TOR. — Ah, what a tender heart; what sensibility! It pained you, the thought of humiliating me.
SH. — Not a bit of it; what worried me was the fear that you would refuse.
TOR. — And then there would be such — what you call effusion of blood. You are all compassion.
Sh. — Effusion of nothing. If you did not surrender to me I was going to surrender to you. My army was rotten with fever. Now what kept you awake, old man?
TOR. — The fear tjbat you would surrender first. God o’ my soul! — we could not eat you!
A CABINET CONFERENCE
Hay, Secretary of State. Root, Secretary of War. Long, Secretary of the Navy.
HAY — Ah, glad to see you, gentlemen; punctuality is the politeness of princes. I feared we should have to postpone this Conference.
LONG — Perhaps it would have been better. The newspapers have learned about it. As I entered there were seven hundred and fifty correspondents outside the door!
ROOT — The Navy Department is ever liberal in its estimates.
LONG — I’ll swear there are not fewer than a dozen; you saw them yourself.
ROOT — Not I. I entered by way of the chimney.
HAY — It is useless to try to conceal our movements; they learn everything.
LONG — It is to be hoped they will not learn the purpose of this Conference.
HAY — That will depend on your discretion; mine is unquestionable.
ROOT — Is the door locked?
HAY — Sure, and the keyhole stuffed. We are absolutely inaccessible to the curiosity of the vulgar.
Long — Blast their tarry —
HAY — Mr. Secretary, I beg that you will not swear. Remember that the President is a pillar of the church.
ROOT — What church?
HAY (scratching the head of the State De~ partment) — I’m damned if I know. I belong myself to the Church of England.
LONG — Let us proceed to business; the crisis waits.
HAY — Gentlemen (opening secret drawer in table), I have the honor to put before you a — [tumult within and beating of sticks on the door.’] What’s that?
ROOT — The Filipinos! — the Filipinos! Where is Corbin?
Long — Sounds like the Democratic party.
HAY — Ah, I forgot; it is the correspondents. I have the honor to put before you, with appropriate glasses, a bottle of pure Kentucky Bourbon fifty-five years old — a gift from Governor Taylor to the President.
As the President drinks nothing —
Long — What!
ROOT — What!
HAY — He drinks nothing from this bottle. I intercepted it.
[They drink and repeat. The Conference adjourns. Exeunt omnes. Enter the Public Press.]
The Public Press — There was a consultation at the State Department this afternoon among Secretaries Hay, Root and Long, the latter two of whom had been sent for in great haste. Extraordinary precautions to secure secrecy were taken, but it is understood that German aggression in Brazil was discussed, and nothing is more certain than that the next few days will witness grave and startling movements of our war ships in both the North and the South Atlantic. Senator Lodge’s recent alarming speech on the Navy Appropriation Bill is recalled, in connection with this subject, as is also Senator Pettigrew’s significant silence. Nor is it forgotten that last week there was a persistent rumor that the Government was about to consider the advisability of taking a step of which the importance could be determined only by its character and result.
AN INDEMNITY
McKinley, the President. Hay, Secretary of State. The Czar of Russia. The Sultan of Turkey. AH Feroush Bey, the Turkish Minister.
ACT I
McKinley — John, have the goodness to say to the Turkish Minister that unless his Government pays up we shall send a fleet to the Dardanelles.
HAY — Yes, but would it not be better to say through the Dardanelles?
McK. — I don’t know about that. One does not like to promise more than one may be able to perform. Admiral Dewey tells me there is a doubt about getting through; the strait is fortified at every turn.
H. — Why, Admiral Dewey said, apropos of the Nicaragua canal, that fortifications were worthless — that they only invited attack!
McK. — That was when he was standing by the Administration. He is now an aspirant to the Presidency, and dares to say what he thinks.
H. (aside) — Great Scott! I’d give ten years of life — nay, more: six weeks of office — for the same courage.
McK. — John, what are you muttering in your beard?
H. — A prayer for your health.
McK. (aside) — Ah, yes, I suffer from Hay fever.
[Observing him about to sneeze, Hay gives himself the happiness of taking snuff.]
ACT II
HAY — I greet your Excellency with rapture.
ALI Feroush Bey — May your wives be as the leaves of the forest.
H. — May it please your Excellency, the President says that if your august master finds it inconvenient to pay that little account he need not hurry.
A. F. B. — Allah forbid that the Light of the Universe should hurry about anything!
H. — The matter will keep, and an ultimatum delivered about the first week in November would —
A. F. B. — May jackasses sing on your grandmother’s grave! Do you think you can use the Brother of the Prophet to further your cursed election schemes? I shall advise that the bill be paid at once.
