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it an unhappy ending to all his hopes the old man sadly back into his ancient vessel and off into the darkness some hours later returning with a large company of new while counting up the profits of the day again caught sight of the new craft and saw that it was brilliantly lighted and thronged with the most famous citizens of the country up in the bow was makes a di c a spirit band music of the sweetest sort merry of laughter rang out over the dark waters of the the of glasses and the of the music with a which would have delighted the soul of the most ardent lover of all of which so overpowered the grand master of the company that he dropped three and an american which he carried as a pocket piece overboard this of course added to his woe but it was forgotten in an instant for some one on the new boat had turned a search light directly upon himself and simultaneously hailed the master of the boat cried the shade in charge of the light yourself returned the old man his craft close up to the stranger what do you want you said the shade the house committee want to see you right away what for asked cautiously a house boat on the sure i don t know i m only a member of the club and house never let mere members know anything about their plans all i know is that you are wanted said the other who are the house committee the sir walter doctor johnson and replied the shade tell em i ll be back in an hour said pushing off i ve got a cargo of shades on board consigned to various places up the river i ve promised to get em all through to night but i ll put on a couple of extra two of the new are working their passage this trip and it won t take as long as usual what boat is this anyhow the of thunder cried as he pushed off and proceeded on his way up the river named after my mother perhaps it ll come out all right yet more hopeful of mood aided by makes a discovery the two dead head passengers soon got through with his evening s work and in less than an hour was back seeking as requested to the company of sir walter and his fellow members on the house committee he was received by these with considerable considering his position in society and it warmed the of his aged heart to note that sir walter who had always been rather distant to him since he had carelessly upset that worthy and queen elizabeth in the middle of tlie far back in the last century permitted him to shake three fingers of his left hand when he entered the committee room how do you do said sir walter we are very glad to see you thank you kindly sir walter said the i m glad to hear those words your honor for i ve been feeling very bad since i had the misfortune to drop your and her majesty overboard i never knew how it hap a house boat on the sir but happen it did and but for her majesty s kind assistance it might have been the worse for us eh sir walter the knight shook his head at hitherto he had managed to keep it a secret that the queen had rescued him from drowning upon that occasion by swimming ashore herself first and throwing sir walter her as soon as she landed which he had used as a sh he said don t say anything about that my man very well sir walter i won t said the but he made a mental note of the knight s agitation and perceived a means by which that illustrious could be made useful to him in his for social advancement i understood you had something to say to me said after he had greeted the others we have said sir walter we want you to assume command of this boat i i makes a discovery the old fellow s eyes lighted up with pleasure you want a captain eh he said no said tapping the table with a diamond studded chop stick no we want a er what tlie deuce is it they call the i think said gave a loud laugh your mind is still on my dear tliat is quite evident he said this is not one of them however the title we wish to assume is neither captain nor it is what s that asked a little disappointed what does a have to do he has to look after things in the house explained sir walter he s a sort of proprietor by we want you to take charge of the house and see to it that the boat is kept where is the house the astonished a house boat on the this is it said sir walter this is the house and the boat too in fact it is a house boat then it isn t a new scheme to drive me out of business said not at all returned sir walter it s a new scheme to set you up in business we ll pay you a large salary and there won t be much to do you are the best man for the place because while you don t know much about houses you do know a great deal about boats and the boat part is the most important part of a house boat if the boat sinks you can t save the house but if the house burns you may be able to save the boat see i think i do sir said another reason why we want to employ you for said is that our club wants to be	27
i believe it was one of his that sent nature into and caused the destruction of so there i put that on your music rack and fiddle it my little emperor s face grew purple with and a house boat on the if shakespeare had been anything but a shade he would have ill for the enraged roman his cue on high as though it were a lance hurled it at the impertinent with all his strength and with such accuracy of aim withal that it pierced the spot beneath which in life the heart of shakespeare used to beat good shot said doctor johnson if you had been a mortal william it would have been the end of you you can t kill me said shakespeare his shoulders i know seven dozen actors in the united states who are trying to do it but they can t i wish they d try to kill a critic once in a while instead of me though he added i went over to boston one night last week and unknown to anybody i a fellow who was to play hamlet that night i him and went to the theatre and played the part myself it was the house you ever saw in your life when the audience did it sounded like an ice rt v i a disputed man up ice with a small pick several times i looked up at the galleries to see if there were not growing on them it was so cold well i did the best i could with the part and next morning watched curiously for the favorable asked the doctor they all dismissed me with a line said the said my conception of the part was not and that s criticism no said the shade of which had strolled in while shakespeare was talking that isn t criticism that s boston who discovered boston anyhow asked doctor johnson it wasn t was it oh no said old governor is to blame for that when he settled at he saw the old indian town of across the charles and was the boston was it asked johnson yes said with a p i suppose said shake a house boat on the p s h a w m u t so called because the inhabitants are always muttering eh pretty good said johnson i wish i d said that well tell said shakespeare he ll make you say it and it ll be all the same in a hundred years lord bacon accompanied by and the ice for and the ale for doctor johnson as shakespeare spoke the philosopher bowed stiffly at doctor johnson as though he hardly approved of him extended his left hand to shakespeare and stared coldly at did you send for me william he asked languidly i did said shakespeare i sent for you because this imperial here says that you wrote what nonsense said bacon the only plays of yours i wrote were sam sh said shakespeare shaking his head madly nobody s said any a disputed thing about that this is purely a discussion of the ex emperor said bacon loudly enough to be heard all about the room is mistaken when he attributes to me master cried shakespeare triumphantly what did i tell you then i that is all said and i but really my lord he added addressing bacon i fancied i detected your fine italian hand in that no i had nothing to do with the said bacon i never really knew who wrote it never mind about that whispered shakespeare you ve said enough that s good too said with a chuckle shakespeare here claims it as his own bacon smiled and nodded at the blushing will always was having his little joke he said eh will how we em a house boat on the on hamlet eh my boy ha ha ha it was the greatest of the century well the laugh is on you said doctor johnson if you wrote hamlet and didn t have the sense to acknowledge it you present to my mind a closer resemblance to simple than to for my part i don t believe you did write it and i do believe that shakespeare did i can tell that by the in the original edition shakespeare was my gentlemen said lord bacon if you want to know the whole truth he did write hamlet literally but it was at my i deny it said shakespeare i admit you gave me a suggestion now and then so as to keep it dull and heavy in spots so that it would seem more like a real tragedy than a comedy with deaths but beyond that you had nothing to do with it i side with shakespeare put in i ve seen his and no a disputed sane person would employ a man who wrote such a bad hand as an it s no use bacon we know a thing or two fm a new i am well said bacon his shoulders as though the results of the were to him have it so if you please there isn t any money in shakespeare these days so what s the use of quarrelling i wrote hamlet and shakespeare knows it others know it ah here comes sir walter we ll leave it to him he was of the whole affair i leave it to nobody said shakespeare what s the trouble asked up and taking a chair under the cue rack talking politics not we said bacon it s the old question about the of hamlet will as usual claims it for himself he ll be saying he wrote next well what if he does laughed ra a house boat on the we all know will and his droll ways no doubt put in but the question of hamlet always him so that we d like to have it settled	27
once and for all as to who wrote it bacon says you know i do said then settle it once and for all said bacon i m rather tired of the discussion myself shall i tell em shakespeare asked it s to me said shakespeare if you wish only tell the truth very well said lighting a cigar i m not ashamed of it i wrote the thing myself there was a roar of laughter which when it subsided found shakespeare rapidly disappearing through the door while all the others in the room ordered various at the expense of lord bacon ill washington gives a dinner it was washington s birthday and the gentleman who had the pleasure of being father of his country decided to it at the associated shades floating palace on the as the weekly a journal of society called it by giving a dinner to a select number of friends among the invited guests were baron doctor johnson napoleon and was also present but not as a guest he had a table off to one side all to himself and upon it there were no china plates silver knives forks and dishes of fruit but pens and ink in great quantity it was evident that s duties did a house boat on the not end with his labors in the sphere the dinner was set down to begin at seven o clock so that the guests as was proper sauntered slowly in between that hour and eight the was particularly choice the shades of countless canvas back ducks and sheep having been called into and cooked by no less a person than in the oven he could find in the famous cooking establishment by the government washington was on hand early the and the and the and giving to final instructions as to the manner in which he wished things served the first guest to arrive was and after him came the latter in great excitement over having discovered a comparatively honest man whose name however he had not been able to ascertain though he was under the impression that it was something like or he said washington gives a dinner at eight the brilliant company was arranged comfortably about the board an of five under the of sweet music behind a screen and the feast of reason and flow of soul began this is a great day said doctor johnson assisting himself to the yes said who was also a guest yes it is a great day but it isn t a to a little day in october i of still sore on that point trying the edge of his knife on the shade of a oh no said calmly i don t feel jealous of washington he is the father of his country and i am not i only discovered the orphan i knew the country before it had a father or a mother there wasn t anybody who was willing to be even a sister to it when i knew it but g w here took it in hand it down it when it needed it and started it off on the career which has a boat on the made it worth while for me to let my name be known in connection with it why should i be jealous of him i am sure i don t know why anybody anywhere should be jealous of anybody else anyhow said i never was and i never expect to be jealousy is a quality that is utterly foreign to the nature of an honest man take my own case for instance when i was what they call alive how did i live i don t know said doctor johnson turning his head as he spoke so that could not fail to hear i wasn t there well nodded chuckled slightly and put the doctor s remark down for publication in the gossip you re doubtless right there retorted what you don t know would fill a library well i lived in a tub now if i believed in envy i suppose you think i d be envious of people who live in fronts with back yards and eh washington gives a dinner i d rather live under a than in a tub said contemptuously i know you would said never you but i wouldn t in the first place my tub was warm i never saw a house with a front that was except in summer and then the owner cursed it because it was so my tub had no in it to get out of order it hadn t any flights of stairs in it that had to be climbed after dinner or late at night when i came home from the club it had no front door with a wandering key hole calculated to the key ninety nine times out of every hundred efforts to bring the two together and reconcile their differences in order that their owner may get into his own house late at night it wasn t chained down to any particular neighborhood as are most fronts if the neighborhood ran down i could move my tub off into a better neighborhood and it never lost value through the a house boat on the of its i never had to pay taxes on it and no was ever so hard up that he thought of breaking into my habitation to rob so why should i be jealous of the house i am a philosopher gentlemen i tell you philosophy is the thief of jealousy and i had the good luck to find it out early in life there is much in what you say said but there s another side to the matter if a man is an by nature as i was his neighborhood never could run down wherever he lived would be the swell section so that really your last argument isn t	27
to a man with no bullets at hand the sight of sixty eight fat is hardly encouraging but i was resolved to have every one of those birds washington gives a dinner the question was how shall i do it i never can think on water so i quietly ashore and began to reflect as i lay there deep in thought i saw lying upon the beach before me a superb and as reflection makes me hungry i seized upon the and swallowed him as he went down something stuck in ray throat and it what should it prove to be but a pearl of surpassing beauty my first thought was to be content with my day s find a pearl worth thousands surely was enough to satisfy the most ardent lover of sport but on looking up i saw those ducks still about and i could not bring myself to give them up suddenly the idea came the pearl is as large as a bullet and fully as round why not use it then as thoughts come to me in i next reflected ah but this is only one bullet as against sixty eight birds immediately a third thought came why not shoot them all with a single bullet it is possible though not probable i snatched a boat on out a of paper and a pencil made a rapid calculation based on the doctrine of chances and proved to my own satisfaction that at some time or another within the following two weeks those birds would doubtless be sitting in a straight line and about indian file for an instant i resolved to await that instant i loaded my gun with the pearl and a sufficient quantity of powder to send the charge through every one of the ducks if perchance the first duck were properly hit to pass over wearisome details let me say that it happened just as i expected i had one week and six days to wait but finally the critical moment came it was at midnight but fortunately the moon was at the full and i could see as plainly as though it had been day the moment the ducks were in line i aimed and fired they every one turned over and died my pearl had pierced the whole sixty eight blushed said doctor johnson it was a pity to lose the pearl washington gives a dinner that said was the most interesting part of the story i had made a second calculation in order to save the pearl i the amount of powder necessary to send the through sixty seven and a half birds and my was strictly accurate it fulfilled its mission of death on sixty seven and was found buried in the heart of the a trifle but still a pearl and worth a king s napoleon gave a laugh and the other guests sat with incredulity depicted upon every line of their faces do you believe that story yourself baron asked why not asked the baron is there anything improbable in it why should you it look at our friend washington here is there any one here who knows more about truth than he does he doesn t it he s the only man at this table who treats me like a man of honor a house boat on the he s host and has to said johnson his shoulders well washington let me put the direct question to you said the baron say you aren t host and are under no obligation to be courteous do you believe i haven t been telling the truth my dear said the general don t ask me i m not an authority i can t tell a lie not even when i hear one if you say your story is true i must believe it of course but ah really if i were you i wouldn t tell it again unless i could produce the pearl and the wish bone of one of the ducks at least whereupon as the discussion was beginning to grow washington hailed and ordering a boat invited his guests to accompany him over into the world of realities where they passed the balance of the evening haunting a performance at one of the london music halls iv hamlet makes a suggestion it was a beautiful night on the and the silvery surface of that picturesque stream was dotted with and other craft to an extent that made feel like a highly prosperous bank within the house boat were gathered a merry party some of whom were on mere pleasure bent others of whom had come to listen to a debate for which the entertainment committee had provided between the venerable and the late eminent p t the question to be was upon the resolution passed by the committee that the animals of the period were far more attractive for show purposes than those of modern make and singular to relate the a house boat on the was placed in the hands of mr while to had fallen the task of the virtues of the modern it is with the party on mere pleasure bent that we have to do upon this occasion the proceedings of the party are as yet in the hands of the official but will be made public as soon as they are ready the pleasure seeking group were gathered in the smoking room of the club which was indeed a smoking room of a novel sort the invention of an unknown shade who had sold all the rights to the club through a third party preferring it seemed to remain in the world as he had been in the sphere a mute it was a simple enough scheme and for a wonder no one in the world of has thought to take it up the smoke was stored in just as if it were so much gas	27
or water and was supplied on the hot air furnace principle from a huge furnace in the hold of the house hamlet makes a suggestion boat into which tobacco was by the hired man of the club night and day the smoke from the furnace carried through to the smoking room was there received and in the with each of which was connected one dozen rubber having at their ends mouth pieces upon each of these mouth pieces was arranged a small the amount of smoke consumed through it and for this the paid so much a foot the value of the plan was it did away entirely with ashes it saved to the the value of the tobacco that is represented by the cigar ends and it averted the possibility of enjoying the benefits of this arrangement upon the evening in question were shakespeare henry viii doctor johnson and others of course was present too for a moment with his note book and this fact some criticism from several of the you ought to be up stairs in the a house boat on the room well said shakespeare as the great took his seat behind his friend the doctor doesn t the gossip want a report of the debate it does said but the i always to get the most interesting of the day and doctor johnson has informed me that he expects to be unusually witty this evening so i have come here excuse me for saying it said the doctor getting red in the face over this unexpected confession but really you talk too much that s good said stick that down and print it it s the best thing johnson has said this week smiled weakly and said but doctor you did say that you know i can prove it too for you told me some of the things you were going to say don t you remember you were going to lead shakespeare up to making the remark that he thought the english language was the greatest language in creation whereupon hamlet makes a suggestion you were going to ask him why he didn t learn it get out of here you idiot roared the doctor you re enough to give a man you re not going back on the ladder by which you have climbed are you samuel earnestly the a t cried the doctor angrily the ladder on which i climbed you great heavens that it should come to this leave the room instantly ladder by all that is beautiful the ladder upon which i samuel johnson the person in letters have climbed go do you hear rose meekly and with tears down his cheeks left the room that s one on you doctor said his about him i think you ought to order up three baskets of champagne on that i ll order up three baskets full of s remains if he ever dares speak like that again retorted the doctor shaking a house boat on the with anger he my ladder why it s ridiculous yes said shakespeare that s why we laugh you were a little hard on him doctor said henry viii he was a valuable man to you he had a great eye for your greatness yes if there s any feature of that s greater than his nose and ears it s his great i said the doctor you d rather have him change his i to a u i presume said napoleon quietly the doctor waved his hand impatiently let s drop him he said dropping one s isn t without precedent as soon as any man ever got to know napoleon well enough to write him up he sent him to the front where he could get a little lead in his system i wish i had had a all the same said shakespeare then the world would have known the truth about me it wouldn t if he d relied on your word i hamlet makes a suggestion for it retorted the doctor here s hamlet as the doctor spoke in very truth the melancholy appeared in the doorway more melancholy of aspect than ever what s the matter with you asked addressing the new comer haven t you got that poison out of your system yet not entirely said hamlet with a sigh but it isn t that that s me it s fate we ll get out an against fate if you like said is it persecution or have you deserved it i think it s persecution said hamlet i never wronged fate in my life and why she should pursue me like a demon through all eternity is a thing i can t understand maybe is back of it suggested doctor johnson these women have a great deal of sympathy for each other and candidly i think you behaved pretty rudely to it s a poor way to show your love for a young woman running a a house boat on the sword through her father every night for pay and driving the girl to suicide with equal just to show theatre what a smart little you can be if you try t me does all that returned hamlet i only did it once and even then it wasn t as bad as shakespeare made it out to be i put it down just as it was said shakespeare hotly and you can t dispute it yes he can said you made him tell he knew me well and he never met me in his life i never told anything of the sort said hamlet i never entered the even and i can prove an and what s more he couldn t have made the remark the way shakespeare has it anyhow said and for a very good reason i wasn t buried in that and hamlet and i can prove an for the skull	27
too hamlet makes a suggestion it was a good play just the same said very put in doctor johnson it cured me of well if you don t talk in your sleep the play did a christian service to the world retorted shakespeare but really hamlet i thought i did the square thing by you in that play i meant to anyhow and if it has made you unhappy i m honestly sorry spoken like a man said i don t mind the play so much said hamlet but the way i m represented by these fellows who play it is the thing that me the wrong way why i even hear that there s a out in the western part of the united states that puts the thing on with three two ghosts and a pair of blood hounds it s called the uncle tom hamlet combination and instead of my falling in love with one crazy i am made to three dusky named on a canvas ice while the blood hounds bark behind the a house boat on the scenes what sort of treatment is that for a man of royal it s pretty rough said napoleon as the poet ought to have said oh hamlet hamlet what crimes are committed in thy name i feel as badly about the play as hamlet does said shakespeare after a moment of silent thought i don t bother much about this wild western business though because i think the introduction of the and the makes us both more popular in that region than we should be otherwise what i object to is the way we are treated by these so called first class intellectual actors in london and other great cities i ve seen hamlet done before a highly cultivated audience and by jove it made me blush me too sighed hamlet i have seen a man who had a walk on him that suggested spring halt and combined my graceful self in a manner that drove me almost crazy i ve heard my to be or not to be o k f il hamlet makes a suggestion uttered by a famous in tones that would make a at mid day and if there was any way in which i could get even with that man i d do it it seems to me said assuming for the moment a highly manner it seems to me that shakespeare having got you into this trouble ought to get you out of it but how said shakespeare earnestly that s the point heaven knows i m willing enough hamlet s face suddenly brightened as though illuminated with an idea then he began to dance about the room with an expression of glee that annoyed doctor johnson exceedingly i wish could see you now the doctor growled a picture of you would prove his arguments rail on o philosopher retorted hamlet rail on i mind your not for i the of an idea have got well go yourself said the a house boat on the doctor i d hate to have one of your idea get hold of me what s the scheme asked shakespeare you can write a play for me cried hamlet make it a farce tragedy take the modern player for your hero and let play him i ll bait him through four acts i ll imitate his walk i ll cultivate his voice we ll have the first act a act and drop the hero into the the second act can be in a saw mill and we can cut his hair off on a saw the third act can introduce a driver with which to drive his hat over his eyes and knock his brains down into his lungs the fourth act can be at falls and we ll send him over the falls and for a grand climax we can have him just after he has swallowed a of and a of powdered glass do that for me william and you are forgiven play it for six hundred nights in london for two years in new york and round up with a one night stand in boston hamlet makes a suggestion it sounds like a good scheme said shakespeare what shall we call it call it said who had entered i too have suffered and let me be hamlet s said charles the first earnestly done said shakespeare calling for a and pencil and as the sun rose upon the the next morning the bard of was to be seen writing a comic chorus to be sung over the by the shades of charles and other eminent deceased heroes of the stage with which his new play of was to be brought to an appropriate close this play has not as yet found its way upon the boards but any manager who desires to consider it may address hamlet the boat on the a house boat on the he is sure to get a reply by return mail unless which is not unlikely since is said to have been much pleased with the manner in which the eminent has put him before the british and american public v the house committee discuss the poets there s one thing this house boat needs wrote in the that adorned the centre table in the reading room and that is a poets corner there are smoking rooms for those who smoke rooms for those who play and a card room for those who play cards i do not smoke i can t play and i do not know a of diamonds from a silver all i can do is write poetry why against me by all means let us have a poets corner where a man can be inspired in peace for four days this entry lay in the book apparently unnoticed on the fifth day the following lines signed by appeared a house boat on the i	27
approve of s suggestion there should be a poets corner here then the rest of us could have some comfort while playing et u i with in the card room on p evening a poetic member of this club was taken with a most violent fancy and it required the combined efforts of and myself assisted by the to remove the and objectionable member from the room the habit some of our poets have acquired of giving way to their all over the club house should be stopped and i know of no better way to accomplish this desirable end than by the of s suggestion therefore i second the motion of course the suggestion of two members so prominent as and could not well be ignored by the house committee and it reluctantly took the subject in hand at an early meeting i find here said to the as the committee gathered a suggestion from and that i i i house committee discuss the poets this house boat be provided with a poets corner i do not know that i approve of the suggestion myself but in order to bring it before the committee for debate i am willing to make a motion that the request be granted excuse me put in doctor johnson but where do you find that suggestion here is not very definite where is here in the complaint book which i hold in my hand returned putting a in his mouth so that he might more clearly a frown ruffled the serenity of doctor johnson s brow in the complaint book eh he said slowly i thought house were not expected to pay any attention to complaints in complaint books i never heard of its being done before well i can t say that i have either replied thoughtfully on the but i suppose complaint books are the places for complaints a house boat on the you don t expect people to write stories or dialect poems in them do you that isn t the point as the man said to the who tried to him with the of his dagger retorted doctor johnson with some of course complaint books are for the reception of complaints nobody that what i want to have determined is whether it is necessary or proper for the complaints to go further i fancy we have a legal right to take the matter up said wearily though i don t know of any precedent for such action in all the clubs i have known the house have invariably taken the ground that the was established to guard them against the annoyance of hearing complaints this one however has been forced upon us by our secretary and in view of the age of the i think we cannot well decline to give them a specific answer respect for age is de at all times like clean hands i ll second the motion house committee discuss the poets i think the poets corner entirely unnecessary said this isn t a class organization and we should resist any effort to make it or any portion of it so in fact i will go further and state that it is my opinion that if we do any in the matter at all we ought to rather than encourage these poets they are always the club up with themselves only last wednesday i came here with a guest no less a person than a recently deceased emperor of china and what was the first sight that greeted our eyes i give it up said doctor johnson it must have been a sight whatever it was if the emperor s eyes like yours no please doctor said sir walter the the table vigorously with the shade of a handsome that had once adorned the roman chamber he s only a muttered johnson a house boat on the what was the sight that greeted your eyes asked stretched over five of the most comfortable chairs in the library returned and when i ventured to with him he lost his temper and said td spoiled the whole second volume of the i told him he ought to do his at home and he made a scene to avoid which i hastened with my guest over to the room and there stretched at full length on the pool table was robert burns trying to write a on the cloth with chalk in less time than could turn out another with two lines start on the table with the same writing materials now i ask you gentlemen if these things are to be are they not rather to be whether i am a or not what would you have us do then asked sir walter a little poets altogether i was one remember house committee discuss the poets oh but not much of one sir walter put in doctor johnson no said i don t want them excluded but they should be controlled you don t let a who has become a member of this club turn the library into benches and go away at boot making so why should you let the poets turn the place into a verse factory that s what i d like to know i don t know but what your point is well taken said though i can t say i think your are very parallel a my dear is somewhat different from a poet certainly said doctor johnson very different in fact different enough to make a of the question what is the difference between a and a poet one makes the shoes and the other shakes the muse all the difference in the world still i don t see how we can the poets it is the very of this club that gives it life we take in everybody peer poet or what not to say that i a house boat on the this man	27
shall not enter because he is this or that or the other thing would result in our ultimately becoming a class organization which as himself says we are not and must not be if we put out the poet to please the sage we ll soon have to put out the sage to please the fool and so on we ll keep it up once the precedent is established until finally it will become a class club entirely a club for instance and how absurd that would be in no gentlemen it can t be done the poets must and shall be preserved what s the objection to class clubs anyhow asked i don t object to them if we could have had political in my day i might not have had to fall on my sword to get out of keeping an engagement i had no fancy for class clubs have their uses no doubt said have all the class clubs you want but do not make one of this an authors club where none but authors are admitted is a good j r v j a i i j j house committee discuss the poets thing the members learn there that there are other authors than themselves poets clubs are a good thing they bring poets into contact with each other and they learn what a bore it is to have to listen to a poet reading his own poem clubs are good so are all other class clubs but so also are clubs like our own which takes in all who are worthy here a poet can talk poetry as much as he wants but at the same time he hears something besides poetry we must stick to our original idea then let us do something to the nuisance of which i complain said can t we adopt a house rule that poets must not be inspired between the hours of a m and p m or in the evening after eight that any poet discovered using more than five arm chairs in the composition of a will be charged two an hour for each chair in excess of that number and that the shall be required to charge a of three times the ordinary fee for tables used by in of writing a house boat on the that wouldn t be a bad idea said sir walter i as a poet would not object to that i do all my work at home anyhow there s another phase of this business that we haven t considered yet and it s rather important said taking a fresh out of his re that s in the matter of this club like all other well regulated clubs its members with a suitable supply of writing materials me that the waste baskets last week turned out forty two of our best correspondence paper on which these poets had the first of their verses now i don t think the club should furnish the poets with the raw material for their poems any more than to go back to s it should supply leather for our what do you mean by raw material for poems asked sir walter with a frown pen ink and paper what else said house committee discuss the poets doesn t it take brains to write a poem said doesn t it take brains to make a pair of shoes retorted a in his haste they ve got a right to the though put in a clear legal right to it if they choose to write poems on the paper instead of people to death with letters as most of us do that s their own affair well they re very said we can meet that easily enough observed furnish each with a slate i should think they d be pleased with that it s so much easier to rub out the wrong word most poets prefer to rub out the right word growled besides i shall never consent to in this the of the would be worse than the poems themselves that s true said i never thought of that if a dozen poets got to a house boat on the work on those at once a life corps wouldn t be a circumstance to them well it all goes to prove what i have thought all along said doctor johnson s idea is a good one and was wise in it up the poets need to be concentrated somewhere where they will not be a nuisance to other people and where other people will not be a nuisance to them ought to have a place to compose in where the players will not interrupt his and on the other hand the et un and other players should be protected from the of the muse i ll vote to have the poets corner and in it i move that s slate idea be carried out it will be a great saving and if the corner we select be far enough away from the other corners of the club the of the slate need bother no one i agree to that said only i think it should be understood that in the petition of the poets we do not bind ourselves to yield to doctors and house committee discuss the poets lawyers and and in case they should each want a corner to themselves a very wise idea said sir walter whereupon the resolution was and passed just where the poets corner is to be the members of the committee have not as yet decided although is strongly in favor of having it placed in a dingy situated a quarter of a mile of the house boat and connected by a slight cord which can be easily cut in case the of the poets slate becomes too much for the nervous system of the members who have no corner of their own	27
vi some and otherwise i observe said doctor looking up from a perusal of an copy of the london times i observe that an american professor has discovered that talk i consider that a very interesting fact it undoubtedly is observed doctor though hardly new i never said anything about it over in the other world but i discovered years ago in africa that were quite as well able to hold a sustained conversation with each other as most men are and i too put in baron have frequently conversed with i made myself a master of their during my brief il i i some theories etc well never mind where i never could remember the names of places the interesting point is that at one period of my life i was a master of the monkey language i have even gone so far as to write a in which was quite as intelligible to the as of the written in english or american do you mean to say that you could acquire the monkey accent asked doctor immediately interested in most instances returned the baron though of course not in all i found the same difficulty in some cases that the german or the finds when he tries to speak french a can no more say for instance as the frenchman says it than he can fly that peculiar the frenchman gives to the first syllable as though it were is utterly beyond the chinese and beyond the american too whose idea of the leads him to speak of the a boat on the naturally falling back upon to help him out of his difficulties you ought to have been on the staff of baron said quietly that joke would have made you immortal i am immortal said the baron but to return to our discussion of the tongue as i was saying there were some little points about the accent that i could never get and as in the case of the german and with the french language the trouble was purely physical when you consider that in polite society most of the converse while swinging by their tails from the limb of a tree with a sort of accent which results from their swaying to and fro you will see at once why it was that i deprived by nature of the necessary apparatus with which to myself in mid air was unable to quite catch the quality which gives its chief charm to monkey talk i should hardly think that a man of mb theories etc your fertile resources would have let so small a thing as that stand in his way said doctor when a man is able to make a reputation for himself like yours in which material facts are never allowed to interfere with his doing what he sets out to do he ought not to be by the need of a tail if you could make a cherry tree grow out of a deer s head i fail to see why you could not personally grow a tail or anything else you might happen to need for the of your ends i was not so anxious to get the accent as all that returned the baron i don t think it is necessary for a man to make a monkey of himself just for the pleasure of a language reasoning a man to master the art of in a fashion to the of average intellect should make a of himself cultivate his ears and learn to kick so as properly to his sentences after the manner of most beasts of that kind h a house boat on the then you believe that talk too do you asked doctor why not said the baron if why not certainly they do all creatures liave some means of communicating their thoughts to each other why man in his conceit should think otherwise i don t know unless it be that the birds and beasts in their conceit probably think that they alone of all the creatures in the world can talk i haven t a doubt said doctor that listening to men and women talking think they are only they re not far from wrong in most cases if they do said doctor johnson who up to this time had been merely an interested listener i ve thought that many a time myself which is perhaps in a slight degree a confirmation of my theory put in if doctor johnson s mind runs in the same channels that the monkey s mind runs in why may we not say that doctor some theories etc johnson being a man has certain qualities of the monkey and is therefore in a sense of the same strain you may say what you please retorted johnson but til make you prove what you say about me i wouldn t if i were you said doctor in a peace making spirit it would not be a pleasant task for you compelling our friend to prove you descended from the i should think you d prefer to make him leave it have i don t know anything about em said johnson no more do i said and i didn t mean to be offensive my dear johnson if i claim for you i claim it equally for myself well i m no said johnson if you want to about your ancestors do it leave mine alone stick to your own orchard well i believe fully that we are all i a house boat on the descended from the said there isn t any doubt in my mind that before the flood all men had tails had a tail ham and had tails it s perfectly reasonable to believe it the ark in a sense proved it it would have been almost impossible for and his sons to the ark in the time they did with the assistance of	27
only two hands apiece think however of how fast they could work with the assistance of that third arm could hammer a on to the ark with two hands while grasping a saw and cutting a new board or it off with his tail so with the others we all know how much a third hand would help us at times but how do you account for its disappearance put in doctor is it likely they would dispense with such a useful no it isn t but there are various ways of for its loss said they may have it some theories etc building the ark ham or may have had his caught in the door of the ark and cut off in the hurry of the departure plenty of things may have happened to it men lose their hair and their teeth why might not a man lose a tail say that coming generations far in the future will be and bald why may it not be that through causes unknown to us we are deprived of something our forefathers had the only reason for man s losing his hair is that he wears a hat all the time said the hat is the enemy of hair it is hot and up the you might as well try to raise in the desert of as to try to raise hair under the modern hat in fact the modern hat is a furnace well it s a mighty good furnace observed you don t have to put coal on the modern hat perhaps interposed the wore their hats on their tails a house boat on the well i have a totally different theory said johnson you always did have observed very likely said johnson to be commonplace never was my ambition what is your theory well i don t know said johnson if it be worth expressing it may be worth sending by freight interrupted let us have it well i believe said johnson i believe that adam was a monkey he behaved like one ejaculated i believe that the forbidden tree was a tender one and therefore the only one upon which adam was forbidden to swing by his tail said johnson clear enough so far said but that the possession of tails by adam and eve a love of swinging thereby and that they could not resist some theories the temptation to swing from every limb in and that therefore while adam was off swinging on other trees eve took a swing on the forbidden tree that adam returning caught her in the act and immediately gave way himself and swung said johnson then you the serpent not a bit of it johnson answered the serpent was the tail look at most to day what are they but tails they do look it said thoughtfully why it s clear as day said johnson as punishment adam and eve lost their tails and the tail itself was compelled to work for a living and do its own walking i never thought of that said it seems reasonable it is reasonable said johnson and the of the present day i believe to be the missing tails of a house boat on the men said johnson somewhere in the world is a tail for man and woman and child where one s tail is no one can ever say but that it exists simultaneously its owner i believe the man has for is directly to his for all things which have deprived him of something that is good if adam s tail had not tempted him to swing on the forbidden tree we should all of us have been able through life to from business cares after the manner of the monkey who is happy from morning until night well i can t see that it does us any good to sit here and discuss this matter said doctor we can t reach any conclusion the only way to settle the matter it seems to me is to go directly to adam who is a member of this club and ask him how it was that s a great idea said scornfully you d look well going up to a man and saying excuse me sir but ah were you ever a monkey some theories to say nothing of a man on the subject of an old and dreadful scandal put in i m surprised at you african etiquette seems to have ruined your sense of propriety i d just as ask him said doctor johnson etiquette what business has etiquette to stand in the way of human knowledge is the last thing men of brains should strive after and i for one am not going to be bound by it here doctor johnson touched the electric bell and in an instant the shade of a buttons appeared boy is adam in the club house today asked the sage i ll go and see sir said the boy and he immediately departed good boy that said yes but the service in this club is dreadful considering what we might have said with a member of this club i don t see why we a house boat on the can t have his lamp with to respond it certainly would be more economical true but i for one don t care to fool with said when one member can summon a servant who is strong enough to take another member and do him up in a bottle cast him into the sea i have no use for the system plain ordinary mortal shades are good enough for me as spoke the boy returned mr adam isn t here to day sir he said addressing doctor johnson and says he s not likely to be here sir seeing as how his account is closed not having been settled for three months good said i was afraid he was	27
here i don t want to have him asked about his experiences in my behalf that s personality well then there s only one other thing to do said claims to be able to speak he might seek some theories out some of the and put the question to them no thank you said vm a little rusty in the language and besides you talk like an idiot you might as well speak of the human language as the language there are french who speak monkey french african who talk the most barbarous kind of monkey and monkey and so on let johnson send his little out to drum up information if there is anything to be found out he ll get it and then he can tell it to us of course he may get it all wrong but it will be entertaining and we ll never know any difference which seemed to the others a good idea but whatever came of it i have not been informed vn a discussion as to i met queen elizabeth just now on the row said as he entered the house boat and checked his cloak indeed said what if you did other people have met queen elizabeth there s nothing original about that true but she made a suggestion to me about this house boat which i think is a good one she says the women are all crazy to see the inside of it said thus proving that immortal woman is no different from mortal woman retorted they want to see the inside of everything curiosity thy name is woman well i am sure i don t see why men should to themselves the sole i p i a j j a discussion as to day right to an turn of mind said impatiently why shouldn t the ladies want to see the inside of this club house it is a compliment to us that they should and i for one am in favor of letting them and i am going to propose that in the of march we give a ladies day here then i shall go south for my health in the of march said angrily what on earth is a club for if it isn t to enable men to get away from their wives once in a while when do people go to clubs when they are on their way home that s when and the more a man s at home in his club the less he s at home when he s at home i suppose you ll be suggesting a children s day next and after that a s or a bird s day i had no idea you were such a said in astonishment what s the matter were you ever disappointed in love i absurd retorted the idea of my ever being a house boat on the disappointed in love i never met the woman who could bring me to my knees although i was married in the other world what became of mrs c i never inquired she may be in china yet for aught i know i regard death as a divorce your wife must be glad of it said somewhat for to tell the truth he was by s i didn t know however but that since you escaped from china and came here to you might have fallen in love with some spirit of an age subsequent to your own mary queen of or of arc or some other who rejected you i can t account for your dislike of women otherwise not i said would have a less classic name than it has for me if i were with a family but go along and have your ladies day here and never mind my reasons for preferring my own society to that of the fair sex i can at least stay at home that day what do a discussion as to ladies day you propose to do throw open the house to the wives of members or to all ladies of their husbands here i think the latter plan would be the better said otherwise queen elizabeth to whom i am indebted for the suggestion would be excluded she never married you know didn t she said no i didn t know it but that doesn t prove anything when i went to school we didn t study the history of the period she didn t have absolute sway over england then she had but what of that do you mean to say that she lived and died an old maid from choice demanded certainly i do said and why should i not tell you that for a very good and sufficient reason retorted which is in brief that i am not a marine i may dislike women a house boat on the my dear but i know them better than you do gallant as you are and when you tell me in one and the same moment that a woman holding absolute sway over men yet lived and died an old maid you must not be indignant if i smile and bite the end of my thumb which is the chinese way of saying that s all in your eye martin believe it or not you poor old back number retorted hotly it nothing queen elizabeth could have married a hundred times over if she had wished i know i lost my head there completely that shows sir walter said with a grin how wrong you are you lost your head to king james hi shakespeare here s a man doesn t know who his head off s face flushed scarlet tis better to have had a head and lost it he cried than never to have had a head at all mark you my boy it ill you to at me for my misfortune a discussion as	27
to ladies day for dust thou art and to dust thou hast returned if word from t other side about thy books and that which in and on them lies be true whatever be said about ray books said dry den angrily be they read or be they not tis mine they are and none there be who dare dispute their thus proving that men thank heaven are still sane ejaculated doctor johnson to the of would be not so much a claim my friend as a confession shades of the mighty cried an will ye hear the poets a ladies day could hardly introduce into our midst a more we re all getting a little high flown in our put in shakespeare at this point let s quit talking in blank verse and come down to business z think a ladies day would be great sport til write a poem to read on the occasion then i oppose it with all my heart a house boat on the said doctor johnson why do you always want to make our commonplace leave occasional poems to mortals i never knew an occasional poem yet that was worthy of an immortal that s precisely why i want to write one occasional poem i d make it worthy shakespeare answered like this for instance fair moat most of tiu greatest charm in all ye realm of why my dear doctor such an opportunity for with ladies should not be lost that just proves what i said said johnson any idiot can make ladies rhyme with it requires absolute genius to avoid the temptation you are great enough to make rhyme with if you choose to do it but no you to the temptation to be commonplace one of these modern drawing room poets with three sections to his name couldn t do worse a discussion as to ladies day on general principles said johnson is right we invite these people here to see our club house not to give them an exhibition of our powers and i think all exercises of a formal nature should be frowned upon very well said shakespeare go ahead have your own way about it get out your brow and frown i m perfectly willing to save myself the trouble of writing a poem writing real poetry isn t easy as you fellows would have discovered for yourselves if you d ever tried it to pass over the assumption of the gentleman who has just spoken with the silence due to a proper expression of our contempt said dry den slowly i think in case we do have a ladies day here we should exercise a most careful over the invitation list for instance wouldn t it be awkward for our good friend henry the eighth to encounter the various mrs here would it not likewise be awkward for them to meet each other a house boat on the your point is well taken said doctor johnson i don t know whether the king s matrimonial are on speaking terms with each other or not but un der any circumstances it would hardly be a pleasing spectacle for of to see henry running his legs off getting cream and cakes for anne nor would anne like it much if on the other hand henry chose to behave like a gentleman and a husband to jane or i think if the members themselves are to send out the invitations they should each be limited to two cards with the express understanding that no member shall be permitted to invite more than one wife that s going to be awkward said scratching his head thoughtfully henry is such a hot headed fellow that he might resent the i think he would said i think he d be aa mad as a at your that he would invite any of his wives if all i hear of him is true a discussion as to day and what i ve heard has told me he knew a thing or two about henry said shakespeare if you don t believe it just read that play of mine that and er ah thought so much of you came near giving your secret away that time william said johnson with a sly smile and giving the a dig between the ribs secret i haven t any secret said shakespeare a little it s the truth i m telling you and did admire henry the eighth thereby showing their conceit eh said johnson oh of course i didn t write anything did i cried shakespeare everybody wrote my plays but me i m the only person that had no hand in shakespeare it seems to me that joke is about worn out doctor i m getting a little tired of it myself but if it you why keep it up know who wrote my plays and whatever a house boat on the you may say cannot affect the facts next thing you fellows will be saying that i didn t write my own i didn t say that said johnson quietly only there is no internal evidence in your that you knew how to spell your name if you did a man who signs his name one day and the next needn t complain if the bank of posterity refuses to honor his check they d honor my check quick enough these days retorted shakespeare when a man s brings five thousand dollars or one thousand pounds in the tion room there isn t a bank in the world fool enough to decline to honor any check he ll sign under a thousand dollars or two hundred pounds i fancy you re right put in but your or your plays have nothing to do with ladies day let s get to some conclusion in this matter yes said let s ladies day is becoming a dreadful bore and if a discussion as to	27
is a person who even his humor carefully before giving way to his emotions what is the average weight of a copy of punch f ward who had strolled in during the latter part of the conversation shakespeare quietly but and johnson looked upon the intruder severely we will take that question into consideration said perhaps tomorrow we shall have a definite answer ready for you never mind returned the youve proved your point tells me you find life here dull shakespeare somewhat said shakespeare i don t know about the rest of you fellows a house boat on the but i was not cut out for an eternity of ease i must have occupation and the stage isn t popular here the trouble about putting on a play here is that our are afraid of suits the chances are that if i should write a play with as the hero would go to the first night s performance with a dagger concealed in his with which to his objections to the lines put in his mouth there is nothing i d like better than to manage a theatre in this place but think of the we d have suppose for an instant that i wrote a play about he d have a box and when the rest of you called for the author at the end of the third act if he didn t happen to like the play he d greet me with a of instead of applause he wouldn t if you made him out a great conqueror from start to finish said no doubt returned shakespeare sadly but in that event would a discontented shade be in the other stage box and i d get the greeting from him why come out at all asked johnson why come out at all echoed shakespeare what fun is there in writing a play if you can t come out and show yourself at the first ni j ht that s the author s reward if it wasn t for the business though all would be plain sailing then why don t you begin it the second night ward how the deuce could you put in a most proposition sneered johnson yes said ward but wait a week you ll see the point then there isn t any doubt in my mind said shakespeare to his original proposition that the only perfectly satisfactory life is under a system not yet adopted in either world the one we have quitted or this there we had hard work in which our mortal a house boat on the us here we have the freedom of the immortal with no hard work in other words now that we feel like fighting there isn t any fighting to be done the great life in my estimation would be to return to earth and battle with mortal problems but equipped mentally and physically with immortal some people don t know when they are well off said beau this strikes me as being an ideal life there are no bills to pay we are ourselves nothing but memories and a memory can clothe himself in the shadow of his former grandeur i clothe myself in the remembrance of my departed clothes and as my memory is good i flatter myself i m the best dressed man here the fact that there are ghosts of departed bills haunting my bedside at night doesn t bother me in the least because the that in the old life lent terror to an account thanks to our beneficent system here are kept in the less a discontented shade agreeable sections of i used to regret that were such low people but now i rejoice at it if they had been of a different order they might have unpleasant here you are right my dear interposed this life is far to that in the other sphere any of you gentlemen who happen to have had the pleasure of reading ray must have been struck with the tremendous difficulties that my progress if i wished for a rare for my luncheon a served only at the table of an oriental more jealous of it than of his one thousand queens i had to raise armies ships and warfare in which of incredible had to be performed by myself alone and to secure the desired i have destroyed for a bon bon at great expense of nervous energy that s very likely true said i should think your of strength log a house boat on the would have wrecked your imagination in time not so said on the contrary continuous exercise served only to make it stronger but as i was going to say in this life we have none of these fearful obstacles it is a life of leisure and if i want a bird and a cold bottle at any time instead of placing my life in peril and the peace of all mankind to get it i have only to summon before me the memory of some previous bird and cold bottle dine like a well ordered citizen and smoke the spirit of the best cigar my imagination can up you miss my point said shakespeare i don t say this life is worse or better than the other we used to live what i do say is that a combination of both would suit me in short i d like to live here and go to the other world every day to business like a resident who sleeps in the country and makes his living in the city for instance why shouldn t i dwell here and go to london every day j i a discontented shade hire an there and put out a sign something like this william shakespeare you wait i guess i d find plenty to do guess again said my dear boy you forget one thing you are out of	27
