E-text prepared by Barbara Tozier, Bill Tozier, and the Project Gutenberg
Online Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net)
Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this file
which includes the original illustrations in color.
See 33432-h.htm or 33432-h.zip:
(https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/33432/pg33432-images.html)
or
(https://www.gutenberg.org/files/33432/33432-h.zip)
MR. MUNCHAUSEN
[Illustration]
MR. MUNCHAUSEN
_Being a TRUE ACCOUNT of some of the RECENT ADVENTURES beyond the STYX
of the late HIERONYMUS CARL FRIEDRICH, sometime BARON MUNCHAUSEN of
BODENWERDER, as originally reported for the SUNDAY EDITION of the
GEHENNA GAZETTE by its SPECIAL INTERVIEWER the late Mr. ANANIAS
formerly of JERUSALEM and now first transcribed from the columns of
that JOURNAL by_
JOHN KENDRICK BANGS
Embellished with Drawings by Peter Newell
[Illustration]
Boston: _Printed for Noyes, Platt & Company and published by them at
their offices in the Pierce Building in Copley Square_, A.D. 1901
Copyright, 1901, by Noyes, Platt & Company, (Incorporated)
Entered at Stationers' Hall
The lithographed illustrations are printed in eight colours by George
H. Walker and Company, Boston
Press of Riggs Printing and Publishing Co. Albany, N. Y., U. S. A.
EDITOR'S APOLOGY _and_ DEDICATION
_In order that there may be no misunderstanding as to the why and the
wherefore of this collection of tales it appears to me to be desirable
that I should at the outset state my reasons for acting as the medium
between the spirit of the late Baron Munchausen and the reading
public. In common with a large number of other great men in history
Baron Munchausen has suffered because he is not understood. I have
observed with wondering surprise the steady and constant growth of the
idea that Baron Munchausen was not a man of truth; that his statements
of fact were untrustworthy, and that as a realist he had no standing
whatsoever. Just how this misconception of the man's character has
arisen it would be difficult to say. Surely in his published writings
he shows that same lofty resolve to be true to life as he has seen it
that characterises the work of some of the high Apostles of Realism,
who are writing of the things that will teach future generations how
we of to-day ordered our goings-on. The note of veracity in Baron
Munchausen's early literary venturings rings as clear and as true
certainly as the similar note in the charming studies of Manx Realism
that have come to us of late years from the pen of Mr. Corridor
Walkingstick, of Gloomster Abbey and London. We all remember the glow
of satisfaction with which we read Mr. Walkingstick's great story of
the love of the clergyman, John Stress, for the charming little
heroine, Glory Partridge. Here was something at last that rang true.
The picture was painted in the boldest of colours, and, regardless of
consequences to himself, Mr. Walkingstick dared to be real when he
might have given rein to his imagination. Mr. Walkingstick was,
thereupon, lifted up by popular favour to the level of an
apostle--nay, he even admitted the soft impeachment--and now as a
moral teacher he is without a rival in the world of literature. Yet
the same age that accepts this man as a moral teacher, rejects Baron
Munchausen, who, in different manner perhaps, presented to the world
as true and life-like a picture of the conditions of his day as that
given to us by Mr. Walkingstick in his deservedly popular romance,
"Episcopalians I have Met." Of course, I do not claim that Baron
Munchausen's stories in bulk or in specified instances, have the
literary vigour that is so marked a quality of the latter-day writer,
but the point I do wish to urge is that to accept the one as a
veracious chronicler of his time and to reject the other as one who
indulges his pen in all sorts of grotesque vagaries, without proper
regard for the facts, is a great injustice to the man of other times.