H. — Exalted sir, I fear you are pleased to talk through your turban. But I pray that you will permit me to withdraw. I must acquaint the President with your answer.
[Exit Hay.]
A. F. B. — The devil go with him! If I had him in Stamboul he’d be walking on wood!
ACT III
McK. — John, did you deliver my ultimatum to the Turkish Minister?
HAY — Aye, that I did! And not only did I say we should send a fleet into the Dardanelles, but I ventured to add that Colonel Bryan would go into commission at once.
McK. — And did he say that he would advise his august what-does-he-call-him to pay down on the nail?
H. — I am pained to say that he did not. He said that he would see you in Helfurst.
McK. — Where is that? — it sounds Dutch.
H. — Yes; it is a town in Pennsylvania.
McK. — Well, I’ll meet him there and talk it over if you think the character of our ultimatum permits.
H. — Certainly; it is the Ultimatum Tentative.
ACT IV
THE SULTAN (by telegraph) — Your Majesty, would you be so good as to lend a poor fellow the price of a few American missionaries?
THE CZAR — God forbid! You must be more economical. Do you think I’m made of money?
SULTAN — But really —
CZAR — Yes, yes, I know. Your creditors are pressing you, and all that. And you’ll promptly repay the loan — in a Golden Horn. I’ve heard it before.
SULTAN — By the toe-nails of the Prophet! if I get not the money, that dog of darkness, the American President, will be after me with a sharp stick; and he’ll do, and he’ll do, and he’ll do! He has already delivered his ultimatum.
CZAR — What! Is it so serious as that? My poor friend, I am sorry for you. You are in for it, sure! In American diplomacy the ultimatum is a prophecy of doom; you will be talked to death!
SULTAN — Then lend me the money.
Czar — It is decreed otherwise. Kismet.
SULTAN — But what am I to do? Talked to death! — that is disagreeable.
CZAR — Build a mosque in which to pray that Heaven may put it into his heart to send a fleet to Constantinople and commute your punishment to bombardment.
SULTAN — May jackals whelp in his harem! — that is what he says he will do.
CZAR — Build two mosques.
FOR INTERVENTION
President McKinley. Envoy Fischer.
Secretary Gage. Voices.
PRESIDENT MCKINLEY — Well, Meinherr, what can we do for each other?
Envoy Fischer — Haf your Egcellenzy not vas inform of vhat I vants?
P. McK. — My Secretary of State says you bear a petition for promoting missionary work in Africa, but he is a great diplomat and not always to be believed.
E. F. — Your Egcellenzy, I coom to ask for Amerigan onterventionings between der Soud Ofrigan Ropoobligs und der dom Preetish.
P. McK. — Jeewhillikins!
E. F. — Vas?
P. McK. — Did my Secretary of State know that? And he let you in?
E. F. — Yaw, your Egcellenzy.
P. McK. — Well, I’ll be gam doodled! — pardon; I mean I’ll be delighted. We call it gam doodled.
E. F. — Yaw, I shbeak der Amerigan longvidge very goot meinself all der vhile somdimes yet.
P. McK. — Beautifully.
E. F. — Der Soud Ofrigan Ropoobligs dey sooffer demselfs mooch. As your Segretary of Shtate he say, Gread Bridain she don’d do a teeng to us. Sheneral Yowbert —
P. McK. — Zhoobair.
E. F. — Yowbert he is die of belly ache again, und Sheneral Cronje gif oop som more, und Sheneral Botha he droonk like a fittler’s —
P. McK. — And larrups the soldiers with a slambangbok.
E. F. — Yaw, yaw, und Bresident Kruger he vas vun olt ladies, und der Preetish is aferyvheres, und Vebster Dafis don’d vas wort his monies, und —
P. McK.—”Oond,” in short, you fellows are licked out of your boots.
E. F. — Vas?
P. McK. — I was saying that, in the sympathetic judgment of this country, your admirable people are experiencing an unforeseen adversity.
E. F. — Lort Roperts haf onvaded our sagred soil und he vil nod led go.
P. McK. — My great and good friend, pardon me, but didn’t your people begin that?
E. F. — We haf tvice unpology made, but Lort Soolsbury he vill not occept.
P. McK. — How strange!
E. F. — Ve oppeals on der great und goot Yongee heart, vich lofes us. It vas vun grand receptions vich der Amerigan beobles vas gif us under Ny Yark som dayl P. McK. — Yes, it was. I have here a list of names of the Reception Committee, which [enter Secretary Gage] I will read to you. [Reads’], Secretary Gage — Mr. President, may I ask if that list of names was copied from the books of the Commissioner of Immigration at Ellis Island?