date people don t go to the theatres to hear you they go to see the people who do you that is true said ward and they do do you ray beloved william it s a wonder to me you are not dizzy turning over in your grave the way they do you can it be that i can ever be out of date asked shakespeare i know of course that i have to be adapted at times but to be wholly out of date strikes me as a hard fate a house boat on the you re not out of date interposed the date is out of you there is a great demand for shakespeare in these days but there isn t any stuff then i should succeed said shakespeare no i don t so returned you couldn t stand the pace tlie world faster to day than it did in your time men write three or four plays at once this is what you might call a type writer age and to keep up with the procession you d have to work as you never worked before that is true observed you d have to learn to be so that you could keep two machines going at once and to be perfectly frank with you i cannot even up in my fancy a picture of you knocking out a tragedy with the right hand on one machine while your left hand is a farce comedy on another he might do as a great many modern writers do said ward go in for the a discontented shade paper doll drama cut the whole thing out with a pair of as the poet might have said if he d been clever enough o i bring me the and bring me the and a couple of dozen old plays ril cut out and a drama for you that hi run for quite sixty two days oh bring me a dress made of satin and lace and a book say joe miller s of wit and ril make the old blue in the face with the play that til turn out for it so bring me the and bring me the and a dozen fine old a fine of dresses and popular taste i ll make a strong effort to please m you draw a very blue picture it seems to me said shakespeare sadly no a house boat on the well it s true said the world t at all what it used to be in any one respect and you fellows who made great centuries ago wouldn t have even the ghost of a show now i don t believe could get a poem accepted by a modern magazine and while the comic papers are still jokes the old gentleman couldn t make enough out of them in these days to pay taxes on his tub let alone earning his bread that is exactly so said i d be willing to too that in the line of personal even d and and and couldn t stand london for one day or new york either said mr who had been an interested listener a new york policeman could have managed that with one hand then said shakespeare in the opinion of you gentlemen we old time lions would appear to modern eyes to be more or less stuffed a discontented shade hi that s about the size of it said but you d draw said his face lighting up with pleasure you d drive a five legged calf to suicide from envy if i could take you and caesar and napoleon and over for one season we d drive the out of business there s your chance william said ward you write a play for and caesar and let take his fiddle and be the under s management you d get enough activity in one season to last you through all eternity you can count on me said rising let me know when you ve got your plan laid out i d stay and make a contract with you now but adam has promised to give me points on the management of wild animals without so i can t wait by by said shakespeare as the eminent passed out that s a gay proposition when move in po a house boat on the society william shakespeare will make a side show of himself for a they do now said quiet which merely that shakespeare did not mean what he said for in spite of s as to the and polite society he has not yet accepted the proposition though there can be no doubt of its value from the point of view of a manager ix as to robert burns and were seated at a small table in the dining room of the house boat discussing everything in general and the shade of a very excellent luncheon in particular we are in great luck to day said burns as he cut a ruddy duck in twain this bird is done just right i agree with you returned drawing his chair a trifle closer to the table compared to the one we had here last thursday this is a feast for the gods i wonder who it was that cooked this fowl originally i give it up but i suspect it was done by some man who knew his business said burns with a of his lips it s a pity i think my dear that there is a house boat on the no means by which a cook may become immortal cooking is as much of an art as is the writing of poetry and just as there are immortal poets so there should be immortal see what an advantage the poet has he writes something it goes out and reaches the inmost soul of the man who reads it and it is signed his work is	27
known because he puts his name to it but this poor devil of a cook where is he he has done his work as well as the poet ever did his it has reached the inmost soul of the mortal who originally ate it but he cannot get the glory of it because he cannot put his name to it if the cook could sign his work it would be different you have hit upon a great truth said nodding as he sometimes was wont to do and yet i fear that ingenious as we are we cannot devise a plan to remedy the matter i do not know about you but i should myself much object if my birds and my and other things and otherwise that i eat here were served with the cook s name written upon as to and them an is sometimes a picture ive seen that looked like one of s burns precisely and when puts down in one corner of his canvas you do not object but if the cook did that with the you wouldn t like it no said burns but he might fasten a to it with his name written upon that that is so said but the result in the end would be tlie same the would get lost or perhaps a careless waiter dropping a tray full of would get the of a good and bad cook mixed in trying to restore the contents of the tray to their previous condition the system would fail there is but one other way that i can think of said burns and that would do no good now unless we can convey our ideas into the other world that is for a great poet to lend his genius to the great cook and make the latter s name immortal a house boat on the by putting it into a poem say for instance that you had eaten a fine bit of done to the most exquisite point you could have asked the cook s name and written an to her something like this for instance oh oh rim thou art a cook of blood f nowhere within this world of sin have e er tasted better do you see i do but even then my dear fellow the cook would fall short of true fame her excellence would be a mere matter of evidence said not if you went on to describe in a keenly manner the virtues of that particular bit of said burns draw so vivid a picture of the dish that the reader himself would taste tbat even as you tasted it you have hit it cried as to and it is a grand plan but how to introduce it that is the question we can haunt some modern poet and give him the idea in that way suggested burns he will see the novelty of it and will possibly the idea as we wish it to be done said i ll begin right away i feel like haunting to night i m getting to be a pretty old ghost but i ll never lose my love of haunting at this point as spoke a spirit entered the room and took a seat at the head of the long table at which the regular club dinner was nightly served why bless me said his face lighting up with pleasure why is that you i think so said the new comer wearily at any rate it s all that s left of me come over here and lunch with us said you know burns don t you a house boat on the haven t the pleasure said the poet and the were introduced after which seated himself at s side are you any relation to burns the poet the former asked addressing the i am burns the poet replied the other you don t look much like your statues said his face no thank the said burns warmly if i did i d commit suicide why don t you sue the for asked you speak with a great deal of feeling said gravely have they done anything to hurt you they have said i have just returned from a tour of the world i have seen the things they call in these days and i must confess who shouldn t perhaps that i could have done better work with a bat for a and for the raw material as to and i think i could do good work with a bat too said burns but as for the raw material give me the heads of the men who have me to work on i d leave them so that they d look like some of your figures with the noses gone you are a creature said these men you and whose heads you wish to with a bat have done more for you than you ever did for every statue of you these men have made is a standing advertisement of your books and it hasn t cost you a penny there isn t a doubt in my mind that if it were not for those statues countless people would go to their graves supposing that the great burns were little and not a poet what difference does it make to you if they haven t made an of you you never set them an example by making one of yourself if there s deception anywhere it isn t you that is deceived it is the mortals and who cares about them or their opinions a house boat ox the i never thought of it in that way said burns i hate that is of myself i enjoy of other people but you have a great deal of the mortal left in you considering that you pose as an immortal said interrupting the speaker well so have i said resolved to	27
stand by burns in the argument and i m sorry for the man who hasn t i was a mortal once and i m glad of it i had a good time and i don t care who knows it when i look about me and see the arch of creation and a little tin warrior who couldn t have fought a soldier like napoleon with all his alleged divinity i thank the that they enabled me to achieve immortality through mortal effort hang hereditary greatness i say these men were born you and i worked for it and got it we know what it cost it was ours because we earned it and not because we were born to it eh burns i as to and the nodded assent and the greek went on i am not myself he said nobody has hurt me and on the whole i don t think is in such a bad way after all there s a i of in the mortal who can turn the prettiest last you ever saw and i encountered a in a london house last month who turned out a of beef that was cut as as i could have done it myself what i object to chiefly is the tendency of the times this is an age and men in my old profession aren t content to turn out one d in a lifetime they take orders by the gross i waited upon inspiration to day the waits upon custom and an artist will make a bust of anybody in any material desired as long as he is sure of getting his pay afterwards i saw a life size statue of the of a new kind of the other day and what do you suppose the material was gold not by a great deal a house boat on the ivory marble even not a bit of it he was done in sir i have seen a woman s head done in butter too and it makes me distinctly weary to think that my art should bo brought so low you did your best work in greece chuckled a bad joke my dear retorted i thought was getting down to a pretty low ebb when i had to fashion out of marble but marble is more precious than alongside of butter and each has its uses said i d rather have butter on my bread than marble but i must confess that for it is very poor stuff as you say it is indeed said for practice it s all right to use butter but for exhibition purposes here to show his contempt for butter as raw material in seized a wooden and with it a beautiful head of out of the pat that stood upon the small plate at his side as to and and before burns could interfere had spread the figure as as he could upon a piece of bread which he tossed to the shade of a hungry dog that stood on the river bank heavens cried burns imperious caesar dead and turned to bricks is as nothing to a carved by used to stay the hunger of a cur well it s the way i feel said savagely i think you are a trifle foolish to be so vexed about it said soothingly of course you feel badly but after all what s the use you must know that the mortals would pay more for one of your statues than they would for a specimen of any modern s art yes even if yours were in and the other fellow s in pure gold so why you d feel the same way if poets did a vulgar thing retorted you know you would if you should hear of a poet to day writing a poem on a house boat on the a thin of or butter you would yourself be the first to call a halt no i shouldn t said quietly in fact i wish the poets would do that we d have fewer bad poems to read and that s the way you should look at it i venture to say that if this modern plan of making and in butter had been adopted at an earlier period the public places in our great cities and our national would seem less like of comic art since the first critical rays of a warm sun would have reduced the therein to a spot on the pavement the butter school of has its advantages my boy and you should be crowning the of the system with laurel and not coals of fire upon his brow that said burns is after all the solid truth take the brass of me for instance where would they be now if they had been cast in instead of in bronze was silent a moment i as to and well he said finally as the value pf the plan dawned upon his mind from that point of view i don t know but what you are right after all and to show that i have spoken in no spirit let me propose a toast here s to the butter may their butter never give out the toast was drained to the and went home feeling a little better x night it was story night at the and the best of were impressed into the service doctor johnson was made of the evening put him in the chair said that s the only way to keep him from telling a story himself if he starts in on a tale he ll make it a sure as fate but if you make him the medium through which other story are introduced to the club he ll be finely he can be very short and sharp when he s talking about somebody else personality is his great scheme said who was of the entertainment committee the nights over here are	27
long but if johnson started on a story they d have story night to reach twice around eternity and back to give him time to finish all he had to say he s not very witty in my judgment said who since his arrival in the other world has manifested some jealousy of solomon and doctor johnson that s true enough said but he s strong and he s bound to say something that will put the audience in sympathy with the man that he and that s half the success of a story night i ve told stories myself if your audience doesn t with you you d be better ofl at home putting the baby to bed and so it happened doctor johnson was made and the evening came the doctor was in great form a list of the story had been sent him in advance and he was prepared the audience was about as select a one as can be found in the doors were thrown open to the friends of the members and the had been filled with a very superior a house boat on the quality of mixture which scott had brought back from a haunting trip to the home of the little minister at friends and fellow the doctor began when all were seated on the visionary camp which by the way are far superior to those in use in a world of realities because they do not in the midst of a fine point demanding absolute silence for appreciation i do not know why i have been chosen to over this gathering of it is the province of the officer on occasions of this sort to say pleasant things which he does not necessarily about the sundry persons who are to do the story telling now i suppose you all know me pretty well by this time if there is anybody who doesn t i ll be glad to have him presented after the formal work of the evening is over and if i don t like him i ll tell him so you know that if i can be counted upon for any one thing it is and if i hurt the feelings of any of these story night individuals whom i introduce to night i want them distinctly to understand that it is not because i love them less but that i love truth more with this ah blanket apology as it were to cover all possible that may arise during the evening i will begin the first speaker on the programme i regret to observe is my friend affairs of this kind ought to begin with a snap and while is a most excellent writer as a speaker he is a if i had had the arrangement of the programme i should have had tell his story while the rest of us were down stairs at supper however we must abide by our programme which is long for otherwise we will never get through it those of you who agree with me as to the pleasure of listening to my friend will do well to join me in the room while he is speaking where i understand there is a very fine line of ready to be served modest will you kindly inflict yourself upon a house boat on the the gathering and send word when you get through if you ever do so that i may return and present number two to the assembly whoever or whatever he may be with those words the doctor retired and poor pale with fear rose up to speak it was evident that he was quite as doubtful of his ability as a as was johnson fm not much of a or as some say speaker he said talking is not my as doctor johnson has told you and i am therefore not much at it speaking is not in my line i cannot speak or talk as it were because i am not particularly ready at the making of a speech due partly to the fact that i am not much of a anyhow and seldom if ever speak i will therefore not bore you by attempting to speak since a speech by one who like myself is as you are possibly aware not a nor indeed in any sense an eloquent speaker is apt to be a bore to those who will be kind enough to listen to my remarks pale witb r story night but will read instead the first five chapters of the of who suggested any such night as this anyhow growled five chapters of the of for a lord save us we ll need a of if he s allowed to do this i move we said can t something be done to keep these younger members quiet asked solomon frowning upon and yes said let go on he ll have them asleep in ten minutes meanwhile was earnestly through his utterly and happily of the effect he was having upon his audience this is awful whispered to worse than replied the ex emperor with a grin but we can stop it in a minute ward told me once how a camp meeting he attended in the west broke up to go outside and see a house boat on thb a dog fight can t you and i pretend to quarrel a personal assault by you on me will wake these people up and say the word only don t hit too hard fm with you said whereupon with a great show of heat he roared out you never i vm more afraid of a boy with a that i ever was of you and followed up his remark by pulling s camp chair from under him and letting the conqueror of fall to the floor with a which i have since heard described as dull and sickening the effect was compared	27
to a personal encounter between the two great figures of a reading from his own works by seemed lacking in the elements essential to the holding of an audience consequently attention was in the warriors and by some odd mistake when a member of the assemblage the of the incident cried story night out put him out put him out the attendants rushed in and taking poor by his collar him out through the door across the deck and tossed him ashore without reference to the gang plank this accomplished a personal explanation of their course was made by the quarrelling and peace having been restored a committee was sent in search of with suitable apologies the good and kindly soul returned but having lost his book in the much to his own gratification as well as to that of the audience he was permitted to rest in quiet the balance of the evening is he through said johnson his head in at the door when order was restored yes sir said that is to say he has retired permanently from the field he didn t finish though fellow began johnson once more now that you have been delighted with the eloquence of the last speaker it is my privilege to present to you a house boat on the that eminent baron the greatest of all time who will give you an exhibition of his power of lying while standing the applause which greeted the baron was he was beyond all doubt one of the most popular members of the club speaking of said he leaning gracefully against the table nobody has mentioned em said johnson true retorted the baron but you always suggest them by your apparently thirst for speaking of my friend as well as the rest of you may be interested to know that i once had an experience similar to his own and strange to say with the identical whale arose from his seat in the back of the room i do not wish to be unpleasant he said with a strong effort to be calm but i wish to ask if judge is in the room i l story night i am said the judge rising what can i do for you i desire to apply for an the baron from using my whale in his story that whale your honor is said if i had any other claim to the affection of mankind than the one which is based on my experience with that i would willingly permit the baron to introduce him into his story but that whale your honor is my stock in trade he is my all i think s point is well taken said turning to the baron it would be a distinct hardship i think if the in this action were to be deprived of the exclusive use of his sole the prayed for is therefore granted the court would suggest however that the baron continue with his story using another whale for the purpose it is impossible said gloomily the whole point of the story depends upon its having been s a house boat on the whale under the circumstances the i can do is to sit down i regret the of mind exhibited by my friend but i must respect the decision of the court i must take exception to the baron s allusion to my of mind said with some show of heat i am simply defending my rights and i intend to continue to do so if the whole world in considering my mind a mere scarcely wide enough for the of a that whale was my discovery and the personal discomfort i endured in my experience was such that i resolved to rest my reputation upon his broad proportions only to sink or swim with him and i cannot at this late day permit another to crowd me out of his exclusive use sat down and himself and the baron with a look of disgust on his face left the room up to his old tricks he growled as he went he everything he goes story night ist into if rd known he was a member of this club i d never have joined we do not appear to be very rapidly said doctor johnson rising so far we have made two efforts to have stories told and have met with disaster each time i don t know but what you are to be congratulated however on your escape very few of you i observe have as yet fallen asleep the next number on the programme i see is who was to have entertained you with a few reminiscences i say was to have done so because he is not to do so i m ready said rising no doubt retorted johnson severely but i am not you are a man with one subject myself i admit it s a good subject but you are not the man to treat of it here you may suffice for mortals but here it is different i can speak for myself you can go out and sit on the banks of the and lecture to the if you want to but when it comes to reminiscences of me i m on deck a house boat on the myself and i flatter myself i remember what i said and did more accurately than you do therefore gentlemen instead of listening to at this point you will kindly excuse him and listen to me when i was a boy excuse me said solomon rising about how long is this ah this entertaining discourse of yours to continue until i get through returned johnson are you aware sir that i am on the programme asked solomon i am said the doctor with that in mind for the sake of our fellow who are present i am very	27
much inclined to keep on forever when i was a boy rose up at this point i should like to ask he said mildly if this is supposed to be an audience of children i for one have no wish to listen to the stories of doctor johnson i have come here particularly to night to hear i want story night to compare him with i therefore protest against there is a roof to this house boat said doctor johnson if mr will retire to the roof with i have no doubt he can be as for solomon s interruption i can afford to pass that over with the silent contempt it deserves though i may add with propriety that i consider his most famous the most absurd bits of hack work i ever encountered and as for that story about dividing a baby between two mothers by it in two it was unless the baby was when i was a boy as the doctor proceeded and solomon accompanied by the now angry left the room and my account of the story night must stop because though i have never heretofore confessed it all my information concerning the house boat on the has been derived from the of it may be interesting to the read a house boat on the cr to learn however that according to s account the story night was never finished but whether this means that it broke up immediately afterwards in a riot or that doctor johnson is still at work his reminiscences i am not aware and i cannot at the moment of writing ascertain for when i have the pleasure of meeting him invariably the subject xi as to and others it was who spoke i m glad he said that when i embarked at the time of the heavy rains that did so much damage in the old days there weren t any dogs like that fellow about if i d had to feed a lot of beasts like him the ark would have run short of provisions inside of ten days that s very likely true observed mr but i must confess my dear that you showed a lamentable lack of the s instinct when you selected the animals you did a more commonplace lot of beasts were never gathered together and while adam is held responsible for the introduction of sin into the a house boat on the world i attribute most of my to none other than yourself the members of the club drew their chairs a little closer the conversation had opened a trifle and they had retained enough of their to be interested in animal stories adam who had managed to settle his back and house charges and once more acquired the privileges of the club nodded his bead gratefully at mr i m glad to find some one said he who places the responsibility for trouble where it belongs i m round shouldered with the blame i ve had to bear i didn t invent sin any more than i invented the and i think it s rather rough on a fellow who lived a quiet retiring pastoral life his own business and staying home nights to be held up to public for as long a time as i have it be all right in time said just wait be patient and your as to and others tion will come nobody thought much of the plays bacon and i wrote for shakespeare until shakespeare d been dead a century said adam gloomily wait what have i been doing all this time i ve waited all the time there s been so far and until mr spoke as he did i haven t observed the slightest inclination on the part of anybody to my lost reputation nor do i see exactly how it s to come about even if i do wait you might apply for an committee to look into the charges suggested an american just over get your friends on it and you ll be all right better let sleeping dogs lie said i intend to said adam the fact is i hate to give any further to the matter even if i did bring the case into court and sue for i ve only got one witness to prove my innocence and that s my wife i m not going to drag her a house boat on the into it she s got nervous over her position as it is and this would make it worse queen elizabeth and the rest of these in society won t invite her to any of their functions because they say she hadn t any grandfather and even if she were received by them she d be uncomfortable going about it isn t pleasant for a woman to feel that every one knows she s the oldest woman in the room well take my word for it said kindly it all come out all right you know the old saying history itself some day you will be living back in again and if you are only careful to make an exact record of all you do and have a present before whom you can make an as to the facts you will be able to your innocence i was only condemned on evidence anyhow said adam nonsense you were caught red handed said my grandfather told me so and now that got a chance to as to and others slip in a word i d like to have you explain your statement mr that i am responsible for your errors that is a serious charge to bring against a man of my reputation i mean simply this that to make a show interesting said mr a man has got to provide interesting materials that s all i do not mean to say a word that is in any way to your morality you were a	27
good man for a sea captain and with the exception of that one occasion when you ah you allowed yourself to be on the bar if i may so put it i know of nothing to be said against you as a moral temperate person that was only an accident said you can t expect a man of six hundred odd years of age certainly not said soothingly and nobody thinks less of you for it considering how you must have hated the sight of water the wonder of it is that it didn t become a fixed habit let us a house boat on the hear what it is that mr does in you his taste that s all said mr i contend that compared to the animals he might have had the ones he did have were as ant hills to there were more magnificent allowed to die out through s lack of judgment than one likes to think of take the for instance where on earth do we find his equal to day you ought to be mighty glad you can t find one like him put in adam if you d spent a week in the garden of with me with eight feet long dropping out of the trees on to your lap while you were trying to take a nap you d be willing to dispense with things of that sort for the balance of your natural life if you want to get an idea of that experience let somebody drop a calf on you some afternoon i am not saying anything about that returned it would be unpleasant to have an elephant drop on one after as to and others the fashion of which you speak but i am glad the elephant was saved just the same i haven t the as a sunday afternoon surprise but as an attraction for a show i still maintain that a as big as a cow would prove a the drawing powers of which the pocket money of the small boy would be utterly unable to resist then there was the he d have brought a fortune to the box office which you d have immediately lost retorted paying rent when you get a of his size that reaches thirty feet up into the air when he stands on his hind legs the ordinary wagon of commerce can t bo made to hold him and your room has to have so high that every penny he brought to the box office would be spent him mischievous too said adam that you couldn t keep anything out of his reach we used to forbid animals of his kind to enter the garden but that didn t bother him he d stand up on a house boat on the his hind legs and reach over and steal anything he d happen to want i could have used him for a fire escape said mr and as for my inability to provide him with quarters i d have met that problem after a short while always lamented the absence too of the which simply shows how ignorant you are retorted why my dear fellow it would have taken the whole of an ordinary such as yours to give the a lunch those fellows would eat a as easily as you d crack a i did have a couple of on my boat for just hours and then i them both overboard if i d kept them ten days longer they d have eaten every blessed beast i had with me and your wouldn t have had anything else but papa is right about that mr said the whole tribe was a fearful nuisance about four hundred i t w i r i as to and others years before the flood i had a pet that i kept in our barn he was a cunning little devil full of tricks and all that but we never could keep a cow or a horse on the place while he was about they d mysteriously disappear and we never knew what became of em until one morning we surprised in surprised who asked doctor johnson scornfully returned that was my s name lord save us cried johnson what a name for a well what of it asked angrily you wouldn t have us call a like that would you or go on said johnson i ve nothing to say shall i send for a physician put in looking anxiously at his chief the situation was so extraordinary solomon and and the doctor having politely requested a house boat on the to go to a warmer section of the country resumed i caught him in the act of five cows and ham s favorite sulky and all baron rose up and left the room if they re going to lie i m going to get out he said as he passed through the room what of asked the sulky killed him returned innocently lie couldn t the wheels looked at his son and turning to observed quietly what he says is true and i will go further and say that it is my belief that you would have found the show business impossible if i had taken that sort of creature aboard you d have got discouraged after your had up a few dozen steam and eaten every other able ex as to and others you had managed to secure i d have tried to save a couple of if i hadn t supposed they were able to take care of themselves a combination of and with a neck feet long it seemed to me ought to have been able to ride out any storm or fall of rain but there i was wrong and i am free to admit my error it never occurred to me that the sea were in	27
any danger so i let them alone with the result that i never saw but one other and he was only an illusion due to that unhappy use of to which with shocking bad taste you have chosen to refer i didn t mean to call up unpleasant memories said i never believed you got half seas over anyhow but to return to our why didn t you hand down a few varieties of the family to posterity there were the and the either one of which would have knocked spots out of any that ever was made and along a house boat on the side of which even my horse would have into that s what i can t understand in your with to burn why save and and other such every day creatures what kind of a boat do you suppose i had cried do you imagine for a moment that she was four miles on the water line with a mile and three quarters beam if i d had a pair of in the stern of that ark she d have tipped up fore and aft until she d have looked like a telegraph pole in the water and if i d put em they d have had to be in so tightly they couldn t move to keep the vessel trim i didn t go to sea ray friend for the purpose of being tipped over in mid ocean every time one of my cargo wanted to shift his weight from one leg to the other it was bad enough with the wasn t it papa said yes indeed my son returned the it was bad enough with the as to and others we had to shift our half a dozen times a day to keep the boat from travelling on her beam ends the moved about so much and when we came to the question of it took up about nine of our hold to store hay and enough to keep them alive and good tempered on the whole i think it s rather late in the day considering the trouble i took to save anything but myself and my family to be as i now am you ought to be much obliged to me for saving any animals at all most people in my position would have built a for themselves and family and let everything else slide that is quite true observed with a nod at you were eminently unselfish and while with mr i exceedingly regret that the and and other tribes were left on the pier when you sailed i nevertheless think that you showed most excellent judgment at the time he was the only man who had any at a house boat on the all for that matter suggested and it required all his courage to show it everybody was him stood around the yard all day and every day the model one pretended he thought her a canal boat and asked how deep the flood was likely to be on the tow path and whether we intended to use in shallow water and in deep another asked what time allowance we expected to get in a fifteen mile run and hinted that a year and two months per mile struck him as being the proper it was far from pleasant said tapping his fingers together i don t want to go through it again and if as suggests history is likely to repeat herself i ll the contract to here and let him get the it was all right in the end though said we had the great laugh on the second day out we did indeed said when we told em we only carried first class pas as to and others and had no room for they began to see that the ark wasn t such an old tub after all and a good ninety per cent of them would have given ten dollars for a little of that time allowance they d been talking to us about for several into a musing silence and rose to leave i still wish you d saved a he said a creature with a neck twenty two feet long would have been a gold mine to me he could have been trained to stand in the ring and by stretching out his neck bite the little boys who in under the tent and occupy seats on the top row well for your sake said with a smile i m very sorry but for my own fm quite satisfied with the general results and they all agreed that the had every reason to be pleased with himself xii the house boat p attended by was walking along the river it was a beautiful autumn day h owing to certain peculiarities of it seemed more like the in the club was nervously against the top of the crystal and poor was having all he could do with his three mouths ing up the little shades of by gone that seemed to take an almost pleasure in upon his various noses and ears was doing most of the talking i am sure i have never wished to ride one of them she said positively in tlie first place i do not see where the the house boat of it comes in and in the second it seems to me as if skirts must be dangerous if they should catch in one of the where would i be in the hospital shortly said queen elizabeth well i shouldn t wear skirts snapped if a man s wife can t borrow some of her husband s clothing to reduce her peril to a what is the use of having a husband when i take to the which in spite of all can say i fully intend to do i shall have a man s wheel and i shall wear old dress clothes if doesn t like	27
it may suffer i don t see how clothes will help you observed he wore skirts himself just like all the other old his would be quite as apt to catch in the gear as your skirts looked puzzled for a moment it was evident that she had not thought of the point which had brought up strong minded ladies of her kind are apt a house boat on the sometimes to overlook important links in such chains of evidence as they feel called upon to use in binding themselves to their rights the women of your day were relieved of that dress problem at any rate laughed queen elizabeth the women of my day retorted in matters of dress were the equals of their husbands in my family particularly now they have lost their rights and are made to confine themselves still to garments like those of while man has to himself the sole and exclusive use of sane however that is apart from the question i was saying that i shall have a man s wheel and shall wear old dress clothes to ride it in if has to go out and buy an old dress suit for the purpose the queen arched her brows and looked at for a moment a magnificent old maid was lost to the world when you married she said feeling as you do about men my dear the house boat i don t see why you ever took a husband retorted of course you don t you didn t need a husband you were born with something to govern i wasn t how about our temper suggested meekly at this remark i never should have gone crazy over a man if i d remained unmarried forty thousand years she retorted severely i married because i loved him and admired his but when he gave up and became a he simply tried me beyond all endurance he was so thoughtless with the result that having ventured once or twice to show my natural resentment i have been handed down to posterity as a i ve never complained and i don t complain now but when a woman is married to a philosopher who is so taken up with his studies that when he rises in the morning he doesn t a house boat on the look what he is doing and goes off to his business in his wife s clothes i think she is entitled to a certain amount of sympathy and yet you wish to wear his persisted turn about is fair play said i ve suffered so much on his account that on the principle of he deserves to have a little drop of in his you are simply the victim of man s deceit said elizabeth wishing to the now angry who was on the verge of tears i understood men fortunately and so never married i knew my father and even if i hadn t been a wise enough child to know him i should not have wed because he married enough to last one family for several years you must have had a hard time refusing all those lovely men though sighed of course sir walter wasn t as handsome as my dear hamlet but he was very the house boat i cannot deny that said elizabeth and i didn t really have the heart to say no when he asked me but i did tell him that if he married me i should not become mrs but that he should become king elizabeth he fled to virginia on the next steamer my rid me of a very unpleasant duty thus the three famous spirits passed slowly along the path until they came to the sheltered nook in which the house boat lay at anchor there s a case in point r aid as the house boat loomed up before them all that luxury is for men we women are not permitted to cross the our husbands and brothers and friends go there the door on them and they are as completely lost to us as though they never existed we don t know what goes on in there tells me that their amusements are of a most innocent nature but how do i know what he means by that it keeps him from home while i have to stay a boat on the at and be entertained by my sons whom the rightly calls dull and in other words club life for him and and for me i think myself they re rather queer about women into that boat said queen elizabeth but it isn t sir walter s fault he told me he tried to have them establish a ladies day and that they agreed to do so but have since resisted all his efforts to have a date set for the function it would be great fun to steal in there no v wouldn t it there doesn t seem to be anybody about to prevent our doing so that s true said all the windows are closed as if there wasn t a soul there i ve half a mind to take a peep in at the house i am with you said elizabeth her face lighting up with pleasure it was a great novelty and an unpleasant one to her to find some place where she could not go let s do it she added the house boat so the three women softly up the gang plank and silently boarding the house boat peeped in at the windows what they saw merely their curiosity i must see more cried elizabeth rushing around to the door which opened at her touch and followed close on her heels and shortly they found themselves open mouthed in wondering admiration in the room of the floating palace and richard the ghost of the best room attendant in or out of stood before them excuse	27
me he said very much upset by the sudden apparition of the ladies i m very sorry but ladies are not admitted here we are equally sorry retorted elizabeth assuming her most imperious manner that your masters have seen fit to our being here but now that we are here we intend to make the most of the opportunity particularly as there seem to be no members about what has become of them all a house boat on the richard smiled i don t know where they are he replied but it was evident that he was not telling the exact truth oh come my boy said the queen kindly you do know sir walter told me you knew everything where are well if you must know ma am returned richard by the queen s manner they ve all gone down the river to see a prize light between and see cried that s what this club makes possible told me he was here to take luncheon with and they ve both of em gone off to a disgusting prize fight yes ma am they have said richard and if wins i don t think mr will get home this evening eh said scornfully yes ma am returned richard more club cried the house boat oh no ma am said richard is not allowed in the club they re strict about that but the shore is only ten feet off ma am and the gentlemen always go ashore and make their during this little elizabeth and were wandering about admiring everything they saw i do wish and could see this i wonder if the are on the elizabeth said investigation showed that both the and the were on the wire and in short order the two ladies had been made acquainted with the state of affairs at the house boat and as they were both quite as anxious to see the interior of the of club house as the others were not long in arriving they brought with them half a dozen more ladies among whom were and and then began the most extraordinary the house boat ever knew a meeting was called with a house boat on the in the and all the best ladies of the were elected members amid the greatest applause moved that every male member of the organization be for conduct unworthy of a gentleman in attending a prize fight and encouraging two such horrible creatures as and in their pursuits the motion and it was carried without a voice although mrs caesar with becoming dignity merely smiled approval not caring to take part too in the proceedings the men having thus been disposed of in a summary fashion richard was elected in s place and the club was entirely with as permanent president the meeting then and the set about enjoying their newly acquired privileges tlie smoking room was thronged for a few moments but owing to the extraordinary strength of the tobacco which the faithful richard into the fur the house boat it developed no enduring popularity with a suddenly acquired being the first to the as so fast and furious was the enjoyment of these thirsty souls so long deprived of their rights that night came on without their observing it and with the night was brought the great peril into which they were thrown and from which at the moment of writing they had not been and which to my regret has cut me off for the present from any further information connected with the associated shades and their beautiful place had they not been so intent upon the inner beauties of the house boat on the they might have observed approaching under the shadow of the shore a long craft by oars which dipped softly and silently and with trained precision in the now jet black waters of the the oars were a dozen evil while in the stern of the approaching vessel there sat a grim a house ox the spirit armed to the liis coat bearing the skull and cross bones of this l o it stealing up the river like a thief in tlie night contained captain and and their mission was a mission of vengeance to put the matter l y and captain was under the the club liad recently ut upon him he had been unanimous v even his and who had been into him for against him i may be a he cried when he what tlie club had done but i have feelings an l the associated shades will repent their action the time will come when they ll that i have their and they have its debts it was for this purpose that the great terror of the seas had come upon this the favorable opportunity knew that the house boat was his had told him that the members had ri k the house boat every one gone to the fight and he resolved that the time had come to act he did not know that the had helped to make his vengeance all the more terrible and withering by putting the most attractive and fashionable ladies of the country likewise in his power but so it was and they poor souls while this and cruel was slowly approaching sang on and danced on in of their peril in less than five minutes from the time when his sinister craft rounded the bend and his crew had the cut her loose from her and in ten minutes she had sailed away into the great unknown and with her went some of the most precious gems in the social of the rest of ray story is soon told the whole country was aroused when the crime was discovered but up to the date of this narrative no word has been received of the missing craft and her precious cargo and have had the seas a house boat on the in search of	27
ad once been heard to say at his club is not to amuse merely his work is that of an historian and he should be quite as careful to write ad is the historian how is the future to know what manner of lives we nineteenth century people have lived unless our tell the truth possibly the will tell them observed the professor of do tell us interesting a h true but then what historian ever let you into the secret of the every day life of the people of whom he writes what historian ever so louis the as has him truly in reading mere history i have seemed to be reading of lay figures not of men but when the has taken hold properly ah then we get the men then objected the professor the is never to create a great character the or the mere may but as for the with a true ideal of his mission in life he would better leave creation to nature it is for a purely mortal being to pretend that he can create a more interesting character or set of characters than the almighty has already provided for the use of himself and his brothers in literature that he can involve these in a more dramatic series of events than it has occurred to an all a rebellious heroine wise providence to put into the lives of his creatures that by the exercise of that faculty which the writer his imagination he can phases of life which shall prove of more absorbing interest or of greater moral value to his readers than those to be met with in the every day life of man as he is then said the professor with a of his cue at the then in your estimation an author is a thing to be led about by the nose by the beings he for use in his books you put it in a rather homely fashion returned but on the whole that is about the size of it and all a man needs then to be an author is an eye and a type writing machine asked the professor and a regiment of dr the young surgeon to follow his characters about sighed surely these men were i can t expect you to grasp the idea exactly he said and i can t explain it to you because you d become if i tried no we won t said go on and explain it to us i m bored and want to be amused so went on and tried to explain how the true must be an inspired sort of person who can rise above purely physical whose eye shall be able to pierce the most impenetrable of to whom nothing in the a rebellious heroine way of obtaining information as to the doings of such specimens of mankind as he has selected for his pages is an obstacle your author then is to be a mixture of a new york newspaper and the angel suggested i told you you d become said nevertheless even in your you have expressed the idea the writer must be as far as the characters of his stories are concerned he must have an eye shall see all that they do a mind sufficiently to discern what their motives are and the courage to put it all down neither adding nor only where color is needed to make the moral lesson he is to teach stand out the more vividly in you d have him become a said the professor more truly a painter retorted with enthusiasm heavens cried the doctor dropping hi cue with a loud clatter to the floor here s a man talking about not creating and then throws out an invention like you ought to write a dictionary with a word like to start with it would sweep the earth laughed he was a man and he was strong enough in his convictions not to for the mere reason that somebody else had them in fact everybody else might have them and a rebellious heroine would still have stood true once he was convinced that he was right you go on people s legs off he said good that s a thing you know about and as for the professor he can go on showing you and the rest of mankind just why the shortest distance between two points is in a straight line i ll take your and separate words for anything on the subject of or but when it comes to my work i wouldn t bank on your theories if they were by the he ll never write a decent book in his life if he to that theory said after had departed there s precious little in the way of the dramatic nowadays in the lives of people one cares to read about nevertheless had written interesting books books which had brought him reputation and what is termed genteel poverty that is to say his fame was great considering his age and his compensation was just large enough to make life painful to him his income enabled him to live well enough to make a good appearance among and share somewhat at their expense in the life of others of far greater means but it was too small to bring him many of the things which while not absolutely necessities could not well be termed luxuries considering his tastes and his temperament a little more was all he needed if i could afford to write only when i feel like it he said how happy i should be but these orders they a rebellious heroine make me a driver of men and not their historian in fact was in that unfortunate and at the same time happy position where he had many orders for the product of his pen and such financial necessities that he could	27
not afford to decline one of them and it was this very situation which made his rebellious heroine of whom i have to write so sore a trial to the struggling young author it was early in may that had received a note from messrs the asking for a story from his pen for their popular blue and silver the success of your they wrote has been such that we are ii prepared to offer you our highest terms for a short story of words or to be published in our blue and silver series we should like to have it a love story if possible but whatever it is it must be characteristic and ready for publication in november we shall need to have the manuscript by september ist at the latest if you can let us have the first few chapters in august we can send them at once to mr whom it is our intention to have illustrate the story provided he can be got to do it the letter closed with a few of an unimportant and nature and immediately called at the office of messrs where after learning that a rebellious heroine their best terms were no more than best terms generally are he accepted the commission and then returning to his apartment he went into what called one of his he goes into one of his had said himself up to his little elevation and into the private life of until he strikes something worth putting down and the result he calls literature yes and the people buy it and read it and call for more said the professor possibly because they love said and they think if they call for more often enough he will finally peep in at their key holes and write them up if he ever puts me into one of his books i ll him at night and his writing hand he won t said the professor i asked him once why he didn t and he said you d never do in one of his books because you don t belong to real life at all he thinks you are some new experiment of an providence and he doesn t want to use you until he sees how you turn out he could put me down as i go suggested the doctor that s so replied the other i told him so but he said he had no desire to write a lot of sketches containing no idea oh he said that did he observed the doctor with a smile well wait till comes to me for a i ll get even with him a rebellious heroine i ll give him a and he ll disappear for ten days whether it was as said or not that went into a trance and his nose into the private life of the people he wrote about it was a fact that while meditating upon the possible of his pen our author was as deaf to his surroundings as though he had departed into another world and it rarely happened that his mind emerged from that condition without bringing along with it something of value to him in his work so it was upon this may morning for an hour or two lay apparently gazing out of his flat window over the chimney pots of the city of new york at the equally long island station on the far side of the east river it was well for him that his eye was able to see and yet not see of those smoking chimney pots the red roofs the flapping under clothing of the poorer than he hung out to dry on the tops was essential to the construction of such a story as messrs had in mind and successfully forgot them and coming back to consciousness brought with him the of his story and taken as a whole they were an interesting lot the hero was like most of those gentlemen who live their little lives in the novels of the day only had modified his accomplishments in certain directions robert such was his name was not the sort of man to do a rebellious heroine ble things for his heroine he was not reckless he was not a d lifted from the time of louis the to the dull days of president he was not even a frenchman but an essentially american american who desires to know before he does an why he does it and what are his chances of success i am not sure that if he had happened to see her struggling in the ocean he would have jumped in to rescue the young woman to whom his hand was i do not speak of his heart for i am not and i do not know whether or not intended that should be afflicted with so inconvenient an organ i am not sure i say that if he had seen his best beloved struggling in the ocean would have jumped in to rescue her without first stopping to remove such of his garments as might his progress back to land again in short he was not one of those impetuous heroes that we read about so often and see so seldom but taken altogether he was sufficiently attractive to please the american girl who might be expected to read s book for that was one of the of messrs when they made their verbal agreement with make it go with the girls mr had said men haven t time to read anything but the newspapers in this country hit the girls and your fortune is made didn t exactly see how his fortune was going to be made on the i a rebellious heroine best terms of messrs even if he hit the girls with all the force of a ram but he promised to keep the idea	27
