A CALLER
“Why, Goldenson, you’re looking very well.”
Said Death as, strolling through the County Jail,
He entered that serene assassin’s cell
And hung his hat and coat upon a nail.
“I think that life in this secluded spot
Agrees with men of your trade, does it not?”
“Well, yes,” said Goldenson, “I can’t complain:
Life anywhere — provided it is mine —
Agrees with me; but I observe with pain
That still the people murmur and repine.
It hurts their sense of harmony, no doubt,
To see a persecuted man grow stout.”
“O no, ‘tis not your growing stout,” said Death,
”Which makes these malcontents complain and scold —
They like you to be, somehow, scant of breath.
What they object to is your growing old.
And — though indifferent to lean or fat —
I don’t myself entirely favor that.”
With brows that met above the orbs beneath,
And nose that like a soaring hawk appeared,
And lifted lip, uncovering his teeth,
The Mamikellikiller coldly sneered:
“O, so you don’t! Well, how will you assuage
Your spongy passion for the blood of age?”
Death with a clattering convulsion, drew
His coat on, hatted his unmeated pow,
Unbarred the door and, stepping partly through,
Turned and made answer: “I will show you how.
I’m going to the Bench you call Supreme
And tap the old women who sit there and dream.”
THE SHAFTER SHAFTED
Well, James McMillan Shafter, you’re a Judge —
At least you were when last I knew of you;
And if the people since have made you budge
I did not notice it. I’ve much to do
Without endeavoring to follow, through
The miserable squabbles, dust and smudge,
The fate of even the veteran contenders
Who fight with flying colors and suspenders.
Being a Judge, ‘tis natural and wrong
That you should villify the public press —
Save while you are a candidate. That song
Is easy quite to sing, and I confess
It wins applause from hearers who have less
Of spiritual graces than belong
To audiences of another kidney —
Men, for example, like Sir Philip Sidney.
Newspapers, so you say, don’t always treat
The Judges with respect. That may be so
And still no harm done, for I swear I’ll eat
My legs and in the long hereafter go,
Snake-like, upon my belly if you’ll show
All Judges are respectable and sweet.
For some of them are rogues and the world’s laughter’s
Directed at some others, for they’re Shafters.
THE MUMMERY
THE TWO CAVEES
DRAMATIS PERSONÆ.
FITCH a Pelter of Railrogues
PICKERING his Partner, an Enemy to Sin
OLD NICK a General Blackwasher
DEAD CAT a Missile
ANTIQUE EGG Another
RAILROGUES, DUMP-CARTERS. NAVVIES and Unassorted SHOVELRY in the Lower Distance
Scene — The Brink of a Railway Cut, a Mile Deep.
Time — 1875.
FITCH:
Gods! what a steep declivity! Below
I see the lazy dump-carts come and go,
Creeping like beetles and about as big.
The delving Paddies —
PICKERING:
Case of infra dig.
FITCH:
Loring, light-minded and unmeaning quips
Come with but scant propriety from lips
Fringed with the blue-black evidence of age.
‘Twere well to cultivate a style more sage,
For men will fancy, hearing how you pun,
Our foulest missiles are but thrown in fun.
(Enter Dead Cat.)
Here’s one that thoughtfully has come to hand; Slant your fine eye below and see it land. (Seizes Dead Cat by the tail and swings it in act to throw.)
DEAD CAT (singing):
Merrily, merrily, round I go —
Over and under and at.
Swing wide and free, swing high and low
The anti-monopoly cat!
O, who wouldn’t be in the place of me,
The anti-monopoly cat?
Designed to admonish,
Persuade and astonish
The capitalist and —
FITCH (letting go):
Scat! (Exit Dead Cat.)
PICKERING:
Huzza! good Deacon, well and truly flung!
Pat Stanford it has grassed, and Mike de Young.
Mike drives a dump-cart for the villains, though
‘Twere fitter that he pull it. Well, we owe
The traitor one for leaving us! — some day
We’ll get, if not his place, his cart away.
Meantime fling missiles — any kind will do.
(Enter Antique Egg.)
Ha! we can give them an ovation, too!
ANTIQUE EGG:
In the valley of the Nile,
Where the Holy Crocodile
Of immeasurable smile
Blossoms like the early rose,
And the Sacred Onion grows —
When the Pyramids were new
And the Sphinx possessed a nose,
By a storkess I was laid
In the cool papyrus shade,
Where the rushes later grew,
That concealed the little Jew,
Baby Mose.
