Complete Works of Ambrose Bierce (Delphi Classics)
Page 135
ORDERLY:
Perhaps he will not come.
MILES:
Perhaps, perhaps — Yet well I know those War Department chaps Have told him of my novel plan that places The Army on a military basis.
Ne’er mind the breakfast; I’ll get up and fly Before the sun’s another minute high.
If I can by a masterly retreat Escape him trust me to come back and eat.
ORDERLY:
There’s some one, sir, a-tryin’ to break in. MILES:
O Lord, forgive my every little sin!
Seeing that I was going to be late Developing my Plan, he would not wait, He’s risen with the lark, alas, and brought His answer to my unperfected thought.
He always was forehanded. [Enter President.’]
PRESIDENT:
I’ve no time
To let the punishment await the crime.
Take that, and that, and that! (beating him.)
MILES:
Of course, of course; I’m firm in judgment, but I yield to force.
“Submission is a military virtue,”
The Regulations say, “howe’er it hurt you.”
I’ll now submit to buffets with sobriety,
And, later on, my view of their propriety,
Together with some pertinent suggestions
Touching important military questions.
PRESIDENT:
You may, and touching civil ones to boot;
Submit them, though, to Secretary Root.
[Enter Root.]
MILES:
Yes, but ‘twould hearten me if you’d agree
To signify your mind to him, not me.
Seeing him lame I’ll know the views I deem
Correct are held by you in light esteem.
ROOT:
Don’t rub your bruises, man; that’s mutiny!
PRESIDENT:
And it demands official scrutiny.
I’ll summon a court-martial, sir, to “fire” you;
And if it finds you guiltless I’ll retire you.
You huff me anyhow. Dashnation, man,
The battle spirit, like a black-and-tan
Ranch dog, sits up and howls within my breast,
And it’s O, to bust a bronco in the West!
Fetch me that broomstick, soldier. Golly me!
I must ride something or I die.
ROOT (on hands and knees):
Ride me.
ACT II
The White House
LOEB:
O Mr. President, depress your ear Till it enfold me, so that you may hear Strange news of one departed — one that you Have done to death: old Nelson Miles.
ROOSEVELT:
Go to!
There is no news of him; he’s dead as nails.
LOEB:
About him? though, they tell alarming tales.
‘Tis said that he has moved an inch or so.
ROOSEVELT:
Go put a heavier stone upon him — go!
Confound the fellow! will he ne’er stay dead?
LOEB:
The worst is yet to come: they say his head
Is half-protruded from the tomb!
ROOSEVELT:
Quick, quick!
Go rap it roundly with the big, big stick.
LOEB:
Nay, that’s a weapon I’m too weak to wield.
(aside)
For anything I know, the corpse is “heeled.”
ROOSEVELT:
Where’s Colonel Hull? Command him to attack.
He’s brave and generous enough to crack
The skull of any dead man living. Take the stick.
[Exit Loeb.]
That rogue’s obedient, but he makes me sick.
[An hour elapses. Enter Hull.]
The work is done: again he is no more —
He was half out. These red stains are his gore.
ROOSEVELT:
I trust you gave him a conclusive whack.
HULL:
Well, not exactly, but — I bit his back!
A STRAINED RELATION
The President. Root, Secretary of State. Taft, Secretary of War. Bonaparte, Secretary of the Navy. Metcalf, Secretary of Commerce and Labor. Dewey, an Admiral. Loeb, Private Secretary to the President.
ACT I
The White House, October, 1906.
ROOT — Mr. President, the Japanese Minister complains that the children of his countrymen in California are denied admittance to the public schools.
PRESIDENT — That will be bad for their education.
ROOT — He regards this as an unfriendly discrimination.
PRES. — I should suppose that would be a painful conviction.
ROOT — He says his countrymen in Japan are greatly excited about it.
PRES. — What a jabbering they; must make.
ROOT — He is making a good deal of noise himself.
PRES. — Dare say. Let’s ask Metcalf about it; he’s from California. [Taps the bell nine times — enter Secretary Metcalf.] Mr. Secretary, how about the exclusion of Japs from the Californian public schools, poor little things!
METCALF — There are separate schools for them. The average age of the poor little things is about thirty years.
PRES. — How affecting! Many of them must be orphans. I was once an orphan.
ROOT (aside) — His levity fatigues. (To tKe President) Among the Japanese there are no orphans: those of them that have lost their parents have an official father in the Minister of War.
PRES. — What’s that?
ROOT — Their actual guardian is the ranking admiral of the navy.
PRES. — The devil!
ROOT — No; Togo.
PRES. — This is a mighty serious matter, as I — said. Go at once to the Japanese Minister and disavow everything. [Exit Secretary Root, smiling aside.] Metcalf, tell Loeb to prepare apologies for Japan, for publication in the newspapers. Take the first train to California, and —
[Exit Secretary Metcalf. Enter Secretary Bonaparte, breathless.’]