in mind and remained in his trance a trifle longer than might otherwise have been necessary to select the unquestionably correct hero for his story and was the result was witty his somewhat of the refined comic paper that is to say it was smart and c and not always suited to the picture but it wasn t vulgar or dull and his personal appearance was calculated to arouse the interest he was clean shaven and clean cut he looked more like a modem ideal of genius than and had probably played and the in col did not go back that far with him all of which it must be admitted was pretty well calculated to assure the fulfilment of s promise that the man should please the american girl of course the story was provided with a villain also but he was a villain of a mild type mild was an essential part of s literary creed and this particular person was not conceived in his name was to have been and with him intended to introduce a lively satire on the employment by certain contemporary writers of the supernatural to produce dramatic effects was of course to be the rival of in this respect was commonplace to his mind the villain always had to be the rival of the hero a rebellious heroine just as in opera the tenor is always virtuous at heart if not otherwise and the a scoundrel which in real life is not an invariable rule by any means indeed there have been many instances in real life where the villain and the hero have been on excellent terms and to the great benefit of the hero too but in this case was to follow in the and become the rival of for the hand of the heroine was to write a book which for a time should so miss that she would be blind to the of as a husband elect a book full of the weird and thrilling dealing with and and all other as called them all of which of course was to be the making and the of for equally of course in the end he would become by the use of the inevitable end of writers of that stamp would rescue from his fatal influence and the last chapter would end with lying pale and wan upon her sick bed recovering from the mental which the influence over hers of a mind like s was sure to produce holding s hand in hers and smiling a sweet recognition at the lover to whose virtues she had so long been blind would murmur at last and the book would close with a first kiss followed closely by six or eight pages of of other of messrs a rebellious heroine i mention the latter to show how thoroughly was he thought out his books so truly and so fully before he sat down to write them that he seemed to see each written printed made and bound before him a thing from cover to cover besides and and miss of whom i shall at this time not speak at length since the balance of this little narrative is to be devoted to the setting forth of her peculiarities and charms there were a number of minor characters not so necessary to the story perhaps as they might have been but interesting enough in their way and very well calculated to provide the material needed for the filling out of the required number of pages they completed the picture i don t want to put in three vivid figures and leave the reader to imagine that the rest of the world has been wiped out of existence said as he talked it over with me that is not art there should be three types of character in every book the positive the average and the negative in that way you grade your story off into the rest of the world and your reader feels that while he may never have met the positive characters he has met the average or the negative or both and is therefore by one of these links connected with the others and that gives him a personal interest in the story and it s the reader s personal interest that the writer is after a rebellious heroine so miss was provided with a very conventional aunt the kind of woman you meet with everywhere most frequently in church and hotel however mrs was this lady s name and she was to the of to miss with mrs by force of circumstances came a pair of twin children like those in the heavenly only more real and not so in their manners and wit these persons for the new sailing from new york city for on the third day of july the action was to open at that time and was to meet on that vessel on the evening of the second day out with which incident the interest of s story was to begin but had counted without his heroine the rest of his cast were safely away on ship board and ready for action at the appointed hour but the heroine missed the steamer by three and it was all s fault ii a preliminary trial not be made a soft and dull eyed fool to shake the head and sigh and yield merchant of the extraordinary failure of miss cast for a star r e in s tale of love and to appear upon the stage selected by the author for her d must be explained as i have already stated at the close of the preceding chapter it was entirely s own fault he had studied miss too to grasp thoroughly the more refined of her nature and he found out at a a preliminary trial moment when it was too late to correct his	27
error that she was not a woman to be in respect to the of polite life however trifling to a man of s stamp these might seem to be she was a for form and when she was summoned to go on board of an ocean there to take part in a romance for the mere of a young author she intended that he should not the even if in a sense the to which she referred did the period at which his story was to open she was willing to appear but it seemed to her that ought to see to it that she was escorted to the scene of action with the ceremony due to one of her position what does he take me for she a rebellious heroine for and i ll let them fight it out for that dark eyed little woman from i saw on board and when the best man wins i ll put the whole thing into a short story then began a new quest for characters to go with she must have a to begin with thought that is indispensable regard themselves as of public morals in their blue and silver series so a girl unmarried and without a would never do for this book if they were to publish it in their yellow series i could fling all such considerations to the winds for there they to stronger cultivated by french literary and morals need not be the begins considered provided the story is well told and likely to sell but this is for the other series and a is a non doesn t need one half as much as the girls in the yellow books but she s got to have one just the same or the american girl will not read about her and who is better than who has charge of her now his knee with delight how fortunate i d provided her he said i ve got my start already and without having to think very hard over it either the trance began again and lasted several hours during which time and the professor stole softly into s rooms and perceiving his condition respected it a rebellious heroine he s either asleep or imagining said the professor in a whisper he can t imagine returned the doctor call it whatever it is he s up to we mustn t interfere there isn t any use waking him anyhow i know where he keeps his cigars let s sit down and have a smoke this the did hoping that sooner or later their host would observe their presence but lay in of their coming and they finally grew weary of waiting he must be at work on a ten volume novel said the doctor let s go and with that they departed night came on and with it darkness but never moved the fact was he was going through an examination of the j he went into one of his the begins human race to find a man good enough for and it speaks volumes for the interest she had suddenly inspired in his breast that it took him so long to find what he wanted along about nine o clock he gave a deep sigh and returned to earth i guess i ve got him he said wearily rubbing his forehead which began to ache a trifle i ll model him after the professor he s a good fellow good looking has position and certainly knows something as professors go i doubt if he is imposing enough for the american girl generally but he s the best i can get in the time at my disposal so the professor was unconsciously for the office of hero mrs a rebellious heroine was cast for and the doctor in spite of s previous resolve not to use him was to be introduced for the comedy element the villain selected was the usual poverty stricken foreigner with a title and a passion for wealth which a closer study of his heroine showed that miss possessed for on her way home from the pier she took mrs to the and treated her to a luncheon which nothing short of a ten dollar bill would pay for after which the two went miss s wardrobe most of which lay stored in the hold of the new and getting farther and farther away from its fair owner in the course of which tour miss expended a sum which had the begins possessed it would have made it unnecessary for him to write the book he had in mind at all it s good she s rich sighed that will make it all the easier to have her go to and attract the count at the moment that spoke these words to himself mrs and accompanied by mr entered the mansion of the latter on fifth avenue they had spent the afternoon and evening at the apartment arranging for its closing until the return of mrs meanwhile was to be the guest of the next week we ll run up to said the house is ready and bob is going for his o a rebellious heroine looked at her curiously for a moment did you intend to go there all along she asked of course why do you ask returned mrs why that very idea came into my mind at the moment replied i thought this afternoon i d run up to and stay with the next week when all of a sudden came into my mind and it has been struggling there with for two hours until i almost began to believe somebody was trying to compel me to go to if it is your idea and has been all along i ll go but if is trying to get me down there for literary purposes	27
had caught the new york the other day his plans would the begins have i d never have married that man i d have the moment he spoke to me and if had got a book out of my trip to europe at all it would have been a series of papers on some such topic as the abroad or how to be happy though single no more shall i take the part he me to in this romance unless he count from the scene entirely and me with a different style of hero from his professor the of whom by the way as i happen to know is already married and has two children i went to school with his wife and i know just how much of a hero he is and so they went to and s novel opened a rebellious heroine his description of the was perfect his of the incidents of the could not be improved upon in any way they were absolutely true to the life but his account of what said and did and thought while on the was not at all it was imagination of the wildest kind for she said did and thought nothing of the sort did his best but his heroine was and the poor fellow did not know that he was writing for he verily believed that he heard and saw all that he attributed to her exactly as he put it down so the story began well and for a time was quite happy at the end of a week however he had a fearful set the begins back count was ready to be presented to according to the plan but there the broke down s heroine took a new and entirely unexpected tack iv a chapter from with notes good bye proud world i m going home thou art not my friend and fm not thine i think the reader will possibly gain a better idea of what happened at the dance at which count was to have been presented to miss if i forego the pleasure of writing this chapter myself and produce instead the chapter of s ill fated book which was to have dealt with that most interesting incident having all hope of ever getting that a chapter from with notes particular story into shape without a change of heroine and being unwilling to go to that extreme mr has very kindly placed his manuscript at my disposal use it as you will my dear fellow he said when him for it i can t do anything with it myself an it is merely occupying space in my for which i can find better use it may need a certain amount of in fact it is sure to for it is long and thanks to the persistent failure of miss to do as i thought she would may frequently seem for your own sake it for the readers of your book won t believe that you are telling a true story anyhow they will say that you wrote this chapter and attributed it to a rebellious heroine me and you will find yourself held responsible for its i have inserted a few notes here and there which will give you an idea of what i suffered as i wrote on and found her growing daily less and less with occasionally an indication of the point of between her actual behavior and that which i expected of her to a fellow workman in literary fields this chapter is of pathetic interest though it may not so appear to the reader who knows little of the difficulties of i can hardly read it myself without a feeling of most intense pity for poor i can imagine the sleepless nights which followed the of his hopes as to what his story might be by the attitude of the young woman he had hon a chapter from with notes so highly by selecting her for his heroine i can almost feel the bitter sense of disappointment which must have burned to the very depths of his soul when he finally realized how completely were all his plans and i cannot forego calling attention to the constancy to his creed of in sacrificing his opportunity rather than his principles as shown by his resolute determination not to force miss to do his bidding even though it required merely the dipping of his pen into the ink and the resolution to do so i cannot blame her however to the right to a creed miss too it must be admitted was entitled to have views as to how she ought to behave under given a rebellious heroine and if she found her notions running counter to his it was only proper that she should act according to the of her own heart or mind or whatever else it may be that a woman reasons with rather than according to his wishes as to all questions of this kind however as between the two the reader must judge and one document in evidence is s chapter which ran in this wise a meeting stop hearty and in a moment calm the question answer is this then my fate f s as the of the new york papers had invitations for the ball were issued on the th it is not surprising that the a chapter from with notes in this instance should be guilty of that rare crime among society accuracy for their information was derived from a perfectly source mrs s butler in whose hands the addressing of the had been placed a man of imposing presence and of great value to the professional up of trifles of social gossip in the pay of the sunday newspapers with many of whom he was on terms of intimacy of course mrs was not aware that her household contained a personage of great importance any	27
more than her neighbor mrs was aware that it was her maid who had furnished the weekly journal of society with the vivid account of the scandalous behavior at her last dinner a rebellious heroine of major who had to be forcibly from the by the husband of mrs smith a social morsel which attracted much attention several years ago every effort was made to hush that matter up and the guests all swore eternal secrecy but the weekly journal of society it and strangely enough had it right in its next issue but the maid was never suspected even though she did appear to be possessed of more ample means than usual for some time after mrs preferred to suspect one of her guests and on the whole was not sorry that the matter had got abroad for everybody talked about it and through the episode her dinner became one of the historic of the season a chapter from with notes the who were by this time comfortably settled at the needles their cottage on the cliff it is hardly necessary to state were among those invited and with their cards was included one for added to the card was a personal note from mrs to miss expressing the especial hope that she would not fail them all of which was very gratifying to the young girl see what ive got she cried running into mrs s den at the head of the beautiful stairs note at this point in s manuscript there is evidence of on the author s part his heroine had begun to bother him a trifle he had written a half dozen lines descriptive of so a rebellious heroine miss s emotions at receiving a special note of invitation subsequently them the word had been scratched out and then restored in place of scornfully which had at first been for it it was plain that was not quite certain as to how much a woman of miss s type would care for a special attention of this nature even if she cared for it at all as a matter of fact the word chosen should have been and neither nor scornfully for the real truth was that there was no reason why mrs should so honor and the girl at once began to wonder if it were not an extra precaution of s to assure her presence at the ball for the benefit of himself and his a chapter from with notes st the author finally wrote it as i have given it above however and miss received her special invitation according to he her doubt however without it for after describing mrs s reading of the note he goes on that is very nice of mrs said mrs handing back her note it is a special honor my dear by which you should feel highly flattered she doesn t often do things like that i should think not said i am a perfect stranger to her and that she should do it at all strikes me as being most extraordinary it doesn t seem sincere and i can t help thinking that some a rebellious heroine has been brought to bear upon her to force her to do it note has commented upon this as follows as i read this over i must admit that miss was right why i had mrs do such a thing i don t know unless it was that my own admiration for my heroine led me to believe that some more than usual attention was her due in my own behalf i will say that i should in all probability have or corrected this false note when i came to the of my proofs the chapter then proceeds what shall we wear mused mrs as folded mrs s note and replaced it in its envelope i must positively decline to discuss a chapter from with notes that question it is of no public interest snapped her face flushing angrily my clothing is my own business and no one s else she paused a moment and then in an tone she added be perfectly willing to talk with you about it generally my dear but not now mrs looked at the girl in surprise note has written this in the margin here you have one of the situations which finally compelled me to this story you know yourself how hard it is to make words out of a slight situation and at the same time stick to probability i had an idea in out this chapter that i could make three or four interesting pages interesting to the girls mind a rebellious heroine you out of a discussion of what they should wear at the dance it was a perfectly natural subject for discussion at the time and under the circumstances it would have been a good thing in the book too for it might have conveyed a few wholesome hints in the line of good taste in dress which would have made my story of some value women are always writing to the papers asking what shall i wear here and what shall i wear there the ideas of two women like mrs and would have been certain to be interesting and exceedingly useful to such people but the moment i attempted to involve them in that discussion miss declined utterly to speak and i was cut out of some six or seven hundred quite a chapter from with notes important words i had supposed all women alike in that matter but i find i was mistaken one at least won t discuss clothes but i don t wonder that mrs looked up in surprise put that in just to please myself for of course the whole incident would have had to be cut out when the manuscript went to the type the chapter takes a new lead here as	27
follows mrs was prompt in sending the of herself and mr to mrs and at the same time s acceptance was despatched although she was at first disposed to send her regrets she was only fond of those pleasures which make the life social she was a good but a more excellent and she pre a rebellious heroine talking to dancing but the of what are known as stair talks at dances oppressed her nor did she look forward with any degree of pleasure to what we might term confidences which in these luxurious days have become so large a in for was of a practical nature she had once chilled the heart of a young poet by calling little realized when he wrote this how he would have suffered had he carried out his original intention and to the city of the sea and a to her was a thing for mid day and not for midnight she was therefore not particularly anxious to spend an evening which began at an late hour instead of at a a chapter from with notes s reasonable time thanks to a social custom which has its foundation in nothing short of absolute insanity in the pursuit of nothing of greater value than dancing stair talks and confidences but mrs soon persuaded her that she ought to go and go she did it was a beautiful night that of the d of july was at her best the morning had been warm but along about three in the afternoon a series of short and sharp storms came and as quickly went the heated city and up the air until it was as clear as crystal and refreshing as a draught of cold spring water at the mansion on avenue all was in readiness for the event the s had arrived with a rebellious heroine their dainty contents and had gone and now the band was sending forth over the cool night air those beautiful and weird waves of melody which entrance the most unwilling ear about the broad and spacious grounds lights hung from tree to tree here and there little rose scented for h talks were set from within streaming through the windows in beauty came the lights of the vast the reception rooms and the beautifully designed dining hall lately added by young black the to mrs s already perfect house on the floor are some ten or twenty couples gracefully to the strains of and in the midst of these we see a chapter from with notes her way across the room with some difficulty attended by mr and mrs they have just arrived as walks across the hall she every one there is that about her which commands attention at the instant of her entrance count is on the qui he cries as he gracefully against the doorway opening into the my dear friend my idea of truly woman her name that is miss of new york count the person addressed replies she is up here with the i her says the count his eye following as she walks up to mrs and is greeted by that lady go a rebellious heroine is pale and appears anxious even to the author the ways of the women in his works are inscrutable so upon this occasion she is pale but i cannot say why can it be that she has an knowledge that to night may decide her whole future life who can tell woman s are great and there be those who say they are true one by one with the exception of count the young men among mrs s guests are presented prefers to await a more favorable opportunity and to all appears to be the beautiful woman she is hers is an instant success a new beauty has dawned upon the horizon let us describe her as she stands note there is a blank space left a chapter from with notes here at first i thought it was because wished to reflect a little before drawing a picture of so superb a woman as he seemed to think her and go on to the conclusion of the chapter the main incidents being hot in his mind and the purely descriptive matters more easily left to calmer moments he me however that such was not the case when i came to describe her as she stood he said she had disappeared and i had to search all over the house before i finally found her in the so i changed the chapter to read thus after a half hour of dancing and holding court for s triumph was truly that of a queen it was so complete miss turned to mr and took his arm a rebellious heroine let us go into the she said in a whisper i have heard so much about mrs s i should like to see them seeing that she was tired and slightly bored by the incessant chatter of those about her escorted her out through the broad door into the as she passed from the the dark eyes of count flashed upon her but she them not moving on into the bower in apparently serene of that person s presence here got her a chair will you have an ice he asked as she seated herself beneath one of the lofty palms yes she answered simply i can wait here alone if you will get it il the dark eyes of count flashed a chapter from with notes passed out and soon returned with the ice but as he came through the doorway stopped him and whispered something in his ear certainly count right away answered come along needed no second bidding but followed closely and soon stood expectant before miss said may i have the pleasure of presenting count the count s head nearly with his toes in the bow that	27
can do without my conscientious scruples because i haven t any conscientious scruples in literature and by jove i ll do it i ll take miss in hand myself this very afternoon and i ll put her through a course of training that will make her the day she ever with and when he takes her up again she ll be as meek as moses strong in my belief that i could bring the young woman to terms i went to my desk and tried my hand at a story with miss as its heroine and i an experiment was not particular about being either neither did i go off into any in search of heroes and i did what could not do i brought the new york back to port that veiy day and despatched robert the despised lover of the first tale to she shall have him whether she likes him or not said i my teeth and she won t know whether she loves him or count best and she ll promise to marry both of them and she shall go to in august despite her refusal to do so for and she shall meet there and no matter what her opinion of him or of his literary work she shall be fascinated by the story have him write and under the a rebellious heroine spell of that fascination she shall promise to marry him also whereupon the will turn up and take her to where i ll have her meet the hero she couldn t wait for at the dance the despised professor and she shall promise to be his wife likewise and finally i ll put her on board a steamer at bound for new york with mrs and the and the second day out when she is feeling her very worst all four of her will turn up at the same time beside her chair then i shall leave her to get out of her trouble the best way she can i imagine after she has had a taste of my literary she ll quite fall in love with the method and behave herself as a heroine should i sat down all with the idea of an experiment being able to tame s heroine and place her in a mood more suited or his purposes the more i thought of how his failures were weighing on his mind the more ready was i to play the tyrant with and well i might as well confess it at once with all my righteous indignation against her i could not do it five times i started and as many times did i destroy what i wrote on the sixth trial i did haul the new york back into port never for an instant considering the inconvenience of the passengers or the of the officers crew or authorities this done i seized upon the unfortunate spirited his luggage through the custom house and sent the ship to sea again that part was easy i have written a great deal io a rebellious heroine or the comic papers and nonsense of that sort comes almost without an effort on my part with equal ease i got to how i do not recollect it is just possible that i took him through from new york without a train by the mere say so of my pen at any rate i got him there and i fully intended to have him meet miss at a dance at the ocean house the day after his arrival i even so far as to get up the dance i described the room the and the band i had dressed and waiting with also dressed and waiting on the other side of the room and all over again but by no possibility could i force miss to appear why it was i do not pretend to be able to say she an experiment may have known that was there she may have realized that i was trying to force upon her but whatever it was that enabled her to do so she resisted me successfully or my pen did for that situation upon which i had based the opening scene of my story of i found beyond my ability to and as had done before me so was i now forced to to change my plan i ll have her run away with i cried growing vicious in my wrath and both and shall place her under eternal obligations by rushing out to stop the horse one from either side of the street she ll have to meet then i added with a chuckle and i tried that plan as as a lamb she entered the which io a rebellious heroine i up out of my ink pot and like a did she seize the reins i could not help admiring her as i wrote of it she was so like a goddess but i did not run away with she must be and run away with she was but again did this extraordinary woman assert herself to my discomfiture for the moment she saw rushing out to rescue her from the east she jerked the left rein so violently that the horse to one side over on who had sprung gallantly to the rescue from the west and missing his aim as the horse turned fell all in a heap in the two yards back of the miss was not hurt but my story was for she had not even observed the unhappy and as for he an experiment cut so ridiculous a figure that italian though he was even he seemed aware of it and he shrank out of sight again had this heroine upset the plans of one who had to her virtues in a literary mould i could not bring her into contact with either of my heroes i threw my pen down in	27
disgust to the cover of my ink well and for two hours paced madly through the like walks of the central park angry and depressed and from that moment until i undertook the of this pathetic story i gave s heroine up as material for my purposes she was worse if anything in imaginative work than in because she absolutely defied the im a rebellious heroine tion while the she would be glad to help so long as his was kept in strict accord with her ideas of what the real really was it was some days before i saw again and i thought he looked tired and anxious so anxious indeed that i was afraid he might possibly be in financial straits for i knew that for three weeks he had not turned out any of his usual pot having been too busy trying to write the story for messrs it happened oddly enough that i had two or three in my pocket so feeling like a i the subject to him what s the matter old fellow i said you seem in a blue has the stopped if it has com an experiment iii me i m with this week not at all thanks just the same he said wearily my came in wednesday and i m all right for a while anyhow what s up then i asked you look worried i ve just offered to share my prosperity with you you might share your grief with me lend me a of trouble will you oh it s nothing much he said it s that rebellious heroine of mine she s weighing on my mind that s all she s very real to me that woman and by jove i i ve been as jealous as a lover for two days over a fancy that came into my head you ll laugh when i tell you but i ve been half afraid somebody else a rebellious heroine would take her up and well treat her badly there is something that tells me that she has been forced into some brutal situation by somebody somewhere within the past two or three days i believe want to kill a man who did that i didn t laugh at him i was the man who was in a fair way to get killed for doing that and i thought laughter would be a little bit but i am not a coward and i didn t i confessed i tried to ease his mind by telling him what i had attempted to do it was a mistake he said shortly when i had finished and you must promise me one thing he added very seriously i ll promise anything i said meekly an experiment ii don t ever try an of the sort again he went on gravely if you had succeeded in writing that story and subjected her to all that horror i should never have spoken to you again as it is i realize that what you did was out of the kindness of your heart prompted by a desire to be of service to me and i m just as much obliged as i can be only i don t want any assistance until you ask me to i replied i ll never write another line about her but you d better keep very about her yourself or get her the way she upset that horse on completely him and at the same time getting out of the way of that little count in spite of all i could do to place her under obligations to both of them was what the a rebellious heroine would have called a caution she has made a slave of me forever and i venture to that if you don t hurry up and get her into a book somebody else will and whoever does will make a name for himself alongside of which that of smith will sink into oblivion count on me for that said he faint heart never won fair lady and i don t intend to stop climbing just because i fear a few more falls vi another chapter from ever woman in this humour df was ever woman in this humour wont ril have her but i wiu not keep her long richard iii there was no doubt about it that true to his purpose was making a good fight to conquer without and appreciated as much as i the necessity of his heroine to form as speedily as possible lest some other should prove more successful and so deprive him of the for which he had worked so hard and suffered so much in his favor was his ii a rebellious heroine disposition he was a man of great determination and once he set about doing something he was not an easy man to turn aside and now that for the first time in his life he found himself at every point and by a heroine of no very great literary importance he became more determined than ever i ll conquer yet he said to me a week or so later but the weariness with which he spoke made me fear that victory was afar off ive no doubt of it ultimately i answered to encourage him but don t you think you ll stand a better chance if you let her rest for a while and then steal in upon her unawares and catch her little romance as it flies she is apparently up against you now and the more conscious she is of your another chapter from efforts to put her on paper the more she will rebel in fact her will become more and more a matter of whim than of principle unless you let up on her for a little while half of her opposition now strikes me as obstinacy and the more you try to break	27
her spirit even though you do it the more stubborn will she become put this book aside for a few weeks anyhow why not tackle something else you d do better work too after a little variety this must be finished by september st that s why not said i ve promised to send them the completed manuscript by that time besides no heroine of mine shall ever say that she me from doing what i have set ii a rebellious heroine about doing it is now or never with so i left him at his desk and for a week was busy with my own affairs late the following friday night i dropped in at s rooms to see how matters were as i entered i saw him at his desk his back turned towards me in the lamp light scratching away furiously with his pen ah i thought as my eye took in the picture it goes at last i guess i won t disturb his train of thought and i tried to steal softly out for he had not observed my entrance as luck would have it i stepped upon the sill of the door as i passed out and it cried about in his chair startled by the sound another ch ter from oh it s you is it he added as he recognized me what are you up to come back here i want to see you his manner was cheerful but i could see that the cheerfulness was assumed the color had completely left his cheeks and great rings under his eyes weariness of spirit i didn t want to disturb you said i returning you seem to have your pen on a clear track with full steam up i had he said quietly i was just finishing up that business i cried grasping hand and shaking it i congratulate you success at last eh well i ve got something done and that s it he said and he tossed the a rebellious heroine ter block upon which he had been writing across the table to me read that and tell me what you think of it i read it over carefully it was a letter to messrs in which asked to be relieved of the commission he had undertaken i find myself utterly unable to complete the work in the time he wrote for reasons entirely beyond my control nor can i at this writing say with any degree of certainty when i shall be able to finish the story i have made constant and conscientious effort to carry out my agreement with you but and i beg that you will relieve me of the obligation into another chapter from which i entered at the of our contract of course i could send you something long enough to cover the required space words come easy enough for that but the result would be unsatisfactory to you and injurious to me were i to do so please let me hear from you me from the obligation at your earliest convenience as i am about to leave town for a fortnight s rest my inability to serve you at this time and hoping soon to be able to avail myself of your very i beg to remain yours faithfully oh said l youve finished it then by giving it up said he sadly a rebellious heroine it s the strangest thing that ever happened to me but that girl is impossible i take up my pen intending to say that she did this and before i know it she does that i cannot control my story at ally nor can i perceive in what given direction she will go if i could i could arrange my to suit but as it is i cannot go on it may come later but it won t come now and i m going to give her up and go down to to fish for ten days i hate to give the book up though he added tapping the table with his pen s an awfully good fellow and his firm is one of the best in the country liberal and all that and here at my first opportunity to get on their list i m completely it s hard luck i think another chapter from don t be said i take my advice and tackle something else write some other book that s the devil of it he replied angrily the table with his fist i can t i ve tried and i can t my mind is full of that woman if i don t get rid of her i m ruined i ll have to get a position as a somewhere or starve for until she is caught between good stiff board covers i can t write another line oh you take too serious a view of it i ventured you re mad and tired now i don t blame you of course but you mustn t be rash don t send that letter yet wait until you ve had the week at you ll feel better then you can write the book in ten days after your return or if you a rebellious heroine still find you can t do it it will be time enough to withdraw then what hope is there after that he cried tossing a bundle of manuscript into my lap just read that and tell me what s the use i d out a meeting between and a certain mr arthur a fellow with wealth position brains good looks in short everything a girl could ask for and that s what came of it i spread the pages out upon the table before me and read chapter iv a declaration i have not seen so likely an of love of mounted the steps lightly and rang the bell s kind another chapter from ness	27
of the night before which was in marked contrast to her coolness at the dance had led him to believe that he was not wholly without interest to her and her invitation that he should call upon her had given him a sincere pleasure in fact he wondered that he should be so pleased over so trivial a circumstance i m afraid i ve lost my heart again he said to himself that is again if i ever lost it before he added and his mind to a little episode at bar harbor the summer before and he was not sorry to feel that that wound was cured though as a matter of fact it had never amounted to more than a scratch a moment later the door opened a rebellious heroine and entered inquiring for miss as he did so i do not know but i will see if miss is at home said the butler him into the parlor that imposing individual knew quite well that miss was at home but he also knew that it was not his place to say so until the young lady had personally assured him of the facts in so far as they related to this particular all went well for however miss consented to be at home to him and five minutes later she entered the drawing room where was seated how do you do she said his outstretched hand think of that will you he d come to propose and another chapter from was to leave engaged and she upon opening upon him his outstretched hand i couldn t help smiling why did you let her do it i asked i could no more have changed it than i could fly returned she ought never to have been at home if she was going to behave that way i couldn t foresee the incident and before i knew it that s the way it happened but i thought i could fix it up later so i went on read along and see what i got let into next i proceeded to read as follows you see said with an admiring glance at her eyes in spite of the fact that the coolness of her reception rather abashed him you see i have not delayed very long in coming a rebellious heroine so i perceive returned with a bored manner that s what i said to mrs as i came down you don t allow your friends much mr it doesn t seem more than five minutes since we were together at the card party that s cordial eh said as i read nice sort of talk for a heroine to a hero makes it easy for me eh i must say if you manage to get a proposal in now you re a genius said i oh as for that i got reckless when i saw how things were going returned i lost my temper and took it out of poor he as you will see when you come to it but it isn t it s i simply forced him into it poor devil but go on and read for yourself another chapter from i did so as follows this was hardly the treatment had expected at the hands of one who had been gracious to him at the card table the night before he had received the notice that she was to be his partner at the tables with on his arrival at mrs s because his recollection of her behavior towards him at the dance had led him to believe that he was personally distasteful to her but as the evening at cards he felt instinctively drawn towards her and her vivacity of manner cleverness at and extreme towards himself had completely won his heart which victory their little h during supper had confirmed but here this morning was a complete to her first attitude a rebellious heroine what could it mean why should she treat him so i couldn t answer that question to save my life said that is not then but i found out later i put it in however and let draw his own conclusions i d have helped him out if i could but i couldn t go on and see for yourself i resumed could not solve the problem but it pleased him to believe that something over which he had no control had gone wrong that morning and that this had disturbed her and that he was merely the victim of circumstances and somehow or other it pleased him also to think that he could be the victim of her circumstances so he stood his ground another chapter from it is a beautiful day he began after a pause is it she asked indifferently said i appalled at the to which miss was going dreadfully sighed and so unlike her too yes said so very beautiful that it seemed a pity that you and i should stay indoors with plenty of walks to be taken and interrupted him with a sarcastic laugh with so much pity and so many walks mr why don t you take a few of them she said good lord said i this is the worst act of rebellion yet she seems beside herself a rebellious heroine read on said in tones this was s opportunity i am not fond of walking miss he said and then he added quickly that is alone i don t like anything alone living alone like walking alone is let s go walking said shortly as she rose up from her chair i ll be down in two minutes i only need to put my hat on and miss walked out of the parlor and went up stairs confound it muttered as she left him a minute more and i d have known my fate you see said i d made up	27
he did that s how he came to say it grimly he did it just as a soldier rushes up to the cannon s mouth he added also will you be my wife most certainly not said turning on her heel and leaving the young man to finish his walk alone and then said with a chuckle s manhood would assert itself in spite of all i could do he made an answer which i wrote down i see said i but you ve scratched it out what was that line thank the lord said to himself as miss disappeared around the corner said that s what i wrote and i flatter myself on the of it for that s a rebellious heroine just what any self respecting hero would have said under the circumstances a silence came over us do you wonder i ve given it up asked after a while yes said i i do such opposition would nerve me up to a battle royal i wouldn t give it up until i d returned from if i were you i added anxious to have him renew his efforts for an idea had just flashed across my mind which although it involved a breach of faith on my part i nevertheless believed to be good and since it might relieve of his embarrassment very well i rejoiced to hear him say i won t give it up until then but i haven t much hope after that last chapter another chapter from so went to after destroying his letter to messrs whilst i put my breach of faith into operation vii a breach of faith having sworn too hard a keeping oath study to break it and not to break my love s labor s lost when i assured that i should keep my hands off his heroine until he requested me to do otherwise after my fruitless attempt to discipline her into a less mood i fully intended to keep my promise she was his as far as she possessed any value as literary material and he had as clear a right to her exclusive use as if she had been in his name at least so far as his friends were concerned he had a breach of faith others might make use of her for literary purposes with a clear conscience if they chose to do so but the hand of a friend must be stayed my own experience with the young woman had not been successful enough to lead me to believe that i could conquer where had been physical force i had found to be she was too to into any of the that with all my imagination i could up to her but something had to be done and i now resolved upon a course of moral and wholly for s sake the man was actually suffering because she had so persistently defied him and his discomfiture was all the more deplorable because it meant little short of the ruin of his life and a rebellious heroine the problem had to be solved or his career was at an end never could do two things at once the task he had in hand always absorbed his whole being until he was able to write the word on the last page of his manuscript and until the to this book he was now struggling with was written i knew that he would write no other his pot he could do of course and so earn a living but pot destroy rather than make and was too young a man to rest upon past achievements neither had he done such vastly superior work that his fame could withstand much by the continuous production of it was therefore in the hope of saving him that i broke faith with him and temporarily stole his a breach of faith heroine i did not dream of using her at all as you might think as a heroine of my own but rather as an interesting person with ideas as to the duty of a sort of past grand mistress of the art of who was worth for the daily press i flatter myself it was a good idea worthy almost of a genius though i am perfectly well aware that i am not a genius i am merely a man of exceptional talent i have talent enough for a genius but no taste for the and by just so much do i fall short of the of the hopes of my friends and fears of my enemies there are stories i have in mind that are worthy of the most exalted french masters for instance and when i have the time to be careful a rebellious heroine which i rarely do i can write with the polished grace of a de or a james but i shall never write them because i value my social position too highly to put my name to anything which it would never do to publish outside of paris i do not care to prove my genius at the cost of the respect of my neighbors all of which however is foreign to my story and is put in here merely because i have observed that readers are very much interested in their favorite authors and like to know as much about them as they can my plan to take up the thread of my narrative once more was briefly to write an interview between myself as a representative of a newspaper and miss the well known heroine it has been a breach of faith quite common of late years to interview the models of well known artists so that it did not require too great a stretch of the imagination to make my scheme a reasonable one it must be remembered too that i had no intention of using this interview for my own i planned it	27
solely in the interests of my friend hoping that i might secure from miss some admission that might operate against her own principles as and i knew them and that that secured i might induce her to follow meekly his until he could bring his story to a reasonable conclusion failing in this i was going to try and discover what style of man it was she admired most what might be her ideas of the romance in a rebellious heroine which she would most like to figure and all that so that i could give a few points which would enable him so to his romance that his heroine would walk through it as easily and as as one could wish finally all other things failing i was going to throw on her generosity call attention to the fact that she was him by her stubborn behavior and ask her to submit to a little temporary inconvenience for his sake as i have already said so must i repeat there was genius in the idea but i was forced to certain features of it as will be seen shortly i took up my pen and with three bold strokes thereof transported myself to and going directly to the cottage i rang the bell miss a breach of faith was still with all the resources of imagination at hand and with not an obstacle in my way that i could not clear at a bound she still held me at bay she was not at home had in fact departed two days previously for the white mountains fortunately however the butler knew her address and without about trains luggage or aught else in one brief paragraph i landed myself at the house where she was spending a week with mr and mrs of this change of caused me to my first idea to its advantage i saw when i thought the matter over that on the whole the interview as an interview for a newspaper was likely to be in the bud since the moment i declared my a rebellious heroine self a for a set of newspapers and stated the object of my call she would probably dismiss me with the statement that she was not a professional heroine that her views were of no interest to the public and that not having the pleasure of my acquaintance she must beg to be excused i wonder i didn t think of this at the outset i surely knew s heroine well enough to have foreseen this possibility i realized it however the moment i dropped myself into the great office of the house miss walked through the office to the dining room as i and as i turned to gaze upon her as she passed on it flashed across my mind that it would be far better to appear before her as a fellow guest and a breach of faith find out what i wanted and tell her why i had come in that guise rather than introduce myself as one of those young men who earn their daily bread by their noses into other people s business had this course been based upon any thing more solid than a pure bit of imagination i should have found it difficult to accommodate myself so easily to circumstances if it had been instead of myself it would have been impossible for would never have stooped to provide himself with a trunk containing fresh linen and evening dress clothes and patent leather by a stroke of his pen this i did however and that evening having created another guest who knew me of old and who also was acquainted with miss a rebellious heroine just as i had created my excellent wardrobe i was presented the pleasantly enough and i found s heroine to be all that he had told me and a great deal more besides in fact so greatly did i enjoy her society that i prolonged the evening to about three times its normal length which was a very bit of exaggeration i admit but then i don t pretend to be a and when i sit down to write i can make my evenings as long or as short as i choose i will say however that long as my evening was i made it go through its whole length without having recourse to such copy making as the description of and chairs and except for its length it was not at all lacking in a breach of faith miss fascinated me and seemed to find me rather good company and i found myself suggesting that as the next day was sunday she take me for a walk from what i knew of s experience with her i judged she d be more likely to go if i asked her to take me instead of offering to take her it was a subtle distinction but with some women subtle distinctions are which men must not try to too lest disaster overtake them my bit of worked like a charm miss accepted my suggestion and i retired to my couch feeling certain that during that walk to bald mountain or around the lake or down to the farm or wherever else she might choose to take me i could do much to help a rebellious heroine poor out of the into which his choice of miss as his heroine had plunged him and i wasn t far wrong as the event although the manner in which it worked out was not exactly according to my i dismissed the night with a few the morning with its divine service in the parlor went quickly and for it is an impressive sight to see gathered beneath those towering cliffs a hundred or more of pleasure and health of different heartily and simply together as as though they knew no differences and all men were possessed of one common	27
if it had to be in by the ears as he put i o a rebellious heroine it nor was he in any mood for me to tell him of my breach of faith the mere knowledge that she had promised to be out of charity would have stung his pride and i thought it would be better for the time at least to let my interview remain a secret fortune favored me however and the professor entered the dining room at this moment and the professor held m his hand a copy of the current issue of the literary messrs s publication a having to do wholly with things who sat for this called out the professor tapping the of the magazine who sat for what replied looking up returns to the i i this picture said the professor it s a picture of a finely person with your name under it put in the doctor that said it does flatter me a bit so does the article with it said says you are a great man man with an idea and all that is that true or is it just plain have you an idea laughed good i had one once but it s lost he said as to that picture they re bringing out a book for me he added modestly good ad you know when you are through with that professor i put in let me have it will you i want to see what it says about i a rebellious heroine it s a first rate replied the professor handing over the publication it right on the head i don t know as that s pleasant said what i mean my dear boy said the professor is that it does you justice and it really did do justice although as he had suggested it was written largely to the work it spoke nicely of s previous efforts and as it seemed to me he had not got to the top of the ladder yet but he was getting there by a slow steady development and largely because he was a man with a fixed idea as to what literature ought to be mr has seen clearly from returns to the the outset what it was that he wished to accomplish and how to accomplish it the writer observed he has neither to the right nor to the left but has along the lines he has out for himself and keeping constantly in mind the principles which seemed to him at the beginning of his career to be right it has been this persistent and consistent to principle that has gained for mr his hearing and which is constantly rendering more certain and permanent his position in the world literary others may be led hither and yon by the and follies of the but will ever have one steadfast champion in read that i said tossing the journal across the table is a rebellious heroine he read it and blushed to the roots of his ears this is no time to desert the flag said i as he read stick to your colors and let her stick to hers you d better be careful how you force your heroine ha ha he laughed i should think so and for more reasons than one i never really intended to do horrible things with her my boy trust me if i do lead her to lead her gently my persuasion will be suggestive rather than and that from the dry goods shop i asked with a smile i d like to see him so much as tell her the price of anything cried a man like that has no business to live in the same with a returns to the woman like when i threatened her with him i was conversing through a large and elegant though wholly invisible hat i breathed more freely she was still sacred and safe in his hands shortly after dinner over we left the table and went to the theatre where we saw what the programme called the latest london success in which three of the four acts of an intensely exciting depended upon a woman s not seeing a large navy revolver which lay on the table directly before her eyes in the first the play was full of blood and with thunder and we truly enjoyed it only would not talk much between the acts he was unusually moody after the play was over his tongue loosened however and we went i a rebellious heroine to the players for a supper and there he burst forth into speech if had been the heroine of that play she d have seen that gun and the audience would have had to go home inside of ten minutes he said later on he burst out with if my miss had been the heroine of that play the man who falls over the precipice in the second act would have been alive at this moment and finally he demanded do you suppose a heroine like would have overlooked the on the card that woman read in the third act and so made the fourth act possible not she she s a woman with a mind and yet they call that the latest london success these do not returns to the seem to understand their own language if that play was what sort of a nightmare do you suppose a romantic drama would be well maybe london women in real life haven t any minds i said growing rather weary of the subject i admired miss myself but there were other things i could talk about like and as the small boy said let it go at that it was an interesting play and that s all plays ought to be in plays is not to be encouraged a man goes to the theatre to be amused and entertained not	27
and shall not give myself up willingly unless i am sure that that person will not trifle with my character exactly my position said she as i said you can now understand how it is yourself but i will tell you in whose hands you are now you are in mine surely if you had the right to send me tearing down avenue at behind a horse and then pursue me in spirit to the house i have the right to bring you here and i have accordingly done so for a woman s her logic was convincing she certainly had as much right to trifle with my comfort as i had to trifle with hers a summons north you are right miss i murmured meekly pray command me as you will and deal gently with the i will treat you far better than you treated me she said so have no fear although i have been half minded at times to revenge myself upon you for that i could make you dreadfully uncomfortable for when i take my pen in hand my imagination in the direction of the horrible is something awful i shall be merciful however for i believe in the idea and i will merely make use of the power my pen possesses over you to have you act precisely as you would if you were actually here then i am not here i what do you think she asked a rebellious heroine i was about to say that if i weren t i wished most heartily that i were but i remembered fortunately that it would never do for me to with s heroine so i contented myself with saying boldly i don t know what to think miss looked at me for a moment and then reaching out her hand took mine pressed it and it saying you are a loyal friend indeed there was nothing about the act it was a simple and highly pleasing of my forbearance and it made me somewhat more comfortable than i had been at any time since my sudden through the air you remember what i said to you a summons north she resumed that i would cease to rebel whatsoever mr asked me to do unless he insisted upon marrying me to a man i did not love i do i replied and as far as i am aware you have stuck by your agreement i doubt not has by this time got ready for his finishing touches your is correct she answered sadly and then with some spirit she added and they are with a vengeance i have been loyal to my word in spite of much discomfort i have travelled from pillar to post as meekly as a lamb because it fitted in with s convenience that i should do so he has taken me and my friend mrs to and through five different summer where i have cut the figure he wished a rebellious heroine me to cut without regard to my own feelings i have discussed all sorts of topics of which in reality i know nothing to lend depth to his book i have men i really liked and appeared to like men i profoundly hated for his sake i have endured peril for his sake knowing of course that ultimately he would get me out of danger but peril is peril just the same and to that extent to the nerves i have been upset in a at bar harbor and lost on a mountain in i have my ankle at and fainted at a dance at but no complaint have i uttered not even the suggestion of a rebellion have i given once i admit i was disposed to resent his desire that i should wear a certain costume which he man as he is could a summons north not see would be authors have no business to touch on such things but i overcame the temptation to rebel and to please him wore a blue and pink shirt waist with a silk skirt at a garden party i suppose he thought silk was appropriate to the garden nor did i even show my mortification to those about me nothing was said in the book about its being s taste it must needs be set down as mine and while the pages of s book contain no criticism of my costume i know well enough what all the other women thought about it still i stood it i endured also without a murmur the courtship and declaration of love of a perfect of a man that is to say he was a in the eyes of a woman men a rebellious heroine might like him i presume that as mr has chosen him to stand for the hero of his book he must admire him but i don t and haven t and sha n t yet i have pretended to do so and finally when he proposed marriage to me i meekly answered yes weeping in the bitterness of my spirit that my promise bound me to do so and noting those tears calls them tears of joy you needn t have accepted him i said softly that wasn t part of the bargain yes it was she returned positively that is i regarded it so and i must act according to my views of things what i promised was to follow his wishes in all things save in marriage to a man i didn t love getting engaged a summons north is not getting married and as he wished me to get engaged so i did expecting of course that the book would end there as it ought to have done and that therefore no marriage would ever come of the engagement certainly the book should end there then said i you have kept to the letter of your agreement and nobly	27
