After breakfast we went out on the front porch, lighted up two of the
landlord's _flor de upas_ perfectos, and took a look at Georgia.
The installment of scenery visible to the eye looked mighty poor. As
far as we could see was red hills all washed down with gullies and
scattered over with patches of piny woods. Blackberry bushes was all
that kept the rail fences from falling down. About fifteen miles over
to the north was a little range of well-timbered mountains.
That town of Mountain Valley wasn't going. About a dozen people
permeated along the sidewalks; but what you saw mostly was rain-barrels
and roosters, and boys poking around with sticks in piles of ashes made
by burning the scenery of Uncle Tom shows.
And just then there passes down on the other side of the street a high
man in a long black coat and a beaver hat. All the people in sight
bowed, and some crossed the street to shake hands with him; folks came
out of stores and houses to holler at him; women leaned out of windows
and smiled; and all the kids stopped playing to look at him. Our
landlord stepped out on the porch and bent himself double like a
carpenter's rule, and sung out, "Good-morning, Colonel," when he was a
dozen yards gone by.
"And is that Alexander, pa?" says Caligula to the landlord; "and why
is he called great?"
"That, gentlemen," says the landlord, "is no less than Colonel Jackson
T. Rockingham, the president of the Sunrise & Edenville Tap Railroad,
mayor of Mountain Valley, and chairman of the Perry County board of
immigration and public improvements."
"Been away a good many years, hasn't he?" I asked.
"No, sir; Colonel Rockingham is going down to the post-office for his
mail. His fellow-citizens take pleasure in greeting him thus every
morning. The colonel is our most prominent citizen. Besides the
height of the stock of the Sunrise & Edenville Tap Railroad, he owns
a thousand acres of that land across the creek. Mountain Valley
delights, sir, to honor a citizen of such worth and public spirit."
For an hour that afternoon Caligula sat on the back of his neck on the
porch and studied a newspaper, which was unusual in a man who despised
print. When he was through he took me to the end of the porch among
the sunlight and drying dish-towels. I knew that Caligula had invented
a new graft. For he chewed the ends of his mustache and ran the left
catch of his suspenders up and down, which was his way.
"What is it now?" I asks. "Just so it ain't floating mining stocks or
raising Pennsylvania pinks, we'll talk it over."
"Pennsylvania pinks? Oh, that refers to a coin-raising scheme of the
Keystoners. They burn the soles of old women's feet to make them tell
where their money's hid."
Caligula's words in business was always few and bitter.
"You see them mountains," said he, pointing. "And you seen that
colonel man that owns railroads and cuts more ice when he goes to the
post-office than Roosevelt does when he cleans 'em out. What we're
going to do is to kidnap the latter into the former, and inflict a
ransom of ten thousand dollars."
"Illegality," says I, shaking my head.
"I knew you'd say that," says Caligula. "At first sight it does seem
to jar peace and dignity. But it don't. I got the idea out of that
newspaper. Would you commit aspersions on a equitable graft that the
United States itself has condoned and indorsed and ratified?"
"Kidnapping," says I, "is an immoral function in the derogatory list
of the statutes. If the United States upholds it, it must be a recent
enactment of ethics, along with race suicide and rural delivery."
"Listen," says Caligula, "and I'll explain the case set down in the
papers. Here was a Greek citizen named Burdick Harris," says he,
"captured for a graft by Africans; and the United States sends two
gunboats to the State of Tangiers and makes the King of Morocco give
up seventy thousand dollars to Raisuli."
"Go slow," says I. "That sounds too international to take in all at
once. It's like 'thimble, thimble, who's got the naturalization
papers?'"
"'Twas press despatches from Constantinople," says Caligula. "You'll
see, six months from now. They'll be confirmed by the monthly magazines;
and then it won't be long till you'll notice 'em alongside the photos
of the Mount Pelee eruption photos in the while-you-get-your-hair-cut
weeklies. It's all right, Pick. This African man Raisuli hides Burdick
Harris up in the mountains, and advertises his price to the governments
of different nations. Now, you wouldn't think for a minute," goes on
Caligula, "that John Hay would have chipped in and helped this graft
along if it wasn't a square game, would you?"
"Why, no," says I. "I've always stood right in with Bryan's policies,
and I couldn't consciously say a word against the Republican
administration just now. But if Harris was a Greek, on what system of
international protocols did Hay interfere?"
"It ain't exactly set forth in the papers," says Caligula. "I suppose
it's a matter of sentiment. You know he wrote this poem, 'Little
Breeches'; and them Greeks wear little or none. But anyhow, John Hay
sends the Brooklyn and the Olympia over, and they cover Africa with
thirty-inch guns. And then Hay cables after the health of the _persona
grata_. 'And how are they this morning?' he wires. 'Is Burdick Harris
alive yet, or Mr. Raisuli dead?' And the King of Morocco sends up the
seventy thousand dollars, and they turn Burdick Harris loose. And
there's not half the hard feelings among the nations about this little
kidnapping matter as there was about the peace congress. And Burdick
Harris says to the reporters, in the Greek language, that he's often
heard about the United States, and he admires Roosevelt next to
Raisuli, who is one of the whitest and most gentlemanly kidnappers
that he ever worked alongside of. So you see, Pick," winds up
Caligula, "we've got the law of nations on our side. We'll cut this
colonel man out of the herd, and corral him in them little mountains,
and stick up his heirs and assigns for ten thousand dollars."
"Well, you seldom little red-headed territorial terror," I answers,
"you can't bluff your uncle Tecumseh Pickens! I'll be your company in
this graft. But I misdoubt if you've absorbed the inwardness of this
Burdick Harris case, Calig; and if on any morning we get a telegram
from the Secretary of State asking about the health of the scheme,
I propose to acquire the most propinquitous and celeritous mule in
this section and gallop diplomatically over into the neighboring and
peaceful nation of Alabama."