Here the stage becomes dark for a few seconds. When the lights are bright again, we hear the same voice, but see that this time it comes from a sleek, young salesman. He is talking to the old grandmother. The impression given is that of a snake and a bird. The old lady is the bird, of course.
Sleek Salesman: “Dear Madam, in South America lies the fair, fertile land of Iguania. It is a marvelous country, rich in minerals and oil. For five thousand dollars—yes, Madam, I’m advising you to sell all your Liberty Bonds—you will get ten of our Gold Iguanians, which yield seventeen per centum per annum. These bonds are secured by a first mortgage on all the natural resources of Iguania.”
Grandmother: “But I…”
Sleek Salesman: “You will have to act fast, as we have only a limited number of Gold Iguanians left. The ones I am offering you are part of a series set aside by our company especially for widows and orphans. It was necessary for us to do this because otherwise the big banks and mortgage companies would have snatched up the entire issue.”
Grandmother: “But I…”
The Three Small Sons: “Goo, goo…”
Sleek Salesman: “Think of these kiddies, Madam. Soon they will be ready for college. They will want Brooks suits and banjos and fur coats like the other boys. How will you feel when you have to refuse them these things because of your stubbornness?”
Here the curtain falls for a change of scene. It rises again on a busy street. The old grandmother is seen lying in the gutter with her head pillowed against the curb. Around her are arranged her three grandchildren, all very evidently dead of starvation.
Grandmother (feebly to the people who hurry past): “We are starving. Bread…bread…”
No one pays any attention to her and she dies.
An idle breeze plays mischievously with the rags draping the four corpses. Suddenly it whirls aloft several sheets of highly engraved paper, one of which is blown across the path of two gentlemen in silk hats, on whose vests huge dollar signs are embroidered. They are evidently millionaires.
First Millionaire (picking up engraved paper): “Hey, Bill, isn’t this one of your Iguanian Gold Bonds?” ( He laughs.)
Second Millionaire (echoing his companion’s laughter): “Sure enough. That’s from the special issue for widows and orphans. I got them out in 1928 and they sold like hot cakes. ( He turns the bond over in his hands, admiring it.) I’ll tell you one thing, George, it certainly pays to do a good printing job.”
Laughing heartily, the two millionaires move along the street. In their way lie the four dead bodies and they almost trip over them. They exit cursing the street cleaning department for its negligence.
29
The “Chamber of American Horrors, Animate and Inanimate Hideosities,” reached Detroit about a month after the two friends had joined it. It was while they were playing there that Lem questioned Mr. Whipple about the show. He was especially disturbed by the scene in which the millionaires stepped on the dead children.
“In the first place,” Mr. Whipple said, in reply to Lem’s questions, “the grandmother didn’t have to buy the bonds unless she wanted to. Secondly, the whole piece is made ridiculous by the fact that no one can die in the streets. The authorities won’t stand for it.”
“But,” said Lem, “I thought you were against the capitalists?”
“Not all capitalists,” answered Shagpoke. “The distinc tion must be made between bad capitalists and good capitalists, between the parasites and the creators. I am against the parasitical international bankers, but not the creative American capitalists, like Henry Ford for example.”
“Are not capitalists who step on the faces of dead children bad?”
“Even if they are,” replied Shagpoke, “it is very wrong to show the public scenes of that sort. I object to them because they tend to foment bad feeling between the classes.”
“I see,” said Lem.
“What I am getting at,” Mr. Whipple went on, “is that Capital and Labor must be taught to work together for the general good of the country. Both must be made to drop the materialistic struggle for higher wages on the one hand and bigger profits on the other. Both must be made to realize that the only struggle worthy of Americans is the idealistic one of their country against its enemies, England, Japan, Russia, Rome and Jerusalem. Always remember, my boy, that class war is civil war, and will destroy us.”
“Shouldn’t we then try to dissuade Mr. Snodgrasse from continuing with his show?” asked Lem innocently.
