Delphi Complete Works of Ambrose Bierce (Illustrated)

by Bierce, Ambrose

  I said: “Hooray, I vote we name him Tommy!”

  Uncle Ned he beganned for to laugh, and mother she said: “Edard, if you have got any thing to say to Johnny why dont you say it like you was a man of sense, Johnny, you hush this minnute, where did Billy put them sizzors, I think baby is awoke, and that roast has got to be took out of the uven fore it burns.” And then she walked out of the room like a thing of life.

  When she was gone, and Missy too, Uncle Ned he stoppd laughin and said: “Johnny, you have made a mess of this thing. Its nothin but jest only that your sister is a goin to be married.”

  I said would it be for long, and after a while he said: “I give it up, ask me a easier one.” Last night we had supper late, but I was let stay up, and I et so much frute cake that I fell a sleep in my chair at the table, and what do you bet I dreamed? I thought I was a settin all alone at a other long table, and pretty soon all the animals which I had wrote about come in and set theirselfs down in the chairs. There was a ephalent, and a rhi nosey rose, and a giraft, and a wale, and a hi potamus, and a eagle, and a cammle, and a ostridge, and a big snake, and a rat, and a cow, and a ri nupple dinky, and a dog, and a cracky dile, and a munky, and evry kind of feller which roams the plain. I said to my own self: lt I guess this is Noahs ark and its beginnin for to rain.” Each animal had its feed before it, what ever it liked best. The ephalent had pea nuts, and the bear had ginger bread, and the giraft had a wether cock off a steeple, and the ostridge had some black smith tools, and the rat it was a eatin some Dutch cheese on a trap, and the cow had a holly hock, and the tagger had a cow, and the snake had a tagger, and the cracky dile had a natif nigger, you never seen such a fine dinner, and Missy was a waitin on the gests with a white veil on and some orang owtang blossoms. Jest as she was a passin Jack Brily to the shark, the wale, which was eatin scum longside of me at the head of the table, stood up on his tail, the wale did, and he had a boat full of wine under his fin, like it was a cup. The wale he blowed a while, and then he bellerd like a organ, and bime by he spoke up and said: “Ladys and gents, it isent any use me tellin you why we have met together to night, cause you know all about it. You know, too, that we havent ever had a square deal from the relatives of our friend the gorilly, which calls theirselfs yuman beins. They have been aginst us from the first, and shiver my timbers if I dont believe thay would send us all to the bottom if they had the power!

  Blow me tight, if I wouldnt rather be a native of Nantucket than any one of them! We hav had only but just 2 friends in the whole damb outfit. One was old Noah, which wasent any use to me, and the other we have with us this evening, our distingished guest, a true friend which under stands us, the only yuman bein which has ever saw the point of our jokes and the beauty of our moral charackters. Ime sure we all hopes that his yarns mark the dawn of a new ery, and men will lam from them that we aint sech bad fellers as some Of us looks — meanin no offense to my friend the pecock; though I dont go so fur as to say that I approove certain dishes which I see bein et at this table, particklar by that shark. And now, ladys and gents, I have the honor to ask you to join me in drinkin a bumper to our ship mate, our guest, our friend, Little Johnny.” Then they all stood up and drinked, and then a old rooster, which was to the other end of the table, he flopped his wings and crowed out “Three cheers for Little Johnny!” which was give by all present, each feller in the languidge that he had been teached at his mothers knee. This made such a awful noise, that it woked me up, and my sister was a pullin my ear for time to go to bed.

  When I was in my bed and she was in hern the door between us was open and I said “Missy.”

  She said: “Hold your tungue, you bad boy, what was you a going to say?”

  I said: “Missy, are you a goin to be married?” and she said: “No, you little goose, why not?”

  Then I said: “Missy, I know you are, and marryin is poligamy and means movin into a other house. When you have done it I want you to do me a partickler favor.”

  She said no, indeed she wouldnt, what was it?

  Then I spoke up and said “Missy, when you go for to live in your other house I want you to take your young man and let him live there too, cause he comes here so much to see Uncle Ned that he is a gum dasted nusance!”

  And she said she would if she died for it.

  The Bible it says that fellers which are nusances shall arise from the dead. And thats why I say eat drink and be merry, for to-morrow you dont. But a pigs tail, nice roasted is the king of beasts..

  TWO ADMINISTRATIONS

  CONTENTS

  A PROVISIONAL SETTLEMENT

  ASPIRANTS THREE

  AT SANTIAGO

  A CABINET CONFERENCE

  AN INDEMNITY

  FOR INTERVENTION

  THE ORDEAL

  FROSTING A BUD

  A BAFFLED AMBITION

  THE GENESIS OF A NATION

  A WHITE HOUSE IDYL

  TWO FAVORITES

  A SUCKED ORANGE

  A TWISTED TALE

  POST MORTEM

  A STRAINED RELATION

  A WIRELESS ANTEPENULTIMATUM

  A PRESIDENTIAL PROGRESS

  A PROVISIONAL SETTLEMENT

  McKinley, a President. Sagasta, a Prime Minister. Aguinaldo, a Patriot.

