"How are you, Charon?" said Shakespeare, as the Janitor assisted him on
board. "Any one here to-night?"
"Yes, sir," said Charon. "Lord Bacon is up in the library, and Doctor
Johnson is down in the billiard-room, playing pool with Nero."
"Ha-ha!" laughed Shakespeare. "Pool, eh? Does Nero play pool?"
"Not as well as he does the fiddle, sir," said the Janitor, with a
twinkle in his eye.
Shakespeare entered the house and tossed up an obolus. "Heads--Bacon;
tails--pool with Nero and Johnson," he said.
The coin came down with heads up, and Shakespeare went into the
pool-room, just to show the Fates that he didn't care a tuppence for
their verdict as registered through the obolus. It was a peculiar custom
of Shakespeare's to toss up a coin to decide questions of little
consequence, and then do the thing the coin decided he should not do. It
showed, in Shakespeare's estimation, his entire independence of those
dull persons who supposed that in them was centred the destiny of all
mankind. The Fates, however, only smiled at these little acts of
rebellion, and it was common gossip in Erebus that one of the trio had
told the Furies that they had observed Shakespeare's tendency to kick
over the traces, and always acted accordingly. They never let the coin
fall so as to decide a question the way they wanted it, so that
unwittingly the great dramatist did their will after all. It was a part
of their plan that upon this occasion Shakespeare should play pool with
Doctor Johnson and the Emperor Nero, and hence it was that the coin bade
him repair to the library and chat with Lord Bacon.
"Hullo, William," said the Doctor, pocketing three balls on the break.
"How's our little Swanlet of Avon this afternoon?"
"Worn out," Shakespeare replied. "I've been hard at work on a play this
morning, and I'm tired."
"All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy," said Nero, grinning
broadly.
"You are a bright spirit," said Shakespeare, with a sigh. "I wish I had
thought to work you up into a tragedy."
"I've often wondered why you didn't," said Doctor Johnson. "He'd have
made a superb tragedy, Nero would. I don't believe there was any kind of
a crime he left uncommitted. Was there, Emperor?"
"Yes. I never wrote an English dictionary," returned the Emperor, dryly.
"I've murdered everything but English, though."
"I could have made a fine tragedy out of you," said Shakespeare. "Just
think what a dreadful climax for a tragedy it would be, Johnson, to have
Nero, as the curtain fell, playing a violin solo."
"Pretty good," returned the Doctor. "But what's the use of killing off
your audience that way? It's better business to let 'em live, I say.
Suppose Nero gave a London audience that little musicale he provided at
Queen Elizabeth's Wednesday night. How many purely mortal beings, do you
think, would have come out alive?"
"Not one," said Shakespeare. "I was mighty glad that night that we were
an immortal band. If it had been possible to kill us we'd have died then
and there."
"That's all right," said Nero, with a significant shake of his head. "As
my friend Bacon makes Ingo say, 'Beware, my lord, of jealousy.' You
never could play a garden hose, much less a fiddle."
"What do you mean my attributing those words to Bacon?" demanded
Shakespeare, getting red in the face.
"Oh, come now, William," remonstrated Nero. "It's all right to pull the
wool over the eyes of the mortals. That's what they're there for; but as
for us--we're all in the secret here. What's the use of putting on
nonsense with us?"
"We'll see in a minute what the use is," retorted the Avonian. "We'll
have Bacon down here." Here he touched an electric button, and Charon
came in answer.
"Charon, bring Doctor Johnson the usual glass of ale. Get some ice for
the Emperor, and ask Lord Bacon to step down here a minute."
"I don't want any ice," said Nero.
"Not now," retorted Shakespeare, "but you will in a few minutes. When we
have finished with you, you'll want an iceberg. I'm getting tired of
this idiotic talk about not having written my own works. There's one
thing about Nero's music that I've never said, because I haven't wanted
to hurt his feelings, but since he has chosen to cast aspersions upon my
honesty I haven't any hesitation in saying it now. I believe it was one
of his fiddlings that sent Nature into convulsions and caused the
destruction of Pompeii--so there! Put that on your music rack and fiddle
it, my little Emperor."
Nero's face grew purple with anger, and if Shakespeare had been anything
but a shade he would have fared ill, for the enraged Roman, poising his
cue on high as though it were a lance, hurled it at the impertinent
dramatist with all his strength, and with such accuracy of aim withal
that it pierced the spot beneath which in life the heart of Shakespeare
used to beat.
"Good shot," said Doctor Johnson, nonchalantly. "If you had been a
mortal, William, it would have been the end of you."
"You can't kill me," said Shakespeare, shrugging his shoulders. "I know
seven dozen actors in the United States who are trying to do it, but they
can't. I wish they'd try to kill a critic once in a while instead of me,
though," he added. "I went over to Boston one night last week, and,
unknown to anybody, I waylaid a fellow who was to play Hamlet that night.
I drugged him, and went to the theatre and played the part myself. It
was the coldest house you ever saw in your life. When the audience did
applaud, it sounded like an ice-man chopping up ice with a small pick.
Several times I looked up at the galleries to see if there were not
icicles growing on them, it was so cold. Well, I did the best could with
the part, and next morning watched curiously for the criticisms."