BONAPARTE — Mr. President, the J-J — the Mapanese Jinister is in the offing with all his s-suite! He is sailing up the gravel walk this very m-minute! For heaven’s sake, go to the window and show your teeth.
[Exit Secretary Bonaparte, running. Tumult within: “Banzai! Banzai!”]
PRES, (solus) — What under the sun can I say to appease the pirates? This is what comes of the Peace of Portsmouth! It is this to be a world power with a contumacious province.
[Has a bad half-hour.]
ACT II
The Same, August, 1907.
PRES. — Mr. Secretary, it is reported that the Japanese in Hawaii are rising.
MET. — You don’t say so! Why, it is hardly six o’clock by their time. They are early risers.
PRES. — I learn irom Secretary Root that Admiral Togo’s battleships are coaling. Now, what can that mean?
MET. — Let us ask Dewey. [Enter, thoughtfully, Admiral Dewey.’] Admiral, the President has learned that the Japanese battleships at Tokio are taking on coal. What, in your judgment as a sailor, are they going to do with it?
DEWEY — Burn it.
[Enter Secretary Root.] ROOT — Mr. President, California is about to secede — we shall lose Metcalf! The entire Pacific Coast will follow. I go to glory or the grave!
[Exit Secretary Root. Enter Secretary Taft, with bottle.]
TAFT — In this supreme crisis of the nation let us fortify our souls (filling glasses) for any trial.
PRES. (lifting glass) — Here’s confusion to the memory of the late Commodore Matthew Perry!
[They drink. Tumult within: “Banzai! Banzai!” Enter Loeb.]
LOEB — Mr. President —
PRES. — Where’s Root?
LOEB — In the East Room, playing draw poker with the Japanese Minister. [i?£- newed tumult within: “Banzai Nippon! The Jap seems to be winning.
A WIRELESS ANTEPENULTIMATUM
The Presiden
t. Hay, Secretary of State. Bowen, Minister to Venezuela.
PRESIDENT:
John Hay, where are you on the great, gray sea?
I beg you will at once return to me.
This wireless business is the devil’s own,
And Castro’s playing him with me alone!
Venezuela sneering at my threat;
Santo Domingo more and more in debt;
Their foreign creditors dispatching fleets
With duns land guns and sons of guns — it beats
The Dutch, the devil and the band! I swear
From sheer distraction I could pull your hair.
‘Twixt Castro and the Doctrine of Monroe,
My fears are nimble and my wits are slow.
I know not where to go nor how to stop —
Stand fast or, like old Saul of Tarsus, “flop.”
Nothing I know, and everything I doubt —
Dear John, in God’s name put your prow about!
HAY:
Though the skies fall upon the hills beneath
Be resolute. If needful show your teeth.
PRESIDENT:
Dear Bowen, go to Castro. Tell him straight
He must make up his mind to arbitrate.
Say if he won’t — here swing the big, big stick —
We’ll do a little stunt to make him sick.
BOWEN:
Your words I’ve put into his ear. Said he:
“I’m sick already — to the mountains, me.”
PRESIDENT:
Tell him again; then if he won’t, why, add
We’ll give him ninety days to wish he had.
BOWEN:
I’ve told him that, sir, and he says if you
Are pressed for time a single day will do,
For he’s a rapid wisher. What shall!
Say further, to provoke a coarse reply?
PRESIDENT:
Tell him that when the time allowed is up
We’ll press against his lips the bitter cup.
We’ll waste no further words in this.
Don’t fail To send the scalawag’s reply — by mail.
A PRESIDENTIAL PROGRESS
FIRST AMERICAN SOVEREIGN — Hurrah! Hooray! Hurroo!
SECOND AMERICAN SOVEREIGN — What’s the matter with you?
F. A. S. — What’s the matter with me? What’s the matter with all of us? Don’t you see the President’s train? Don’t you hear him speaking from the rear platform?
S. A. S. — What’s to prevent?
F. A. S. — Nothing could prevent — not all the crowned heads of Europe, nor all their sycophant courtiers and servile subjects I S. A. S. — No, nothings — just nothing at all — excepting personal self-respect and a decent sense of the dignity of American citizenship.
F. A. S. — What! You think it base and undignified to pay honor to the President’s great office?
S. A. S. — It is easy to call it “honoring his great office.” I believe we commonly do give the name of some virtue to our besetting vice. I observe that the President, too, honors our own great office by the most sickening flattery of the people every time he opens his mouth. His reasons are better than ours, for we really rank him: his great office is of our own making and bestowal. But I wish he wouldn’t lick my boots.
F. A. S. — Sir, you have no right to use such language of the ruler of the nation!
S. A. S. — It is “ruler” when you want an excuse to grovel; in your more austere moods it is “servant of the people” — and that is his own name for the thing that he has the distinction to be. I don’t cheer my butler, nor throw flowers at my coachman, nor crush the hand of my cook.
F. A. S. (aside) — This must be a millionaire! (Aloud) I see great wisdom, sir, in what you say. I’ll never again abase myself before any one. Listen to the senseless applause! (Aside, as loud as he can bawl) Hooray! Hooray!
