"I am about to leave you forever; give me, therefore, one last proof of your affection and fidelity, for, according to our holy religion, a married man seeking admittance at the gate of Heaven is required to swear that he has never defiled himself with an unworthy woman. In my desk you will find a crimson candle, which has been blessed by the High Priest and has a peculiar mystical significance. Swear to me that while it is in existence you will not remarry."
The Woman swore and the Man died.
At the funeral the Woman stood at the head of the bier, holding a lighted crimson candle till it was wasted entirely away.
After examining the papers, the King put them away and promised him an order on the Lord High Treasurer of the Extortion Department for a million tumtums.
"And here," said the Ingenious Patriot, pulling another paper from another pocket, "are the working plans of a gun that I have invented, which will pierce that armour. Your Majesty's Royal Brother, the Emperor of Bang, is anxious to purchase it, but loyalty to your Majesty's throne and person constrains me to offer it first to your Majesty. The price is one million tumtums."
Having received the promise of another check, he thrust his hand into still another pocket, remarking: "The price of the irresistible gun would have been much greater, your Majesty, but for the fact that its missiles can be so effectively averted by my peculiar method of treating the armour plates with a new- "
The King signed to the Great Head Factotum to approach.
"Search this man," he said, "and report how many pockets he has."
"Forty-three, Sire," said the Great Head Factotum, completing the scrutiny.
"May it please your Majesty," cried the Ingenious Patriot, in terror, "one of them contains tobacco."
"Hold him up by the ankles and shake him," said the King; "then give him a check for forty-two million tumtums and put him to death. Let a decree issue declaring ingenuity a capital offence."
"This is a very bad Apollo," said the Sculptor: "the chest is too narrow, and one arm is at least a half-inch shorter than the other. The attitude is unnatural, and I may say impossible. Ah! my friend, you should see my statue of Antinous."
"In my judgment, the figure," said the Critic, "is tolerably good, though rather Etrurian, but the expression of the face is decidedly Tuscan, and therefore false to nature. By the way, have you read my work on 'The Fallaciousness of the Aspectual in Art'?"
"Those," they explained, "will be cheaper than real ones."
"It shall not be said that I sacrificed efficiency to economy," said the Governor. "You shall have real guns."
"Thank you, thank you," cried the warriors, effusively. "We will take good care of them, and in the event of war return them to the arsenal."
"Who are you," said the King, "and what is your business in life?"
"Snouter the Sneak," replied the Object, with ready invention; "pick-pocket."
The King was about to command him to be released when the Prime Minister suggested that the prisoner's fingers be examined. They were found greatly flattened and calloused at the ends.
"Ha!" cried the King; "I told you so! - he is addicted to counting syllables. This is a poet. Turn him over to the Lord High Dissuader from the Head Habit."
"My liege," said the Inventor-in-Ordinary of Ingenious Penalties, "I venture to suggest a keener affliction.
"Name it," the King said.
"Let him retain that head!"
It was so ordered.
When the Stranger with a Club was brought to trial, the complainant said to the Judge:
"I do not know why I was assaulted; I have not an enemy in the world."
"That," said the defendant, "is why I struck him."
"Let the prisoner be discharged," said the Judge; "a man who has no enemies has no friends. The courts are not for such."
"Well," said he, "I have done enough to demonstrate the correctness of my details. The defects," he added, with a look at the ruined brickwork, "are merely basic and fundamental."
Upon this assurance the people came forward with subscriptions to build
a second machine.
So saying, he let fall a great tear, which, encountering in its descent a current of cold air, was congealed into a hail-stone. This struck the Unworthy Man on the head and set him rubbing that bruised organ vigorously with one hand while vainly attempting to expand an umbrella with the other.
Thereat the Angel of Compassion did most shamelessly and wickedly laugh.
"After centuries of oppression I have wrested my rights from the grasp of the jealous gods. On earth I was the Poetess of Reform, and sang to inattentive ears. Now for an eternity of honour and glory."