i added with enthusiasm for i now saw what the poor girl must have suffered didn t try to go further did he he did she said her voice trembling with emotion he set the time and place for the wedding issued the cards provided me with a a based upon his of what a ought to be and therefore about as satisfactory to a woman a rebellious heroine of taste as that silk costume of the garden party he engaged the chose my girls i detested and finally assembled the guests the groom was there at the rail mr whom he had selected to give me away was waiting outside in the clad in his a flower in his button hole and his arm ready for the bride to lean on the minister was behind the rail the wedding march was sounding and you i cried utterly unable to contain myself longer i was past on the three o clock express bound hither she answered with a significant toss of her head no one but yourself knows where i am and i have summoned you to explain my action before a summons north you hear of it from him i do not wish to be had his warning but he chose to it and he can get out of the difficulty he has brought upon himself in his own way possibly he will destroy the whole book but i wanted you to know that while he did not keep the faith i did i suddenly realized the appalling truth my own weakness was responsible for it all i had not told of my interview and her promise feeling that it was not necessary and fearing its effect upon his pride i may add she said quietly that i am bitterly disappointed in your friend i was interested in him and believed in him most of my acts of rebellion if you can call me rebellious were prompted by my desire to keep o a rebellious heroine him true to his creed and i will tell you what i have never told to another i regarded almost as an ideal man but this has changed it all if he was what i thought him he could not have acted with so little conscience as to try to force this match upon me when he must have known that i did not love henry he didn t know i said he should have been sure before providing for the ceremony after hearing what i had promised you i would and would not do said but i never told him anything about your promise i shouted desperately he has done all this is that true didn t you tell him she cried eagerly grasping my hand a summons north her manner left no doubt in my mind as to who the hero of her choice would be and again i sighed to think that it was not i as true as that i stand here i said i never told him she shrugged her shoulders oh well you know what i mean i said excitedly wherever i do stand it s as true as that i stand there the phrase was awkward but it fulfilled its purpose why didn t you tell him she asked because i didn t think it necessary fact is i added i had a sort of notion that if you married anybody in one of s books if had his own way it would be to the man who tells the o a rebellious heroine a loud noise interrupted my remark and i started up in alarm and in an instant i found myself back in my rooms in town once more the little mountain house near lake george with its interesting and beautiful guest had faded from sight and i realized that somebody was with a stick upon my door there i cried what s wanted it s i came s voice let me in i unlocked the door and he entered the brown of had gone and he was his broken self again well i said trying to his appearance which really shocked me how s the book got it done he sank into a chair with a groan a summons north hang the book it s all up with that i m going to to morrow and call the thing off he said she won t work two weeks steady application gone for nothing oh come i said not as bad as that precisely as bad as that he retorted what can a fellow do if his heroine as completely as if the earth had opened and swallowed her up gone i cried with difficulty my desire to laugh completely searched high and low for her no earthly use he answered i can t even imagine where she is all of which my dear i said a superior tone for the moment shows that an imagination that is worth something wouldn t be a a rebellious heroine bad possession for a after all i know where your heroine is she is at a little mountain house near lake george and she has fled there to escape your of a hero whom you should have known better than to force upon a girl like you re getting my dear boy sacrifice something to the american girl but don t sacrifice your art just because the girl likes her stories to end up with a wedding is no reason why you should try to condemn your heroine to life long misery looked at me with a puzzled expression for a full minute how the deuce do you know anything about it he asked i immediately enlightened him i told him every circumstance even my a summons north suspicion as to the hero of her heart and it seemed to please	27
v the op vi the personally conducted vii an important decision viii a hand book to ix again x k in illustrations gazed in open mouthed wonder the be my shoulder blades facing p ray photograph op the whale showing myself i felt as if i had committed some dreadful henry the eighth was much enraged and withdrew his louis the the of the overhead wire carried him to the end of the wharf and dropped him into the illustrations injured by the balls op fire which the breathed out facing p turn that infernal thing the other way he shrieked old peter for in always drives with his wooden leg the enchanted type the enchanted type writer the discovery it is a strange fact for which i do not expect ever satisfactorily to account and which will receive little even among those who know that i am not given to it is a strange fact i say that the substance of the following pages has itself during a period of six months more or less between the hours of midnight and four o clock in the morning proceeding directly from a type writing machine standing in the corner of my library by unseen hands the machine is a the enchanted type writer not of recent make it is in fact a of the early which i discovered one morning when suffering from a slight attack of the grip i had remained at home and devoted my time to about in the old books bringing to light long forgotten my boyhood of stuff and other memory things whence the machine came originally i do not recall my impression is that it belonged to a once in the employ of my father who used frequently to come to our house to take down however this maybe the machine had lain hidden y dust and the and of the house for twenty years when as i have said i came upon it unexpectedly old man as i am i shall soon be thirty the fascination of a machine has lost none of its i am as pleased to day watching the wheels of my watch go round as ever i was and to monkey with a type writing apparatus has always brought great joy into w the discovery my heart though for give me the pen perhaps i should for the use here of the monkey which of what a friend of mine calls the english to it from what he also calls the language but i shall not do so because to whatever branch of our tongue the word may belong it is exactly descriptive and descriptive as no other word can be of what a boy does with things that click and go and is therefore not at all out of place in a tale which i trust will be regarded as a polite one the discovery of the machine put an end to my i cared little for finding old bill and of atlantic cable ends when with a whole morning a type writing machine and a screw driver before me i could penetrate the mysteries of that useful i shall not endeavor to describe the ul sensations of that hour of and they the the enchanted type writer powers of my pen suffice it to say that i took the whole apparatus apart cleaned it well every joint and then put it together again i do not suppose a old boy could have derived more satisfaction from taking a piano to pieces it was and i resolved that as a reward for the pleasure it had given me the machine should have a brand new ribbon and as much ink as it could and that in brief is how it came to be that this machine of pattern was added to the library il to say the truth it was of no more practical use than s dancing bear a plaster cast of which my mantel shelf so that when i it with the i do so i frequently tried to write a jest or two upon it but the results were like sir arthur s experience with the organ into whose depths the lost sank never to return i dashed off the well enough but somewhere between the keys and the types they were lost and the re the discovery suits when i came to the paper were and once i tried a on the keys exactly how to the that came out of it i do not know but it was curious enough to have appealed strongly to d or any other of the literary more singular than the though was the fact that when i tried to write my name upon this strange machine instead of finding it in all its glorious length written upon the paper i did find william shakespeare printed there in its stead of course you will say that in putting the machine together i mixed up the keys and the letters i have no doubt that i did but when i tell you that there have been times when looking at myself in the glass i have fancied that i saw in my face the of the great bard that the of my head is precisely the same as was his that when visiting for the first time every foot of it was with clearly defined recollections to me you will perhaps more enchanted type easily picture to yourself my sensations at the moment however enough of describing the machine in its relation to myself i have said sufficient i think to convince you that whatever its make its age and its it was an extraordinary affair and once convinced of that you may the more readily believe me when i tell you that it has gone into business apparently for itself and incidentally for me it was	27
oh the morning of the th of march last that i discovered the curious condition of affairs concerning which i have to write my family do not agree with me as to the date they say that it was on the evening of the of march that the episode had its beginning but they are not aware for i have not told them that it was not evening but morning when i reached home after the dinner at the club it was at a quarter of three a m precisely that i entered my house and proceeded to remove my hat and coat in which the discovery operation i was interrupted and in a startling manner by a click from the dark recesses of the library a man does not like to hear a click which he cannot comprehend even before he has dined after he has dined however and feels a satisfaction with life which cannot come to him before dinner to hear a mysterious click and from a dark corner at an hour when the world is at rest is not pleasing to say that my heart jumped into my mouth is mild i believe it jumped out of my mouth and against the wall opposite back through my system into my boots all the sins of my past life and they are many i once stepped upon a and i have my neighbor both his man servant and his maid servant though not his wife nor his ox nor his ass because i don t like his wife and he keeps no live stock all my sins i say rose up before me for i expected every moment that a bullet would penetrate my brain or my heart if perchance the whom i suspected of the enchanted type writer a revolver at me aimed at my feet who is there i cried making a display of bravery did not feel hiding behind our hair sofa the only answer was another click this is serious i whispered softly to myself there are two of em i am in the light they are concealed by the darkness and have there is only one way out of this and that is by i ll pretend i think made a mistake so i addressed myself aloud what an idiot you are i said so that my words could be heard by the if this is the effect of club dinners you d better give them up that click wasn t a click at all but the of our new eight day clock i paused and from the corner there came a dozen more in quick succession like the of as many great heavens i murmured under the discovery my breath it must be with his forty thieves as i spoke the mystery cleared itself for following close upon a click came the gentle ringing of a bell and i knew then that the type writing machine was in action but this was by no means a discovery who or what could it be that was engaged upon the type writer at that hour a m if a mortal being why was my coming no interruption if a supernatural being what infernal might not the immediate future have in store for me my first impulse was to flee the house to go out into the night and pace the fields possibly to rush out to the links and play a few holes in the dark in order to cool my brow which was rapidly becoming fortunately however i am not a man of impulse i never yield to a mere nerve suggestion and so instead of going out into the storm and certainly i walked boldly into the the enchanted type writer library to investigate the causes of the very extraordinary incident you may rest well assured however that i took care to go armed myself with a stout stick with a long ugly steel blade concealed within it a cowardly weapon by the way which i permit to rest in my house merely because it forms a part of a collection of weapons acquired through the failure of a comic paper to which i had contributed several articles the editor when the crash came sent me the collection as part payment of what was owed me which i think was very good of him because a great many people said that it was my stuff that killed the paper but to return to the story myself with the i walked boldly into the library and touching the electric button soon had every gas jet in the room giving forth a brilliant flame but these brilliant as they were disclosed nothing in the chair before the machine the latter apparently of my presence went merrily and as rap the discovery idly along as though some expert young woman were in charge imagine the situation if you can a type writing machine of ancient make its letters clear but out of accord with the keys confronted by an empty chair three hours after midnight rattling off page after page of something which might or might not be i could not at the moment determine for two or three minutes i gazed in wonder i was not frightened but i did experience a sensation which comes from contact with the as i gradually grasped the situation and became used somewhat to what was going on i ventured a remark this beats the deuce v i observed the machine stopped for an instant the sheet of paper upon which the impressions of the letters were being made flew out from under the a pure white sheet was as quickly and the keys off the line what does the enchanted type writer i presumed the line was in response to my assertion so i replied you do what has taken possession of you to night that you start in to write on	27
your own hook having resolutely declined to do any writing for me ever since i rescued you from the dust and dirt and of the you never rescued me from any the machine replied you d better go to bed youve dined too well i imagine when did you rescue me from the dust and dirt and the of any what an ungrateful machine you are i cried if you have sense enough to go into writing on your own account you ought to have mind enough to remember the years you spent up stairs under the roof neglected and covered with family portraits and bills really my dear fellow the machine tapped back i must repeat it bed is the place for you you re not the discovery i m not a machine and upon my honor never seen you re old not a machine i cried then what in heaven s name are you a don t be sarcastic my dear fellow replied the machine of course i m not a machine i m jim jim what i roared you a thing with keys and type and a bell i haven t got any keys or any type or a bell what on earth are you talking about replied the machine what have you been eating what s that i asked putting my hand on the keys that s keys was the answer and these and that i added indicating the type and the bell type and bell replied the machine and yet you say you haven t got them i persisted no i haven t the machine has got them not i was the response i m not the machine i m the man that s the enchanted type writer using it jim jim what good would a bell do me fm not a cow or a tm the editor of the and come here to copy off my notes of what i see and hear and besides all this i do type writing for various people in and as this machine of yours seemed to be of no use to you i thought try it but if you object go as i read these lines upon the paper i stood amazed and delighted go i cried as the full value of his patronage of my machine dawned upon me for i could sell his copy and he would be none the worse off for as i understand the laws they are not designed to benefit authors but for the protection of type why my dear fellow it would break my heart if having found my machine to your taste you should ever think of using another til lend you my too if you d like it in fact anything i have is at your command thank you very much returned the discovery well through the medium of the keys as usual i shall not need your but this machine is of great value to me it has several very remarkable qualities which i have never found in any other machine for instance singular to relate and i were about here the other night and when he saw this machine he thought it was a of some new pattern so what does he do but sit down and play me one of his songs without words on it and by jove when he got through there was the theme of the whole thing printed on a sheet of paper before him you don t really mean to say i began i m telling you precisely what happened said was to death with it and he played every song without words that he ever wrote and every one of em was fitted with words which he said absolutely conveyed the ideas he meant to bring out with the music then i tried the ma the enchanted type writer and discovered another curious thing about it intensely american i had a story of alexander about his that he wanted translated from french into american which is the language we speak below in preference to german french or english i thought rd copy off a few lines of the french original and as true as fm sitting here before your eyes where you can t see me the copy i got w as a good though rather free translation think of it that s an advanced machine for you i looked at the machine wistfully i wish i could make it work i said and i tried as before to tap off my name and got instead only a confused of letters it wouldn t even pay me the compliment of my name into that of shakespeare as it had previously done it was thus that the magic qualities of the machine were made known to me and out of it the following papers have grown i have set them down without much the discovery ing or alteration and now submit them to your inspection hoping that in them you will derive as much satisfaction and delight as i have in being the possessor of so wonderful a machine by so interesting a person as jim jim as he always calls himself and others who as you will note if perchance you have the patience to read further have upon occasions honored my machine by using it i must add in behalf of my own reputation for honesty that mr has given to me all right title and interest in these papers in this world as a return for my permission to him to use my machine what if they make a hit and bring in barrels of gold in he said i can t take it back with me where i live so keep it yourself ii mr some late news of was a little late in arriving the next night he had agreed to be on hand exactly	27
at midnight but it was after one o clock before the machine began to click and the bell to ring i had fallen asleep in the soft depths of my feeling pretty thoroughly worn out by the experiences of the night before which in spite of their pleasant issue were nevertheless somewhat disturbing to a nervous organization like mine suddenly i and with the awakening there entered into my mind the notion that the whole thing was merely a dream and that in the end it would be the better for me if i were to give up and some late news of other club dinners with nightmare but i was soon convinced that the real state of affairs was quite otherwise and that everything really had happened as i have already related it to you for i had hardly gotten my eyes free from what my poetic son calls the seeds of sleep when i heard the type writer tap forth old man incidentally let me say that this had become another interesting feature of the machine since my first interview with the seemed to speak and if some one were sitting before it and writing a line the mere of sounds of the various keys would convey to the mind the ideas conveyed to it by the printed words so as i say my ears were greeted with a old man followed immediately by the bell you are late said i looking at my watch i know it was the response but i can t help it during the campaign i the enchanted type writer am kept so busy i hardly know where i am campaign eh i put in do you have in yes replied and we are having a well to be polite a regular of a time things have changed much in there has been a great growth in the spirit below and his majesty is having a deuce of a time running his kingdom washington and and caesar have had the nerve to demand a constitution from the venerable from whom i perplexed somewhat for i was not yet fully awake old nick replied and i can tell you there s a pretty fight on between the of the administration and the opposition secure in his power the grand master of has been somewhat arbitrary and he has made the mistake of doing some of his subjects a little too brown take the case of for instance government has some late news of ruled that he was personally responsible for all the wars of europe from up to and it was proposed to hang him once for every man killed on either side throughout that period naturally resisted he said he had a good neck which he did not object to have broken three or four times because he admitted he deserved it but when it came to hanging him five or six million times once a month for say five million months or twelve times a year for years he didn t like it and wouldn t stand it and wanted to submit the question to observed that the word was not in his especially dictionary whereupon remarked that he wasn t responsible for that that he thought it a good word and worthy of in any dictionary and in all i don t care what you think retorted his majesty it s what i don t think that goes and he commanded his the enchanted type writer to prepare the gallows on the third thursday of each month for s ordered his secretary to send a type written notice that his presence on each occasion was expected and gave orders to the police to see that he was there naturally resisted and appealed to the courts sustained his appeal and him the first thursday came and the police went for the emperor but he was surrounded by a good half of the men who had fought under him and the of the law could do nothing against them in consequence s brother joseph a quiet citizen was dragged from his home and hanged in his place that when a soldier could not or would not serve the government had a right to expect a substitute well said at this point that set all on fire we were divided as to s deserts but the hanging of other people as was too much we some e news of didn t know who d be next the english backed up of course the french army backed up the citizens were aroused in behalf of joseph for they saw at once whither they were drifting if the substitute idea was carried out to its logical conclusion and in half an hour the administration was on the which as you know is a very very very bad thing for an administration it is if it desires to be returned to office said i it is anyhow replied well through the medium of the keys it s in exactly the same position as that of a who has to print with all of his jokes the administration papers were hot over the situation the king can do no wrong idea was worked for all it was worth but beyond this they drew pathetic pictures of the result of all these deplorable tendencies what was for they asked if a man after leading a life of crime in the other world the type writer was not to receive his punishment there the attitude of the opposition was a radical and vicious blow at the vital principles of the sphere itself the opposition papers coolly and calmly took the position that the vital principles of were all right that it was the extreme view as to the power of the emperor taken by that person himself that wouldn t go in these days punishment for was the correct thing and expected some but was not grasping enough	27
to want it all they added that recent fully settled ideas as to a humane application of the laws required the of the or the selection of one and a fair trial based upon that and that anyhow under no circumstances should a wholly innocent person be made to suffer for the crimes of another these journals were suppressed but the next day a set of new papers were started to the same theories as to individual rights the province of declared itself independent of some late news of the throne and set up in the business of government for itself declared for the emperor but insisted upon home rule for cities of its own class and finally as i informed you at the beginning washington and went in person to and demanded a constitution that was day before yesterday and just what will come of it we don t as yet know because washington and and have not been seen since but we have great fears for them because seventeen loads of and a thousand extra tons of coal were ordered by the lord high steward of the palace to be delivered to the minister of justice last night quite a said i the of has begun at last how does society regard the affair observed society hates the government as much as anybody and really believes in the emperor s powers but on the other hand it desires to maintain all of its own the enchanted type writer aristocratic privileges the main trouble in at present is the gradual of society that is to say its former parts are beginning to themselves the one from the other like capital and labor here i in a sense yes possibly more like your and daughters of the revolution for instance great are in process of formation people are beginning to flock together for purposes of protection charles the first and henry the eighth and louis the have established ye ancient and honorable order of kings to which only those who have actually worn crowns shall be eligible the painters have gotten together with a society of fine arts the have formed a society of and all the authors from down to myself have got up an authors club where we have a lovely time talking about ourselves no man to some late news of be eligible who hasn t written something that has lasted a hundred years perhaps if you are thinking of coming over soon you ll let me put you on our r i smiled at his seeming and let myself into his i haven t written anything that has lasted a hundred years yet said i oh yes i think you have replied and the machine seemed to laugh as he wrote out his answer i saw a joke of yours the other day that s two hundred centuries old showed it to me and said that it was a great favorite with his grandfather who had inherited it from one of his remote ancestors a hot retort was on my lips but i had no wish to offend my guest so i smiled and observed that i had frequently indulged in unconscious of that sort i should imagine hastened to add that to men like charles the first this the enchanted type writer uncertainty as to the safety of would be great joy i hardly know returned that very question has been discussed among us charles made a great outward show of grief when he heard of the coal being delivered at the office of the minister of justice and we all thought him quite but it out just before i left to come here that he sent his private secretary to the palace with a hat and a palm leaf fan for with his congratulations that seems to somewhat of sarcasm and what do you think is likely to be the of the whole trouble i asked oh ultimately is bound to be a republic replied there are too many clever and ambitious among us for the place to go along as a much longer if the place were filled up with poets and society people and things like that it might go on as an forever but you see it some late news of isn t to men of the of alexander the great and and and a thousand other warriors who never were used to taking orders from anybody but were themselves the sway of is intolerable and he hasn t made any effort to any of them if he had appointed commander in chief of his army and made a friend of him instead of ordering him to be hanged every month for years or put caesar in as secretary of state instead of having him three times a month for seventy or eighty centuries he would have strengthened his hold as it is he has ignored all these people treats them like personally makes friends with and the office of tax to dick and makes old commander of his imperial guard and just because poor ben off a rhyme for my paper the a rhyme running the enchanted type and and form you bet a cabinet to make a donkey laugh and run s state the dick and collect the tax the people pay the freight just because wrote that and i published it my paper was was boiled in oil for ten weeks and i was seized and thrown into a where a lot of savages from the south sea islands the old between my shoulder blades in green letters and not satisfied with this act right under the they added the line in red letters this edition strictly limited to one copy for private circulation only and they every one of em and the rest nt some late news of signed the personally with pens dipped in it makes a	27
valuable collection of no doubt but i prefer my back as nature made it talk about enlightened government under a man who ll permit things like that to be done i ought not to have done it but i couldn t help smiling i must say i observed that the treatment was barbarous but really i do think it showed a sense of humor on the part of the government no doubt replied with a sigh but when the joke is on me i don t enjoy it very much i m only human and should prefer to observe that the government had some sense of justice the apparently empty chair before the machine gave a slight forward and the type writer began to tap again you ll have to excuse me now observed usual medium i have work to do and if you ll go to bed like a good fellow while i copy off the enchanted type writer tiie minutes of the last meeting of the authors club see that you don t lose anything by it after i get the minutes done i have an interesting story for my sunday paper from the advance sheets of s further recollections which i shall take great pleasure in leaving for you when i depart if you will take the bundle of manuscript i leave with you and boil it in for ten minutes you will be able to read it and no doubt if you copy it off sell it for a goodly sum it is absolutely genuine very well said i rising go but i should think you would put in most of your time at the government instead of going in for minutes and abstract stories of adventure you do eh said well if you were in my place you d change your mind after my unexpected by the emperor and his cabinet i ve decided to keep out of politics for a little while i can stand having a poem some late news of on my back bat if it came to having a three column expressing my emotions alongside of my i m afraid disappear into thin air so i left him at work and retired the next morning i found the promised bundle of and after boiling the pages as instructed discovered the following tale ill from advance sheets of baron s further recollections it is with some very considerable hesitation that i come to this portion of my personal recollections and yet i feel that i owe it to my fellow citizens in this delightful country where we are all enjoying our well earned rest to lay before them the exact truth concerning certain incidents which have now passed into history and for in which a number of familiar figures are gaining all the credit or as the case may be it is not a pleasant task to expose an much less is it agreeable to expose four but to one who from the earliest times and when i say earliest times i speak as you further recollections will see as you read on to one i say who from earliest times has been by no other motive than the of truth the task of exposing fraud becomes a duty which cannot be ignored therefore with regret i set down this chapter of my regardless of its consequences to certain figures which have been of no importance in our community for many years figures which in my own favorite club the associated shades have been most welcome but which as i and they alone know have been nothing more than in previous volumes i have confined my to my as baron but dear reader there are others was not always baron i have been others i am not aware that it has fallen to the lot of any but myself in the whole span of universal existence to live more than one life upon that curious compact little ball of land and water called the earth but in any event to me has fallen that privilege or distinction or the enchanted type writer whatever it may be and upon the record made by me in four separate placed centuries apart four of this sphere are their claims to notice securing election to our clubs and even venturing so far at times as to make themselves personally to me who with a word could expose their wicked deceit in all its naked to an astounded community and in taking this course they have gone too far there is a limit beyond which no man shall dare go with me satisfied with the ultimate of my virtues in the baron i have been disposed to allow the to pursue their deception in peace so long as they otherwise behave themselves but when adam chooses to allude to my writings as lies when attacks my right as a literary person to tell tales of when states that my ignorance in matters is colossal and shakespeare publicly me as a person unworthy of belief who should be further recollections from the associated shades then do i consider it time to speak out and expose of the greatest that have ever been inflicted upon a long suffering public to begin at the beginning then let me state that my first recollection dates back to a beautiful summer morning when in a lovely garden i opened my eyes and became conscious of two very material facts first a charming woman arranging her hair in the mirror like waters of a silver lake directly before me and second a pain in my side as though i had been upon for but which in reality resulted from the loss of a which had in turn into the charming and very human being i now saw before me that woman was eve that mirror like lake was set in the midst of the garden of i was adam	27
on by a gale when i came out the moon went behind a cloud and people who began by my paper ended up in the poor house society gave me up commerce wouldn t have me boards of trade everywhere me and i gradually sank into that state of despair which finds no solace anywhere but on the sea or in politics and as politics was then unknown i went to sea the result is known to the world i was cast overboard by a whale which in his defence let me be generous the enchanted type writer enough to say swallowed me and with the usual result i came back and life went on finally i came here and when it got to the ears of the authorities that i was in they sent me back for the fourth time to earth in the person of william shakespeare that is the whole of the story it is a sad story and i regret it and i am sorry for the when i reflect that the character he has assumed possesses attractions for him his real life must have been a fearful thing if he is happy in his and for his punishment let us leave him where he is having told the truth have done my duty i cheerfully resign my claim to the personality he claims i from this time on all right title and interest in the name but if he ever dares to interfere with me again in the use of my personal recollections concerning the inside of i shall hale him before the authorities and now finally i come to shakespeare further recollections whom i have kept for the last not because he was the last but because i like to work up to a climax previous to my existence as baron i lived for a term of years on earth as william shakespeare and what i have to say now is more in the line of confession than otherwise in my boyhood i was wild and i if i were not afraid of having it set down as a joke i should say that i everything from eggs to deer i was not a great joy to my parents there was no in in which i did not take a leading part and finally for the good of i was sent to london where a person of my talents was more likely to find congenial and surroundings a glance at such of my as are now will the fact that i never learned to write a glance at the first of the plays attributed to me will likewise show that i never learned to spell and yet i walked into london with one of the most the enchanted type writer exquisite poems in the english language in my pocket i am still filled with merriment over it how was it the critics of the years since have how was it that this little savage from leafy with no training and little education came into london with and in manuscript in his pocket it is quite evident that the critic have no in their midst it would not take much of an eye a true s eye to see the milk in that for it is but a simple tale after all the way of it was this on my way from to london i walked through and i remained in i was ill clad and hungry and having no money with which to pay for my supper i went to the arms hotel and offered my services as porter for the night having noted that a rich from london en route to had arrived unexpectedly at the arms taken by surprise and therefore unprepared to accommodate further recollections so many guests the landlord was glad to avail himself of my services and i was assigned to the position of boots among others whom i served was walter who noting my ragged condition and hearing what a and i had been immediately took pity upon me and gave me a colored court suit with which he was through and which i accepted put upon my back and next day wore off to london it was in the pocket of this that i found the poem of and that poem to keep myself from starving i published when i reached london sending a complimentary copy of course to my benefactor when saw it he was naturally surprised but gratified and on his return to london he sought me out and suggested the publication of his i was the first man he d met he said who was willing to publish his stuff on his own responsibility i immediately put out some of the and in time was making a comfortable living the the enchanted type writer works of most of the young about town who paid well for my that the public chose to think the works mine was none of my fault i never claimed them and the line on the by william shakespeare had reference to the only and not as many have chosen to believe to the author thus were published lord bacon s hamlet s poems several plays of messrs and who were themselves among the of the times and the rest of that glorious monument to human and memorial to an impossible wholly genius known as the works of william shakespeare the extent of my writing during this was ten for and one attempt at a comic opera called a s nightmare which was never produced because no one would write the music for it and which was ultimately destroyed with three of my and all of bacon s evidence against my s the public library r further recollections of hamlet in the fire at the globe theatre in the year these then dear reader are the revelations which i have to make in my next	27
i was the man i am now known to be baron as i have said i make the exposure with regret but the of these impudent of my various has grown too great to be longer borne i lay the simple story of their before you for what it is worth i have done my duty if after this exposure the public of choose to receive them in their homes and at their clubs and as guests at their functions they will do it with a full knowledge of their in conclusion fearing lest there be some among the readers of this paper i have allowed my friend the editor of this esteemed journal which is to publish this story exclusively on sunday next free access to my and he has selected as of evidence to which i earnestly call your attention the of d the enchanted type writer the cuts which illustrate this chapter i a full length portrait of eve as she appeared at our first meeting ii portraits of and at the ages of two five and seven iii the original plans and of the ark iv of her commission v portrait sketch of myself and the false made at the time and showing how difficult it would have been for any member of my family save myself to tell us apart vi a ray photograph of the whale showing myself the original seated inside vii of the shakespeare proving that he knew neither how to write nor to spell and so of course proving effectually that i was not the author of his works it must be confessed that i read this article of s with amazement further recollections and i awaited with much excited curiosity the coming again of the of my type writing machine surely a revelation of this nature should create a sensation in and i was anxious to learn how it was received did not however and for five nights i fairly raged with the fever of curiosity but on the sixth night the familiar of the bell announced an arrival and i flew to the machine and cried old chap how did it come out r the reply was as great a surprise as i have yet had for it was not jim who answered my question iv a chat with the machine stopped its the moment i spoke and the words old chap were no sooner uttered than my face grew red as a pink i felt as if i had committed some dreadful and instead of gazing into the vacant chair as i had been wont to do in my conversation with my eyes fell as though the invisible of the chair were regarding me with a look of indignant scorn i beg your pardon i said i should think you might returned the types old chap v is no way to address a woman you ve never had the honor of meeting even if she is of the o a chat with most advanced sort no amount of in a woman gives to a man the right to be to her i didn t know i explained really miss i madame interrupted the machine not miss i am a married woman sir which makes of your an even more act it is well enough to affect a good fellowship with young unmarried females but when you attempt to be with a married woman but i didn t know tell you i appealed how should i i supposed it was i was talking to and he and i have become very good friends said the machine you re a of s eh well not exactly a but i began but you go with him interrupted the lady to an extent yes i confessed and does he go with you was the if he does permit me to depart the enchanted type writer at once i should not feel quite in my element in a house where the editor of a sunday newspaper was an attractive guest if you like that sort of thing your tastes i do not madame i replied quickly i prefer the habit to the habit and if i thought was merely a of what is known as sunday literature which depends upon the goodness of the day to its i should forbid him the house a distinct sigh of relief from the chair then i may remain was the remark rapidly off on the machine i am glad said i and may i ask whom i have the honor of addressing certainly was the immediate response my name is i instinctively candidly i was afraid never in my life before had i met a woman whom i feared never h l b public library p n t a chat with in my life have i wavered in the presence of the sex which cheers but i have always felt that while i could hold my own with elizabeth withstand the of and manage the even as did was another story altogether and i wished i had gone to the club my first impulse was to call up stairs to my wife and have her come down she knows how to handle the new woman far better than i do she has never wanted to vote and my are safe in her hands she has frequently observed that while she had many things to be thankful for her greatest blessing was that she was born a woman and not a man and the new women of her native town never leave her presence without wondering in their own minds whether or not they are mere humorous of the almighty to a too serious world i pulled myself together as best i could and feeling that my better half would perhaps decline the proffered invitation to meet with one of the enchanted type writer the most illustrious of her sex i	27
decided to fight my own battle so i merely said really how delightful i have always felt that i should like to meet you and here is one of my wishes gratified i felt cheap after the remark for mrs covered five sheets of paper with laughter with an occasional of the word such as we find in the daily newspapers throughout the speeches of a candidate of another party finally to my relief the ha ha ha ceased and the line i never should have guessed it closed her immediate contribution to our of ideas may i ask why you laugh i observed when she had at length finished certainly she replied far be it from me to dispute the right of a man to ask any question he sees fit to ask is he not the lord of creation is not woman a chat with his abject slave is not the whole difference between them purely is it not the law of supply and demand that rules them both he by nature demanding and she supplying dear reader did you ever encounter a machine man made merely a of ivory iron and ink that could contemptuously i never did before this encounter but the infernal power of either this type writer or this woman who its keys imparted to the atmosphere i was breathing a which i have never experienced anywhere outside of a london hotel and then only when i ventured as few americans have dared to complain of the personage who presided over the dining room but who i must confess was conquered subsequently by a tip of ten shillings at any rate there was a of contempt imparted as i have said to the atmosphere i was breathing as answered my question and the saved the enchanted type writer me just as it did in the london hotel when i complained of the lack of manners on the part of the head waiter i asserted my independence don t trouble yourself i put in of course i shall be interested in anything you may choose to say but as a gentleman i do not care to put a woman to any inconvenience and i do not press the question and then i tried to crush her by adding what a lovely day we have had as if any subject other than the most commonplace was not d by the situation if you contemplate discussing the weather was the retort i wish you would kindly seek out some one else with whom to do it i am not one of your latter day sit out on the stairs while dance girls i am as i have always been an ardent admirer of principles of great problems for small talk i have no use very well madame i began a chat with you asked me a moment ago why i laughed the machine i know it said i but i withdraw the question there is no great principle involved in a woman s laughter i have known women who have laughed at a broken heart as well as at jokes which shows that there is no principle involved there and as a problem i have never cared enough about why women laugh to inquire deeply into it if she ll just consent to laugh i m satisfied without inquiring into the causes thereof let us get down to an agreeable basis for yourself what problem do you wish to discuss servants baby food floor polish or the number of proper to the skirt of a well dressed woman i was confidence in myself and as i talked i ceased to fear her thought i to myself this attitude of supreme patronage is man s safest weapon against a woman keep cool assume that there is no doubt of your superiority and that she knows it appear to the enchanted type writer her and her own indignation will defeat her ends it is a good principle generally among mortal women i have never known it to fail and when i find myself in an argument with one of man s greatest blessings i always fall back upon it and am saved the of defeat bat this time i counted without my will you repeat that list of problems she asked coldly servants baby food floor polish and i repeated somewhat she took it so coolly very well said with a note of amusement in her of the keys if those are your subjects let us discuss them i am surprised to find an able man like yourself with such problems but help you out of your difficulties if i can no man shall ever say that i ignored his cry for help what do you want to know about baby food turning of the tables a chat with me and i didn t really know what to say and so wisely said nothing and the machine grew sharp in its you men it cried you don t know how fearfully shallow you are i can see through you in a minute well i said modestly i suppose you can then calling my feeble wit to my rescue i added it s only natural since i ve made a spectacle of myself not you cried you haven t even made a of yourself and here we both laughed and the ice was broken what has become of well i asked he s been sent to the for ten days for shakespeare and adam and and old replied he printed an article alleged to have been written by baron in which those four gentlemen were held up to ridicule and and i cried oh the baron got out of it by confess the enchanted type writer ing that he wrote the article replied the lady and as he swore to his confession the jury were convinced he was telling another one of his lies and him so was sent	27
up alone that s why i am here there isn t a man in all that dared take charge of paper they re all so deadly afraid of the government so i stepped in and while is fm attending to his duties but you spoke contemptuously of the sunday newspapers awhile ago mrs said i i know that said but i ve fixed that i get out the sunday edition on oh i see and you like it i first rate she replied i m in love with the work i almost wish poor old had been for ten years i have enough of the woman in me to love other people s business and as far as i can find out that s about all journal a chat with to sewing societies aren t to be mentioned in the same day with a newspaper for scandal and gossip and besides fm an ardent advocate of men s rights have been for centuries and i ve got my first chance now to a few of my ideas i m really a man in all my views of life that s the inevitable end of an advanced woman who in following her to its logical conclusion her habits of thought gradually come to be those of a man even i have a great deal more sympathy with than i used to have i used to think i was the one that should be but i m really reaching that stage in my manhood where i begin to believe that he needs then you admit do you i cried with great glee that this new woman business is all rot not by a great deal snapped the machine far from it it s the salvation of the happy life it is perfectly logical to say that the more a the enchanted type writer woman becomes the more she is likely to with the troubles and trials which beset men i scratched my head and pulled the of my ear in the hope of an argument to her with not that i with her entirely but because i instinctively desired to oppose her as pleasantly as i could but the result was i m afraid you are right i said you re a truthful man the machine you are afraid i m right and why are you afraid because you are one of those men who take a cynical view of woman you want woman to be a mere lump of sugar content to be left in a bowl until it pleases you in your high and to take her in the and drop her into the coffee of your existence to what would otherwise not please your taste and like most men you prefer two or three to one i could only cough the lady was a chat with more or less right i am very fond of sugar though one lump is my allowance and i never exceed it whatever the temptation continued you her because she doesn t understand you and your needs forgetting that out of twenty four hours of your daily existence your wife personally about twelve hours of your society during eight of which you are lying flat on your back as though your life depended on it but when she asks to be allowed to share your as well as what in her poor little soul she thinks are your joys you up and call her new and advanced as if advancement were a crime you ride off on your wheel for forty miles on your days of rest and she is glad to have you do it but when she wants a to ride you think it s all wrong and to a weak heart v i i began yes you do she interrupted you ah and you hem and you but in the e the enchanted type writer end you re a poor miserable social conscious of your own magnificence and virtue but nobody else ever can attain to your lofty plane now what i want to see among women is more good fellows suppose you considered your wife as good a fellow as you think your friend jones do you think you d be running off to the club every night to play with jones leaving your wife to enjoy her own society perhaps not i replied but that s just the point my wife isn t a good fellow exactly and for that reason you seek out jones you have a right to the companionship of the good fellow that s what i m going to advocate i ve advanced far enough to see that on the average in the present state of woman she is not a suitable companion for she has none of the qualities of a to which he is entitled i m not so blind but that i can see the faults of my own sex particularly now that i have become a chat with very masculine myself both sexes should have their rights and that is the great policy i m to hammer at as long as i have paper in charge i wish you might see my page for tomorrow it is simply fine i urge upon woman the necessity of joining in with her husband in all his pleasures whether she them or not when he lights a cigar let her do the same when he calls for a let her call for another in time she will begin to understand him he understands her pleasures and often he in with them opera dances lectures she ought to do the same and join in with him in his pleasures and after a while they ll get upon a common basis have their clubs together and when that happy time comes when either one goes out the other will also go and their companionship will be	27
perfect but you objected to my calling you old chap when we first met said i is that quite consistent of course retorted the lady we the enchanted type writer had never met before and besides doctors do not always take their own medicine but that women ought to become good fellows is what you re going to advocate eh said i yes replied it s excellent don t you think superb i answered for it s just my idea of how things ought to be in i think however that we mortals will stick to the old plan for a little while yet most of us prefer to marry wives rather than old the remark seemed so to affect my visitor that i suddenly became conscious of a sense of loneliness i don t wish to offend you i said but i rather like to keep the two separate aren t you man enough yet to see the value of variety but there was no answer the lady had gone it was evident that she considered me unworthy of further attention the of after my interview with i hesitated to approach the type writer for a week or two it did a great deal of after the midnight hour had struck and i was consumed with curiosity to know what was going on hut i did not wish to meet mrs again so i held aloof until should have served his sentence i was no longer afraid of the woman hut i do fear the good fellow of the weaker sex and i deemed it just as well to keep out of any and all that might arise from a casual conversation with a creature of that sort a with a real good fellow even when it ends in a row is more the enchanted type writer or less but a with a female good fellow places a man at a disadvantage the ad is not an easy thing with men bnt with women it is impossible hence i let the type writer click and ring for a fortnight finally to my relief i recognized s touch upon the keys and sauntered up to the side of the machine is this jim i inquired a that s left of him was the answer how have you been very well said i and then it seemed to me that tact required that i should not seem to know that he had been in the jail of the country so i observed you ve been off on a eh how do you know that was the immediate response well i put in you ve been absent for a fortnight and you look more or less ah burned the of yes i am replied the editor very burned in fact been er been playing with a friend down in i envy you i observed with an inward chuckle you wouldn t if you knew the links replied sadly they re awfully hard i don t know any harder course than the and then i became conscious of a gaze fastened upon me see here the machine i thought i was invisible to you if so how do you know i look burned i was and there was only one way out of it and that was by telling the truth well you are invisible old chap i said the fact is been told of your trouble and i know what you have undergone and who told you your successor on the madame i replied oh that woman that woman moan the enchanted type writer d through the medium of the keys has she been here using this machine too why didn t you stop her before she ruined me completely you i cried well next thing to it replied she s run my paper so far into the ground that it will take an almighty powerful grip to pull it out again why my dear boy when i went to to the i had a circulation of a million and when i came back that woman had brought it down to eight copies seven of which have already been returned all in ten days too how do you account for it i asked side talks with men helped and the man s corner did a little but the page did the most of it it was given over wholly to the advancement of certain ideas which were very offensive to my women readers and which found no favor among the men she wants to change the whole social structure she thinks men and women the of are the same kind of animal and that both need to be educated on precisely the same lines the girls to be taught business the boys to go through a course of domestic training she called for for a cooking school for boys and demanded the of a commercial college for girls and wound up by upon a uniform dress for both sexes i tell you if you d worked for years to establish a dignified newspaper the way i have it would have broken your heart to see the suggested fashion plates that woman printed the uniform dress was a holy terror it was a combination of all the worst features of modern garb trousers were to be universal and sensible masculine coats were discarded entirely and puffed dress coats were stiff were in favor of ribbons and up everywhere imagine it if you can and everybody in all was to be forced into garments of that sort v the enchanted type i should enjoy seeing it i said possibly but you wouldn t enjoy wearing it retorted the machine and then that woman s funny column it was frightful you never saw such jokes in your life every one of them contained a covert attack upon man there was only one good thing	27