The question arises, _why_ is this? How has this wrong upon the worthy
realist of the eighteenth century been perpetrated? Is it an
intentional or an unwitting wrong? I prefer to believe that it is
based upon ignorance of the Baron's true quality, due to the fact that
his works are rarely to be found within the reach of the public: in
some cases, because of the failure of librarians to comprehend his
real motives, his narratives are excluded from Public and
Sunday-School libraries; and because of their extreme age, they are
not easily again brought into vogue. I have, therefore, accepted the
office of intermediary between the Baron and the readers of the
present day, in order that his later work, which, while it shows to a
marked degree the decadence of his literary powers, may yet serve to
demonstrate to the readers of my own time how favourably he compares
with some of the literary idols of to-day, in the simple matter of
fidelity to fact. If these stories which follow shall serve to
rehabilitate Baron Munchausen as a lover and practitioner of the arts
of Truth, I shall not have made the sacrifice of my time in vain. If
they fail of this purpose I shall still have the satisfaction of
knowing that I have tried to render a service to an honest and
defenceless man._
_Meanwhile I dedicate this volume, with sentiments of the highest
regard, to that other great realist_
MR. CORRIDOR WALKINGSTICK
_of_
GLOOMSTER ABBEY
J. K. B.
Contents
I. I Encounter the Old Gentleman
II. The Sporting Tour of Mr. Munchausen
III. Three Months in a Balloon
IV. Some Hunting Stories for Children
V. The Story of Jang
VI. He Tells the Twins of Fire-Works
VII. Saved by a Magic Lantern
VIII. An Adventure in the Desert
IX. Decoration Day in the Cannibal Islands
X. Mr. Munchausen's Adventure with a Shark
XI. The Baron as a Runner
XII. Mr. Munchausen Meets His Match
XIII. Wriggletto
XIV. The Poetic June-Bug, Together with Some
Remarks on the Gillyhooly Bird
XV. A Lucky Stroke
List of Illustrations
Portrait of Mr. Munchausen
"There was the whale, drawn by magnetic influence to the
side of _The Lyre_"
"As their bullets got to their highest point and began to
drop back, I reached out and caught them"
"I got nearer and nearer my haven of safety, the bellowing
beasts snorting with rage as they followed"
"Jang buzzed over and sat on his back, putting his sting
where it would do the most good"
"Out of what appeared to be a clear sky came the most
extraordinary rain storm you ever saw"
"'I am your slave,' he replied to my greeting, kneeling
before me, 'I yield all to you'"
"I reached the giraffe, raised myself to his back, crawled
along his neck and dropped fainting into the tree"
"They were celebrating Decoration Day, strewing flowers on
the graves of departed missionaries"
"I laughed in the poor disappointed thing's face, and with a
howl of despair he rushed back into the sea"
"This brought my speed down ten minutes to the mile which
made it safe for me to run into a haystack"
"At the first whoop Mr. Bear jumped ten feet and fell over
backward on the floor"
"He used to wind his tail about a fan and he'd wave it to
and fro by the hour"
"Most singular of all was the fact that, consciously or
unconsciously, the insect had butted out a verse"
"Again I swung my red-flagged brassey in front of the angry
creature's face, and what I had hoped for followed"
MR. MUNCHAUSEN
AN ACCOUNT OF HIS RECENT ADVENTURES
I
I ENCOUNTER THE OLD GENTLEMAN
There are moments of supreme embarrassment in the lives of persons
given to veracity,--indeed it has been my own unusual experience in
life that the truth well stuck to is twice as hard a proposition as a
lie so obvious that no one is deceived by it at the outset. I cannot
quite agree with my friend, Caddy Barlow, who says that in a tight
place it is better to lie at once and be done with it than to tell the
truth which will need forty more truths to explain it, but I must
confess that in my forty years of absolute and conscientious devotion
to truth I have found myself in holes far deeper than any my most
mendacious of friends ever got into. I do not propose, however, to
desert at this late hour the Goddess I have always worshipped because
she leads me over a rough and rocky road, and whatever may be the
hardships involved in my wooing I intend to the very end to remain the
ever faithful slave of Mademoiselle Veracite. All of which I state
here in prefatory mood, and in order, in so far as it is possible for
me to do so, to disarm the incredulous and sniffy reader who may be
inclined to doubt the truth of my story of how the manuscript of the
following pages came into my possession. I am quite aware that to some
the tale will appear absolutely and intolerably impossible. I know
that if any other than I told it to me I should not believe it. Yet
despite these drawbacks the story is in all particulars, essential and
otherwise, absolutely truthful.
The facts are briefly these:
It was not, to begin with, a dark and dismal evening. The snow was not
falling silently, clothing a sad and gloomy world in a mantle of
white, and over the darkling moor a heavy mist was not rising, as is
so frequently the case. There was no soul-stirring moaning of bitter
winds through the leafless boughs; so far as I was aware nothing
soughed within twenty miles of my bailiwick; and my dog, lying before
a blazing log fire in my library, did not give forth an occasional
growl of apprehension, denoting the presence or approach of an uncanny
visitor from other and mysterious realms: and for two good reasons.
The first reason is that it was midsummer when the thing happened, so
that a blazing log fire in my library would have been an extravagance
as well as an anachronism. The second is that I have no dog. In fact
there was nothing unusual, or uncanny in the whole experience. It
happened to be a bright and somewhat too sunny July day, which is not
an unusual happening along the banks of the Hudson. You could see the
heat, and if anything had soughed it could only have been the mercury
in my thermometer. This I must say clicked nervously against the top
of the glass tube and manifested an extraordinary desire to climb
higher than the length of the tube permitted. Incidentally I may add,
even if it be not believed, that the heat was so intense that the
mercury actually did raise the whole thermometer a foot and a half
above the mantel-shelf, and for two mortal hours, from midday until
two by the Monastery Clock, held it suspended there in mid-air with no
visible means of support. Not a breath of air was stirring, and the
only sounds heard were the expanding creaks of the beams of my house,
which upon that particular day increased eight feet in width and
assumed a height which made it appear to be a three instead of a two
story dwelling. There was little work doing in the house. The children
played about in their bathing suits, and the only other active factor
in my life of the moment was our hired man who was kept busy in the
cellar pouring water on the furnace coal to keep it from spontaneously
combusting.
We had just had luncheon, burning our throats with the iced tea and
with considerable discomfort swallowing the simmering cold roast
filet, which we had to eat hastily before the heat of the day
transformed it into smoked beef. My youngest boy Willie perspired so
copiously that we seriously thought of sending for a plumber to solder
up his pores, and as for myself who have spent three summers of my
life in the desert of Sahara in order to rid myself of nervous chills
to which I was once unhappily subject, for the first time in my life I
was impelled to admit that it was intolerably warm. And then the
telephone bell rang.
"Great Scott!" I cried, "Who in thunder do you suppose wants to play
golf on a day like this?"--for nowadays our telephone is used for no
other purpose than the making or the breaking of golf engagements.
"Me," cried my eldest son, whose grammar is not as yet on a par with
his activity. "I'll go."
