“We are full of business to-day; be brief and speak to the point. What do you know of yourself that entitles you to a seat in the blest abodes?” — .
I smiled rather loftily but without hauteur, and silently handed him the volume, bearing in golden letters on the cover the title: “My Record.” St. Peter turned over the leaves deliberately, read a passage here and there and handed it back, saying:
“My friend, you have run into a streak of hard luck. The persons who have given you so good a character — the societies, newspapers, etc. — are unknown to me, and I don’t wish to say anything against them. But they have been backing a good many applicants lately, and I have let in a few on their judgment. Well, this very morning I got this note. I don’t mind letting you read it if you won’t say I showed it. You will see I can’t do anything for you.”
He handed me a letter with about half the envelope torn off by careless opening. It read as follows:
DEAR PETER, — There has been quite a number of disturbances in here lately, and three or four cases of scandalous misconduct on the part of the saints, one of whom, in fact, eloped with an angel. Another was arrested for pocketing some of the golden pavement, and some have been trying to become famous by cutting their initials in the bark of the Tree of Life. Inquiry shows that in every instance the offender is a recent arrival, always a prominent citizen and a member of a number of “societies.” I won’t overrule your action, but really the character of this place is changing. I must ask you to stick to the old tests — a godly life and a humble acceptance of the Christian religion.
When I saw the Name that was signed to that note I could not utter a word. I turned away and came Here.
THE FOOL
(Bits of Dialogue from an Unpublished Morality Play)
I
FOOL — I have a question for you. PHILOSOPHER — I have many, for myself. Do you happen to have heard that a fool can ask what a philosopher is unable to answer?
F. — I happen to have heard that if that is true the one is as great a fool as the other.
PH. — What presumption! Philosophy is search for truth; folly is submission to happiness.
F. — But happiness is the sole desire and only possible purpose of man.
PH. — Has virtue no other end?
F. — The other end of virtue is the beginning.
PH. — Instructed, I sit at your feet.
F. — Unwilling to instruct, I stand on my head.
PHILOSOPHER — You say that happiness is the sole desire of man. This is much disputed.
FOOL — There is happiness in disputation. PH. — But Socrates says —
F. — He was a Grecian. I hate foreigners. PH. — Wisdom is of no country.
F. — Of none that I have observed.
PHILOSOPHER — Let us return to our subject, happiness as the sole desire of man. Crack me these nuts. (1) The man that endures a life of toil and privation for the good of others.
FOOL — Does he feel remorse for so doing? Does he not rather like it?
PH. — (2) He who, famishing himself, gives his loaf to a beggar.
F. — There are those who prefer benevolence to bread.
PH. — (3) How of him who goes joyfully to martyrdom at the stake?
F. — He goes joyfully.
PH. — And yet —
F. — Did you ever talk with a good man going to the stake?
PH. — I never saw one going to the stake.
F. — Unfavored observer! — you were born a century too early.
PHILOSOPHER — You say that you hate foreigners. Why?
FOOL — Because I am human.
PH. — But so are they.
F. — I thank you for the better reason.
PHILOSOPHER — I have been thinking of the pocopo.
FOOL — So have I; what is it?
PH. — The pocopo is a small Brazilian animal, chiefly remarkable for singularity of diet. A pocopo eats nothing but other pocopos. As these are not easily obtained, the annual mortality from starvation is very great. As a result, there are fewer mouths to feed, and by consequence the race is rapidly multiplying.
F. — From whom had you this?
PH. — A professor of political economy.
F. — Let us rise and uncover.
FOOL — A foreign student of the English language read the report of a colloquy between a fool and a philosopher. The remarks of the fool were indicated by the letter F; those of the philosopher by the letters PH — as ours will be if Heaven raise up a great, wise man to report them.
PHILOSOPHER — Well?
F. — Nothing. Ever thereafter the misguided foreign student spelled “fool” with ph and philosopher with an f.
PH. — N eo-Pl atonis t!
II
FOOL — If I were a doctor —— , DOCTOR — I should endeavor to be a fool.
F. — You would fail — folly is not achieved, but upon the meritorious it is conferred.
D. — For what purpose?
F. — For yours.
FOOL — I have a friend who —
DOCTOR — Is in need of my assistance. Absence of excitement, absolute quiet, a hard bed and a simple diet; that will cure him.
F. — Hardly. He is dead — he is taking your prescription.
D. — All but the simple diet. — .
F. — He is himself the diet.
D. — How simple.
FOOL — What is the nastiest medicine? DOCTOR — A fool’s advice.
F. — And what the most satisfactory disease?
D. — The most lingering one.
F. — To the patient, I mean.
D. — Paralysis of the thoracic duct.
F. — I am not familiar with it.
D. — It does not encourage familiarity. Paralysis of the thoracic duct enables the patient to overeat without taking the edge off his appetite.
