the palace. Another minute of such splendor would have blinded me. A
fanfare of trumpets sounded, and I descended, so dizzy with what I had
seen that, as my feet touched the ground, I staggered like a drunken
man, and then I heard my name sounded and passed from one flunky to
another up the magnificent staircase into the blue haze of the
hallway, and gradually sounding fainter and fainter until it was lost
in the distance of the mysterious corridor. I still staggered as I
mounted the steps, and the Major Domo approached me.
"I trust you are not ill," he whispered in my ear.
"No--not ill," I replied. "Only somewhat flabbergasted by all this
magnificence, and my eyes hurt like the very deuce."
"It is perhaps too much for mortal eyes," he said; and then, turning
to a gilded Ethiopian who stood close at hand, he observed, quietly,
"Rhadamus, run over to the Argus and ask him if he can spare this
gentleman a pair of blue goggles for an hour or two."
"Better get me a dozen pairs," I put in. "I don't think one pair will
be enough. It may strain my nose to hold them, but I'd rather
sacrifice my nose than my eyes any day."
But the boy was off, and ere I reached the presence of Jupiter I was
very kindly provided with the very essential article, and I must
confess that I found great relief in them. They were so densely blue
that an ordinary bit of splendor could not have been discerned through
their opaque depths, any more than Thisbe could have been seen by her
doting lover, Pyramus, through the wall that separated them, but
nothing known to man could have shut out the supreme gloriousness of
the interior of Jupiter's palace. Even with the goggles of the Argus
regulated to protect one thousand eyes upon my nose, it made my
dazzled optics blink.
I do not know what the proportions of the palace were. I regret to say
that I forgot to ask, but I am quite confident that I walked at least
eight miles along that corridor, and never was a mansion designed that
was better equipped in the matter of luxuries. I suspect I shall be
charged with exaggerating, but it is none the less true that within
that spacious building were appliances of every sort known to man. One
door opened upon an in-door golf-links, upon which the royal family
played whenever they lacked the energy or the disposition to seek out
that on Mars. There were high bunkers, the copse of which was covered
with richest silk plush, stuffed, I was told, with spun silk, while,
in place of sand, tons of powdered sugar and grated nutmegs filled the
bunkers themselves. The eighteen holes were laid out so that no two of
them crossed, and, inasmuch as the turf was constructed of rubber
instead of grass and soil, neither a bad lie nor a dead ball was
possible through the vast extent of the fair green. The water hazards,
four in number, were nothing more nor less than huge tanks of
Burgundy, champagne, iced tea, and Scotch--which I subsequently
learned often resulted in a bad caddie service--and an open brook
along whose dashing descent a constant stream of shandygaff went
merrily bubbling onward to an in-door sea upon which Jupiter exercised
his yacht when sailing was the thing to suit his immediate whim.
This sea was a marvel. Since all the water hazards above described
emptied into it, it was little more than a huge expanse of punch, one
swallow of which, thanks to these ingredients and the sugar and nutmeg
from the bunkers, would make a man forget an eternity of troubles
until he woke up again, if he ever did. Here Jupiter sported every
variety of pleasure craft, and, by an ingenious system of funnels
arranged about its sixty-square-mile area, could at a moment's notice
produce any variety of breeze he chanced to wish; and its submarine
bottom was so designed that if a heavy sea were wanted to make the
yacht pitch and toss, a simple mechanical device would cause it to
hump itself into such corrugations, large or small, as were needed to
bring about the desired conditions.
"Do they allow bathing in that?" I asked, as the Major Domo explained
the peculiar feature of this in-door sea to me.
My companion laughed. "Only one person ever tried it with any degree
of success, and it nearly cost him his reputation. Old Bacchus
undertook to swim on a wager from Chambertin Inlet to Glenlivet Bay,
but he had to give up before he got as far as Pommery Point. It took
him a year to get rid of his headache, and it actually required
three-quarters of the Treasury Reserve to provide gold enough to cure
him."
"It must be a terrible place to fall overboard in," I suggested.
"It is, if you fall head first," said the Major Domo, "and my
observation is that most people do."
"I should admire to sail upon it," I said, gazing back through the
door that opened upon Jupiter's yachting parlors, and realizing on a
sudden a powerful sense of thirst.
"I have no doubt you can do so," said the Major Domo. "Indeed, I
understand that his Majesty contemplates taking you for a sail to the
lost island of Atlantis before you return to earth."
"What?" I cried. "The lost island of Atlantis here?"
"Of course," said my guide. "Why not? It was too beautiful for earth,
so Jupiter had it transported to his own private yachting pond, and it
has been here ever since. It is marvellously beautiful."
Hardly had I recovered from my amazement over the Major Domo's
announcement when he pointed to another open door.
"The Royal Arena," he said, simply. "That is where we have our
Olympian Games. There was a football game there yesterday. Too bad you
were not there. It was the liveliest game of the season. All Hades
played the Olympian eleven for the championship of the universe. We
licked 'em four hundred to nothing; but of course we had an
exceptional team. When Hercules is in shape there isn't a man-jack in
all Hades that can withstand him. He's rush-line, centre, full-back,
half-back, and flying wedge, all rolled into one. Then the Hades chaps
made the bad mistake of sending a star team. When you have an eleven
made up of Hannibal and Julius Caesar and Alexander the Great and
Napoleon Bonaparte and the Duke of Wellington and Achilles and other
fellows like that you can't expect any team-play. Each man is thinking
about himself all the time. Hercules could walk right through 'em,
and, when they begin to pose, it's mere child's play for him. The only
chap that put up any game against us at all was Samson, and I tell
you, now that his hair's grown again, he's a demon on the gridiron.
But we divided up our force to meet that difficulty. Hercules put the
rest of our eleven on to Samson, while he took care, personally, of
all the other Hadesians. And you should have seen how he handled them!
It was beautiful, all through. He nearly got himself ruled off in the
second half. He became so excited at one time towards the end that he
mistook Pompey for the ball and kicked him through the goal-posts from
the forty-yard line. Of course, it didn't count, and Hercules
apologized so gracefully to the rest of the visitors that they
withdrew their protest and let him play on."
"I should think he would have apologized to Pompey," said I.
[Illustration: "'THE CHAMPIONSHIP OF THE UNIVERSE'"]
"He will when Pompey recovers consciousness," said my guide, simply.
So interested was I in the Royal Arena and its recent game that I
forgot all about Jupiter.
"I never thought of Hercules as a football player before," I said,
"but it is easy to see how he might become the champion of Olympus."
"Oh, is it!" laughed the Major Domo. "Well, you'd better not tell
Jupiter that. Jupiter'd be pleased, he would. Why, my dear friend,
he'd pack you back to earth quicker than a wink. He brooks only one
champion of anything here, and that's himself. Hercules threw him in a
wrestling-match once, and the next day Jupiter turned him into a
weeping-willow, and didn't let up on him for five hundred years
afterwards."
By this time we had reached one of the most superbly vaulted chambers
it has ever been my pleasure to look upon. Above me the ceiling
seemed to reach into infinity, and on either side were huge recesses
and alcoves of almost unfathomable depth, lit by great balls of fire
that diffused their light softly and yet brilliantly through all parts
and corners of the apartment.
"The library," said the Major Domo, pointing to tier upon tier of
teeming shelves, upon which stood a wonderful array of exquisitely
bound volumes to a number past all counting.
I was speechless with the grandeur of it all.
"It is sublime," said I. "How many volumes?"
"Unnumbered, and unnumberable by mortals, but in round, immortal
figures just one jovillion."
"One jovillion, eh?" said I. "How many is that in mortal figures?"
"A jovillion is the supreme number," explained the guide. "It is the
infinity of millions, and therefore cannot be expressed in mortal
terms."
"Then," said I, "you can have no more books."
"No," said he. "But what of that? We have all there are and all that
are to be. You see, the library is divided into three parts. On the
right-hand side are all the books that ever have been written; here to
the left you see all the books that are being written; and farther
along, beginning where that staircase rises, are all the books that
ever will be written."
I gasped. If this were true, this wonderful collection must contain my
own complete works, some of which I have doubtless not even thought of
as yet. How easy it would be for me, I thought, to write my future
books if Jupiter would only let me loose here with a competent
stenographer to copy off the pages of manuscript as yet undreamed of!
I suggested this to the Major Domo.
"He wouldn't let you," he said. "It would throw the whole scheme out
of gear."
"I don't see why," I ventured.
"It is simple," rejoined the Major Domo. "If you were permitted to
read the books that some day will be identified with your name, as a
sensible man, observing beforehand how futile and trivial they are to
be, some of them, you wouldn't write them, and so you would be able to
avoid a part, at least, of your destiny. If mortals were able to do
that--well, they'd become immortals, a good many of them."
I realized the justice of this precaution, and we passed on in
silence.
"Now," said the Major Domo, after we had traversed the length of the
library, "we are almost there. That gorgeous door directly ahead of
you is the entrance to Jupiter's reception-room. Before we enter,
however, we must step into the office of Midas, on the left."
"Midas?" I said. "And what, pray, is his function? Is he the
registrar?"
"No, indeed," laughed the Major Domo. "I presume down where you live
he would be called the Court Tailor. The sartorial requirements of
Jupiter are so regal that none of his guests, invited or otherwise,
could afford, even with the riches of Cr[oe]sus, to purchase the
apparel which he demands. Hence he keeps Midas here to supply, at his
expense, the garments in which his visitors may appear before him. You
didn't think you were going into Jupiter's presence in those golf
duds, did you?"
"I never thought anything about it," said I. "But how long will it
take Midas to fit me out?"
"He touches your garments, that's all," said my guide, "and in that
instant they are changed to robes of richest gold. We then place a
necklace of gems about your neck, composed of rubies, emeralds,
amethysts, and sapphires, alternating with pearls, none smaller than a
hen's egg; next we place a jewelled staff of ebony in your hand; a
golden helmet, having at either side the burnished wings of the
imperial eagles of Jove, and bearing upon its crest an opal that
glistens like the sun through the slight haze of a translucent cloud,
will be placed upon your head; richly decorated sandals of cloth of
gold will adorn your feet, and about your waist a girdle of linked
diamonds--beside which the far-famed Orloff diamond of the Russian
treasury is an insignificant bit of glass--will be clasped."
"And--wha--wha--what becomes of all this when I get back home?" I
gasped, a vision of future ease rising before my tired eyes.
"You take it with you, if you can," laughed the Major Domo, with a sly
wink at one of the Amazons who accompanied him as a sort of aide.
It was all as he said. In two minutes I had entered the room of Midas;
in three minutes, my golf-coat having been removed, a flowing gown of
silk, touched by his magic hand and turned to glittering gold, rested
upon my shoulders. It was pretty heavy, but I bore up under it; the
helmet and the necklace, the shoes and the girdle were adjusted; the
staff was placed in my hand, and with beating heart I emerged once
more into the corridor and stood before the door leading into the
audience-chamber.
"Remove the goggles," whispered the Major Domo.
"Never!" I cried. "I shall be blinded."
"Nonsense!" said he, quickly. "Off with them," and he flicked them
from my nose himself.
A great blare of trumpets sounded, the door was thrown wide, and with
a cry of amazement I stepped backward, awed and afraid; but one glance
was reassuring, for truly a wonderful sight confronted me, and one
that will prove as surprising to him who reads as it was to me upon
that marvellous day.
X
An Extraordinary Interview
I had expected to witness a scene of grandeur, and my fancy had
conjured up, as the central figure thereof, the majestic form of Jove
himself, clad in imperial splendor. But it was the unexpected that
happened, for, as the door closed behind me, I found myself in a plain
sort of workshop, such as an ordinary man would have in his own house,
at one end of which stood a rolling-top desk, and, instead of the
dazzling throne I had expected to see, there stood in front of it an
ordinary office-chair that twirled on a pivot. Books and papers were
strewn about the floor and upon the tables; the pictures on the walls
were made up largely of colored sporting prints of some rarity, and in
a corner stood a commonplace globe such as is to be found in use in
public schools to teach children geography. As I glanced about me my
first impression was that by some odd mischance I had got into the
wrong room, which idea was fortified by the fact that, instead of an
imperial figure clad in splendid robes, a quiet-looking old gentleman,
who, except for his dress, might have posed for a cartoon of the
accepted American Populist, stood before me. He was dressed in a plain
frock-coat, four-in-hand tie, high collar, dark-gray trousers, and
patent-leather boots, and was brushing up a silk hat as I entered.
"Excuse me, sir," I said, "but I--I fear I have stumbled into the
wrong room. I--ah--I have had the wholly unexpected honor to be
granted an audience with Jupiter, and I was told that this was the
audience-chamber."
"Don't apologize. Sit down," he replied, taking me by the hand and
shaking it cordially. "You are all right; I'm glad to see you. How
goes the world with you?"
"Very well indeed, sir," I replied, rather embarrassed by the old
fellow's cordiality. "But I really can't sit down, because, you know,
I--I don't want to keep his Majesty waiting, and if you'll excuse me,
I'll--"
"Oh, nonsense!" he retorted. "Let the old man wait. Sit down and talk
to me. I don't get a chance to talk with mortals very often. This is
your first visit to Olympus?"
"Yes, sir," I said, still standing. "And it is wholly unexpected. I
stumbled upon the place by the merest chance last night--but you
_must_ let me go, sir. I'll come back later very gladly and talk with
you if I get a chance. It will never do for me to keep his Majesty
waiting, you know."
"Oh, the deuce with his Majesty," said the old gentleman, testily.
"What do you want to see him for? He's an old fossil."
"Granted," said I. "Still, I'm interested in old fossils."
The old gentleman roared with laughter at this apparently simple
remark. I didn't see the fun of it myself, and his mirth irritated me.
"Excuse me, my dear sir," I said, trying to control my impatience.
"But you don't seem to understand my position. I can't stay here and
talk to you while the ruler of Olympus waits. Can't you see that?"
"No, I can't," he replied. "Can't see it at all, and I'm a pretty good
seer as a general thing, too. If you didn't wish to see me, you had
no business to come into my room. Now that you are here, I'm going to
keep you for a little while. Take off that absurd-looking tile and sit
down."
At this I grew angry. I wasn't responsible for the helmet I wore, and
I had felt all along that I looked like an ass in it.
"I'll do nothing of the sort, you confounded old meddler," I cried.
"I've come here on invitation, and, if I've got into the wrong room,
it isn't my fault. That jackass of a Major Domo told me this was the
place. Let me out."
I strode to the doorway, and the old gentleman turned to his desk and
opened a drawer.
"Cigar or cigarette?" he said, calmly.
"Neither, you old fool," I retorted, turning the knob and tugging upon
it. "I have no time for a smoke."
The door was locked. The old gentleman settled back in his twirling
chair and regarded me with a twinkle in his eye as I vainly tried to
pull the door open, and I realized that I was helpless.
"Better sit down and enjoy a quiet smoke with me," he said, calmly.
"Take off that absurd-looking tile and talk to me."
"I haven't anything to say to you," I replied. "Not a word. Do you
intend to let me out of this or not?"
"All in good time--all in good time," he said. "Let's talk it over.
Why do you wish to go? Don't you find me good company?"
"You're a stupid old idiot!" I shouted, almost weeping with rage.
"Locking me up in your rotten old den here when you must realize what
you are depriving me of. What earthly good it does you I can't see."
[Illustration: "THE DOOR WAS LOCKED"]
"It does me lots of good," he said, with a chuckle. "Really, sir, it
gives me a new sensation--first new sensation I have had in a long,
long time. Let me see now, just how many names have you called me in
the three minutes I have had the pleasure of your acquaintance?"
"Give me time, and I'll call you a lot more," I retorted, sullenly.
"Good--I'll give you the time," he said. "Go ahead. I'll listen to you
for a whole hour. What am I besides a meddler, and a stupid old idiot,
and an old fool?"
"You're a gray-headed maniac, and a--a zinc-fastened Zany. A doddering
dotard and a chimerical chump," I said.
"Splendid!" roared he, with a spasm of laughter that seemed nearly to
rend him. "Go on. Keep it up. I am enjoying myself hugely."
"You're a sneak-livered poltroon to treat me this way," I added,
indignantly.
"That's the best yet," he interrupted, slapping his knee with delight.
"Sneak-livered poltroon, eh? Well, well, well. Go on. Go on."
"If you'll give me a copy of Roget's _Thesaurus_, I'll tell you what
else you are," I retorted, with a note of sarcasm in my voice. "It
will require a reference to that book to do you justice. I can't begin
to carry all that you are in my mind."
"With pleasure," said he, and reaching over to his bookcase he took
thence the desired volume and handed it to me. "Proceed," he added. "I
am all ears."
"Most jackasses are," I returned, savagely.
"Magnificent," he cried, ecstatically. "You are a genius at epithet.
But there's the book. Let me light a cigar for you and then you can
begin. Only _do_ take off that absurd tile. You don't know how
supremely unbecoming it is."
There was nothing for it, so I resolved to make the best of it by
meeting the disagreeable old pantaloon on his own ground. I lit one of
his cigars and sat down to tell the curious old freak what I thought
of him. Ordinarily I would have avoided doing this, but his tyrannical
exercise of his temporary advantage made me angry to the very core of
my being.
"Ready?" said I.
