THE SHIP'S BARBER AT WORKTHE SHIP’S BARBER AT WORK
Dewey done for, despoiled of his mustache and rifled of his place, with a heavy sea running and a dense fog listing to starboard, I summoned my officers to the flag-ship, and, on the evening of April 30th, the fog-horns of Cavité having indicated the approach of the Philippine coast, gave them, one and all, their final instructions. These were, in brief, never to do anything without consulting with me.
“To facilitate matters, gentlemen,” said I, ordering an extra supply of grog for the captains, and milk punches for the lieutenants, “we must connect the various vessels of the fleet with telephone wires. Who will undertake this perilous duty?”
They rose up as one man, and, with the precision of a grand-opera chorus, replied: “Commodore”—for they had not penetrated my disguise—“call upon us. If you will provide the wires and the ’phones, we will do the rest.” And they followed these patriotic words with cheers for me.
Their heroism so affected me that I had difficulty in frowning upon the head-butler’s suggestion that my glass should be filled again.
“Gentlemen,” said I, huskily—for I was visibly affected—“I have provided for all. I could not do otherwise and remain myself. You will find ten thousand miles of wire and sixty-six telephones in the larder.”
That night every ship in the fleet was provided with telephone service. I appointedtheOlympiato be the central office, so that I might myself control all the messages, or at least hear them as they passed to and fro. In the absence of ladies from the fleet, I appointed a somewhat effeminate subaltern to the post of “Hello Officer,” with complete control over the switch-board. And, as it transpired, this was a very wise precaution, because the central office was placed in the hold, and the poor little chap’s courage was so inclined to ooze that in the midst of the fight he was content to sit below the water-line at his post, and not run about the promenade-deck giving orders while under fire. I have cabled the President about him, and have advised his promotion. His heroic devotion to the switch-board ought to make him a naval attaché to some foreign court, at least. I trust his bravery will ultimately result in his being sent to the Paris Exposition as charge d’affaires in the Erie Canal department of the New York State exhibit.
But to return to my despatch—whichfrom this point must disregard space and move quickly. Passing Cape Bolinao, we soon reached Subig Bay, fifty miles from Manila. Recognizing the cape by the crop of hemp on its brow, I rang up theBostonand theConcord.
“Search Subig Bay,” I ordered.
“Who’s this?” came the answer from the other end.
“Never mind who I am,” said I. “Search Subig Bay for Spaniards.”
“Hello!” said theBoston.
“Who the deuce are you?” cried theConcord.
“I’m seventeen-five-six,” I replied, with some sarcasm, for that was not my number.
“I want sixteen-two-one,” retorted theBoston.
“Ring off,” said theConcord. “What do you mean by giving me seventeen-five-six?”
“Hello,BostonandConcord,” I put in in commanding tones. “I’m Dewey.”
This is the only false statement I evermade, but it was in the interests of my country, and my reply was electrical in its effect. TheBostonimmediately blew off steam, and theConcordsounded all hands to quarters.
“What do you want, Commodore?” they asked simultaneously.
“Search Subig Bay for Spaniards, as I have already ordered you,” I replied, “and woe be unto you if you don’t find any.”
“What do you want ’em for, Commodore?” asked theBoston.
“To engage, you idiot,” I replied, scornfully. “What did you suppose—to teach me Spanish?”
Both vessels immediately piped all hands on deck and set off. Two hours later they returned, and the telephone subaltern reported, “No Spaniards found.”
“Why not?” I demanded.
“All gone to Cuba,” replied theBoston. “Shall we pipe all hands to Cuba?”
“Wires too short to penetrate without a bust,” replied theConcord.
“On to Manila!” was my answer. “Dingthe torpedoes—go ahead! Give us Spaniards or give us death!”
These words inspired every ship in the line, and we immediately strained forward, except theMcCulloch, which I despatched at once to Hong-kong to cable my last words to you in time for the Adirondack edition of your Sunday issue leaving New York Thursday afternoon.
The rest of us immediately proceeded. In a short while, taking advantage of the darkness for which I had provided by turning the clock back so that the sun by rising at the usual hour should not disclose our presence, we turned Corregidor and headed up the Boca Grande towards Manila. As we were turning Corregidor the telephone-bell rang, and somebody who refused to give his name, but stating that he was aboard thePetrel, called me up.
“Hello!” said I.
“Is this Dewey?” said thePetrel.
“Yes,” said I.
“There are torpedoes ahead,” said thePetrel.
“What of it?” said I.
“How shall we treat ’em?”
“Blow ’em off—to soda water,” I answered, sarcastically.
“Thank you, sir,” thePetrelreplied, as she rang off.
