Pa and the Boy Have a Series of Ups and Downs—Pa Plays Poker with
the Michigan Man and Loses All His Money—Pa Puts Up His Airship
and Loses—Pa and the Boy Start for Hamburg—The Boy Makes a
King’s Crown Out of Tin—The Boy Tells How They Escaped from the
Negro Tribes in Africa.
It seems to be just one series of ups and downs with Pa and I. One day
we are kings and things, and the next day we are just things and not
kings, or ninespots, or anything in the deck, except it’s Jacks.
That short stay at the ranch of the Michigan man in Africa, which seemed
like being set down from hades in Darkest Africa to Heaven in America,
terminated just as everything else does with us.
After we had enjoyed the morning with the wild animals on the race
track, Pa and the Michigan man set into a game of draw poker with some
other sharps and the cowboy, and they must have stacked the cards on Pa
and the cowboy, for before night they had got all Pa’s money away, and
the cowboy was burst, too, and in the evening Pa put the airship up
against the creamery and a drove of Jerseys, and Pa lost the airship,
and then Pa gave checks on a bank in the River Nile, and lost all the
checks, and about a pint of the diamonds, and when we went to bed the
Michigan man said he hated to part with us, but if we must go he would
send us over to Lake Victoria Nigouza, where we could take a steamer for
Hamburg.
We didn’t sleep much that night, and the next morning the auto was at
the door, and we took what little stuff Pa had not lost playing poker,
and crossed the country to the lake, at a town where Pa sold some of his
uncut diamonds for money enough to pay for our passage to Hamburg, and
we got on board the vessel and got into our state rooms.
Just before we were ready to start an officer came on board looking for
two white men who had been giving checks that were no good, and for
selling diamonds that would not wash.
I heard about it, and there was such a crowd that the vesselmen did not
remember Pa and the cowboy, but they said the officers could search the
vessel if they wanted to.
I went to the state room and told Pa and he turned pale, and trembled
like a leaf, and the brave cowboy had a fit. They were scared at the
prospect of being taken ashore and put in an English jail, and Pa sweat
so he looked like a hippopotamus sweating blood.
Pa said they were up a stump, and asked me if I could think of anything
to help them out. I told Pa the only thing for us to do was to take a
burned cork and black up, and pretend that Pa was an African king, on
the way to England to have a conference with King Edward about tribal
affairs.
Gee, but Pa and the cowboy bit like a bass and I got a champagne cork
and burned it over the lamp and went to work bleaching us all up, and in
half an hour we were three of the blackest niggers that ever emigrated
from Africa. I even blacked the place on Pa’s leg where the lion had
chewed a hole through his pants.
We looked at ourselves in the mirror, and inspected each other, and
couldn’t find a white spot, and then I told Pa what to do when the
officers of the law came.
He was to be seated in state, on a high chair, looking like a nigger
king, and the cowboy and I were to get down on our knees before him and
kowtow.
I got a crown made out of a tin basin, and a feather duster for a plume,
and fixed Pa up so that any tribe would have gone wild over him.
Just as we got Pa fixed up, and we had all stopped laughing, there was a
knock at the door of the state room, and I opened it, and two
semi-Englishmen came in looking for Pa and the cowboy, but when I waved
my hand and said, “Behold the King of Natabeland,” and the cowboy bit
the duster and saluted Pa, and Pa looked savage and said in broken
negro, “What, ho! varlets,” the officers said, “Beg pardon, don’t you
know, your ’ighness,” and they backed out of the door, making salaams,
and soon disappeared. Gee, it was a close call.
Soon after the engine began to turn the screw of the propeller, and when
we looked out of the porthole the vessel was going towards the ocean,
and when I told Pa he got down off his throne and danced a jig and
hugged the cowboy, and we were having a jollification when there was
another rap at the door, and Pa jumped up on the throne and put on his
tin basin crown, and I opened the door, and the steward of the vessel
came in with his hat in his hands, and asked Pa what he would have for
supper. Pa said he didn’t care what he had if he only got it quick, and
the steward said mostly when they were carrying African kings to England
they served the meals in the state rooms, as the kings did not care to
sit at the same table with the common herd, and Pa said that suited him
all right, and the steward added that the passengers also complained of
the manners of the African kings, and the smell that they emitted in the
cabin.
[Illustration: There Was a Knock at the Door of the Stateroom.]
Pa was going to get hot at that remark, but I was afraid the burnt cork
would rub off, so I said His Highness would be served in his state room,
and to bring the best the ship offered, and bring it quick if he didn’t
want trouble aboard, and he bowed low and went out, and pretty soon the
waiters began to bring in oysters and soup and turkey and boiled
pheasants, and ice cream, and we kings and things didn’t do a thing to
the food, and when the dishes were taken away empty, and the wine had
been drank, and the cigars brought in, King Pa got down from his throne
and just yelled, and he said to the cowboy, “Say, Alkali Ike, wouldn’t
this skin you?” and Ike said he guessed it would when they found out
what frauds we were, and after awhile we turned in and slept just like
we were at home.
For several days they fed us like they were fattening us for a sausage
factory, and the ocean was blue and calm, and we were let out on deck
near our state room for exercise, and I kept burning cork and keeping us
all blacked up nice, and Pa would repeat African words that he had
picked up, mixed with English words, and everybody kept their distance
and thought we were the real nigger thing.