But it was not to be so, and soon she was the unhappiest of mortals, vainly desirous to wander again in gloom by the infernal lakes. For Jove had not bedeviled her ears, and she heard from the lips of each blessed Shade an incessant flow of quotation from his own works. Moreover, she was denied the happiness of repeating her poems. She could not recall a line of them, for Jove had decreed that the memory of them abide in Pluto's painful domain, as a part of the apparatus.
"Come back here, you scoundrel," he cried.
"If I had been a scoundrel," answered the Shadow, increasing its speed, "I should not have left you."
"Madam," said a Policeman, "I cannot permit you to do that; you would soil your shoes and stockings."
"Oh, that is of no importance, really," replied the Rich Woman, with a cheerful smile.
"But, madam, it is needless; from the wharf to the hotel, as you observe, extends an unbroken line of prostrate newspaper men who crave the honour of having you walk upon them."
"In that case," she said, seating herself in a doorway and unlocking her satchel, "I shall have to put on my rubber boots."
"That," said the Fool, diligently belabouring the animal, "is what I'm trying to teach this beast - which has kicked me."
"Doubtless," said the Philosopher to himself, as he walked away, "the wisdom of fools is no deeper nor truer than ours, but they really do seem to have a more impressive way of imparting it."
"You cruel beast!" cried he. "Why don't you kill it at once, like a lady?"
Rising, he kicked the cat out of the door, and picking up the mouse
compassionately put it out of its misery by pulling off its head. Recalled
to the bedside by the moans of his patient, the Kind-hearted Physician
administered a stimulant, a tonic, and a nutrient, and went away.
"I wish you a merry Christmas," said the First Blighted Being, in a voice like that of a singing tomb.
"And I you a happy New Year," responded the Second Blighted Being, with the accent of a penitent accordeon.
They then fell upon each other's neck and wept scalding rills down each other's spine in token of their banishment to the Realm of Ineffable Bosh. For one of these accursed creatures was the First of January, and the other the Twenty-fifth of December.
"Wretch!" cried the Widow. "Leave me this instant! Is this a time to talk to me of love?"
"I assure you, madam, that I had not intended to disclose my affection," the Engaging Gentleman humbly explained, "but the power of your beauty has overcome my discretion."
"You should see me when I have not been crying," said the Widow.
"Ah," he said, "how disastrous is ambition! how unsatisfying its rewards! how terrible its disappointments! Behold yonder peasant tilling his field in peace and contentment! He rises with the lark, passes the day in wholesome toil, and lies down at night to pleasant dreams. In the mad struggle for place and power he has no part; the roar of the strife reaches his ear like the distant murmur of the ocean. Happy, thrice happy man! I will approach him and bask in the sunshine of his humble felicity. Peasant, all hail!"
Leaning upon his rake, the Peasant returned the salutation with a nod, but said nothing.
"My friend," said the Office Seeker, "you see before you the wreck of an ambitious man, ruined by the pursuit of place and power. This morning when I set out from the national capitaló"
"Stranger," the Peasant interrupted, "if you're going back there soon maybe you wouldn't mind using your influence to make me Postmaster at Smith's Corners."
The traveller passed on.
"Upon what grounds?" asked the District Attorney.
"Lack of evidence to convict," replied the accused.
"Do you happen to have the lack with you?" the official asked. "I should like to see it."
"With pleasure," said the other; "here it is."
So saying he handed the other a check, which the District Attorney carefully examined, and then pronounced it the most complete absence of both proof and presumption that he had ever seen. He said it would acquit the oldest man in the world.
While trying to palliate these misdeeds, the defendant's Attorney turned suddenly to the Judge, saying: "Did your Honour ever lose your temper?"
"I fine you twenty-five dollars for contempt of court!" roared the Judge, in wrath. "How dare you mention the loss of my temper in connection with this case?"
After a moment's silence the Attorney said, meekly: "I thought my client might perhaps have found it."
"There is nothing to appraise," said the Attorney, pocketing his last fee.
