him, Adam was in\na jolly mood and he said: \u2018Let us make light of it\u2019\u2014and there was light!\n\n\u201cAnd when Eden was effulgent Darwin could see the man he had made and\nhe saw that it was good. He was positive of that but was comparatively\nsure he could do better, so he hypnotized Adam by telling him he\nhad appendicitis and that an operation was necessary for his future\nwell-being as a man, now that he had ceased to be a monkey. Dad had\nnever studied physiology\u2014though he made up for it later by dissecting\nEve every chance he got,\u2014and so he did not wonder how it came about\nthat the only portion of his anatomy for which he no longer had a use,\nhaving given up climbing trees as being too undignified a diversion,\nhad gotten so far up as to tickle him in the ribs. He remembered that\nsaying about man being fearfully and wonderfully made, and being\nassured by Dr. Darwin that the operation for the removal of \u2018a rag and\na bone and a hank of hair\u2019 was as safe as an Hom pill, he quietly fell\nasleep.\n\n\u201cThat is how man came to lose his tail, for contrary to report,\nDarwin did not give man a tail but took one away; contrary also to\nthe authorized version, woman was made out of man\u2019s tail and not from\nhis rib. Kipling little knew how apt was his descriptive tag, for the\ntail consisted of a bone covered with a hank of hair and the dinosaur\nsupplied the rag by tying a tin can to Adam\u2019s tail. Thus man evolved\nlike the tadpole, which does not have to hire George Washington to do\nthe woodsman stunt, as Nature arranges for the chopping off of its tail\nat the accepted time. What Nature does for the tadpole, Dr. Darwin did\nfor man. But he bungled the job and cut the tail off too short. That\u2019s\nthe reason appendicitis is prevalent to-day.\n\n\u201cAnd when Darwin looked on the woman he forgot his grammar and broke\nout into superlatives without the justification of the rule of three:\n\u2018This is the most barbarous cut of all.\u2019\n\n\u201cFor this unkind reflection on her Marcel Wave and also for the reason\nthat Mr. Darwin spared her costume but not her modesty, Eve condemned\nman to wear clothes for all time.\n\n\u201cAnd as the evening and the morning were the sixth day, Darwin called\nto the woman: \u2018This man thou shalt call Adam, surnamed Smith.\u2019 Likewise\nto the man he said: \u2018Whilst thou lovest this woman, her name shall be\ncalled Evelyn and her children shall be called the daughters of Evelyn,\nbut when thy love groweth cold like the night, she shall be thy Eve. As\nthe first parents, so shall be all posterity.\u2019\n\n\u201cAnd as he spoke so was it. Man\u2019s love was as brief as the life of last\nyear\u2019s calendar, and ever since the year one, women have been called\nthe daughters of Eve.\n\n\u201cThus is fulfilled the prophecy of Darwin, as interpreted by the\nfirstborn of the earth, Cain Smythe of Eden.\u201d\n\n\n\n\n                      WHEN ADAM WAS A BOY: RANDOM\n                         RECOLLECTIONS OF THE\n                          OLDEST INHABITANT.\n\n\n                              CHAPTER IX.\n\n  When Adam was a Boy: Random Recollections of the Oldest Inhabitant.\n\n\nBy the time Cain had completed his recital, we had reached an extensive\nestate in the suburbs of Cimmeria.\n\n\u201cThis is my birthplace,\u201d said Cain, proudly.\n\n\u201cWhat! the Garden of\u2014\u201d\n\n\u201cHaven\u2019t you heard that E. P. Roe has driven us back to Eden? At first\nMother didn\u2019t want to come, for contrary to legendary lore, Eden is\nsituated at the North Pole. It is pretty cold when one\u2019s only covering\nis a shiver and the shadow of the Arctic circle. The only way Eve could\nkeep warm was by reading Jonathan Edwards\u2019 sermons. She was especially\ninterested in the one wherein he said that sinners are held over the\npit of hell as one holds a spider or some other\u2014the \u2018other\u2019 is mine:\nI have to correct his grammar as well as his theology\u2014loathsome insect\nover the fire.\n\n\u201cAfter reading that, nothing would do for Mother Eve but that she must\ncease shivering and become a sinner in order to have a hot time. Of\ncourse being a woman, the snake could not resist her fascination, and\nso she had no more reason to complain of the cold. Roe tried to open a\nchestnut burr, pricked his fingers and got so mad that he drove the old\nfolks back to Eden. Mother Eve flirted with a Stygian plumber until she\ngot him to put hot air pipes from Jonathan Edwards\u2019 crematory to the\nAiden roof garden. Weatherwise, the _mater_ is again comfortable.\u201d\n\nAdam and Eve were eating apples under the trees as we entered the\nGarden. So glad was Eve to see a man who wasn\u2019t a shade that she put a\npair of cherry lips to mine with a resounding smack.\n\n\u201cForbidden fruit,\u201d scowled Adam.\n\n\u201cThere was a time,\u201d I observed, \u201cwhen I thought it better to welcome\nthe sting of a wasp rather than the kiss of a woman, but that was\nbefore I had come in contact with a wasp and before I had been kissed\nby a woman. Both have taught me that I knew neither wasps nor women and\nthat all things alliterative are not synonymous.\u201d\n\nAdam seemed anxious to change the subject from osculation to the origin\nof things kissable, and to a man, of course, the only things kissable\nare sweet little bits of laughing gurgling femininity.\n\n\u201cDoubtless you would be interested in my first impressions of my\nhelpmeet,\u201d he said, \u201cso I will give you the Genesis of Revelation. When\nI was a boy\u2014\u201d\n\n\u201cHe always gets childish after dinner,\u201d whispered Eve in an aside\nto me. Adam filled in the interruption by whittling on a toothpick.\n\u201cI\u2019m glad he has a plentiful stock of lumber, for if you can keep him\nwhittling, you can get everything out of him except the truth. He\nthinks he cuts a chunk out of history every time he flourishes his\njack-knife. The shavings he sells to the breakfast-food trust.\u201d\n\n\u201cWhen I was a boy,\u201d continued Adam, \u201cI invariably spoke in the first\nperson, because I was the first person, but as Eve is my better half\nI am now only a third, so in future I will not even use the editorial\n\u2018we,\u2019 but simply \u2018the man\u2019.\u201d\n\n\u201cAnd the man said, \u2018The woman\u2019\u2014\u201d mocked Cain.\n\n\u201cYou\u2019re not in America, where the children bring up the parents,\u201d\nreproved Eve. \u201cBesides, your information is but second-hand, for you\nwere \u2018among those absent\u2019.\u201d\n\n\u201cEve was bone of my bone,\u201d continued Adam, \u201cbut not flesh of my flesh.\nWhen I first set eyes on the woman she had not enough adipose tissue to\nimpair in an infinitesimal degree the rapid penetration of an X-ray; in\nfact, from Cosmos to Cleopatra, woman has evaded the searching inquiry\nof the X and is still an unknown quantity.\u201d\n\n\u201cAnd the apple episode?\u201d I questioned.