P. McK. — O, no: they are names of exponents of American public sentiment. They “received” this honest gentleman.
S. G. (eyeing honest gentleman) — Well, I fancy it would be more blessed to give him than receive.
E. F. — But, your Egcellenza, shall ve haf der onterventionings alreaty yet? I burn mit ombatience!
P. McK. (to servant) — The gentleman burns. Put him out.
[Exit Envoy Fischer, pursued.]
VOICES (within) — Hurrah! Hurrah for the Boer Republic!
P. McK. — There must be an unusual number of Congressmen in the waiting room.
THE ORDEAL
An Historian. Clio.
Historian (writing)—”The Yanko-Spanko war was brief, but very destructive. In the two or three months that it lasted the Americans had more than three thousand soldiers and a half-dozen sailors killed by the Spaniards and—”
CLIO — Tut-tut! no romancing; less than three hundred were killed.
H. (writing)—”Their own officers. Armed with repeating incompetences, the latter were indeed formidable.” Did you speak?
C. — No.
H. (writing)—”An effort was made to hold the commanding officers of the expeditionary forces responsible for the mortality among their troops, but ended in failure, for it could not be determined who was in command.”
Clio, dear, who was in command at Santiago?
C. — First Linares, then Toral.
H. — I mean, who commanded the Americans.
C. — I don’t know.
H. — What are you the Muse of History for if you don’t know such a thing as that?
C. —— Ask me who really built the Great Pyramid, and why. Ask me who wrote the “Junius” letters. Ask me who was the Man in the Iron Mask. Ask me what Browning meant. Ask me anything in reason, but don’t ask me who commanded the American army in the Yanko-Spanko war. Settle it by turning a coin. You’ll be as likely to be right as wrong, and in History that will give good results. The historian who in the long run tells the truth half the time is a great historian.
H. (turning coin) — Head, Miles; tail, Shafter.
C. — Well?
H. — It is a smooth coin! (Writes) “The army before Santiago had no commander.”
FROSTING A BUD
McKinley, President. Hay, Secretary of State. Mark Hanna, Senator and!Dictator Politicus.
McKinley — John, I am greatly troubled.
HAY — Permit me to send for the head of the Bureau of Exculpation and Avoidance.
McK. — Not to-day; it is another kind of matter.
H. — Ah, then; the Lord High Disheartener of the Importunate —
McK. — No, no, John, it is about you.
H. — About me? Surely, you do not mean — you cannot think that another change in the Cabinet —
McK. — May you be Secretary of State for a thousand years.
H. — Then speak it out. I have a heart for any fate except one.
McK. — Well, it is this: I have not seen not heard of anybody who seems to want you for Vice-President. Actually, your name has not been mentioned except by myself.
H. — And to whom were you pleased to mention it, if I may ask?
McK. — To Senator Hanna.
H. — And am I worthy to know what he said?
McK. — It will pain you, John. Mr. Hanna is a strong, coarse man who says what he thinks and never stops to think what he says.
H. — What did he say?
McK. — That you would make a good running mate for a lame tortoise.
H. — Indeed!
McK. — He added that you had been drowned by the British Ambassador in the Nicaragua Canal.
H. — Anything more?
McK. — He said that you parted your beard on the Greenwich meridian.
H. — Yes.
McK. — He said that if asininity had not been invented you would invent it.
[Enter Mark Hanna. Exit, McKinley.]
Mark Hanna — Good-morning, Mr. Secretary.
H. — What is your business with me, sir?
M. H. — Why, John, I came to ask you if you would accept the nomination for VicePresident.
H. — After what you said to the President on that subject, sir —
M. H. — It has never been mentioned between us.
H. — Ho-o-o-wat!
[Falls in a fit of shivers.] M. H. — The gentleman appears to be indisposed. Guess he was struck by a draft from the Open Door.
A BAFFLED AMBITION
McKinley, President. Roosevelt, Vice-President. Hay, Secretary of State.
Doorkeeper.
ROOSEVELT — Mr. President, I have come to consult with you about —
McKINLEY — Why, yes, of course. I expect always to consult with the leading men of the party — you and the others.
R. — Others?
McK. — In the great scheme of the universe Heaven has provided others.
R. — There are also snakes and flies, but we do not accord them a voice in the ordering of large affairs.
McK. — There is my Cabinet.
R. — Nice chaps — they will, no doubt, be glad to carry out any policy that we may decide upon.
McK. — Then I understand that in the guidance and direction of this administration you have the goodness to care to be the Whole Thing?
R. — You do me the greatest injustice (lifting his eyes to the sky and reverently pointing in the same direction). There is a greater than I.
McK. — Have you any other news?
R. — I have read your messag
e from start to finish.
McK. — Indeed! And what do you think of it?
Complete Works of Ambrose Bierce (Delphi Classics) Page 133