WELSH RAREBIT TALES.
[Illustration: “There, creeping out of the darkness, was that hideous
thing.” (See page 171.)]
Welsh Rarebit Tales
BY
HARLE OREN CUMMINS
[Illustration]
_Illustrated by_
_R. EMMETT OWEN_
_Cover and Decorations by BIRD_
THE MUTUAL BOOK COMPANY
BOSTON, MASS.
COPYRIGHT, BY
THE MUTUAL BOOK COMPANY
1902
Plimpton Press
PRINTERS AND BINDERS
NORWOOD, MASS.
To my Mother
The author wishes to express his thanks to S. S. McClure & Co., F.
A. Munsey, The Shortstory Publishing Company, and others, for their
courtesy in allowing him book rights on the following tales.
PREFACE.
A preface is the place where an author usually apologizes to the public
for what he is about to inflict. Such being the case, I hasten to state
that I am only jointly responsible for this aggregation of tales, which
resemble, more than anything else, the creations of a disordered brain.
The origin of the Welsh Rarebit Tales was as follows: A certain
literary club, of which I am a member, is accustomed to hold
semi-occasional meetings at some of the uptown hotels. At the close
of the dinner each of the fifteen members is permitted to read to
the others what he considers his most acute spasm since the previous
meeting. The good and bad points of the manuscript are then discussed,
and we believe that much mutual benefit is thereby derived.
Having run short of first-class plots, the club at a recent meeting
decided to try a gastro-literary experiment. Knowing the effect upon
the digestive and cerebral organs of indulging in concentrated food
before retiring, we each and every one partook, just before adjourning,
of the following combination:--
1 Large Portion Welsh Rarebit,
1 Broiled Live Lobster,
2 Pieces Home Made Mince Pie,
1 Portion Cucumber Salad.
At the second meeting of the club (the next meeting, by the way, had
to be postponed on account of illness of fourteen of the members) the
accompanying tales were related.
Partly as a warning to injudicious diners, we decided to publish the
result of our experiment, hoping that all who read this book, and see
the nightmares which were produced, will be warned never to try a
similar feat (or eat).
By unanimous sentence of the other fourteen members, and as a
punishment for having been the originator of the scheme, mine was
chosen as the unlucky name under which the Tales should appear.
H. O. C.
BOSTON, MASS.,
FEB. 10, ’02.
CONTENTS
PAGE
1. THE MAN WHO MADE A MAN 3
2. IN THE LOWER PASSAGE 13
3. THE FOOL AND HIS JOKE 23
4. THE MAN AND THE BEAST 31
5. AT THE END OF THE ROAD 45
6. THE SPACE ANNIHILATOR 51
7. A QUESTION OF HONOR 73
8. THE WINE OF PANTINELLI 81
9. THE STRANGEST FREAK 91
10. THE FALSE PROPHET 103
11. A STUDY IN PSYCHOLOGY 115
12. THE PAINTED LADY AND THE BOY 127
13. THE PALACE OF SIN 139
14. THE MAN WHO WAS NOT AFRAID 153
15. THE STORY THE DOCTOR TOLD 163
ILLUSTRATIONS.
PAGE
“There, creeping out of the darkness, was that
hideous thing” _Frontispiece._
“He lifted the sheet and I started back with a
strange mixture of awe and horror” 8
“The Wild Man ran to the bars of the cage and shook
them furiously” 35
“And, raising the glass to his lips, he drained it” 86
“He turned the reflector so that the rays fell on the
pallid, upturned face” 121
“The next day I was surprised by a visit from the
young man” 167
THE MAN WHO MADE A MAN
THE MAN WHO MADE A MAN.[1]
When Professor Aloysius Holbrok resigned his chair as head of the
department of Synthetic Chemistry in one of the famous American
colleges his friends wondered; for they well knew that his greatest
pleasure in life lay in original investigations. When two weeks later
the papers stated that the learned chemist had been taken to the
Rathborn Asylum for the Insane, wonder changed to inordinate curiosity.
Although nothing definite was published in the papers, there were hints
of strange things which had taken place in the private laboratory on
Brimmer Street; and before long a story was current that, as a result
of dabbling in the mysteries of psychology, a man had been killed while
undergoing one of Professor Holbrok’s experiments.
It is to clear up this mystery and to refute the charges of murder
that I, who served for ten years as his assistant, am about to write
this account, which, to the best of my knowledge and belief, contains
the facts of the case.
I had noticed for the year previous that Professor Holbrok was much
preoccupied; but I knew that he was working over some new experiment.
Many times when I came to his door at five o’clock to clean up as
usual for the next day, I found a notice pinned on the door telling
me that he was in the midst of important work and would not need me
again that day. I thought nothing about it at the time; for when he was
experimenting with Dr. Bicknell, performing operations with hypnotism
instead of anæsthetics, there were weeks at a time when I was not
allowed even a glimpse of the inside of the laboratories. One day,
however, as I came in to report, the professor called me aside and told
me that he wanted to have a talk with me.
“You know, Frederick,” he began, “that I have been working and
experimenting for a long time on a new problem, and I have not told you
or anyone else the object of my toil. But now I have come to a point
where I must take some one into my confidence. I need an assistant; and
I know of no one I can trust more than you, who have been with me now
nearly a dozen years.”