  SAGASTA — Senor Presidente, you are very good, and you will find that Spain is not unreasonable. I have instructed my peace commissioners to concede quite a number of the demands that yours will probably make.

  McKinley — And the others?

  SAG. — Why, of course, Senor, a demand that is not conceded is refused.

  McK. — But if my commissioners have the sorrow to insist?

  SAG. — In that case Spain knows how to defend her honor.

  McK. — How, for example?

  SAG. — If need be, with the naked breasts of her sons!

  McK. — My good friend, you err widely. The thing which there may be a dispute about is not Spanish honor, but Spanish soil.

  SAG. — In every square foot of which, Senor Porco — I mean Presidente — Spanish honor is rooted.

  McK. — Sir, I shall consult my Secretary of Agriculture as to the desirability of annexing land which produces a crop like that. But this is your day to be dull: can you really suppose that in permitting you to have peace commissioners I expected them to claim the right of dissent? However these matters may be debated, there is but one deciding power — the will of the American Executive.

  SAG. — Senor, you forget. Supreme over all, there is God!

  McK. — O, I don’t know. He’s not the only —

  SAG. — Holy cats!

  [Enter Aguinaldo.]

  McK. — First of all, Senor Prime Minister, you must renounce the island of Luzon, and —

  AGUINALDO — Yes, Senor, that being the most important island of the group, and the one in which you have not now even a foothold, its renunciation will naturally precede that of the others, as my great and good ally is pleased to suggest. With regard to Luzon you have only to say, “We renounce”; I, “We accept.”

  McK. — Please have the goodness to hold your tongue.

  AG. — With both hands, your Excellency.

  McK. — Second, Senor, you must assure a liberal government to the other islands.

  SAG. — With great pleasure, your Excellency; quite cheerfully.

  McK. — Please do not wink. Third, there must be —

  AG. — Excuse me; I was brought up a Spanish subject. What is a liberal government?

  McK. — That is for Spain to decide.

  AG. — I don’t see what Spain will have to do with it.

  McK. — My friend, you slumber — peaceful be thy dreams. Third, there must be complete separation of church and state.

  SAG. — What! a Diabolocracy? You shock me!

  McK. — Fourth, none of the islands, nor any part of them, is to be ceded to any foreign nation without the consent of the United States.

  AG. — You understand, Senor — you heat that!
Spain can never again acquire a square foot of these islands, not even by reconquest or a corrupt bargain with a recreant Filipino dictator, for she will again have to reckon with our powerful protectors, whom may the good God reward 1

  McK. — The trouble with you is, you talk too much. Fifth, the United States must have in the Philippines equal commercial privileges with Spain.

  AG. — Equal? May I never again run amuck if they shall not have superior! Why, I have it in mind to issue a proclamation closing every port to the ships of Spain. As to the United States, commercial primacy is a small reward for their assistance in the closing scene of our successful rebellion.

  SAG. — Of course, as you say, I shall have to accept whatever terms you have the great kindness to offer. As I understand your proposal, Spain retains all the islands but Luzon; that is to belong to the United States, and —

  AG. — What!

  SAG. — This worthy Oriental appears to be laboring under a misapprehension.

  McK. — I know of nothing else that could make an Oriental labor.

  AG. — Senores, the language of diplomacy is to me an unfamiliar tongue: I have imperfectly understood — pardon me. Is it indeed intended that the United States shall take Luzon and Spain take all else?

  McK.—” Retain” is the word.

  AG.—”Retain?” Why, that means to keep, to hold what is already possessed. What you gentlemen have in possession in this archipelago is the ground covered by the feet of your soldiers. Now, what right have you, Senor Presidente, to the island of Luzon? The right of conquest? You have not conquered it.

  McK. — My dear fellow, you distress me. I conquered this gentleman, and he is going to be good enough to give me the island as a testimonial of his esteem.

  AG. — But he doesn’t own it. I had taken it away from him before you defeated him — all but the capital, and by arrangement with your man Dewey —

  SAG. — Caram — !

  AG. — I assisted to take that. Why, he supplied me with arms for the purpose!

  Sag. — Arms with which I had had the unhappiness to supply him.

  AG. — What is my reward? I am driven from the city which I assisted to conquer, and you take not only that but the entire island, which you had no hand in conquering.

  SAG. (aside) — Faith! he’ll conquer it before he gets it.

  McK. — My friend, you are a Malay, with a slight infusion of Chinese, Hindu and Kanaka. Naturally, you cannot understand these high matters.

  AG. — I understand this: We Filipinos rebelled against Spain to liberate our country from oppression. We wrested island after island, city after city, from her until Manila was virtually all that she had left. As we were about to deprive her of that and regain the independence which, through four hundred years of misrule, she had denied us we experienced a dire mischance. You quarreled with her because she denied independence to Cuba. Spanish dominion, which we had stabbed, was already dead, but you arrived just in time to kick the corpse while it was yet warm, and for this service you propose to administer upon the estate, keeping the most valuable part for your honesty. You will then revive the dead, buried and damned and reinstate him in possecsion of the remainder!

  McK. (aside) — O, will I?