Then somebody from theBaltimorerang me up.
“Commodore Dewey,” said theBaltimore, “there are mines in the harbor.”
“Well, what of it?” I replied.
“What shall we do?” asked theBaltimore.
“Treat them coldly, as they do in the Klondike,” said I.
“But they aren’t gold-mines,” replied theBaltimore.
“Then salt ’em,” said I, dryly. “Apply for a certificate of incorporation, water your stock, sell out, and retire.”
“Thank you, Commodore,” theBaltimoreanswered. “How many shares shall we put you down for?”
“None,” said I. “But if you’ll use your surplus to start a life-insurance company,I’ll take out a policy for forty-eight hours, and send you my demand note to pay for the first premium.”
I mention this merely to indicate to your readers that I felt myself in a position of extreme peril, and did not forget my obligations to my family. It is a small matter, but if you will search the pages of history you will see that in the midst of the greatest dangers the greatest heroes have thought of apparently insignificant details.
At this precise moment we came in sight of the fortresses of Manila. Signalling theRaleighto heave to, I left the flag-ship and jumped aboard the cruiser, where I discharged with my own hand the after-forecastle four-inch gun. The shot struck Corregidor, and, glancing off, as I had designed, caromed on the smoke-stack of theReina Cristina, the flag-ship of Admiral Montojo. The Admiral, unaccustomed to such treatment, immediately got out of bed, and, putting on his pajamas, appeared on the bridge.
A CLEVER CAROMA CLEVER CAROM
“Who smoked our struck-stack?” he demanded, in broken English.
“The enemy,” cried his crew, with some nervousness. I was listening to their words through the megaphone.
“Then let her sink,” said he, clutching his brow sadly with his clinched fist. “Far be it from me to stay afloat in Manila Bay on the 1st of May, and so cast discredit on history!”
TheReina Cristinaimmediately sank, according to the orders of the Admiral, and I turned my attention to theDon Juan de Austria. Rowing across the raging channel to theBaltimore, I boarded her and pulled the lanyard of the port boom forty-two. The discharge was terrific.
“What has happened?” I asked, coolly, as the explosion exploded. “Did we hit her?”
“We did, your honor,” said the Bo’s’n’s mate, “square in the eye; only, Commodore, it ain’t a her this time—it’s a him. It’s theDon Juan de—”
“Never mind the sex,” I cried. “Has she sank?”
“No, sir,” replied the Bo’s’n’s mate, “she ’ain’t sank yet. She’s a-waiting orders.”
“Fly signals to sink,” said I, sternly, for I had resolved that she should go down.
They did so, and theDon Juan de Austriaimmediately disappeared beneath the waves. Her commander evidently realized that I meant what I signalled.
“Are there any more of the enemy afloat?” I demanded, jumping from the deck of theBaltimoreto that of theConcord.
“No, Commodore,” replied the captain of the latter.
“Then signal the enemy to charter two more gunboats and have ’em sent out. I can’t be put off with two boats when I’m ready to sink four,” I replied.
SINKING THE CASTILLASINKING THE CASTILLA
TheConcordimmediately telephoned to the Spanish commandant at the Manila Café de la Paix, who as quickly charteredtheCastillaand theVelasco—two very good boats that had recently come in in ballast with the idea of loading up with bananas and tobacco.
While waiting for these vessels to come out and be sunk, I ordered all hands to breakfast, thus reviving their falling courage. It was a very good breakfast, too. We had mush and hominy and potatoes in every style, beefsteak, chops, liver and bacon, chicken hash, buckwheat cakes and fish-balls, coffee, tea, rolls, toast, and brown bread.
Just as we were eating the latter theCastillaandVelascocame out. I fired my revolver at theCastillaand threw a fish-ball at theVelasco. Both immediately burst into flames.
Manila was conquered.
The fleet gone, the city fell. It not only fell, but slid, and by nightfall Old Glory waved over the citadel.
The foe was licked.
To-morrow I am to see Dewey again.
I think I shall resign to-night.
P.S.—Please send word to the magazines that all articles by Dewey must be written by Me. Terms, $500 per word. The strain has been worth it.
P.S.—Please send word to the magazines that all articles by Dewey must be written by Me. Terms, $500 per word. The strain has been worth it.
Being the tale told by the holder of the eleventh ball, Mr. Fulton Streete
“It is the little things that tell in detective work, my dear Watson,” said Sherlock Holmes as we sat over our walnuts and coffee one bitter winter night shortly before his unfortunate departure to Switzerland, whence he never returned.
