3. THE SWAN AND LEDA . . . protect your dear ones . . .
CHAPTER III
You don’t mean it,the pope said gruffly. I do indeed,replied the cardinal,wiping the foam from his lips. Not turnips,a monk whispered,taking the gloomdestroyer from his superior. Impossible,His Holiness muttered nervously through reversed mustachios:and a choirboy entered,announcing the horsd’oeuvres,which were,in the order of their appearance:a magnet,a universal joint,a screwdriver,assorted nuts,and a bevy of large differentials. Show them in!Pius thundered. Bang. The gates opened to admit Sir Alfred Horehound,dressed to kill in full duckshooting regalia including the dawnsherno pasteboard earwarmers,and crying,Room for the queen! Any luck? a threelegged catemite demanded casually,whittling pencils into the convex wastebasket,while the whole room echoed room over and over again. A brace of guineapigs and a crested nestcepas was the hearty rejoinder,as the hero of the occasion,drawing a stiletto from behind his ear and plunging it slowly into a tame porcupine who was always in the way,ordered breakfast to be served in the loggia,which was manifestly impossible for innumerable reasons including the fact that it was cold and noone else understood Pakrit. Simply wonderful. Taking a sealion out of a watermelon he first deposited it in the goldfishbowl bottomsideup,causing an explosion which changed the colour of everyone’s eyebrows,and next,to the delight of all present,caused an angleworm to appear on the janitor’s instep,but guffaws fairly rang out when sevensixhundred pound fairies began coming five by five slowly out of the graphophone horn,waving furiously the Stars and Stripes and chewing colossal homemade whisperless mincepies. Desperate as was the situation,Captain Dimple was not a man of anyone else’s word,no. In a trice Edward had unfurled the tricolour and drawn his Spanish rapier clear to the nozzle,only to be seized by a stupendous octopus and disappear magnetically with a windome splash. It was a moment never to be forgotten by nobody. Amelia,cowering,removed the Cherokee’s dripping tomahawk from her recently scalped mother’s head and without further explanation passed the smellingsalts to Aunt Nabbie who micturated promptly in a golden thimble. Again and again sandbags were thrown out,but still for some reason the balloon rose until we were nearly out of sight except through MacAdoo’s telescope which Jasper had cleverly concealed in one throbbing armpit,while Chick held the discobolus by a particular kind of hypnotism which he had learned at Princeton by trying it on a cat. Incredible as it may seem I swear he was found under my wife’s uncle’s bed. Mountains! everyone cried,and we all were over the dead sea which was green but only Betty saw the intruder. With a bound,the faithful airdale was upon Charlie,who(full of buckshot)had only time to open his compass and sneeze twice when he stumbled,tripping on a threequarters Morocco edition of Hafiz(expurgated). Sunlight came. The lovers did not move. A patented fishnet full of stuffed minnows appeared,closely followed by a royal Bengal conundrum wearing eleven brown derbies and preceded by smallpox. Huzza huzza. Again an huzza. Drop that,a mucker halfsaid,picking up a microscopic stone the size of a chimney and putting it quickly in deliberate contact with the silverencrusted stomach of the incestuous Senator’s pistachiocoloured brotherinlaw,who came to an abrupt end,dropping his spinach,and enunciated clearly: “What was that?” “Nothing,nothing,what time is it,roses,rabbits,” his Esquimaux chauffeur murmured,busily dusting his master’s eyes free of glass. The Peugeot,after taking another drink,glided on laughing and making hay now and now while the sun shines bright on the Old Kentucky Home For Homeless Girls. Just then who should out step,of all people,but I’ll be damned if it’s no other than upon my sacred word of Hon. Harry Chilblains F.O.B. Detroit,wearing the inevitable nosering over a scarlet forsooth,or so to speak complet borrowed for his weddingnight by Caesar,without taste,a gardener,as I live and breathe,no,yes really,a fellow of the lower classes,without exception,without permission. Next time ask,was all he said,but the syringe obfuscated,covering with ultraviolet ink a number of disinterested spectators. R.F.D. The pokergame was still in progress and La La was beating her tambourine to Yes,We Have No when as a matter of fact Under The Spreading broke down and Jo Jo the Dog Faced Boy recited The Coming Of The Hesperus,sobbing and choking until I personally looked about in the wastebaskets for either of the three penguins,although she had solemnly promised his honour that there would be no larkspur this time,and by Jiminy Crickets just opened(as it chanced)helterskelter to isn’t it Daniel where he says there shall be rain,narrowly missing the incubator,because after all steward,if the little chap could have helped it,no Judges I think,it would be different,now I protest,can you spell perspicuity,as though Rome was built in a day,not mouses. Mice. Just a little wider,please. Would you say geeses. Define hypothenuse Wilbur. Hippopotami. Not gerania. Why Isabel. Columbus. Who was the Father of his Country? That’s not funny. Yes,mother. Which killed Cock Robin? Say ah. Wrong. Ask your grandfather,S.V.P.D.Q.