\n\n\u201cThat came about very naturally, as did everything in those days.\nWhen the man and the woman were put in Eden, they were told that\neverything should be kept decently and in order. Now in those days,\nthe English tongue had not reached the perfection it has to-day under\nthe clarifying influences of the spelling reform. There was no Trench\nto tell us the use of the words and no popular novelists to bone the\ndictionary as a chef does a bird. Eve\u2019s education had been sadly\nneglected. She didn\u2019t know just what kind of order was meant and there\nwas no \u2018Complete Housekeeper\u2019 which could be consulted and no \u2018Answers\nto Correspondents\u2019 column in a newspaper to aid her. So she sat down\nand folded her hands.\n\n\u201cThere is an aphorism that Satan finds \u2018mischief still for idle hands\nto do,\u2019 and so when he saw that Eve left the dishes unwashed and her\nhair uncombed, he said, \u2018Presto, change!\u2019 and was turned into a snake.\n\n\u201cNow it came to pass that the woman listened to the voice of the\ncharmer. Satan told of her grace and beauty, which Adam took as a\nmatter of course after the first day and ceased to comment thereon,\nwhereat the woman\u2019s heart grew troubled.\n\n\u201cIf you wish to know wherein you have failed to provide for the wife of\nyour bosom, you will find your neighbors well informed on the subject.\nAdam might have learned much from the snake, for Eve poured her woe\ninto sympathetic ears\u2014if snakes have ears. She wanted to know what was\nthe best kind of order.\n\n\u201c\u2018Apple-pie order,\u2019 advised Satan promptly. Then being a lawyer, he\npeeled off an apple-ate laugh.\n\n\u201cEve related how her husband had tired of her and had taken to sleeping\nnight and day in the hope that Darwin might take the hint and find use\nfor another of his ribs\u2014Adam had not yet been put wise to the fact\nthat he was minus a tail and thought that he could populate a harem by\ndispensing with his ribs.\n\n\u201cThe next day the serpent made another social call on Mistress Eve, who\ntearfully besought a recipe for winning back her husband\u2019s alienated\naffections. Satan pondered a moment; then he said:\n\n\u201c\u2018You can\u2019t please Adam, your husband, unless you give him apple\npie\u2014the kind his mother used to make.\u2019 Satan chuckled at the joke; he\nthought it so good that he vowed it should be retold in every age as a\nmemorial of the fall.\n\n\u201c\u2018Give Adam some sass and then you can have everything in apple-pie\norder,\u2019 hissed the snake.\n\n\u201c\u2018You order the apples and I\u2019ll make the pies.\u2019\n\n\u201cBut Satan had been cunning in transforming himself into a snake\ninstead of into a monkey, for he reminded Eve that he had no arms and\nshe must pick the fruit herself. This she did and then the serpent said\nall good cooks tasted the ingredients to test their fitness for use.\nEve took a bite of the pippin; then she called Adam to get the core.\nThey liked the apple so well neither could wait for the pies to cook,\nbut ate up all the forbidden fruit.\n\n\u201cSans bathing suit and sans modesty, Adam was taking a sun bath on\nthe beach, looking longingly over the gates of Eden at the wide world\noutside when Landlord Darwin appeared.\n\n\u201c\u2018Front!\u2019 came the command.\n\n\u201cAdam tried to put on a bold front, but as his linen was in the wash\nand he had never been bell-boy in a hotel, he failed miserably. He\nblushed at the exposure and was mercifully covered with confusion.\n\n\u201c\u2018I may as well tell the naked truth,\u2019 he confessed. \u2018I\u2019ve been\nswimming, and the woman thou gavest me did steal my clothes, saying\nthat to be in style she must have a tailor-made suit.\u2019\n\n\u201cSo Eve became the original new woman and ever since then the Edenless\nAdams have called marriage a failure whenever they couldn\u2019t lay the\nblame on the woman. And Eve\u2014well, she can make apple pies as good as\nshe ever did!\u201d\n\n\u201cBut that green apple gave Mother Eve a belly ache,\u201d ejaculated Cain,\n\u201cand I came to deliver her. She has since said that wasn\u2019t the last\ntime I gave her a pain, but one can excuse her using slang after\nassociating with such a fabulistic personage as \u00c6sop.\n\n\u201cYou would have lacerated laughter could you have seen Dad when the\nIchthyosaurus\u2014the mother-in-Latin of the stork\u2014brought me to Eden.\nThe chimney wasn\u2019t large enough for the reptile relic of the Mesozoic\nage to crawl down, so it carelessly dropped me onto the stomach of\nthe astonished Father Adam, breaking what has since been known as the\nfloating rib. From that accident arose the legend that woman was made\nof the crookedest part of man, which was the reason she couldn\u2019t keep\nhim straight.\n\n\u201cEve welcomed me all right, for a mother takes to babies and goo goo\ntalk as naturally as ducks take to water, but Adam felt queer\u2014out of\nplace; he didn\u2019t quite understand the thing and wondered why I hadn\u2019t\nbeen born full-grown. He didn\u2019t know whether I was a new kind of\nbreakfast food, a condensed milk advertisement, or an alarm clock sent\nto wake him up early in the morning. Most of the time I was cutting my\nteeth, Dad was sulking out in the backyard under the apple tree with a\npretty well-developed case of green eye and the blues. Occasionally\nhe would come in and try to smile as he peeped over in the couch of\nfig leaves. Then Eve would take me up and hand me to Papa. He took me\nas if he were afraid I would bite and held me out at arm\u2019s length as\nif he thought the thing might melt and ruin his full dress suit, which\nconsisted of a smile minus the fig leaves. I understand that evening\ndress has differed little from that day to this.\u201d\n\n\u201cI confess that I am lamentably ignorant on the subject, but I find\nHenry James more lucid than the naturalists who wrote \u2018Wild Men I Have\nKnown.\u2019 What was the origin of species?\u201d\n\n\u201cWith all deference to Darwin and the rest,\u201d explained Cain, \u201cmethinks\nit was an apple seed!\u201d\n\nAnd being the first seed of the woman, Cain certainly ought to know!\n\n\n\n\n                     ELECTION DAY BEYOND THE STYX.\n\n\n                              CHAPTER X.\n\n                     Election Day Beyond the Styx.\n\n\nHades has two newspapers to mirror forth the daily doings of the\nStygian smart set. Owing to the uncounted population of the resort,\nthese publications have circulations which would make the most yellow\nof earthly journals grow pink with envy. Here are some clippings from\nrecent issues of the rival newspapers:\n\n\n                       THE CIMMERIAN CHATTERBOX\n\n               PUBLISHED EVERY LITTLE WHILE TO KEEP PACE\n                   WITH THE LARGEST CIRCULATION LIES\n                        OF THE AMERICAN PRESS.