But I haven’t got any kick coming about Gibraltar, cause they treated dad and I all right, and the commander detailed an ensign to show us all through the fortress. Now don’t get an ensign mixed up with a unique, such as showed us through the Turkish harem. An English ensign is just as different from a Turkish unique as you can imagine. Every man to his place. You couldn’t teach a Turkish unique how to show visitors around an English fortress, and an English ensign in a Turkish harem would bring on a world’s war, they are so different. Well, wc went through tunnels in the rock, and up and down elevators, and all was light as day from electric lights, and we saw ammunition enough to sink all the ships in the world, if it could be exploded in the right place, and they have provisions enough stored in the holes in the rock to keep an army for forty years if they didn’t get ptomaine poisoned from eating canned stuff. It was all a revelation to dad, and when we got all through, and got out into the sunlight, we breathed free, and when clad got his second wind he broke up the English officers by taking out a pencil and piece of paper, and asked them what they would take for the rock and its contents, and move out, and let the American flag float over it. Well, say, they were hot, and they told dad to go plum to ‘ell, but dad wouldn’t do it. He said America didn’t want the old stone quarry, anyway, and if it did it could come and take it. I guess they would have had dad arrested for treason, only when we got out into the town there was the whole British Atlantic squadron lined up, with the men up in the rigging like monkeys, and every vessel was firing a salute, as a yacht came steaming by. Dad thought war had surely broke out, or that some rich American owned the yacht, but it turned out to be Queen Alexandria and a party of tourists, and when the band played “God Save the Queen,” dad got up on his hind legs and sang so loud you would think he would split hisself, and a fellow went up and threw his arms around dad, and began to weep, and the tears came in dad’s eyes, and another fellow pinched dad’s watch, and the celebration closed with everybody getting drunk, and the queen sailed away. Say, we are going to Spain, on the next boat, and you watch the papers. We will probably be hung for taking Cuba and the Phillipines.
Yours,
Hennery.
CHAPTER XXVII.
The Bad Boy Writes of Spain—They Call on the King And the Bad Boy is at it Once More—They See a Bull Fight and Dad Does a Turn.
Madrid, Spain.—
My Dear Uncle: You probably think we are taking our lives in our hands by coming to Spain, so soon after the Cuban war, in which President Roosevelt charged up San Juan Hill, in the face of over thirty bloodthirsty Spaniards, and captured the blockhouse on the summit of the hill, which was about as big as a switchman’s shanty, and wouldn’t hold two platoons of infantry, of twelve men to the platoon, without crowding, and which closed the war, after the navy had everlastingly paralyzed the Spanish vessels, and sunk them in wet water, and picked up the crews and run them through clothes-wringers to dry them out; but we are as safe here as we would be on South Clark street, in Chicago. Do you know, when I read of that charge of our troops up San Juan hill, headed by our peerless bear-hunter, I thought it was like the battle of Gettysburg, where hundreds of thousands of men fought on each side, and I classed Roosevelt with Grant, Sheridan, Sherman, Meade and Thomas, and all that crowd, but one day I got talking with a veteran of the Spanish-American war, who promptly deserted after every pay day, and re-enlisted after he had spent his money, and he didn’t do a thing to my ideas of the importance of that battle. He told me it was only a little skirmish, like driving in a picket post, and that there were not Spaniards enough there to have a roll call, not so many Spanish soldiers as there were American newspaper correspondents on our side, that only a few were killed and wounded, and that a dozen soldiers in an army wagon could have driven up San Juan hill with firecrackers and scared the Spaniards out of the country, and that a part of a negro regiment did pretty near all the shooting, while our officers did the yelling, and had their pictures taken, caught in the act. So I have quit talking of the heroism of our army in Cuba, because it makes everybody laugh and they speak of Shaffer and Roosevelt, and hunch up their shoulders, and say, “bah,” but when you talk about the navy, and Schley, and Sampson, and Clark, and Bob Evans, they take off their hats and their faces are full of admiration, and they say, “magnificent,” and ask you to take a drink. Gee, but dad got his foot