  SAG. — Apparently, Senor Presidente, this worthy person is afflicted with a flow of language. (Aside) The Porco Americano has the habit of blushing.

  McK. (to Sagasta) — Yes, the Filipino always has his tongue in his ear. (To Aguinaldo) Proceed with the address.

  AG. — It is as if the French, having assisted your forefathers to independence, had kept Boston and all New England for themselves and restored the other colonies to Great Britain. If the Good Samaritan, arriving while the man fallen among thieves was still struggling with them, had assisted him to beat them off, had then taken his purse and delivered him to the thieves again you would have had a Scriptural precedent.

  SAG. (writing in a notebook)—”At a certain temperature the Porco Americano can sweat.”

  McK. — My great and good friend, you seem to have your climate with you, as well as your chin. I must beg you to abridge your oration against manifest destiny.

  AG. — Destiny was a long time manifesting herself, but she has not been idle since. In the last four months you have torn up the three American political Holy Scriptures: Washington’s Farewell Address, the Monroe Doctrine and the Declaration of Independence. You now stand upon the fragments of the last and declare it an error that governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed. In Hawaii you are founding a government on the consent of less than three per centum of the governed. In my country you propose to found one government and restore another against the unanimous dissent of eight millions of people whom you cheated into an alliance to that end. You cajoled them into assisting at the cutting of their own throats. Your only justification in making this war at all was Spain’s denial in Havana of the political principle which you now repudiate in Honolulu and Manila. Senores, we shall resist both the American and the Spanish occupation. You will be allies — embrace!

  [Exit Sagasta.’] McK. — My dear boy, you are unduly alarmed: the notion of letting Spain keep those other islands is merely a Proposal Retractable — in undiplomatic language, an offer with a string to it.

  AG. — And your plan of holding Luzon — after taking it?

  McK. — Rest in peace: that is only what we call an Intention Augmentable.

  AG. — Ah, Senor, you make me so happy!

  ASPIRANTS THREE

  The Incumbent. The Born Candidate. The Ambitious Mariner.

  INCUMBENT:

  Sir Admiral, ‘twas but two years ago I turned you loose against a feeble foe, Gave you a chancc to write your unknown name In shouting letters on the scroll of fame, Stood by you with a firmness almost sinful, Fed you with honors till you had a skinful, Plied you with praise till drunk as any lord — And this, George Dewey, this is my reward! So drunken with success you seem to be That you have visions of succeeding — Me!

  AMBITIOUS MARINER:

  Why, blast my tarry toplights! what’s this row?

  And which of you is speaking, anyhow?

  INCUMBENT (aside):

  He thinks I am beside myself. Alas, He sees, as through the bottom of a glass, Darkly. Strange how this pirate of the main With an eye single to his private gain Beholds things double! Would that I, poor worm, Could see in duplicate my four years’ term. The fellow’s looked too long upon the cup — I’ll get behind his back and trip him up, Break his damned neck, and then the tale repeat Of how, poor man, he fell o’er his own feet. That’s politics.

  [Enter Born Candidate.] Good Heavens, I am caught!

  BORN CANDIDATE:

  Hello, McPresident!

  INCUMBENT:

  Did you see aught Suspicious in my actions?

  BORN CANDIDATE:

  Well, I guess There might have been an aspirant the less If I had longer stayed where I was “at.”

  INCUMBENT:

  And may I venture to ask where was that?

  BORN CANDIDATE:

  Along the roadside, hidden in the rye To see the famous Admiral go by.

  A look had done me good if I had got one. It happened, by the by, I had a shotgun.

  AMBITIOUS MARINER (to Born Candidate):

  Shiver my timbers! you’re a dandy crimp — That figure-head of yours would scare a shrimp.

  INCUMBENT (to Born Candidate):

  Let’s try less candid measures to remove him: Moral dissuasion would perhaps improve him.

  We can (when he’s not full of “old October”)

  Appeal from Dewey drunk to Dewey sober.

  BORN CANDIDATE (to Incumbent):

  Said like a lawyer (‘tis a grand profession!) But that appellate court is ne’er in session.

  AMBITIOUS MARINER (aside):

  They think me half seas over. That’s all right —

  I’m full, but what I’m full of is just fight.

  (Aloud,
scowling): Some sailor men — rough fellows from the fleet —

  Followed me here. They’re waiting in the street.

  They’re loyal, but in temper they’re unsteady And [goes to the window and speaks ow/] Gridley, you may fire when you are ready.

  [Cannon within. Exeunt, hurriedly, Incumbent and Born Candidate.]

  That’s all — I never had the least intention Of facing a political convention.

  AT SANTIAGO

  Torah Shafter.

  TORAL — Ah, Senor, it was an anxious night — that of July 2. The angel of sleep did not visit me, and my pillow — I shame not to say it — was wet with tears.

  SHAFTER — Me too. I never swore so much in my life. I tried every way to sleep, but couldn’t make it go.

  Tor. — How sad! Senor, we are no longer enemies, and we are alone. May I hope that Heaven will put it into your heart to tell me why you slept not that unhappy night?