“No,” replied Shagpoke. “If we try to he will merely get rid of us. Rather must we bide our time until a good opportunity presents itself, then denounce him for what he is, and his show likewise. Here, in Detroit, there are too many Jews, Catholics and members of unions. Unless I am greatly mistaken, however, we will shortly turn south. When we get to some really American town, we will act.”
Mr. Whipple was right in his surmise. After playing a few more Midwestern cities, Snodgrasse headed his company south along the Mississippi River, finally arriving in the town of Beulah for a one-night stand.
“Now is the time for us to act,” announced Mr. Whipple in a hoarse whisper to Lem, when he had obtained a good look at the inhabitants of Beulah. “Follow me.”
Our hero accompanied Shagpoke to the town barber shop, which was run by one Keely Jefferson, a fervent Southerner of the old school. Mr. Whipple took the master barber to one side. After a whispered colloquy, he agreed to arrange a meeting of the town’s citizens for Shagpoke to address.
By five o’clock that same evening, all the inhabitants of Beulah who were not colored, Jewish or Catholic assembled under a famous tree from whose every branch a Negro had dangled at one time or other. They stood together, almost a thousand strong, drinking Coca-Colas and joking with their friends. Although every third citizen carried either a rope or a gun, their cheerful manner belied the seriousness of the occasion.
Mr. Jefferson mounted a box to introduce Mr. Whipple.
“Fellow townsmen, Southerners, Protestants, Americans,” he began. “You have been called here to listen to the words of Shagpoke Whipple, one of the few Yanks whom we of the South can trust and respect. He ain’t no nigger-lover, he don’t give a damn for Jewish culture, and he knows the fine Italian hand of the Pope when he sees it. Mr. Whipple…”
Shagpoke mounted the box which Mr. Jefferson vacated and waited for the cheering to subside. He began by placing his hand on his heart. “I love the South,” he announced. “I love her because her women are beautiful and chaste, her men brave and gallant, and her fields warm and fruitful. But there is one thing that I love more than the South…my country, these United States.”
The cheers which greeted this avowal were even wilder and hoarser than those that had gone before it. Mr. Whipple held up his hand for silence, but it was fully five minutes before his audience would let him continue.
“Thank you,” he cried happily, much moved by the enthusiasm of his hearers. “I know that your shouts rise from the bottom of your honest, fearless hearts. And I am grateful because I also know that you are cheering, not me, but the land we love so well.
“However, this is not a time or place for flowery speeches, this is a time for action. There is an enemy in our midst, who, by boring from within, undermines our institutions and threatens our freedom. Neither hot lead nor cold steel are his weapons, but insidious propaganda. He strives by it to set brother against brother, those who have not against those who have.
“You stand here now, under this heroic tree, like the free men that you are, but tomorrow you will become the slaves of Socialists and Bolsheviks. Your sweethearts and wives will become the common property of foreigners to maul and mouth at their leisure. Your shops will be torn from you and you will be driven from your farms. In return you will be thrown a stinking, slave’s crust with Russian labels.
“Is the spirit of Jubal Early and Francis Marion then so dead that you can only crouch and howl like hound dogs? Have you forgotten Jefferso
n Davis?
“No?
“Then let those of you who remember your ancestors strike down Sylvanus Snodgrasse, that foul conspirator, that viper in the bosom of the body politic. Let those…”
Before Mr. Whipple had quite finished his little talk, the crowd ran off in all directions, shouting “Lynch him! Lynch him!” although a good three-quarters of its members did not know whom it was they were supposed to lynch. This fact did not bother them, however. They considered their lack of knowledge an advantage rather than a hindrance, for it gave them a great deal of leeway in their choice of a victim.
Those of the mob who were better informed made for the opera house where the “Chamber of American Horrors” was quartered. Snodgrasse, however, was nowhere to be found. He had been warned and had taken to his heels. Feeling that they ought to hang somebody, the crowd put a rope around Jake Raven’s neck because of his dark complexion. They then fired the building.