“I suppose that is so,” said I, pulling away upon the very excellent stogie which mine host had provided—one made in Pittsburg in 1885, and purchased by Holmes, whose fine taste in tobacco had induced him to lay a thousand of these down in his cigar-cellar for three years,and then keep them in a refrigerator, overlaid with a cloth soaked in Château Yquem wine for ten. The result may be better imagined than described. Suffice it to say that my head did not recover for three days, and the ash had to be cut off the stogie with a knife. “I suppose so, my dear Holmes,” I repeated, taking my knife and cutting three inches of the stogie off and casting it aside, furtively, lest he should think I did not appreciate the excellence of the tobacco, “but it is not given to all of us to see the little things. Is it, now?”
“Yes,” he said, rising and picking up the rejected portion of the stogie. “We all see everything that goes on, but we don’t all know it. We all hear everything that goes on, but we are not conscious of the fact. For instance, at this present moment there is somewhere in this world a man being set upon by assassins and yelling lustily for help. Now his yells create a certain atmospheric disturbance. Sound is merely vibration, and, once setgoing, these vibrations will run on and on and on in ripples into the infinite—that is, they will never stop, and sooner or later these vibrations must reach our ears. We may not know it when they do, but they will do so none the less. If the man is in the next room, we will hear the yells almost simultaneously—not quite, but almost—with their utterance. If the man is in Timbuctoo, the vibrations may not reach us for a little time, according to the speed with which they travel. So with sight. Sight seems limited, but in reality it is not.Vox populi, vox Dei. Ifvox, why notoculus? It is a simple proposition, then, that the eye of the people being the eye of God, the eye of God being all-seeing, therefore the eye of the people is all-seeing—Q. E. D.”
I gasped, and Holmes, cracking a walnut, gazed into the fire for a moment.
“It all comes down, then,” I said, “to the question, who are the people?”
Holmes smiled grimly. “All men,” he replied, shortly; “and when I say allmen, I mean all creatures who can reason.”
“Does that include women?” I asked.
“Certainly,” he said. “Indubitably. The fact that womendon’treason does not prove that they can’t. Icango up in a balloon if I wish to, but Idon’t. Icanread an American newspaper comic supplement, but Idon’t. So it is with women. Women can reason, and therefore they have a right to be included in the classification whether they do or don’t.”
“Quite so,” was all I could think of to say at the moment. The extraordinary logic of the man staggered me, and I again began to believe that the famous mathematician who said that if Sherlock Holmes attempted to prove that five apples plus three peaches made four pears, he would not venture to dispute his conclusions, was wise. (This was the famous Professor Zoggenhoffer, of the Leipsic School of Moral Philosophy and Stenography.—Ed.)
“Now you agree, my dear Watson,” hesaid, “that I have proved that we see everything?”
“Well—” I began.
“Whether we are conscious of it or not?” he added, lighting the gas-log, for the cold was becoming intense.
“From that point of view, I suppose so—yes,” I replied, desperately.
“Well, then, this being granted, consciousness is all that is needed to make us fully informed on any point.”
“No,” I said, with some positiveness. “The American people are very conscious, but I can’t say that generally they are well-informed.”
I had an idea this would knock him out, as the Bostonians say, but counted without my host. He merely laughed.
“The American is only self-conscious. Therefore he is well-informed only as to self,” he said.
“You’ve proved your point, Sherlock,” I said. “Go on. What else have you proved?”
“That it is the little things that tell,”he replied. “Which all men would realize in a moment if they could see the little things—and when I say ‘if they could see,’ I of course mean if they could be conscious of them.”
“Very true,” said I.
“And I have the gift of consciousness,” he added.
I thought he had, and I said so. “But,” I added, “give me a concrete example.” It had been some weeks since I had listened to any of his detective stories, and I was athirst for another.
He rose up and walked over to his pigeon-holes, each labelled with a letter, in alphabetical sequence.
“I have only to refer to any of these to do so,” he said. “Choose your letter.”
“Really, Holmes,” said I, “I don’t need to do that. I’ll believe all you say. In fact, I’ll write it up andsign my nameto any statement you choose to make.”
THE LAMP-POSTS WERE TWISTEDTHE LAMP-POSTS WERE TWISTED
“Choose your letter, Watson,” he retorted. “You and I are on terms thatmake flattery impossible. Is it F, J, P, Q, or Z?”
He fixed his eye penetratingly upon me. It seemed for the moment as if I were hypnotized, and as his gaze fairly stabbed me with its intensity, through my mind there ran the suggestion “Choose J, choose J, choose J.” To choose J became an obsession. To relieve my mind, I turned my eye from his and looked at the fire. Each flame took on the form of the letter J. I left my chair and walked to the window and looked out. The lamp-posts were twisted into the shape of the letter J. I returned, sat down, gulped down my brandy-and-soda, and looked up at the portraits of Holmes’s ancestors on the wall. They were all J’s. But I was resolved never to yield, and I gasped out, desperately,
“Z!”