\n\n _Edited by Horace Greeley and other defeated politicians, who tell\n the truth if the man is not a subscriber, and print all the news that\n doesn\u2019t make a lightning coupling with the waste basket._\n\nDomestic News: Registering the Vote\u2014It is no sinecure to be registrar\nof voters in Hades. If you think it is, ask \u201cBoss\u201d Tweed, who threw\nup his job to Matt Quay, who is sticking it out, though it take all\neternity. Many of those who take up their residence on the banks of\nthe Styx know little about themselves and less about their ancestors.\nNotwithstanding this, there are few people in Hades who haven\u2019t stood\nup before the registrar to have their noses counted, and the endeavor\nhas been to have every Tom, Dick, and Harry, as well as every Jane,\nMary, and Anne on the list. The age of Anne and also the more famous\nage of Elizabeth gave the registrar some trouble at first, but after\ntelling the \u201ceternal feminine\u201d that no affidavit or birth certificate\nis required with the age declaration, the statistics became less\nalarming to the fair sex.\n\nThere are some people, however, who think that to right a lie it is\nonly necessary to write one and so requested blanks which they later\nmailed to Quay, the head nose enumerator. In this way they could tell\nwhat their age has been, without the annoyance of seeing the ungallant\nsmile of unbelief depicted on the registrar\u2019s face as he marks down\n\u201cage 16\u201d in his book and mentally adds fifteen as in the days when he\nstudied oral arithmetic. Many a woman\u2019s figure belies the statement\nthat \u201cfigures can\u2019t lie.\u201d While the unwritten law of chivalry makes\nit rude to ask a lady\u2019s age, the law of Hades gives a man the right\nto estimate her age if the lady slams the door in his face. Woman\u2019s\nrights are still a subject for debate. You can tell the age of a horse\nby his teeth, but no man can tell a woman\u2019s age by her lack of gray\nhairs.\n\n\n                           STYGIAN SIFTINGS.\n\n PRINTERS\u2019 PI COOKED TO A CRISP FOR THE DELECTATION OF LOVERS OF\n REALISM, AND SERVED HOT FROM THE GRIDDLE OF OUR REPORTER\u2019S IMAGINATION.\n\nDEVIL-BAKED by Arthur Big Brain and Willie Randy\u2019s Nurse.\n\n_N. B.\u2014We have the largest circulation and we can prove it. We\nalways arrange the event to suit the \u201cextra.\u201d Our paper is read; our\ncontemporary is redder. Imitation is the sincerest proof of color\nblindness. We print all the news that no one else will print. It\u2019s all\nhere and all untrue. If you see it in the Siftings, you may be excused\nfor having your doubts. We cater to the great reading public, not to\nthe Sunday School. There is no hyphenated heaviness in this paper. Our\nmotto: More muck to mix._\n\n\n                  _EDITORIAL: AN ELECTION PROPHECY._\n\nOwing to the many claims presented, the Stygian Siftings acknowledges\nthat it is a difficult matter to decide who has been the greatest\nbenefactor to Hell, but we think Nero should be accorded the palm. We\nsay this not because we wish to play favorites, but merely for the sake\nof harmony, which we believe would be best secured by the selection of\nNero, the violinist, at the coming election to fill the position of\njanitor in the hall of fame.\n\n\n                  _NERO RECALLED FROM THE CATACOMBS._\n\n                  (_From the Cimmerian Chatterbox._)\n\nWe do not reprint legends of the bib and rattle, so we treat our\ncontemporary with the contemptuous silence which it deserves. Its\nscissor blades are longer than the nose of its editor. A subsidized\npress, which the Stygian Siftings is known to be, is unworthy of\nnotice. But to the candidate put forth, whose conduct needs careful\nediting and much blue pencil, we would apostrophize thusly: Nero, your\nonly claim to fame is that you murdered your mother, kicked your wife\ndown stairs and made Rome howl while you painted the town red. Many\nanother man has done all three and only got his picture in the rogues\u2019\ngallery and the newspapers in return for his efforts. Nero, put that\nupon your catgut and play it to the shades of the tunes you have\nmurdered! Nero was born without whiskers and he\u2019s had many a close\nshave since then. Who was the first shaver? A coupon for a hair cut and\na cup of red ink given for the best answer!\n\n\n                        _THE CANDIDATE SPEAKS._\n\n(_Oration of Nero Stenographically Reported for the Stygian Siftings._)\n\nLADIES AND FELLOW-CITIZENS\u2014If it please the ladies, I come to speak in\nmy own behalf and crave your attention and your vote. As there appears\nto be no other candidate who is so anxious for the office of janitor\nof the hall of fame and general benefactor of Hades as I, it seems to\nme that no other qualifications are needed. However, there are some\npersons who are conceited enough to imagine that they will give me a\nhard run for my money. Why, fellow-citizens and voters, these men are\nnot even natives of this fair country, the finest the sun forgot to\nshine upon! \u2018Tis true they have been naturalized, but they never can be\ncivilized. They may have push and cheek, but they lack the pull to get\nthere.\n\nSome men are so suspicious that they won\u2019t take stock in anything\nexcept the thermometer; under the present climatic conditions in\nHades, that is bound to rise. The time for prejudice is past. It may\nbe necessary to remind the opposition that we are a populous community.\nWe have not taken into our limits any farm lands. In all our borders\nthere are only solid blocks of houses with here and there a football\npark, where the players may break each other\u2019s bones on the gridiron.\nThere are other institutions to which we might refer with pride, but\nthe metropolitan press is stirring them up with a muck rake. We own up\nto all the charges made and herein we differ from summer resorts up on\nthe earth, where they sit on the lid and say their prayers, and then\nlie a little about the real condition of things in their community. The\nStygianite, who lives in the earth and not on it, cannot prevaricate\nwithout being found out. He owns up whenever he has to, and that is\npretty often. Up on earth, however, descendants of Ananias are as\nnumberless as the hairs on the head of an after-taking advertisement.\n\nI do not desire to answer the idiotorial attack of the editor of the\nCimmerian Chatterbox, for I agree with him that it is better to boil\nyour candidates in printers\u2019 ink before election than to roast them\nafterward.\n\nIf I decide to accept the office which the chairman of the Roman\nexecutive committee assures me will be tendered to the only Nero, I\npromise you all exemption from taxes, divorce without six months\u2019\nprobation in the backwoods\u2014anything and everything you ask shall be\nyours. You deposit the ballot; Nero will do the rest.