in it and that was a bit of verse called fair play for the little girls it went like this if little boys when they are young can go about in skirts and wear upon their little backs small girlish shirts pray why cannot the little girls when have a chance to on their little ways in little pairs of that isn t at all bad said i smiling in spite of poor s woe if the rest of the paper was on a par with that i don t see why the circulation fell off well she took liberties that s all said for instance in her side talks with men she had something like the of this napoleon it is rather to say just what you can do with your last season s cocked hat if you were to purchase five yards of one inch blue ribbon cut it into three of equal length and fasten one end to each of the three corners of the hat tying the other ends into a it would make a very acceptable work basket to send to your grandmother at christmas now napoleon never asked that woman for advice on the subject then there was an answer to a purely inquiry from solomon which read it all depends on local custom in salt lake city and in london at the time of henry the eighth it was not considered necessary to be off with the old love before being on with the new but the growth of ideas towards the uniform rate of one at a time a purely fling that was at one of my most eminent or rather two of them for both solomon and henry the eighth have yielded to the tendency of the times and the enchanted type writer gone into business which they have paid me well to solomon has established an information where advice can always be had from the as he calls himself on payment of a small fee while henry taking advantage of his superior over any english king that ever lived has founded and liberally advertised his company limited it s a great thing even in for young people to be by an english queen and henry has been smart enough to see it and having seven or eight queens all in good standing he has been doing a great business just look at it from a business point of view there are seven nights in every week and something going on somewhere all the time and queens in demand with a queen quoted so low as a night henry can make nearly a week or a year out of evening alone and when in addition to this parties up the and parties throughout the the of try are being constantly given the man s opportunity to make half a million a year is in plain sight fm told that he over last year and of course he had to to get it and this woman goes out of her way to get in a nasty little fling at one of my for his matrimonial failing utterly to see said i that in marrying so many times henry really paid a compliment to her sex which is without parallel in royal circles well nearly so said there have been other kings who were quite as complimentary to the ladies but henry was the only man among them who insisted on marrying them all true said i henry was eminently proper but then he had to be yes said with a meditative tap on the letter y yes he had to be he was the head of the church you know i know it i put in always had a great deal of sympathy for henry the enchanted type writer lie been very much by posterity he was the father of the really first new woman elizabeth and his other daughter mary was such a person you are a very fair man for an american said not only fair but rare you think about things i try to said i modestly and i ve really thought a great deal about henry and i ve truly seen a reason for his continuous matrimonial performances he set himself up against the pope and he had to be consistent in his he did indeed said a religious discussion is a hard one and henry was consistent in his opposition said i he didn t yield a on any point and while a great many people him on the score of his wives particularly on their number i feel that i have in very truth discovered his principle which was the of that the pope was wrong in all things said i so he said commented and being wrong in all things was wrong said i exactly ejaculated well then said i if is wrong the way to protest against it is to marry as many times as you can by jove said tapping the keys as though he wished he might spare his hand to shake mine you are a man after my own heart thanks old chap said i reaching out my hand and shaking it in the air with my visionary friend thanks i ve studied these things with some care and i ve tried to find a reason for everything in life as i know it i have always regarded henry as a moral man as is natural since in spite of all you can say he is the real head of the english church he wasn t willing to be married a second or a seventh time unless he was really a he wasn t as long in taking the enchanted type writer notice again as some modern that i have met but i do not him on that score i merely attribute his record to his nature which necessarily a quickness of decision	27
of home i am not an said but i must imitate you to the extent of saying i quote you and doing so i honor you but really i never thought you could be sick of home as you put it you who are so happy at home and who so wildly hate being away from home not surprised at that my dear said i but you are of course familiar with the phrase stone walls do not a prison make heard it said well there s another equally phrase which i have not yet heard expressed by another and it is this stone walls do not a home make it isn t very musical is it said he not very i answered but we don t all live magazine lives do we we have occasionally a sentiment a feeling out of which we do not try to make copy it is undoubtedly a truth which i have not enchanted type writer yet seen by any modern poet of my acquaintance not even by the dead baby poets that home is not always to some other things at any rate it is my feeling and is shortly to represent my condition my home you know it has its walls and its pictures and its thousand and one comforts and its associations but when my wife and my children are away and the four walls do not re echo the voices of the children and my library the presence of madame it ceases truly to be home and if i ve got to stay here during the month of august alone i must have diversion else i shall find myself as badly as the butterfly man to whom a exhibition is the greatest joy in life i think you are queer said well i m not said i however low we may set the standard of man mr b and i called him mr b instead of jim because i wished to be severe and yet retain the basis of familiarity however low we may set the standard of man the i think man as a rule prefers his home to the most roof garden life in existence wherefore said he coldly wherefore my home about to become through the absence of my boys and their mother i shall need some extraordinary diversion to accomplish my happiness now if you can come here why can t others suppose to night you dash off on the machine a lot of invitations to the people in to come up here with you and have an evening on earth in a most conventional way perhaps but still an evening on earth which isn t at all bad it s a scheme and a half said with more enthusiasm than i had expected i ll do it only instead of trying to get these people to make a pilgrimage to your shrine which i think they would decline to do shakespeare for instance wouldn t give a to inspect your as you have his i ll a series of the enchanted type writer well s personally conducted pleasure parties and make you my agent here that you see will naturally make your home our and i think the scheme would work to a charm because there are a great many well known who are curious to the scenes of their earlier state but who are timid about coming on their own responsibility i see said i are but mortal after all with all the timidity and weaknesses of but i agree to the proposition and if you wish it i ll prepare to give them a rousing old time and be sure to show them something characteristic said i will i replied i may even get up a party for them i don t know what a party is but it sounds well said and i ll the enterprise at once s personally conducted pleasure parties first series no through for the round trip four dollars supper and all expenses the included no tips extra lady s ticket one dollar hold on i cried that can t be these affairs will really have to be with my wife away you know not if we secure a suitable said anyhow said i with great you don t suppose that in the absence of my family i m going to have my neighbors see me about the country on a car full of queens and and other females of all ages not a bit of it my dear james i m not a strictly conventional person but there are some points between which i draw lines i ve got to live on this earth for a little while yet and until i leave it i must be guided more or less in what i do by what the world or very well answered i suppose you are right but in the autumn when your family has returned we can discuss the matter again said i resolved to put the question for as enchanted type writer long a time as i could for i candidly confess that i had no wish to make myself responsible for the welfare of such ladies as might avail themselves of the opportunity to go off on one of s show the value and beauties of your plan to the influential men of first my dear added and then if they choose they can come again and bring their wives with them on their own responsibility i fancy that is the best plan but we ought to have some variety in these he replied a party however successful would not make a great season for an entertainment would it no indeed said i you are perfectly right about that what you want is one function a week during the summer season open with the party as no of your first series follow this with an evening	27
of the grand tour of the roof gardens after that have a sunday at the sea side surf bathing summer girls and sand that would the make a mighty attractive line for your advertisement magnificent i don t see why you don t give up poetry and magazine work and get a position as writer for a you are only a but in the business you d be a genius this was tapped off with such manifest sincerity that i could not take offence so i thanked him and resumed the grand of your first series might be a a century on a built for two hundred magnificent cried with such enthusiasm that i feared he would the machine i ll devote a whole page of my sunday issue to the but to return to the woman question we ought really to have something to announce for them hath no fury like a woman scorned and i can t afford to scorn the sex you needn t have anything to do with them if you don t want to only tell enchanted type writer me can announce and i ll make henry the eighth solid again by putting that branch of the enterprise in his wives hands in that way fu kill two birds with one stone that s all very well but i m afraid i can t said i it s hard enough to know how to please a mortal woman without attempting to get up a series of for the rather miscellaneous of ladies who form your social structure below all men are alike and man s pleasures in all times have been generally the same but every woman is unique i never knew two who were alike and if it s all the same to you i d rather you left me out of your ladies altogether of course i know that even the of would enjoy a visit to a monday sale at one of our big department stores and i am quite as well aware that nine out of ten women in or out of it would enjoy the exhibition at the opera and if these two ideas impress you at all you are welcome to them but beyond this i have nothing to suggest well tm sure those two ideas are worth a great deal returned making a note of them i shall announce four to monday call em to and back the great marked down tour and be sure you add for able women only no tickets issued except on pf your family physician this is especially important for next to a war or a match there s nothing that i know of that is quite so dangerous to the as a bargain day i ll bear what you say in mind and he made a note of my and immediately upon my return to i will request an audience with henry s queens and ask them to devise a number of other likely to prove profitable and popular shortly after my visitor departed and i retired the next day my family deserted me and went to the mountains and all the enchanted type writer my fears as to the sense of loneliness which was to be my lot were realized even neglected me apparently for a week i went to my desk daily and returned at night hoping that my would bring forth something of an interesting nature but naught other than disappointment awaited me for a whole blessed week i was thrown back upon the society of my neighbors for diversion the type writer gave no sign of being little did i guess that was busy working up my scheme in his home but it came to pass finally that i was roused up walking one morning to mj desk to find a bit of i needed i discovered a type written slip marked no time for small talk grand success party to night ten cars wanted jim it was a large order for a town like mine where forty thousand people have to get along with five cars two open ones for the winter and two closed for summer and one which we have never seen which is kept for use in the repair shop i was in despair ten car loads of coming to my house for a party under such conditions it was frightful i did the best i could however i ordered one car to be ready at eight and a large variety of good things and the latter to be held subject to the demand notes of our guests as may be imagined i did little real work that day and when i returned home at night i was on hooks lest something should go wrong but fortunately well himself came early and relieved me of my worry in fact he was at the machine when i entered the house well he said have you the ten cars what do you take me for said i a car trust of course i haven t there are only five cars in town one of which is kept in the repair shop for effect hired one o the enchanted type writer he cried what will the kings do v kings i cried what kings i have nine kings and one car load of common souls besides for this affair he explained each king wants a special car kings be v said i a party my much beloved james is an essentially institution and private cars are not de if your kings choose to come let em hang on by the but charged em extra cried that s all right said i they receive extra they have the ride the with the privilege of standing out on the platform and ringing the if they want to the great thing about the party is that there s no private car business	27
about it well i don t know murmured if charles the first and louis don t kick the about being crowded in with all the rest i can stand anything that the great or may say but those two fellows are great for the royal there isn t any such thing as royal on a car i retorted and if they don t like what they get they can sit down in the waiting room and wait until we get back but s fears were not realized charles and louis were perfectly delighted with the party and long before we reached home the former had rung up the fare register to its full capacity while the latter a half a dozen times occupied himself in the of the overhead wire the party was an success the same remains to be said of the expedition the following week the same guests and attended this to the number of twenty and the were accounted a great enterprise and bade fair to redeem the losses i si l the enchanted type writer of the eminent incurred during s administration of his affairs but after the night i had to withdraw from the combination to save my reputation the fact upon which i had not counted was that my neighbors began to think me insane i had failed to remember that none of these visiting spirits was visible to us in this material world and while my fellow were disposed to lay up my of a special car for my own private and particular use against the of genius they greatly that i should purchase twenty of the best seats at a show seemingly for my own exclusive use when besides this they saw me start off apparently alone on one followed by twenty eight other empty wheels which they could not know were by some of the most famous legs in the history of the world from s down to those of henry the they began to regard me as something k the nor can i blame them it seems to me that if i saw one man along a road alone on a to an empty front seat i should think him queer but if following in his wake i perceived twenty eight other wheels up hill and down without any visible motive power i should regard him as one who was in league with the devil himself nevertheless i judge from what has told me that i am regarded in as a great benefactor of the people there for having established a series of excursions from that world into this a service which has done much to convince the that after all if only by contrast the life below has its features vn an important for some time after the organization of the pleasure the enchanted type writer appeared to be deserted night after night i watched over it with great care lest i should lose any item of interest that might come to me from below but much to my sorrow things in appeared to be dull so dull that the machine was not called into at all i little guessed what important matters were in that wonderful country had i done so i doubt i should have waited so patiently although my only method of getting there was suicide for which diversion i have very little liking on the twenty fourth an important decision night of waiting however the welcome sound of the bell dragged me forth from my comfortable couch whither expecting nothing i had retired early glad to hear your pleasant again i said missed you fm glad to get back returned for it was he who was the keys been so busy however over the court news that i haven t had a minute to spare court news eh p i said you are going to open up a society column are you r not i he replied it s the other kind of a court we ve been having some pretty hot down in since i was here last the city of has been the state of for ten years back dog taxes for what i cried dog taxes for ten years explained we have just as much government below in our cities as you the enchanted type writer have and i will say for that onr cities are better run than i suppose that is due to the fact that when a man gets to he immediately becomes a i suggested with a wink at the machine which somehow or other did not seem to appreciate the joke possibly observed whatever the reason however the fact remains that is a well governed city and what is more it isn t afraid to assert its rights even as against old himself it s safe enough for a said i much safer for a which has no soul than for an individual who has you can t torture a city oh can t you laughed can make it as hot for a city as he can for an individual it is evident that you never heard of and which is surprising to me since your jokes about lot s wife being too fresh and getting down would seem to indicate that you had heard some an important decision thing about the punishment those cities you are right i said i had forgotten but tell me about the dog tax does the state own a dog does it roared why my dear fellow where were you brought up and educated does the state own a dog that s what i asked you i put in meekly i may be very ignorant unless you mean the kind that we have in our called the watch dogs of the treasury or perhaps the dogs of war but i never thought any city would be crazy enough to make the government take out a license for them never	27
answer i never got quite so intimate with one as i did with him with whom asked replied the witness do you consider him to be one dog two dogs or three dogs i object cried springing to his feet the question is a leading one ill the enchanted type writer sustained said with a nervous glance at who smiled at him ah you say you know a dog when you see one asked yes said the witness perfectly do you know two dogs when you see them or even three asked i do replied the witness and how many dogs did you see when you saw asked triumphantly three anyhow replied the witness with feeling though afterwards i thought there was a whole bench show of me your witness said a murmur of applause went through the court room at which frowned but his face cleared in a moment when rose up my cross examination of this witness your honor will be confined to one question then turning to the witness he said my poor friend if you an important decision considered to be three dogs anyhow why did you in your examination a moment since refer to the of of which you so speak as him he is a him said the witness but if there were three should he not have been a them swore beneath his breath and the witness about in his chair confused and broken while both judge and smiled the point of the defence had pierced the of the your witness for re direct said no thanks retorted there are others and to his first witness to step down he called the second dog what is your business asked after the usual preliminary questions fm out of business on my said the witness h the enchanted type writer what asked them i got from the city for injuries did me by that there i should say them there them there what t persisted to the point said the witness d o r g s why s we may admit the r but why the s t because it s the of ain t any single headed commission said the witness who was something of a ward why do you say that is more than one dog because had experience replied the witness seen the time when he was everywhere all at once that s why i say he s more than one if he d been only one he couldn t have been anywhere else than where he was when was that when i him him remonstrated an important decision yes said the witness i only caught one of him and then the other two took a hand ah the other two said you know dogs when you see them i do and he was all of em in a bunch replied the witness your witness said my friend said rising quietly how many men are you one sir was the answer have you ever been in two places at once yes sir when was that when i was in jail and in london all at the same time very good but were you in two places on the day of this attack upon you by no sir i wish i had been i d have stayed in the other place then if you were in but one place yourself how do you know that was in more than one place the enchanted type writer well i guess if you answer the question said oh well of course of course echoed that s it your honor it is only of course and i rest my case we have no witnesses to call we have by their own witnesses that there is no evidence of being more than one dog you ought to have heard the cheers as sat down continued as for poor he was regularly knocked out but he rose up to sum up his case as best he could however stopped him right at the beginning the counsel for the might as well sit down he said and save his breath i ve decided this case in favor of the long ago it is plain to every one that is only one dog in spite of his many talents and manifest ability to be in several places at once and inasmuch as the tax which is for is merely a dog tax and not a an important decision tax i must render judgment for the with costs next case and the city of was thrown out of court concluded interesting eh very said i but how will this affect isn t he a city judge no replied he was but his term expired this morning and this afternoon appointed him chief justice of the supreme court of viii a hand book to said i the other night as the machine began to click nervously i have just received a letter from an unknown friend in who wants to know how the prize fight between and came out that time when and his crew stole the house boat on the just wait a minute please the machine responded i am very bu y just now out the of the first series of the personally conducted you suggested some time ago i laid that whole proposition before the entertainment committee of the associated shades and they have resolved a hand book to to the ex great eastern from the company and return to the scenes of their former glory a year to it going to take their wives i asked i don t know replied that is a matter outside of the of the committee and must be decided by a full vote of the club i hope they will however as manager of the enterprise i need assistance and there are some of the men who can t be managed by anybody except their wives	27
or mothers in law anyhow fu be through in a few minutes meanwhile let me hand you the latest product of the press with this the genial spirit produced from an invisible pocket a red covered book bearing the delicious title of s a hand book for travellers which has entirely according to the advertisement on the such books as and s as the best guide to the lower regions as well it might for it appeared on the enchanted type writer perusal to have been prepared with as much care as one of the more material guide books of the same which so greatly assist travellers on this side of the river some time if will permit i shall endeavor to have this little volume published in this country since it contains many valuable hints to the man of a disposition or for the stay for that matter for all roads lead to for instance we do not find in previous guide books like s any whatsoever to the languages it is well to know before taking the tour to the kind of money needed or its quantity per no allusion to the necessity of is found in or custom house are ignored by these authors no statements as to the kind of clothing needed the quality of the hotels nor indeed any real information of vital importance to the traveller is to be found in the older books in s a hand book to on the other hand all these subjects are treated together with a very comprehensive series of chapters on climate and art the expression is not mine and other topics of essential interest and of what suggestive quality was this little book who would ever have guessed from a perusal of that as is the place of departed spirits so also is it the ultimate resting place of all other departed things what delightful are there in the idea of a visit to the library now on the south side of square in a building that would drive the of the boston public library into envious despair even though living are found daily improving their minds in the recesses of its what joyous feelings it gives one to think of visiting the of and finding there the ships concerning the whereabouts of which poets have vainly asked questions for ages the enchanted type writer who would ever dream that the question of the himself an able concerning classic things where are the cities of old time could ever find its answer in a simple guide book telling us where is where and all the lost cities of antiquity then the details of amusements in this wonderful country who could gather aught of these from the italian poet the theatres of with hamlet produced under the joint direction of shakespeare and the prince of himself the great of with and the famous horse of earlier days not to mention the long series of which have passed over the dark river in the ages now forgotten the hanging gardens of where the element of flock week after week the and in and out of the horse now set up in all its majesty therein with on its roof in its legs and the original a hand book to wheel in its head the in the sections of the large cities where hop o my thumb and jack the giant are exhibited day after day alongside of the great they have killed the opera house with himself singing supported by the real and the original running of his own motive power and breathing actual fire and smoke without the aid of a steam engine and a to connect him before he can go out upon the stage to engage in deadly combat for the information contained in this last item alone even if the book had no other virtue it would be worthy of careful perusal from the opening paragraph on language to the last dealing with the descent into the at the account of the feeding of to which admission can be had on payment of ten beginning with a of followed a half dozen on the half shell an of the enchanted type writer a solid roast of and a of gun cotton with a dressing of and a pinch of powder off with a of and a box of matches to keep the fires of his spirit going is one of the most moving things i have ever read and yet it may be said without fear of contradiction that until this guide book was prepared very few of the have imagined that there was such a sight to be seen i have gone carefully over and the works of and have found no reference whatsoever in the pages of any of these persons to this marvellous spectacle which takes place three times a day and which i doubt not results in a performance of for the of the music lovers of which is beyond the power of the human mind to conceive the hand book has an added virtue which it from any other that i have ever seen in that it is in style at times where an anecdote is avail a hand book to able and appropriate in connection with this same as showing how necessary it is for the to be careful of his personal safety in it is related that upon one occasion the keeper of the having taken a grudge against for some slight fed upon candles and a sky with the result that in the fight between the hero and the demon of the wood the was seriously injured by the red white and blue balls of fire which the breathed out upon him while the sky flew out into the audience and struck a young man in the top gallery knocking him senseless the stick falling into a grand tier box and one	27
of the best known social lights of therefore adds the editor of the hand book on nights it were well if the were to go provided with an umbrella for use in case of an emergency of a similar nature in that portion of the book devoted to the type writer the trip up the river the legends far any of the stories in dramatic interest because according to s excursion system the can step ashore and see the chief actors in them who for a consideration will give a full dress of the acts for which they have been famous the of the for instance sit on an eminence not far above the city of and make a profession of people ashore and giving away at so much per head locks of their hair for remembrance sake all of which makes of the trip a thing of far greater interest than that of the it had been my intention to make a few from this portion of the volume showing later in the legends of the and others of more than ordinary interest but i find that with the departure of for the night the hand book disappeared with him but as i have already stated if i can secure his consent to do so i will a hand book to some day have the book copied off on more material substance than that employed in the original manuscript so that the useful little may be printed and scattered over a waiting and world i may as well state here too that i have taken the precaution to have the title s and its contents so that any who the value of the scheme will attempt to the work at his peril hardly had i finished the chapter on the legends of the when broke in upon me with well how do you like it it s great i said may i keep it you may if you can he laughed but i fancy it can t withstand the of this climate any more than an copy of one of your books could stand the of ours his words were soon to be for as soon as he left me the book vanished but whether it went off into thin air or was the enchanted type writer by the departing i am not entirely certain what was it you asked me about and observed as he gathered up his manuscript from the floor beside the enchanted whether they d ever been in no i replied i got a letter from the other day asking for the result of the prize fight the day ran off with the house boat oh replied that why ah won hands down but only because they played according to latter day rules if it had been a regular knock out fight like the in the old days of the ring when it was in its prime could have managed him with one hand but the played a sharp game on the by having the most recently rules adopted and wasn t in it five minutes after opened his mouth i don t think i understand said i plain enough explained a hand book to didn t know what the modern rules were but he thought a fight was a fight under any rules so like a decent chap he agreed and when he found that it was nothing but a talking match he d got into he fainted he never was good at expressing himself talked him down in two rounds just as he did the other in the early days on earth i laughed you re slightly off there i said that was a stand up and down fight wasn t it he used the of an ass very true observed but it is evident that it is you who are slightly off you haven t kept up with the higher criticism it has been that not only did the whale not swallow but that s great feat against the was only to the achievements of your modern he talked them to death then why of an ass i cried i the enchanted type writer was an ass replied they prove that by the temple episode for you see if he hadn t been one he d have got out of the building before the foundations from under it i tell you old chap this higher criticism is a great thing and as logical as death itself and with this left me i sincerely hope that the result of the fight will prove as satisfactory to my friend in as it was to me for while i have no particular admiration for i have always rejoiced to hear of the of who so far as i have been able to ascertain was not only not a gentleman but in addition had no more regard for the rights of others than a member of the new york police force or the editor of a sunday newspaper with a thirst for sensation ix again i had intended asking what had become of my copy of the s when he next returned but the of the machine that evening so interested me that the hand book was entirely forgotten if there ever was a hero in this world who could compare with d in my estimation for sheer ability in a given line that hero was with d and for my companions i think i could pass the balance of my days in absolute contentment no matter what ul things might befall me so it was that when i next heard the tapping keys and bell of my enchanted type writer and the enchanted type writer after listening intently for a moment realized that my friend was making a copy of a for his next sunday s paper all thought of the interesting little of the last meeting flew out of my head i rose quickly	27
from my couch at the first sounding of the got a story eh i said walking to his side and gazing eagerly over the spot where his shoulder should have been i have that and it s a he replied if you don t believe it read it til have it copied in about two minutes i ll do both i said i believe all the stories i read it is so much pleasanter to believe them true if they weren t true they wouldn t be so wonderful with this i picked up the first page of the manuscript and shortly after presented me with the balance whereon i read the following extraordinary tale again a mystery solved a wonderful achievement in from advance sheets of i remember bt esq extraordinary by special appointment to his mi who the lady was i it was not many days after my solution of the missing diamond of the of mystery that i was called npon to take np a case which has baffled at least one person for some ten or eleven centuries the reader will remember the mystery of the missing diamond the largest known in all history which the of brought from india to present to the queen of england on the occasion of her diamond i had been dead three years at the time but by a special of his imperial the enchanted type writer was permitted to return to london for the season where it so happened that i put up at the same lodging house as that occupied by the and his we sat opposite to each other at table d and for at least three weeks previous to the losing of his treasure the indian prince was very and it was very difficult to get him to speak i was not supposed to know nor indeed was any one else for that matter at the that the was so exalted a personage he like myself was travelling and was known to the world as mr of a very wise precaution inasmuch as he had in his possession a valued at a million and a half of dollars i recognized him at once however by his to a wood cut that had been appearing in the american sunday newspapers with his name as well as by the extraordinary lantern which he had on his a lantern which to the eye was no more again than an ordinary lamp but which to an eye like mine familiar with gems had for its crystal nothing more nor less than the famous stone which he had brought for her majesty the queen his imperial sovereign there are few people who can tell diamonds from plate glass under any circumstances and mr otherwise the this fact had taken this bold method of his treasure of course the moment i perceived the quality of the man s lamp i knew at once who mr was and i determined to have a little innocent diversion at his expense it has been a fine day mr said i one evening over the yes he replied wearily very but somehow or other tm depressed tonight too bad i said lightly but there are others there s that poor of for instance poor devil he must be the brown man that ever lived the enchanted type started nervously as i mentioned the prince by name wh why do you think that he asked nervously his butter knife it s tough luck to have to give away a diamond that s worth three or four times as much as the i i said suppose you owned a stone like that would you care to give it away not by a damn sight cried forcibly and i noticed great tears gathering in his eyes still he can t help himself suppose i said gazing abruptly at his pin that is he doesn t know that he can the queen expects it it s been announced and now the poor devil can t get out of it though i ll tell you mr if i were the of i d get out of it in ten seconds i winked at him significantly he looked at me yes sir i added merely to arouse him in just ten seconds ten short beautiful seconds again mr said the was the name i was travelling under mr said the otherwise remarks interest me greatly his face with a smile that i had never before seen there i have thought as you do in regard to this poor indian prince but i must confess i don t see how he can get out of giving the queen that diamond have a cigar mr and waiter bring us a triple of champagne do you really think mr that there is a way out of it if you would like a ticket to westminster for the ceremony there are a he tossed six tickets for seats among the crowned heads across the table to me his eagerness almost too painful to witness thank you said i calmly the tickets for they were of rare value at that time the way out of it is very simple enchanted type writer indeed mr said he trying to keep cool ah are you interested in sir there are a few which i should be pleased to have you accept and with that over came a handful of precious stones each worth a fortune these also i as i replied why certainly if i were the said i i d lose that diamond a shade of disappointment came over mr s face lose it how where he asked with a frown yes lose it any way i could as for the place where it should be lost any old place will do as long as it is where he can find it again when he gets back	27
you to do but you told me it was your identity you wished i put in precisely said she then these bits of evidence are yours i asked hesitatingly one does not like to accuse a lady of an undue liking for again they are all i have left of my husband she answered with a sob said i my perplexity increasing was the ah the gentleman blown np by excuse me mr she retorted and running the scales i think after all i have come to the wrong shop have you s address handy you are too for a my reputation was at stake so i said significantly good good i was merely trying one of my on you madame and you were completely taken in of course no one would ever know me for if i manifested such ah she said her face lighting up you were merely deceiving me by appearing to be of course said l i see the whole thing in a you married an adventurer he told you who he was but youve never been able to prove it and k the enchanted type writer you are deserted by him and on going over his wardrobe you find he has left nothing but these articles and now you wish to sue him for a separation on the ground of desertion and secure if possible it was a magnificent guess that is it precisely said the lady except as to the extent of his in addition to the things you have he gave my small brother a brass and a tin sword we may need to see them later said i at present i will do all i can for you on the evidence in hand i have got my eye on a gentleman who wears now but i am afraid he is not the man we are after because his hair is black and as far as i have been able to learn from his he is utterly with swan s down we separated again and i went to the club to think never in my life before had i had so a case as i sat in the a who again should walk in bnt hamlet strangely enough picking of from his black which was literally covered with it he said drawing up a chair and sitting down beside me what you up to trying to make out where you have been i replied i judge from the swan s down on your that you have been to the opera in the cloak you re he laughed i ve been driving with he s got a pair of that can do a mile in but it makes them like the devil pair of what i cried said hamlet he s an eccentric sort of a that afraid of horses i fancy and so drives instead said i the same replied hamlet do i look as if he drove the enchanted type writer he mast be queer said i i d like to meet him he d make an addition to my collection of very well observed hamlet he ll be here to morrow to take luncheon with me and if you ll come too you ll be most welcome he s collecting too and i haven t a doubt would be pleased to know you we parted and i sauntered homeward over my strange and now and then laughing over the of hamlet s friend the swan driver it never occurred to me at the moment however to connect the two in spite of the link of swan s down i regarded it merely as a coincidence the next day however on going to the club and meeting hamlet s strange guest i was struck by the further coincidence that his hair was of precisely the same shade of yellow as that in my possession it was of a hue that i had never seen before except at performances of grand opera or on the heads of fool in musical here again however was the real thing growing from the man s head ho ho thought i to myself here is a fortunate encounter there may be something in it and then i tried to lead him on i understand mr i said that you have a fine span of yes he said and i was astonished to note that he like my spoke in musical numbers very they re much finer than horses in my opinion more peaceful quite as rapid and if i go out for a drive and come to a lake they trot quite as well across its surface as on the how interesting said i and so gentle the swan your wife i presume hamlet kicked my under the table i think it will rain to morrow he said giving me a glance which if it said anything said shut up i think so too said a the enchanted type writer lowering look on his face if it doesn t it will either snow or hail or be clear and he gazed ont of the window the kick and the man s confusion were sufficient proof i was on the right track at last yet the evidence was unsatisfactory because merely my piece of down might have come from an opera cloak and not from a well broken swan the hair might equally clearly have come from some other head than s and other men have had trouble with their wives the evidence lying in the was strong but not so i resolved to pursue the matter and invite the strange individual to a luncheon with me at which i proposed to wear the seeing them he might be forced into betraying himself this i did and while my impressions were confirmed by his no positive evidence grew out of it i m hungry as a bear he said as i again entered	27
the club clad in a long heavy reaching from my shoulders to the ground so that the were not visible good said i i like a hearty and i ordered a luncheon of ten courses before removing my overcoat but not one morsel could the man eat for on the removal of my coat his eye fell upon my silver garments and with a gasp he fainted it was clear he recognized them and was afraid and in consequence lost his appetite but he was game and tried to laugh it off silver man i see he said nervously smiling no said i taking the lock of golden hair from my pocket and dangling it before him his jaw dropped in dismay but himself instantly he put up a fairly good fight it is strange mr said i that in the three years i have been here never seen you before the enchanted type writer ive been very quiet he said fact is i have had my reasons mr for preferring the life of a a youthful sir has made me fear to face the world there was nothing wrong about it save that it was a folly and i have been anxious in these days of newspapers to avoid any possible revival of what might in some eyes seem scandalous i felt sorry for him but my duty was clear here was my man but how to gain direct proof was still beyond me no further could be got out of him and we soon parted two days later the lady called and again i reported progress it needs but one thing madame to convince me that i have found your husband said i i have found a man who might be connected with down from whose luxuriant curls might have come this tow colored lock and who might have worn the silver yet it is all and no certainty again i will bring my small brother s and the tin sword said she the sword has certain properties which may induce him to confess my brother tells me that if he simply shakes it at a cat the cat falls dead do so said i and i will try it on him if he the sword and remembers its properties when i attempt to it at him he l be forced to confess though it would be awkward if he is the wrong man and the sword should work on him as it does on the cat the next day i was in possession of the famous toy it was not very long and rather more suggestive of a than a sword but it was a terror i tested its qualities on a swarm of in my room and the moment i shook it at them fluttered to the ground as dead as door nails i ll have to be careful of this weapon i thought it would be terrible if i should it at a man trying to get one of the com the enchanted type writer s cable cars to stop and he should drop dead at his post all was now ready for the demonstration fortunately the following saturday night was club night at the house boat and we were all expected to come in costume for dramatic effect i wore a yellow wig a the silver and a to match with the brass and the tin sword properly about my person i looked even if i do say it and much to my surprise several people me for the man i was after another link in the chain even the public unconsciously recognized the value of my they called me and of course it all happened as i expected it always does came into the assembly room five minutes after i did and was visibly annoyed at my make up this is a great liberty said he grasping the of his sword but i answered him by blowing the at him at which he turned livid and fell back he had he i ll k i i j n r again recognized its soft i then hauled the sword from my belt shook it at a fly on the wall which immediately died and made as if to do the same at whereupon he cried for mercy and fell upon his knees turn that infernal thing the other way he shrieked ah aid i lowering my arm then you know its properties i i do he cried it used to be mine i confess it then said i calmly putting the horrid bit of back into my belt that s all i wanted to know if you ll come up to my office some morning next week i ll introduce you to your wife and i turned from him my mission accomplished i left the and returned to my quarters where my fair was awaiting me well she said it s all right mrs i said and the lady cried aloud with joy at the name for it was the very one she had hoped the enchanted type writer it would be my man turns out to be your man and i turn him over therefore to you only deal gently with him he s a pretty decent chap and sings like a bird whereon i presented her with my bill for which she paid without a murmur as was entirely proper that she should for upon the evidence which i had secured the fair in the suit for separation of on the ground of desertion and non support obtained her decree with back of twenty five per cent of s income for a trifle over fifteen hundred years how much that amounted to i really do not know but that it was a large sum i am sure for must have been very wealthy he couldn t have afforded to dress in solid silver	27
if he had been otherwise i had the before returning them to their owner and even in a country where free of is looked upon they could not be for less than at a of to chapter x in jim said i to one morning as the type writer began to work perhaps yon can me on a point concerning which a great many people have questioned me recently has taken hold of yet yon referred to it some time ago and been wondering ever since if it had become a with has it laughed my visitor well i should rather say it had the fact is it has been a great boon to the country you remember my telling you of the projected revolution led by and caesar and the others i do very well said i i have the enchanted type writer been intending to ask you how it came out oh everything s as fine and sweet as can be now rejoined somewhat and all because of we are all quiet along the now all are buried in the general love of and every one of us high or low and is away in peace and happiness on the links why only six weeks ago was for cooking on a iron and yesterday the two went out to the links together and played a mixed and playing against and dear me really i cried that must have been an interesting match it was and up to the very last it was and between em said and won it with one hole up and they got that on the put they d have the hole if s back hair hadn t loose and bitten her just as she was out in it is a remarkable game said i there is no sensation in the world quite equal to that which comes to a man s soul when he has hit the ball a solid and sees it sail off through the air towards the green like a very bird true said but i m rather of the opinion that it s a safer game for shades than for you purely material persons i don t see why i answered it is easy to understand returned for instance with us there is no resistance when by a we come into unexpected contact with the ball take the experience of and solomon at the st s links week before last the s was on and simple were playing just ahead of solomon and solomon was driving in great form for the first time in his life he seemed able to keep his eye on the ball and the way he sent it flying through the air was a the enchanted type writer tion and simple had both had their second stroke and solomon drove off his ball sailed straight ahead like a from a flew in a bee line for struck him at the base of his brain continued on through and landed on the edge of the green mercy r i cried didn t it kill him r of course not retorted you can t kill a shade didn t know he d been hit but if that had happened to one of you material there d have been a sickening end to that there would indeed said i there isn t much fun in being hit by a i can testify to that because i have had the experience and i called to mind the day at st s when i unconsciously with my material self the celebrated the demon driver from the links scotland made his mark that day if he never did before and i bear the in evidence thereof even now the incident took place two years ago when i did not know enough to keep out of the way of the player who plays so well that he thinks he has a perpetual right of way everywhere what kind of clubs do you use i asked h very much the same kind that you do returned everybody experiments with new too just as you do old peter for instance always drives with his wooden leg and never uses anything else unless he gets a lie where he s got to his wooden leg i roared with a laugh how on earth does he do that he the small end of it into a square block shod like a explained up his ball goes back ten yards makes a run at it and the ball pretty nearly out of sight he can put with it too like a dream swinging it sideways l the enchanted type writer but he doesn t call that does he p i cried what is it demanded i should call it said not at all said a bit of it he hasn t any foot on that leg and be has a club head with a shaft to it there isn t any rule which says that the shaft shall not look like an nine pin nor do any of the accepted authorities require that the club shall be by the arms i admit it s bad form the way he plays but as himself says he never did travel on his shape suppose he gets a lie i asked very much interested at the first news from of the famous old oh he does one of two things said he it out with his toe or goes back and plays two more plays a good game too he beat the colonel forty seven straight holes last wednesday and all has been talking about it ever since in who is the colonel i asked innocently returned didn t yon ever hear of colonel of course i replied but i always supposed was an imaginary opponent not a real one so he is said then you mean i mean that beat him forty seven up said were there any	27
rs i stuck to the pigs t your ears long enough the to some purpose last night if you could spare so little as one flame the school master as a cooler page reading the sunday newspapers facing p ii the muse he gave up jokes a hind quarter of lamb about its native heath page v vi l little garden op my own where i could raise an occasional can of to facing p the click of the lawn page fi you don t mean to say that you write for the papers we the self same maid facing p holding his plate up to the light i believe you d blow out the gas in your bedroom his fairy stories were told him in words of ten i thought my father a mean spirited rs s brought him to the point of pro cried the idiot grasping mr by the hand the nuisance of having to pay she could not possibly get aboard again certainly i asked for another cup demands tickets for two they are given to at all hours ha ha i have him now has your friend completed his article on old jokes departed facing p you fish all day and have no luck he could be heard throwing things about he was not murdered has not ab the inspired paid his bill i know you can t because it isn t there you can make yourself heard in san the i grasped it in my two hands piano playing isn t always music the moon itself will be used to be ridden the would be n didn t know enough to choose his own face have to be seen to my eloquence floated up the air shaft coffee and the guests at mrs s high class boarding house for gentlemen assembled as usual for breakfast and in a few moment mary the dainty entered witli the steaming coffee the and the rolls the school master who by the way was suspected by mrs of having intentions and for that reason occupied the chair nearest the lady s heart folded up the morning paper and placing it under him so that no one else get it observed quite for him it was very wet yesterday i didn t find it so ed a young man seated half way down the table who was by common consent called the idiot because of his views in fact i was very dry yesterday curious i m always dry on rainy days i am one of the kind of men who know that it is the part of wisdom to stay in when it rains or to carry an umbrella when it is not possible to stay at home or having no home like ourselves to remain up in or up in as you may prefer you carried an umbrella then observed the landlady the idiot s shaft at the size of her elegant and airy apartments with an ease born of experience yes madame returned the idiot quite unconscious of what was coming whose the lady a sarcastic smile playing about her lips that i cannot say mrs replied the idiot serenely but it is the one you usually carry your sir said the school master coming to the landlady s rescue is an unworthy one the umbrella in question is mine it has been in my possession for five then replied the idiot it is time you returned it don t you think t v v men s morals are rather in this matter of mr he added turning from the school master who began to show signs of irritation very said the minister running his finger about his neck to make the collar which had been sent home from the by mistake set more easily very at the last conference i attended some person forgetting his high office as a minister in the church walked off with my umbrella without so much as a thank you and it was embarrassing too because the rain was coming down in what did you do asked f he landlady she liked mr s sermons and beyond this he was a more profitable than any of the others remaining home to luncheon every day and having to pay extra there was but one thing left for me to do i took the bishop s umbrella said mr blushing slightly but you returned it of course said the idiot i intended to but i left it on the train on my way back home the next day replied the man visibly embarrassed by the idiot s unexpected cross examination it s the same way with books put in the an unfortunate being whose love of rare first had brought him down from to boarding a man who wouldn t steal a dollar would run off with a book i had a friend once who had a rare copy of through africa hy daylight it was a beautiful book only copies printed the of the pages were four inches wide and the was the was colored by hand and the page had one of the most amusing errors on it was there any reading matter in the book asked the idiot blowing softly on a hot that was nicely balanced on the end of his fork yes a little but it didn t amount to much returned the it isn t as reading matter that men like myself care for books you know we have a higher notion than that it is as a specimen of the book makers art that we admire a bit of literature like through africa hy day light but as i was saying my friend had this book and he d extra illustrated it he had pictures from all parts of the world in it and the book had grown from a volume	27