“Thanks,” he said, calmly. “Z be it. I thought you would. Reflex hypnotism, my dear Watson, is my forte. If I wish a man to choose Q, B takes hold upon him.If I wish him to choose K, A fills his mind. Have you ever observed how the mind of man repels a suggestion and flees to something else, merely that it may demonstrate its independence of another mind? Now I have been suggesting J to you, and you have chosen Z—”
“You misunderstood me,” I cried, desperately. “I did not say Z; I said P.”
“Quite so,” said he, with an inward chuckle. “P was the letter I wished you to choose. If you had insisted upon Z, I should really have been embarrassed. See!” he added. He removed the green-ended box that rested in the pigeon-hole marked Z, and, opening it, disclosed an emptiness.
“I’ve never had a Z case. But P,” he observed, quietly, “is another thing altogether.”
Here he took out the box marked P from the pigeon-hole, and, opening it, removed the contents—a single paper which was carefully endorsed, in his own handwriting,“The Mystery of Pinkham’s Diamond Stud.”
“You could not have selected a better case, Watson,” he said, as he unfolded the paper and scanned it closely. “One would almost think you had some prevision of the fact.”
“I am not aware,” said I, “that you ever told the story of Pinkham’s diamond stud. Who was Pinkham, and what kind of a diamond stud was it—first-water or Rhine?”
“Pinkham,” Holmes rejoined, “was an American millionaire, living during business hours at Allegheny City, Pennsylvania, where he had to wear a brilliant stud to light him on his way through the streets, which are so dark and sooty that an ordinary search-light would not suffice. In his leisure hours, however, he lived at the Hotel Walledup-Hysteria, in New York, where he likewise had to wear the same diamond stud to keep him from being a marked man. Have you ever visited New York, Watson?”
“No,” said I.
“Well, when you do, spend a little of your time at the Walledup-Hysteria. It is a hotel with a population larger than that of most cities, with streets running to and from all points of the compass; where men and women eat under conditions that Lucullus knew nothing of; where there is a carpeted boulevard on which walk all sorts and conditions of men; where one pays one’s bill to the dulcet strains of a string orchestra that woo him into a blissful forgetfulness of its size; and where, by pressing a button in the wall, you may summon a grand opera, or a porter who on request will lend you enough money to enable you and your family to live the balance of your days in comfort. In America men have been known to toil for years to amass a fortune for the one cherished object of spending a week in this Olympian spot, and then to be content to return to their toil and begin life anew, rich only in the memory of its luxuries. It was here thatI spent my time when, some years ago, I went to the United States to solve the now famous Piano Case. You will remember how sneak thieves stole a grand piano from the residence of one of New York’s first families, while the family was dining in the adjoining room. While in the city, and indeed at the very hotel in which I stopped, and which I have described, Pinkham’s diamond stud disappeared, and, hearing that I was a guest at the Walledup-Hysteria, the owner appealed to me to recover it for him. I immediately took the case in hand. Drastic questioning of Pinkham showed that beyond all question he had lost the stud in his own apartment. He had gone down to dinner, leaving it on the centre-table, following the usual course of most millionaires, to whom diamonds are of no particular importance. Pinkham wanted this one only because of its associations. Its value, $80,000, was a mere bagatelle in his eyes.
“Now of course, if he positively left it on the table, it must have been takenby some one who had entered the room. Investigation proved that the maid, a valet, a fellow-millionaire from Chicago, and Pinkham’s children had been the only ones to do this. The maid and the valet were above suspicion. Their fees from guests were large enough to place them beyond the reach of temptation. I questioned them closely, and they convinced me at once of their innocence by conducting me through the apartments of other guests wherein tiaras of diamonds and necklaces of pearls—ropes in very truth—rubies, turquoise, and emerald ornaments of priceless value, were scattered about in reckless profusion.
“‘D’ yez t’ink oi’d waste me toime on an eighty-t’ousand-dollar shtood, wid all dhis in soight and moine for the thrubble uv swipin’ ut?” said the French maid.