in it by talking about the blowing up of the Maine, and looking saucy, as though he was going to get even with the Spaniards, but he found that every Spaniard was as sorry for that accident as we were, and they would take off their hats when the Maine was mentioned, and look pained and heart-sick. I tell you the Spaniards are about as good people as you will find anywhere, and dad has concluded to fall back on Christopher Columbus for a steady diet of talk, cause if it had not been for Chris we wouldn’t have been discovered to this day, which might have been a darn good thing for us. But the people here do not recall the fact that there ever was a man named Christopher Columbus, and they don’t know what he ever discovered, or where the country is that he sailed away to find, unless they are educated, and familiar with ancient history, and only once in a while will you find anybody that is educated. The children of America know more about the history of Spain than the Spanish children. This country reminds you of a play on the stage, the grandees in their picturesque costumes, though few in number, compared to the population, are the whole thing, and the people you see on the stage with the grandees, in peasant costume, peddling oranges and figs, you find here in the life of Spain, looking up to the grandees as though they were gods. Every peasant carries a knife in some place, concealed about him, and no two carry their toad stabbers in the same place. If you see a man reach his finger under his collar to scratch his neck, the chances are his fingers touch the handle of his dagger, and if he hitches up his pants, his dagger is there, and if he pulls up his trousers leg to scratch for a flea, you can bet your life his knife is right handy, and if you have any trouble you don’t know where the knife is coming from, as you do about an American revolver, when one of our citizens reaches for his pistol pocket. Spaniards are nervous people, on the move all the time, and it is on account of fleas. Every man, woman and child contains more than a million fleas, and as they can’t scratch all the time, they keep on the move, hoping the fleas will jump off on somebody else. When we came here we were flealess, but every person we have come near to seems to have contributed some fleas to us, until now we are loaded down with them, and we find in our room at the hotel a box of insect powder, which, is charged in with the candles. The king, who is a boy about three years older than I am, is full of fleas, too, and he jumps around from one place to another, like he was shaking himself to get rid of them. He gets up in the morning and goes out horseback riding, and jumps fences and rides tip and down the marble steps of the public buildings, as though he wanted to make the fleas feel in danger, so they will leave him. Seems to me if every man kept as many dogs as they do in Constantinople, the fleas would take to the dogs, but they say here that fleas will leave a dog to get on a human being, because they like the smell of garlic, as every Spaniard eats garlic a dozen times a day. They are trying to teach dogs to eat garlic, but no self-respecting dog will touch it. We have had to fill up on garlic in order to be able to talk with the people, cause dad got sea sick the first day here, everybody smelled so oniony. Dad wanted a druggist to put up onions in capsules, like they do quinine, so he could take onions and not taste them, but he couldn’t make the man understand. There ought to be a law against any person eating onions, unless he is under a death sentence. But you can stand a man with the onion habit, after you get used to it. It is a woman, a beautiful woman, one you would like to have take you on your lap and pet you, that ought to know better than to eat onions. Gee, but when you see a woman that is so beautiful it makes her ache to carry her beauty around, and you get near to her and expect to breathe the odor of roses and violets, that makes you tired when she opens her mouth to say soft words of love, and
there comes to your nostrils the odor of onions. Do you know, nothing would make me commit suicide so quick as to have a wife who habitually loaded herself with onions. Dad was buying some candy for me at a confectioner shop, of a beautiful Spanish woman, and when he asked how much it was, she bent over towards him in the most bewitching manner and breathed in his face and said, “Quatro-realis, seignor,” which meant “four bits, mister,” and he handed her a five-dollar gold piece, and went outdoors for a breath of fresh air, and let her keep the change. He said she was welcome to the four dollars and fifty cents if she would not breathe towards him again.