Straining very hard to hatch,
I disrupted there my yolk;
And I felt my yellow streaming
Through my white;
And the dream that I was dreaming
Of posterity was broke
In a night.
Then from the papyrus-patch
By the rising waters rolled,
Passing many a temple old,
I proceeded to the sea.
Memnon sang, one morn, to me,
And I heard Cambyses sass
The tomb of Ozymandias!
FITCH:
O, venerablest orb of all the earth,
God rest the lady fowl that gave thee birth!
Fit missile for the vilest hand to throw —
I freely tender thee mine own. Although
As a bad egg I am myself no slouch,
Thy riper years thy ranker worth avouch.
Now, Pickering, please expose your eye and say
If — whoop! —
(Exit egg.)
I’ve got the range.
PICKERING:
Hooray! hooray!
A grand good shot, and Teddy Colton’s down:
It burst in thunderbolts upon his crown!
Larry O’Crocker drops his pick and flies,
And deafening odors scream along the skies!
Pelt ‘em some more.
FITCH:
There’s nothing left but tar — wish I were a Yahoo.
PICKERING:
Well, you are.
But keep the tar. How well I recollect,
When Mike was in with us — proud, strong, erect —
Mens conscia recti — flinging mud, he stood,
Austerely brave, incomparably good,
Ere yet for filthy lucre he began
To drive a cart as Stanford’s hired man,
That pitch-pot bearing in his hand, Old Nick
Appeared and tarred us all with the same stick.
(Enter Old Nick).
I hope he won’t return and use his arts
To make us part with our immortal parts.
OLD NI
CK:
Make yourself easy on that score my lamb;
For both your souls I wouldn’t give a damn!
I want my tar-pot — hello! where’s the stick?
FITCH:
Don’t look at me that fashion! — look at Pick.
PICKERING:
Forgive me, father — pity my remorse!
Truth is — Mike took that stick to spank his horse.
It fills my pericardium with grief
That I kept company with such a thief.
(Endeavoring to get his handkerchief, he opens his coat and the tar-stick falls out. Nick picks it up, looks at the culprit reproachfully and withdraws in tears.)
FITCH (excitedly):
O Pickering, come hither to the brink —
There’s something going on down there, I think!
With many an upward smile and meaning wink
The navvies all are running from the cut
Like lunatics, to right and left —
PICKERING:
Tut, tut —
‘Tis only some poor sport or boisterous joke.
Let us sit down and have a quiet smoke.
(They sit and light cigars.)
FITCH (singing):
When first I met Miss Toughie
I smoked a fine cigyar,
An’ I was on de dummy
And she was in de cyar.
BOTH (singing):
An’ I was on de dummy
And she was in de cyar.
FITCH (singing):
I couldn’t go to her,
An’ she wouldn’t come to me;
An’ I was as oneasy
As a gander on a tree.
BOTH (singing):
An’ I was as oneasy
As a gander on a tree.
FITCH (singing):
But purty soon I weakened
An’ lef’ de dummy’s bench,
An’ frew away a ten-cent weed
To win a five-cent wench!
BOTH (singing)
An’ frew away a ten-cent weed
To win a five-cent wench!
FITCH:
Is there not now a certain substance sold
Under the name of fulminate of gold,
A high explosive, popular for blasting,
Producing an effect immense and lasting?
PICKERING:
Nay, that’s mere superstition. Rocks are rent
And excavations made by argument.
Explosives all have had their day and season;
The modern engineer relies on reason.
He’ll talk a tunnel through a mountain’s flank
And by fair speech cave down the tallest bank.
(The earth trembles, a deep subterranean explosion is heard and a section of the bank as big as El Capitan starts away and plunges thunderously into the cut. A part of it strikes De Young’s dumpcart abaft the axletree and flings him, hurtling, skyward, a thing of legs and arms, to descend on the distant mountains, where it is cold. Fitch and Pickering pull themselves out of the débris and stand ungraveling their eyes and noses.)
FITCH:
Well, since I’m down here I will help to grade,
And do dirt-throwing henceforth with a spade.
PICKERING:
God bless my soul! it gave me quit a start. Well, fate is fate — I guess I’ll drive this cart. (Curtain.)
METEMPSYCHOSIS
DRAMATIS PERSONÆ.
ST. JOHN a Presidential Candidate
MCDONALD a Defeated Aspirant
MRS. HAYES an Ex-President
PITTS-STEVENS a Water Nymph
Scene — A Small Lake in the Alleghany Mountains.
