Complete Works of Ambrose Bierce (Delphi Classics)

by Ambrose Bierce

  The plan was adopted, the necessary treaty made, with legislation to carry out its provisions; the Madagascarene Philosopher took his seat in the Temple of Immortality, and Peace spread her white wings over the two nations, to the unspeakable defiling of her plumage.

  Table of Contents for the Fantastic Fables

  The Nightside of Character

  A Gifted and Honourable Editor, who by practice of his profession had acquired wealth and distinction, applied to an Old Friend for the hand of his daughter in marriage.

  “With all my heart, and God bless you!” said the Old Friend, grasping him by both hands. “It is a greater honour than I had dared to hope for.”

  “I knew what your answer would be,” replied the Gifted and Honourable Editor. “And yet,” he added, with a sly smile, “I feel that I ought to give you as much knowledge of my character as I possess. In this scrap~book is such testimony relating to my shady side, as I have within the past ten years been able to cut from the columns of my competitors in the business of elevating humanity to a higher plane of mind and morals — my ‘loathsome contemporaries.’”

  Laying the book on a table, he withdrew in high spirits to make arrangements for the wedding. Three days later he received the scrap~book from a messenger, with a note warning him never again to darken his Old Friend’s door.

  “See!” the Gifted and Honourable Editor exclaimed, pointing to that injunction—”I am a painter and grainer!”

  And he was led away to the Asylum for the Indiscreet.

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  The Faithful Cashier

  The Cashier of a bank having defaulted was asked by the Directors what he had done with the money taken.

  “I am greatly surprised by such a question,” said the Cashier; “it sounds as if you suspected me of selfishness. Gentlemen, I applied that money to the purpose for which I took it; I paid it as an initiation fee and one year’s dues in advance to the Treasurer of the Cashiers’ Mutual Defence Association.”

  “What is the object of that organisation?” the Directors inquired.

  “When any one of its members is under suspicion,” replied the Cashier, “the Association undertakes to clear his character by submitting evidence that he was never a prominent member of any church, nor foremost in Sunday-school work.”

  Recognising the value to the bank of a spotless reputation for its officers, the President drew his check for the amount of the shortage and the Cashier was restored to favour.

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  The Circular Clew

  A Detective searching for the murderer of a dead man was accosted by a Clew.

  “Follow me,” said the Clew, “and there’s no knowing what you may discover.”

  So the Detective followed the Clew a whole year through a thousand sinuosities, and at last found himself in the office of the Morgue.

  “There!” said the Clew, pointing to the open register.

  The Detective eagerly scanned the page, and found an official statement that the deceased was dead. Thereupon he hastened to Police Headquarters to report progress. The Clew, meanwhile, sauntered among the busy haunts of men, arm in arm with an Ingenious Theory.

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  The Devoted Widow

  A Widow weeping on her husband’s grave was approached by an Engaging Gentleman who, in a respectful manner, assured her that he had long entertained for her the most tender feelings.

  “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.

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  The Hardy Patriots

  A Dispenser–Elect of Patronage gave notice through the newspapers that applicants for places would be given none until he should assume the duties of his office.

  “You are exposing yourself to a grave danger,” said a Lawyer.

  “How so?” the Dispenser–Elect inquired.

  “It will be nearly two months,” the Lawyer answered, “before the day that you mention. Few patriots can live so long without eating, and some of the applicants will be compelled to go to work in the meantime. If that kills them, you will be liable to prosecution for murder.”

  “You underrate their powers of endurance,” the official replied.

  “What!” said the Lawyer, “you think they can stand work?”

  “No,” said the other—”hunger.”

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  The Humble Peasant

  An Office Seeker whom the President had ordered out of Washington was watering the homeward highway with his tears.

  “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 capital—”

  “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.

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  The Various Delegation

  The King of Wideout having been offered the sovereignty of Wayoff, sent for the Three Persons who had made the offer, and said to them:

  “I am extremely obliged to you, but before accepting so great a responsibility I must ascertain the sentiments of the people of Wayoff.”