"Favorable?" asked the Doctor.
"They all dismissed me with a line," said the dramatist. "Said my
conception of the part was not Shakespearian. And that's criticism!"
"No," said the shade of Emerson, which had strolled in while Shakespeare
was talking, "that isn't criticism; that's Boston."
"Who discovered Boston, anyhow?" asked Doctor Johnson. "It wasn't
Columbus, was it?"
"Oh no," said Emerson. "Old Governor Winthrop is to blame for that. When
he settled at Charlestown he saw the old Indian town of Shawmut across
the Charles."
"And Shawmut was the Boston microbe, was it?" asked Johnson.
"Yes," said Emerson.
"Spelt with a P, I suppose?" said Shakespeare. "P-S-H-A-W, Pshaw, M-U-T,
mut, Pshawmut, so called because the inhabitants are always muttering
pshaw. Eh?"
"Pretty good," said Johnson. "I wish I'd said that."
"Well, tell Boswell," said Shakespeare. "He'll make you say it, and
it'll be all the same in a hundred years."
Lord Bacon, accompanied by Charon and the ice for Nero and the ale for
Doctor Johnson, appeared as Shakespeare spoke. The philosopher bowed
stiffly at Doctor Johnson, as though he hardly approved of him, extended
his left hand to Shakespeare, and stared coldly at Nero.
"Did you send for me, William?" he asked, languidly.
"I did," said Shakespeare. "I sent for you because this imperial
violinist here says that you wrote _Othello_."
"What nonsense," said Bacon. "The only plays of yours I wrote were
_Ham_--"
"Sh!" said Shakespeare, shaking his head madly. "Hush. Nobody's said
anything about that. This is purely a discussion of _Othello_."
"The fiddling ex-Emperor Nero," said Bacon, loudly enough to be heard all
about the room, "is mistaken when he attributes _Othello_ to me."
"Aha, Master Nero!" cried Shakespeare triumphantly. "What did I tell
you?"
"Then I erred, that is all," said Nero. "And I apologize. But really,
my Lord," he added, addressing Bacon, "I fancied I detected your fine
Italian hand in that."
"No. I had nothing to do with the _Othello_," said Bacon. "I never
really knew who wrote it."
"Never mind about that," whispered Shakespeare. "You've said enough."
"That's good too," said Nero, with a chuckle. "Shakespeare here claims
it as his own."
Bacon smiled and nodded approvingly at the blushing Avonian.
"Will always was having his little joke," he said. "Eh, Will? How we
fooled 'em on _Hamlet_, eh, my boy? Ha-ha-ha! It was the greatest joke
of the century."
"Well, the laugh is on you," said Doctor Johnson. "If you wrote _Hamlet_
and didn't have the sense to acknowledge it, you present to my mind a
closer resemblance to Simple Simon than to Socrates. For my part, I
don't believe you did write it, and I do believe that Shakespeare did. I
can tell that by the spelling in the original edition."
"Shakespeare was my stenographer, gentlemen," said Lord Bacon. "If you
want to know the whole truth, he did write _Hamlet_, literally. But it
was at my dictation."
"I deny it," said Shakespeare. "I admit you gave me a suggestion now and
then so as to keep it dull and heavy in spots, so that it would seem more
like a real tragedy than a comedy punctuated with deaths, but beyond that
you had nothing to do with it."
"I side with Shakespeare," put in Emerson. "I've seen his autographs,
and no sane person would employ a man who wrote such a villanously bad
hand as an amanuensis. It's no use, Bacon, we know a thing or two. I'm
a New-Englander, I am."
"Well," said Bacon, shrugging his shoulders as though the results of the
controversy were immaterial to him, "have it so if you please. There
isn't any money in Shakespeare these days, so what's the use of
quarrelling? I wrote _Hamlet_, and Shakespeare knows it. Others know
it. Ah, here comes Sir Walter Raleigh. We'll leave it to him. He was
cognizant of the whole affair."
"I leave it to nobody," said Shakespeare, sulkily.
"What's the trouble?" asked Raleigh, sauntering up and taking a chair
under the cue-rack. "Talking politics?"
"Not we," said Bacon. "It's the old question about the authorship of
_Hamlet_. Will, as usual, claims it for himself. He'll be saying he
wrote Genesis next."
"Well, what if he does?" laughed Raleigh. "We all know Will and his
droll ways."
"No doubt," put in Nero. "But the question of _Hamlet_ always excites
him so that we'd like to have it settled once and for all as to who wrote
it. Bacon says you know."
"I do," said Raleigh.
"Then settle it once and for all," said Bacon. "I'm rather tired of the
discussion myself."
"Shall I tell 'em, Shakespeare?" asked Raleigh.
"It's immaterial to me," said Shakespeare, airily. "If you wish--only
tell the truth."
"Very well," said Raleigh, lighting a cigar. "I'm not ashamed of it. I
wrote the thing myself."
There was a roar of laughter which, when it subsided, found Shakespeare
rapidly disappearing through the door, while all the others in the room
ordered various beverages at the expense of Lord Bacon.