\n\nAmong the reforms I intend to institute will be a wholesale cleaning\nof Hades. I will put fresh paint on the houses daily to keep Alexander\nfrom wearing out the buildings by leaning against them. I will install\ncouches in the public parks for men who have run for office so much\nthat they must be tired, and I will not debar any of the candidates\nI defeat from six feet of Squatters\u2019 Ground. I will even distribute\ncampaign mirrors to others who would like to see themselves as I see\nthem. Of course I believe that the man should seek the office, but the\nonly reason I ask for your votes is so that I may have another office\nto put on my official letter-head. I\u2019m not sure I can find room for it,\nbut I can increase the size of the paper and perhaps employ another\ntypewriter. Don\u2019t be like a balance wheel, ready to move in either\ndirection on the slightest provocation. The man who borrows trouble on\nelection day must return the goods if he bets on the wrong man. Never\nmind if the reformers ask: \u201cWhere did he get it?\u201d Every politician\nknows where his graft comes from; call on me the day after election and\nI\u2019ll see that you all get yours. Don\u2019t sell your vote for a mess of\npolitical pottage without seeing the color of my long green.\n\nAnd now I must conclude, for my voice is husky with much speaking.\nMost of the great orators are dead. Cicero is dead; Demosthenes is\ndead, and to tell the truth, gentlemen, I don\u2019t feel very much alive\nmyself! (Great applause.)\n\n\n                    _NERO\u2019S LETTER OF ACCEPTANCE._\n\nTO THE DILETTANTE POLITICAL CLUB: Greeting\u2014It is with pleasure that I\naccept the endorsement of your distinguished body. All I ask is that\nif the voters don\u2019t feel like giving the position to me, kindly turn\ndown the other fellows. Alexander and Louis XIV. will serve their\nconstitutions, but not their country. They offered their services in\nthe late unpleasantness, but only on condition that they were not to\nleave the country unless the enemy entered it. Your endorsement of me\nhas been hanging over their heads like a dynamite bomb swung from a\nsocialistic cobweb. Now the silence of political oblivion has fallen\nwith a dull, sickening thud, and they are shaking in their boots with\nmuffled ice and bated breath.\n\nThe party plank is a see-saw to catch votes. I stand upon this\nplatform: I am in favor of making Hades the centre of the universe as\nit now is of the earth, and building a bridge over the Styx to New\nYork, so that disappointed politicians and all others weary of life may\nhere find refuge and a warm welcome.\n\nI am in favor of fortifying the Styx, which would give Captain Kidd\nand his pirates a chance to swoop down on the commerce in New York Bay\nand get back to Hades unmolested. They could also form a combination\nwith the chicken thieves of the African colony, and the supply of fowls\nbrought across the river would establish for all time the pre-eminence\nof Hades as an all-the-year-\u2019round resort.\n\n                                             Yours for harmony,\n                                                         NERO, REX.\n\n  Hotel Hereafter,\n         CIMMERIA, HADES-ON-STYX.\n  Mephisto, Proprietor and Cook.\n\n\n                _WHEN IS WAGED THE BATTLE OF BALLOTS._\n\nThe Siftings is informed, on the best of authority, that an election is\nin progress. On his way to the office, the editor was buttonholed by\na ward heeler and handed a pawned ticket. He was then conducted to a\nbooth, where he retired\u2014except for about three feet of trousers and two\nof leather. Having scratched to his heart\u2019s content, he saw his ballot\nchewed by a stuffed box, and was permitted to go to his sanctum, there\nto forecast the outcome\u2014a more uncertain quantity than the weather\nbrewed in the department of the interior. Our reporter says it\u2019s all\nover but the shouting and he is shouting for Nero one minute and for\nAlexander the next. Personally, the editor is in doubt as to whom will\nbe elected. Unfortunately for his peace of mind, he has heard the\nspeeches of three of the candidates and has read the predictions of\nthe chairmen of the different parties. One side or the other must be\nlaboring under a \u201cmisapprehension.\u201d Our attorney assures us that this\nphrase is perfectly safe. Having already two suits for libel on hand,\nwe don\u2019t feel like starting a clothing store to get rid of surplus\nsuits. Misfit personalities always give the editor a libel suit. He\nneeds a font of nonpareil with many daggers in it to keep off a minion\nof misunderstanding. Our attorney is Col. Robert G. Ingersoll. (See\nadvertising columns.)\n\nAlexander needs a few votes and Nero needs a lot and by the time they\nget through needing, there will be no votes left for anybody else.\nLouis XIV. has bolted his party and is running on an independent\nticket. It is said that his name appears on the voting lists of all the\nwards; if so, he ought to be challenged. However, \u201cBoss\u201d Tweed, who is\nchairman of Nero\u2019s campaign committee, may be confidentially expected\nto look out for his candidate\u2019s interests\u2014and his own.\n\nSome say the dark horse will win, having the support of the tea party\ngang and of the Prince of Darkness. In this spirit-moving campaign\nno one knows where the population is going to focus. The residence\nof a repeater is a mystery deeper than the fixed locale of a New\nYork poolroom. After all, Hades is a good deal like the earth, where\ngraveyards, forgetting the ethics of etiquette, yawn on election day to\npermit dead men to vote. Just as the paper goes to press, it is stated\nthat pasters are being freely used and that 5,876,433 candidates have\nsprung up. The voting is still going on. If the polls close at the\nusual time, it is believed there would be about twenty small boys who\nhad been overlooked in the voting, and these would kick as soon as they\ndiscovered they were not in the running.\n\nWe understand that in Hades woman has her rights, that she can exercise\nher franchise, yet not a single woman has voted to-day. It all goes to\nshow that a woman desires only what she can\u2019t get. She would rather use\nthe ballots for curling papers or to trim her bonnet than to put into a\nstuffed box. But there\u2019s another reason. According to the registration,\nnot one woman in Hades is of votable age. None would acknowledge being\nmore than \u201csweet and twenty!\u201d\n\n\n                    _ELECTION EXTRA! LAST EDITION!_\n\nThe battle of ballots is over. The last scratched ticket has been\ncounted and the victor is\u2014\u201cBoss\u201d Tweed! The New York politician, as\nNero\u2019s manager, had charge of the distribution of tickets and pasted\nhis own name over that of the Roman emperor. All\u2019s fair in war and\npolitics. Tweed deserves a tablet in the corridors of the hall of fame\nas well as the key to its front door!\n\n\n\n\n                      NOAH\u2019S PERSONALLY CONDUCTED\n                          EXCURSION TO EARTH.\n\n\n                              CHAPTER XI.\n\n            Noah\u2019s Personally Conducted Excursion to Earth.