The boy shot out of the dining room and ran to the telephone,
returning in a few moments with the statement that a gentleman with a
husky voice whose name was none of his business wished to speak with
me on a matter of some importance to myself.
I was loath to go. My friends the book agents had recently acquired
the habit of approaching me over the telephone, and I feared that here
was another nefarious attempt to foist a thirty-eight volume tabloid
edition of _The World's Worst Literature_ upon me. Nevertheless I
wisely determined to respond.
"Hello," I said, placing my lips against the rubber cup. "Hello there,
who wants 91162 Nepperhan?"
"Is that you?" came the answering question, and, as my boy had
indicated, in a voice whose chief quality was huskiness.
"I guess so," I replied facetiously;--"It was this morning, but the
heat has affected me somewhat, and I don't feel as much like myself as
I might. What can I do for you?"
"Nothing, but you can do a lot for yourself," was the astonishing
answer. "Pretty hot for literary work, isn't it?" the voice added
sympathetically.
"Very," said I. "Fact is I can't seem to do anything these days but
perspire."
"That's what I thought; and when you can't work ruin stares you in the
face, eh? Now I have a manuscript--"
"Oh Lord!" I cried. "Don't. There are millions in the same fix. Even
my cook writes."
"Don't know about that," he returned instantly. "But I do know that
there's millions in my manuscript. And you can have it for the asking.
How's that for an offer?"
"Very kind, thank you," said I. "What's the nature of your story?"
"It's extremely good-natured," he answered promptly.
I laughed. The twist amused me.
"That isn't what I meant exactly," said I, "though it has some bearing
on the situation. Is it a Henry James dandy, or does it bear the mark
of Caine? Is it realism or fiction?"
"Realism," said he. "Fiction isn't in my line."
"Well, I'll tell you," I replied; "you send it to me by post and I'll
look it over. If I can use it I will."
"Can't do it," said he. "There isn't any post-office where I am."
"What?" I cried. "No post-office? Where in Hades are you?"
"Gehenna," he answered briefly. "The transportation between your
country and mine is all one way," he added. "If it wasn't the
population here would diminish."
"Then how the deuce am I to get hold of your stuff?" I demanded.
"That's easy. Send your stenographer to the 'phone and I'll dictate
it," he answered.
The novelty of the situation appealed to me. Even if my new found
acquaintance were some funny person nearer at hand than Gehenna trying
to play a practical joke upon me, still it might be worth while to get
hold of the story he had to tell. Hence I agreed to his proposal.
"All right, sir," said I. "I'll do it. I'll have him here to-morrow
morning at nine o'clock sharp. What's your number? I'll ring you up."
"Never mind that," he replied. "I'm merely a tapster on your wires.
I'll ring _you_ up as soon as I've had breakfast and then we can get
to work."
"Very good," said I. "And may I ask your name?"
"Certainly," he answered. "I'm Munchausen."
"What? The Baron?" I roared, delighted.
"Well--I used to be Baron," he returned with a tinge of sadness in his
voice, "but here in Gehenna we are all on an equal footing. I'm plain
Mr. Munchausen of Hades now. But that's a detail. Don't forget. Nine
o'clock. Good-bye."
"Wait a moment, Baron," I cried. "How about the royalties on this
book?"
"Keep 'em for yourself," he replied. "We have money to burn over here.
You are welcome to all the earthly rights of the book. I'm satisfied
with the returns on the Asbestos Edition, already in its 468th
thousand. Good-bye."
There was a rattle as of the hanging up of the receiver, a short sharp
click and a ring, and I realised that he had gone.
The next morning in response to a telegraphic summons my stenographer
arrived and when I explained the situation to him he was incredulous,
but orders were orders and he remained. I could see, however, that as
nine o'clock approached he grew visibly nervous, which indicated that
he half believed me anyhow, and when at nine to the second the sharp
ring of the 'phone fell upon our ears he jumped as if he had been
shot.
"Hello," said I again. "That you, Baron?"
"The same," the voice replied. "Stenographer ready?"
"Yes," said I.
The stenographer walked to the desk, placed the receiver at his ear,
and with trembling voice announced his presence. There was a response
of some kind, and then more calmly he remarked, "Fire ahead, Mr.
Munchausen," and began to write rapidly in short-hand.
Two days later he handed me a type-written copy of the following
stories. The reader will observe that they are in the form of
interviews, and it should be stated here that they appeared originally
in the columns of the Sunday edition of the _Gehenna Gazette_, a
publication of Hades which circulates wholly among the best people of
that country, and which, if report saith truly, would not print a line
which could not be placed in the hands of children, and to whose
columns such writers as Chaucer, Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, Jonah and
Ananias are frequent contributors.
Indeed, on the statement of Mr. Munchausen, all the interviews herein
set forth were between himself as the principal and the Hon. Henry B.
Ananias as reporter, or were scrupulously edited by the latter before
being published.
II
THE SPORTING TOUR OF MR. MUNCHAUSEN
"Good morning, Mr. Munchausen," said the interviewer of the _Gehenna
Gazette_ entering the apartment of the famous traveller at the Hotel
Deville, where the late Baron had just arrived from his sporting tour
in the Blue Hills of Cimmeria and elsewhere.
"The interests of truth, my dear Ananias," replied the Baron, grasping
me cordially by the hand, "require that I should state it as my
opinion that it is not a good morning. In fact, my good friend, it is
a very bad morning. Can you not see that it is raining cats and dogs
without?"
