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Delphi Complete Works of Ambrose Bierce (Illustrated)

Page 162

by Bierce, Ambrose


  Aye, Madam, I’ll

  Swap souls with you and lead the cold sea-green

  Amphibians of Prohibition on,

  Pallid of nose and webbed of foot, swim-bladdered,

  Gifted with gills, invincible!

  MRS. HAYES:

  Enough,

  Stand forth and consummate the interchange.

  (While McDonald and Pitts-Stevens modestly turn their backs, the latter blushing a delicate shrimp-pink, St. John and Mrs. Hayes effect an exchange of immortal parts. When the transfer is complete McDonald turns and advances, uncorking a bottle of Vinegar Bitters.)

  MCDONALD (chanting):

  Nectar compounded of simples

  Cocted in Stygian shades —

  Acids of wrinkles and pimples

  From faces of ancient maids —

  Acrid precipitates sunken

  From tempers of scolding wives

  Whose husbands, uncommonly drunken,

  Are commonly found in dives, —

  With this I baptize and appoint thee

  (to St. John.)

  To marshal the vinophobe ranks.

  In the name of Dambosh I anoint thee

  (pours the liquid down St. John’s back.)

  As King of aquatical cranks!

  (The liquid blisters the royal back, and His Majesty starts on a dead run, energetically exclaiming. Exit St. John.)

  MRS. HAYES:

  My soul! My soul! I’ll never get it back Unless I follow nimbly on his track. (Exit Mrs. Hayes.)

  PITTS-STEVENS:

  O my! he’s such a beautiful young man! I’ll follow, too, and catch him if I can. (Exit Pitts-Stevens.)

  MCDONALD:

  He scarce is visible, his dust so great!

  Methinks for so obscure a candidate

  He runs quite well. But as for Prohibition —

  I mean myself to hold the first position.

  (Produces a pocket flask, topes a cruel quantity of double-distilled thunder-and-lightning out of it, smiles so grimly as to darken all the stage and sings):

  Though fortunes vary let all be merry,

  And then if e’er a disaster befall,

  At Styx’s ferry is Charon’s wherry

  In easy call.

  Upon a ripple of golden tipple

  That tipsy ship’ll convey you best.

  To king and cripple, the bottle’s the nipple

  Of Nature’s breast!

  (Curtain.)

  SLICKENS

  DRAMATIS PERSONÆ.

  HAYSEED a Granger

  NOZZLE a Miner

  RINGDIVVY a Statesman

  FEEGOBBLE a Lawyer

  JUNKET a Committee

  Scene — Yuba Dam.

  Feegobble, Ringdivvy, Nozzle.

  NOZZLE:

  My friends, since ‘51 I have pursued

  The evil tenor of my watery way,

  Removing hills as by an act of faith —

  RINGDIVVY:

  Just so; the steadfast faith of those who hold,

  In foreign lands beyond the Eastern sea,

  The shares in your concern — a simple, blind,

  Unreasoning belief in dividends,

  Still stimulated by assessments which,

  When the skies fall, ensnaring all the larks,

  Will bring, no doubt, a very great return.

  ALL (singing):

  O the beautiful assessment,

  The exquisite assessment,

  The regular assessment,

  That makes the water flow.

  RINGDIVVY:

  The rascally-assessment!

  FEEGOBBLE:

  The murderous assessment!

  NOZZLE:

  The glorious assessment

  That makes my mare to go!

  FEEGOBBLE:

  But, Nozzle, you, I think, were on the point

  Of making a remark about some rights —

  Some certain vested rights you have acquired

  By long immunity; for still the law

  Holds that if one do evil undisturbed

  His right to do so ripens with the years;

  And one may be a villain long enough

  To make himself an honest gentleman.

  ALL (singing):

  Hail, holy law,

  The soul with awe

  Bows to thy dispensation.

  NOZZLE:

  It breaks my jaw!

  RINGDIVVY:

  It qualms my maw!

  FEEGOBBLE:

  It feeds my jaw,

  It crams my maw,

  It is my soul’s salvation!

  NOZZLE:

  Why, yes, I’ve floated mountains to the sea

  For lo! these many years; though some, they say,

  Do strand themselves along the bottom lands

  And cover up a village here and there,

  And here and there a ranch. ‘Tis said, indeed,

  The granger with his female and his young

  Do not infrequently go to the dickens

  By premature burial in slickens.

  ALL (singing):

  Could slickens forever

  Choke up the river,

  And slime’s endeavor

  Be tried on grain,

  How small the measure

  Of granger’s treasure,

  How keen his pain!

  RINGDIVVY:

  “A consummation devoutly to be wished!”

  These rascal grangers would long since have been

  Submerged in slimes, to the last man of them,

  But for the fact that all their wicked tribes

  Affect our legislation with their bribes.

  ALL (singing):

  O bribery’s great —

  ’Tis a pillar of State,

  And the people they are free.