Well, we have taken in the town, looked at the cathedrals, attended the sessions of the cortez, and thew gambling houses, saw the people sell the staple products of the country, which are prunes, tomatoes and wine. The people do not care what happens as long as they have a quart of wine. In some countries the question of existence is bread, but in Spain it is wine. No one is so poor they cannot have poor wine, and with wine nothing else is necessary, but a piece of cheese and bread helps the wine some, though either could be dispensed with. In some countries “wine, women and song” are all that is necessary to live. Here it is wine, cheese and an onion. We went to see the king, because he is such a young boy, and dad thought it would encourage the ruler to see an American statesman, and to mingle with an American boy who could give him cards and spades, and little casino, and beat him at any game. I made dad put on a lot of badges we had collected in our town when there were conventions held there, and when they were all pinned on dad’s breast he looked like an admiral. There was a badge of Modern Woodmen, one of the Hardware Dealers’ Association, one of the Wholesale Druggists, one of the Amalgamated Association of Railway Trainmen, one of the Farmers’ Alliance, one of the Butter and Cheese-men’s Convention, one of the State Undertakers’ Guild, and half a dozen others in brass, bronze and tin, on various colored ribbons. Say, do you know, when they ushered us into the throne room at the palace, and the little king, who looked like a student in the high school, with dyspepsia from overstudy and cake between meals, saw dad, he thought he was the most distinguished American he had ever seen, and he invited dad up beside him on the throne, and dad sat in the chair that the queen will sit in when the boy king gets married, and I sat down on a front seat and watched dad. Dad had read in the papers that the boy king wanted to marry an American girl who was the possessor of a lot of money, so dad began to tell the king of girls in America that were more beautiful than any in the world, and had hundreds of millions of cold dollars, and an appetite for raw kings, and that he could arrange a match for the king that would make him richer than any king on any throne. The boy king was becoming interested, and I guess dad would have had him married off all right, if the king had not seen me take out a bag of candy and begin to eat, when he said to me, “Come up here, Bub, and give me some of that.” Gosh, but I trembled like a leaf, but I went right up the steps of the throne and handed him the bag, and said, “Help yourself, Bub.” Well, sir, the queerest thing happened. I had bought two pieces of candy filled with cayenne pepper, for April fool, and the king handed the bag to the master of ceremonies, a big Spaniard all covered over with gold lace, and if you will believe me the king got one piece of the cayenne pepper candy, and that spangled prime minister got the other, and the king chewed his piece first, and he opened his mouth like a dog that has picked up a hot boiled egg and he blew out his breath to cool his tongue and said, “Whoosh,” and strangled, and sputtered, and then the prime minister he got his, and he yelled murder in Spanish, and the king called for water, and put his hands on his stomach and had a cramp, and the other man he tied himself up in a double bowknot, and called for a priest, and the king said he would have to go to the chapel, and the fellows who were guarding the king took him away, breathing hard, and red in the face, and dad said to me, “What the bloody hell you trying to do with the crowned heads? Cause you have poisoned the whole bunch, and we better get out.”
So we went out of the palace while the king’s retainers were filling him with ice water. Well, they got the cayenne pepper out of him, because we saw him at the bull fight in the afternoon, but for a while he had the hottest box there ever was outside of a freight train, and if he lives to be as old as Mr. Methuselah he will always remember his interview with little Hennery. The bull fights ain’t much. Bulls come in the ring mad as wet hens, cause they stick daggers in them, and they bellow around, and the Spaniards dodge and shake red rags at them, and after a bull has ripped a mess of bowels out of a few horses, then a man with a saber stabs the bull between the shoulders, and he drops dead, and the crowd cheers the assassin of the bull, and they bring in another bull. Well, sir, dad came mighty near his finish at the bull fight. When the second bull came in, and ripped the stomach out of a blind horse, and the bull was just charging the man who was to stab it, dad couldn’t stand it any longer and he climbed right over into the ring, and he said: “Look a here, you heathen; I protest, in the name of the American Humane Society, against this cruelty to animals, and unless this business stops right here I will have this place pulled, and—”
Well, sir, you would of thought that bull would have had sense enough to see that dad was his friend, but he probably couldn’t understand what dad was driving at, for he made a rush for dad, and dad started to run for the fence, and the bull caught dad just like dad was sitting in a rocking chair, and tossed him over the fence, and dad’s pants stayed on the bull’s horns, and dad landed in amongst a lot of male and female grandees and everybody yelled, “Bravo, Americano,” and the police wrapped a blanket around dad’s legs and were going to take him to the emergency hospital, but I claimed dad, and took him to the hotel. Dad is ready to come home now. He says he is through.