Another section of Shagpoke’s audience, made up mostly of older men, had somehow gotten the impression that the South had again seceded from the Union. Perhaps this had come about through their hearing Shagpoke mention the names of Jubal Early, Francis Marion and Jefferson Davis. They ran up the Confederate flag on the courthouse pole, and prepared to die in its defense.
Other, more practical-minded citizens proceeded to rob the bank and loot the principal stores, and to free all their relatives who had the misfortune to be in jail.
As time went on, the riot grew more general in character. Barricades were thrown up in the streets. The heads of Negroes were paraded on poles. A Jewish drummer was nailed to the door of his hotel room. The housekeeper of the local Catholic priest was raped.
30
Lem lost track of Mr. Whipple when the meeting broke up, and was unable to find him again although he searched everywhere. As he wandered around, he was shot at several times, and it was only by the greatest of good luck that he succeeded in escaping with his life.
He managed this by walking to the nearest town that had a depot and there taking the first train bound northeast Unfortunately, all his money had been lost in the opera house fire and he was unable to pay for a ticket. The conductor, however, was a good-natured man. Seeing that the lad had only one leg, he waited until the train slowed down at a curve before throwing him off.
It was only a matter of twenty miles or so to the nearest highway, and Lem contrived to hobble there before dawn. Once on the highway, he was able to beg rides all the way to New York City, arriving there some ten weeks later.
Times had grown exceedingly hard with the inhabitants of that once prosperous metropolis and Lem’s ragged, emaciated appearance caused no adverse comment. He was able to submerge himself in the great army of unemployed.
Our hero differed from most of that army in several ways, however. For one thing, he bathed regularly. Each morning he took a cold plunge in the Central Park lake on whose shores he was living in a piano crate. Also, he visited daily all the employment agencies that were still open, refusing to be discouraged or grow bitter and become a carping critic of things as they are.
One day, when he timidly opened the door of the “Golden Gates Employment Bureau,” he was greeted with a welcoming smile instead of the usual jeers and curses.
“My boy,” exclaimed Mr. Gates, the proprietor, “we have obtained a position for you.”
At this news, tears welled up in Lem’s good eye and his throat was so choked with emotion that he could not speak.
Mr. Gates was surprised and nettled by the lad’s silence, not realizing its cause. “It’s the opportunity of a lifetime,” he said chidingly. “You have heard of course of the great team of Riley and Robbins. They’re billed wherever they play as ‘Fifteen Minute’s of Furious Fun with Belly Laffs Galore.’ Well, Moe Riley is an old friend of mine. He came in here this morning and asked me to get him a `stooge’ for his act. He wanted a one-eyed man, and the minute he said that, I thought of you.”
By now Lem had gained sufficient control over himself to thank Mr. Gates, and he did so profusely.
“You almost didn’t get the job,” Mr. Gates went on, when he had had enough of the mutilated boy’s gratitude. “There was a guy in here who heard Moe Riley talking to me, and we had some time preventing him from poking out one of his eyes so that he could qualify for the job. We had to call a cop.”
“Oh, that’s too bad,” said Lem sadly.
“But I. told Riley that you also had a wooden leg, wore a toupee and store teeth, and he wouldn’t think of hiring anybody but you.”
When our hero reported to the Bijou Theater, where Riley and Robbins were playing, he was stopped at the stage door by the watchman, who was suspicious of his tattered clothes. He insisted on getting in, and the watchman finally agreed to take a message to the comedians. Soon afterwards, he was shown to their dressing room.
Lein stood in the doorway, fumbling with the piece of soiled cloth that served him as a cap, until the gales of laughter with which Riley and Robbins had greeted him subsided. Fortunately, it never struck the poor lad that he was the object of their merriment or he might have fled.
To be perfectly just, from a certain point of view, not a very civilized one it must be admitted, there was much to laugh at in our hero’s appearance. Instead of merely having no hair like a man prematurely bald, the gray bone of his skull showed plainly where he had been scalped by Chief Satinpenny. Then, too, his wooden leg had been carved with initials, twined hearts and other innocent insignia by mischievous boys.