of one hundred pages to four volumes of two hundred pages each and it was stolen by a highly honorable friend i suppose the idiot interrupted yes it was stolen and my friend never knew by whom said the what cried the idiot in mock surprise did you never confess it was fortunate for the idiot that the cakes were brought on at this moment had there not been some diversion of that kind it is certain that the would have him it is very kind of mrs i think said the school master to provide us with such delightful cakes as these free of charge yes said the idiot helping himself to six cakes very kind indeed although i must say they are extremely economical from an point of view which is to say they are rather fuller of than of i wonder why it is he continued possibly to the landlady s comments i wonder why it is that and cakes are so similar in appearance and so widely different in their respective effects on the system put in a genial old gentleman who occasionally seated next to the idiot i fail to see the between a cake and a plaster said the school master resolved if possible to the idiot you don t eh replied the latter then it is very plain sir that you have never eaten a plaster to this the school master could find no reasonable reply and he took refuge in silence mr tried to look severe the gentleman who occasionally smiled all over the ignored the remark entirely not having as yet forgiven the idiot for his gross regarding his friend s edition de of through africa by daylight mary the maid who greatly admired the idiot not so much for his as for the aristocratic manner in which he carried himself and the truly striking striped shirts he wore left the room t in a of laughter that so alarmed the cook below stairs that the next of cakes were more like tin plates than cakes and as for mrs that worthy woman was speechless with wrath but she was not apparently for reaching down into her pocket she brought forth a small piece of paper on which was written in detail the account due of the idiot i d like to have this settled sir she said with some certainly my dear madame replied the idiot certainly can you cash a check for a hundred no mrs could not then i shall have to put paying the account until this evening said the idiot but tell me he added with a glance at the amount of the bill are you related to mr mrs i am not she returned sharply my mother was a i only asked said the idiot because i am very much interested in the subject of and you may not know it but you and he have each a marked tendency towards high bills and before mrs could think of anything to say the idiot was on his way down town to help his employer lose money on wall street ii do you know i sometimes think began the idiot opening and shutting the silver cover of his watch several times with a snap with the probable and not altogether purpose of calling his landlady s attention to the fact of which she was already painfully aware that breakfast was fifteen minutes late do you really interrupted the school master looking up from his book with an air of mock surprise i am sure i never should have suspected it indeed returned the idiot undisturbed by this reflection upon his intellect i don t really know whether that is due to your generally nature or to your as a mind reader there are some minds put in the landlady at this point that are so small that it would certainly ruin the eyes to attempt to read them i have seen many such observed the idiot even our f at times seemed to me to be very absent minded and that reminds me doctor he continued addressing himself to the medical what is the cause of absent that returned the doctor is a very large question absent generally speaking is the result of the of the intellect into surroundings other than those which for want of a better term i might call the immediate so i have understood said the idiot and is absent acquired or inherent here the idiot appropriated the roll of his neighbor that depends largely upon the case replied the doctor nervously some are born absent minded some achieve and some have absent thrust upon them as illustrations of which we might take m i for instance i suppose said the idiot the born idiot the and the man who is knocked bv the pole of a on precisely replied the doctor glad to get out of the discussion so easily lie was a very young doctor and not always sure of himself or put in the school master to our illustrations if the idiot would kindly go out upon and encounter the we should find the three combined in him the landlady here laughed quite heartily and handed the school master an extra strong cup of coffee there is a great deal in what you say said the idiot without a tremor there are very few scientific phenomena that cannot be in one way or another by my poor but essentially honest self it is the exception always that proves the rule and in my case you find a consistent converse of all three branches of absent mind he talks well said the to the minister yes especially when he gets hold of large words i really believe he reads replied mr i know he said the school master who had overheard i saw him reading s dictionary last night	27
i have noticed however that generally his is largely confined to words that come between the letters a and f which shows that as yet he has not dipped very deeply into the book what are you murmuring about the idiot noting the lowered tone of those on the other side of the table we were conversing about began the with a despairing glance at the let me say it interrupted the you aren t used to and that is what is demanded at this time we were talking about ah about er tut tut ejaculated the school master we were only saying we thought the that what are the first symptoms of insanity doctor observed the idiot with a look of wonder at the three shuffling op the new yo k public t o and foundations a l him and turning anxiously to the physician i wish you wouldn t talk shop retorted the doctor angrily insanity was one of his weak points it s a habit said the school master much relieved at this turn of the conversation well perhaps you are right returned the idiot people do as a rule prefer to talk of things they know something about and i don t blame you doctor for wanting to keep out of a medical discussion i only asked my last question because the behavior of the and mr and the school master for some time past has worried me and i didn t know but what you might work up a nice little practice among us it might not pay but you d find the experience valuable and i think unique it is a fine thing to have a doctor right in the house said mr kindly fearing that the doctor s manifest indignation might get the better of him that returned the idiot is an assertion mr that is both true and there are times when a physician is an ornament to a boarding house times when he is not for instance on wednesday morning if it had not been for the skill of our friend here our good landlady could never have managed properly to the late autumn chicken we found upon the one for the affirmative on the other hand i must confess to considerable loss of appetite when i see the doctor rolling his bread up into little or measuring the he puts on his by means of a glass and taking the temperature of his coffee with his pocket nor do i like and i should not have mentioned it save by way of my position in regard to mr s assertion nor do i like the cold eager glitter in the doctor s eyes as he watches me with some difficulty i admit the cold we have served up to us on saturday mornings under the wholly transparent of hot bread i may have very bad taste but in my humble opinion the man who talks shop is to the one who suggests it in his eyes some more potatoes mary he added calmly madame said the doctor turning an to the landlady this is you may make out my bill this morning shall have to seek a home elsewhere oh now doctor began the landlady in her most pleading tone jove ejaculated the idiot that s a good idea doctor i think i ll go with you i m not altogether satisfied here myself but to desert so charming a company as we have here had never occurred to me together however we can go forth and perhaps find happiness shall we put on our hunting and chase the fiery hall room to the death this morning or shall we put it off until some pleasanter day put it off observed the school master the idiot was only indulging in doctor that s all when you have known him longer you will understand him better views are as necessary to him as sunlight to the flowers and i truly think that in an asylum he would prove a delightful companion there doctor said the idiot that s handsome of the school master he couldn t make more of an apology if he tried i ll forgive him if you will what say you ig and strange to say the doctor in spite of the indignation which still left a red tinge on his cheek laughed aloud and was reconciled as for the school master he wanted to be angry but he did not feel that he could afford his wrath and for the first time in some months the guests went their several ways at peace with each other and the world ill there was a conspiracy in hand to the idiot the school master and the had combined forces to give him a taste of his own medicine the time had not yet arrived which showed the idiot at a disadvantage and the two the one proud of his learning and the other not wholly unconscious of a life were distinctly tired of the triumphant manner in which the idiot always left the to their invariable discomfiture it was the school master s suggestion to put their into the pit he had heretofore for them the worthy of youth had of late come to see that while he was still a prime favorite with his landlady he had nevertheless suffered somewhat in her estimation because of the apparent ease with which the idiot had got the better of him on all points it was he thought to himself and a deep laid plot to which the readily lent ear was the result of his reflections they twain were to indulge in a discussion of the great story of robert which both were confident the idiot had not read and concerning which they felt assured he could not have an intelligent opinion if he had read it so it happened	27
rather high pay for one of very high indeed agreed the idiot i wish i got that much i might be able to hire a two legged to tell me everything and have over a week left to spend on opera dress and the poor but honest board mrs if my salary was up to the mark but the trouble is men do not make the fortunes nowadays with the ease with which you mr made yours there are no doubt more and greater opportunities to day than there were in the time but there are also more men trying to take advantage of them labor in the business world is badly watered the are turning out more men in a week nowadays than the whole country turned out in a year forty years ago and the quality is so poor that there has been a general of wages all along the line where does the for existence come in when he has to with the college bred youth who for fear of not getting employment anywhere is willing to work for nothing people are not willing to pay for what they can get for nothing i am glad to hear from your lips so complete an admission said the school master that education is ignorance i am glad to know of your gladness returned the idiot i didn t quite say that education was ignorance i plead guilty to the charge of holding the belief that very materially with skilled in skilled s efforts to make a living then you admit your own asked the school master somewhat surprised by the idiot s command of i admit that i do not know it all returned the idiot i prefer to go through life feeling that there is yet something for me to learn it seems to me far better to admit this voluntarily than to have it forced home upon me by circumstances as happened in the case of a college i know who on wall street and lost the hundred dollars that were subsequently put to a good use by the me from which you that ignorance is better than education the school master scornfully for an returned the idiot you are singularly near sighted i have made no such i arrive at the conclusion however that in the chase for the gilded the education of experience is better than the of in the satisfaction the personal one from a liberal education i admit that the sons of are the better off i never could hope to be so for instance as you are no observed the school master you cannot raise grapes on a farm any observer looking around this table he added and noting mr a of the a son of dear old the doctor an honor man of our legal friend here a of to say nothing of myself who was with honors at any observer seeing these i say the new york public library and r t and then seeing yon wouldn t take very long to make up his mind as to whether a man is better off or not for having had a training there i must again dispute your assertion returned the idiot the person of whom you speak would say here is this gray haired man this cambridge boy of fifty seven years of age the reverend of class of and the other two learned gentlemen of forty nine each and this poor of an idiot whose only virtue is his modesty all in the same box and then he would ask himself in what way have these sons of and so forth the better of the modest and idiot the same box said the what do you mean by that just what i say returned the idiot the same box all boarding all luxuries of necessity all paying their bills with difficulty all clothed in reality all keeping lent the year through verily he would say the idiot has the best of it for he is young y and leaving them the of reflection the idiot departed i thought they were going to land you that time said the genial gentleman who occasionally later but when i heard you use the word i knew you were all right where did you get it my chief got it on me at the office the other day i happened in a mad moment to try to some of my original observations on him of my getting to the office two hours late in which it was my endeavor to prove to him that the truly safe and was always slow and so apt to turn up late on occasions he about the office for a minute or two and then he informed me that i was an i didn t know what he meant and so i looked it up and what did he mean he meant that i took the cake for and i guess he was right replied the idiot with a smile that was not altogether vi good morning said the idiot cheerfully as he entered the dining room to this remark no one but the landlady vouchsafed a reply i don t think it is she said shortly it s too hard to be a very good morning that reminds me observed the idiot taking his seat and helping himself to the a friend of mine on one of the newspapers is preparing an article on the antiquity of modern humor with your kind permission mrs i ll take down your remark and hand it over to mr as a specimen of the modern antique joke you may not be aware of the fact but that jest is to be found in the rare first edition of the tales of an italian who stole everything he wrote from the i so the i never heard of though i had before the sale of my	27
library a choice copy of the tales of bound in full crushed with gilt edges and one or two other italian joe in tree calf i cannot at this moment recall their names at what period did live inquired the school master i don t exactly remember returned the idiot assisting the last on the table over to his plate i don t know exactly it was subsequent to b c i think although i may be wrong if it was not you may rest assured it was prior to b c do you happen to know the the exact date of this rare first edition of which you speak no no one knows that returned the idiot and for a very good reason it was printed before dates were invented the silence which followed this bit of information from the idiot was almost insulting in its intensity it was a silence that spoke and what it said was that the idiot s was colossal and he accepting the stillness as a tribute smiled sweetly what do you think mr he said when he thought the time was ripe for the conversation what do you think of the doctrine that every day will be sunday by and by i have only to say sir returned the a little hot water into his milk which was a bit too strong for him that i am a firm in the occurrence of a period when sunday will be to all practical purposes perpetual that is my belief too observed the school master but it will be to our good landlady to provide us with one of her fine sunday every morning thank you mr returned mrs with a smile can t i give you another cup of coffee you may returned the school master pained at the lady s grammar but too courteous to call attention to it save by the emphasis with which he spoke the word may that s one view to take of it said the idiot but in case we got a sunday breakfast every day in the week we on the other hand would get what we pay for you may fill my cup too mrs the coffee is all gone returned the landlady with a snap then mary said the idiot gracefully turning to the maid you may give me a glass of ice water it is quite as warm after all as the coffee and not quite so weak a perpetual sunday though would have its he added unconscious of the glances of the landlady you mr for instance would be preaching all the time and in consequence would soon break down then the effect upon our eyes from reading the sunday newspapers day after day would be extremely bad nor must we forget that an r the new york public library and r l eternity of su means the from our midst as the say of of of horse racing and other of life unless we are prepared to cast over the view of sunday which now it would substitute dr for we should lose ta ra ra boom de ay entirely which is a point in its favor i don t know about that said the genial old gentleman i rather like that did you ever hear me sing it t asked the idiot mind returned the genial old gentleman hastily perhaps you are right after all the idiot t and resumed our shops would be perpetually closed and an enormous loss to the would be sure to follow mr s theory that we should have sunday every day is not for the that with a perpetual day of rest would die out food would be killed off by weeds in fact we should go back to that really unfortunate period when women were without dress makers and man s chief g object in life was to animals as he met them and to from apples wisdom and full dress the idiot is right said the it would not be a very good thing for the world if every day were sunday wash day is a necessity of life i am willing to admit this in the face of the fact that wash day meals are invariably would be void as a rule because sunday is a dies non a what asked the idiot a non day in a business sense put in the school master of course said the landlady scornfully any person who knows anything knows that then madame returned the idiot rising from his chair and putting a handful of sweet in his pocket then i must put in a claim for from ou having been charged at the rate of one dollar a day for dies in the two years i have been with you indeed returned the lady sharply very well and i shall put in a for the you carry away from the breakfast table every morning in your pockets in that event we l call it off madame returned the idiot as with a bow and a pleasant smile he left the room well i call him off was all the landlady could say as the other guests took their departure and of course the school master agreed with her vii our streets appear to be as far from perfect as ever said the with a sigh as he looked out through the window at the great pools of water that gathered in the made by the sinking of the blocks we d better go hack to the of our fathers there is a great deal in what you say observed the school master the has all the of mother earth and none of the noises we get from the that obtain to day it is and the moisture the pavement is and lets it run into our wc might do far worse than to go back excuse me for having an opinion	27
and minds by contact with the busy world it would be delightful the school master particularly on sundays when they were all yes replied the idiot it would be delightful then especially in summer when covered with an a to shield ers from the sun mr sighed and the wearily declining a second cup of coffee left the table with the doctor earnestly discussing with that worthy gentleman the causes of viii c there s a friend of mine up near said the idiot as he unfolded his and let his bill flutter from it to the floor who s tried to make a name for himself in literature what s his name asked the interested at once that s just the trouble he hasn t made it yet replied the idiot he hasn t succeeded in his courtship of the muse and beyond himself and a few friends his name is utterly unknown what work has he tried the school master pouring two portions of milk over his a little of everything first he wrote a novel it had an immense circulation and he only lost on it all of his friends c took a copy l e got one that he gave me and i believe two hundred newspapers were fortunate enough to secure the book for review his father bought two and tried to obtain the balance of the edition but didn t have enough money that was gratifying but gratification is more apt to than to strengthen a bank account i had not expected so wise an observation from one so unusually unwise said the school master coldly thank you returned the idiot but i think your remark is rather contradictory you would naturally expect wise observations from the unusually unwise that is if your teaching that the expression unusually unwise is but another form of the expression usually wise is correct but as i was saying when the genial of youth interrupted me with his flattery continued the idiot gratification is gratifying but not filling so my friend concluded that he had better give up novel writing and try jokes he kept at that a year and managed to clear his his jokes were good but too classic for the tastes of the are peculiar they the new york public library i and r l y i have no respect for age particularly in the matter of some of my friend s jokes had seemed good enough for to print when he had a at his mercy but they didn t seem to suit the high and mighty of this age who sit in judgment on such things in the comic paper offices so he gave up jokes does he still know you asked the landlady yes madame observed the idiot then he hasn t given u all jokes she retorted with fine scorn tee he laughed the school master pretty good mrs pretty good yes said the idiot that is good and by jove it from your butter mrs because it s entirely fresh it s good enough to print and i don t think the butter is what did your friend do next asked mr he was employed by a funeral in philadelphia to write o verses for memorial cards and was he successful od c for a time but he lost his position because of an error made by a careless in a marble yard ho had written here lies the hero of a hundred fights he a perfect man he fought for country and his country s rights and in the battles led the van fine in sentiment and in execution observed mr truly so returned the idiot but when the in the marble yard got it engraved on the monument my friend was away and when the army post that was to pay the bill d the monument the read here lies the of a hundred flights he a perfect one he fought his country and his country s rights and in the battles led the run awful ejaculated the minister dreadful said the landlady forgetting to be sarcastic what happened asked the school he was of course without a cent of pay and the company failed the next jokes ir week so he couldn t make anything by for what they owed him mighty hard luck said the very but there was one bright side to the case observed the idiot he managed to sell both of the afterwards for five dollars he sold the original one to a religious weekly for a dollar and got four dollars for the other one from a comic paper then he wrote an anecdote about the whole thing for a sunday newspaper and got three dollars more out of it and what is your friend doing now asked the doctor oh he s making a of money now but no name in literature yes he writes on salary returned the idiot he is writing now a recommendation of tooth powder in indian dialect why didn t he try writing an said the because replied the idiot the one aim of his life has been to be original and he couldn t reconcile that with poetry go at which remark the landlady stooped over and recovering the idiot s bill from under the table called the maid and requested her to hand it to the idiot he taking a from his pocket thanked the maid for the attention and rolling the slip into a thoughtfully stuck one end of it into the light under the coffee pot and lighting the with it walked from the room ix ive just been reading a book began the idiot i thought you looked rather pale said the school master yes returned the idiot cheerfully it made me feel pale it was about the pleasures of country life and when i contrasted rural as it was there depicted with life	27
snow in winter and of course there is a vein of coal growing right up into his furnace ready to be lit yes observed the and no doubt the chickens eggs in every style scrambled and boiled the weeds in the garden grow so fast i suppose that they pull themselves up by the roots and if there is anything left undone at the end of the day i presume in dress suits and in manner spring out of the ground and finish up for him without charge i ll bet he s not on good terms with his neighbors if he has everything you speak of in such perfection these farmers get jealous of each other asserted the doctor with a that seemed to be born of experience he never quarrelled with one of them in his life returned the idiot he doesn t them well enough to quarrel with them in fact i doubt if he ever sees them at all he s very exclusive of course he is a born farmer to get everything the way he has it suggested mrs no he isn t he s a said the idiot and a very successful one i see him on the street every day does he employ a man to run the farm asked the clergyman n o returned the idiot he has too much sense and too few dollars to do any such foolish thing as that it must be one of those self winding stock farms put in the school master scornfully but i don t see how he can be a successful and make money off his farm at the same time your statements do not agree either you said he never had to run for trains well he never has returned the idiot calmly he never goes near his farm he doesn t have to it s to the husband of the house keeper whose daughter has a crush on the fire department he takes his pay in produce and gets more than if he took it in cash on the basis of the new york vegetable market then you have got us into an argument about country life that ends began the school master indignantly that ends where it leaves off retorted the idiot departing with a smile on his lips he s an idiot from asserted the yes but i m afraid is observed the doctor with a grin and glance at the school master x good gentlemen said the idiot as he seated himself at the and glanced over his mail good morning yourself returned the poet you have an unusually large number of letters this morning all i hope yes replied the idiot all of one kind or another mostly on ambition otherwise from my friends the you don t mean to say that you write for the papers put in the school master with an incredulous smile i try to returned the idiot meekly if the papers don t take em i find them useful in my genial friend who of what do you write the n no writing is an art which i dare not it s too great a tax on the brain replied the idiot tax on what asked the doctor he was going to the idiot the brain turned the latter not ready to be j it s a little thing people use to think with doctor i d advise you to get om then ho added i write poems and foreign letters mostly i did not know that you had ever been abroad said the clergyman i never have returned the idiot then how i t k mr white severely how can you write foreign letters with my pen of course replied the idiot how did you suppose with an knife the clergyman sighed i should like to hear some of your poems said the poet very well returned the idiot here s one that has just returned from the monthly it s about a writer who died some years ago shakespeare s his name you ve heard of shakespeare haven t you mr he added then as there was no answer he read the verse which was as follows settled yes shakespeare wrote the plays tis clear to me lord bacon s claim s condemned before the bar he d not have what fools these mortals be but more correct what fools these mortals are that s not bad said the poet thanks returned the idiot i wish you were an editor i wrote that last spring and it has been coming back to me at the rate of once a week ever since it is too short said the it s an said the idiot how many yards long do you think should be the scorned to reply i agree with the said the school master it is too short lo want greater quantity well here is quantity for you said the idiot quantity as she is not wanted y nine comic papers i of this poem is called the turning of the worm how hard my fate perhaps you ll gather in my dearest reader when i tell you that i entered into this fair world a twin the one was spare enough the other fat i was of course the lean one of the two the as well and consequently in ecstasy o er jim my parents flew and good of me was spoken accident ly as boys we went to school and jim of course was e er his teacher s favorite and among the lads renowned for moral force whilst i was every day right soundly jim had an angel face but there he stopped i never knew a lad who d sin so oft and look so like a branch of heaven from off the parent trunk that grows aloft i seemed an indeed	27
twas often said that i resembled much my face was and my hair was red the kind of looking boy that men call i kind deeds however were my constant in everything i did the best i could i said my prayers thrice daily and i sought in all my ways to do the right and good on i d do my monday s sums while jim would spend the day in search of fun he d away and steal the neighbor s and strange to say to earth was never run whilst i when study time was through would seek my brother in the neighbor s orchard would find the neighbor there with anger blue and a the would be tortured tlie sums i d done he d steal this lad forsaken then change my work so that a paltry four would be my mark whilst he had overtaken the and all the bore the new york library as on i no and till to a t in later years we loved the self same maid we sent her little presents sweets for which alas twas i that always paid and jim the maid now honors and we entered politics in and for a minor office each did run twas i was left left badly at the because of things that jim had done it when jim went into business and failed i signed his notes and freed him from the strife which and ruin hath on them that lead a queer financial life then i learned that jim had set aside before his failure hard to tell a half a million dollars on his pet his mrs jim the former lovely that wearied me of jim it may be right for one to bear another s cross but i quite fail to see it in its proper light if that s the rule man should be guided by and since a fate perverse has had the wit to mix us up so that the one s deserts upon the shoulders of the other sit no matter how the other one it hurts i am resolved to take some mortal s life just when or where or how i do not so long as law will end horrid strife and twist my dear twin brother s sinful neck there said the idiot putting down the manuscript how s that i don t like it said mr it is and you should accept the hardships of life no matter how unjust the conclusion of your poem me sir i have you tried your hand at dialect poetry asked the doctor yes once said the idiot i sent it to the great western weekly oh yes here it is sent back with thanks it s an written in cigar box dialect in wh a at asked the poet box dialect here it is o especial h clay invincible el victoria o grand o you drive all my sorrows away r e new yo k library t x and r l ingenious but vicious said the school master who does not smoke again thanks how is this for a said the idiot when to the of sweet silent thought i summon up remembrance of things past i sigh the lack of many a thing i sought and with old woes new wail my dear time s waste then can i drown an eye unused to flow for precious friends hid in death s night and weep afresh love s long since d woe and moan the expense of many a vanish d sight then can i grieve at and heavily from woe to woe tell o er the sad account of fore moan which i now pay as if not paid before but if the while i think of thee dear friend all losses are restored and sorrows end it is said the school master the poet smiled quietly perfect repeated the school master and only shows how in weak hands so beautiful a thing as the can be made ridiculous what s wrong with it asked the idiot it doesn t contain any thought or if it does no one can tell what the thought is your are your is ridiculous the whole thing is bad you ll never get anybody to print it i do not intend to try said the idiot meekly you are wise said the school master to take my advice for once it is not your advice that me said the idiot it is the fact that this has been printed in the name of where cried the school master in tlie collected works of william shakespeare the idiot quietly the poet laughed mrs s eyes filled with tears and the school master for once had absolutely nothing to say xi do you believe mr said the idiot taking his place at the table and holding his plate up to the light apparently to see whether or not it was the landlady do you believe that the love of money is the root of all evil i have always been of that impression returned mr pleasantly in fact i am sure of it he added there is no evil thing in this world sir that cannot be traced back to a point where is found to be its main spring and the source of its strength then how do you reconcile this with the story of the forbidden fruit do you think the apples referred to were figures of speech the true import of which was that adam and eve had their on the original well of course there you begin to ah you seem to me to be going back to the er the ah original root of all evil prompted the idiot calmly precisely returned mr with a sigh of relief mrs	27
i think i ll have a dash of hot water in my coffee this morning then with a nervous glance towards the idiot he added addressing the i think it looks like rain to the coffee mr the idiot not disposed to let go of his victim quite so easily ah i don t quite follow you replied the with some annoyance you said something looked like rain and i asked you if the thing you referred to was the coffee for i was disposed to agree with vou said the idiot i am sure put in mrs that a gentleman of mr s refinement would not make any such sir he is not the man to quarrel with what is set before him i ask your pardon madame returned the i b new library f r vo v and the idiot politely i hope that i am not the man to quarrel with my food either indeed i make it a rule to avoid of all sorts particularly with the weak under which we find your coffee i simply wish to know to what mr when he says it looks like rain i mean of course said the minister with as much calmness as he could command and that was not much i mean the day the day looks as if it might be rainy any one with a of brain knows what you meant mr volunteered the school master certainly observed the idiot the butter from his toast but to those who have more than a of brains my reverend friend s remark was not entirely clear if i am talking of cotton and a gentleman chooses to state that it looks like snow i know exactly what he means he doesn t mean that the day looks like snow however he to the cotton mr talking about coffee chooses to state that it looks like rain which it undoubtedly does i that as mrs says it is not the gentleman s habit to attack too violently the food which is set before him manifest some surprise and giving the gentleman the benefit of the doubt afford him an opportunity to set himself right change the subject said the with pleasure answered the idiot filling his glass with cream we ll change the subject or the object or anything you choose we ll have another breakfast or another variety of anything in short to keep peace at the table tell me mr he added is the use of the word it in the sentence it looks like rain perfectly correct i don t know why it is not returned the school master uneasily he was not at all desirous of with the idiot and is it correct to suppose that it to the day is the day supposed to look like rain or do we simply use it to express a condition which us it to the latter of course then the full text of mr s the new library i n x ft i ni remark is i suppose that the rainy condition of the atmosphere which us looks like rain oh i suppose so sighed the school master wearily an unnecessary sort of statement that continued the idiot it s something like asserting that a man looks like himself or as in the case of a child s see the cat yes i see the cat what is the cat the cat is a cat cat at this even mrs smiled i don t agree with mr put in the after a pause here the school master shook his head at the as if to indicate that he was not in good form so i observe remarked the idiot you have upset him completely see how mr he addressing the genial gentleman who occasionally i don t mean that way sneered the bound to set mr straight i mean that the word it as employed in that sentence stands for day the looks like rain did you ever see a day the idiot certainly i have returned the what does it look like was the calmly put question the s impatience was here almost too great for safety and the manner in which his face colored aroused considerable interest in the breast of the doctor who was a good deal of a in was it a whole day you saw or only a half day persisted the idiot you may think you are very funny retorted the i think you are now don t get angry returned the idiot there are two or three things i do not know and i am anxious to learn i d like to know how a day looks to one to whom it is a visible object if it is visible is it and if so how does it feel i never felt a day myself the visible is always asserted the school master how about a red hot stove or manifest indignation or a view from a or as in the case of the young man in the novel who suddenly and looking anxiously about him saw no one returned the idiot tut ejaculated the if i had brains like yours i d blow them out yes i think you would observed the idiot folding up his you re just the man to do a thing like that i believe you d blow out the gas in your bedroom if there wasn t a sign over it request in you not to and filling his match box from the landlady s mantel supply the idiot hurried from the room and soon after left the xii if my father hadn t met with the idiot began did you really have a father interrupted the school master i thought you were one of these self made how terrible it must be for a man to think that he is responsible for	27
passed a childish youth nor a youthful childhood and therefore what therefore in my present condition i am contented i have no youthful follies to look back upon no to regret i never told a lie and all of which proves that you never were young put in the idiot and you will excuse me if i say it but my father is the model for me rather than so exalted a personage as yourself he is still young though turned seventy and i don t believe on his own account there ever was a boy who played more who oftener who others fruits with greater than he he was guilty of every crime in the of youth and if there is one thing that delights him more than another it is to sit on a winter s night before the log and tell us about his youthful follies and his boyhood but is he a happy man the school master no ah no he s an happy man because he s got his follies and to look back upon and not forward to said mrs dear me ejaculated mr mr said nothing and the breakfast room was soon deserted xiii there was an air of suppressed excitement about mrs and mr as they sat down to breakfast something had happened but just what that something was no one as yet knew although the genial old gentleman had a sort of notion as to what it was has been good natured enough for an engaged man for nearly a week now he whispered to the idiot who had asked him what he supposed was up and i have a half idea that mrs s has at last brought him to the point of proposing it s the other way i imagine returned the idiot you don t really think she has rejected him do you the genial old gentleman oh no not by a great deal i mean that i think it very likely that he has brought her to the point this is leap year you know said the idiot well if i were a man which i haven t been since night before last i d lay you a that they re engaged said the old gentleman i m glad you ve given up rejoined the idiot because i m sure i d take the bet if you offered it and then i believe i d lose we are to have philadelphia spring chickens this morning gentlemen said mrs beaming upon all at the table it s a special treat which we all appreciate my dear mrs observed the idiot with a courteous bow to his landlady and by the way why is it that philadelphia spring chickens do not appear until do you suppose is it because spring doesn t get around until it is autumn everywhere else no i think not said the doctor i think it is because philadelphia spring chickens are not sufficiently hardened to be able to stand the strain of much be t k library m ox and e r fore september or else philadelphia people do not get so with such as to permit any of the crop to go into other than philadelphia before that period for my part i simply love them so do i said the idiot and if mrs will pardon me for expressing a preference for any especial part of the piece de resistance i will state to her that if in helping me she will give me two a pair of second joints and plenty of the white meat i shall be very happy you ought to have said so yesterday said the school master with a genial laugh then mrs could have prepared an individual chicken for you that would be too much returned the idiot and i should really hesitate to eat too much spring chicken i never did it in my life and don t know what the effect would be would it be doctor i really do not know how it would be answered the doctor in all my wide experience i have never found a case of the kind it s very rarely that one gets too much w v spring chicken said mr i haven t had any experience with as friend the doctor has but i have lived in many boarding houses and i have never yet known of any one even getting enough well perhaps we shall have all we want this morning said mrs i hope so at any rate for i wish this day to be a memorable one in our house mr has something to tell you john will you announce it now did you hear that whispered the idiot she called him john yes said the genial old gentleman i didn t know had a first name before certainly my dear that is my very dear mrs stammered the school master getting red in the face the fact is gentlemen i er we er that is of course er mrs has er mrs has asked me to be her i er i should say i have asked mrs to be my hush my wife and er cried the idiot jumping up from the table and grasping mr by new york library s or and v foundations the hand i youve got in ahead of us old man but we are just as glad when we think of your good fortune your gain may be our loss but what of that where the happiness of our dear landlady is at stake mrs glanced at the idiot and smiled thank you said the school master you are welcome said the idiot mrs you will also permit me to you upon this happy event i who have so often differed with	27
mr upon matters of human knowledge am forced to admit that upon this occasion he has shown such eminently good sense that you are fortunate indeed to have won him again i thank you said the school master you are a very sensible person yourself my dear idiot perhaps my failure to appreciate you at times in the past has been due to your brilliant qualities which have so dazzled me that i have been unable to see you as you really are here are the chickens said mrs ah ejaculated the idiot what lucky fellows we are to be sure i hope mrs now that mr has cut us all out you will at least be a sister to the rest of us and let us live at home there is to be no change said mrs at least i hope not except that mr will take a more active part in the of our home don t envy him that said the idiot we shall be severe critics and it will be hard work for him to manage affairs better than vou did mrs get me a larger cup for the idiot s coffee said mrs let s all retire from business suggested the idiot after the other guests had expressed their satisfaction with the turn affairs had taken let s retire from business and change the home for into an institution for what purpose the everything is so lovely now explained the idiot i feel as though i never wanted to leave the house again even to win a fortune if we turn it into a college and instruct youth we need never go outside the front door excepting for j d where will the money and the come from asked mr money from pupils and after we get going maybe somebody will us as for i think we know enough to be ourselves replied the idiot for instance s university john president b mrs matron for professor of tlie assisted by the poet medical lectures by dr taught by our genial friend who occasionally chair in general information humble servant why we would be with pupils and money in less than a year a very good idea returned mr i have often thought that a nice little school could be started here to advantage though i must confess that i had different ideas on the subject of the you my dear idiot would be a great deal more useful as a professor il ml said the idiot it sounds mighty well no doubt i should like it what is a professor mr c s he is a professor who is paid a salary for doing nothing the whole table joined in a laugh the idiot included by jove mr he said as soon as he could speak you are just dead right about that that s the place of places for me salary and nothing to do oh how i d love it the rest of the breakfast was eaten in silence the spring chickens were too good and too plentiful to admit of much waste of time in conversation at the conclusion of the meal the idiot rose from the table and after again mr and his announced that he was going to see his employer on sunday mrs yes i want him to write me a recommendation as a man who can do nothing beautifully and why pray asked mr fm going to apply to the of college the first thing to morrow morning for an for if anybody can do nothing and draw money for it gracefully i m the man wall street is too wearing on my nerves and i m going to leave it he replied and in a moment he was i like him said mrs so do i said mr he isn t half the idiot he thinks he is i if i id i the idiot to william k the idiot for some weeks after the happy event which transformed the popular mrs into the charming mrs john all went well at that lady s select home for single gentlemen it was only proper that during the honey moon at least of the happy couple between the idiot and his fellow should cease it was expecting too much of mankind however to look for a continued and the morning arrived when nature once more herself and trouble began just what it was that prompted the remark no one knows but it happened that the idiot did say that he thought that after all life on a canal boat had its advantages mr who had come into the dining room in a slightly irritable frame of mind induced perhaps by mrs s that as he was now part proprietor of the house he should be a little more prompt in making his towards its maintenance chose to take the remark as a reflection upon the way things were managed in the household he said i had hoped that your habit of your views had been put aside for once and for all very absurd hope my dear sir observed the idiot views that are not become why shouldn t i give them an opportunity once in a while because they are the sort of views to which is the most appropriate end snapped the school master any man who as you have asserted that life en a canal boat has its advantages ought to go further and prove his sincerity by living on one i can t afford it said the idiot meekly it isn t cheap by any manner of means in the first place you can t live happily on a canal boat unless you can afford to keep horses in fact canal boat life is a combination of the most expensive luxuries since it and driving with nevertheless if you will put your mind on it you w ill find that with	27
a for your home you can do a great many things that you can t do with a house i decline to put my mind on a said mr sharply passing his coffee back to mrs for another lump of sugar thereby to that good lady s discomfiture since before their marriage the mere fact that the coffee had been poured by her fair hand had given it all the sweetness it needed or at least that was what the school master had said and more than once at that you are under no obligation to do so the idiot returned though if i had a mind like yours i d put it on a canal boat and have it away somewhere out of sight these other gentlemen however i think will agree with me when i say that the mere fact that a canal boat can be moved about the country and is in no sense a anywhere shows that as a dwelling place it is superior to a house take this house for instance this neighborhood used to be the best in town it is still far from being the worst neighborhood in town but it is as it has been for several years the establishment of a bath on one corner and a store on the other has taken away much of that air of refinement which it when the block was devoted to purposes entirely now just suppose for a moment that this street were a canal and that this house were a canal boat the canal could run down as much as it pleased the neighborhood could but it could not affect the value of this house as the home of refined people as long as it was possible to up a team of horses to the front stoop and tow it into a better locality i d like to every man at this table that mrs wouldn t take five minutes to make up her mind to tow this house up to a spot near central park if it were a canal boat and the streets were water instead of a mixture of water sand and blocks no said the ejaculated mr you seem to lose sight of another fact said the idiot warming up to his subject if man had had the sense in the beginning to adopt the canal boat system of life and we were used to that sort of thing it would not be so hard upon us in summer time when we have to live in hotels in order that we and our families may reap the benefits of a period the new york library as or i t i l n k l ill of country life we could simply drive off to that section of the country where we desired to be hotels would not be needed if a man could take bis along with bim into the fields and one phase of life which has more bad than good in it would be entirely there is nothing more disturbing to the serenity of a domestic man s mind than the artificial manner of living that in most summer hotels the nuisance of having to pay bills every monday morning under the penalty of losing one s would be and all the of home would b directly within reach the trouble incident upon getting the trunks packed and the children ready for a day s journey by rail and the fatigue ing from such a journey would be reduced to a the troubles attendant upon going into a far country and leaving one s house in the sole charge of a lot of servants for a month or two every year would be done away with entirely and if at any time it became necessary to discharge one of these servants she could be put off the boat in an instant and then the boat could be pushed out into the middle of the canal so that the discharged domestic could not possibly get aboard again and take her revenge by your and that is one of the worst features of living in a stationary house you are entirely at the mercy of servants they know precisely where you live and you cannot escape them they can come back when there is no man around and raise several varieties of ned with your wife and children with a such as the canal boat would be you could always go off and leave your family in perfect safety how about safety in a storm asked the safety in a storm echoed the idiot that seems an absurd sort of a question to one who knows anything about canal boats i for one never heard of a canal boat being seriously in a storm as long as it was in the canal proper it certainly isn t any more dangerous to be in a in a storm than it is to be in a house that offers resistance to the winds and is shaken from roof to cellar at every blast more houses have been blown from their foundations than canal boats sunk provided ordinary care has been taken to protect them t ye new york library t and foundations r li and you think the canal boat would be healthy asked the doctor how about and all that that is a professional question returned the idiot which i think you could answer better than i i don t see why a canal boat shouldn t be healthy however the would not amount to very much it would be outside of one s dwelling and not within it as is the case with so many houses a canal boat having no cellar could not have a damp one and if by some circumstance it should spring a the water could be out at once and the up however this might be til offer another to this board on that	27
point and that is that more people die in houses than on we d rather give you our money right out retorted the doctor thank you said the idiot but i don t need money i don t like money money is responsible for more extravagance than any other in existence besides it and i are not intimate enough to get along very well together and when i have any i immediately do my level best to rid myself of it but to return to our canal boat i note a look of in mr s eyes he doesn t seem to think any more of my scheme than do the rest of you which i regret since i believe that he would be the if land were by the canal system as proposed by myself take church on a rainy morning for instance a great many people stay at home from church on rainy mornings just because they do not want to venture out in the wet suppose we all lived in canal boats would not people be deprived of this pretext for staying at home if their homes could be up to the church door or better yet that the churches followed out the same plan and were themselves constructed like canal boats how easy it would be for the to drive the church around the town and collect the in the same manner it would be glorious for men like ourselves who have to go to their daily toil for a consideration mrs could have us driven to our various places of business every morning returning for us in the evening think how fine it would be for me for instance instead of having to come home every night in an elevated train or on a cable car to have the office boy come and announce mrs s select home for gentlemen is at the door mr idiot i could step right out of my office into my charming little bedroom up in the how and the time usually expended on the cars could be devoted to dressing for tea then we could stop in at the court house for our legal friend and as for doctor wouldn t he in driving this boarding house about town on his daily rounds among his what would become of my office hours asked the doctor if this house were whirling all about the city from morning until night i don t know what would become of ray office they might die a little sooner or live a little longer that is all said the idiot if they weren t able to find the house at all however i think it would be better for us for much as i admire you doctor i think your office hours are a nuisance to the rest of us i had to elbow my way out of the house this morning between a double line of from and and other afflicted of yours and i didn t like it very much i don t believe they liked it much either returned the doctor one man with a ankle told me about you you him in passing well you can to him in my behalf returned the idiot but you might add that he must expect very much the same treatment whenever he and a boy with stand between me and the door ankles aren t and i preferred him to the other alternative the doctor was silent and the idiot rose to go where will the house be this evening about six thirty mrs he asked as he pushed his chair back from the table where why here of course returned the landlady why yes of course observed the idiot with an impatient gesture how foolish of me ive really been so wrapped up in my canal boat ideal that i came to believe that it might possibly be real and not a dream after all i almost believed that perhaps i should find that the house had been somewhere up into county on my return so that we might all escape the city s tax on personal property which i am told is unusually high this year with which sally the idiot kissed his hand to mr and retired from the scene n let s write a book suggested the idiot as he took his place at the board and unfolded his what about asked the doctor with a smile at the idea of the idiot s thinking of on literary pursuits about four hundred pages long said the idiot i feel inspired you are inspired said the school master in your way you are a genius i really never heard of such a idiot as you are in all my experience and that means a great deal i can tell you for in the course of my career as an of youth i have encountered many were they before or after having drank at the of your learning asked the idiot placidly mr glared and the idiot was apparently satisfied to make mr lis glare appeared to be one of the of his you will kindly remember mr idiot said mrs at this point that mr is my husband and such at my table are distinctly out of place i ask your pardon mrs rejoined the meekly nevertheless as apart from the question in hand as to whether mr or not i should like to get the views of this gathering on the point you make regarding the table is this your table is it not rather the table of those who sit about it to their inner man with the good things under which remember once or twice in my life to have heard it groan to my mind the latter is the truth it is our table because we buy it and i am forced to believe that some of us pay for it i am prepared	27
your mental supply you might have the luck to get better quality i probably should have the luck said the idiot i have had a great store of it in my life from the very start i have had luck when i think that i was born myself and not you i feel as if i had had more than my share of good fortune more luck than the l law allows much luck the law allow mr brief said mr brief with a scornful wave of his hand as if he were himself of a troublesome don t bother me with such mind withering questions all right said the idiot i ll ask you an easier one why does not the world recognize matrimony mr started here indeed was a novel proposition i i must confess said he that of all the questions i er i have ever had the honor of hearing asked that takes cake suggested the idiot palm said mr severely well perhaps so said the idiot but matrimony is the science or the art or whatever you call it of making two people one is it not it certainly is said mr but what of it the world does not recognize the unity said the idiot take our good for instance they were made one by yourself mr i had the pleasure of being an at the ceremony yielding the ti e new i position of best man gracefully as is my wont to the he was best man but not the better man by a simple process of reasoning now no one at this board that mr and mrs are one but how about the world mr takes mrs to a concert are they one there why not asked mr brief that s what i want to know why not the world as represented by ihe ticket at the door says they are not or that they are not by demanding tickets for two they attempt to travel out to falls the railroad people charge them two the charges them two the hotel bills are made out for two people it is the same wherever they go in the world and i regret to say that even in our own home there is a disposition to regard them as two when i spoke of there being nine persons here instead of ten mr himself disputed my point and yet it was not so much his fault as the fault of mr and mrs themselves mrs seems to cast doubt upon the unity by providing two separate chairs for the two that make up the charming two cups are provided for their coffee two forks two knives two two portions of all the of the season which are upon us out of season generally after it fall to their lot they do not object to being called a happy couple when they should be known as a happy single now what i want to know is why the world does not accept the which has been pronounced by the church and is recognized by the individual can any one here tell me that no one could apparently at least no one endeavored to the idiot looked at all and then receiving no reply to his question he rose from the table i think he said as he started to leave the room i think we ought to write that book if we made it up of the things you people don t know it would be one of the greatest books of the century at any rate it would be great enough in bulk to fill the biggest library in america ui i wish i were life all over again said the idiot one spring morning as he took his accustomed place at mrs s table i wish you were said mr from behind his newspaper then your parents would have you shut up in a nursery and it is even conceivable that you would be receiving those attentions with a that you seem to me so frequently to deserve were you at this present moment in the nursery stage of your development my ejaculated the idiot what a wonder you are mr it is a good thing you are not a justice in a criminal court and what may i venture to ask said mr glancing at the idiot over his spectacles what has given rise to that extraordinary remark the connection of which with anything that has been said or done this morning is distinctly not apparent i only meant that a man who was so given over to long sentences as you are would probably make too severe a judge in a criminal court replied the idiot meekly do you make use of the same in the class room that you us with i should like to know and why not pray said mr no special reason said the idiot only it does seem to me that an of youth ought to be more careful in his choice of than you appear to be of course doctor here is under no obligation to speak more or correctly than he does people call him in to not to indulge in periods and he can write his in a sort of latin and nobody be the wiser but you who are said to be the seeds of knowledge in the brain of youth should be more careful hear the talk returned mr listen to this samuel johnson the second what have i said that so the taste of nothing returned the idiot i can not say that you have said anything i never heard you say anything in my life but you can no doubt good authority for making use of the words distinctly not apparent you ought not to throw such phrases around carelessly the thing which is distinct	27
