I guess I will have to tell you’ the rest of the tragedy in my next letter.
Yours with plenty of sand,
Hennery.
CHAPTER XXV.
The Bad Boy and His Dad Climb the Pyramids—The Bad Boy Lights a Cannon Cracker in Rameses’ Tomb—They Flee from Egypt in Disguise.
Cairo, Egypt.—
My Dear Old Geezer: I broke off my last letter in sight of the pyramids, when I was left alone on the desert, my jackass having stampeded with the camels, on account of my fireworks, and I presume you think I was all in, but I got to the pyramids before the stampeded caravan did. I saw a car coming along, and I just got aboard and in ten minutes I was at the base of the big pyramid, and the camel with dad on between the humps, was humping himself half a mile away, trying to get there, and the other camels, with the Arabs, were stretched out like horses in a race, behind, and my jackass was right next to dad’s camel, braying and occasionally kicking dad’s camel in the slats.
There were about a hundred tourists around the stampede of the camels, and I told them my the base of the big pyramid, all looking towards dad, the great American millionaire, was on the runaway camel in advance, and asked them to form a line across the trail and save dad, but when the camel came nearer I was ashamed of dad. He had his arms around the front hump of the camel, and he was yelling for help to stop his menagerie, and his legs were flying in the air, and every time they came down they kicked a hole in the side of the camel.
Well, sir, I thought dad was a brave man, but he blatted like a calf, and when the camel stopped and went to eating a clump of grass dad opened his eyes, and when he saw that the procession had stopped he rolled off his camel like a bag of wheat, and stuck in the sand and began to say a prayer, but when he saw me standing there, laughing, he stopped praying, and said to me: “I thought you were blown up when that jackass kicked the can of dynamite. You have more lives than a cat. Now, get a hustle on you and we will climb that pyramid, and then quit this blasted country,” and dad sat down on a hummock and began to pull himself together, after the most fearful ride he ever had. He said the camel loped, trotted, galloped, single-footed and shied all at the same time, and when one hump was not jamming him in the back the other hump was kicking him in the stomach, and if he had a gun he would shoot the camel, and the Arabs, and bust up the show.
By the time dad got so he could stand up without leaning against a pyramid the Arabs came up and they all talked at once, and drew knives, and it seemed as though they were blaming dad for something. We found an interpreter among the tourists, and he talked with the Arabs, and pointing to the camel dad had ridden, which was stretched out on the sand like he was dead, he told dad the Arabs wanted him to pay for the camel he had ridden to death, and foundered by letting it drink a wagon load of water, and then entered in a race across the desert, and the interpreter said dad better pay, or they would kill him.
Dad settled for the camel for a hundred dollars, and a promise of the skin of the camel, which he was going to take home and have stuffed. Then a man who pretended to be a justice of the peace had dad arrested for driving off of a walk, and he was fined $10 and costs for that, and then all the Arabs stuck him for money for one thing and another, and when he had settled all around and paid extra for not riding back to Cairo on the camel, we got ready to climb up the pyramid. Dad said he wouldn’t ride that camel back to Cairo for a million dollars, for he was split up so his legs began where his arms left off, and he was lame from Genesis to Revelations.
But I never saw such a lot of people to pray as these pirates are. Just before they rob a man they get down on their knees on a rug, and mumble something to some god, and after they have got you robbed good and plenty, they get down and pray while they are concealing the money they took from you. Gee, but when I get home I am going to steer the train robbers and burglars onto the idea of always being on praying grounds.
Well, I told dad he hadn’t better try to climb up the pyramid, that I would go up, ’cause I could climb like a goat, and when I got up to the top I would fire a salute, so everybody would know that a star spangled American was on deck, but dad said he would go up or quit the tourist business. He said he had come thousands of miles to climb the pyramids, and sit in the shadow of the spinks, and by ginger he was going to do it, and so we started.
