Delphi Complete Works of Ambrose Bierce (Illustrated)

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Delphi Complete Works of Ambrose Bierce (Illustrated) Page 161

by Bierce, Ambrose


  The high-rolling, sky-rolling, hurtling hallelujah-lad of peerless volatility!

  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 NICK:

  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:

 

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