  “Sire,” said the Spokesman of the Three Persons, “they stand before you.”

  “Indeed!” said the King; “are you, then, the people of Wayoff?”

  “Yes, your Majesty.”

  “There are not many of you,” the King said, attentively regarding them with the royal eye, “and you are not so very large; I hardly think you are a quorum. Moreover, I never heard of you until you came here; whereas Wayoff is noted for the quality of its pork and contains hogs of distinction. I shall send a Commissioner to ascertain the sentiments of the hogs.”

  The Three Persons, bowing profoundly, backed out of the presence; but soon afterward they desired another audience, and, on being readmitted, said, through their Spokesman:

  “May it please your Majesty, we are the hogs.”

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  The No Case

  A Statesman who had been indicted by an unfeeling Grand Jury was arrested by a Sheriff and thrown into jail. As this was abhorrent to his fine spiritual nature, he sent for the District Attorney and asked that the case against him be dismissed.

  “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.

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A Harmless Visitor

  At a meeting of the Golden League of Mystery a Woman was discovered, writing in a note-book. A member directed the attention of the Superb High Chairman to her, and she was asked to explain her presence there, and what she was doing.

  “I came in for my own pleasure and instruction,” she said, “and was so struck by the wisdom of the speakers that I could not help making a few notes.”

  “Madam,” said the Superb High Chairman, “we have no objection to visitors if they will pledge themselves not to publish anything they hear. Are you — on your honour as a lady, now, madam — are you not connected with some newspaper?”

  “Good gracious, no!” cried the Woman, earnestly. “Why, sir, I am an officer of the Women’s Press Association!”

  She was permitted to remain, and presented with resolutions of apology.

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  The Judge and the Rash Act

  A Judge who had for years looked in vain for an opportunity for infamous distinction, but whom no litigant thought worth bribing, sat one day upon the Bench, lamenting his hard lot, and threatening to put an end to his life if business did not improve. Suddenly he found himself confronted by a dreadful figure clad in a shroud, whose pallor and stony eyes smote him with a horrible apprehension.

  “Who are you,” he faltered, “and why do you come here?”

  “I am the Rash Act,” was the sepulchral reply; “you may commit me.”

  “No,” the judge said, thoughtfully, “no, that would be quite irregular. I do not sit to-day as a committing magistrate.”

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  The Prerogative of Might

  A Slander travelling rapidly through the land upon its joyous mission was accosted by a Retraction and commanded to halt and be killed.

  “Your career of mischief is at an end,” said the Retraction, drawing his club, rolling up his sleeves, and spitting on his hands.

  “Why should you slay me?” protested the Slander. “Whatever my intentions were, I have been innocuous, for you have dogged my strides and counteracted my influence.”

  “Dogged your grandmother!” said the Retraction, with contemptuous vulgarity of speech. “In the order of nature it is appointed that we two shall never travel the same road.”

  “How then,” the Slander asked, triumphantly, “have you overtaken me?”

  “I have not,” replied the Retraction; “we have accidentally met. I came round the world the other way.”

  But when he tried to execute his fell purpose he found that in the order of nature it was appointed that he himself perish miserably in the encounter.

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  An Inflated Ambition

  The President of a great Corporation went into a dry-goods shop and saw a placard which read:

  “If You Don’t See What You Want, Ask For It.”

  Approaching the shopkeeper, who had been narrowly observing him as he read the placard, he was about to speak, when the shopkeeper called to a salesman:

  “John, show this gentleman the world.”

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  Rejected Services

  A Heavy Operator overtaken by a Reverse of Fortune was bewailing his sudden fall from affluence to indigence.

  “Do not weep,” said the Reverse of Fortune. “You need not suffer alone. Name any one of the men who have opposed your schemes, and I will overtake him.”