Well, everything was going along beautifully, and we thought we had
never struck such a snap in all our lives, until about the fifth day.
We had eaten so much that our appetites had gone, and Pa and the cowboy
took to drinking more and more, and one night it began to blow, and the
vessel was part of the time on one end and then on the other, and then
rolling from side to side, so that Pa couldn’t sit on his throne without
sideboards, and towards morning we all got seasick and fell all over the
state room, and Pa had a pain under his belt that doubled him up like a
jackknife, and he yelled for a doctor. I told him never to send for a
doctor until the boat tied up at a dock, because it was dangerous, but
Pa said he had to have a doctor, and the cowboy had drank a bottle of
Scotch whiskey and had laid down under a bunk, and he was no good, so I
rang for the ship’s doctor, but I told Pa he must keep the parts of his
body that were not black covered up, or the doctor would find out he was
a white man, and then it would be all off in the nigger king masquerade.
Pretty soon the ship’s doctor came with a female trained nurse, and Pa
was a pitiful sight when he saw them. The doctor felt of Pa’s pulse, and
asked him where the pain was, and Pa, like a darn fool, put his hand on
his stomach, and before Pa could stop it the doctor had opened Pa’s
shirt, and was feeling where the appendix gets in its work.
[Illustration: Pretty Soon the Ship’s Doctor Came with a Nurse.]
It was a little dark, but the doctor said, “You old seney ambion, you
have got about the worst case of appendicitis that was ever pulled off
on this vessel. Boy, bring me that lantern.”
I hated to do it, because I knew Pa would be discovered, and I delayed
bringing the lantern as long as I could, but, turning the wick down, but
the doctor snatched a match so he could see Pa’s stomach, and then he
said, “Say, old skate, you are no more nigger king than I am; you are a
white man blacked up;” and the trained nurse said, “The ’ell you say,”
and then I got the lantern and they looked at Pa’s white skin, and the
doctor asked Pa what he had to say for himself, and Pa admitted that he
was a white man, but said he had many of the estimable qualities of a
nigger, but that he was traveling incog, to throw his enemies off the
track, and then Pa fainted away from the pain, and the cowboy got sober
enough to wake up and take notice, and we told the doctor who we were,
and how we had escaped from negro tribes and draw poker sharps and
officers of the law, and the cowboy fell in love at first sight with the
trained nurse, and then Pa came to, with the aid of a bucket of water
and some whiskey, and the storm went down, and the doctor said Pa would
have to have an operation performed to remove his appendix, and Pa
kicked about it, but they took him to the ship’s hospital, with the
cowboy for an assistant nurse, and I was left alone in our state room,
the only king there was left, and when I washed off my burnt cork I was
so white and pale that they gave me medicine, and the trained nurse held
me on her lap and sang English songs to me, with all the h’s left out,
and every day she told me how they removed Pa’s appendix, and it was
swollen up bigger than a weiner sausage, but that he would live all
right, and when he got well enough the captain would put Pa in irons for
passing himself off for a nigger king, and that he would probably be
transported for life, if he couldn’t raise the price of a ransom. And
there you are.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
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Transcriber’s Notes
Spelling and possible printer’s errors have mostly been retained.
Likewise, inconsistencies in hyphenation, spacing and capitalization
have also been retained. Changes made to the text are noted in the
comments below.
Pg. 8: The page number for CHAPTER XIX. has been added in the Table of
Contents.
Pg. 8: The last page of the Table of Contents, containing the last
chapters, is missing in all known editions of the text.
Pg. 9 - 10: Three entries from the List of Illustrations refer to
non-existent illustrations. They have been removed because the
illustrations were not in the original publication:
“Am Going to Have Him Mended and Keep Him for a Souvenir,” Said the
Pussy Woman.
My Lawyer Told Me to Groan When Anyone Was Present.
I Never Saw a Giant Negro So Mad as That Husband Was.
Pg. 11: The last eight illustrations in the book are missing from the
end of the List of Illustrations.
Pg. 28: Punctuation fix: ‘..Orphan’ to ‘Orphan’ - Extra periods removed
in block quote at start of chapter
Pgs. 38, 58 & 197: The following three illustrations do not seem to
correspond to the printed text and are by a different illustrator, but
are present in all known editions. Their source is ‘Peck’s Bad Boy
Abroad’ (1905).
Pg. 38: ‘Tossed him over the fence.’
Pg. 58: ‘Started on a stampede.’
Pg. 197: ‘Dad started to run for the fence.’
Pg. 78: Heading standardization: ‘VI.’ to ‘CHAPTER VI.’ - Missing word
in heading inserted to match other headings
Pg. 87: Caption fix: Added missing caption present in List of
Illustrations: ‘When it Exploded the Jap Was the Scaredest Person I
Ever Saw.’
Text on Pg. 117, from ‘Pa has had the hardest time ...’ and until
chapter end is replicated at the beginning of Chapter X, Pg. 145, with
minor differences inluding punctuation and initial capitals on some
words. Both have been retained as they appear in the original.
Pg. 131: Heading standardization: ‘IX.’ to ‘CHAPTER IX.’ - Missing word
in heading inserted to match other headings
Pg. 157: Heading standardization: ‘XI.’ to ‘CHAPTER XI.’ - Missing word
in heading inserted to match other headings
Pg. 278: Punctuation fix: ‘Cigars Pa Told’ to ‘Cigars—Pa Told’ - Added
missing em-dash in heading block-quote