"Sir," said I with a bow, "I accept the spirit of your correction but
not the letter. It is raining indeed, sir, as you suggest, but having
passed through it myself on my way hither I can personally testify
that it is raining rain, and not a single cat or canine has, to my
knowledge, as yet fallen from the clouds to the parched earth,
although I am informed that down upon the coast an elephant and three
cows have fallen upon one of the summer hotels and irreparably damaged
the roof."
Mr. Munchausen laughed.
"It is curious, Ananias," said he, "what sticklers for the truth you
and I have become."
"It is indeed, Munchausen," I returned. "The effects of this climate
are working wonders upon us. And it is just as well. You and I are
outclassed by these twentieth century prevaricators concerning whom
late arrivals from the upper world tell such strange things. They tell
me that lying has become a business and is no longer ranked among the
Arts or Professions."
"Ah me!" sighed the Baron with a retrospective look in his eye, "lying
isn't what it used to be, Ananias, in your days and mine. I fear it
has become one of the lost arts."
"I have noticed it myself, my friend, and only last night I observed
the same thing to my well beloved Sapphira, who was lamenting the
transparency of the modern lie, and said that lying to-day is no
better than the truth. In our day a prevarication had all of the
opaque beauty of an opalescent bit of glass, whereas to-day in the
majority of cases it is like a great vulgar plate-glass window,
through which we can plainly see the ugly truths that lie behind. But,
sir, I am here to secure from you not a treatise upon the lost art of
lying, but some idea of the results of your sporting tour. You fished,
and hunted, and golfed, and doubtless did other things. You, of
course, had luck and made the greatest catch of the season; shot all
the game in sight, and won every silver, gold and pewter golf mug in
all creation?"
"You speak truly, Ananias," returned Mr. Munchausen. "My luck _was_
wonderful--even for one who has been so singularly fortunate as I. I
took three tons of speckled beauties with one cast of an ordinary
horse whip in the Blue Hills, and with nothing but a silken line and a
minnow hook landed upon the deck of my steam yacht a whale of most
tremendous proportions; I shot game of every kind in great abundance
and in my golf there was none to whom I could not give with ease seven
holes in every nine and beat him out."
"Seven?" said I, failing to see how the ex-Baron could be right.
"Seven," said he complacently. "Seven on the first, and seven on the
second nine; fourteen in all of the eighteen holes."
"But," I cried, "I do not see how that could be. With fourteen holes
out of the eighteen given to your opponent even if you won all the
rest you still would be ten down."
"True, by ordinary methods of calculation," returned the Baron, "but I
got them back on a technicality, which I claim is a new and valuable
discovery in the game. You see it is impossible to play more than one
hole at a time, and I invariably proved to the Greens Committee that
in taking fourteen holes at once my opponent violated the physical
possibilities of the situation. In every case the point was accepted
as well taken, for if we allow golfers to rise above physical
possibilities the game is gone. The integrity of the Card is the soul
of Golf," he added sententiously.
"Tell me of the whale," said I, simply. "You landed a whale of large
proportions on the deck of your yacht with a simple silken line and a
minnow hook."
"Well it's a tough story," the Baron replied, handing me a cigar. "But
it is true, Ananias, true to the last word. I was fishing for eels.
Sitting on the deck of _The Lyre_ one very warm afternoon in the early
stages of my trip, I baited a minnow hook and dropped it overboard. It
was the roughest day at sea I had ever encountered. The waves were
mountain high, and it is the sad fact that one of our crew seated in
the main-top was drowned with the spray of the dashing billows.
Fortunately for myself, directly behind my deck chair, to which I was
securely lashed, was a powerful electric fan which blew the spray away
from me, else I too might have suffered the same horrid fate. Suddenly
there came a tug on my line. I was half asleep at the time and let the
line pay out involuntarily, but I was wide-awake enough to know that
something larger than an eel had taken hold of the hook. I had hooked
either a Leviathan or a derelict. Caution and patience, the chief
attributes of a good angler were required. I hauled the line in until
it was taut. There were a thousand yards of it out, and when it
reached the point of tensity, I gave orders to the engineers to steam
closer to the object at the other end. We steamed in five hundred
yards, I meanwhile hauling in my line. Then came another tug and I let
out ten yards. 'Steam closer,' said I. 'Three hundred yards
sou-sou-west by nor'-east.' The yacht obeyed on the instant. I called
the Captain and let him feel the line. 'What do you think it is?' said
I. He pulled a half dozen times. 'Feels like a snag,' he said, 'but
seein' as there ain't no snags out here, I think it must be a fish.'
'What kind?' I asked. I could not but agree that he was better
acquainted with the sea and its denizens than I. 'Well,' he replied,
'it is either a sea serpent or a whale.' At the mere mention of the
word whale I was alert. I have always wanted to kill a whale.
'Captain,' said I, 'can't you tie an anchor onto a hawser, and bait
the flukes with a boa constrictor and make sure of him?' He looked at
me contemptuously. 'Whales eats fish,' said he, 'and they don't bite
at no anchors. Whales has brains, whales has.' 'What shall we do?' I
asked. 'Steam closer,' said the Captain, and we did so."
Munchausen took a long breath and for the moment was silent.
"Well?" said I.