I was naturally flattered.
“Frederick,” he continued, rising and placing his hand on my shoulder,
“this experiment is the greatest one of my life. I am going to do
what has never been done in the history of the world, except by God
himself,--I am going to _make a man_!”
I did not realize at first what he meant. I was startled, not only by
his wild statement, but also by the intense tone in which he had spoken.
“You do not understand,” he said; “but let me explain. You know enough
chemistry to realize that everything--water, air, food, all things
which we use in every-day life--are merely combinations of certain
simple elements. As you have seen me, by means of an electric current,
decompose a jar of pure water into its two component parts,--two
molecules of hydrogen to every molecule of oxygen,--so you can bring
these same elements together in the gaseous state; and if the correct
proportions are observed, when an electric spark or flame is brought
into contact with the mixture, you will obtain again the liquid water.
This is only a simple case; but the chemical laws which govern it hold
equally well for every known substance found in nature. There are
only about seventy-five known elements, and of these less than thirty
compose the majority of the things found in every-day life.
“During the last six months I have been working with these elements,
making different substances. I have taken a piece of wood, decomposed
it with acids, analyzed it quantitatively and qualitatively, finding
the proportions in which its elements were combined. Then I have taken
similar elements, brought them together in the same proportions, and I
have produced a piece of wood so natural you would have sworn it grew
upon a tree.
“I have been analyzing and then making again every common thing which
you see in nature, but I was only practicing. I have had an end in
view. Finally, I took a human body which I obtained from Dr. Bicknell,
at the medical college; and I analyzed the flesh, the bones, the blood,
in short, every part of it. What did I find? Of that body, weighing
165 pounds, 106 pounds was nothing but water, pure water, such as you
may draw at the tap over yonder. And the blood which in the man’s life
had gone coursing through his veins, bringing nourishment to every
part--what was that? Nothing but a serum filled with little cellular
red corpuscles, which, in their turn, were only combinations of carbon,
oxygen, sulphur, and a few other simple elements.
“I have taken the sternum bone from a dead man’s chest, analyzed it,
then brought together similar elements, placed them in a mould, and
I have produced a bone which was just as real as the one with which
I started. There were only two things in nature which I could not
reproduce. One was starch, that substance whose analysis has defied
chemists of all ages; the other was flesh. Though I have analyzed bits
of it carefully, when I have brought together again those elementary
parts flesh would not form.
“Chemists all over the world have been able to resolve the flesh into
proteids, the awesome proteids, as they are called. They form the
principal solids of the muscular, nervous, and granular tissues, the
serum of the blood and of lymph. But no man on earth except myself has
ever been able to create a proteid. They have missed the whole secret
because they have been working at ordinary temperatures. Just as the
drop of water will not form from its two gases at 4,500 degrees Fah.,
nor at its own lower explosion temperature, unless the spark be added,
so will protoplasm not form except under certain electric and thermal
conditions.
“For the last two months I have been working on these lines alone,
varying my temperatures from the extreme cold produced by liquid
air, to the intense heat of the compound blowpipe; and I have been
repaid. A fortnight ago I discovered how it was that I had erred, and
since then I have succeeded in everything I have tried. I have formed
the proteids, the fats, and the carbohydrates which go to make up
protoplasm; and with these for my solid foundations, I have made every
minute and complicated organ of the body. I have done more than that--I
have put these component parts together, and now behold what I have
made.”
He lifted a sheet, which was thrown over a heap of something on the
table, and I started back with a strange mixture of awe and horror;
for, stretched out on that marble slab, lay a naked body, which, if it
had never been a man, living and breathing, as I lived and breathed,
then I would have sworn I dreamed.
The thoughts which began to come into my mind probably showed in my
face, for the professor said: “You doubt? You think that I have lost
my reason, and this thing is some man I have killed. Well, I do not
blame you. A year ago I myself would have scoffed at the very idea of
creating such a man. But you shall see, you shall be convinced, for in
the next part of the experiment I must have your help. I will show you
how I have made this man, or I will make another before your eyes. Then
you and I, we will go further; we will do what no one but God has ever
done before--we will make that inert mass _a living man_.”
The horror of the thing began to leave me, for I was fascinated by what
he said, and I began to feel the same spirit with which he was inspired.
[Illustration: “He lifted the sheet and I started back with a strange
mixture of awe and horror.” (See page 8.)]
He took me into his private laboratory, and before my eyes, with only
the contents of a few re-agent bottles, a blowpipe, and an electric
battery, he made a mass of human flesh. I will not give you the
formula, neither will I tell you in detail how it was done. God forbid
that any other man should see what I saw afterward.
“Now, all that remains is the final experiment, and that with your help
I propose making to-night,” said the Professor. “What we have to do
is as much of a riddle to me as it is to you. It is purely and simply
an experiment. I am going to pass through that lifeless clay the same
current of electricity which, if sent through a living man, would
produce death. Of course, with a man who had died from the giving out
of some vital function I could not hope to succeed, but the organs of
this man which I have made are in a perfectly healthy condition. It is
my hope, therefore, that the current which would destroy a living man
will bring this thing to life.”
We bore that naked body, not a corpse, and yet so terribly like, into
the electric laboratory, and laid it on a slab of slate. Just at the
base of its brain we scraped a little bare spot not larger than a pea,
and, as I live, a drop of blood oozed out. On the right wrist, just
over the pulse, we made another abrasion, and to these spots we brought
the positive and negative wires from off the mains of the street
current outside.
I held the two bare uninsulated bits of copper close to the flesh,
Professor Holbrok switched into circuit 2,000 volts of electricity,
and then before our starting eyes that thing which was only a mass of
chemical compounds _became a man_.
A convulsive twitching brought the body almost into a sitting position,
then the mouth opened and there burst forth from the lips a groan.
I have been in the midst of battles, and I have seen men dying all
around me, torn to ribbons by shot and shell, and I have not flinched;
but when I tore the wires from that writhing, groaning shape, and saw
its chest begin to heave with spasmodic breathing, I fainted.
When I came to myself I was lying half across the slab of slate, and
the room was filled with a sickening stench, an odor of burning flesh.
I looked for the writhing form which I had last seen on the table; but
those wires, with their deadly current, which I tried to tear away as
I fainted, must have been directed back by a Higher Hand, for there
remained on the slab only a charred and cinder-like mass.
And the man who had made a man could not explain, for he was crawling
about on the floor, counting the nails in the boards and laughing
wildly.
IN THE LOWER PASSAGE.
IN THE LOWER PASSAGE.
We were sitting on the deck of the “Empress of India,” homeward bound
for Southampton. I was returning on a six months’ leave from hospital
duty in Calcutta, and the Colonel was retiring from his post in the
northern provinces, where he had served with credit for over fifteen
years. He had resigned suddenly a month before. His resignation had
been refused, whereupon he immediately gave up everything to his
second in command, and took the next steamer home, for a year’s stay,
according to the belief of the home government, but with a private
resolution never to return.
I knew that he had had some terrible experience in which his dearest
friend, Lieutenant Arthur Stebbins, had been killed; but beyond that I
was as ignorant as the home government which had refused to sanction
his resignation. That night, however, as we sat on deck, and felt the
lingering tremor of the giant screw which was driving us back to home
and civilization, something prompted the Colonel to confide in me.
“I was not acting in my official capacity when Arthur Stebbins and
I went up into the Junga district,” the Colonel said in answer to a
chance remark of mine, “it was simply and solely to visit the haunted
city of Mubapur. You have been in India for two years, and you may have
heard some of the strange tales in regard to the place; but as nearly
every little out-of-the-way province in India has its peculiar tale of
hidden wealth or strange craft, you have probably paid no attention to
the stories of Mubapur.
“I had heard the natives, when they thought no one was listening, speak
of the lost tribe of Jadacks, which had once lived up among the Ora
Mountains. It seems that they were not like other natives, but a white
people almost giant in size, and their chief city was Mubapur. But
years ago, some say ten, others fifty, and still others a hundred, for
these natives have no idea of time, a great plague came upon the white
tribe, and it was smitten from the land.
“They believed that the gods had in some way been offended, and that
this people were annihilated in punishment. Anyway, we could not get
one of our coolie boys within two miles of the place after nightfall;
and they told strange stories of immense white creatures which flitted
about the place, and of moanings and wailings which could be heard on
still nights when the wind was from Mubapur.
“Stebbins and I were on a shooting expedition in the Junga district
when he, remembering the wild tales he had heard, proposed that we turn
aside, and make the two days’ trip to the haunted city. As time was
of no particular account just then, I agreed; and after leaving our
coolie bearers two miles from the town, for they refused all bribes
and ignored all threats to go farther, we entered the deserted and
grass-grown streets of Mubapur. It was near dark when we arrived; and
we decided to put up for the night in a little temple, the roof of
which still defied the action of the wind and rain, and which offered
us a comfortable retreat.
“As I was building a fire just outside the entrance preparatory to
getting supper, I heard Stebbins call, and hurrying in, found him
standing behind the chief altar of the place, and gazing down a steep
stairway which apparently led into the bowels of the earth. He put up
his hand as I entered, and whispered, ‘Listen; do you hear anything?’
“I held my breath listening, and from somewhere down in the damp depths
below I heard a strange sound floating upwards. It might have been a
chant such as the hill men sing on the eve of battle; or it might have
been only the wind soughing through underground passages, but anyway
it was weird enough in its effect on both of us, so that we hurried
out to the fire and busied ourselves getting supper. It is strange
how differently the tales we had heard seemed in that ruined temple
with night coming on, from what they had in the bright daylight in the
market place at Calcutta.
“We slept very close together that night just inside the entrance to
the temple, and all through the watches I fancied I heard that solemn
dirge rising and falling in the stillness of the night. Once I awoke to
find Stebbins talking softly, and I heard him mutter something about a
great white beast; but when I looked at him his eyes were shut, and he
was sleeping soundly.
“The next morning after breakfast I asked him the question for which I
knew he was waiting,--should we descend the narrow stairway into the
passage? He was anxious to make the attempt; and after getting ready
some torches and looking carefully to our guns, we started down the
slippery stairway.
“The steps ended abruptly, and we found ourselves in a long, narrow
passage. What struck me at once as peculiar as we proceeded were some
little cavities in the floor at regular intervals, such as might have
been made by a person walking continuously, as a prisoner walks in his
cell. But the stride was nearly twice that of an ordinary man. After
walking about fifty paces we came to another stairway leading to a
still lower passage, and just as we were about to descend we heard a
noise as of something running swiftly below us. I looked at Stebbins
to see if he had seen anything, for he was nearer to the head of the
stairway than I; but there was only a white, determined look on his
face.
“‘Come on, Colonel,’ he called, and led the way down the stairs. At the
farther end of this passage we came to a square opening into a kind of
vault, and we paused for a moment before it. Then, in that stillness of
the tomb, sixty feet below the surface of the ground, and just on the
other side of the little opening, we heard a low moaning, and I would
have sworn it was a man who made the sounds.
“We held our rifles a little closer, and crawled through the aperture,
pausing to look about us. We both nearly dropped our guns in our
excitement; for, crouched in the farther corner, was a great white,
hairy creature, watching us with red, flaming eyes. Then, even before
we could recover ourselves, the thing gave a kind of guttural cry of
anger, and started toward us. As it rose to its feet, I swear to you
I turned sick as a woman. The beast was over eight feet tall, and was
covered with a thick growth of hair which was snow white. Its arms were
once and a half the length of those of a common man, and its head was
set low on its shoulders like that of an ape or a monkey; but the skin
beneath the hair was _as white as yours or mine_.
“I heard the Lieutenant’s gun go off, but the Thing never stopped. I
raised my four-bore and let drive with the left barrel; then, overcome
with a nameless fear of that great white beast, I called wildly to
Arthur to follow me, and plunged through the opening and ran with all
my strength toward the upper passage. It was not until I felt the fresh
air on my face that I stopped to take breath, and I was so weak I could
scarcely stand. Then, if you can, imagine my horror to find that I was
alone. The Lieutenant was nowhere in sight. I called down the passage,
and I could hear my voice echoing down the dismal place, but there was
no answer.
“Think what you may; but I tell you it took more courage for me to
force myself down into that vault again than it would to have walked up
the steps to the scaffold. I crept fearfully along the passage, calling
weakly every few minutes, and dreading what I should find; but--there
was nothing to find.”
The Colonel paused, putting his hand over his eyes, and I could see by
the moonlight that his face was white and drawn.
“And did you not find him in the lower passage?” I asked, when the
silence had become oppressive.
“No, I did not find the Lieutenant,” he answered; “but when I came to
the little square opening before the vault, there were some bloody
little pieces scattered about the floor, and the place was all
slippery, but there was no Lieutenant. You know it takes four horses to
pull a man apart, and you can judge of the strength of that white beast
when I tell you that there was not left of Arthur Stebbins a piece as
big as your two hands.
“As I looked at that floor with the ghastly things which covered it,
a wild rage took possession of me. I knew that the creature was in
the room beyond, for I could hear a crunching as a dog makes with a
bone. I rushed through the opening, straight toward the corner where
it was crouching. It saw me coming, and leaped to its feet. Again that
sickening fear that I had felt before came over me; but I stood my
ground and waited till it nearly reached me. Then, with the muzzle of
my gun almost against it, I fired both barrels full into its breast.
“I must have fainted or gone off my head after that, for the next thing
I knew I was lying in a native’s hut on the Durbo road. Zur Khan, the
man who owned the bungalow, said that he had found me four days before,
wandering about on the plains, stark mad, and had taken me home.”
“And the Thing in the passage?” I asked breathlessly. “Did you never go
back?”
“Yes; when I had recovered a little, I went back to the Mubapur
Temple,” answered the Colonel; but he was silent for some minutes
before he answered the first part of my question.
“In my report to the Government I said that Lieutenant Arthur Stebbins
was torn to pieces in the lower passage of a Mubapur Temple by an
immense white _ape_,--but I lied,” he added quietly.
THE FOOL AND HIS JOKE.
THE FOOL AND HIS JOKE.
William Waters was not in any way what you would call a braggart, yet
upon two things did he pride himself. These two things were: first,
an earnest and sincere contempt for all things supernatural; and,
secondly, a marksmanship with a Colt’s No. 4 revolver which bordered
on the marvelous. He had on several occasions proved his bravery by
such feats as sleeping alone an entire night in a house said to be
haunted, and by visiting a country graveyard at midnight, and digging
up a corpse. He had likewise won numerous bets by pumping six bullets
into an inch and a half bull’s eye at a distance of sixteen paces, and
being a healthy and vigorous animal his pride was perhaps more or less
excusable.
In the house in which Waters had his rooms there also lived a Fool. His
particular brand of folly was practical joking, which is universally
recognized by intelligent men as a particularly acute and dangerous
kind of idiocy. As a child The Fool had soaked a neighbor’s cat in
kerosene and then applied a match. Since then he had performed many
other equally humorous feats.
After much planning The Fool devised a joke, the victim of which was to
be The Man Who Knew Not Fear, as the jester sneeringly called Waters.
The prologue to this joke was the substitution of blanks in each of
the six chambers of the No. 4 Colt’s, which hung over the headboard in
William Waters’s sleeping-room, not as a weapon of defense, but as a
glittering little possession dear to the heart of its owner.
The Fool had once, in the presence of all the people at the dinner
table, asked Waters what he would do should he wake up at night and
find a ghost in the room.
“Fire a bullet straight at his heart, so be sure and wear a
breastplate,” Waters answered promptly, and the laugh had been on the
joker.
After removing the cartridges from the revolver, The Fool withdrew the
bullets from each, and placed them in his pocket. He had that day also
laid in a supply of phosphorescent paint and several yards of white
muslin.
Waters never locked his door at night, for he was as free from fear of
all things physical as from those supernatural. This of course made the
program which The Fool had arranged easy to carry out, though he would
not have hesitated at a little thing like stealing the key and having
an impression made. He was a very thorough practical joker.
That night as the French clock in the hall outside Waters’s room was
striking twelve The Man Who Knew Not Fear was awakened by a rattling of
chains and a dismal moaning.
As he opened his eyes he saw standing in the darkest corner of the
room a white-robed figure, which glistened with phosphorescent lights
as it waved its arms to and fro. Without a moment’s hesitation, Waters
reached for his revolver, and leveling it at the moaning figure, fired
full at its breast.
The Fool, chuckling to himself behind the sheet, thrust his hand upon
his heart, and apparently plucking something from the folds of cloth,
he tossed back toward the bed a bullet.
The Man Who Knew Not Fear reached for the heavy little object that
he had felt strike the bed-clothes, and his hand touching the bit of
lead, he picked it up curiously, then realizing what it was that he
held, he sat up stiffly in bed, and tried to raise his arm again.
But his muscles refused to obey. The thought that his revolver had
been tampered with never entered his head. For the first time in his
life a fear, sickening and unmanning as it was new, came over him. He
recognized in that little piece of lead a bullet from the gun which had
never before failed him. What was that moaning Thing upon which powder
and lead had no effect? Three times he tried to raise his arm, and each
time it fell back upon the bed.
Meanwhile the rattling of chains began once more, and with eyes
starting from his head because of his fear, Waters saw the fearsome
shape advancing upon him. By a supreme effort he raised his arm, and
emptied the remaining five chambers of his revolver at the approaching
figure.
The Fool, who had never ceased moaning while the shots were being
fired, executed a rapid movement with his hands as if catching the
bullets, and then slowly tossed them back, one after the other.
The man in bed reached for the little balls of lead mechanically,
then straightened back against the pillow, and remained perfectly
motionless, staring at the Thing, which had now stopped again and was
groaning dismally.
For five minutes neither man moved, then The Fool, thinking that the
joke was once more on him, for Waters still refused to speak, gathered
his glittering robe about him, and slunk out.
Back once more in his own room he undressed hurriedly, and slipped into
bed. He was disappointed. He had expected that Waters would be terribly
frightened, and that he could joke him unmercifully at the table for
the next week. Then, too, the obstinate silence of the man puzzled him.
About five o’clock in the morning he woke up vaguely alarmed. He did
not know what the matter was, but he could not sleep. He could not get
out of his mind that strange silence of the man down-stairs. Then,
suddenly, a terrible suspicion came over him.
“Not that, my God, not that!” he cried. Jumping from the bed he threw
on a few clothes, and crept fearfully down to the scene of his midnight
joke.
He opened the door cautiously, and, feeling for the button, turned on
the electric light. Then he gave a hysterical cry, half laugh, half
moan, and, rushing from the room, he fled down the hall out into the
street.
For this is what he had seen: in the bed propped up stiffly against the
pillow, and staring with dull, unseeing eyes into the corner, sat “The
Man Who Knew not Fear.” Not a muscle had he moved since The Fool had
left him six hours before.
One hand still held the silver-mounted revolver, while in the other
were tightly clasped--six little leaden balls.
THE MAN AND THE BEAST.
THE MAN AND THE BEAST.[2]
Bobo, the wild man of Borneo, sat in his iron-barred cage reading the
morning paper, while he pulled vigorously at a short, black clay pipe.
It was nearly time for the show to begin, so he could only glance
hurriedly at the stock report; for Bobo was interested in copper.
On Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays there was on exhibition in the
side-show connected with Poole Brothers’ Royal Roman Hippodrome and
Three-Ring Circus what was widely advertised as the only real wild man
in captivity.
On alternate days--that is, on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays--the
cage of Bobo was closed by a gaudily painted cover; and visitors on
those days were told that the wild man was sick.
Notwithstanding this report, there could be found on Tuesdays,
Thursdays, and Saturdays, out in one of the New York suburbs, a
middle-aged Irishman named Patsy McLockin. The connection may not at
first be evident.
Patsy wasn’t nice looking, even when he was dressed in his best black
suit; for, as the people on Blenden Street remarked, he was too hairy.
He used to wear gloves when on the street, even in the hottest weather;
but he couldn’t very well wear gloves on his face, though if he could
it would have saved the small children of the neighborhood cases of
fright both serious and lasting.
Poole Brothers’ Royal Roman Hippodrome and Three Ring Circus was
playing a winter engagement in New York City, and had been very
successful.
The show was to start in about two weeks for a trip through New
England; and since Mrs. Patsy McLockin had consented to remain in the
city till the circus came back in the fall, Bobo agreed to exhibit
himself every day while on the trip.
When Stetson, manager of the freaks in the side-show, had spoken to
Bobo of the necessity of appearing every day while traveling, he had
also mentioned a material raise in the wild man’s salary.
Every two weeks during the winter Stetson had written a check for
seventy-five dollars in acknowledgment of services rendered. In the
event of Bobo’s agreeing to make his appearance on each of the one-day
stands, Stetson was authorized by the powers above to draw these
fortnightly checks for one hundred and fifty dollars, and, after
much discussion in the Blenden Street home, Stetson’s offer had been
accepted.
On this morning Bobo was trying to decide whether to sell out his
twenty-three shares of Isle Royal while that stock was at eighty-one,
or to hang on to it for a while, hoping for a rise.
He fully intended to sell out some time during the next two weeks, for
he did not want to be bothered with the stock while on the Eastern trip.
“Get together there, you freaks,” called Stetson; “the whistle has just
blown, and the yaps will begin coming in soon.”
Bobo tucked his paper into a little wooden box in the back of the
cage, knocked the ashes out of his pipe, and curled up on the straw,
pretending to go to sleep.
He never worked over time, did Bobo; and up to the time when Stetson
brought him his piece of meat, and began telling the people of the
terrible struggle which had taken place in the swamps of Borneo, when
the wild man was captured, Bobo always pretended to be asleep.
When, however, the manager reached a certain point in his narration,
the nearest of the onlookers were usually startled by a savage growl,
and the wild man from Borneo got up on all fours.
Some hysterical woman generally screamed at this juncture, for, with
the help of his make-up box, Bobo certainly did look the part.
For clothes, he wore merely a ragged breech-cloth about his loins,
while the rest of his body was bare, save for a tawny growth of red
hair. His skin was stained a dark brown, and in several places there
were great raw-looking spots, where the manager said Bobo had bitten
himself.
But the wild man’s face was what caused the alarm on the part of the
women and children. His nose was a snout-like protuberance with great
cavernous holes for nostrils, while his eyes, peeping out from under
bristling brows, were small and wicked.
All over his face and neck, and extending down to his breast, was a
coarse growth of stiff red hair.
The manager finished his harangue over Herman, the Ossified Man,
pictures of whom a small boy began offering to the crowd for the sum of
ten cents each.
“Next, and last, I call your attention, ladies and gentlemen, to Bobo,
the wild man from Borneo,” began the exhibitor.
He was always glad when he came to Bobo, partly because he was the last
freak to describe, and partly because the wild man always acted his
part so well.
[Illustration: “The wild man ran to the bars of the cage and shook them
furiously.” (See page 35.)]
The crowd rushed from in front of the platform on which the Ossified
Man had been exhibited.
“Don’t get so near there, boy,” shouted one of the attendants to a
venturesome youth; “the wild man is liable to grab you. He killed a man
that way last week.”
Stetson began his lurid tale of the fierce struggle which had taken
place when the wild man was captured, and the crowd of country people
listened open mouthed.
“Throwing this net about his head and shoulders, we succeeded in
getting the creature to the ground,” droned Stetson in a sing-song
voice.
This was Bobo’s cue. He yawned, exposing a set of yellow fangs, at the
sight of which the small boy in the front row turned a little pale, and
tried to work his way back into the crowd.
Then Bobo growled. Bobo was proud of that growl. It had taken him
weeks to acquire it. Beginning with a kind of guttural rumbling in his
throat, he worked himself up gradually, and ended with a ferocious howl.
“The wild man is hungry, you see,” said Stetson; and taking a piece of
raw meat from under the wagon, he held it up to view.
Bobo immediately sprang at the bars of his cage, and rattled them
loudly, chattering fiercely meanwhile.
The crowd fell back, leaving a clear space in front of the cage; and
the wild man, reaching a hairy arm out between the iron bars, seized
the meat, and crawling to a corner, buried his teeth in the bloody
shank.
“This concludes the entertainment,” shouted Stetson, and the crowd
reluctantly began to file out of the tent.
Two months later, while Poole Brothers’ amalgamated shows were
exhibiting in Vermont, Murphy, one of the side-show attendants, came to
Stetson, and informed him mysteriously that Bobo was acting queer.
“He don’t get out of his cage after the show’s over in the afternoon
like he used to, but stays there till the evening performance.”
“Nothing queer about that as I can see,” answered Stetson carelessly.
“He’s been putting more life than usual into the part lately, and it
probably tires him. What’s the difference whether he rests in his cage
or goes over to the car? You’re probably kicking because you have to
bring his supper to him.”
“He used to wash the make-up off his face between the two shows,”
persisted Murphy. “But now he keeps it on from ten in the morning till
night.”
“Well, you never take the trouble to wash the ordinary every-day dirt
and grease off your face, and I don’t believe you ever would clean up
if it took you the time it does Bobo,” replied Stetson irritably, and
Murphy retired, muttering.
But the other freaks had noticed a change in the wild man, too. Between
performances Bobo used to play penny ante with the fat man and the
bearded lady, both of which gentlemen now tried in vain to lure him
into a game.
Saturday nights, also, when the last show for the week was over, the
freaks sometimes had a little “feed,” and formerly Bobo had been one of
the most jovial spirits. Lately, however, he refused to attend any of
these gatherings, and spent most of his time alone.
As Stetson said, though, the freaks were always complaining about one
another, so little attention was paid to the grumbling in the side-show
tent.
The management couldn’t afford to offend Bobo, for there was no denying
that the wild man was the star attraction. He was doing better work
than he ever had done before. He didn’t wait for the manager to come to
him to begin acting; but as soon as the crowd appeared, he was growling
and tearing away at the bars of his cage.
The other freaks complained; for even when the dog-faced boy was making
his worst grimaces during Stetson’s description of him, most of the
audience preferred standing in front of the wild man’s cage watching
his antics.
One Sunday night the attendant, who had been before rebuffed, again
sought out Stetson with a new tale of woe.
“Bobo sleeps in his cage every night now,” he declared, “and he’s been
in there all day to-day.”
“Perhaps he’s sick,” said Stetson, but he didn’t believe it.
He himself had noticed a change of late in the wild man. The meat,
which had been thrown in to him, had formerly been taken out untouched
and given to the lions; but lately there hadn’t been any meat left.
“He ain’t sick, neither,” declared Murphy, “but he’s too damn ugly to
live. He tried to bite me when I changed the water in his dish; and
yesterday, when Skoggy brought him a newspaper like he used to, to show
him the stock report, Bobo tore it to pieces, and tried to hit Skoggy
with that bar that’s loose in his cage.
Stetson consulted with Poole Brothers, and that night the three men
went to the side-show tent, which was up in readiness for the Monday’s
performance.
They found Bobo lying asleep in his cage. He still had on his make-up,
but some way he didn’t look natural to the Poole Brothers. They didn’t
go to the side-show tent very often, and it had been over two months
since they had seen the wild man.
The hair on his arms and breast was thicker than it used to be, and his
teeth seemed longer and yellower.
Stetson opened the door of the cage and called, “Wake up, Pat. It’s
time for supper.”
The wild man opened his eyes quickly, and snarled like a dog which has
been roused suddenly.
“It’s time for supper,” repeated Stetson, stepping back and clasping
his cane a little tighter.
Bobo seized the little iron dish in which they brought him water, and
started to hurl it at the speaker; but noticing suddenly who it was, he
only growled, “Don’t want no more supper; just had mine.”
The younger Poole brother looked at a half gnawed bone lying on the
bottom of the cage, and muttered something which nobody heard.
“Well, you’re not going to stay here all night, are you?” persisted
Stetson.
Bobo ran to the door of his cage and seized the bars, shaking them as
he did when the show was on.
“Why in hell can’t you leave me alone?” he screamed. “What do you care
where I sleep? Don’t I do my work? And don’t I earn my pay? Then what
you kicking about? Git along, and leave me alone; I’m sleepy.”
Stetson looked at the two Poole brothers, one of whom made a sign, and
the three men withdrew.
“Looks as if we’d have the genuine article, instead of a fake, in a
week or two more,” observed the elder Poole to the manager.
He had been in the show business for some years, and wasn’t easily
shocked.
During the next few weeks the freaks had many causes for complaint.
The Bearded Lady claimed that Bobo had spit at him when he went by the
cage. But the Bearded Lady was a man of sensitive disposition, and
easily offended.
There were other things more serious, however. Mlle. Mille, one of the
albinos, showed Stetson a black and blue spot on her arm where the
wild man had struck her when she was putting on her wig, and the snake
charmer threatened to leave the show if Bobo was not locked in his cage.
One night, therefore, when the wild man was asleep, three of the
attendants stole into the tent and snapped a couple of strong padlocks
through the staple in the door.
It was a good thing that they did; for the next day Bobo had a crazy
fit before the show opened up, during which he tried to tear his cage
to pieces. It proved a great attraction, though; for the country people
outside heard him raving, and the tent was soon packed.
He stopped speaking to any one after that, and refused to answer when
spoken to. He stayed in his cage all the time, sleeping there nights,
and never touching the cooked food sent him from the kitchen, but there
was never any meat left over for the lions.
The Royal Roman Hippodrome and Three Ring Circus played to remarkably
good business all summer, and finally brought up at the old winter
quarters in New York.
One of the first visitors upon their arrival there was Mrs. Patsy
McLockin, who came to see what in the world had happened to her
husband, for she hadn’t heard a word from him for over two months.
Stetson took her into the room where workmen were getting every thing
in order; for the show was to begin its winter indoor engagement next
day.
In his cage in one corner, gnawing a bloody shank of meat, crouched
Bobo. Stetson took the woman over to the cage; and Mrs. McLockin, after
looking at the wild man for a few seconds, broke out sobbing.
“You’ve gone and made him crazy, you have,” she wailed. “Patsy, dear,
don’t you know your old woman?”
But Bobo, the wild man, continued crunching his bone, and paid no
attention to the woman in front of his cage. The manager stole out of
the room softly, and left them together. There was nothing he could do.
Each week he had gone to Bobo’s cage, and tried to talk to the wild
man, telling him that he had better give up the business and settle
down somewhere. But the wild man never paid any attention to him;
and when one day Poole Brothers tried to take him out of his cage by
force, one man was killed and Stetson himself seriously injured, so
that had to be given up.
All that winter the side show connected with Poole Brothers’ Royal
Roman Hippodrome and Three Ring Circus played to packed houses; and
probably no one paid any particular attention to a sad-faced Irish
woman of middle age who spent most of the time standing in front of the
cage of Bobo, the wild man, weeping silently.
AT THE END OF THE ROAD.
AT THE END OF THE ROAD.
At first the road was smooth and level; there were no hills, and The
Man had many companions. They laughed with him and made merry, and
there was no thought of care.
“’Tis a pleasant life,” murmured The Man; but even as he said the words
he wondered half fearfully if it could last, if the country through
which they passed would always be as pleasant.
Gradually the way became harder. Quite often The Man was compelled to
pause for breath, for there were difficult places to get over; and when
he turned for assistance to the companions who had laughed and jested
with him but a little while before, he found that they had passed just
beyond calling distance. At least they seemed not to hear him, for they
did not stop. But the way was not all hilly; and when he came to the
smoother places The Man hurried on faster than before, and, catching
up with his companions, was welcomed by them, and they all made merry
once more.
The smoother places became rarer, however, and The Man found himself
alone many times, till one day he was joined by a new companion.
“He will be like the others,” said The Man bitterly: “he will not stay
with me.”
But the other heard him. “Do not fear,” he answered, “I will stay with
you to the journey’s end. I will never leave you.”
Nevertheless, The Man did not like his new companion. He was not like
the others. He never jested and made merry, and after that first time
he did not speak again. He was gaunt and thin, and was clothed in rags;
but he stayed with The Man when the others ran on ahead or lagged
behind.
One day when The Man was weary, for there was no longer any one to
cheer him, and the way had become very hard, he plucked up courage to
speak to his silent companion again.
“’Tis true you do not leave me like the rest,” he said; “they all
deserted me when we left the pleasant country; but I do not know you
yet. If we must travel together we should get better acquainted.”
“Mine is not a pleasant name, and few care to know me better than
necessity compels,” answered the Silent One; “but had you waited a
little longer you would not have needed to ask. I am known by many
names, but those who know me best call me Poverty.”
The Man picked himself up from where he had thrown himself to rest, and
hurried on, trying to leave his companion behind. But the one in rags
followed close, and when The Man stumbled and fell, exhausted by his
exertions, the other was just at his heels.
And about this time The Man noticed that a third wayfarer had joined
them. He could not see the new comer’s face, however, for he always
kept a little way behind; and there seemed to be a kind of shroud-like
hood over his head.
There were no longer any easy stretches in the road, and The Man moved
slowly. Many times he stumbled and fell, and each time it was longer
before he rose again. He wondered, but dared not ask the name of the
new arrival who had moved nearer, and was now but a few steps behind.
At last The Man came to a part of the way more difficult than any
before; and he lay down for a few minutes to rest. After a time he
tried to go on, but could not. He was too weak, and his two companions
seemed to be conspiring to hold him back. He summoned all his strength,
and made one last effort to go on. At first he seemed to advance a
little, but the hand of The Ragged One thrust him back. He stumbled,
fell, rose again, and staggered on a few steps, then fell once more and
could not rise.
“This is the end,” he heard the Silent One saying; “and I have kept my
word; I am still with you.”
There was a sound of footsteps approaching stealthily, and The Man
opened his eyes with an effort. The companion who had always lagged
behind was advancing swiftly, and the black hood was drawn away from
his face.
Painfully The Man raised himself on his elbow and looked at the figure
for a second, then fell back.
“How strange that I did not know you before,” he muttered faintly, for
he had seen the other’s face, and recognized that it was Death.
THE SPACE ANNIHILATOR.
THE SPACE ANNIHILATOR.[3]
On the afternoon of Saturday, August 18, 1900, as I was looking over
the daily paper after my return from the Blendheim Electric Works,
where I am employed, I noticed in the advertising department the
following:
IMPORTANT NOTICE TO ENGINEERS AND SCIENTIFIC MEN.
Ten thousand dollars will be paid to the man or woman duplicating an
instrument now in the possession of this company----
That was as far as I read. Some cheap advertising scheme, I thought,
and immediately forgot all about the paragraph.
When, however, towards the last of the month, I received the regular
issue of my pet scientific paper, I saw on the first page the same
glaring announcement. The fact of the notice being in that paper was
guarantee that the offer was bona fide, and I looked the article over
carefully.
In addition to the foregoing, the advertisement went on to state that
one of a pair of seismaphones, an invention with patent pending and not
yet in the market, had been lost. The inventor was dead, and no one had
as yet been able to construct an instrument similar to the one now in
the company’s possession.
Further particulars would be sent to any one satisfying the company
that his request for the same was not prompted by idle curiosity, but
by a desire to aid science in replacing the lost instrument.
Then came the greatest surprise of all; for, signed at the bottom of
this interesting statement, as the man representing the company, was
the name of Randolph R. Churchill, Patent Office, Washington, D. C.
Now Ranny Churchill and I had been roommates at college, and I had had
many a pleasant visit in his comfortable home on Fourteenth Street. He
had graduated from a technical school, taken a course in patent law,
and soon after secured a position as one of the governmental inspectors
of patents in Washington.
My annual vacation was to begin the next week, so I planned a brief
trip to Washington to see the wonderful invention which no one had
apparently been able to duplicate. I did not write to Churchill, but
dropped in on him unexpectedly Saturday night, September 1.
I had seen him two years before down on the Cape; and I could scarcely
believe that the tired, careworn man who greeted me on my arrival at
the Fourteenth Street house was the same merry, light-hearted Randolph
Churchill I had hunted and fished with only a couple of summers ago.