Well, say, each stone is about four feet high, and dad couldn’t get up without help, so an Arab would go up a stone ahead, and take hold of dad’s hands, and two more Arabs would get their shoulders under dad’s pants, and shove, and he would get up gradually. We got about half way up when dad weakened, and said he didn’t care so much about pyramids as he thought he did, and he was ready to quit, but the guide and some of the tourists said we were right near the entrance to the great tomb of the kings, and that we better go in and at least make a formal call on the crowned heads, and so we went in, through dark passages, with little candles that the guides carried, and up and down stairs, until finally we got into a big room that smelled like a morgue, with bats and evil looking things all around, and I felt creepy.
The guides got down on their knees to pray, and I thought it was time to be robbed again. I do not know what made me think of making a sensation right there in the bowels of that pyramid, where there were corpses thousands of years old, of Egypt’s rulers. I never felt that way at home, when I visited a cemetery, but I though I would shoot my last roman candle and fire my last giant firecracker right there in that moseleum, and take the chances that we would get out alive. So when the tourists were lined up beside a tomb of some Rameses or other, and the guides were praying for strength and endurance, probably, to get away with all the money we had, I picked out a place up toward the roof that seemed full of bats and birds of ill omen, and I sneaked my roman candle out from under my shirt, and touched the fuse to a candle on the turban of a guide who was on his knees, and just as the first fire ball was ready to come out I yelled “Whoop-la-much-a wano, epluribus un-um,” and the fire balls lighted up the gloom and knocked the bats gaily west.
Holy jumping cats, but you ought to have seen the guides, yelling Allah! Allah! and groveling on the floor, and the bats were flying around in the faces of the tourists, and everybody was simply scared out of their boots. I thought I might as well wind the thing up glorious, so I touched the tail of my last giant firecracker to the sparks that were oozing out of my empty roman candle, and threw it into the middle of the great room, and when it went off you would think a cannon had exploded, and everybody rushed for the door, and we fell over each other getting out through the passage towards the door.
I was the first to get out on to the side of the pyramid, and I watched for the crowd to come out. The tourists got out first, and then dad came out, puffing and wheezing, and the last to come out were the Arabs, and they came on their hands and knees, calling to Mr. Allah and every one of them actually pale, and I think they were conscience-stricken, for they began to give back the money they had robbed dad of, and an Arab must be pretty scared to give up any of his hard-earned robberies. I think dad was about the maddest man there was, until he got some of his money back, when he felt better, but he gave me a talking to that I will never forget.
He said: “Don’t you know better than to go around with explosives, like a train robber, and fire them off in a hole in the ground, where there is no ventilation, and make people’s ears ring? Maybe you have woke up those kings and queens in there, and changed a dynasty, you little idiot.” The rest of the crowd wanted to throw me down the side of the pyramid, but I got away from them and went up on top of the pyramid and hoisted a small American flag, and left it floating there, and then came back to where the crowd was discussing the explosion in the tomb, and then we all went down the side of the pyramid.
The guides got their nerve back after they got out in the air, because they wouldn’t help dad down unless he paid them something every stone they helped him climb down, so when he got down he didn’t have any money, and hardly a
ny pants, because what pants the Arabs didn’t tear were worn off on the stones, so when he showed up in front of the spinks he was a sight, and he bought a turban of a guide and unwound it and wound it around him in place of pants. I was ashamed of dad myself, and it is pretty hard to make me ashamed.
We went back to Cairo on the cars, and what do you think, that dead camel that the Arabs made dad pay for was with the caravan going back to town, ’cause we saw him out of the car window with the hair wore off where dad kicked him in the side. The tourists say the Arabs have that camel trained to die every day when they get to the pyramids, and they make some tenderfoot pay for him at the end of each journey. Dad is going to try to get his money back from the Egyptian government, but I guess he will never realize on his claim.
Well, sir, after dad had doctored all night to get the camel rheumatism and spinal meningitis out of his system, we took a trip by boat on the Nile, and saw the banks where the people grow crops by irrigation, and where an English syndicate has built a big dam, so the whole valley can be irrigated, and I tell you it will not be long before Egypt will raise everything used in the world on that desert, and every other country that raises food to sell will be busted up in business, but it is disgusting to take a trip on the Nile, ’cause all the natives are dirty and sick with contagious diseases, and they are lazy and crippled, and beg for a living, and if you don’t give them something they steal all you got. You are in luck if you get away without having leprosy, or the plague, or cholera, or fleas.