HOLMES IN DISGUISE INTERVIEWS WATTLESHOLMES IN DISGUISE INTERVIEWS WATTLES
“I acquitted her at once, and the valet similarly proved his innocence, only with less of an accent, for he was supposed to be English, and not French, as was the maid, although they both came from Dublin.This narrowed the suspects down to Mr. Jedediah Wattles, of Chicago, and the children. Naturally I turned my attention to Wattles. A six-year-old boy and a four-year-old girl could hardly be suspected of stealing a diamond stud. So drawing on Pinkham for five thousand dollars to pay expenses, I hired a room in a tenement-house in Rivington Street—a squalid place it was—disguised myself with an oily, black, burglarious mustache, and dressed like a comic-paper gambler. Then I wrote a note to Wattles, asking him to call, saying that I could tell him something to his advantage. He came, and I greeted him like a pal. ‘Wattles,’ said I, ‘you’ve been working this game for a long time, and I know all about you. You are an ornament to the profession, but we diamond-thieves have got to combine. Understand?’ ‘No, I don’t’ said he. ‘Well, I’ll tell you,’ said I. ‘You’re a man of good appearance, and I ain’t, but I know where the diamonds are. If we work together, there’s millions in it.I’ll spot the diamonds, and you lift ’em, eh? You can do it,’ I added, as he began to get mad. ‘The ease with which you got away with old Pinky’s stud, that I’ve been trying to pull for myself for years, shows me that.’
“I was not allowed to go further. Wattles’s indignation was great enough to prove that it was not he who had done the deed, and after he had thrashed me out of my disguise, I pulled myself together and said, ‘Mr. Wattles, I am convinced that you are innocent.’ As soon as he recognized me and realized my object in sending for him, he forgave me, and, I must say, treated me with great consideration.
“But my last clew was gone. The maid, the valet, and Wattles were proved innocent. The children alone remained, but I could not suspect them. Nevertheless, on my way back to the hotel I bought some rock-candy, and, after reporting to Pinkham, I asked casually after the children.
YOU DID TOO!“‘YOU DID TOO!’ SAID POLLY”
“‘They’re pretty well,’ said Pinkham. ‘Billie’s complaining a little, and the doctor fears appendicitis, but Polly’s all right. I guess Billie’s all right too. The seventeen-course dinners they serve in the children’s dining-room here aren’t calculated to agree with Billie’s digestion, I reckon.’
“‘I’d like to see ’em,’ said I. ‘I’m very fond of children.’
“Pinkham immediately called the youngsters in from the nursery. ‘Guess what I’ve got,’ I said, opening the package of rock-candy. ‘Gee!’ cried Billie, as it caught his eye. ‘Gimme some!’ ‘Who gets first piece?’ said I. ‘Me!’ cried both. ‘Anybody ever had any before?’ I asked. ‘He has,’ said Polly, pointing to Billie. The boy immediately flushed up. ‘’Ain’t, neither!’ he retorted. ‘Yes you did, too,’ said Polly. ‘You swallered that piece pop left on the centre-table the other night!’ ‘Well, anyhow, it was only a little piece,’ said Billie. ‘An’ it tasted like glass,’ he added. Handing thecandy to Polly, I picked Billie up and carried him to his father.
“‘Mr. Pinkham,’ said I, handing the boy over, ‘here is your diamond. It has not been stolen; it has merely been swallowed.’ ‘What?’ he cried. And I explained. The stud mystery was explained. Mr. Pinkham’s boy had eaten it.”
Holmes paused.
“Well, I don’t see how that proves your point,” said I. “You said that it was the little things that told—”
“So it was,” said Holmes. “If Polly hadn’t told—”
“Enough,” I cried; “it’s on me, old man. We will go down to Willis’s and have some Russian caviare and a bottle of Burgundy.”
Holmes put on his hat and we went out together. It is to get the money to pay Willis’s bill that I have written this story of “The Mystery of Pinkham’s Diamond Stud.”
A tale of dialect told by Mr. Berkeley Hights, holder of the twelfth ball
“Hoot mon!”
The words rang out derisively on the cold frosty air of Drumtochty, as Lang Tammas walked slowly along the street, looking for the residence of Drumsheugh. The effect was electrical. Tammas stopped short, and turning about, scanned the street eagerly to see who it was that had spoken. But the highway was deserted, and the old man shook his stick, as if at an imaginary foe.
“I’ll hoot-mon the dour eediot that’s eensoolted a veesitor to Drumtochty!” heshouted. “I haena brought me faithfu’ steck for naething!” he added.
He glared about, now at this closed window, now at that, as if inviting his enemy to come forth and be punished, but seeing no signs of life, turned again to resume his walk, muttering angrily to himself. It was indeed hardly to be tolerated that he, one of the great characters of fiction, should be thus jeered at, as he thought, while on a friendly pilgrimage from Thrums to Drumtochty, the two rival towns in the affections of the consumers of modern letters; and having walked all the way from his home at Thrums, Lang Tammas was tired, and therefore in no mood to accept even a mild affront, much less an insult.