S. A. S. — Ah, that was the fellow’s expiring platitude. He has finished waving the red flag and is coming this way.
[President passes, shaking hands with both,]
F. A. S. (gazing at his hand with deep emotion) — God bless him!
S. A. S. — Hooray! Hooray! Hooray!
MISCELLANEOUS TALES
CONTENTS
THE SAMPLE COUNTER
OUR TALES OF SENTIMENT
THE GREAT STRIKE OF 1895
A THUMB-NAIL SKETCH
MORTALITY IN THE FOOT-HILLS
THE A. L. C. B.
A STORY AT THE CLUB
THE WIZARD OF BUMBASSA
THE FUTURE HISTORIAN
OBJECTIVE IDEAS
MY CREDENTIALS
THE FOOL
OUR SMART SETS
THE EVOLUTION OF A STORY
THE ALLOTMENT
LACKING FACTORS
A CALIFORNIAN STATESMAN
THE SAMPLE COUNTER
OUR HISTORICAL NOVELS
From “The First Man in Rome.”
NO sooner had Cæsar crossed the Rubicon than all Rome was ablaze with excitement and terror. Horatius, who all by himself had held the bridge until outnumbered, retreated to the Tiber, where he was joined by the new levies, imperfectly armed and equipped, and some of the Praetorian Guards. There, behind such defenses as they could improvise, they swore to resist until all were dead. Sacrifices were offered to the gods, and the augurs, removing the hearts of the victims, consulted the auricles.
Meantime Caesar’s leading legion, with Scipio Africanus marching proudly at its head, came into view beyond the Tarpeian Rock — the same from which the unhappy Sappho, one of the most prominent poets of her time, had cast herself — and advanced without delay in a shower of catapults.
Precisely what occurred during the next half-hour we are without the data to state with confidence: all the historical novels of the three or four centuries immediately following were destroyed in the accident at Pompeii; but at three o’clock in the afternoon of that fateful day Brutus lay dead upon the field of honor and the beaten forces of Horatius were in tumultuous retreat along the Claudian aqueduct. Then Cleopatra came forth from her place of concealment, resolved to throw herself at the feet of her conquering lover and intercede for the doomed city.
From “Court and Camp.”
Through a tangled wild as dense as death the martial forced his way, despite the wounds that the Russian forces had inflicted upon his aged frame. Suddenly he departed from the undergrowth and found himself in an open glade of inconsiderable dimensions, and before his vision stood the widely known figure of Napoleon, with folded arms and in a greatcoat falling to his heels. The king was apparently oblivious to his environment, but instinctively “the bravest of the brave,” ever considerate and genteel, drew back into cover, unwilling to interrupt the royal revery. Apparently Napoleon was immersed in meditations.
What these were we have not the temerity to conjecture. Waterloo had been fought and lost! — the last die had been cast to the winds and the dream of universal empire had gone down in gloom! Did he realize that all was over? Was he conjuring up the future and forecasting the judgment of posterity — the figure that he was destined to cut in the historical novels of a later age? Did visions of St. Helena float before his prophetic gaze? Alas, we know not!
At the sound of a breaking twig beneath the martial’s foot the king started from his revery and said in French: “Live the France!” Then, deriving a slender stiletto from his regalia, he plunged it into the left ventricle of his heart and fell dead before the martial, who was greatly embarrassed, could summon medical assistance.
Josephine was avenged!
From “The Crusader”
It was midnight beneath the walls of the beleaguered city. Sir Guy de Chassac de Carcassonne leaned heavily upon his great two-handed sword, fatigued with slaughter. Hardly had he closed his eyes in slumber when the seven Saracens chosen by Saladin for the perilous emprise stole forth from the postern gate and stealthily surrounded him. Then at a preconcerted signal they flas
hed their scimitars in air and rushed upon their prey I But it was fated to be otherwise. At the first stroke of the Toledo blades Sir Guy awoke. To pluck his long weapon from the soil was the work of a comparatively short time; then with one mighty circular sweep of the steel he clove them all asunder at the waist!
Jerusalem was delivered and remains a Christian city to this day!
From “Blood and Beer.”
The booming of the cannon awakened Bismarck with a start. Vaulting into the saddle with remarkable grace, he was soon in the thickest of the fray, and many a foeman fell beneath his genius. Yet even in the terrible din and confusion of battle his mental processes were normal, and he thought only of the countess, while absently dealing death about him. Suddenly he was roused from his revery by the impact of a battle-axe upon his helmet, and turning his eyes in the direction whence it seemed to have been delivered, he beheld the sneering visage of De Grammont on a black steed.
Here was an opportunity that might satisfy the most exacting — an opportunity to rid his country of a traitor and himself of a rival; to serve at once his ambition and his love. His noble nature forbade. Waving his enemy aside, he thoughtfully withdrew from the field, resolved to press his suit otherwise.