ST. JOHN:
Hours I’ve immersed my muzzle in this tarn
And, quaffing copious potations, tried
To suck it dry; but ever as I pumped
Its waters into my distended skin
The labor of my zeal extruded them
In perspiration from my pores; and so,
Rilling the marginal declivity,
They fell again into their source. Ah, me!
Could I but find within these ancient hills
Some long extinct volcano, by the rains
Of countless ages in its crater brimmed
Like a full goblet, I would lay me down
Prone on the outer slope, and o’er its edge
Arching my neck, I’d siphon out its store
And flood the valleys with my sweat for aye.
So should I be accounted as a god,
Even as Father Nilus is. What’s that?
Methought I heard some sawyer draw his file
With jarring, stridulous cacophany
Across his notchy blade, to set its teeth
And mine on edge. Ha! there it goes again!
Song, within.
Cold water’s the milk of the mountains,
And Nature’s our wet-nurse. O then,
Glue thou thy blue lips to her fountains
Forever and ever, amen!
ST. JOHN:
Why surely there’s congenial company
Aloof — the spirit, I suppose, that guards
This sacred spot; perchance some water-nymph
Who laving in the crystal flood her limbs
Has taken cold, and so, with raucous voice
Afflicts the sensitive membrane of mine ear
The while she sings my sentiments.
(Enter Pitts-Stevens.)
Hello!
What fiend is this?
PITTS-STEVENS:
‘Tis I, be not afraid.
ST. JOHN:
And who, thou antiquated crone, art thou?
I ne’er forget a face, but names I can’t
So well remember. I have seen thee oft.
When in the middle season of the night,
Curved with a cucumber, or knotted hard
With an eclectic pie, I’ve striven to keep
My head and heels asunder, thou has come,
With sociable familiarity,
Into my dream, but not, alas, to bless.
PITTS-STEVENS:
My name’s Pitts-Stevens, age just seventeen years;
Talking teetotaler, professional
Beauty.
ST. JOHN:
What dost them here?
PITTS-STEVENS:
I’m come, fair sir,
With paint and brush to blazon on these rocks
The merits of my master’s nostrum — so:
(Paints rapidly.)
“McDonald’s Vinegar Bitters!”
ST. JOHN:
What are they?
PITTS-STEVENS:
A woman suffering from widowhood
Took a full bottle and was cured. A man
There was — a murderer; the doctors all
Had given him up — he’d but an hour to live.
He swallowed half a glassful. He is dead,
But not of Vinegar Bitters. A wee babe
Lay sick and cried for it. The mother gave
That innocent a spoonful and it smoothed
Its pathway to the tomb. ‘Tis warranted
To cause a boy to strike his father, make
A pig squeal, start the hair upon a stone,
Or play the fiddle for a country dance.
(Enter McDonald, reading a Sunday-school book.)
Good morrow, sir; I trust you’re well.
MCDONALD:
H’lo, Pitts!
Observe, good friends, I have a volume here
Myself am author of — a noble book
To train the infant mind (delightful task!)
It tells how one Samantha Brown, age, six,
A gutter-bunking slave to rum, was saved
By Vinegar Bitters, went to church and now
Has an account at the Pacific Bank.
I’ll read the whole work to you.
ST JOHN:
Heaven forbid!
I’ve elsewhere an
engagement.
PITTS-STEVENS:
I am deaf.
MCDONALD (reading regardless):
“Once on a time there lived” ——
(Enter Mrs. Hayes.) Behold our queen!
ALL:
Her eyes upon the ground
Before her feet she low’rs,
Walking, in thought profound,
As ‘twere, upon all fours.
Her visage is austere,
Her gait a high parade;
At every step you hear
The sloshing lemonade!
MRS. HAYES (to herself):
Once, sitting in the White House, hard at work
Signing State papers (Rutherford was there,
Knitting some hose) a sudden glory fell
Upon my paper. I looked up and saw
An angel, holding in his hand a rod
Wherewith he struck me. Smarting with the blow
I rose and (cuffing Rutherford) inquired:
“Wherefore this chastisement?” The angel said:
“Four years you have been President, and still
There’s rum!” — then flew to Heaven. Contrite, I swore
Such oath as lady Methodist might take,
My second term should medicine my first.
The people would not have it that way; so
I seek some candidate who’ll take my soul —
My spirit of reform, fresh from my breast,
And give me his instead; and thus equipped
With my imperious and fiery essence,
Drive the Drink-Demon from the land and fill
The people up with water till their teeth
Are all afloat.
(St. John discovers himself.)
What, you?
ST. JOHN:
Complete Works of Ambrose Bierce (Delphi Classics) Page 161