  “It is hardly worth while,” said the victim, earnestly. “Not a soul of them has a cent!”

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  The Power of the Scalawag

  A Forestry Commissioner had just felled a giant tree when, seeing an honest man approaching, he dropped his axe and fled. The next day when he cautiously returned to get his axe, he found the following lines pencilled on the stump:

  “What nature reared by centuries of toil, A scalawag in half a day can spoil; An equal fate for him may Heaven provide — Damned in the moment of his tallest pride.”

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  At Large — One Temper

  A Turbulent Person was brought before a Judge to be tried for an assault with intent to commit murder, and it was proved that he had been variously obstreperous without apparent provocation, had affected the peripheries of several luckless fellow-citizens with the trunk of a small tree, and subsequently cleaned out the town. 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.”

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  The Seeker and the Sought

  A Politician seeing a fat Turkey which he wanted for dinner, baited a hook with a grain of corn and dragged it before the fowl at the end of a long and almost invisible line. When the Turkey had swallowed the hook, the Politician ran, drawing the creature after him.

  “Fellow-citizens,” he cried, addressing some turkey-breeders whom he met, “you observe that the man does not seek the bird, but the bird seeks the man. For this unsolicited and unexpected dinner I thank you with all my heart.”

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  His Fly–Speck Majesty

  A Distinguished Advocate of Republican Institutions was seen pickling his shins in the ocean.

  “Why don’t you come out on dry land?” said the Spectator. “What are you in there for?”

  “Sir,” replied the Distinguished Advocate of Republican Institutions, “a ship is expected, bearing His Majesty the King of the Fly–Speck Islands, and I wish to be the first to grasp the crowned hand.”

  “But,” said the Spectator, “you said in your famous speech before the Society for the Prevention of the Protrusion of Nail Heads from Plank Sidewalks that Kings were blood-smeared oppressors and hell-bound loafers.”

  “My dear sir,” said the Distinguished Advocate of Republican Institutions, without removing his eyes from the horizon, “you wander away into the strangest irrelevancies! I spoke of Kings in the abstract.”

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  The Pugilist’s Diet

  The Trainer of a Pugilist consulted a Physician regarding the champion’s diet.

  “Beef-steaks are too tender,” said the Physician; “have his meat cut from the neck of a bull.”

  “I thought the steaks more digestible,” the Trainer explained.

  “That is very true,” said the Physician; “but they do not sufficiently exercise the chin.”

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  The Old Man and the Pupil

  A Beautiful Old Man, meeting a Sunday-school Pupil, laid his hand tenderly upon the lad’s head, saying: “Listen, my son, to the words of the wise and heed the advice of the righteous.”

  “All right,” said the Sunday-school Pupil; “go ahead.”

  “Oh, I haven’t anything to do with it myself,” said the Beautiful Old Man. “I am only observing one of the customs of the age. I am a pirate.”

  And when he had taken his hand from the lad’s head, the latter observed that his hair was full of clotted blood. Then the Beautiful Old Man went his way, instructing other youth.

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  The Deceased and his Heirs

  A Man died leaving a large estate and many sorrowful relations who claimed it. After some years, when all but one had had judgment given against them, that one was awarded the estate, which he asked his Attorney to have appraised.

  “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.”

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  The Politicians and the Plunder

  Several Political Entities were dividing the spoils.

  “I will take the management of the prisons,” said a Decent Respect for Public Opinion, “and make a radical change.”

  “And I,” said the Blotted Escutcheon, “will retain my present general connection with affairs, while my friend here, the Soiled Ermine, will remain in the Judiciary.”

  The Political Pot said it would not boil any more unless replenished from the Filthy Pool.

  The Cohesive Power of Public Plunder quietly remarked that the two bosses would, he supposed, naturally be his share.

  “No,” said the Depth of Degradation, “they have already fallen to me.”

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  The Man and the Wart

  A Person with a Wart on His Nose met a Person Similarly Afflicted, and said: