those unprecedented waves of crime for which it is justly celebrated,”
remarked Captain Kidd as he unsheathed a huge bowie knife and proceeded
to cut off a man’s dose of particularly black eating tobacco. “For a
nation that’s been so busy makin’ the world safe for democracy you don’t
seem to be doing much to make it unsafe for the gunmen and stick-up
artists. A few months ago everybody was talkin’ about the ‘uplift.’ And
now they’re trying to dodge the hold-ups. I was down below the other
night. Had a date at a Philadelphia seance. And the moment I appeared the
whole audience started bombarding me with questions about the location
of my buried treasure. I didn’t tell ’em, of course, but I did give ’em
some good advice for the present emergency. I told ’em that any man who
carried more than carfare and lunch money in his pockets these days,
and nights, was a fool. And I also suggested that anybody who buried
his treasure in a sand bank instead of a savings bank or a safe deposit
vault was entitled to admission to the nearest home for the feeble-minded
without an entrance examination.
“I went out for a walk down Chestnut Street and in going four blocks had
my pocket picked three times. The fellow who was supposed to be looking
after that other block must have been off his beat. I got scared and
wanted to hustle back up here, but to oblige the medium I stayed over
until the next day. I took another walk, down Market street this time,
and found it was a tag day. There were female hold-up artists at every
corner. I turned over what the pick-pockets had missed the night before
and made my escape. Terra firma is no place these days for a reformed
pirate. It reminds him too painfully of the many good bets he overlooked.
“Sometimes, especially after I’ve been readin’ of the activities of your
cabaret waiters, bootleggers and Pullman porters, I can’t help thinkin’
that history has been too hard on us plain, unornamental pirates. We had
to pick up a livin’ best we could. We didn’t have our tools and equipment
provided for us. We had to furnish our own cutlasses and pistols, while
your modern waiters and porters have their trays and whisk-brooms anyhow
supplied free of charge. There wasn’t an unwritten law, either, that
anybody who didn’t cough up freely was a piker, and we had the greatest
difficulty sometimes in getting a victim to produce. Folks found all
sorts of mean little schemes for hiding away their valuables. That’s why
we had to invent the ingenious device known as ‘walking the plank’ to
make ’em give till it hurt. But nowadays it’s amazing to me to see the
way the people hand over without even a pistol clapped at their heads.
They’re meek as lambs. The pirate business would have been a lot less
wearing on the nerves if the public had co-operated then the way it does
now.
“Holding up a shipload of passengers used to be a complicated, annoying
business. First, we’d run up the black flag with the skull and crossbones
on it. Then we’d fire a round shot across the vessel’s bows to bring her
to. We’d paint our faces sometimes to make ourselves look as horrible as
possible, and taking a pistol in each hand and a cutlass in our teeth,
board the ship and line up the passengers and crew in a row. By the time
we’d gone through their pockets and searched the cabin and lugged out the
strong box we’d put in an eight-hour day, straight time. Hard, exhausting
work, and all because people hadn’t been properly trained in those days
to hand over quickly and gracefully so that we could get on to the next
job.
“If I were flying the Jolly Roger today on my old pirate ship, with my
crew of hard-boiled sinners around me, possibly we’d find merchant and
passenger ships pestering us to come and take their money away from
them. I’d be taking a quiet snooze in my cabin, maybe, when the bosn’s
mate would wake me up and say: ‘Cap’n, a vessel on the starboard bow
has just signalled for us to stand by and it will send over a boatload
of treasure.’ And we’d have to get a cash register and a card index of
customers and a press agent, to see that the papers got our names and
pictures straight, as Jesse James suggests, and an ad writer to put a
piece in saying: ‘Why go elsewhere to be robbed? Come to old reliable
Captain Kidd & Co., Inc., and be immediately relieved.’ But at that I
don’t suppose with my old-fashioned ideas I’d be able to compete with
your up-to-date hold-up games.
“I guess the best plan, if I were ever able to resume business, would
be to start a ‘drive’ or hold a tag day. From the way the public gives
up, I don’t know but a drive for a $100,000 fund to establish a home
for worn-out pirates would bring in a lot of coin. First thing I’d get
up a dinner for my executive committee of one hundred. You can’t start
anything without a lot of eating these days. Then we’d have a daily
luncheon to receive reports from the captains of the various teams,
winding up with a mass meeting where we’d take up a collection and
announce the result of the house-to-house canvass. Still, a general tag
day might bring in more money. I’d have pretty girls at all the street
corners to pin a miniature artificial lemon on every contributor to the
Captain Kidd Refuge for Reformed Robbers. What do you think?”
“There are many excellent causes, Captain, that have adopted these
devices to raise money and I hope you don’t intend to reflect upon them.”
“Oh, not at all, not at all. But don’t you think yourself that the idea
has been worked a little hard? It’s all right for the public to give to
the things it knows about, but I was thinking it was becoming such an
easy mark I might as well have my share. What I object to is being set
down in history as the world’s champion pirate and all around bad man,
when the fact is I was naturally the most peaceable individual you ever
met. The trouble is, I was born about a hundred years too soon. If I were
in business today I wouldn’t be a pirate; I’d be a head waiter in a New
York hotel, with a foreign accent but able to understand all languages.
Money talks. Probably I’d have served an apprenticeship at the place
where they check your hat and coat.
“If I wasn’t a head waiter I’d be a steward on an ocean ship. Perhaps
I’d feel more at home on the sea anyway. I was talking to my old friend,
Jesse James, the other day and he said the difference between him and the
modern professional tip extractor was that he never robbed the same man
twice. But I suppose his successors believe that anybody who is worth
doing at all is worth doing well. One of these days the American people
will probably adopt a new Declaration of Independence against foreign
waiters and resolve to give the enemy no quarter—and no half dollar
either. They’ll change the old naval hero’s slogan to ‘Don’t give up
the tip.’ ‘Millions for good meals, but not one cent for tribute.’ ‘All
things come to him who waits.’ Well, I’m sorry for the waiter if he ever
gets all that’s coming to him. Ta, ta! young man.”
And as he hobbled off to splice the main brace I could hear the old
fellow muttering to himself: “And they used to call me a pirate!”
XIII
ALFRED THE GREAT TRIES TO FIND PROSPEROUS KING
“You want me to talk about modern monarchs!” Alfred the Great responded
with a trace of irritation. “Why don’t you ask me to talk about the
snakes in Ireland or the best method of preserving hen’s teeth? Why
not interview me on the habits of the dodo? How about a little chat
concerning that common domestic animal, the long-toed diplodocus, or that
popular indoor pet, the megatherium? Let’s discuss that numerous class of
estimable citizens, the mound builders. Let’s—”
“I beg pardon, your Majesty,” I hastened to interrupt, “but I had no
intention of offending. I know kings are very few and far between these
days, but I thought your views on the two or three who have managed to
survive would be most interesting to the present generation. You yourself
were such a mighty monarch, so generally respected for your honesty and
ability and bravery and regal appearance, that I am sure—”
“There, there, say no more,” he replied with condescending affability,
“I am just a trifle sensitive, I suppose, on the subject. When I see
so many of my brothers sacrificed to the onrushing tide of democracy,
naturally it makes me a bit sad.
“It’s just a month,” continued King Alfred, as he lighted his long
meerschaum and settled down comfortably in his armchair, which was
fashioned like a throne, “it’s just a month since I took my first trip
down below to see how the earth had been getting along in my absence of
a thousand years plus. And I am frank to confess I found some changes.
I went down under the auspices of a spiritualist who wanted me to tell
a woman’s club how to make griddle cakes. I suppose you’ve read about
the time I let the cakes burn in the farmer’s cottage and the housewife
bawled me out when she came back. It’s in every school reader. Well,
the next day I called in my chief cook and had him show me how to make
griddle cakes that would melt in your mouth. There’s no trick at all to
it, really. The only thing is you must keep your mind on it. That time
in the cottage I got to thinking about a new way to fight the Danes, and
the first thing I knew there was a smell like burning rubber and the old
dame rushed in and called me down. I’d have ordered her off to instant
execution, but just then our side needed all the votes it could get, and
I didn’t know whether her husband would thank me or be annoyed.
“Sometimes you can make a hit with a husband by giving his wife a
ten-year sentence in jail, and again it makes him peevish—particularly
if he has to do his own housework. So I spared her that time. Where was
I? Oh, yes, as I was saying, I went down to tell the club how to make
griddle cakes. After I’d filled that date I decided to take a little
trip around the capitols of Europe and call on my cousins, the kings and
queens. You know every king is supposed to be at least a cousin of every
other one—that’s why we have such strained relations so often in royal
circles. Well, I decided first to project my astral body up to Moscow,
the ancient capitol of Russia. I’d never traveled that far during my
previous existence on earth, because I couldn’t spare the time—our wars
were a continuous performance. Arrived at the palace, I walked right up
to the front door and was going in when a big fellow, roughly clad, his
countenance concealed beneath a tangled growth of whiskers, barred my
passage.
“‘Who do you want to see?’ he inquired gruffly.
“‘Whom do I want to see?’ I said, ‘Why—’
“‘No, _who_, not _whom_,’ he returned. ‘Anybody who uses good grammar is
bourgeois and an enemy of the Commune. Down with fool laws and rules.
This is the land where all speak and do as they choose.’
“‘But you’re not letting me speak as I choose,’ I retorted. ‘How’s that
for consistency?’ He said anyone who was a Bolshevik, whatever that
was, didn’t have to be consistent. Consistency was a jewel. Jewelry was
wealth. The Bolsheviki were opposed to wealth and private property in
any form. I was about to force my way past this lunatic when a number of
other rough-looking persons, armed with guns and bayonets, rushed out of
the palace and surrounded me.
“‘I want to see the king!’ I exclaimed. And immediately by their faces,
or as much of them as I could see peeping out from beneath the whiskers—I
saw that something was wrong.
“‘He wants to see the Czar,’ they shouted, and then laughed in a way
that made my blood run cold. ‘There are no more kings. They’ve been
abolished.’ And one huge fellow, drawing a long knife out of his belt,
shook it menacingly under my nose and began to cross-examine me. It took
me about one-fifth of a second to make up my mind to be about the most
enthusiastic revolutionist and all-around king hater that ever was
born. ‘What did you want to see the Czar for, eh?” he asked. ‘I want to
kill him,’ I replied. And a chorus of cheers rent the air. But it was an
exceedingly narrow escape. I learned later that the Czar was no more,
that the country was being ruled by a little band of lunatics calling
themselves Bolsheviki, and that it was a crime even to utter the word
king unless a strong adjective was put before it.
“I couldn’t understand it at the time, but I didn’t wait to investigate.
I decided to get back to civilization by the shortest route, and so I
projected my astral body over to Poland. To save time, I’ll just say
that Poland was as benighted as Russia. No king. Then I hopped over to
Jugo-Slovakia, I believe you call it. Same thing there. On I sped over
the kingless countries of the Balkans and up to Budapest. A big sign on
the front door of the palace: ‘Beggars, Peddlers and Kings Not Admitted
to This Building.’ I moved on. I went hopefully to Vienna. Picking up a
newspaper, I read these headlines: ‘Open Season for Aristocrats Begins.
In First Day’s Shooting Twenty-nine Counts and Forty-three Barons Bagged.
Slaying Parties Now Favorite Winter Sport. Special Prize Offered by
Government to First Person to Kill King.’ Two minutes later I was on my
aerial way to Berlin. Here, at least, I was sure I should find royal
autocracy firmly entrenched. But as I went up the palace walk one glance
told me that Germany, too, had cast off her royal rulers. Sitting on the
front steps in his shirtsleeves, smoking a corncob pipe, was a slouchy,
unshaven citizen whom I mistook for the janitor. In the old days you know
no such uncouth specimen of humanity would have been permitted within
half a mile of the palace. And who do you think he turned out to be?
The President of the German Republic. A harness-maker, or cobbler, or
something of the sort. I learned that, as in Russia, the very name of
king was tabooed. Just a day or two before a prominent author had been
executed for absent-mindedly remarking that he was fond of collecting his
royalties. In a German deck of cards instead of having a king they have
two knaves. So I lit out for France. Here I found they hadn’t had a king
for many years. I inquired anxiously about my old kingdom, England. ‘Oh,
they have something over there they call a king,’ I was told. ‘You might
cross the Channel and have a chat with him. It would cheer him up.’
“I decided to act on the hint. I didn’t see many changes in London. I
thought I recognized some familiar faces among the cab horses. I got an
audience with King George by pretending to be the business agent of
the Pavers’ and Rammers’ Union. Labor is all-powerful in England today
(where is it not?) and George sent word to walk right in the minute he
got my card. He was wearing that morning the fool dress uniform of an
Honorary Vice-President in the Royal Hibernian Highlanders, Ltd. As soon
as we were alone in his private office and I disclosed my identity, he
fell on my neck and wept, and called me Uncle Alf. It was very affecting.
‘You’re the only king left that I can talk confidentially to,’ he said,
‘and you’re not really alive. It used to be that almost every country
in Europe had its king and royal family. Everybody with a drop of royal
blood in his veins was on the public payroll. It kept me busy exchanging
birthday greetings with my fellow monarchs. I got a stack of letters from
them every day. Today the annual convention of the European Kings’ Mutual
Benefit Association could hold its meetings in a telephone booth. Where
have they all gone? Some are dead and others wish they were.
“‘There’s not much to choose between the mighty dead and the mighty near
dead,’ King George continued. ‘Cousin Mohammed, the last I heard of him,
was running an elevator in a Swiss hotel. Cousin Ferdinand was an old
clothes man in Naples. Cousin Ludwig had got a job as janitor of an
apartment house—determined to be an autocrat to the end. Cousin Wilhelm
was engaged in writing his auto-obituary and reading a book on ‘St.
Helena As a Health Resort.’ Cousin Charles got upset and left for good.
All the retired kings I know are retiring indeed. About the quickest way
to unpopularity these days is to proclaim the divine right of kings. Even
my oldest boy feels it, poor Wails. ‘Uneasy lies the head that wears a
crown.’ The man who wrote that knew what he was talking about. It makes
the poorest nightcap on record. I’ll s’y.
“‘I feel comparatively safe myself,’ he went on, ‘because I’m not
and never have been a real king. I draw the salary and hold the
title and wear tailor-made uniforms without doing the work. I have
no real authority. Why, I can’t dictate to anybody except the court
stenographer—when she’s not too busy scrutinizing her nose. Shall I tell
you who’s the real boss of Buckingham Palace? (Whisper) The wife. I can’t
even spend my own money as I choose. Freedom of the ‘shes’ and all that
sort of thing. Also, there’s an Hereditary Keeper of the Royal Purse,
and whenever I want any coin I have to apply to him. You’ve heard of the
‘king’s touch’? Well, that’s it. George is the ruler of England, all
right, but his first name is Lloyd, not King.’
“‘And is there any genuine autocrat left on earth?’ I asked King George.
‘Anybody to carry on the traditions of the old absolute monarchs?’
“‘Just one,’ he replied, ‘and he’s not called a king. His title is
President. His name is—’
“‘George! George!’ a shrill voice interrupted his Majesty. ‘Did you get
that pound of sugar I sent you for?’
“‘I told you I wasn’t an absolute monarch,’ George said, as he motioned
me to depart while the departing was good. But I wonder whom he meant
when he said there was only one world autocrat left?”
As I took my leave I could not even hazard a guess.
XIV
OLD KING COLE GIVES VIEWS ON PROHIBITION
The city editor’s assignment read: “Interview Old King Cole if sober (I
mean the king, not you) and get his photo and pictures of the pipe, the
bowl and the three fiddlers, if possible, for a nice layout. Stir him up
on prohibition.”
I found His Majesty at his home at the corner of Rye and Bourbon Avenues,
planet of Jupiter, next door to Bacchus and across the street from
Gambrinus. I entered his presence not without trepidation, for I had
never interviewed a real king before, although I am personally acquainted
with several apartment house janitors and the policeman on our beat.
But I needn’t have feared, for he received me with the utmost urbanity.
Dressed in a purple robe, he was sitting in a chair of state and looked
every foot a king. I just had time to note his typical poker face,
suffused with a royal flush, when he gave me greeting.
“Sit down and have something,” he exclaimed. “What’ll it be? Tea,
lemonade, beerine or just a drink from the old town pump? Here’s a new
soft bottled beverage that’s having quite a run with the boys. It’s made
of ginger, red pepper, turpentine, cocaine, yeast and chewing tobacco.