So we went back to Cairo, and there was the worst commotion you ever saw, about my fireworks in the tomb. The papers said that an American dynamiter had attempted to blow up the great pyramid, and take possession of the country and place it under the American flag, and that the conspirators were spotted and would be arrested and put in irons as soon as they got back from a trip on the Nile.
Well, sir, dad found his career would close right here, and that he would probably spend the balance of his life in an Egyptian prison if wc didn’t get out, so we made a sneak and got into our hotel, bought disguises and are going to get out of here tonight, and try to get to Gibraltar, or somewhere in sight of home. Dad is disguised as a shiek, with whiskers and a white robe, like a bath robe, and I am going to travel with him as an Egyptian girl till we get through the Suez canal.
Gee, but I wouldn’t be a girl only to save dad.
Your innocent,
Hennery.
CHAPTER XXVI.
The Bad Boy Writes About Gibraltar—The Irish-English Army— How He Would Take the Fortress—Dad Wants to Buy the “Rock.”
Gibraltar, in Spain and England.
My Dear Foster Uncle: It seems good to get somewhere that you can hear the English language spoken by the Irish, and the English soldiers are nearly all Irish. When you think of the way the British government treats the Irish, and then you look on while an orderly sergeant calls the roll of a company, and find that nine out of ten answer to Irish names, and only one out of ten has the cockney accent, you feel that the Irish ought to rule England, and an O’Rourke or a O’Shaunnessy should take the place of King Edward. It makes a boy who was brought up in an Irish ward in America feel like he was at home to mix with British soldiers who come from the old sod. Dad says that there is never an army anywhere in the world, except the armies of Russia and Japan, that the bravest men are not answering to Irish names, and always on the advance in a fight, or in the rear when there is a retreat. Dad says that in our own army, when the North and South were fighting, the Irish boys were the fellows who saved the day. They wanted to fight nights and Sundays, and never struck for an eight-hour day, or union wages. When the fighting was over, and soldiers were sick, or discouraged, and despondent, an Irish soldier would come along, maybe on crutches, or with a bullet in his inwards, and tell funny stories and make the discouraged fellows laugh in spite of themselves, and when another fight was on, you had to tie the wounded Irish soldiers to their cots in the hospital, or put them in jail to keep them from forgetting their wounds, and going to the front for one more fight. Dad says if there was an Irish nation with an army and navy, the whole world would have to combine to whip them, and yet the nation that has the control of the Irish people treats them worse than San Francisco treats Chinamen, makes them live on potatoes, and allows landlords to take away the potatoes if they are shy on the rent. Gosh, if I was an Irishman I would see the country that walked on my neck in hell before I would fight for it. (Gee, dad looked over my shoulder and saw what I had written, and he cuffed me on the side of the head, and said I was an incendiary and that I ought to have sense enough not to write treason while a guest on British soil.) Well, I don’t care a darn. It makes me hot under the collar when I think of the brave Irish fellows, and I wonder why they don’t come to America in a body and be aldermen and policemen. When I get home I am going to join the Fenians, and raise thunder, just as quick as I am old enough.