Yours,
Hennery.
CHAPTER XXVIII.
The Bad Boy and His Dad at Berlin—They Call on Emperor William and his Family and the Bad Boy Plays a Joke on Them All.
Berlin, Germany.—
My Dear Old Pummer-nickel: Now we have got pretty near home, and you would enjoy it to be with us, because you couldn’t tell the town from Milwaukee, except for the military precision with which everything is conducted, where you never take a glass of beer without cracking your heels together like a soldier, and giving a military salute to the bartender, who is the commander-in-chief of all who happen to patronize his bar. Everybody here acts like he was at a picnic in the woods, with a large barrel of beer, with perspiration oozing down the outside, and a spigot of the largest size, which fills a schooner at one turn of the wrist, and every man either smiles or laughs out loud, and you feel as though there was happiness everywhere, and that heaven was right here in this greatest German city.
There is laughter everywhere, except when the Emperor drives by, escorted by his bodyguard, on the finest horses in the world; then every citizen on the street stops smiling and laughing; all stand at attention, and every face takes on a solemn, patriotic, almost a fighting look, as though each man would consider it his happiest duty and pleasure to walk right up to the mouth of cannon and die in his tracks for his pale-faced, haggard and loved Emperor. And the Emperor never smiles on his subjects as he passes, but looks into every eye on both sides of the beautiful street, with an expression of agony on his face, but a proud light in his eye, as though he would say, “Ach, Gott, but they are daisies, and they would fight for the Fatherland with the last breath in their bodies.”
The pride of the people in that moustached young man, with the look of suffering, is only equalled by the pride of the Emperor in every German in Germany, or anywhere on the face of the globe. There is none of the “Hello, Bill!” such as we have in America, when the President drives through his people, many of whom yell, “Hello, Teddy!” while he shows his teeth, and laughs, and stands up in his carriage, and says, “Hello, Mike,” as he recognizes an acquaintance. But these same “Hello, Bill,” Americans are probably just as loyal to their chief, whoever he may be, and would fight as h
ard as the loving Germans would for their hereditary Emperor.
I suppose there is somebody working in Berlin, but it seems to us that the whole population, so far as can be seen, is bent on enjoying every minute, walking the streets, in good clothes, giving military salutes, and drinking beer between meals, and talking about what Germany would do to an enemy if the ever-present chip on the shoulder should be knocked off, even accidentally. But they all seem to love America, and when we registered at the hotel, from Milwaukee, Wis., U. S. A., citizens began to gather around us and ask about relatives at our home. They seem to think that every German who has settled in Milwaukee owns a brewery, and that all are rich, and that some day they will come back to Germany and spend the money, and fight for the Emperor.
We did not have the heart to tell them that all the Germans in Milwaukee were going to stay there and spend their money, and while their hearts were still warm towards the Fatherland, they loved the Stars and Stripes, and would fight for the American flag, against the world, and that the younger Germans spoke the German language, if it all, with a Yankee accent. Gee, but wouldn’t the people of Berlin be hot under the collar if they knew how many Germans in America were unfamiliar with the make-up of the German flag, and that they only see it occasionally when some celebration of German days takes place.
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