Here’s another drink the boys call the ‘lame mule,’ because it hasn’t any
kick. Ha, ha! Would you like to have some more of my jokes?”
“In just a few minutes, Your Majesty, but business before pleasure. I
have been asked to interview you on the subject of prohibition, but I had
no idea that booze was under the ban up here.”
“Oh, yes, we had to follow the fashion. Queen Cole, as you may not know,
has been president of the West Jupiter W. C. T. U. for years, and when
America did the Sahara act, why there was nothing to it but we must give
prohibition a whirl too. But I dunno. I kind of think we’ll be back on
the old basis again some day.
“Sometimes, however, I can’t help wondering what’ll be the next great
reform. Abolishing tobacco, prob’ly. The fellows who never succeeded
in learning to smoke are getting busy already, I see. If I called for
my bowl today I wouldn’t get it, and I suppose along about week after
next, if I call for my pipe, somebody will tell me that all tobacco is
prohibited except Wheeling tobies containing less than half of one per
cent of the real thing. I can still call for my fiddlers three, but the
next thing I know they’ll be locking me up for running a cabaret without
a license and a cover charge.
“You never can tell where those measly reformers will break out next. One
of these mornings you’ll pick up the paper and read: ‘Association for the
Prohibition of Lemon Pie Introduces Bill in Congress. Alarming Increase
in Indigestion Attributed to Seductive Delicacy. New Law Provides for
Right of Search of Pantries.’ There’d be a lot of kicks, but what’s
the use? Folk would go around wearing buttons inscribed: ‘No Pie, No
Work.’ Orators would point out that the workingman must have his pie.
Schoolboys would go on strike. New England farmers would protest that
their breakfasts had been spoiled. But the pie amendment would be slipped
in some appropriation bill as a joker, and then good-bye pie.
“That would be only a starter. The scheme to have the government
prescribe what you shall eat and drink and smoke is only beginning to get
up speed. Every domestic menu will have to be O. K’d by the Secretary
of the Interior. There will be laws to make everybody go to bed at ten
and get up at six, to prohibit the wearing of blue neckties with red
whiskers, to compel the printing of all baseball reports in English, and
to force pedestrians to wear license numbers, front and rear, and give
three loud honks on approaching congested cross-walks.
“You’ll have to get up in the morning by the official whistle, eat
breakfast according to the food controller, ride to work in a government
street car, work so many hours, play a round of golf on the public links,
don a Bureau of Health mask to kiss your wife when you get home, eat
another government meal, sit on the front porch and smoke a tobaccoless
cigar, fight the mosquitos awhile—remembering the anti-profanity
amendment to the old Federal Constitution—and then go to bed when the
curfew sounds, being careful not to transgress the state anti-snoring
law. That’s what you’re coming to.
“‘Old King Cole was a merry old soul.’ Ah, my boy, I’m afraid the
emphasis is going to be on the ‘was.’ I try to keep up the bluff that I’m
enjoying myself; it’s a tough task. Take away my pipe, and my bowl, and
my fiddlers three, and you can have my job as king. A king will have no
more fun than a commoner. But here comes the Queen. Sh! Sh! Not a word of
this to Her Majesty.
“Yes, my dear, this young man and I have just been having a chat
about the delights and benefits of prohibition. As I was saying, what
a glorious thing it is to think that husbands who used to hang around
bar-rooms after office hours will now spend their evenings at home,
sitting by the fireside reading Woodrow Wilson’s ‘History of the American
People’ in nine volumes, net, and drinking hot lemonade. Must you go
so soon? Well, good-bye. And listen: if you must print what I said,
perhaps you’d better not use my name. Just say ‘one of our most prominent
citizens,’ or something. Farewell.”
And as I stepped into the cockpit of my ethereal airplane I reflected
that some kings, after all, are no different from other men.
XV
KING HENRY VIII ADMITS SOME MATRIMONIAL MISTAKES
“King Henry the Eighth wants to see you,” said the city editor as I
reported for duty. “Says he doesn’t think we’re giving him a square deal.
We’ve printed interviews with Solomon and Bluebeard and Brigham Young,
all much-married men, and let them make their explanations to put them in
a better light with posterity, but for some reason he can’t understand
we’ve passed him up. Better see what the old boy has to say.”