is apparent therefore to say distinctly not apparent to a mind that is not given to analysis sounds strange you might as well say of a beautiful girl that she is plainly pretty meaning of course that she is evidently pretty but those who are with the peculiarities of your speech might ask you if you meant that she was pretty in a plain sort of way suppose too you were writing a and in a desire to give your reader a fair idea of the personal appearance of a homely but good creature you should say it cannot be denied that was pretty plain it wouldn t take a very grave error of the types to change your entire meaning to save a line on a page for instance it might become necessary to a single word and if that word should chance to be the word plain in the sentence i have given your homely but good person would be set down as being pretty which shows it seems to me that too great care cannot be exercised in the making of from our you are the worst i ever knew snapped mr which only proves observed the idiot that you have not the that you should know are those cakes or whether the question was heard or not is not known it certainly was not answered and silence reigned for a few minutes finally mrs spoke and in the manner of one who was somewhat embarrassed i am in an embarrassing position said she good said the idiot to the genial gentleman who occasionally there is hope for the landlady yet if she can be embarrassed she is still human a condition i was beginning to think she not of she what the genial gentleman not quite catching the idiot s words never mind returned the idiot let s hear how she ever came to be embarrassed i have had an ap for my first floor and i don t know whether i ought to accept it or not said the landlady she has a conscience too whispered the idiot and then he added aloud and wherein lies the difficulty mrs the is an actor is his name a or a asked the or first walking gentleman who knows every railroad tie in the country put in the idiot that i do not know returned the landlady his name sounds familiar enough though i thought perhaps some of you gentlemen might know of him i have heard of observed the doctor slightly at his own humor and i ve heard of but is a combination with which i am not familiar well i can t see why it should make any difference whether the man is a or a or a familiar figure to railroad men said mr firmly in any event he would be an extremely it makes a great deal of difference said the idiot i ve met and i ve met loo and i ve met new york central stars and i can assure you they each represent a distinct type the as a rule are quiet meek individuals with soft low voices in private life they are more timid than otherwise though essentially i knew a once who after killing seventeen indians a road agent and a gross of between eight and ten p m every night for sixteen weeks working six nights a week was afraid of a mild little soft sl ell that lay on a plate before him on the of the seventh night of the last week make agreeable companions i can tell you and if j is a i think mrs would do well to let him have the provided of course that he pays for it in advance i was about to observe when our friend interrupted me said mr with dignity that in any event an actor at this board would be to me an extremely now the resumed the idiot mr s remark the are very different they are twice as as the of the drama and worse than that they are given to library e at all hours of the day and night a is a hard only on the stage but the is the always if we had one of those fellows in our midst it would not be very long before we became part of the drama ourselves mrs would find herself embarrassed once an hour instead of as at present once a century mr would hear of himself as having appeared by in a roaring farce before our had been with us two months the wise sayings of our friend the school master would be spoken nightly from the stage to the immense delight of the gallery gods and to the of the circle who would wonder how so much information have got into the world and they not know it before the out of town papers would literally with witty from our s plays which we should immediately recognize as the of my poor self all of which put in mr but proves the truth of my assertion that such a person would be an extremely then as i said before continued the idiot he is continually and his as a fellow would be greater or less according to his play if he were a wanderer who shows remarkable bravery at a hotel fire we have to be prepared at any time to hear the fire engines rushing up to the front door and to see our the fire escape with mrs and her account books in his arms simply in the line of if he were a after a criminal as a good citizen the school master be startled some night by a hoarse voice at his key hole exclaiming ha ha i have him now there is no escape save by the back window and that s so covered o er with	27
author s tion in extent anyway an actor or a great preacher becomes only a name after his death but the who a cathedral or a fine public building really a monument to his own memory he does if he can build it so that it will stay up said the i think you however are better off as you are if you had a more extended reputation or a lasting name you would probably be locked up in some retreat or if you were not posterity would want to know why i am locked up in a retreat of nature s making said the idiot with a sigh nature has set around me certain which while they are not material might as well be so as far as my ability to above them is concerned and it s well she has if it were otherwise my life would not be safe or in this company as it is i am happy and not at all afraid of the effects your jealousy of me might if i were any better than the rest of you i like that said mr i thought you would said the idiot that s why i said it i aim to please and for once seem to have hit the bull s eye mary kindly break open this for me have you ideas on the subject of architecture that you so desire to become an mr who was always full of sympathy for natures a few said the idiot mr laughed outright let s test his ideas he said in an amused way take a cathedral for instance pose mr idiot a man should come to you and say idiot we have a fund of in our hands actual cash we think of building a cathedral and we think of you to draw up our j give us some idea of what we should do do you mean to tell me that you could say anything reasonable or intelligent to that man well that depends upon what you call reasonable and intelligent i have never been able to find out what you mean by those terms the idiot answered slowly but i could tell him something that i consider reasonable and intelligent from your own point of view then as to and intelligence what should you say to him i d make him out a plan providing for the of his in five per cent gold bonds which would bring him in an income of a year after which i should call his attention to the fact that a year would enable him to take poor children out of this city into the country to and drink fresh milk and eat wholesome food for two weeks every summer from now until the end of time which would build up a human structure that might be of more benefit to the world than any pile of bricks marble and wrought iron or any other could conceive of said the idiot the structure would stand up too you call that architecture do you said mr yes said the idiot of the order but that of course you term and maybe it is i like to be that kind of an idiot i do not claim to be able to build a cathedral however i don t suppose i could even build a boarding house like this but what i should like to do in architecture would be to put up a for that s a thing that has never been done and i think i might be able to do it if i did i d patent the plan and make a fortune then i should like to know enough about the science of planning a building to find out whether my model hotel is practicable or not you have a model hotel in your mind eh said the it must be a very small hotel if it s in his mind said the doctor that s to saying that it isn t anywhere said mr well it s a great hotel just the same said the idiot although i presume it would be expensive to build it would have rooms in the first place each room would be constructed like an with at hand for moving it up and down the great thing about this would be that persons could have a room on any floor they wanted it so long as they got the room in the beginning a second advantage would lie in the fact that if you were sleeping in a room next door to another in which there was a crying baby you could pull the rope and go up two or three flights until you were free from the noise then in case of fire the room in which the fire started could be lowered into a sliding large enough to the whole thing in which i should have constructed in the cellar if the whole building were to catch fire there would be no loss of life because all the rooms could be lowered to the ground floor and the occupants could step right out upon solid ground then again if you were down on the ground floor and desired to get an extended view of the surrounding country it would be easy to raise your room to the desired elevation why there s no end to the advantages to be gained from such an arrangement it s a fine idea said mr and one worthy of your intellect it couldn t possibly cost more than a million of dollars to erect such a hotel could it said the idiot and that is cheap alongside some of the hotels they are putting up nowadays it could be built on less than four hundred acres of ground too i presume said the with a wink at the doctor certainly said the idiot meekly and if anybody fell sick in	27
one of the rooms said the doctor and needed a change of air you could have a tower over each i suppose so that the room could be elevated high enough to secure the different quality in the undoubtedly said the idiot although departed the new tor it public library x and m i that would add materially to the expense a scarlet fever patient however in a hotel like that could very easily be isolated from the rest of the house by the maintenance of what might be called the hospital floor superb said the doctor i wonder you haven t spoken to some friend about it i have said the idiot you must remember that young fellow with a black i had here to dinner last saturday night yes i remember him said the doctor is he an he is and a good one he can take a brown stone dwelling and turn it into a mansion with a pot of yellow paint he s a wonder i submitted the idea to him and what was his verdict i don t like to say said the idiot blushing a little ha ha laughed mr i shouldn t think you would like to say i guess we know what he said i doubt it said the idiot but if you guess right i ll tell you he said you had better go and live in a lunatic asylum said mr with a chuckle not he returned the idiot at his on the contrary he advised me to stop living in one he said contact with the rest of you was affecting my brain this time mr did not laugh but his coffee cup for a piece of toast bit a small section out of its rim and in the midst of mrs s which followed the school master s careless error the idiot and the genial old gentleman departed with smiles on their faces which were almost visible at the back of their respective necks said the idiot as he began his breakfast this isn t friday morning is it i thought it was tuesday so it i tuesday put in the school master then this fish is a little extra treat is it observed the idiot turning with a smile to the landlady fish that isn t fish sir returned the good lady that is liver oh is it said the idiot excuse me my dear mrs i thought from its resistance that it was sole have you a handy he added turning to the maid my piece is tender enough i can t see what you want said the school master coldly i d like your piece replied the idiot that is if it really is tender enough don t pay any attention to him my dear said the school master to the landlady whose ire was so very much aroused that she was about to make known her sentiments on certain subjects no mrs said the idiot don t pay any attention to me i beg of you anything that could add to the jealousy of mr would to the discomfort of all of us besides i really do not object to the liver i need not eat it and as for staying my appetite i always stop on my way down town after breakfast for a bite or two anyhow there was silence for a moment i wonder why it is began the idiot after his coffee i wonder why it is friday is fish day all over the world anyhow do you happen to be learned enough in science to me on that point doctor no returned the physician i ve never looked into the matter i guess it s because friday is an unlucky day said the idiot just think of all the unlucky things that may happen before and after eating as as during the process in the first place before eating you go off and fish all day and have no luck the new york public library and v fo r t v don t catch a thing you fall in the water perhaps and lose your watch or your catches in your coat tails with the result that you come near casting yourself instead of the fly into the brook or the pond as the case may be perhaps the hook doesn t stop with the coat tails but goes on in and catches you that s awfully unlucky especially when the hook is made of unusually wire then again you may go fishing on somebody else s preserves and get arrested and sent to jail and hauled up the next morning and have to pay ten dollars fine for think of mr being ten dollars for awfully unfortunate kindly leave me out of your calculations returned mr with a flush of indignation certainly if you wish it said the idiot we ll hand mr brief over to the police and let hi n be for on somebody else s preserves although that s sort of impossible too because mrs never lets us see preserves of any kind we had last sunday night said the landlady indignantly u oh yes so we did returned the idiot that have been what the had taken he added turning to the genial gentleman who occasionally you know we thought he d been ah he d been absorbing to what do you refer asked the to the returned the idiot do not press me further please because we like you old fellow and i don t believe anybody noticed it but ourselves noticed what i want to know what you noticed and when you noticed it said the savagely i don t want any nonsense either i just want a plain statement of facts what did you notice well if you must have it said the idiot slowly my friend who and i were rather pained on sunday	27
night to observe that you that you had evidently taken something rather stronger than cold water tea oi mr s opinions it s a el sir a gross retorted the how did i show it that what i want to know how did i show it speak up quick and loud too how did i show it the new york j library and r l k well you went up stairs after tea yes sir i did and my friend who and i were left down in the front hall and while we were talking there you put your head over the and asked who s that down there remember that yes sir i do and you replied mr and myself yes and then you asked who are the other two well i did what of it mr and i were there alone that s what of it now i put a charitable construction on the matter and say it was the when you fly off the handle like one of mrs s coffee cups sir roared the jumping from his chair you are the greatest idiot i know sir i returned the idiot you flatter me but the was not there to hear he had rushed from the room and during the deep silence that ensued he could be heard throwing things about in the chamber overhead and in a very few moments the of the front door and down stone steps showed that he had gone ont of doors to cool off it is too bad said the idiot after a while that he has such a quick temper it doesn t do a bit of good to get mad that way he n bo uncomfortable all day long and over what just because i attempted to say a good word for him and announce the restoration of my confidence in his qualities he cuts up a high that makes everybody uncomfortable but to resume about this fish business continued the idiot fish oh fish be hanged said the doctor impatiently we ve had enough of fish very well returned the idiot as you wish hanging isn t the best treatment for fish but we ll let that go i never cared for the tribe myself and if mrs can be induced to do it i for one am in favor of keeping and out of the house vi the idiot was unusually thoughtful a fact which made the school master and the unusually nervous their stock criticism of him was that he was thoughtless and yet when he so far forgot his natural as to they did not like it it made them uneasy they had a haunting fear that he was with himself against them and no man not even a school master or a confirmed feeling that he is the object of a conspiracy the thing to do then upon this occasion seemed obviously to interrupt his train of thought to put upon his mental track as it were and ditch the express which they feared was getting up steam at that moment to run them down you don t seem quite yourself this morning sir said the don t i the idiot and whom do i seem to be i mean that you seem to have something on your mind that you said the no i haven t anything on my mind returned the idiot i was thinking about you and mr which a thought not likely to use up much of my gray matter do you think your head holds any gray matter put in the doctor rather i should say said mr green gray or pink said the idiot choose your color it does not affect the fact that i was thinking about the and mr i have a great scheme in hand which only requires capital and the assistance of those two gentlemen to it on the sea of prosperity if any of you gentlemen want to get rich and die in comfort as the owner of your homes now is your chance in what particular line of business is your scheme asked mr he had often felt that he would like to die in comfort and to own a little house even if it had a large on it said the idiot there is a pile of money to be made out of particularly if you happen to strike a new idea ideas count how far up do your ideas count up to five questioned mr with a tinge of sarcasm in his tone i don t know about that returned the idiot the idea i have hold of now however will count up into the millions if it can only be set going and before each one of those millions will stand a big capital s with two black lines drawn through it in other words my idea holds dollars but to get the crop you ve got to sow the seed plant a thousand dollars in my idea and next year you ll reap two thousand plant that and next year you ll have four thousand and so on at that rate millions come easy i ll give you a dollar for the idea said the no i don t want to sell you ll do to help develop the scheme you ll make a first rate tool but you aren t the workman to manage the tool i will go as far as to say however that without you and mr or your in the animal king the idea isn t worth the ram you offer you have quite aroused my interest said mr do you propose to start a new paper you are a good replied the idiot that is a part of the scheme but it isn t the idea i propose to start a new paper in accordance with the plan	27
which the idea contains is it to be a magazine or a comic paper or what asked the neither it s a daily that s nonsense said mr putting his spoon into the milk can by mistake there isn t a single scheme in daily that hasn t been tried except an evening paper in the that s been tried said the idiot i know of an evening paper the second edition of which is published at mid day that s an old and there s money in it too money that will never be got out of it but i really have a grand scheme so many of our you know go in for every horrid detail of daily events that people are beginning to tire of them they contain practical thb new york public library and fo r l ly the same things day after day so many columns of murder so many beautiful so much sport a of general intelligence plenty of fires no end of financial news and head lines events like history repeat themselves until people have grown weary of them they want something new for instance if you read in your morning paper that a man has shot another man you know that the man who was shot was an person who never injured a soul stood high in the community in which he lived and leaves a widow with four children on the other hand you know without reading the account that the murderer shot his victim in self defence and was apprehended by the late night that his counsel forbid him to talk to tbe aud that it is that he comes of a good family living in new england if a breach of trust is committed you know that the was the last man of whom such ap act would be suspected and except in the one detail of its and that he was prominent in some church you can calculate to a cent how much has been stolen by a glance at the amount of space s to the account of the crime loaf of bread two lines thousand dollars ten lines hundred thousand dollars half column million dollars a full column five million dollars half the front page wood cut of the and two one leader and one paragraph and with everything we are creatures of habit the expected always happens and newspapers are dull because the events they chronicle are dull the truth of this put in the school master what do you propose to do get up a newspaper that will devote its space to telling what hasn t happened that s been done said the to a much more limited extent than we think returned the idiot it has never been done and i fail to see how a newspaper can be made to asserted mr to tell the truth he was greatly disappointed with the idea because he not in the nature of things become one of its i haven t suggested said the idiot put on your front page for in t e new york library i i ox and r l an item like this george colored aged twenty nine a resident of street was caught at last night he was not murdered there you tell what has not happened there is a variety about it it has the charm of the unexpected then you might say curious incident on wall street yesterday so who was caught on the bear side of the market with shares of j b s k w paid off all his obligations in full and retired from business with clear or we might say of the st s sunday school who is also in the forty eighth national bank has not with oh that s a rich idea put in the school master you d earn in suits the first year no you wouldn t either said the idiot you don t a man when you say he hasn t murdered anybody quite the contrary you call attention to his conspicuous virtue you are in reality those who refrain from criminal practice instead of those who are fond of departing from the paths of christianity by giving them m but i fail to in what respect mr i are essential to your scheme said the i must confess to some curiosity on my own part on that point added the school master why it s perfectly clear returned the idiot with a smile as he prepared to depart you both know so much that isn t so that i rather rely on you to fill up vii a new had joined the circle about mrs s breakfast table he had what the idiot called a three name which was richard and he was by profession a poet whether it was this that made it necessary for him to board or not the rewards of the muse being rather slender was known only to himself and he showed no disposition to his fellow on the subject his success as a poet mrs found it hard to for while the left almost daily numerous letters the of which showed that they came from the various of the day it was never exactly clear whether or not the contained or rejected though the fact that mr was the only in the house who had requested to have a added to the furniture of his room seemed to indicate that they contained the latter to this request mrs had gladly she had a notion that therein at some time or another would be found a to the new s past history or possibly some evidence of such as the good lady suspected he might be guilty of she had read that was and that was to drink and she was impressed with the idea that poets generally were bad men and she regarded the waste basket as	27
a possible means of protecting herself against any such of her new found as would operate to her disadvantage if not looked after in time this waste basket she made it her daily to empty and in the privacy of her own room half finished songs and she before them to the flames or to the large bag in the cellar for which the called two or three times a year once mrs s heart almost stopped beating when she found at the bottom of the basket a printed slip beginning the editor regrets that the enclosed lines are and closing with about thirteen reasons any one or all of which might have been the main cause of the poet s disappointment had it not been for the kindly in the printed slip that in graceful terms that this did not imply a lack of literary merit in the contribution itself the good lady knowing well that there was even less money to be made from rejected than from accepted poetry would have been in l to request the poet to the very next day however was glad had not requested the resignation of the poet from the of ht r for tlie same basket gave forth another printed from another editor begging tin poet to accept the enclosed check witli for his contribution and asking to deposit it as soon as i i which was pleasing it that the poet was tlie of a bank account now mrs wan consumed with curiosity to know for how large a sum cheek called which was gratified a few days later when inspired j aid liis week s bill with three one dollar bills and a check signed by a well known for two dollars ha by the themselves the poet was regarded with much interest the school master had read one or two of his in the fireside corner of the journal he received weekly from his home up in new england which showed no little merit as well as indicating that mr w for a literary mr had known of him as the young man who was to have written a christmas for his sunday school a year before and who had finished and presented the manuscript shortly after new year s day while to the idiot mr s name was familiar as that of a frequent to the funny papers of the day i was very much amused by your poem in the last number of the observer mr said the idiot as they sat down to breakfast together were you indeed returned mr i am sorry to hear that for it was intended to be a serious effort of course it was mr and so it appeared said the school master with an indignant glance at the idiot it was a very dignified and stately bit of work and i must congratulate you upon it j york public library and foundations a l i didn t mean to offence said the idiot i ve read so much of yours that was purely humorous that i believe i d laugh at a if you should write one but i really thought your lines in the observer were a you had the same thought that expresses in the the loose the wind was still shaken out dead from tree to hill i had walked on at the wind s will i sat now for the wind was still that s if you remember slightly suggestive of blow ye winds of the morning blow blow blow but more or less pleasing i recall the poem you speak of said with dignity but the true poet sir and i hope i have some claim to be considered as such never so far forgets himself as to his masters well i don t know what to call it then when a poet takes the same thought that has previously been used by his masters and makes a funny poem but returned the poet warmly it was not a funny poem it made me laugh retorted the idiot i and that is more than half the funny poems we get nowadays can do therefore i say it was a funny poem and i don t see how you can deny that it was a of well i do deny it in i don t know anything about denying it in rejoined the idiot but i d deny it in print if i were you i know plenty of people who think it was a and i overheard one man say he is a that you ought to be ashamed of yourself for writing it there is no use of discussing the matter further said the poet i am innocent of any such intent as you have ascribed to me and if people say i have they say what is not true did you ever read that little poem of s called the boy at the gate asked the idiot to change the subject i have no recollection of it said the poet shortly the n me sounds familiar put in mr anxious not to be left out of a literary discussion i have read it but i forget just how it goes vouchsafed the school master forget ting for a moment the robert episode and its lesson it goes something like this said the idiot sombre and the slim tlie leaves lie low o er the land the wind with its wise gloomy and grand so doth tiie solemnly stand wearily watching in wondering wait so it has stood for six centuries and still it is waiting the boy at the gate no i never read the poem said mr but i d know it was in a minute he has such a command of language yes said the poet with an uneasy glance at the idiot it is but what was the poem about the boy	27
at the gate said the idiot the idea was that the was standing there for centuries waiting for the boy who never turns up it really is a beautiful thought put in mr it is i presume an to contrast faithful devotion and constancy with and w such occur only to the wholly gifted it is only to the poetic temperament that the conception of such a thought can come coupled with the ability to voice it in fitting terms there is a grandeur about the lines the idiot has quoted that the master mind very true said the school master and i take this opportunity to say that i am most agreeably surprised in the idiot it is no small thing even to be able to repeat a poet s lines so carefully and with so great and so accurately as i can testify that he has just done don t be too pleased mr said the idiot i only wanted to show mr that you and mr mines of information though you are have not as yet worked up a corner on knowledge to the of the rest of us and with these words the idiot left the table he is a queer fellow said the school master he is full of pretence and but he is sometimes almost brilliant what you say is very true said mr i think he has just escaped new york library ir vo x and til i n ro i at r l a smart man i wish we could take him in hand mr and make him more of a fellow than ho is later in the day the poet met the idiot on the stairs i say he said i ve looked all through and i can t find that poem i know you can t returned the idiot because it isn t there never wrote it it was a little thing of my own i was only trying to get a rise out of mr and his reverence with it you have frequently appeared impressed by the undoubtedly impressive manner of these two gentlemen i wanted to show you what their opinions were worth thank you returned the poet with a smile don t you want to go into with me and write for the funny papers it would be a splendid thing for me your ideas are so original and i can see fun in everything too said the idiot thoughtfully yes returned the poet even in my serious poems which remark made the idiot blush a little but he soon recovered his composure and made a firm friend of the poet the first fruits of the have not yet appeared however as for messrs and when they learned how they had been deceived they were so indignant that they did not speak to the idiot for a week viii it was sunday morning and mi as was his wont on the first day of the week appeared at the breakfast table severe as to his mien working on sunday on his mind the idiot said to the but i don t see why it should the luxury ot rest that he allows himself the other six days of the week is surely an for the hours of labor he puts in on sunday but it was not this that on sunday mornings weighed on the mind of the reverend mr he appeared more serious of then because he had begun to think of late that his fellow lived too much in the present and ignored almost totally that which might be expected to come he had been revolving in his mind for several weeks the question as to whether it was or was not his christian duty to attempt to in the lives of these with whom the chances of life had brought him in contact he had finally settled it to his own satisfaction that it was his duty so to do and he had resolved as far as lay in his power to direct the conversation at sunday morning s breakfast into spiritual rather than into matters so as mrs was pouring the coffee mr began do you gentlemen ever pause in your every day labors and thought to let your minds rest upon the future the possibilities it has in store for us the consequences no thank you said the idiot then turning to mr he added i can t answer for the other gentlemen at this board but i can assure you mr that i often do so it was only last night sir that my genial friend who and i were discussing the future and its possibilities and i venture to assert that there is no more profitable food for reflection anywhere in the of the mind than that of the mind is excellent said the school master with a touch of sarcasm in his voice perhaps you would not mind open ing the door to your mental and letting us peep within at the stores you keep there i am sure that on the subject in hand your views cannot fail to be original as well as i am also sure said mr somewhat surprised to hear the idiot speak as he did having sometimes ventured to doubt if that minded young man ever reflected on the serious side of life i am also sure that it is most gratifying to hear that you have done some thinking on the subject i am glad you are gratified mr replied the idiot but i am far from taking undue credit to myself because i reflect upon the future and its possibilities i do not see how any man can fail to be interested in the subject particularly when he considers the great strides science has made in the last twenty years i fail to see said the school master what the strides of science have to do with	27
it you fail to see so often mr returned the idiot that i would advise your eyes to make an in favor of your pupils i j i must confess put in mr that i too am somewhat er somewhat up a tree as to science s connection with the future the idiot you have my meaning but hardly the i should have chosen replied the minister my style is rather said the idiot i appreciate the flattery implied by noticing it but science has everything to do with it it is science that is going to make the future great it is science that has distance and the has just begun twenty years ago it was hardly possible for a man standing on one side of the street to make himself heard on the other the properties of the atmosphere not being w hat they should be today you can stand in the pulpit of your church and by means of certain scientific apparatus make yourself heard in boston new or san has this no bearing on the future the time will come mr when your will be able to sit in their comfortable and ring up the heathen in foreign and convert them over the without run the new york public library and f ns a l o the slightest danger of falling into the soup which expression i use in its literal rather than in its sense but interrupted mr now wait please said the idiot if science can degrees of distance who shall say that before many days science may not degrees of time if san thousands of miles distant can be brought within range of the ear why cannot be brought before the mind s eye and if can be brought before the mind s eye what is to prevent the invention of a which shall enable us to cast a w hich shall reach all around eternity and half way back if not further you do not understand me said mr when i speak of the future i do not mean the future i know exactly what you mean said the idiot i ve dealt in and i am familiar with all kinds it is you sir that do not understand me my claim is perfectly plausible and in its results is bound to make the better do you suppose that any man who by the aid of my sees that on a certain date in the future he w ill be hanged for murder is going to fail to provide himself with an in regard to that particular murder and must we not admit that having provided himself with that he will of necessity avoid and so avoid the gallows that s reasonable so in regard to all the thousand and one other that go to make this life a sinful one science by a purely logical advance along the lines already out for itself and in part already traversed will enable men to avoid the and reap only the of life we shall all sec what terrible consequences await on a single and we shall not make the can you still claim that science and the future have nothing to do with each other you are talking of matters purely said mr i have reference to our spiritual future and the two observed the idiot are so closely allied that we cannot separate them the proverb about looking after the and letting the pounds take care of themselves applies here i believe that if i take care of my future which by does not exist my spiritual future will take care of itself and if science places the hereafter before us and you admit that even t r vo k library and foundations r l i now it is before us all we have to do is to take advantage of our opportunities and mend our lives accordingly but if science shows you what is to come said the school master it must show your fate with perfect accuracy or it ceases to be science in which event your entertaining notions as to reform and so on are entirely not at all said the idiot we are approaching the time when science which is much more liberal than any other branch of knowledge will sacrifice even truth itself for the good of mankind you ought to start a company suggested the doctor either that or make himself the of an insane asylum observed the school master i never knew a man with such views as those we have heard this morning there is a great deal mr that you have never known returned the idiot stick by me and you ll die with a mind richly stored the school master left the table with such manifest impatience that mr was sorry he had started the conversation the genial gentleman who occasionally and the idiot withdrew to the latter s room where the former observed what are you driving at anyhow where did you get those crazy ideas i ate a last night and dreamed em returned the idiot i thought as much said his companion wliat fine dreams are anyhow ix breakfast was very nearly over and it was of such good quality that very few remarks bad been made finally the ball was set rolling by the lawyer how many of do you smoke a day he asked as the idiot took one from his pocket and placed it at the side of his coffee cup never more than forty six said the idiot why do you think of starting a stand not at all said mr brief i was only wondering what chance you had to live to maturity that all your maturity period will be in about eight hundred and sixty years from now the way i calculate and it seemed to me that judging from the of you smoke you	27
were not likely to last through more than two or three of those years oh i expect to live longer than that said tlie idiot i think i m good for at least four years don t you doctor i decline to have anything to say about your case retorted the doctor whose feeling towards the idiot was not affectionate in that event i shall probably live five years said the idiot the doctor s lip curled but he remained silent you ll live put in mr with a chuckle the good die young how did you happen to keep alive all this time then mr asked the idiot i have always tobacco in e for one thing said mr i am surprised put in the idiot that s really a bad habit and i marvel greatly that you should have done it the school master frowned and looked at the idiot over the of his glasses as was his wont when he was intent upon getting explanations done what he asked severely tobacco replied the idiot you just said that one of the things that has kept you lingering in this of tears was that you have always tobacco i never did that and i never shall do it because i deem it a detestable diversion i didn t say anything of the sort retorted mr getting red in the face i never said that i tobacco in any form oh come said the idiot with impatience what s the use of talking that way we all heard what you said and i have no doubt that it came as a shock to every member of this assemblage it certainly was a shock to me because with all my weaknesses and bad habits i think tobacco bad the worst part of it is that you it in every form a man who tobacco only may some time throw off the habit but when one gets to be such a victim to it that he up cigars and and of pipe tobacco it seems to me he is it is not only a bad habit then it to a vice mr was getting you know well enough that i never said the words you attribute to me he said sternly really mr returned the idiot with an shake of his head as if he were to the school master to keep quiet really pain me by these futile nobody forced you into the confession you made it entirely of your own now i ask you as a man and brother what s the use of saying anything more about it we believe you to be a person of the but when you say a thing before a of listeners one minute and deny it the next we are forced to one of two conclusions neither of which is pleasing we must conclude that either your confession you sacrifice the truth or that the habit to which you have confessed has entirely destroyed your perception of the moral question involved undue use of tobacco has i believe driven men crazy eating has destroyed all regard for truth in one whose word had always been regarded as good as a government bond i presume the undue use of tobacco can accomplish the same sad result by the way did you ever try is ruin said the doctor mr s indignation being so great that he seemed to be unable to find the words he was evidently desirous of at the idiot it is indeed said the idiot i knew a man once who smoked one little of it and while under its influence sat down at his and wrote a story of the supernatural order that was so good that everybody said he must have stolen it from or some other master of the weird and now nobody will have anything to do with him tobacco however in the sane use of it is a good thing i don t know of anything that is more satisfying to the tired man than to lie back on a sofa of an evening and puff clouds of smoke and rings into the air one of the finest dreams i ever had came from smoking i had blown a great mountain of smoke out into the room and it seemed to become real and i climbed to its summit and saw the most beautiful country at my feet a country in which all men were happy where there were no troubles of any kind where no whim was left where were not and where every man who made more than enough to live on paid the into the common treasury for the use of those who hadn t made quite enough it was a national of the golden it rule and i maintain that if smoking were bad so good even in tlie abstract form of an idea could come out of it that s a very nice thought said the poet like to put that into verse the idea of a people dividing up their of wealth among the less successful is beautiful you can have it said the idiot with a pleased smile i don t write poetry of that kind myself unless i work hard and i ve found that when the poet works hard he produces poems that read hard you are welcome to it another time i was over my cigar after a day of the hardest kind of trouble at the office everything had gone wrong with me and i was blue as i came home here lit a cigar and threw myself down upon my bed and began to puff i felt like a man in a deep pit out of which there was no way of getting i closed my eyes for a second and to all and purposes i lay in that pit and then what did tobacco do for me why it lifted	27
me right out of my prison i thought i was sitting on a rock down in the depths the stars above me they invited me to freedom knowing that freedom i n ik my two t library as or and a l was not then i blew a ring of smoke from my mouth and it began to rise slowly at first and then catching in a current of air it flew upward more rapidly constantly until it disappeared in the darkness above then i had a thought i filled my mouth as full of smoke as possible and blew forth the greatest you ever saw and as it started to rise i grasped it in my two hands it struggled beneath my weight lengthened out into an link and broke and let me down with a dull then i made two rings grasping one with my left hand and the other with my right and they lifted you out of the pit i suppose sneered the i do not say that they did said the idiot but i do know that when i opened my eyes i wasn t in the pit any longer but up stairs in my hall bedroom how awfully mysterious said the doctor well i don t approve of smoking said mr i agree with the london divine who says it is the of it is not prompted by natural instincts it is only the habit of artificial civilization dogs and horses and birds get along without it why shouldn t man im hear hear cried mr clapping his hands where where r put in the idiot that s a great argument dog s don t put up in boarding houses is the therefore the result of a degraded artificial civilization i have seen educated horses that didn t smoke but i have never seen an educated horse or an one for that matter that had even had the chance to smoke or the kind of mouth that would enable him to do it in case he had the chance i have also observed that horses don t read books that birds don t eat mutton that dogs don t go to the opera that don t play the piano at least four legged don t so you might as well argue that since horses dogs birds and get along without literature music mutton and piano playing you ve covered music put in the lawyer who liked to be precise true but piano playing isn t always music returned the idiot you might as well argue because the beasts and the birds do without these things man ought to fish don t smoke neither do they join the police force therefore man should the new york library and e i ther smoke nor become a guardian of the peace nevertheless it is a of insisted mr no it isn t retorted the idiot smoking is the business of it because it has to there there remonstrated mr you mean hear hear i presume said the idiot i mean that you have said enough remarked mr sharply very well said the idiot if i have convinced you all i am satisfied not to say gratified but really mr he added rising to leave the room if i were you i d give up the practice of hold on a minute mr idiot said mr interrupting he was desirous that mr should not be further irritated let me ask you one question does your old father smoke no said the idiot leaning easily over the back of his no what of it nothing at all except that perhaps if he could get along without it you might suggested the clergyman he couldn t get along it if he knew what good tobacco was said the idiot then why don t you introduce him to it asked the minister because i do not wish to make him unhappy returned the idiot softly he thinks his seventy years have been the happiest years that any mortal ever had and if now in his seventy first year he discovered that during the whole period of his manhood he had been deprived through ignorance of so great a blessing as a good cigar he d become like the rest of us living in anticipation of delights to come and not finding bliss in living over the past trust me my dear mr to look after him he and my mother and my life are all i have the idiot left the room and mr put in a greater part of the next half hour in making personal statements to the remaining to the effect that the word he used was and not the one attributed to him by the idiot strange to say most of them were already aware of that fact the progress of invention in this country been very remarkable said mr as he turned his attention from a scientific weekly he had been reading to a towering pile of cakes that mary had just brought in an englishman has just discovered a means by which a ship in distress at sea can write for help on the clouds extraordinary said mr it might be more so observed the idiot the of cakes out of the school master s reach bv a movement of his hand and it will be more so some day the time is coming when the moon itself will be used by some american to his soap business i haven t any doubt that the next fifty years will develop a by means of which a picture of a certain brand of cigar may be projected through space until it seems to be held between the teeth of the man in the moon with a printed legend below it stating that this is hand made tobacco not to or and for sale by all at eighteen for a	27
not with the rapidity which at the present day is responsible for the dreadful of accidents of that sort then finally you pretend to be able to penetrate to the do you asked the clergyman why not it is as easy to imagine the as it is to go half way there returned the idiot finally he will tackle some principle of nature and he ll blow the world to there was silence at the table this at least to be a theory that man should have the to take liberties with principles was quite within reason man being an animal of rare conceit and that the result would about destruction was not at all at with probability i believe it s happened once or twice already said the idiot fi do you really mr with a show of interest upon what do you base this belief well take africa said the idiot take north america what do we find we find in the sands of the a great statue which we call the and about which we know nothing except that it is there and that it keeps its mouth shut we find marvellous in that to day anything that we can do the when discovered was covered by sand now i believe that at one time there were people much further advanced in science than ourselves who made these wonderful things who knew how to do things that we don t even dream of doing and i believe that they like this creature i have predicted got with the centre of gravity and that the world slipped its for a period of time during which time it tumbled into pace and that banks and banks of sand and water and ice thrown out of position simply swept on and over the whole surface of the globe until the earth got into the grip of the rest of the universe once more and started along in a new we know tliat where we are high and dry to day the ocean must once have rolled we know that where the world is now all sunshine and flowers great stood what caused all this change nothing else in my than the of with the forces of nature the poles changed and it wouldn t surprise me a bit that if the north pole were ever found and could be out we should find in that great sea of ice evidences of a former civilization just as in the waste evidences of the same thing have been found i know of a place out west that is literally strewn with shells and yet no man living has the slightest idea how they came there it may have been the bay of a time for all we know it may have been an island for all the world knows who shall say that this little upset of mine found here an bed shook all the out of their bed into space and left their clothes high and dry in a locality which but for those garments would seem never to have known the in his prime off in county on the top of a high hill lies a rock and in the uppermost portion of that rock is a so called pot hole made by nothing else than the drop k of water of a brook and the of pebbles therein it is now beyond the reach of anything in the shape of water save that which falls from the heavens it is certain that this pot hole was never made by a boy with a watering pot by a hired man with a by a workman with a or by any rain storm that ever fell in county there must at some time or another have been a stream there and as streams do not flow and bore pot holes on there must have been a valley there some great took place for that nature must be held responsible mainly but what prompted nature to raise with county millions of years ago and to let it sleep like van ever since nature isn t a she is depicted as a woman but in spite of that she is not she does not act upon impulses there must have been some cause for her behavior in turning valleys into hills in huge cities into of sand and beds into shell and it is my belief that man was the cause he tapped the earth for natural gas he bored in and he bored out and he bored nature to and then nature rose up and smote him and his cities and his beds and she ll do it again unless we go slow there is a great deal in what you say said mr very true said mrs but i wish he d stop saying it the last three dozen cakes have got cold as ice while he was talking and i can t afford such reckless waste nor we mrs said the idiot with a pleasant smile for as t was saying to the this morning your cakes are to my mind the very highest development of our modern civilization and to have even one of them wasted seems to me to be a crime against nature herself for which a second third or fourth shaking up of this earth would be an inadequate punishment this remark so pleased mrs that she ordered the cook to send up a fresh lot of cakes and the guests after eating them to their various duties with light hearts and occupied with work of great importance xi i what would have happened if had not discovered america said the as the company prepared to of the morning meal lie would have gone home disappointed said the idiot with a look of surprise on his h which seemed to indicate that in his opinion the was very dull not to have solved the problem	27
facts wise men always do laugh at truth whenever i advance some new proposition you sit up there next to mrs and indulge in of the most sort if had been one of the wise men of s time there isn t any doubt in my mind that when said the earth was round you d have remarked in spanish there was silence for a minute and then the idiot began again there s another point about this whole business that makes me tired he said it only goes to prove the conceit of these here was a great continent inhabited by countless people a european comes over here and is said to be the of america and is statues of him are scattered all over the world pictures of him are printed in the newspapers and magazines a dozen different varieties of portraits of him are printed on as big as and all for what because he discovered a land that millions of indians had known about for centuries on the other hand when goes back to spain several of the native americans trust their precious lives to his old one of these savages must have been the first american to discover europe where are the statues of the indian who discovered europe where are the showing how he looked on the day when europe first struck his ion where is anybody spending a of dollars getting up a world s fair in of lo s discovery of europe he didn t know it was europe said the didn t know this was america retorted the idiot in fact didn t know anything he didn t know any better than to write a letter to queen and mail it in a that never turned up he didn t even know how to steer his old boat into a real solid continent instead of getting ten days on the island he was an awfully wise man he saw an island with indians and said why this must be india and worst of all if his pictures mean anything he didn t even know enough to choose his face and stick to it don t talk to me unless you want to prove that luck is the greatest of success ill luck is sometimes a of success said mr you are a success as an idiot which appears to me to be extremely unfortunate i don t know about that said the idiot i myself to my company and of course u then you are a school master among school masters a lawyer among lawyers and so forth the what are you when your company is made up of widely characters asked mr brief before the idiot had a chance to reply to the s question i try to be a widely character myself and trying to sit on many fall and become just an idiot said mr that s according to the way you look at it i put my company to the test in the of my mind i the characters of all about me and whatever quality in the that i become thus in the presence of my employer and his office boy i become a mixture of both something of the employer something of an i run errands for my employer and the office boy with you gentlemen i go through the same process the the school master mr brief and the rest of you have been cast into the and i have tried to the result and are an idiot said the school master it is your own name for me gentlemen the new york public li i y and tiu z ro ns r i returned the idiot i presume you have recognized your self and have chosen the title accordingly you were a little hard on me this morning weren t you asked the genial old gentleman who occasionally that evening when he and the idiot were discussing the morning s chat i didn t like to say anything about it but i don t think you ought to have thrown me into the with the rest i wish you had spoken said the idiot warmly it would have given me a chance to say that the grain of sense that once or twice a year the lump of my is directly due to the furnished by yourself here s to you old man if you and i lived alone together what a wise man i should be and then the genial old gentleman went to the cupboard and got out a bottle of port wine that he had been preserving in for ten years this he opened and as he did so he said i ve been keeping this for years my boy it was in my youth to the thirst of the first man who truly appreciated me take it all ai til i with vou the jt with a mile for old i think you ah i think you appreciate yourself as mu b a i do t e new k lt pa y o and b l xii i wonder what it costs to run a flat said the idiot stirring his coffee with the salt spoon a proceeding which seemed to indicate that he was thinking of something else don t you keep an expense account asked the laughed mrs first rate joke said the idiot with a smile but really now i should like to know for how little an apartment could be run i am interested mrs stopped laughing at once the idiot s words were ominous she did not always like his views but she did like his money and she was not at all anxious to lose him as a it s very en ive she said firmly i shouldn t ever advise any one to undertake living in a flat rents are high butcher bills are because	27
the have to pay not only to th cook so that she ll use twice as much as she can give away three or four times as much to the poor as she ought but have to be seen to and boys and all that come high for the reason oh no flat life isn t the life for anybody i say give me a good first class am i not right john yes indeed said mr every time i lived in a flat once and it was an awful nuisance above me lived a who gave lessons at every hour of the day in the room directly over my study so that i was always being disturbed at my work while below me was a music teacher who was all night so that i could hardly sleep worst of all on the same floor with me was a miserable person of tendencies who always my door for his when he came home after midnight and who gave some quite people two floors below to believe that it was i and not he who sang comic songs between three and four o clock in the morning there has not been too much love lost between the and but i cannot be so i as to recommend liim to live in a flat i can bear testimony to the same effect put in mr brief who was two weeks in and anxious to his landlady testimony to the effect that mr sang comic songs in the early morning said the idiot nonsense i i don t believe it i have lived in this house for two years mr and i ve never heard him raise his voice in song yet i didn t mean anything of the sort retorted mr brief you know i didn t don t to me said the idiot to mr he is the man you have wronged what did he say put in mr with a stern look at mr brief i didn t hear what he said i didn t say anything said the lawyer except that i could bear testimony to the effect that your experience with flat life was similar to mine this young person with his customary nerve tries to make it appear that i said you sang comic songs in the early morning i try to do nothing of the sort said the idiot i simply expressed my belief that in spite of what yoa said mr was innocent and i do so because my experience with him has taught me that he is not the kind of man who would do that sort of thing he has neither time voice nor inclination he has an ear two of them in fact and an mind but oh interrupted the school master when i need a you may spare yourself the trouble of flying to my rescue i know i said the idiot but with me it s a question of can and can t i m willing to attack you personally but while i live no other shall do so wherefore i tell mr brief plainly and to his face that if he says you ever sang a comic song he says what is not so you might hum one but sing it never we were talking of i believe said mr yes said the idiot and these persons have changed it from flat talk to sharp talk well anyhow put in mr brief i lived in a flat once and it was anything but pleasant i lost a case once for the simple and only reason that i lived in a flat it was a case that required a great deal of on my part and i invited my to ray home to my plan of action i got interested in the scheme as i unfolded it and spoke in my usual impassioned manner as though addressing a jury and would you believe it the opposing counsel happened to be visiting a friend on the next floor and my eloquence floated up through the air shaft and gave our whole plan of action away we were on the point we had supposed would pierce the enemy s and lay him at our feet for the wholly simple reason that that abominable air shaft had made my move a matter of public knowledge that s a good idea for a play said the idiot a roaring farce could be built up on that basis villain and on one floor innocent victim on floor above plot up air shaft innocent victim villain and say ha ha for three acts and take a back seat in the fourth with a grand showing the in the county jail as a write it up with lots of live stock wandering in and out bring in and and show up some of the of flat life if there be any such call it a hole in the flat and put it on the stage nine hundred nights is the very shortest run it could have which at fifty dollars a night for the author is in good hard dollars mr poet the idea is yours for a say the word thanks said the poet with a smile vm not a then i ll have to do it myself said the idiot and if i do good bye shakespeare that s ro said mr nothing could more effectually ruin the dramatic art than to have you write a play people seeing your work would say here this will never do the stage must be discouraged at all costs a throws the into disgrace an brings shame upon education and an lawyer gives the bar a bad name i think you are just the man to ruin shakespeare then i ll give up my ambition to become a and stick to said the idiot but to come back to your feeling in regard to	27