4. THE FRIEND IN NEED . . . a boon to travellers . . .
CHAPTER IV
Once upon a time,boys and girls,there were two congenital ministers to Belgium,one of whom was insane whereas the other was sixfingered. They met on the top of a churchsteeple and exchanged with ease electrically lighted visitingcards and the one who was not steering picked a rose and handed it to the waitress with the remark:“Urinoir gratuit.” The other declared dividends. He was immediately escorted,under pressure,by seven detectives disguised as consumptive highwaymen,to a nearby railroad trestle,where in the presence of the mayor his head was lovingly and carefully removed and emptied of molasses candy. Such was the shock produced by this amazing discovery upon the next of kin of the defunct that all four,attired in crêpe de Chine nightgowns,gradually rose to a height of ninety degrees Fahrenheit clapping their hands frequently. At that,a bareback rider named Jenny Wells proceeded in the full view of all present to cross Niagara Falls on a clothesline stretching perpendicularly from the Woolworth Building to the Eiffel Tower,by way of introduction twirling before her (with incredible skill) her maternal nephew,a little old gentleman in a gondola on whom somebody with a sense of the sublime had pinned a label: “Religion is the opium of the people.” Thunderous applause greeted the advent of capillary attraction,which convinced Herbert,who had wisely shot himself in the navel,that the deerhunting season was nearly over,particularly as a safetyrazor,a tricycle,three elephant’s teeth and a pair of brass knuckles were subsequently discovered in the unlocked suitcase,proving beyond a shadow of a doubt that spring had come in the minds of Lucy and Abner,not to speak of the hundred and fifty odd thousand rattraps whose deliberately mutual proximity considerably cluttered my already overemphasized watchpocket. A whistle blew,and the Bible was red. Typewriters darkened the air,protruding their enormous necks,and quacking,to the tune of Button Up Your Overcoat,while a single hairpin descended sumptuously through the arctic twilight,and Gertrude’s new earrings hurt her very much indeed. Sheriff,I say this fish was easily over one inches long. “Sailors and soldiers too,” Cousin Clem remarked,anent the unscrupulous and simultaneous olfactory emanations of a group of powerfully built pianomovers,situated just to the north of Plum Island,between Cadiz and Robespierre,with a beautiful outlook on the Bay of Naples;but as we were not quite sure whether the poisongas had done its deadly work or no,a mongoose in a birdcage was tied with a yellow ribbon to the end of a sleeping steamshovel and cautiously introduced into the dislocated environsof what had once been George Moore. The deathmask completed,the sculptor turned his own face to the wall and died significantly after drinking so many innumerable absinthes that it really was no wonder she divorced a man kind of like that,don’t you maybe think? (Ralph answered by going to bed hurriedly with a pigeon in his pyjamas). Restive,manoeuvring for silence,baldheaded,ubiquitous,amaranthine,bisexual,the almost obsolete huissier tapped the vice president with his mahogany gavel on the exact centre of the mons Veneris causing concealed consequences of a strictly peripheral nature not highly indigenous to the pathogenic circumstances attending Cornwallis’ victory over Lars Porsena in A,B,C.,hence let us now turn instead to page el
even and study column three,until I say “hottentot” in a voice so shrill that the candle extinguished the violin;more particularly since a base slander was covered with unripe homunculi,Clara thought,while C’est la vie murmured the overturned prelate and the taxi skidded on,encountering a perfectly empty cinema in which sat the drunken driver himself. Can you imagine that,albeit crippled with an acute case of obtuse indigestion,polyglot Dick was not unequal to the cube of each other? Whiskies and sodas at five,gark,we leave for Subito on the four fifteen,they whimpered,dropping the teakettle in her excitement,as its nomenclature cleverly evaded one diabetes after another. And really,it is simply miraculous how these pistils and stamens live together in the very heart of Newark,without so much as a policeman. If you don’t mind,I consider that a quite unnecessary vindication of Doctor’s Thurber’s interesting theory of the cryptogramic origins of applesauce.