F. — What an admirable equipment for dining outl How long does the patient’s unnatural appetite last?
D. — The time varies; always longer than he does.
F. — As an hypothesis, that is imperfectly conceivable. It sounds like a doctrine.
DOCTOR — Anything further?
FOOL — You attend a patient; nevertheless he recovers. How do you tell if his recovery was because of your treatment or in spite of it?
D. — I never do tell.
F. — I mean, how do you know?
D. — I take the opinion of a person interested in such matters: I ask a fool.
F. — How does the patient know?
D. — The fool asks me.
F. — You are very kind; how shall I prove my ingratitude?
D. — By close attention to the laws of health. F. — God forbid!
III
FOOL — Sir Cutthroat, how many orphans have you made to-day?
SOLDIER — The devil an orphan. Have you a family?
F. — Put up your iron; I am the last of my race.
S. — What! — no more fools?
F. — Not one, so help me! They have all gone to the wars. By the way, you are somewhat indebted to me.
S. — Let us arbitrate your claim: arbitration is good for my trade.
F. — The only arbiter whose decision you respect is on your side. It hangs there.
S. — It is impartial: it cuts both ways. For what am I indebted to you?
F. — For existence. Prevalence of me has made you possible.
S. — Possible? Sir, I am probable.
SOLDIER — Why do you wear a cap and bells?
FOOL — The civic equivalent of a helmet and plume.
S. — Go “hang a calf-skin on those recreant limbs.”
F.—’Tis only wisdom should be bound in calf, for wisdom is the veal of which folly is the matured beef.
S. — Then folly should be garbed in cowskin.
F. — Aye, that it may the sooner appear for what it is — the naked truth.
S. — How should it?
F. — You would soon
strip off the hide to make harness and trappings withal. No one thinks what conquerors owe to cows.
FOOL — Tell me, hero, what is strategy?
SOLDIER — The art of putting two knives to one throat.
F. — And what is tactics?
S. — The art of drawing them across it.
F. — Fine! I read (in Joinville, I think) that during the Crusades the armament of a warship comprised two hundred serpents. These be strange weapons.
S. — What stuff a fool may talk! The great Rameses used to turn loose lions against his enemies, but no true soldier would employ serpents. Those snakes were used by sailors.
F. — A nice distinction, truly. Did you ever employ your blade in the splitting of hairs?
S. — I have split masses of them!
FOOL — Speaking of the Crusades — at the siege of Acre, when a part of the wall had been thrown down by the Christians the Pisans rushed gallantly into the breach, but the greater part of their army being at dinner, they were bloodily repulsed. Was it not a shame that those feeders should not stir from their porridge to succor their allies?
SOLDIER — Pray why should a man neglect his business to oblige a friend?
F. — But they might have conquered, and the city would have been open to sacking and pillage.
S. — The selfish gluttons!
FOOL — Why is a coachman’s uniform called a livery and a soldier’s livery a uniform?
S. — Your presumption grows insupportable. Speak no more of matters that you know nothing about.
F. — Such censorship would doom all tongues to inactivity. Test my knowledge. S. — What is war?
F. — An acute stage of logical politics.
S. — What is peace?
F. — A suspension of hostilities. An armistice for the purpose of digging up the dead.
S. — I do not follow you.
F. — Then I have security without exertion. S. — You damned half-ration!
OUR SMART SETS
URBAN
THE party given on Tuesday evening last at the residence of the Puffers was an enjoyable occasion. Next door to the residence is a church, and the festivities were frequently interrupted by an old-fashioned prayer meeting that was going on in the sacred edifice — the “amens” and “God-grant-its” being distinctly audible in the midst of the dance. The nuisance was finally abated by the police, but not until many of the guests had left the Puffer mansion in disgust.
The week has been prolific of social gaieties. The hospitable mansions of the genteel, which were thrown shut during Lent, have been thrown open again, and all has gone merry as a married belle. The list of successful and long-to-be-remembered occasions is too long for publication and too important for abbreviation. It can only be said here, in a general way, that Society whooped it up great!
The engagement is announced of Mr. Dreffeldude P. Milquesoppe to Miss Enameline Stuccup, the least-young daughter of our distinguished townsman, Impyqu Stuccup, Esq., familiarly known as “the Golden Pauper.” The wedding is to take place as soon as the old man can sell his pigs.
On Wednesday H. Grabberson Tump led to the altar Miss Toozifoozle Bile, and having got her there, married her alive. The bridal presents were gorgeous, being the famous “Set No. 3” from the well and favorably known establishment of Pasticraft, Nickelgilt & Co. — the same set that graced the showtable on the memorable occasion of the Whoopup-Hurroo nuptials last fall.
The Society Editors’ League has purchased a new evening coat and appointed a committee to arrange a uniform vocabulary — a social Esperanto. The phrases, “palatial mansion,” “the hospitable doors were thrown open,” “the rank, beauty and fashion,” “the festivities were prolonged into the wee sma’ hours,” li Terpsichorean exercises were indulged in,” “the elegant collation was done ample justice to,” “joined in the holy bonds of wedlock,” will stand without revision.