"Well, Ananias," said he. "We resolved to wait. As the Captain said to
me, 'Fishin' is waitin'.' So we waited. 'Coax him along,' said the
Captain. 'How can we do it?' I asked. 'By kindness,' said he. 'Treat
him gently, persuasive-like and he'll come.' We waited four days and
nobody moved and I grew weary of coaxing. 'We've got to do something,'
said I to the Captain. 'Yes,' said he, 'Let's _make_ him move. He
doesn't seem to respond to kindness.' 'But how?' I cried. 'Give him an
electric shock,' said the Captain. 'Telegraph him his mother's sick
and may be it'll move him.' 'Can't you get closer to him?' I demanded,
resenting his facetious manner. 'I can, but it will scare him off,'
replied the Captain. So we turned all our batteries on the sea. The
dynamo shot forth its bolts and along about four o'clock in the
afternoon there was the whale drawn by magnetic influence to the side
of _The Lyre_. He was a beauty, Ananias," Munchausen added with
enthusiasm. "You never saw such a whale. His back was as broad as the
deck of an ocean steamer and in his length he exceeded the dimensions
of _The Lyre_ by sixty feet."
"And still you got him on deck?" I asked,--I, Ananias, who can stand
something in the way of an exaggeration.
"Yes," said Munchausen, lighting his cigar, which had gone out.
"Another storm came up and we rolled and rolled and rolled, until I
thought _The Lyre_ was going to capsize."
"But weren't you sea-sick?" I asked.
"Didn't have a chance to be," said Munchausen. "I was thinking of the
whale all the time. Finally there came a roll in which we went
completely under, and with a slight pulling on the line the whale was
landed by the force of the wave and laid squarely upon the deck."
"Great Sapphira!" said I. "But you just said he was wider and longer
than the yacht!"
[Illustration: "There was the whale drawn by magnetic influence to the
side of _The Lyre_." _Chapter II._]
"He was," sighed Munchausen. "He landed on the deck and by sheer force
of his weight the yacht went down under him. I swam ashore and the
whole crew with me. The next day Mr. Whale floated in strangled. He'd
swallowed the thousand yards of line and it got so tangled in his
tonsils that it choked him to death. Come around next week and I'll
give you a couple of pounds of whalebone for Mrs. Ananias, and all the
oil you can carry."
I thanked the old gentleman for his kind offer and promised to avail
myself of it, although as a newspaper man it is against my principles
to accept gifts from public men.
"It was great luck, Baron," said I. "Or at least it would have been if
you hadn't lost your yacht."
"That was great luck too," he observed nonchalantly. "It cost me ten
thousand dollars a month keeping that yacht in commission. Now she's
gone I save all that. Why it's like finding money in the street,
Ananias. She wasn't worth more than fifty thousand dollars, and in six
months I'll be ten thousand ahead."
I could not but admire the cheerful philosophy of the man, but then I
was not surprised. Munchausen was never the sort of man to let little
things worry him.
"But that whale business wasn't a circumstance to my catch of three
tons of trout with a single cast of a horse-whip in the Blue Hills,"
said the Baron after a few moments of meditation, during which I could
see that he was carefully marshalling his facts.
"I never heard of its equal," said I. "You must have used a derrick."
"No," he replied suavely. "Nothing of the sort. It was the simplest
thing in the world. It was along about five o'clock in the afternoon
when with my three guides and my valet I drove up the winding roadway
of Great Sulphur Mountain on my way to the Blue Mountain House where I
purposed to put up for a few days. I had one of those big mountain
wagons with a covered top to it such as the pioneers used on the
American plains, with six fine horses to the fore. I held the reins
myself, since we were in the midst of a terrific thunderstorm and I
felt safer when I did my own driving. All the flaps of the leathern
cover were let down at the sides and at the back, and were securely
fastened. The roads were unusually heavy, and when we came to the last
great hill before the lake all but I were walking, as a measure of
relief to the horses. Suddenly one of the horses balked right in the
middle of the ascent, and in a moment of impatience I gave him a
stinging flick with my whip, when like a whirlwind the whole six
swerved to one side and started on a dead run upward. The jolt and the
unexpected swerving of the wagon threw me from my seat and I landed
clear of the wheels in the soft mud of the roadway, fortunately
without injury. When I arose the team was out of sight and we had to
walk the remainder of the distance to the hotel. Imagine our surprise
upon arriving there to find the six panting steeds and the wagon
standing before the main entrance to the hotel dripping as though they
had been through the Falls of Niagara, and, would you believe it,
Ananias, inside that leather cover of the wagon, packed as tightly as
sardines, were no less than three thousand trout, not one of them
weighing less than a pound and some of them getting as high as four.
The whole catch weighed a trifle over six thousand pounds."
"Great Heavens, Baron," I cried. "Where the dickens did they come
from?"
"That's what I asked myself," said the Baron easily. "It seemed
astounding at first glance, but investigation showed it after all to
be a very simple proposition. The runaways after reaching the top of
the hill turned to the left, and clattered on down toward the bridge
over the inlet to the lake. The bridge broke beneath their weight and
the horses soon found themselves struggling in the water. The harness
was strong and the wagon never left them. They had to swim for it, and
I am told by a small boy who was fishing on the lake at the time that
they swam directly across it, pulling the wagon after them. Naturally
with its open front and confined back and sides the wagon acted as a
sort of drag-net and when the opposite shore was gained, and the wagon
was pulled ashore, it was found to have gathered in all the fish that
could not get out of the way."