5. THE SPINSTER’S DILEMMA . . . but a parrot did . . .
CHAPTER V
Despite a large and inaccessible abscess which hounded his left ear until its death,making quite impossible the turning of somersaults and achieving of embroidery,Benjamin the Second(1200-1865)that bestloved monarch whose brief and innocuous reign is chiefly notable for the bestowing of the Antique Order of the Boston Garter upon a vigorous Iroquois savage named Francis Shakespeare—all eleven of whose unquestionably illegitimate and perfectly incorrigible sons consequently became the original & only nucleus of our wellliked Howdah of Peers(which if I may use a metaphor remains through countless generations the sine qua non of Borneo’s ne plus ultra)died a shall we say virgin. His successor,a carefree pirate of the otherwise unillustrious Yapian navy whom history,in its artless way,has for no good reason dubbed Ethelbert First,lived in a henhouse and invented after constant struggles the excessively dangerous No Afterglow safetymatches,which were not banished from the kingdom until sixteen centuries later,during which nonce or interim a series of inexplicable and epochmaking fires necessitated the entire rebuilding(at inordinate expense)of seventy-eight and four-ninths cities including Paris and one other. Next came Arthur the Good,who was lefthanded and invented gingerbread. A ruler whom little children will easily remember is perhaps Stephen Thirty-Fifth,famous for having accidently suffocated,while being baptized at the tender age of 1—minutes by the archdeacon Perfectus Magrew who,accordingly,succeeded with some promptness to the suddenly vacant throne of Middle Wales under the mellifluous pseudonym of Heller Hal The Hundredth. Nellie,estimable and final spouse of the universally esteemed and not far from fertile latter,imitating the noteworthy example of her thirteen unfortunate predecessors,succumbed,as it were,to rupture,but not before having(subsequent to a heated discussion anent the relative merits of aspirin and quinine,popularly supposed to constitute a nothing short of infallible je ne sais quoi against hives,indigestion,and muchness)imbedded a previously sharpened breadknife in the occiput of Finland’s martyred lord,who expired after bestowing upon his Japanese cammeryairy,Jan Jansen,the empire and all therein comprehended by prime right of sauve qui peut and positive quid nunc,via thirty and three carefully forged documents of eighty thousand polysyllables each or thereabouts and not including the inevitable hieroglyphs. Of Hakon Ninth it is recorded that he could neither read nor write and therefore drowned little puppies before breakfast,watching with a sinister smile the gradually attenuating efforts of the incompletely immersed victims;whereas Bald Paul Heinrich(otherwise known as“the porcelain dumbbell,”for a misuse of which intimate synonym several of his multitudinous mistresses were electrocuted,convicted of having—at various times,generally while His Brilliance was asleep—engraved their all too copious initials in the unique cranium of the royal roué with the aid of screwdrivers,penknives,and similar wind instruments)horribly collapsed while eating an anchovy sandwich and rolled smartly down three flights of heavily carpeted stairs into the ladies’ swimmingpool which,unhappily,had only that morning been drained,with the not inexcusable idea of eventually locating the crown prince’s longlost binoculars. A cortège of reinforced Hispano Suizas carried the victim of flatulence to a nearby windmill,where,before two thousand female urchins costumed as brownies and designed by Winslow Homer,who himself appeared just too late on rollerskates having missed the six fifty-seven from Ipswich via Epsom,Heinrich was ground to atoms and molecules of him distributed gratis to all bakeries of the kingdom,as directed in his fifty-eighth will making all others perfectly invalid and poisoning a not inconsiderable number of to say the least religiously minded folk who(kindled by a wellmeaning if extravagant patriotism)partook inwardly of such fatal trivialities as toenails or collar-buttons. Julius Blake,by profession the court moron,zero feet eight and decimal point naught seven inches tall, was presumably overcome with grief at the sight of his rapidly disappearing master’s infratrouserleg;he thereupon regurgitated the snuffbox of the astonished Marquis de la Blague and was removed with unbelievable difficulty from the very apogee of the ceremony. A littleknown fancier of gelded tarantulas,who,as it developed,had openly and not infrequently responded to the libidinous nomenclature of Ike Isinglass, fell(by hook or crook)with a frightful oath into the unnoticing jaws of the pitiless crusher,dragging in his prolific wake twelve stalwart offspring all above voting age and a protesting,because otherwise occupied in connection with a tree,cockerspaniel entitled Old Glory of ineffable value. Notices were thereupon served that tomorrow would be a holiday. This generous act provoked a small but far from noiseless band of illiterate Letts,headed by the brigand chief Alexei Kapoot,and brandishing in every conceivable direction an imposing variety of nuisancemaking devices such as rattles,foghorns,and willow whistles,to take advantage of the situation to elect one of their number consul in extenso to no less a geographical absurdity than Somaliland. A coup d’etat followed,and noone was hurt,especially the imperial household who went hurriedly en bloc to the guillotine in eveningdress on top of several excellent cocktails and a celebrated manabouttown who tripped through sheer carelessness on a banana’s kimono and dropped five storeys from a balcony—like a spontaneous meteor—into his own but recently acquired chapeau de forme.