them is entirely different from that of a friend of mine who has lived in one for ten years he thinks flat life is ideal his children can t fall down stairs because there aren t any stairs to fall down his roof never because he hasn t any t new york library as or and foundations r l roof to and when he and his family want to go off anywhere all he has to do is to lock his front door and go never climb into his front window because they are all eight flights up damp don t trouble him because they are too far down to do him any injury even if they the cares of house keeping are reduced to a cook doesn t spend all her time in the front area with the because there isn t any front area to his flat and in a social way his wife is most delightfully situated because most of her friends live in the same building and instead of having to hire a carriage to go calling in all she has to do is to take the and go from one floor to another if he pines for a change of scene he is high enough up in the air to get it by looking out of his windows over the tops of other buildings into the green fields to the north or looking westward into the state of new instead of taking a drive through the park or a walk all he and his wife need to do is to take a and follow some little path with their eyes then as for expense he finds that he money by means of a co scheme for instance if he wants for dinner and he and his wife cannot eat a whole one he goes shares on the and its cost with his neighbors above and below yes and his neighbors above and below borrow tea and eggs and butter and ice and other things whenever they run short so that in that way he loses all he said mr resolved not to give in he does if he isn t smart said the i i thought of that myself and asked him about it and he told me that he kept account of all that and always made it a point after some neighbor had borrowed two pounds of butter from him to send in before the week was over and borrow three pounds of butter from the neighbor so far his books show that he is sixteen pounds of butter seven pounds of tea one bottle of extract and a ton of ice ahead of the whole house he is six eggs and a box of matches behind in his egg and match account but under the circumstances i think he can afford it but said mrs anxious to know the worst why er why are you so interested well said the idiot slowly i i am contemplating a change mrs a change that would fill me i say it sincerely too with regret if the idiot paused a minute and his eye swept fondly about the table his voice was getting a little too mr noticed it would fill me with regret i say if it were not that in taking up house keeping i am i am to have the assistance of a better half what cried the you you are going to be to be married why not said the idiot imitation is the flattery mr and i am going to flatter him as sincerely as i can by following in his footsteps may i may we ask to whom asked mrs softly said the idiot to mr s daughter mr is or was my employer was is he not now are you going out of business asked mr no but you see when i went to see mr in the matter he told me that he liked me very much and he no doubt i would make a good husband for his daughter but after all he added that i was nothing but a confidential clerk on a small salary and he thought his daughter could do better she couldn t find a better fellow mr idiot said mrs and mr rose to the occasion by nodding his entire acquiescence in the statement thank you very much said the idiot that was precisely what i told mr and i suggested a scheme to him by which his sole objection could be got around you would start in business for yourself said mr in a sense yes said the idiot only the way i put it was that a good confidential clerk would make a good partner for him and he after thinking it over thought i was right it certainly was a novel way out of the said mr brief with a smile i thought so myself and so did he so it was all arranged on the st of next month i enter the firm and on the th i am ah to be married the company warmly congratulated the idiot upon his good fortune and he shortly left the room more overcome by their than he had been by their arguments in the past the few days left passed quickly by and there came a breakfast at mrs s house that was a mixture of joy and sadness joy for his happiness sadness that that table should know the idiot no more among the wedding gifts was a handsomely bound series of volumes including a a dictionary and a little of poems the first of the poet these came together with a card inscribed from your friends of the breakfast table of whom the idiot said when mrs idiot asked for information they my dear next to yourself and my parents are the dearest	27
ni a hand book to ix again x in illustrations i in mouthed the be my blades facing p bay op the whale showing myself i felt as if i had committed some pas the eighth was much and withdrew his i the ma the of the him to the end of the and him into the v ti illustrations bt thb balls of which thb out ng p that thb way hb old always with his wooden leg f the enchanted type v the enchanted writer the it is a strange fact for which i do not expect ever satisfactorily to account and which will receive little even among those who know that i am not given to it is a strange fact i say that the substance of the following pages has itself during a period of six months more or less between the hours of midnight and four o clock in the morning proceeding directly from a type writing machine standing in the corner of my library by unseen hands the machine is a t the enchanted type writer not of recent make it is in f act a of the early which i discovered one morning when from a slight attack of the grip i had remained at home and devoted my time to about in the old books bringing to light long forgotten my boyhood of stuff and other memory things whence the machine came originally i do not recall my impression is that it belonged to a once in the employ of my father who used frequently to come to our house to take down however this maybe the machine had lain hidden by dust and the and of the house for twenty years when as i have said i came upon it unexpectedly old man as i am i shall soon be thirty the fascination of a machine has lost none of its i am as pleased to day watching the wheels of my watch go round as ever i was and to monkey with a type writing apparatus has always brought great joy into the discovery my heart though for give me the pen perhaps i should for the use here of the monkey which of what a friend of mine calls the english to it from what he also calls the language but i shall not do so because to whatever branch of our tongue the may belong it is exactly descriptive and descriptive as no other word can be of what a boy does with things that click and go and is therefore not at all out of place in a tale which i trust will be regarded as a polite one the discovery of the machine put an end to my i cared little for finding old bill and of atlantic cable ends when with a whole morning a type writing machine and a i screw driver before me i could penetrate the mysteries of that useful i shall not endeavor to describe the de ul sensations of that hour of screw ing and they the i the enchanted type writer powers of my pen suffice it to say that i took the whole apparatus apart cleaned it well every joint and then put it together again i do not suppose a old boy could have derived more satisfaction from taking a piano to pieces it was and i resolved that as a reward for the pleasure it had given me the machine should have a brand new ribbon and as much ink as it could and that in brief is how it came to be that this machine of pattern was added to the library to say the truth it was of no more practical use than s dancing bear a plaster cast of which my mantel shelf so that when i it with the i do so i frequently tried to write a jest or two upon it but the results were like sir arthur s experience with the organ into whose depths the lost sank never to return i dashed off the well enough but somewhere between the keys and the types they were lost and the re the discovery when i came to the paper were and once i tried a on the keys exactly how to the j that came oat of it i do not know bat it was to have appealed strongly to or any other of the literary more singular than the was the fact that when i tried to write my name upon this strange machine instead of finding it in all its glorious length written upon the paper i did find william shakespeare printed there in its stead of coarse you will say that in putting the machine together i mixed up the keys and the letters i have no doubt that i did but when i tell you that there have been times when looking at myself in the glass i have fancied that i saw in my face the of the great bard that the of my head is precisely the same as was his that when visiting for the first time every foot of it was with clearly defined recollections to me you will perhaps more the enchanted type writer easily picture to yourself my sensations at the moment however enough of describing the machine in its relation to myself i haye said i think to convince you that whatever its make its age and its it was an extraordinary affair and once convinced of that you may the more readily believe me when i tell you that it has gone into business apparently for itself and incidentally for me it was on the morning of the th of march last that i discovered the curious condition of affairs concerning which i have to write my family do not agree with me as to the date they	27
say that it was on the evening of the th of march that the episode had its beginning but they are not aware for i have not told them that it was not evening but morning when i reached home after the dinner at the club it was at a quarter of three a m precisely that i entered my house and proceeded to remove my hat and coat in which the discovery operation i was interrupted and in a startling manner by a click from the dark recesses of the library a man does not like to hear a click which he cannot comprehend even before he has dined after he has dined however and feels a satisfaction with life which cannot come to him before dinner to hear a mysterious click and from a dark corner at an hour when the world is at rest is not pleasing to say that my heart jumped into my mouth is mild i believe it jumped out of my mouth and against the wall opposite back through my system into my boots all the sins of my past life and they are many i once stepped upon a and i have my neighbor both his man servant and his maid servant though not his wife nor his ox nor his ass because i don t like his wife and he keeps no live stock all my sins i say rose up before me for i expected every moment that a bullet would penetrate my brain or my heart if perchance the whom i suspected of the enchanted type writer a revolver at me aimed at my feet who is there i cried making a display of bravery i did not feel hiding behind our hair sofa the only answer was another click this is serious i whispered softly to myself there are two of em i am in the light they are concealed by the darkness and have there is only one way out of this and that is by i ll pretend i think i ve made a mistake so i addressed myself aloud what an idiot you are i said so that my words could be heard by the if this is the of club dinners you d better give them up that click wasn t a click at all but the of our new eight day clock i paused and from the corner there came a dozen more in quick succession like the of as many great heavens i murmured under the discovery my breath it must be with his forty thieves as i spoke the mystery cleared itself for following close upon a click came the gentle ringing of a bell and i knew then that the type writing machine was in action but this was by no means a discovery who or what could it be that was engaged upon the type writer at that hour a m if a mortal being why was my coming no interruption if a supernatural being what infernal might not the immediate future have in store for me my first impulse was to flee the house to go out into the night and pace the fields possibly to rush out to the links and play a few holes in the dark in order to cool my brow which was rapidly becoming fortunately however i am not a man of impulse i never yield to a mere nerve suggestion and so instead of going out into the storm and certainly i walked boldly into the r the enchanted type writer library to investigate the causes of the very extraordinary incident you may rest well assured however that i took care to go armed myself with a stout stick with a long ugly steel blade concealed within it a cowardly weapon by the way which i permit to rest in my house merely because it forms a part of a collection of weapons acquired through the failure of a comic paper to which i had contributed several articles the editor when the crash came sent me the collection as part payment of what was owed me which i think was very good of him because a great many people said that it was my stuff that killed the paper but to return to the story myself with the i walked boldly into the library and touching the electric button soon had every gas jet in the room giving forth a brilliant flame but these brilliant as they were disclosed nothing in the chair before the machine the latter apparently of my presence went merrily and as rap the discovery idly along as though some expert young woman were in charge imagine the situation if you can a writing machine of ancient make its letters clear but out of accord with the keys confronted by an empty chair three hours after midnight i off page after page of something which might or might not be i could not at the moment determine for two or three minutes i gazed in wonder i was not frightened but i did experience a sensation which comes from contact with the as i gradually grasped the situation and became used somewhat to what was going on i ventured a remark this beats the deuce v i observed the stopped for an instant the sheet of paper upon which the impressions of the letters were being made flew out from under the a pure white sheet was as quickly and the keys off the line what does the enchanted type writer i the line was in response to my assertion so i replied you do what has taken possession of you to night that you start in to write on your own hook having resolutely declined to do any writing for me ever since i rescued you from the dust and dirt and of the you never rescued me from any the	27
machine replied you d better go to bed youve dined too well i imagine when did you rescue me from the and dirt and the of any r what an ungrateful machine you are i i cried if you have sense enough to go into writing on your own account you ought to have mind enough to remember the years you spent up stairs under the roof neglected and covered with family portraits and bills really my dear fellow the machine tapped back i must repeat it bed is the place for you you re not mm the discovery fm not a machine and upon my honor ive never seen you re old not a machine r i cried then what in heaven s name are you a don t be sarcastic my dear fellow replied the machine of course i m not a machine i m jim jim what i roared you a thing with keys and type and a bell i haven t got any keys or any type or a bell what on earth are you talking about replied the machine what have you been eating what that i asked putting my hand on the keys that s keys was the answer and these and that i added indicating the type and the bell type and bell replied the machine and yet you say you haven t got them i persisted no i haven t the machine has got them not i was the response i m not the machine i m the man that s the enchanted type writer using it jim jim what good would a bell do me fm not a cow or a fm the editor of the and come here to copy off my notes of what i see and hear and besides all this i do type writing for various people in and as this machine of yours seemed to be of no use to you i thought try it but if you object n go as i read these lines upon the paper i stood amazed and delighted go i cried as the full value of his patronage of my machine dawned upon me for i could sell his copy and he would be none the worse off for as i understand the laws they are not designed to benefit authors but the protection of type why my dear fellow it would break my heart if having found my machine to your taste you should ever think of using another lend you my too if you d like it in fact anything i have is at your command thank you very much returned the discovery well the of the keys as usual i shall not need your but this machine is of great value to me it has several very remarkable qualities which i have never found in any other machine for instance singular to relate and i were about here the other night and when he saw this machine he thought it was a of some new pattern j so what does he do but sit down and play me one of his songs without words on it and by jove i when he got through there was the theme of the whole thing printed on a sheet of paper before him you don t really mean to say i began i m telling you precisely what happened said was to death with it and he played every song without words that he ever wrote and every one of em was fitted with words which he said absolutely conveyed the ideas he meant to bring out with the music then i tried the ma the enchanted type writer and discovered another thing about it it s intensely american i had a story of alexander his that he wanted translated from french into american which is the language we speak below in preference to german french or english i thought copy off a few lines of the french original and as true as i m sitting here before your eyes where you can t see me the copy i got was a good though rather free translation think of it that s an advanced machine for you i looked at the machine wistfully i wish i could make it work i said and i tried as before to tap off my name and got instead only a confused of letters it wouldn t even pay me the compliment of my name into that of shakespeare as it had previously done it was thus that the magic qualities of the machine were made known to me and out of it the following have grown i have set them down without much the discovery ing or alteration and now submit them to your inspection hoping that in them you will derive as much satisfaction and delight as i have in being the possessor of so wonderful a machine by so interesting a person as jim jim as he always calls himself and others who as you will note if perchance you have the patience to read further have upon occasions honored my machine by using it i must add in behalf of my own reputation for honesty that mr has given to me all right title and interest in these papers in this world as a return for my permission to him to use my machine what if they make a hit and bring in barrels of gold in he said i can t take it back with me where i live so keep it yourself ii mr some late news of i i was a little late in the next night he had agreed to be on hand exactly at midnight but it was after one o clock before the machine began to click and the bell to ring i had fallen asleep in the soft depths of my feeling	27
fair trial based upon that and that anyhow under no circumstances should a wholly innocent person be made to suffer for the crimes of another these journals were suppressed but the next day a set of new papers were started to the same theories as to individual rights the province of declared itself independent of some late news of the throne and set up in the business of government for itself declared for the emperor but insisted upon home rule for cities of its own class and finally as i informed you at the beginning washington and caesar went in person to and demanded a constitution that was day before yesterday and just what will come of it we don t as yet know because washington and and have not been seen since but we have great fears for them because seventeen car loads of and a thousand extra tons of coal were ordered by the lord high steward of the palace to be delivered to the minister of justice last night quite a said i the of has begun at last how does society regard the affair observed society hates the government as much as anybody and really believes in the emperor s powers but on the other hand it desires to maintain all of its own the enchanted type writer aristocratic privileges the main trouble in at present is the gradual of society that is to say its former parts are beginning to themselves the one from the other like capital and labor here i in a sense yes possibly more like your and daughters of the revolution for instance great are in process of formation people are beginning to flock together for purposes of protection charles the first and henry the eighth and louis j the have established ye ancient and honorable order of kings to which only those who have actually worn crowns shall be eligible the painters have gotten together with a society of fine arts the have formed a society of and all the authors from down to myself have got up an authors club where we have a lovely time talking about ourselves no man to some late news of be eligible who hasn t written something that has lasted a hundred years perhaps if you are thinking of coming over soon you ll let me put you on our r i smiled at his seeming and let myself into his i haven t written anything that has lasted a hundred years yet said i oh yes i think you have replied and the machine seemed to laugh as he wrote out his answer i saw a joke of yours the other day that s two hundred centuries old showed it to me and said that it was a great favorite with his grandfather who had inherited it from one of his remote ancestors a hot retort was on my lips but i had no wish to offend my guest so i smiled and observed that i had frequently indulged in unconscious of that sort i should imagine hastened to add that to men like charles the first this the enchanted type writer uncertainty as to the safety of would be great joy i hardly know returned that very question has been discussed among us charles made a great outward show of grief when he heard of the coal being delivered at the office of the minister of justice and we all thought him quite but it out just before i left to come here that he sent his private secretary to the palace with a hat and a palm leaf fan for with his congratulations that seems to somewhat of sarcasm and what do you think is likely to be the of the whole trouble i asked oh ultimately is bound to be a republic replied there are too many clever and ambitious among us for the place to go along as a much longer if the place were filled up with poets and society people and things like that it might go on as an forever but you see it some late news of isn t to men of the of alexander the great and and and a thousand other warriors who never were used to taking orders from anybody but were themselves the sway of is intolerable and he hasn t made any effort to any of them if he had appointed commander in chief of his army and made a friend of him instead of ordering him to be hanged every month for years or put caesar in as secretary of state instead of having him three times a month for seventy or eighty centuries he would have strengthened his hold as it is he has ignored all these people treats them like personally makes friends with and the office of tax to dick and makes old commander of his imperial guard and just because poor ben off a rhyme for my paper the a rhyme running the enchanted type writer and and form you bet a cabinet to make a donkey laugh and run state the dick and collect the tax the people pay the freight just because wrote that and i it my paper was was boiled in oil for ten weeks and i was seized and thrown into a where a lot of savages from the south sea islands the old between my shoulder blades in green letters and not satisfied with this act right under the they added the line in red letters this edition strictly limited to one copy for private circulation only and they every one of em and the rest some late news of signed the personally with pens dipped in it makes a valuable collection of no doubt but i prefer my back as nature made it talk about enlightened government under a man who ll permit things like that to be done i ought not	27
to have done it but i couldn t help smiling i must say i observed that the treatment was barbarous but really i do think it showed a sense of humor on the part of the government no doubt replied with a sigh but when the joke is on me i don t enjoy it very much fm only human and should prefer to observe that the government had some sense of justice the apparently empty chair before the machine gave a slight forward and the type writer began to tap again you ll have to excuse me now observed through the usual medium i have wo k to do and if you ll go to bed like a good fellow while i copy off the enchanted type writer the minutes of the last meeting of the authors club ni see that you don t lose anything by it after i get the minutes done i have an interesting story for my sunday paper from the advance sheets of s further recollect which i shall take great pleasure in leaving for you when i depart if you will take the bundle of manuscript i leave with you and boil it in for ten minutes you will be able to read it and no doubt if you copy it off sell it for a goodly sum it is absolutely genuine very well said i rising i ll go but i should think you would put in most of your time at the government instead of going in for minutes and abstract stories of adventure you do eh said well if you were in my place you d change your mind after my unexpected by the emperor and his cabinet i ve decided to keep out of politics for a little while i can stand having a poem some late news of on my back but if it came to having a three column expressing my emotions alongside of my i m afraid disappear into thin air so i left him at work and retired the next morning i found the promised bundle of and after boiling the pages as instructed the following tale i iii from advance sheets of baron s further recollections it is with some very considerable hesitation that i come to this portion of my personal recollections and yet i feel that i owe it to my fellow citizens in this delightful country where we are all enjoying our well earned rest to lay before them the exact truth concerning certain incidents which have now passed into history and for in which a number of familiar figures are gaining all the credit or as the case may be it is not a pleasant task to expose an much less is it agreeable to expose four but to one who from the earliest times and when i say earliest times i speak as you further recollections will see as you read on to one i say who from earliest times has been by no other motive than the of truth the task of exposing fraud becomes a duty which cannot be ignored therefore with regret i set down this chapter of my regardless of its consequences to certain figures which have been of no importance in our community for many years figures which in my own favorite club the associated shades have been most welcome but which as i and they alone know have been nothing more than in previous volumes i have confined my attention to my as baron but dear reader there are others was not always baron i have been others i am not aware that it has fallen to the lot of any but myself in the whole span of universal existence to live more than one life upon that curious compact little ball of land and water called the earth but in any event to me has fallen that privilege or distinction or the enchanted type writer whatever it may be and upon the record made by me in four separate placed centuries apart four of this sphere are their claims to notice securing election to our clubs and even venturing so far at times as to make themselves personally to me who with a word could expose their wicked deceit in all its naked to an astounded community and in taking this course they have gone too far there is a limit beyond which no man shall dare go with me satisfied with the ultimate of my virtues in the baron i have been disposed to allow the to pursue their deception in peace so long as they otherwise behave themselves but when adam chooses to allude to my writings as lies when attacks my right as a literary person to tell tales of when states that my ignorance in matters is colossal and when william shakespeare publicly me as a person unworthy of belief who should be l ai further recollections from the associated shades then do i consider it time to speak out and expose t onr of the greatest that have ever heen inflicted upon a long suffering public to begin at the beginning then let me state that my first recollection dates back to a beautiful summer morning when in a lovely garden i opened my eyes and became conscious of two very material facts first a charming woman arranging her hair in the mirror like waters of a silver lake directly before me and second a pain in my side as though i had been upon for but which in reality resulted from the loss of a which had in turn into the charming and very human being i now saw before me that woman was eve that mirror like lake was set in the midst of the garden of i was adam and not this watery eyed calling himself by my name who is a familiar figure in the society an	27
authority on and a blot upon civilization the enchanted type writer i have little to say this first of mine it was full of delights speech not having been invented eve was an attractive companion to a man as i was with and onr children were born we wont onr in happiness and silence it is not in the nature of things however that children not wish to talk and it was through the irrepressible efforts of gain and to be heard as well as seen that first called the attention of eve and myself to the of expressing our in words rather than by signs i shall not my readers with further recollections of this period it was primitive of necessity but before leaving it i must ask the reader to put one or two questions to himself in this matter st how is it that this bearded who now as the only original adam has never been able with any degree of to answer the a further recollections tion as to whether or not he was provided with a a question which i am prepared to answer definitely at any moment if called upon by the proper authorities and if need be to produce not only the tail itself but the fierce and that bit it off upon that unfortunate autumn afternoon when he and i had our first and last conflict d why is it that when describing a period concerning which he is supposed to know all he seems to have given voice to sentiments in phrases which would have delighted and shed added glory upon the eloquence of at a time when as i have already shown there was no such thing as speech f upon these two points alone i rest my case against adam the first is the of guilt he doesn t know and he knows he doesn t know the second is a deliberate and offensive which shows again that he doesn t know and that we are all equally ignorant the enchanted type writer so much for adam now for the cheap and year ridden person who has taken unto himself my second personality and that other strange combination of woe and wickedness who has chosen to pre my third i shall deal with both at one and the same time for taken separately they are not worthy of notice that i know nothing of i will accept the charge with the that i know a great sight more about than he does and as for i can give points on and i challenge them both to a match for a side in gold to see which can give to the world the most interesting reminiscences concerning the of the two craft in question the ark and the upon neither of which did either of these two ever set foot and of both of which i in my two respective was commander in chief the fact is that as in the case of the adam these two are further recollections the man now as was my hired man in the latter part of the period was discharged three years before the flood was left on shore at the hour of departure and when last seen by me was sitting on the top of an apple tree begging to be taken back without wages offering to do two men s work for nothing if we d only let him out of the wet if he will at any time submit to a cross examination at my hands as to the principal events of that memorable voyage i will show to any fair minded judge how impossible is his claim that he was in command or even afloat after the first week i have hitherto kept silent in this matter in spite of many and repeated outrageous for the sake of his or rather my family who have been deceived as have all the rest of us of course myself to portraits of leading citizens of that period will easily show how this can be we were all alike as two peas in the days and at a time when men reached the enchanted type writer to an advanced age is not known now it frequently became almost impossible to distinguish one old man from another i will say finally in regard to this person that if he can give to the public a statement telling the essential differences between a and a double that will not prove utterly absurd to an educated person i will withdraw my accusation and resign from the club but i know well he cannot do it and he does too and that is about the extent of his knowledge now as to i really dislike very much to tread upon this worthy s toes and i should not do it had he not chosen to clap an upon a volume of tales of the which i wrote for children last summer claiming that i was upon his and feeling that i as a self respecting man would never claim the of having myself been the person he claims to have been i will candidly confess that i am not proud of my achievements as i was a further recollections very person even before i embarked npon the seas as lord high admiral of h m s i was not a pleasant person to know if i spent the night with a friend his roof would fall in or his house would burn down if i bet on a horse he would lead up to the home stretch and fall down dead an inch from the finish if i went into a stock speculation i was invariably caught on a rising or a falling market in my youth i spoiled every party i went on by a gale when i came out the moon went behind a cloud and people who began by	27
with regret but the of these impudent of my various has grown too great to be longer borne i lay the simple story of their before you for what it is worth i have done my duty if after this exposure the public of choose to receive them in their homes and at their clubs and as guests at their functions they will do it with a full knowledge of their in conclusion fearing lest there be some among the readers of this paper i have allowed my friend the editor of this esteemed journal which is to publish this story exclusively on sunday next free access to my and he has selected as of evidence to which i earnestly call your attention the of d the enchanted type writer the cuts which illustrate this chapter i a full length portrait of eve as she appeared at our first meeting ii portraits of and at the ages of two five and seven iii the original plans and of the ark iv of her commission v portrait sketch of myself and the false made at the time and showing how difficult it would have been for any member of my family save myself to tell us apart vi a ray photograph of the whale showing myself the original seated inside vii of the shakespeare proving that he knew neither how to write nor to spell and so of course proving effectually that i was not the author of his works it must be confessed that i read this article of s with amazement further recollections and i awaited with excited curiosity the coming again of the of my type writing machine surely a revelation of this nature should create a sensation in and i was anxious to learn how it was received did not however and for five nights i fairly raged with the fever of curiosity but on the sixth night the familiar of the bell announced an arrival and i flew to the machine and cried old chap how did it come out the reply was as great a surprise as i have yet had for it was not jim who answered my question iv a chat with the machine stopped its the moment i spoke and the words old chap v were no sooner than my face grew red as a pink i felt as if i had committed some dreadful pas and instead of gazing into the vacant chair as i had been wont to do in my conversation with my eyes fell as though the invisible of the chair were regarding me with a look of indignant scorn i beg your pardon i said i should think you might returned the types old chap is no way to address a woman youve never had the honor of meeting even if she is of the a chat with most advanced sort no amount of in a woman gives to a man the right to be to her i didn t know i explained miss i madame interrupted the machine not miss i am a married woman sir which makes of your an even more act it is well enough to affect a good fellowship with young unmarried females but when you attempt to be with a married woman but i didn t know i tell you i appealed how should i i supposed it was i was talking to and he and i have become very good friends said the machine you re a of s eh well not exactly a but i began but you go with him interrupted the lady to an extent yes i confessed and does he go with you was the if he does permit me to depart the enchanted type writer at once i should not feel quite in my element in a house where the editor of a sunday newspaper was an attractive guest if you like that sort of thing your u tastes i i do not madame i replied quickly i prefer the habit to the sunday newspaper habit and if i thought was merely a of what is known as sunday literature which depends upon the goodness of the day to its i should forbid him the house a distinct sigh of relief from the chair then i may remain was the remark rapidly off on the machine i am glad said i and may i ask whom i have the honor of addressing certainly was the immediate response my name is i i instinctively candidly i was afraid never in my life before had i i met a woman whom i feared never a chat with in my life have i wavered in the of the sex which cheers but i have always felt that while i could hold my own with elizabeth withstand the of and manage the even as did was another story altogether and i wished i had gone to the club my first impulse was to call up stairs to my wife and have her come down she knows how to handle the new woman far better than i do she has never wanted to vote and my are safe in her hands she has frequently observed that while she had many things to be thankful for her greatest blessing was that she was born a woman and not a man and the new women of her native town never leave her presence without wondering in their own minds whether or not they are mere humorous of the almighty to a too serious world i pulled myself together as best i could and feeling that my better half would perhaps decline the proffered invitation to meet with one of the enchanted type writer the most of her sex i decided to fight my own so i merely said really how delightful i have always felt that i should like to meet you and here is one of	27
my wishes gratified i felt cheap after the remark for mrs covered five sheets of paper with laughter with an occasional of the word such as we find in the daily newspapers throughout the speeches of a candidate of another party finally to my relief the ha ha ha i ceased and the line i never should have guessed it closed her immediate contribution to our of ideas may i ask why you laugh i observed when she had at length finished certainly she replied far be it from me to dispute the right of a man to ask any question he sees fit to ask is he not the lord of creation is not woman s a chat with his abject slave is not the whole difference between them purely is it not the law of supply and demand that rules them both he by nature demanding and she supplying dear reader did you ever encounter a machine man made merely a of ivory iron and ink that could contemptuously i never did before this encounter but the infernal power of either this type writer or this woman who its keys imparted to the atmosphere i was breathing a which i have never experienced anywhere outside of a london hotel and then only when i ventured as few americans have dared to complain of the personage who presided over the dining room but who i must confess was conquered subsequently by a tip of ten shillings at any rate there was a of contempt imparted as i have said to the atmosphere i was breathing as answered my question and the saved the enchanted type writer me just as it did in the london hotels when i complained of the lack of manners on the part of the head waiter i asserted my independence don t trouble yourself i put in of course i shall be interested in anything you may choose to say but as a gentleman i do not care to put a woman to any inconvenience and i do not press the question and then i tried to crush her by adding what a lovely day we have had as if any subject other than the most commonplace was not demanded by the situation if you contemplate discussing the weather was the retort i wish you would kindly seek out some one else with whom to do it i am not one of your latter day sit out on the stairs while dance girls i am as i have always been an ardent admirer of principles of great problems for small talk i have no use very well madame i began a chat with you asked me a moment ago why i laughed the machine i know it said l but i withdraw the question there is no great principle involved in a woman s laughter i have known women who have laughed at a broken hearty as well as at jokes which shows that there is no principle involved there and as a problem i have never cared enough about why women laugh to inquire deeply into it if she ll just consent to laugh i m satisfied without inquiring into the causes thereof let us get down to an agreeable basis for yourself what problem do you wish to discuss servants baby food floor polish or the number of proper to the skirt of a well dressed woman i was confidence in myself and as i talked i ceased to fear her thought i to myself this attitude of supreme patronage is man s safest weapon against a woman keep cool assume that there is no doubt of your superiority and that she knows it appear to the enchanted type writer her and her own indignation will defeat her ends it is a good principle generally among mortal women i have never known it to fail and when i find myself in an argument with one of man s greatest blessings i always fall back npon it and am saved the of defeat but this time i counted without my will you repeat that list of problems she asked coldly servants baby food floor polish and i repeated somewhat she took it so coolly very well said with a note of amusement in her of the keys if those are your subjects let us discuss them i am surprised to find an able man like yourself with such problems but help you out of your difficulties if i can no man shall ever say that i ignored his cry for help what do you want to know about baby food this turning of the tables l vi a chat with me and i didn t really know what to say and so wisely said nothing and the machine grew sharp in its you men r it cried you don t know how fearfully shallow you are i can see through you in a minute well i said modestly i suppose you can then calling my feeble wit to my rescue i added it s only natural since i ve made a spectacle of myself not you cried you haven t even made a of yourself and here we both laughed and the ice was broken what has become of i asked he s been sent to the for ten days for shakespeare and adam and and old replied he printed an article alleged to have been written by baron in which those four gentlemen were held up to ridicule and and i cried oh the baron got out of it by confess the enchanted type writer ing that he wrote the article replied the lady and as he swore to his confession the jury were convinced he was telling another one of his lies and him was sent up alone that s why i am here there isn t a man in all that dared take charge of paper they re all	27
the enchanted type writer had never met before and besides doctors do not always take their own medicine but that women ought to become good fellows is what you re going to advocate eh said i yes replied it s excellent don t you think superb i answered for it s just my idea of how things ought to be in i think however that we mortals will stick to the old plan for a little while yet most of us prefer to marry wives rather than old the remark seemed so to affect my visitor that i suddenly became conscious of a sense of loneliness i don t wish to offend you i said but i rather like to keep the two separate aren t you man enough yet to see the value of variety but there was no answer the lady had gone it was evident that she considered me unworthy of farther attention the of my interview with i hesitated to approach the type writer for a week or two it did a great deal of after the midnight hour had struck and i was consumed with curiosity to know what was going on but i did not wish to meet mrs again so i held aloof until well should have his sentence i was no longer afraid of the woman but i do fear the good fellow of the weaker sex and i deemed it just as well to keep out of any and all that might arise from a casual conversation with a creature of that sort an agreement with a real good fellow even when it ends in a row is more the enchanted type writer or less but a with a female good fellow places a man at a disadvantage the ad is not an easy thing with men but with women it is impossible hence i let the type writer click and ring for a fortnight finally to my relief i recognized s touch upon the keys and sauntered up to the side of the machine is this jim i inquired a that s left of him was the answer how have you been very well said i and then it seemed to me that tact required that i should not seem to know that he had been in the jail of the country so i observed you ve been off on a eh how do you know that was the immediate response well i put in you ve been absent for a fortnight and you look more or less ah burned the of yes i am replied the editor very much burned in fact i ve been er been playing with a friend down in i envy you i observed with an inward chuckle you wouldn t if you knew the links replied sadly they re awfully hard i don t know any harder course than the and then i became conscious of a gaze fastened upon me see here the machine i thought i was invisible to you if so how do you know i look burned i was and there was only one way out of it and that was by telling the truth well you are invisible old chap i said the fact is i ve been told of your trouble and i know what you have undergone and who told you your successor on the madame i replied oh that woman that woman moan the enchanted type writer ed the medium of the keys has she been here using this machine too why didn t you stop her before she ruined me completely ruined you i cried well next thing to it replied she s run my paper so far into the ground that it will take an almighty powerful grip to pull it out again why my dear boy when i went to to the i had a circulation of a million and when i came back that woman had brought it down to eight copies seven of which have already been returned all in ten days too how do you account for it i asked side talks with men helped and the man s corner did a little but the page did the most of it it was given over wholly to the advancement of certain ideas which were very offensive to my women readers and which found no favor among the men she wants to change the whole social structure she thinks men and women the of are the same kind of animal and that both need to be educated on precisely the same lines the girls to be taught business the boys to go through a course of domestic training she called for for a cooking school for boys and demanded the of a commercial college for girls and wound up by upon a uniform dress for both sexes i tell you if you d worked for years to establish a dignified newspaper the way i have it would have broken your heart to see the suggested fashion plates that woman printed the uniform dress was a holy terror it was a combination of all the worst features of modern garb trousers were to be universal and sensible masculine coats were discarded entirely and puffed dress coats were stiff were in favor of ribbons and up everywhere imagine it if you can and everybody in all was to be forced into garments of that sort r the enchanted type writer i should enjoy seeing it i said possibly but you wouldn t enjoy wearing it retorted the machine and then that woman s funny column it was frightful you never saw such jokes in your life every one of them contained a covert attack upon man there was only one good thing in it and that was a bit of verse called fair play for the little girls it went like this	27
if little boys when they are young can go about in skirts and wear upon their little backs small girlish shirts pray why cannot the little girls when have a chance to on their little ways in little pairs of that isn t at all bad said i smiling in spite of poor well s woe if the rest of the paper was on a par with that i don t see why the circulation fell off well she took liberties that s all said for instance in her side talks with men she had something like the of this napoleon it is rather difficult to say what you can do with your last season s cocked hat if you were to purchase five yards of one inch blue ribbon cut it into three of equal length and fasten one end to each of the three corners of the hat tying the other ends into a it would make a very acceptable work basket to send to your grandmother at christmas now napoleon never asked that woman for advice on the subject then there was an answer to a purely inquiry from solomon which read it all depends on local custom in salt lake city and in london at the time of henry the eighth it was not considered necessary to be off with the old love before being on with the new but the growth of ideas towards the uniform rate of one at a time a purely fling that was at one of my most eminent or rather two of them for both solomon and henry the eighth have yielded to the tendency of the times and the enchanted type writer gone into business which they have paid me well to solomon has established an information where advice can always be had from the as he calls himself on payment of a small fee while henry taking advantage of his superior over any english king that ever lived has founded and liberally advertised his company limited it s a great thing even in for young people to be by an english queen and henry has been smart enough to see it and having seven or eight queens all in good standing he has been doing a great business just look at it from a business point of view there are seven nights in every week and something going on somewhere all the time and queens in demand with a queen quoted so low as a night henry can make nearly a week or a year out of evening alone and when in addition to this parties up the and parties throughout the the of try are being constantly given the man s opportunity to make half a million a year is in plain sight i m told that he over last year and of course he had to to get it and this woman goes out of her way to get in a nasty little fling at one of my for his matrimonial failing utterly to see said i that in marrying so many times henry really paid a compliment to her sex which is without parallel in royal circles well nearly so said there have been other kings who were quite as complimentary to the ladies but henry was the only man among them who insisted on marrying them all true said i henry was eminently proper but then he had to be yes said with a meditative tap on the letter y yes he had to be he was the head of the church you know i know it i put in i ve always had a great deal of sympathy for henry the enchanted type writer he has been very much by posterity he was the father of the really first new woman elizabeth and his other daughter mary was such a person you are a very fair man for an american said not only fair but rare you think about things i try to said i modestly and really thought a great deal about henry and truly seen a reason for his continuous matrimonial performances he set himself up against the pope and he had to be consistent in his he did indeed said a religious discussion is a hard one and henry was consistent in his opposition said i he didn t yield a on any point and while a great many people him on the score of his wives particularly on their number i feel that i have in very truth discovered his principle which was i im the of that the pope was wrong in all things said i so he said commented and being wrong in all things was wrong said i exactly ejaculated well then said i if is wrong the way to protest against it is to marry as many times as you can by jove said tapping the keys as though he wished he might spare his hand to shake mine you are a man after my own heart thanks old chap said i reaching out my hand and shaking it in the air with my visionary friend thanks i ve studied these things with some care and i ve tried to find a reason for everything in life as i know it i have always regarded henry as a moral man as is natural since in spite of all you can say he is the real head of the english church he wasn t willing to be married a second or a seventh time unless he was really a he wasn t as long in taking b iti ij i i the enchanted type writer notice again as some modern that i have met bat i do not him on that score i merely attribute his record to his nature which necessarily a quickness of decision and a decided perception of the necessities which is sadly	27
lacking in people who are born to a lesser station in life england demanded a queen and he invariably met the demand which shows that he knew something of political economy as well as of matrimony and as i see it being an american a man needs to know something of political economy to be a good ruler so many of our have acquired a merely knowledge of the science that we have had many object lessons of the of a merely knowledge of the subject to come right down to it i am a great admirer of henry at any rate he bad the courage of his heart convictions you really surprise me tapped never expected to find an the of so thoroughly in sympathy with kings and their needs oh as for that said i in america we are all kings and we are not without our needs matrimonial and otherwise only our courts are not quite so as henry s little axe but what was henry s attitude towards this extraordinary flight of s wrath said he was very much enraged and withdrew his declined to give our society the usual accounts of the functions his wives and worst of all has withdrawn himself and induced others to withdraw from the i was preparing for my special summer girls issue which is to appear in august on how men propose he and young and solomon and had agreed to dictate accounts of how they had done it on various occasions and queen elizabeth who probably had more proposals to the square minute than any other woman on record was to write the f the enchanted type writer d action this little plan which was really the idea of genius is entirely shattered by mrs s infernal interference nonsense said i don t despair f why don t you come out with a plain statement of the facts you forget my dear sir interposed that one of the j principles of as an institution is that excuses don t count it isn t a place for repentance so much as for and i might nine times a minute for forty years and would still have to suffer the penalty of the offence no there is nothing to be done but to begin my newspaper work again build up again the institution that has destroyed and bear my misfortunes like a true spirit spoken like a philosopher i cried and if i can help you my dear count upon me in anything you may do whether you start a monthly magazine sporting weekly or a purely american sunday newspaper you are welcome to anything i can do for you the of you are very kind returned and if i need your services i shall be glad to avail myself of them just at present however my plans are so fully prepared that i do not think i shall have to call upon you with engaged to write twelve new stories to look after my tales of horror d his personal running my girls department and others too numerous to mention i have a sufficient supply of to fill up but if you feel like writing a few poems for me i may be able to use them as and they may help to make your name so well known in that next year i shall be able to print a worldly letter from you every week with a good chance of its proving popular and with this promise left me to get out the first number of the a sunday magazine for all taking him at his word i sent him the following poem a few days later the enchanted type writer locality i do we drift j souls whose every breath the doom of yet onward upward let it be through all the circles of the years and then pray what alas tis all and never shall be stated yet we drift but i had intended this for one of oar leading magazines bnt it seemed so to lack the quality which is essential to a successful magazine poem in our sphere that i deemed it best to try it on mm vi the ally it was and will no doubt be considered even by those who are not too friendly towards myself a daring idea and it was all my own one night several weeks after the interview with just the idea came to me simultaneously with the first tapping of the keys for the evening upon the enchanted type writer it was s touch that summoned me from my my family were on the eve of departure for a month s rest from care and play in the mountains and i was looking forward to a period of very great loneliness but as and began his work upon the the enchanted type writer machine the great idea flashed across my mind and i resolved to play if for all it was worth jim said i as i approached the vacant chair in which he sat for by this time the great and i had got upon terms of familiarity jim said i got a very gloomy prospect ahead of me well why not he tapped where do you expect to have your gloomy prospects they can t very well be behind you said i you are this evening not at all he replied i have been spending the day with my old time samuel johnson and i am so with that i hardly know where i am from the point oi view you have expressed yourself well i am ill i retorted i don t know how far you are acquainted with home life but i do know that there is no the greater in the world than that of the man who is sick of home i am not an said but i must imitate you to the extent of saying	27

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