\n\n\n All the Stygian colony was thrown into a state of unusual excitement\n one hot December morning by the following posters replacing the\n campaign lithographs of Nero and Alexander:\n\n                       LAST CHANCE TO COOL OFF!\n\n                        UNSURPASSED FUNSEEKING\n\n                               EXCURSION\n\n                   TO THE MIRTH-PROVOKING REGION OF\n\n                                 EARTH\n\n                       ON SATURDAY, DECEMBER 18.\n\n         (Next day Sunday, giving ample time to get back\u2014also\n                      to recover and look sober)\n\n                       BASEBALL AT THE BATTERY.\n\n The committee guarantees the game, not the quality of the playing.\n Umpire Shylock promises to make the score as close as his nature will\n permit. This is the line-up:\n\n Count Ercolo Antonio Matthioli\u2014Mask Wearers\u2014Louis Duc de Vermandois.\n\n Ananias\u2014Fancy Twirlers\u2014Munchausen.\n\n Napoleon\u2014First Sack\u2014Louis XIV.\n\n Boswell\u2014Middleman\u2014Sancho Panza.\n\n Herr Bismark\u2014Where the Keg Is\u2014Rip Van Winkle.\n\n Tweed\u2014Hole in the Wall\u2014Quay.\n\n Nero\u2014All Out\u2014Alexander.\n\n Beau Brummel\u2014Centre of Attraction\u2014Ward McAllister.\n\n Bobbie Burns\u2014Where the Daisies Droop Their Heads\u2014Longfellow.\n\n N. B.\u2014Only dead-head tickets accepted. Get pasteboards from the\n committee. Reception. R. s. v. p.\n\n                                      NOAH, _Chairman_,\n                                      P.\u202fT. BARNUM,\n                                      CAPTAIN KANE.\n\nAll that week Noah\u2019s personally-conducted excursion to earth was\nthe one topic of conversation. The Stygianites ceased to watch the\nthermometer and even forgot to stone the clerk of the weather bureau.\nIt was the burning question of the hour in Hades and smouldered for\nseveral days.\n\nTwo days after it had been posted, I joined the group reading the\ncircular for the \u2019steenth time.\n\n\u201cIs Noah capable of being at the helm?\u201d asked Napoleon. \u201cHis record\nindicates that all he knows could be printed on a postage stamp without\ncancelling the stamp.\u201d\n\n\u201cHe may be behind the times,\u201d volunteered Methuselah, \u201cbut at least you\nmust give Noah credit for knowing enough to come in out of the rain,\nwhich is more than could be said of most of the people of his day and\ngeneration.\u201d\n\n\u201cTo my knowledge,\u201d quoth Alexander, \u201cthere are but two instances\nrecorded of our good friend _Populi_ going wrong; first, when he\nrefused to follow Noah into the Ark before I was born; second, when he\nfailed to elect yours truly as custodian of the keys to the hall of\nfame.\u201d\n\n\u201cWhat mean the mystic letters \u2018R. s. v. p.\u2019?\u201d asked Columbus,\nre-reading the circular.\n\n\u201cBeing an Italian, you Ought to know Greek,\u201d I rejoined, becoming first\nAde to the injured Dooleyism, who didn\u2019t Seem to get My Dust. Some\nPagan Spaniards can\u2019t see an American joke without Housetop Comment in\nCapital Letters. But I had gone Too Far to Ring Off, so I spoke in a\nTone like an English check: \u201cIt\u2019s a Foreign Phrase used by Americans in\ninviting People They Don\u2019t Want. Translated into United States R. s. v.\np. reads: Rush in; shake hands; Victual up; Pull Out. Moral: Don\u2019t be\nInquisitive, for if I read History and the Zodiac aright, it\u2019s a Cinch\nthat you\u2019ll have to hide your Elongated Flappers by Retreating to the\nShadows of the Tall Cedars.\u201d\n\n\u201c_Revenons a nos moutons, redacteur_,\u201d protested Napoleon, who abhorred\nslang and preferred his followers and his fables without any morals.\nTo be called an editor made me quite willing to come back to the\nsubject\u2014even reporters are susceptible to flattery.\n\n\u201cAnything that will distract one\u2019s attention from the thermometer is\nwelcome,\u201d said young Lochinvar. \u201cCan you wonder that a lover sighs like\na furnace in this heated season when one sizzles by degrees? Alas!\nthere are no summer girls in Hades, for they exist only in the shadow\nof an ice cream parlor. But I object to the company of Jonah on the\nexcursion. He would hoodoo the whole trip and some of us wouldn\u2019t get\nback to the Styx alive!\u201d\n\nJust then Izaak Walton joined the group.\n\n\u201cI wonder,\u201d he said, \u201cwhat Jonah\u2019s mother-in-law said when he returned\nhome and told that story of the whale as his excuse for remaining out\nthree nights. Other men tell variations of the same story, but they\nmake them less fishy.\u201d\n\n\u201cBy the bye,\u201d I put in, \u201cit seems to me the Morman has the biggest kick\ncoming against his wives\u2019 mothers, yet I\u2019ve never heard a word of\ncomplaint from any of them. How do you account for that, prophet?\u201d\n\n\u201cSpeaking from experience, I would say that one mother-in-law is\nquite enough to have in a family unless a man is fond of excitement,\u201d\nanswered Joe Smith.\n\n\u201cBoswell, what have I said on that subject,\u201d asked Dr. Johnson. \u201cI hate\nto repeat myself, but having said everything that\u2019s worth saying, it\u2019s\nup to Boswell.\u201d\n\n\u201cIf every Johnson had his Boswell, Washington might come into his own,\u201d\nsaid that general. \u201cBut I suppose I ought to be satisfied, for am I not\nthe father of my country?\u201d\n\n\u201cYou seem to think you are the father of the whole world,\u201d snapped\nAdam, who was jealous of the American. \u201cThat distinction belonged to\nme when your country was still shrouded in the mists of the unknown.\nI have talked with all the historians and as far as I can learn, you\nare the father of no one and certainly not of your country. You aren\u2019t\neven a Pilgrim Father and if all Americans followed in the footsteps of\ntheir first president, vital statistics would be less satisfactory to\nRoosevelt than they are. Now, when I was a boy\u2014\u201d\n\n\u201cListen to the oldest inhabitant,\u201d jeered Washington. \u201cAdam recalls his\nboyhood days with extraordinary vividness for a man who never had any.\u201d\n\n\u201cYou may have been first at banquets and first in the hearts of your\ncountrymen,\u201d continued Adam, \u201cbut you weren\u2019t first in the heart of\nyour wife. As you married a widow, some man must have been ahead of you\nthere.\u201d\n\n\u201cThen there\u2019s that old cherry tree fable which ought to have been\nuprooted from the school-books long ago,\u201d said Ananias, who also had an\naxe to grind. \u201cIt\u2019s unfortunate for the perpetuation of truthfulness\nthat the only offspring of the father of his country is a chestnutty\ncherry tree, with a few chips lying on the ground.\u201d\n\nBaron Munchausen gave George Washington a resounding slap on the back.\n\n\u201cYou ought to give up being a pattern of veracity and take to writing\nfiction,\u201d he said. \u201cAn historical novel by General Washington would\nbe the Great American Novel which publishers have announced for the\nlast hundred years and which many authors have thought themselves\nbald-headed trying to produce.