“You’re a wow!” exclaimed the two comics in the argot of their profession. “You’re a riot! You’ll blow them out of the back of the house. Boy, oh boy, wait till the pus-pockets and fleapits get a load of you.”
Although Lem did not understand their language, he was made exceedingly happy by the evident satisfaction he gave his employers. He thanked them effusively.
“Your salary will be twelve dollars a week,” said Riley, who was the businessman of the team. “We wish we could pay you more, for you’re worth more, but these are hard times in the theater.”
Lem accepted without quibbling and they began at once to rehearse him. His role was a simple one, with no spoken lines, and he was soon perfect in it. He made his debut on the stage that same night. When the curtain went up, he was discovered standing between the two comics and facing the audience. He was dressed in an old Prince Albert, many times too large for him, and his expression was one of extreme sobriety and dignity. At his feet was a large box the contents of which could not be seen by the audience.
Riley and Robbins wore striped blue flannel suits of the latest cut, white linen spats and pale gray derby hats. To accent further the contrast between themselves and their “stooge,” they were very gay and lively. In their hands they carried newspapers rolled up into clubs.
As soon as the laughter caused by their appearance had died down, they began their “breezy crossfire of smart cracks.”
Riley: “I say, my good man, who was that dame I saw you with last night?”
Robbins: “How could you see me last night? You were blind drunk.”
Riley: “Hey, listen, you slob, that’s not in the act and you know it.”
Robbins: “Act? What act?”
Riley: “All right! All right! You’re a great little kidder, but let’s get down to business. I say to you: ‘Who was that dame I saw you out with last night?’ And you say: ‘That was no dame, that was a damn.’”
Robbins: “So you’re stealing my lines, eh?”
At this both actors turned on Lem and beat him violently over the head and body with their rolled-up newspapers. Their object was to knock off his toupee or to knock out his teeth and eye. When they had accomplished one or all of these goals, they stopped clubbing him. Then Lem, whose part it was not to move while he was being hit, bent over and with sober dignity took from the box at his feet, which contained a large assortment of false hair, teeth and eyes, whatever he needed to replace the things th
at had been knocked off or out.
The turn lasted about fifteen minutes and during this time Riley and Robbins told some twenty jokes, beating Lem ruthlessly at the end of each one. For a final curtain, they brought out an enormous wooden mallet labeled “The Works” and with it completely demolished our hero. His toupee flew off, his eye and teeth popped out, and his wooden leg was knocked into the audience.
At sight of the wooden leg, the presence of which they had not even suspected, the spectators were convulsed with joy. They laughed heartily until the curtain came down, and for some time afterwards.
Our hero’s employers congratulated him on his success, and although he had a headache from their blows he was made quite happy by this. After all, he reasoned, with millions out of work he had no cause to complain.
One of Lem’s duties was to purchase newspapers and out of them fashion the clubs used to beat him. When the performance was over, he was given the papers to read. They formed his only relaxation, for his meager salary made more complicated amusements impossible.
The mental reactions of the poor lad had been slowed up considerably by the hardships he had suffered, and it was a heart-rending sight to watch him as he bent over a paper to spell out the headlines. More than this he could not manage.
“PRESIDENT CLOSES BANKS FOR GOOD,” he read one night. He sighed profoundly. Not because he had again lost the few dollars he had saved, which he had, but because it made him think of Mr. Whipple and the Rat River National Bank. He spent the rest of the night wondering what had become of his old friend.
Some weeks later he was to find out. “WHIPPLE DEMANDS DICTATORSHIP,” he read. “LEATHER SHIRTS RIOT IN SOUTH.” Then, in rapid succession, came other headlines announcing victories for Mr. Whipple’s National Revolutionary Party. The South and West, Lem learned, were solidly behind his movement and he was marching on Chicago.
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Miss Lonelyhearts and a Cool Million Page 10