Well, sir, we have been through the Suez canal, and for a great modern piece of engineering it doesn’t size up with a sewer in Milwaukee, or a bayou in Louisiana. It is just digging a railroad cut through the desert, and letting in the water, and there you are. The only question in its construction was plenty of dredging machines, and a place to pile the dirt, and water that just came in of its own accord, and stays there, and smells like thunder, and you see the natives look at it, and keep away from the banks for fear the banks will cave in on them, and give them a bath before their year is up, cause they don’t bathe but once a year, and when they skip a year nobody knows about it, except that they smell a year or so more frowsy, like butter that has been left out of the ice box. Our boat went right along, and got out of the canal, because it was a mail boat, but the most of the boats we saw were tied up to the bank, waiting for the millennium. We saw some Russian boats waiting for the war to blow over and as we passed them every Russian on board looked scared, as though we were Japs that were going to fire a torpedo under them, or throw a bomb on deck, and when our boat got by the Russian boat, the crew was called to prayers, to thank the Lord, or whoever it is that the Russians thank, because they had escaped a dire peril. I guess the Russians are all in, and that those who have not gone to the front are shaking hands with themselves, and waiting for the dove of peace to alight on their guns. The Suez canal probably pays, and no wonder, cause they charge what they please to boats that go through, and if they don’t pay all they have to do is to stay out, and go around a few thousand miles. It is like a ferry across a little stream out west, where there is no other way to cross, except to wade or go around, and the old ferryman sizes up the wagon load that wants to cross, and takes all they have got loose, and then the travelers are ahead of the game, cause if they didn’t cross the stream they would have to camp on the bank until the stream dried up. Some day an earthquake will split that desert wide open and the water in the Suez canal will soak into the sand and the steamboats will lay in the mud, and be covered with a sand storm, and future ages will be discovering full rigged ships down deep on the desert. Dad says we better sell our stock in the canal and buy air ship stock. And talk about business, there is more tonnage goes through the Soo canal, between Michigan and Canada than goes through the Suez and we don’t howl about it very much.
Well, sir, I have studied Gibraltar in my geography, and read about it in the papers, and seen its pictures in advertisements, but never realized what a big thing it was. Now, who ever thought of putting that enormous rock right there on that prairie, but God. I suppose the English, when they saw that rock, thought the good Lord had put it there for the English to drill holes in, for guns, and when the Lord was busy somewhere else, the English smoughed the rock away from Spain, by playing a game with loaded dice, and when England got it, that country decided to arm it like a train robber, and hold up the other nations of the earth. When a vessel passes that rock it has to hold up its hands and salute the British flag, or get a mess of hardware fired into its vital parts, but that is all it amounts to, caus
e it couldn’t win any battle for England, and could only sink trading vessels. The walls of the rock are perforated from top to bottom, with holes big enough for guns to squirt smoke and shells, but if the enemy should stay away from right in front of the holes, they might shoot till doomsday and never hit anything but fishing smacks and peddlers of oranges. Gibraltar is like a white elephant in a zoological garden. It just eats and keeps off the flies with its short tail, and visitors feed it peanuts and wonder what it was made for, and how much hay it eats. Gibraltar is like a twenty-dollar gold piece that a man carries in his watch pocket for an emergency, which he never intends to spend until he gets in the tightest place of his life, and it wears out one pocket after another, and some day drops through on to the sidewalk, and a tramp finds it and goes on a bat and gets the worth of his money, and has a good time, if he saves enough to buy a bromo seltzer the next morning after. It is like the Russian war chest, that is never to be opened as long as they can borrow money. If Gibraltar could be put on castors, and rolled around from one country to another, England could whip all Europe and Asia. It would be a Tro Jane horse on a larger scale, and be a terror; but, say, if it got to America we wouldn’t do a thing to it. We would run a standpipe up the side, and connect it with an oil pipe line, fill Gibraltar’s tunnels and avenues, and magazines and barracks with crude oil, and touch a match to it, and not an Englishman would live to tell about it. Gee, but I would be sorry for the Irish soldiers, but I guess they wouldn’t be there, cause they wouldn’t fight America. Well, if England ever has a big war, and she gets chesty about Gibraltar, and says it is impregnable, and defies the world to take it, I bet you ten dollars it could be taken in twenty-four hours. If I was a general, or an admiral, I would have about forty tank steamers, loaded with kerosene, and have them land, innocent like, right up beside Gibraltar, ostensibly to sell oil for perfumery to the natives, who would all be improved by using kerosene on their persons. Then I would get on a barrel, on deck of my flag ship, and command the English general to surrender unconditionally, and if he refused I would set a slow match on every oil vessel, and have the crews get in skiffs and pull for the opposite shore, and when the oil got on fire, and rolled up all over Gibraltar, and burned every living thing, I would throw water from a fire department boat on the rock, and she would split open and roll all over-the prairie, and then I would bury the cremated dead out on the desert, and seek other worlds to conquer, like Alexander the Great. But don’t be afraid. I won’t do it unless they make me mad, but you watch my smoke if they pick on your little Hennery too much, when he grows up.
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