The Baron resumed his cigar, and I sat still eyeing the ample pattern
of the drawing-room carpet.
"Pretty good catch for an afternoon, eh?" he said in a minute.
"Yes," said I. "Almost too good, Baron. Those horses must have swam
like the dickens to get over so quickly. You would think the trout
would have had time to escape."
"Oh I presume one or two of them did," said Munchausen. "But the
majority of them couldn't. The horses were all fast, record-breakers
anyhow. I never hire a horse that isn't."
And with that I left the old gentleman and walked blushing back to the
office. I don't doubt for an instant the truth of the Baron's story,
but somehow or other I feel that in writing it my reputation is in
some measure at stake.
NOTE--Mr. Munchausen, upon request of the Editor of the
_Gehenna Gazette_ to write a few stories of adventure for his
Imp's page, conducted by Sapphira, contributed the tales which
form the substance of several of the following chapters.
III
THREE MONTHS IN A BALLOON
Mr. Munchausen was not handsome, but the Imps liked him very much, he
was so full of wonderful reminiscences, and was always willing to tell
anybody that would listen, all about himself. To the Heavenly Twins he
was the greatest hero that had ever lived. Napoleon Bonaparte, on Mr.
Munchausen's own authority, was not half the warrior that he, the late
Baron had been, nor was Caesar in his palmiest days, one-quarter so
wise or so brave. How old the Baron was no one ever knew, but he had
certainly lived long enough to travel the world over, and stare every
kind of death squarely in the face without flinching. He had fought
Zulus, Indians, tigers, elephants--in fact, everything that fights,
the Baron had encountered, and in every contest he had come out
victorious. He was the only man the children had ever seen that had
lost three legs in battle and then had recovered them after the fight
was over; he was the only visitor to their house that had been lost in
the African jungle and wandered about for three months without food or
shelter, and best of all he was, on his own confession, the most
truthful narrator of extraordinary tales living. The youngsters had to
ask the Baron a question only, any one, it mattered not what it
was--to start him off on a story of adventure, and as he called upon
the Twins' father once a month regularly, the children were not long
in getting together a collection of tales beside which the most
exciting episodes in history paled into insignificant commonplaces.
"Uncle Munch," said the Twins one day, as they climbed up into the
visitor's lap and disarranged his necktie, "was you ever up in a
balloon?"
"Only once," said the Baron calmly. "But I had enough of it that time
to last me for a lifetime."
"Was you in it for long?" queried the Twins, taking the Baron's watch
out of his pocket and flinging it at Cerberus, who was barking outside
of the window.
"Well, it seemed long enough," the Baron answered, putting his
pocket-book in the inside pocket of his vest where the Twins could not
reach it. "Three months off in the country sleeping all day long and
playing tricks all night seems a very short time, but three months in
a balloon and the constant centre of attack from every source is too
long for comfort."
"Were you up in the air for three whole months?" asked the Twins,
their eyes wide open with astonishment.
"All but two days," said the Baron. "For two of those days we rested
in the top of a tree in India. The way of it was this: I was always,
as you know, a great favourite with the Emperor Napoleon, of France,
and when he found himself involved in a war with all Europe, he
replied to one of his courtiers who warned him that his army was not
in condition: 'Any army is prepared for war whose commander-in-chief
numbers Baron Munchausen among his advisers. Let me have Munchausen at
my right hand and I will fight the world.' So they sent for me and as
I was not very busy I concluded to go and assist the French, although
the allies and I were also very good friends. I reasoned it out this
way: In this fight the allies are the stronger. They do not need me.
Napoleon does. Fight for the weak, Munchausen, I said to myself, and
so I went. Of course, when I reached Paris I went at once to the
Emperor's palace and remained at his side until he took the field,
after which I remained behind for a few days to put things to rights
for the Imperial family. Unfortunately for the French, the King of
Prussia heard of my delay in going to the front, and he sent word to
his forces to intercept me on my way to join Napoleon at all hazards,
and this they tried to do. When I was within ten miles of the
Emperor's headquarters, I was stopped by the Prussians, and had it not
been that I had provided myself with a balloon for just such an
emergency, I should have been captured and confined in the King's
palace at Berlin, until the war was over.
"Foreseeing all this, I had brought with me a large balloon packed
away in a secret section of my trunk, and while my body-guard was
fighting with the Prussian troops sent to capture me, I and my valet
inflated the balloon, jumped into the car and were soon high up out of
the enemy's reach. They fired several shots at us, and one of them
would have pierced the balloon had I not, by a rare good shot, fired
my own rifle at the bullet, and hitting it squarely in the middle, as
is my custom, diverted it from its course, and so saved our lives.
"It had been my intention to sail directly over the heads of the
attacking party and drop down into Napoleon's camp the next morning,
but unfortunately for my calculations, a heavy wind came up in the
night and the balloon was caught by a northerly blast, and blown into
Africa, where, poised in the air directly over the desert of Sahara,
we encountered a dead calm, which kept us stalled up for two miserable
weeks."
"Why didn't you come down?" asked the Twins, "wasn't the elevator
running?"