\u201d\n\n\u201cI understand that after the ball game, Tennyson will write \u2018The Charge\nof the Eleven.\u2019\u201d\n\n\u201cIsn\u2019t he wrong in his numeral? Baseball is a nine, which is somewhat\nof a discrepancy.\u201d\n\n\u201cOh, that\u2019s poetic license!\u201d\n\n\u201cMay I be Shakespearean a moment?\u201d asked Lord Bacon.\n\n\u201cYou cannot, even for a moment,\u201d declared the Bard of Avon. \u201cI allow no\ninfringements on my copyright.\u201d\n\n\u201cDon\u2019t get excited,\u201d returned milord. \u201cAll shades look alike to me\nand it would be a poor expert who couldn\u2019t prove you were somebody\nelse by your signature. Besides, who is Shakespeare anyway? The\nsweets of notoriety are not for you. You have never been interviewed,\nyour picture does not figure in any patent-medicine advertisement,\nand no phonograph record repeats your blankety-blank verse without\nvariation. Why, Bill, in these days you couldn\u2019t pass an examination\nin Shakespeare without the assistance of half a dozen books of notes,\na glossary, and five professors to tell you what you meant. To be the\nwriter of a coon song is to be famous; to pen \u2018Hamlet\u2019 is simply to\nprovide food for bookworms.\u201d\n\n\u201cLet\u2019s arbitrate,\u201d suggested \u00c6sop.\n\n\u201cNone of your fables for mine,\u201d said Shakespeare, slangily. \u201cYou would\ndesignate two dogs; I would select two cats; they would call in a fox\nfor the odd. The arbitrators would come to talk it over. I would smile\nand rub the cats\u2019 fur the right way. You would fill the dogs with\nporterhouse steak rare, broiled till the air for miles around would be\nrich with the odor, and served with butter gravy. I would cram the cats\nwith liver and cream. You would turn the fox loose in the chicken yard\nand give him the run of the goose pasture. Oh, I know how arbitrations\nare run, whether they be conducted by cats or by capital!\u201d\n\n\u201cThis is no occasion for petty jealousies,\u201d remonstrated Izaak Walton.\n\u201cI would rather cull flowers just now from the banks of a trout stream\nthan train for a prize fight. Hip! hip! hip! for the Hippodrome! Have\nyou forgotten that you are going to exchange Hades for New York, where\nyou can pull the sky over you for cover, use the moon in place of an\nincandescent light, the four points of the compass for bed posts and a\nmorning shower for an alarm clock? We are going to find rest near the\nheart of Nature, where bookmakers are unknown and politicians have no\nhigher ambition than to sit on a rail fence and dream of whittling down\nthe salaries of the school teachers when they get a place on the board\nof education.\u201d\n\n\u201cBoss\u201d Tweed smiled for the first time since his election as janitor of\nthe hall of fame.\n\n\u201cNoah may have a map of the road to the millennium,\u201d he said, \u201cbut he\nhas gotten side-tracked if he thinks New York is one of the stations\nalong that route!\u201d\n\n\n\n\n                      THE MAN WITH THE MEGAPHONE.\n\n\n                             CHAPTER XII.\n\n                      The Man with the Megaphone.\n\n\n\u201cWe\u2019re off,\u201d sang out Noah, using a huge megaphone which could be heard\nthroughout the length of the train. \u201cPerhaps it was not necessary to\ntell you that we had started, but the megaphone man on all \u2018Seeing New\nYork\u2019 trips is expected to begin his lecture with that observation, and\nas we\u2019re going to the earth, we must do as mortals do.\n\n\u201cDue notice of our return will be published in the newspapers, but as\nour stay in the metropolis is indefinite, our address has been left\nwith the constable, and the maid has been instructed to accept service.\n\n\u201cSpeaking of maids reminds me that the dear women are rather hotter\nunder their lace collars just now than usual and are saying things\nquite horrid. You see King Henry the Eighth insisted upon leaving the\nwomen at home. To this C\u00e6sar was opposed.\n\n\u201c\u2018Your wife may be above suspicion,\u2019 said Henry, \u2018but I\u2019m not so sure\nabout mine. Six women tagging after a man are just about half a dozen\ntoo many.\u2019\n\n\u201cSir Walter Raleigh joined forces with C\u00e6sar and they brought the\nmatter to the attention of His Satanic Majesty. The metropolitan stores\nhave just announced a bargain sale of dress goods, so Lucifer knew he\nwould have an insurrection on his hands if he didn\u2019t let the woman go\nshopping. You will notice that the ladies are with us.\u201d\n\n\u201cIf Lucifer had not been a fallen angel,\u201d whispered King Henry in my\near, \u201che would not have known women so well!\u201d\n\n\u201cHave you noticed the charming costume of Mother Eve, who is\nchaperoning the party?\u201d asked Ward McAllister. \u201cHer hat is made up of\na little basket turned upside down, with trailing plants hanging from\nthe top, kept from falling by a tangled mass of ribbon, tickled by a\nfeather that like the ostrich from which it was taken, hides its head\nin a mound of lace and\u2014but how can a mere man describe a woman\u2019s bonnet\nadequately unless he has paid the bill for it? Adam says he would get a\ndivorce if he could name anybody but a snake as co-respondent.\u201d\n\nThe megaphone continued to assault our ear drums.\n\n\u201cWe are still in the region regarded as mythical by Robert Ingersoll,\u201d\nwent on Noah, \u201cand I am pleased to say that that gentleman is returning\nto haunt the famous city which is assessed for one of our largest\navenues paved with good intentions. This resolution business begins\nJanuary first with a bracing against booze and a curtailing of the\nsmoke luxury, but it\u2019s bones to nickels that it ends on the third day\nof grace with a general retreat all along the line and the devil in\nfull pursuit. Most men proceed to lay a whole sidewalk before the grade\nis fixed.\u201d\n\nThe train started up hill with a jolt, but disdaining to notice the\ninconvenience of his passengers\u2014it was a personally-conducted tour,\u2014the\nGrand Sir Knight of the Hand Car continued:\n\n\u201cThis road is inclined to take you to your destination, and I trust the\ngravity of the situation appeals to you. Passengers are permitted to do\none of three things: They may remain seated on the up grade provided\nthey ply their fans vigorously enough to keep the engine from getting\na hot box; or they may get out and walk up hill, or if they need\nexercise, they may get out and push. This is a free country where pull\ndoesn\u2019t count.