  FEEGOBBLE:

  It smashes my slate!

  NOZZLE:

  It is thievery straight!

  RINGDIVVY:

  But it’s been the making of me!

  NOZZLE:

  I judge by certain shrewd sensations here

  In these callosities I call my thumbs —

  thrilling sense as of ten thousand pins,

  Red-hot and penetrant, transpiercing all

  The cuticle and tickling through the nerves —

  That some malign and awful thing draws near.

  (Enter Hayseed.)

  Good Lord! here are the ghosts and spooks of all

  The grangers I have decently interred,

  Rolled into one!

  FEEGOBBLE:

  Plead, phantom.

  RINGDIVVY:

  You’ve the floor.

  HAYSEED:

  From the margin of the river

  (Bitter Creek, they sometimes call it)

  Where I cherished once the pumpkin,

  And the summer squash promoted,

  Harvested the sweet potato,

  Dallied with the fatal melon

  And subdued the fierce cucumber,

  I’ve been driven by the slickens,

  Driven by the slimes and tailings!

  All my family — my Polly

  Ann and all my sons and daughters,

  Dog and baby both included —

  All were swamped in seas of slickens,

  Buried fifty fathoms under,

  Where they lie, prepared to play their

  Gentle prank on geologic

  Gents that shall exhume them later,

  In the dim and distant future,

  Taking them for melancholy

  Relics antedating Adam.

  I alone got up and dusted.

  NOZZLE:

  Avaunt! you horrid and infernal cuss!

  What dire distress have you prepared for us?

  RINGDIVVY:

  Were I a buzzard stooping from the sky

  My craw with filth to fill,

  Into your honorable body I

  Would introduce a bill.

  FEEGOBBLE:
r />   Defendant, hence, or, by the gods, I’ll brain thee! —

  Unless you saved some turneps to retain me.

  HAYSEED:

  As I was saying, I got up and dusted,

  My ranch a graveyard and my business busted!

  But hearing that a fellow from the City,

  Who calls himself a Citizens’ Committee,

  Was coming up to play the very dickens,

  With those who cover up our farms with slickens,

  And make himself — unless I am in error —

  To all such miscreants a holy terror,

  I thought if I would join the dialogue

  I maybe might get payment for my dog.

  ALL (Singing):

  O the dog is the head of Creation,

  Prime work of the Master’s hand;

  He hasn’t a known occupation,

  Yet lives on the fat of the land.

  Adipose, indolent, sleek and orbicular,

  Sun-soaken, door matted, cross and particular,

  Men, women, children, all coddle and wait on him,

  Then, accidentally shutting the gate on him,

  Miss from their calves, ever after, the rifted out

  Mouthful of tendons that doggy has lifted out!

  (Enter Junket.)

  JUNKET:

  Well met, my hearties! I must trouble you

  Jointly and severally to provide

  A comfortable carriage, with relays

  Of hardy horses. This Committee means

  To move in state about the country here.

  I shall expect at every place I stop

  Good beds, of course, and everything that’s nice,

  With bountiful repast of meat and wine.

  For this Committee comes to sea and mark

  And inwardly digest.

  HAYSEED:

  Digest my dog!

  NOZZLE:

  First square my claim for damages: the gold

  Escaping with the slickens keeps me poor!

  RINGDIVVY:

  I merely would remark that if you’d grease

  My itching palm it would more glibly glide

  Into the public pocket.

  FEEGOBBLE:

  Sir, the wheels

  Of justice move but slowly till they’re oiled.

  I have some certain writs and warrants here,

  Prepared against your advent. You recall

  The tale of Zaccheus, who did climb a tree,

  And Jesus said: “Come down”?

  JUNKET:

  Why, bless your souls!

  I’ve got no money; I but came to see

  What all this noisy babble is about,

  Make a report and file the same away.

  NOZZLE, RINGDIVVY, FEEGOBBLE, HAYSEED:

  How’ll that help us? Reports are not our style

  Of provender!

  JUNKET:

  Well, you can gnaw the file.

  (Curtain.)

  PEACEABLE EXPULSION

  DRAMATIS PERSONÆ.

  MOUNTWAVE a Politician

  HARDHAND a Workingman

  TOK BAK a Chinaman

  SATAN a Friend to Mountwave

  CHORUS OF FOREIGN VOTERS.

  MOUNTWAVE:

  My friend, I beg that you will lend your ears

  (I know ‘tis asking a good deal of you)

  While I for your instruction nominate

  Some certain wrongs you suffer. Men like you

  Imperfectly are sensible of all

  The miseries they actually feel.

  Hence, Providence has prudently raised up

  Clear-sighted men like me to diagnose

  Their cases and inform them where they’re hurt.

  The wounds of honest workingmen I’ve made

  A specialty, and probing them’s my trade.