"We didn't dare," explained the Baron, ignoring the latter part of the
question. "If we had we'd have wasted a great deal of our gas, and our
condition would have been worse than ever. As I told you we were
directly over the centre of the desert. There was no way of getting
out of it except by long and wearisome marches over the hot, burning
sands with the chances largely in favour of our never getting out
alive. The only thing to do was to stay just where we were and wait
for a favouring breeze. This we did, having to wait four mortal weeks
before the air was stirred."
"You said two weeks a minute ago, Uncle Munch," said the Twins
critically.
"Two? Hem! Well, yes it was two, now that I think of it. It's a
natural mistake," said the Baron stroking his mustache a little
nervously. "You see two weeks in a balloon over a vast desert of sand,
with nothing to do but whistle for a breeze, is equal to four weeks
anywhere else. That is, it seems so. Anyhow, two weeks or four,
whichever it was, the breeze came finally, and along about midnight
left us stranded again directly over an Arab encampment near Wady
Halfa. It was a more perilous position really, than the first, because
the moment the Arabs caught sight of us they began to make frantic
efforts to get us down. At first we simply laughed them to scorn and
made faces at them, because as far as we could see, we were safely out
of reach. This enraged them and they apparently made up their minds to
kill us if they could. At first their idea was to get us down alive
and sell us as slaves, but our jeers changed all that, and what should
they do but whip out a lot of guns and begin to pepper us.
"'I'll settle them in a minute,' I said to myself, and set about
loading my own gun. Would you believe it, I found that my last bullet
was the one with which I had saved the balloon from the Prussian
shot?"
"Mercy, how careless of you, Uncle Munch!" said one of the Twins.
"What did you do?"
"I threw out a bag of sand ballast so that the balloon would rise just
out of range of their guns, and then, as their bullets got to their
highest point and began to drop back, I reached out and caught them in
a dipper. Rather neat idea, eh? With these I loaded my own rifle and
shot every one of the hostile party with their own ammunition, and
when the last of the attacking Arabs dropped I found there were enough
bullets left to fill the empty sand bag again, so that the lost
ballast was not missed. In fact, there were enough of them in weight
to bring the balloon down so near to the earth that our anchor rope
dangled directly over the encampment, so that my valet and I, without
wasting any of our gas, could climb down and secure all the
magnificent treasures in rugs and silks and rare jewels these robbers
of the desert had managed to get together in the course of their
depredations. When these were placed in the car another breeze came
up, and for the rest of the time we drifted idly about in the heavens
waiting for a convenient place to land. In this manner we were blown
hither and yon for three months over land and sea, and finally we were
wrecked upon a tall tree in India, whence we escaped by means of a
convenient elephant that happened to come our way, upon which we rode
triumphantly into Calcutta. The treasures we had secured from the
Arabs, unfortunately, we had to leave behind us in the tree, where I
suppose they still are. I hope some day to go back and find them."
Here Mr. Munchausen paused for a moment to catch his breath. Then he
added with a sigh. "Of course, I went back to France immediately, but
by the time I reached Paris the war was over, and the Emperor was in
exile. I was too late to save him--though I think if he had lived some
sixty or seventy years longer I should have managed to restore his
throne, and Imperial splendour to him."
The Twins gazed into the fire in silence for a minute or two. Then one
of them asked:
"But what did you live on all that time, Uncle Munch?"
"Eggs," said the Baron. "Eggs and occasionally fish. My servant had
had the foresight when getting the balloon ready to include, among the
things put into the car, a small coop in which were six pet chickens I
owned, and without which I never went anywhere. These laid enough eggs
every day to keep us alive. The fish we caught when our balloon stood
over the sea, baiting our anchor with pieces of rubber gas pipe used
to inflate the balloon, and which looked very much like worms."
[Illustration: "As their bullets got to their highest point and began
to drop back, I reached out and caught them." _Chapter III._]
"But the chickens?" said the Twins. "What did they live on?"
The Baron blushed.
"I am sorry you asked that question," he said, his voice trembling
somewhat. "But I'll answer it if you promise never to tell anyone. It
was the only time in my life that I ever practised an intentional
deception upon any living thing, and I have always regretted it,
although our very lives depended upon it."
"What was it, Uncle Munch?" asked the Twins, awed to think that the
old warrior had ever deceived anyone.
"I took the egg shells and ground them into powder, and fed them to
the chickens. The poor creatures supposed it was corn-meal they were
getting," confessed the Baron. "I know it was mean, but what could I
do?"
"Nothing," said the Twins softly. "And we don't think it was so bad of
you after all. Many another person would have kept them laying eggs
until they starved, and then he'd have killed them and eaten them up.
You let them live."
"That may be so," said the Baron, with a smile that showed how
relieved his conscience was by the Twins' suggestion. "But I couldn't
do that you know, because they were pets. I had been brought up from
childhood with those chickens."
Then the Twins, jamming the Baron's hat down over his eyes, climbed
down from his lap and went to their play, strongly of the opinion
that, though a bold warrior, the Baron was a singularly kind,
soft-hearted man after all.
IV
SOME HUNTING STORIES FOR CHILDREN
The Heavenly Twins had been off in the mountains during their summer
holiday, and in consequence had seen very little of their good old
friend, Mr. Munchausen. He had written them once or twice, and they
had found his letters most interesting, especially that one in which
he told how he had killed a moose up in Maine with his Waterbury watch
spring, and I do not wonder that they marvelled at that, for it was
one of the most extraordinary happenings in the annals of the chase.