"Quite," said he. "Don't stint yourself. Just behave as if you'd known
me all your life. I sha'n't mind."
And I began: "Well, after referring to the word 'idiot' in the index,
just to get a lead," I said, "I shall begin by saying that you are
evidently a hebetudinous imbecile, an indiscriminate stult--"
"Hold on!" he cried. "What's that last? I never heard the term
before."
"Stult--an indiscriminate stult," I said, scornfully. "I invented the
word myself. Real words won't describe you. Stult is a new term,
meaning all kinds of a fool, plus two. And I've got a few more if you
want them."
"Want them?" he cried. "By Vulcan, I dote upon them! They are nectar
to my thirsty ears. Go on."
"You are a senseless frivoler, a fugacious gid, an infamous
hoddydoddy; you are a man with the hoe with the emptiness of ages in
your face; you are a brother to the ox, with all the dundering
niziness of a plain, ordinary buzzard added to your shallow-brained
asininity. Now will you let me go?"
"Not I," said he, shaking his head as if he relished a situation which
was gradually making a madman of me. "I'd like to oblige you, but I
really can't. You are giving me too much pleasure. Is there nothing
more you can call me?"
"You're a dizzard!" I retorted. "And a noodle and a jolt-head; you're
a jobbernowl and a doodle, a maundering mooncalf and a blockheaded
numps, a gaby and a loon; you're a _Hatter_!" I shrieked the last
epithet.
"Heavens!" he cried, "A Hatter! Am I as bad as that?"
"Oh, come now," I said, closing the _Thesaurus_ with a bang. "Have
some regard for my position, won't you?"
I had resolved to appeal to his better nature. "I don't know who the
dickens you are. You may be the three wise men of Gotham who went to
sea in a bowl rolled into one, for all I know. You may be any old
thing. I don't give a tinker's cuss what you are. Under ordinary
circumstances I've no doubt I should find you a very pleasant old
gentleman, but under present conditions you are a blundering old
bore."
"That's not bad--indeed, a blundering old bore is pretty good. Let me
see," he continued, looking up the word "bore" in the index of the
_Thesaurus_, "What else am I? Maybe I'm an unmitigated nuisance, an
exasperating and egregious glum, a carking care, and a pestiferous
pill, eh?"
"You are all of that," I said, wearily. "Your meanness surpasseth all
things. I've met a good many tough characters in my day, but you are
the first I have ever encountered without a redeeming feature. You
take advantage of a mistake for which I am not at all responsible, and
what do you do?"
"Tell me," he replied. "What do I do? I shall be delighted to hear.
I've been asking myself that question for years. What do I do? Go on,
I implore you."
"You rub it in, that's what," I retorted. "You take advantage of me.
You bait me; you incommode me. You--you--"
"Here, take the _Thesaurus_," he said, as I hesitated for the word.
"It will help you. I provoke you, I irritate you, I make you mad, I
sour your temper, I sicken, disgust, revolt, nauseate, repel you. I
rankle your soul. I jar you--is that it?"
"Give me the book," I cried, desperately. "Yes!" I added, referring to
the page. "You tease, irk, harry, badger, infest, persecute. You gall,
sting, and convulse me. You are a plain old beast, that's what you
are. You're a conscienceless sneak and a wherret--you mean-souled blot
on the face of nature!"
Here I broke down and wept, and the old gentleman's sides shook with
laughter. He was, without exception, the most extraordinary old person
I had ever encountered, and in my tears I cursed the English language
because it was inadequate properly to describe him.
For a time there was silence. I was exhausted and my tormentor was
given over to his own enjoyment of my discomfiture. Finally, however,
he spoke.
"I'm a pretty old man, my dear fellow," he said. "I shouldn't like to
tell you how old, because if I did you'd begin on the _Thesaurus_
again with the word 'liar' for your lead. Nevertheless, I'm pretty
old; but I want to say to you that in all my experience I have never
had so diverting a half-hour as you have given me. You have been so
outspoken, so frank--"
"Oh, indeed--I've been frank, have I?" I interrupted. "Well, what I
have said isn't a marker to what I'd like to have said and would have
said if language hadn't its limitations. You are the infinity of the
unmitigated, the supreme of the superfluous. In unqualified,
inexcusable, unsurpassable meanness you are the very IT!"
"Sir," said the old gentleman, rising and bowing, "you are a man of
unusual penetration, and I like you. I should like to see more of you,
but your hour has expired. I thank you for your pleasant words, and I
bid you an affectionate good-morning."