\n\n\u201cWe always look out for the comfort of our patrons. No passenger ever\ngot a cinder in his eye from a locomotive on this road. Electricity is\nthe motive power and it may interest the scientists present to learn\nthat I have discovered the composition of electricity and with it the\nsecret of life. Its power is derived from the action of its principal\nelement, oxygen, in the process of uniting with the other element,\nhydrogen, with which it compounds in varying proportions up to seven\nparts by weight of oxygen to one of hydrogen, beyond which point the\nproduct becomes water. Up on earth, they need coal or its equivalent\nto furnish power to produce electricity. Down here we make it from the\ndecomposition of water and permitting the oxygen and the hydrogen to\nre-unite. As a result of this friction we get a fire many times hotter\nthan that produced by coal, emitting oxygen instead of carbonic acid\ngas. That explains the exhilaration of the air of Hades and is one\nreason for its popularity as a health resort.\n\n\u201cNo charge is ever made on this line for excessive baggage. You may\ncarry as much as you please, provided you carry it yourself. The only\nlive stock taken in the baggage cars are camels. These \u2018water wagons\u2019\nmight be useful if the assembled company gets dry before New York is\nreached, and if the train should break down, the camel can always be\ndepended upon to get a hump on itself.\n\n\u201cThe Stygian subway, ladies and gentlemen, is the greatest scenic route\nin the world\u2014on a clear day. From the observation cars one gets a view\nof all that is to be seen\u2014earth and darkness. This road is a great feat\nof engineering from the fact that it has no tunnels, no bridges and no\ncurves. It is the only double tracked line in Hades and each rail is so\nwidely separated from its fellow that they are not on speaking terms.\n\n\u201cA third rail was added for safety and rapid progress, movement having\nbeen the order of things since the earth began to revolve upon its\naxis. It was found that a single track would not fit the rolling stock\nand an attempt to propel a two-wheel car over a single-rail road by\nAnanias provoked much cussing. The road-bed did not lie so well as the\nengineer who laid it!\n\n\u201cThis is the only line in the world where the time-tables are made\nsolely to suit the public and where a man never loses his train nor his\ntemper. If the schedule as formulated by the general manager, Myself,\ndoes not suit you, application to the division superintendent, Myself,\nwill be all that is necessary. Complaints to the general passenger,\nagent, Myself, are at once referred to Me in My capacity of president\nand thus no time is lost in red tape. I hold every office within the\ngift of the road, the only practical solution to labor difficulties.\n\n\u201cWe are now nearing Hellgate, which is at the entrance to New York.\nNever having been to America, I asked Benedict Arnold to write\nthe remainder of the lecture. You may therefore depend upon this\ndescription of the Great Republic as being strictly impartial and\nwithout prejudice. As an aside, I may as well tell you that before\nstarting for New York, Arnold took the precaution to put an iron band\naround his pocketbook.\n\n\u201cAmerica, according to the man who sold it, is the land where preachers\nare paid from $500 to $20,000 according to their ability to dodge\nSatan and tickle the ears of the wealthy; where no clergyman writes a\nsermon without a concordance in one hand and a popular novel in the\nother; where the deacons conduct an auction for the best pews, and\nwhere there is a daily round of theatricals by the Sunday School and\nchicken suppers by the Ladies\u2019 Aid, with collections and religion\nthrown in for a change on Sunday.\n\n\u201cThis is the land where the politician shakes poverty by the hand\nbefore election and later altogether; where they have a congress of\nfour hundred men to make laws for a supreme court of nine to set aside;\nwhere they have prayers on the floor of the national capitol and\nwhiskey in the basement; where men vote for what they do not want for\nfear they will get what they want by voting for it; where other men\nstay away from the polls one day and swear about the result the other\nthree-hundred and sixty-four days in the year.\n\n\u201cAmerican elections are held in the suicidal atmosphere of drear\nNovember, when the candidates roam about, seeking whom they can\ndeceive. If saying what isn\u2019t true so often that you end by believing\nit yourself, constitutes a liar, and if the lie is a sin to everybody\nbut oneself, it is to be hoped the recording angel charitably shuts up\nhis book and takes a vacation about election time. If one party could\ngain control of the whole earth, its leaders would start an agitation\nto make their opponents go to the expense of fencing it in.\n\n\u201cThe American press is nothing if not enterprising. Why, if King Edward\nwere to fall downstairs tomorrow and break his meerschaum pipe, New\nYorkers would know of it, through their newspapers, five hours before\nhe knew it himself!\n\n\u201cHades gets most of its paving material from the American metropolis,\nApollyon having been given a perpetual contract by the Board of\nAldermen. In New York there is such a multiplication of conveniences\nthat an electrician, a telephone girl and a plumber have to occupy\none\u2019s flat day and night to keep things in order. It is the antithesis\nof Philadelphia and of Venice, whose streets are never torn up every\nsecond day for subways or to insert more pipes. So disgustingly\npeaceful is the Quaker City that one can lean out of the window in\nhis pajamas and dip up water for the morning bath without waking\nup the policeman on the beat; all is so quiet along the Delaware\nto-night that no sticks of dynamite are piled on the front doorstep\nand no sky-scrapers are being erected between twilight and dawn to be\ndemolished for something else as soon as the tenants have been elevated\nto the twentieth story.\n\n\u201cThis is the land where the captain of industry is he whose pockets\nso bulge with other people\u2019s money that the door of the prison is not\nlarge enough to admit him; where the golden calf is worshipped as a\ngod and the church is used as a waste-basket for unuttered prayers\nand for good resolutions, newly born; where to be virtuous is to be\na crank, and to be honest is to be lonesome; where the citizens sit\non the safety valve of conscience and throw wide open the throttle of\nenergy; where the seat of intellect is in the stomach.\n\n\u201cThe principal product of this remarkable country is girls, who\ntolerate rich papas only until they can buy a duke or a prince at the\nreigning market quotation. The American girl divides her attention\nbetween picture hats, chewing gum and ice cream sodas, beginning\nthe day with an orange phosphate at ten A.M., and finishing it and\nthe pocketbook of her steady company at twelve P.M. with a menu of\nsoft-shell crabs, lobsters and Roman punch eaten without a qualm of\nconscience or a disordered stomach!