He had scarcely covered ten paces, however, when the same voice, with a harsh cackling laugh, again broke the stillness of the street:
“Gang awa’, gang awa’—ha, ha, ha!”
Tammas rushed into the middle of the way and picked up a stone.
HOOT MON!“‘HOOT MON!’”
“Pit your bogie pate oot o’ your weendow, me gillie!” he cried. “I’ll gie it a garry crack. Pit it oot, I say! Pit it oot!”
And the old man drew himself back into an attitude which would have defied the powers of Phidias to reproduce in marble, the stone poised accurately and all too ready to be hurled.
“Ye ramshackle macloonatic!” he cried. “Standin’ in a weendow, where nane may see, an’ heepin’ eensoolts on deecint fowk. Pit it oot—pit it oot—an’ get it crackit!”
The reply was instant:
“Gang awa’, gang awa’—ha, ha, ha!”
Had Lang Tammas been a creation of Lever, he would at this point have removed his coat and his hat and thrown them down violently to earth, and then have whacked the walk three times with the stout stick he carried in his right hand, as a preliminary to the challenge which followed. But Tammas was not Irish, and therefore not impulsive. He was Scotch—as Scotch as ever was. Wherefore he removedhis hat, and, after dusting it carefully, hung it up on a convenient hook; took off his coat and folded it neatly; picked up his “faithfu’ steck,” and observed:
“I hae naething to do that’s of eemportance. Drumsheugh can wait, an’ sae can ee. Pit it oot, pit it oot! Here I am, an’ here I stay until ye pit it oot to be crackit.”
“Gang awa’, gang awa’—ha, ha, ha!” came the reply.
Lang Tammas turned on the instant to the sources of the sound. He fixed his eyes sternly on the very window whence he thought the words had issued.
“Number twanty-three, saxth floor,” he muttered to himself. “I will call, and then we shall see what weshallsee; and if what we see gets off wi’oot a thorough ‘hootin’,’ then I dinna ken me beezniss.”
A SWEET-FACED NURSE APPEARED“A SWEET-FACED NURSE APPEARED”
Hastily discarding his outward wrath, and assuming such portions of his garments as went with his society manner, Tammas walked into the lobby of theapartment-house in which his assumed insulter lived. He pushed the electric button in, and shortly a sweet-faced nurse appeared.
“Who are you?” she asked.
“Me,” said Lang Tammas, somewhat abashed. “I’ve called too see the head o’ the hoose.”
“I am sorry,” said the trained nurse, bursting into tears, “but the head of the house is at the point of death, sir, and cannot see you until to-morrow. Call around about ten o’clock.”
“Hoots an’ toots!” sighed Lang Tammas. “Canna we Scuts have e’er a story wi’oot somebody leein’ at the point o’ death! It’s most affectin’, but doonricht wearin’ on the constitootion.”
“Was there anything you wished to say to him?” asked the nurse.
“Oh, aye!” returned Lang Tammas. “I dinna ken hoo to deny that I hed that to say to him, an’ to do to him as weel. I’m a vairy truthfu’ mon, young lady, an’ if ye must be told, I’ve called to wring hisgarry neck for dereesively gee’in an unoffending veesitor frae Thrums by yelling deealect at him frae the hoose-tops.”
“Are you sure it was here?” asked the nurse, anxiously, the old gentleman seemed so deeply in earnest.
“Sure? Oh, aye—pairfectly,” replied Lang Tammas; but even as he spoke, the falsity of his impression was proved by the same strident voice that had so offended before, coming from the other side of the street:
“What a crittur ye are, ye cow! What a crittur ye are!”
“Soonds are hard to place, ma’am,” said Lang Tammas, jerking about as if he had been shot. It was a very hard position for the old man, for, with the immediate need for an apology to the nurse, there rushed over him an overwhelming wave of anger. Hitherto it was merely a suspicion that he was being made sport of that had irritated him, but this last outburst—“What a crittur ye are, ye cow!”—was convincing evidence that it was to him that the insultswere addressed; for in Thrums it is history that Hendry and T’nowhead and Jim McTaggart frequently greeted Lang Tammas’s jokes with “Oh, ye cow!” and “What a crittur ye are!” But the old man was equal to the emergency, and fixing one eye upon the house opposite and the other upon the sweet-faced nurse, he darted glances that should kill at his persecutor, and at the same time apologized for disturbing the nurse. The latter he did gracefully.
“Ye look aweary, ma’am,” he said. “An’ if the head o’ the hoose maun dee, may he dee immejiately, that ye may rest soon.”