It seems, if his story is to be believed, and I am sure that none of
us who know him has ever had any reason to think that he would deceive
intentionally; it seems, I say, that he had gone to Maine for a week's
sport with an old army acquaintance of his, who had now become a guide
in that region. Unfortunately his rifle, of which he was very fond,
and with which his aim was unerring, was in some manner mislaid on the
way, and when they arrived in the woods they were utterly without
weapons; but Mr. Munchausen was not the man to be daunted by any such
trifle as that, particularly while his friend had an old army musket,
a relic of the war, stored away in the attic of his woodland domicile.
"Th' only trouble with that ar musket," said the old guide, "ain't so
much that she won't shoot straight, nor that she's got a kick onto her
like an unbroke mule. What I'm most afeard 'on about your shootin'
with her ain't that I think she'll bust neither, for the fact is we
ain't got nothin' for to bust her with, seein' as how ammynition is
skeerce. I got powder, an' I got waddin', but I ain't got no shot."
"That doesn't make any difference," the Baron replied. "We can make
the shot. Have you got any plumbing in the camp? If you have, rip it
out, and I'll melt up a water-pipe into bullets."
"No, sir," retorted the old man. "Plumbin' is one of the things I came
here to escape from."
"Then," said the Baron, "I'll use my watch for ammunition. It is only
a three-dollar watch and I can spare it."
With this determination, Mr. Munchausen took his watch to pieces, an
ordinary time-piece of the old-fashioned kind, and, to make a long
story short, shot for several days with the component parts of that
useful affair rammed down into the barrel of the old musket. With the
stem-winding ball he killed an eagle; with pieces of the back cover
chopped up to a fineness of medium-sized shot he brought down several
other birds, but the great feat of all was when he started for moose
with nothing but the watch-spring in the barrel of the gun. Having
rolled it up as tight as he could, fastened it with a piece of twine,
and rammed it well into the gun, he set out to find the noble animal
upon whose life he had designs. After stalking the woods for several
hours, he came upon the tracks which told him that his prey was not
far off, and in a short while he caught sight of a magnificent
creature, his huge antlers held proudly up and his great eyes full of
defiance.
For a moment the Baron hesitated. The idea of destroying so beautiful
an animal seemed to be abhorrent to his nature, which, warrior-like as
he is, has something of the tenderness of a woman about it. A second
glance at the superb creature, however, changed all that, for the
Baron then saw that to shoot to kill was necessary, for the beast was
about to force a fight in which the hunter himself would be put upon
the defensive.
"I won't shoot you through the head, my beauty," he said, softly, "nor
will I puncture your beautiful coat with this load of mine, but I'll
kill you in a new way."
With this he pulled the trigger. The powder exploded, the string
binding the long black spring into a coil broke, and immediately the
strip of steel shot forth into the air, made directly toward the neck
of the rushing moose, and coiling its whole sinuous length tightly
about the doomed creature's throat strangled him to death.
As the Twins' father said, a feat of that kind entitled the Baron to a
high place in fiction at least, if not in history itself. The Twins
were very much wrought up over the incident, particularly, when one
too-smart small imp who was spending the summer at the same hotel
where they were said that he didn't believe it,--but he was an imp who
had never seen a cheap watch, so how should he know anything about
what could be done with a spring that cannot be wound up by a great
strong man in less than ten minutes?
As for the Baron he was very modest about the achievement, for when he
first appeared at the Twins' home after their return he had actually
forgotten all about it, and, in fact, could not recall the incident at
all, until Diavolo brought him his own letter, when, of course, the
whole matter came back to him.
"It wasn't so very wonderful, anyhow," said the Baron. "I should not
think, for instance, of bragging about any such thing as that. It was
a simple affair all through."
"And what did you do with the moose's antlers?" asked Angelica. "I
hope you brought 'em home with you, because I'd like to see 'em."
"I wanted to," said the Baron, stroking the Twins' soft brown locks
affectionately. "I wanted to bring them home for your father to use as
a hat rack, dear, but they were too large. When I had removed them
from the dead animal, I found them so large that I could not get them
out of the forest, they got so tangled up in the trees. I should have
had to clear a path twenty feet wide and seven miles long to get them
even as far as my friend's hut, and after that they would have had to
be carried thirty miles through the woods to the express office."
"I guess it's just as well after all," said Diavolo. "If they were as
big as all that, Papa would have had to build a new house to get 'em
into."
"Exactly," said the Baron. "Exactly. That same idea occurred to me,
and for that reason I concluded not to go to the trouble of cutting
away those miles of trees. The antlers would have made a very
expensive present for your father to receive in these hard times."
"It was a good thing you had that watch," the Twins observed, after
thinking over the Baron's adventure. "If you hadn't had that you
couldn't have killed the moose."
"Very likely not," said the Baron, "unless I had been able to do as I
did in India thirty years ago at a man hunt."
"What?" cried the Twins. "Do they hunt men in India?"?
"That all depends, my dears," replied the Baron. "It all depends upon
what you mean by the word they. Men don't hunt men, but animals, great
wild beasts sometimes hunt them, and it doesn't often happen that the
men escape. In the particular man hunt I refer to I was the creature
that was being hunted, and I've had a good deal of sympathy for foxes
ever since. This was a regular fox hunt in a way, although I was the
fox, and a herd of elephants were the huntsmen."
"How queer," said Diavolo, unscrewing one of the Baron's shirt studs
to see if he would fall apart.