"Then," said the Successful Claimant, "what good has all this litigation done me?"
"You have been a good client to me," the Attorney replied, gathering up his books and papers, "but I must say you betray a surprising ignorance of the purpose of litigation."
"No," replied the Thief, "there are some things which I will not takeóamong them your hand."
"You must use a little strategy," said a Philosopher to whom the Successful Man of Business had reported the Thief's haughty reply. "Leave your hand out some night, and he will take it."
So one night the Successful Man of Business left his hand out of his neighbour's pocket, and the Thief took it with avidity.
"Will what I say make any difference?" asked the Convicted Assassin.
"I do not see how it can," the Judge answered, reflectively. "No, it will not."
"Then," said the doomed one, "I should just like to remark that you are the most unspeakable old imbecile in seven States and the District of Columbia."
"Why should I dig it up?" the Physician asked.
"When I bury a bone," said the Dog, "it is with an intention to uncover it later and pick it."
"The bones that I bury," said the Physician, "are those that I can no
longer pick."
"Nothing," the Gentleman replied.
"But you will contribute something to the campaign fund to assist in your election, will you not?" asked the Party Manager, winking.
"Oh, no," said the Gentleman, gravely. "If the people wish me to work for them, they must hire me without solicitation. I am very comfortable without office."
"But," urged the Party Manager, "an election is a thing to be desired. It is a high honour to be a servant of the people."
"If servitude is a high honour," the Gentleman said, "it would be indecent for me to seek it; and if obtained by my own exertion it would be no honour."
"Well," persisted the Party Manager, "you will at least, I hope, endorse the party platform."
The Gentleman replied: "It is improbable that its authors have accurately expressed my views without consulting me; and if I endorsed their work without approving it I should be a liar."
"You are a detestable hypocrite and an idiot!" shouted the Party Manager.
"Even your good opinion of my fitness," replied the Gentleman, "shall not persuade me."
"Well," said he, "I am going to decide your case today. If I should decide in your favour, I wonder how you would express your satisfaction?"
"Sir," said the Man of Experience in Business, "I should risk your anger by offering you one half the sum awarded."
"Did I say I was going to decide that case?" said the Judge, abruptly, as if awakening from a dream. "Dear me, how absent-minded I am. I mean I have already decided it, and judgment has been entered for the full amount that you sued for."
"Did I say I would give you one half?" said the Man of Experience in
Business, coldly. "Dear me, how near I came to being a rascal. I mean,
that I am greatly obliged to you."
"Very well," said the King, "my subjects' wishes are the highest law."
So he disbanded his army and the consumers became producers also. The sale of their products so brought down prices that farming was ruined, and their skilled and unskilled labour drove the artisans and labourers into the almshouses and highways. In a few years the national distress was so great that the Farmer, the Artisan, and the Labourer petitioned the King to reorganize the standing army.
"What!" said the King; "you wish to support those idle consumers again?"
"No, your Majesty," they replied - "we wish to enlist."
"That is all very true," said the Adversary, "but you taught by example
that a verb should not agree with its subject in person and number, whereas
the Good Book says that contention is worse than a dinner of herbs. You
also tried to release the objective case from its thraldom to the preposition,
and it is written that servants should obey their masters. You stay right
here."
"With pleasure," said the Honest Banker; "we shall be glad to do business with you; but first you must make yourself an honest man by restoring what you stole from the Government."
"Good heavens!" cried the Patriot; "if I do that, I shall have nothing to deposit with you."
"I don't see that," the Honest Banker replied. "We are not the whole American people."
"Ah, I understand," said the Patriot, musing. "At what sum do you estimate this bank's proportion of the country's loss by me?"
"About a dollar," answered the Honest Banker.
And with a proud consciousness of serving his country wisely and well
he charged that sum to the account.
"I should think," said Venus, "you might make so trifling a change without bothering me. However, be a woman."
Afterward, wishing to see if the change were complete, Venus caused
a mouse to approach, whereupon the woman shrieked and made such a show
of herself that the Young Man would not marry her.