\n\n\u201cAmerica is a country where to look after the interests of capital is\nstatesmanship and to do anything for labor is socialism and anarchy;\nwhere politicians before election orate upon the identity of interests\nof the capitalist who lives on The Avenue and the laborer who is kept\nin the back alley: a point which becomes so obscured the day after\nelection as to require the help of the police and the militia to make\nclear. It is a youthful, boasting nation which forgets the aphorism\nthat children should be seen and not heard, whose every citizen holds\na firecracker in one hand, a Fourth of July oration in the other and\nwears Declaration of Independence chips upon his shoulders in perpetual\nchallenge to the world.\n\n\u201cAmerica is a nation whose goddess of Liberty was foreign born,\nbaptized in blood, then sent into exile, where, serene and indifferent,\nshe turns her back on the land of her adoption and looks out to sea, a\nheartless statue! This is a country without a language of its own, with\na national hymn that sings only of New England and is set to stolen\nmusic, whose only national dance is the cakewalk and most popular tune\na rag-time coon song; a land whose people never allow the voice of\nconscience to speak louder than the bell of the cash register.\u201d\n\n\u201cDespite his century of banishment, Benedict Arnold is still a traitor\nto his country,\u201d I observed.\n\n\u201cNot at all,\u201d answered Washington. \u201cWhy, he doesn\u2019t know the meaning\nof the word \u2018traitor\u2019 when separated from its Websterian environment.\nHis so-called betrayal of his country was but an incident to his\nwinning a woman, and where there\u2019s a woman, man will make a way. Before\nthe organization of the Asbestos Society of Sinners, the historians\nconspired with Pluto to fry us in our own fat, but now, immune in our\nasbestos attire, it\u2019s Siberia for Satan, and there\u2019s always something\ndoing in the Douma of the Dead. As for me, I\u2019m tired of being called\n\u2018truthful George\u2019: it calls for such plain language that somebody\u2019s\nfeelings are sure to be singed. What\u2019s the use of telling the truth\nwhen a lie is so much more believable and\u2014interesting?\u201d\n\nBeing busily engaged in writing a letter to the city editor of the New\nYork Universe, I did not notice that the blare of the megaphone had\nceased. It was not until the car shot out of the darkness that the\nletter dropped from my hand. I gasped in astonishment.\n\n\u201cThe Battery! All change!\u201d sang out the voice in the megaphone. But the\ncar did not stop. As if shot from a catapult it leaped over the trees\nand vaulted the aquarium. It fluttered in the air and then settled down\nin the waters of the bay like a bird with a broken wing.\n\nWhen I opened my eyes I was being rolled over a barrel, and an\nambulance surgeon was forcing some very bad whiskey down my throat.\nWhether it was the liquor or the water I had swallowed I know not, but\nmy surroundings seemed those of the Twenty-third Street water front,\nwest, rather than of the Battery. Was I being rescued from the sinking\nof a ferry boat or from Noah\u2019s Ark? Had my trip to Hades consumed only\nthe flash of the grain of sand in Time\u2019s hour-glass which had seen me\nsink to the bottom of the river and rise again, or had I been the\nguest of the shades of the Styx for a day, a month, a year? A man who\nhad taken a whiskey straight might have solved the problem, but to a\nman whose brain was befuddled by mixed drinks, coherent thought was\nimpossible. I fell asleep, content to drift and drift and dream\u2014of\ndevils.\n\n\n                               THE END.\n\n\n\n\n                     THE LAND OF FULFILLED DESIRE.\n\n\n                               EPILOGUE.\n\n                     The Land of Fulfilled Desire.\n\n\n  MY DEAR MR. BANGS:\n\nI have been to Hades in search of a sensation, but even the devil\ncouldn\u2019t keep a newspaper man down and so once more I am in the\nterritory of the tired\u2014New York. It may interest you to know that I am\nholding down the city desk of the Universe, the former incumbent having\ndisappeared shortly before my return from the domain of the departed.\nHe left a letter addressed to his successor and I feel that I am\nviolating no confidence in divulging its contents:\n\n\u201cWhat impels me to record the experiences of this, my last night on\nearth, I do not know. Perhaps it is to counterfeit courage, for when a\nman receives a \u2018ticket to the hereafter\u2019 he feels the need of something\nto brace his backbone, just as a boy will whistle in make-believe\nbravery on rounding a dark corner.\n\n\u201cI felt more than ordinarily weary, for I seemed to be losing my grip\non my work and on\u2014life! For several minutes I had been idly toying\nwith a pearl-handled revolver which I used as a paper weight, when a\nrustling of paper made me turn. On the floor was a letter.\n\n\u201c\u2018That\u2019s odd,\u2019 I muttered. \u2018The shades who deliver letters from\nour Stygian correspondent usually lay them upon my desk like any\nwell-regulated ghost would do.\u2019\n\n\u201cAs I stooped to pick up the epistle, I noticed that my blue pencil lay\nupon my pen, the two forming a cross. Then I knew what had exorcised\nthe shade and frightened it away. To an imaginative man, the episode\nwas uncanny. And it was night!\n\n\u201cUsing the penholder as a paper cutter, I tore open the envelope and\ntook out the letter. It began without formalities:\n\n\u201c\u2018I suppose my interviews with Cimmerian citizens were pronounced\nthe most sensational fakes of the year. Did you state whether the\nmanuscript from the domain of the departed had a sulphurous tinge or\nwas redolent with spices and perfumes? The wireless correspondence from\nHades-on-Styx must have created much excitement on earth. People may\ndoubt the genuineness of my description of Hades, but they will have\na hot time proving me wrong, although nowadays not even the parson\nbelieves in a scorch for every sin. Don\u2019t you want to come and take my\nplace as scribe to Satan? I have been fighting down a desire to have\nyou visit this subterranean resort, for did one but express the wish,\nit would be gratified in this, the Land of Fulfilled Desire. If Pluto\nsays \u201cCome\u201d\u2014\u2019\n\n\u201cObeying a sudden impulse, I struck a match and held the letter in\nthe flame. Instantly it was snatched from my hand, though I could see\nno one. At the same moment every electric light in the building went\nout, leaving the place in darkness. On the air was a pungent odor of\nbrimstone.\n\n\u201c\u2018The devil!\u2019 I ejaculated. That invocation sealed my fate: it was the\nStyx and the Simple Life for mine, via the Jersey ferry. And it was\nnight!\u201d\n\nIn the lore of Longfellow, \u201cAll the rest is mystery.\u201d\n\n                                               LAWRENCE DANIEL FOGG.","title":"The Asbestos Society of Sinners: detailing the diversions of Dives and others on the playground of Pluto, with some broken threads of drop-stitch history, picked up by a newspaper man in Hades and woven into a Stygian nights' entertainment","tradition":"myth-cosmogony","translated_text":null,"word_count":31268}