And with this, pulling his hat down over his forehead viciously, he turned and sped swiftly across the way. The nurse gazed anxiously after him, and in her secret soul wondered if she would not better send for Jamie McQueen, the town constable. Poor Tammas’s eye was really so glaring, and his whole manner so manifestly that of a man exasperated to theverge of madness, that she considered him somewhat in the light of a menace to the public safety. She was not at all reassured, either, when Tammas, having reached the other side of the street, began gesticulating wildly, shaking his “faithfu’ steck” at the façade of the confronting flat-house. But an immediate realization of the condition of the sick man above led her to forego the attempt to protect the public safety, and closing the door softly to, she climbed the weary stairs to the sixth floor, and soon forgot the disturbing trial of the morning in reading to her patient certain inspiring chapters from the Badminton edition ofHaggert’s Chase of Heretics, relieved with the lighterRules of Golf; or, Auld Putt Idylls, by the Rev. Ian McCrockett, one of the most exquisitely confusing humorous works ever published in the Highlands.
Lang Tammas meanwhile was addressing an invisible somebody in the building over the way, and in no uncertain tones.
“If I were not a geentlemon and a humorist,” he said, impressively, agitating his stick nervously at the building front, “I could say much that nae Scut may say. But were I nae Scut, I’d say this to ye: ‘Ye have all the eelements of a confairmed heeritic. Ye’ve nae sense of deecint fun. Ye’re not a man for a’ that, as most men air—ye’re an ass, plain and simple, wi’ naether the plainness nor the simpleecity o’ the individual that Balaam rode. Further—more—’”
What Lang Tammas would have said furthermore had he not been a Scot the world will never know, for from the other side of the street—farther along, however—came the squawking voice again:
“Gang awa’, gang awa’, ye crittur, ye cow! Hoot mon—hoot mon—hoot mon! Gang awa’, gang awa’!” And this was followed by a raucous cry, which might or might not have been Scottish, but which was, in any event, distinctly maddening. And even as the previous insults had electrified poor Tammas, so thislast petrified him, and he stood for an appreciable length of time absolutely transfixed. His mind was a curious study. His coming had been prompted entirely by the genial spirit which throbbed beneath his stony Scottish exterior. For a long time he had been a resident of the most conspicuous Scotch town in all literature, and he was himself its accepted humorist. Then on a sudden Thrums had a rival. Drumtochty sprang forth, and in the matter of pathos, if not humor, ran Thrums hard; and Lang Tammas, attracted to Drumsheugh, had come this distance merely to pay his respects, and to see what manner of man the real Drumsheugh was.
TAMMAS MEETS DRUMSHAUGHTAMMAS MEETS DRUMSHAUGH
And this was his reception! To be laughed at—he, a Scotch humorist! Had any one ever laughed at a Scotch humorist before? Never. Was not the test of humor in Scotland the failure to laugh of the hearer of the jest? Would Scotch humor ever prove great if not taken seriously? Oh, aye! Hendry never laughedat his jokes, and Hendry knew a joke when he saw one. McTaggart never smiled at Lang Tammas; and as for the little Minister—he knew what was due to the humorist of Thrums, as well as to himself, and enjoyed the exquisite humor of Tammas with a reserve well qualified to please the Presbytery and the Congregation.
How long Lang Tammas would have stood petrified no man may say; but just then who should come along but the person he had come to call upon—Drumsheugh himself.
“Knox et præterea nihil!” he exclaimed. “What in Glasgie hae we here?”
Lang Tammas turned upon him.
“Ye hae nowt in Glasgie here,” he said, sternly. “Ye hae a vairy muckle pit-oot veesitor, wha hae coom on an airand o’ good-will to be gret wi’ eensoolts.”
“Eensoolts?” retorted Drumsheugh. “Eensoolts, ye say? An’ wha hae bin eensooltin’ ye?”
“That I know nowt of, save that he bea doonricht foo’ a-heepin’ his deealect upon me head,” said Lang Tammas.
“And wha are ye to be so seensitive o’ deealect?” demanded Drumsheugh.
“My name is Lang Tammas—”
“O’ Thrums?” cried Drumsheugh.
“Nane ither,” said Tammas.
Drumsheugh burst into an uproarious fit of laughter.
“The humorist?” he cried, catching his sides.
“Nane ither,” said Tammas, gravely. “And wha are ye?”
“Me? Oh, I’m—Drumsheugh o’ Drumtochty,” he replied. “Come along hame wi’ me. I’ll gie ye that to make the eensoolt seem a compliment.”
And the two old men walked off together.