  HARDHAND:

  Well, Mister, s’pose you let yer bossest eye

  Camp on my mortal part awhile; then you

  Jes’ toot my sufferin’s an’ tell me what’s

  The fashionable caper now in writhes —

  The very swellest wiggle.

  MOUNTWAVE:

  Well, my lad,

  ‘Tis plain as is the long, conspicuous nose

  Borne, ponderous and pendulous, between

  The elephant’s remarkable eye-teeth

  (Enter Tok Bak.)

  That Chinese competition’s what ails you.

  BOTH (Singing):

  O pig-tail Celestial,

  O barbarous bestial,

  Abominable Chinee!

  Simian fellow man,

  Primitive yellow man,

  Joshian devotee!

  Shoe-and-cigar machine,

  Oleomargarine

  You are, and butter are we —

  Fat of the land are we,

  Salt of the earth;

  In God’s image planned to be —

  Noble in birth!

  You, on the contrary,

  Modeled upon very

  Different lines indeed,

  Show in conspicuous,

  Base and ridiculous

  Ways your inferior breed.

  Wretched apology,

  Shame of ethnology,

  Monster unspeakably low!

  Fit to be buckshotted —

  Be you ‘steboycotted.

  Vanish — vamoose — mosy — Go!

  TOK BAK:

  You listen me! You beatee the big dlum

  An’ tell me go to Flowly Kingdom Come.

  You all too muchee fool. You chinnee heap.

  Such talkee like my washee — belly cheap!

  (Enter Satan.)

  You dlive me outee clunty towns all way;

  Why you no tackle me Safflisco, hay?

  SATAN:

  Methought I heard a murmuring of tongues

  Sound through the ceiling of the hollow earth,

  As if the anti-coolie ques —— ha! friends,

  Well met. You see I keep my ancient word:

  Where two or three are gathered in my name,

  There am I in their midst.

  MOUNTWAVE:

  O monstrous thief!

  To quote the words of Shakespeare as your own.

  I know his work.

  HARDHAND:

  Who’s Shakespeare? — what’s his trade?

  I’ve heard about the work o’ that galoot

  Till I’m jest sick!

  TOK BAK:

  Go Sunny school — you’ll know

  Mo’ Bible. Bime by pleach — hell-talkee. Tell

  ‘Bout Abel — mebby so he live too cheap.

  He mebby all time dig on lanch — no dlink,

  No splee — no go plocession fo’ make vote —

  No sendee money out of clunty fo’

  To helpee Ilishmen. Cain killum. Josh

  He catchee at it, an’ he belly mad —

  Say: “Allee Melicans boycottee Cain.”

  Not muchee — you no pleachee that:

  You all same lie.

  MOUNTWAVE:

  This cuss must be expelled. (Draws pistol.)

  MOUNTWAVE, HARDHAND, SATAN (singing):

  For Chinese expulsion, hurrah!

  To mobbing and murder, all hail!

  Away with your justice and law —

  We’ll make every pagan turn tail.

  CHORUS OF FOREIGN VOTERS:

  Bedad! oof dot tief o’ze vorld —

  Zat Ivan Tchanay vos got hurled

  In Hella, da debil he say:

  ”Wor be yer return pairmit, hey?”

  Und gry as ‘e shaka da boot:

  ”Zis haythen haf nevaire been oot!”

  HARDHAND:

  Too many cooks are working at this broth —

  I think, by thunder, t’will be mostly froth!

  I’m cussed ef I can sarvy, up to date,

  What good this dern fandango does the State.

  MOUNTWAVE:

  The State’s advantage, sir, you ma
y not see,

  But think how good it is for me.

  SATAN:

  And me.

  (Curtain.)

  ASPIRANTS THREE

  DRAMATIS PERSONÆ.

  QUICK:

  DE YOUNG a Brother to Mushrooms

  DEAD:

  SWIFT an Heirloom

  ESTEE a Relic

  IMMORTALS: THE SPIRIT OF BROKEN HOPES. THE AUTHOR.

  MISCELLANEOUS: A TROUPE OF COFFINS. THE MOON. VARIOUS COLORED FIRES.

  Scene — The Political Graveyard at Bone Mountain.

  DE YOUNG:

  This is the spot agreed upon. Here rest

  The sainted statesman who upon the field

  Of honor have at various times laid down

  Their own, and ended, ignominious,

  Their lives political. About me, lo!

  Their silent headstones, gilded by the moon,

  Half-full and near her setting — midnight. Hark!

  Through the white mists of this portentous night

  (Which throng in moving shapes about my way,

  As they were ghosts of candidates I’ve slain,

  To fray their murderer) my open ear,

  Spacious to maw the noises of the world,

  Engulfs a footstep.

  (Enter Estee from his tomb.)

  Ah, ‘tis he, my foe,

  True to appointment; and so here we fight —

  Though truly ‘twas my firm belief that he

  Would send regrets, or I had not been here.

 

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