A fancy-dress ball was given by the inmates of the insanity asylum last Monday night. The only outmate present was the society editor of the Technologist, who took the character of “The Lunatic,” and sustained it with such fidelity that he was a marked man. [They marked him “3397” and kept him there.
Our distinguished townsman, the Hon. Dollop Gobb, whose public-spirited investments in unimproved real estate have done so much to make this city what she is, was received everywhere with great consideration while in Europe. The brigands who captured him near Athens demanded the largest ransom for him that has ever been exacted for an American. When he ascended the Great Pyramid he was detained at the top until all that he had excepting his underclothing had gone as backsheesh to the downtrodden millions of Egypt. Innkeepers, couriers, guides, porters and servants vied with one another in paying homage to success in the person of this selfmade American. Mr. Gobb believes that genuine worth is better appreciated under monarchical forms of Government than it is here.
Mr. Joel Hamfat is reported engaged to Mrs. John Bamberson, whose husband is lying at the point of death. It is a genuine case of love at first sight, Mr. Hamfat being the head of the measuring department of the United Undertakers.
On Monday, at the Church of St. Iniquity (Episcopalian), the Rev. Dr. Mammon Godder joined in the holy bonds of matrimony Jacob Abraham Isaacson, of the firm of Isaacson, Isaacson & Isaacson, proprietors of the Seventh Commandment Bazaar, to Miss Rebekah Katzenstein, daughter of Aaron Levi Katzenstein, Esq., of Katzenstein, Abramson & Lubeckheimer, gentlemen clothiers, No. 315 Little Kneedeep street. The wedding — including breakfast, wines, decorations, carriages and everything — cost more than a thousand dollars, but as the bride’s father felicitously remarked, “Monish is noddings ven it is a qvestion of doing somedings in a drooly Ghristian vay, don’t it?” It undoubtedly does.
Old man Snoop has returned from Mud Springs much improved in age. His daughter, Mrs. Major and Brevet Lieutenant-Colonel Straddleblind, has engaged lodging and board for him at the Alms House, where his private system of grammar will excite greater enthusiasm than it does at Humility Hill, as the charming villa of the Straddleblinds is called.
The wedding of Miss Euphemia de Genlis Bullworthy-Clopsattle, the second charming daughter of our distinguished fellow citizen, the Hon. Aminadab Azrael Bullworthy Clopsattle, of “The Pollards,” to Jake Snoots will not take place at once; the bride-to-be will first be “confirmed.” She is wise — if anybody needs the consolation of religion she will.
A reception in honor of the composer who wrote Johnny, Get Your Gun was held on Thursday evening last at the pal man of Mrs. Macpogram, who is herself a musician of no mean ability. The guest of the evening — whose name we do not at this moment recall — sang the composition which has made him famous from Maine to California. Afterward Miss Castoria Hamfat rendered Yow che m’ rumpus in excellent style, and Mr. — (the gentleman who composed the other thing) was tickled half to death. We wish she had sung the whole opera.
Mr and Mrs. Whackup have returned from Europe, bringing many objects of art, some of which cost a great deal of money. Among them is Turner’s “Boy Eating an Apple,” of which the distinguished critic, Col. Twobottle, of Georgia, said that it would live as long as the language. Another treasure of the Whackup collection is Titian’s portrait of Mrs. Whackup’s aunt, painted by Signor Titian at one sitting. It is the intention to have the frame made of real ormolu and set with brilliants.
The elegant entertainment last Tuesday evening at the palatial mansion of our distinguished townsman, J. Giles Noovoreesh Esq., was shorn of its intended proportions by the unexpected arrival of Mr. Noovoreesh himself. Some of the gentlemen who graced the occasion with their presence have not yet obtained their hats and overcoats. The scene that followed the irruption of Mr. N. into the grand hall where Terpsichorean festivities were eventuating is said by an eye-witness to have been the grandest spectacle since the retreat from Waterloo.
A series of “Saturday morning soirees “ is announced at the suburban residence of Mrs. Judge of the Court of A
cquittal Smythe. It is Mrs. Judge of the Court of Acquittal Symthe’s opinion that the uncommon hour will enable her to invite the persons whom she does not want, as well as the ladies and gentlemen whom she does.
Mrs. Lowt has had her ears pierced. It was done by the singing of her second daughter, Miss Loobie. —
From the list of persons whose presence added interest and charm to the splendid obsequies of the late Mrs. Bangupper, on Thursday last, we inadvertently omitted the name of the beautiful and accomplished Miss Chippie Hifli. She was lovely in a costume from Chicago, and divided honors with the remains.
Complete Works of Ambrose Bierce (Delphi Classics) Page 141