6. THE HELPING HAND . . . nobody is exempt . . .
CHAPTER VI
Any questions?Professor Smudge asked slyly,biting his ear. Forsitan et haec. Tell us why was your antiSemitic son rejected by Hollywood,Mrs. J. Diddle fired roughly at random,shaking the very bosom of the palpitating audience composed of troutfishermen and umbrellamenders with a liberal sprinkling of coalminers. Tictoc. For stroking the crew,madam,a Rutgers man answered,prettily swooning from the lowest chandelier at the rate of thirty-two feet per second into one of seven nickelplated cuspidors,five of whom being occupied by mounted police in search of their usual objective(a dangerous criminal named Jerry R. Toboggan,which was smoking cigarettes incessantly and playing strippoker with ourselves in crachoir number four).Da. It was a very very warm indeed spring morning for October 31st,1600,and,hanging by his secondbest teeth from the incomparable summit of snowclad Mt. Christopher,André Dodo (the deafanddumb guide) remarked with some truth and incredible sangfroid through his nose: “Frankreich Uber Alles.” By special appointment. At this insult Cuthbert could not contain himself any longer,and(protecting with one foot his sister)bitterly exclaimed: “That landslide was I think produced by vibrations and they should really not permit the larger alarmclocks to function at such altitudes.” (Anon.). YOUNG g. look. S. Amer.,sér. high éduc. g. danc. and sports 1. for relat. with nice lady not older than,25. Nobody,however, knew where Father had put little Mary’s stepintos and all because a Greek who spoke no English took cowardly refuge in his mother tongue until goaded with sudatoria and sterilized nailscissors,when his brother’s octoroon vividly exploded,doing no harm. Hush. Recip. désint. absolute.,discr. Electriclightbulbs,exactly eight centimetres apart and weighing twenty grammes each,were born on Wednesday to the conductor’s astonishment,who thereupon was lynched and found to contain a live duck. Selah. They slept with a papernapkin between them until somebody
objected who would trust a mere immigrant’s testimony. Prosit! Well,even if my Dudley were intoxicated he would still be your mother’s only son,a tenor voice lied crisply by wireless,proudly exhibiting her bright new husband and lampposts brought from Afghanistan to take the place of those which had been killed in the struggle between the Wuchuma-Kawlits and the Uno-Hoos,lonesome wasn’t it. Carrramba. Yes indeed it certainly wasn’t;not like last year anyway. Doo yoo weesh feesh. And as for Ada’s deleteds,why they fitted Zoe perfectly (weather permitting). Stop. Although anybody might have guessed it was the nitrogenous corpse of Monsieur G.,an Armenian ventriloquist of note,Mars being in Saturn with apologies to Pavloff,had not dear sweet kind good old Dr. F’s full patented but strictly mysterious televisionary apparatus suggesting from one point of view Geraint and Enid and from the other a pedigreed electric iron played what the devil’s name is that why can’t I O yes of course,Annie Rooney,some thousands of millions of millions of billions of adinfinitum ultimately astral aeons later by Robert’s selfwinding Ingersoll sundial. Wuxtree! Wuxtree! S.O.S.! The sum of the squares of the other two sides!
A Miscellany (Revised) Page 23