An hour later, on their way to the kirk, Drumsheugh observed that after the service was over he would go with Lang Tammas and seek out the man who had insulted him and “gie” him a drubbing, which invitation Tammas was nothingloath to accept. Reverently the two new-made friends walked into the kirk and sat themselves down on the side aisle. A hymn was sung, and the minister was about to read from the book, when the silence of the church was broken by a shrill voice:
“Hoot mon! Hoot mon!”
Tammas clutched his stick. The voice was the same, and here it had penetrated the sacred precincts of the church! Nowhere was he safe from insult. Drumsheugh looked up, startled, and the voice began again:
“Gang awa’ a-that, a-that, a-that—gang awa’! Oh, ye crittur! oh, ye cow!”
And then a titter ran through that solemn crowd; for, despite the gravity of the situation, even John Knox himself must have smiled. A great green parrot had flown in at one of the windows, and had perched himself on the pulpit, where, with front undismayed, he addressed the minister:
“Gang awa’, gang awa’!” he cried, andpreened himself. “Hoot mon, gang awa’!”
“Knox nobiscum!” ejaculated Drumsheugh. “It’s Moggie McPiggert’s pairrut,” and he chuckled; and then, as Lang Tammas realized the situation, even he smiled broadly. He had been insulted by a parrot only, and the knowledge of it made him feel better.
The bird was removed and the service proceeded; and later, when it was over, as the two old fellows walked back to Drumsheugh’s house in the gathering shades of the night, Lang Tammas said:
“I acquet Drumtochty o’ its eensoolts, Drumsheugh, but I’ve lairnt a lesson this day.”
“What’s that?” asked Drumsheugh.
“When pairruts speak Scutch deealect, it’s time we Scuts gae it oop,” said Tammas.
“I think so mysel’,” agreed Drumsheugh. “But hoo express our thochts?”
“I dinna ken for ye,” said Lang Tammas, “but for me, mee speakee heathen Chinee this timee on.”
“Vairy weel,” returned Drumsheugh. “Vairy weel; I dinna ken heathen Chinee, but I hae some acqueentance wi’ the tongue o’ sairtain Amairicans, and that I’ll speak from this day on—it’s vairy weel called the Bowery eediom, and is a judeecious mixture o’ English, Irish, and Volapeck.”
And from that time on Lang Tammas and Drumsheugh spoke never another word of Scotch dialect; and while Tammas never quite mastered pidgin-English, or Drumsheugh the tongue of Fadden, they lived happily ever after, which in a way proves that, after all, the parrot is a useful as well as an ornamental bird.
The cheers which followed the narration of the curious resolve of Lang Tammas and Drumsheugh were vociferous, and Berkeley Hights sat down with a flush of pleasure on his face. He construed these as directed towards himself and his contribution to the diversion of the evening. It never entered into his mind that the applause involved a bit of subtle appreciation of the kindness of Tammas and of Drumsheugh to the reading public in thus declining to give them more of something of which they had already had enough.
When the cheers had subsided Mr.Jones rose from his chair and congratulated the club upon its exhibit.
“Even if you have but faintly re-echoed the weaknesses of the strong,” he said, “you have done well, and I congratulate you. It is not every man in your walk in life who can write as grammatically as you have dreamed. I have failed to detect in any one of the stories or poems thus far read a single grammatical error, and I have no doubt that the manuscripts that you have read from are gratifyingly free from mistakes in spelling as well, so that, from a newspaper man’s stand-point, I see no reason why you should not get these proceedings published, especially if you do it at your own expense.
“I now declare The Dreamers adjournedsine die!”
“Not much!” cried the members, unanimously. “Where’s your contribution?”
“Out with it, William!” shouted Tom Snobbe. “I can tell by the set of your coat that you’ve got a manuscript concealed in your pocket.”
“There’s nothing ruins the set of a coat more quickly than a rejected manuscript in the pocket,” put in Hudson Rivers. “I’ve been there myself—so, as Lang Tammas said, Billy, ‘Pit it oot, and get it crackit.’”
“Well,” Jones replied, with a pleased smile, “to tell you the truth, gentlemen, I had come prepared in case I was called upon; but the hour is late,” he added, after the manner of one who, though willing, enjoyed being persuaded. “Perhaps we had better postpone—”
“Out with it, old man. It is late, but it will be later still if you don’t hurry up and begin,” said Tenafly Paterson.
“Very well, then, here goes,” said Jones. “Mine is a ghost-story, gentlemen, and it is called ‘The Involvular Club; or, The Return of the Screw.’ It is, like the rest of the work this evening, imitative, after a fashion, but I think it will prove effective.”