INCIDENT OF THE GOOSEBERRY BOMBS
The day of the great parade dawned dazzling and clear, with every
promise of heat. From the first blue of morning, while the streets were
still cool and marble front steps moist from housemaids' sluicings,
crowds of Bishop Chuff's marchers came pouring into the city. At the
prearranged mobilization points, where bands were stationed to keep the
throngs amused until the immense procession could be ranged in line,
the press was terrific. Every trolley, every suburban train, every
jitney, was crammed with the pan-antis, clad in white, carrying the
buttons, ribbons and banners that had been prepared for this great
occasion. DOWN WITH GOOSEBERRIES, THE NEW MENACE! was the terrifying
legend printed on these emblems.
The Boulevard had been roped off by the police by eight o'clock, and
the pavements were swarming with citizens, many of whom had camped
there all night in order to witness this tremendous spectacle. As the
sun surged pitilessly higher, the temperature became painful. The
asphalt streets grew soft under the twingeing feet of the Pan-Antis,
and waves of heat radiation shimmered along the vista of the
magnificent highway. To keep themselves cheerful the legions of Chuff
sang their new Gooseberry Anthem, written by Miss Theodolinda Chuff
(the Bishop's daughter) to the air of "Marching Through Georgia." The
rousing strains rose in unison from thousands of earnest throats. The
majesty of the song cannot be comprehended unless the reader will
permit himself to hum to the familiar tune:--
Root up every gooseberry where Satan winks his eye--
We will make the sinful earth a credit by and by:
Europe may be stubborn, but we'll legislate her dry,
And then we'll tackle the planets.
Chorus:
Hurrah! Hurrah! We're anti-everything--
Hurrah! Hurrah! An end to joy we sing:
Come let's make life doleful and then death will lose its sting,
Happiness is only a habit!
Come then, all ye citizens, and join our stern Verein:
We're the ones that put the crimp in whiskey, beer and wine;
Booze is gone and soon we'll make tobacco fall in line,
And then we'll tackle the planets.
Chorus:
Hurrah! Hurrah! We're anti-everything--
Hurrah! Hurrah! An end to joy we sing:
Come let's make life doleful and then death will lose its sting,
Happiness is only a habit!
We'll abolish every fruit attempting to ferment--
We will alter Nature's laws and teach her to repent:
Let the fatal gooseberry proceed where cocktails went,
And then we'll tackle the planets.
Chorus as before.
From the beginning of the day, however, it became apparent that there
was a concerted movement under way to heckle the Pan-Antis. As the
Gooseberry Anthem came to an end a number of men were observed on the
skyline of a tall building, wig-wagging with flags. All eyes were
turned aloft, and much speculation ensued among the waiting thousands
as to the meaning of the signals. Then a cry of anger burst from one of
the section leaders, who was acquainted with the Morse code. The flags
were spelling WHAT A DAY FOR A DRINK! All down the Boulevard the white
and gold banners tossed in anger. To those above, the mass of agitated
chuffs looked like a field of daisies in a wind.
Shortly afterward the familiar buzz of airplane motors was heard, and
three silver-gray machines came coasting above the channel of the
Boulevard. They flew low, and it was easy to read the initials C.P.H.
painted on the nether surface of their wings. Over the front ranks of
the parade (which was beginning to fall in line) they executed a series
of fantastic twirls. Then, as though at a concerted signal, they
dropped a cloud of paper slips which came eddying down through the
sunlight. The chuffs scrambled for them, wondering. A sullen murmur
rose when the messages were read. They ran thus:--
TO MAKE GOOSEBERRY WINE
(Paste This in Your Hat),
Ten quarts of gooseberries, thoroughly crushed;
Over these, five quarts of water are flushed.
Twice round the clock let the fluid remain,
Then through a sieve the blithe mixture you strain,
Adding some sugar (not less than ten pound)
And stirring it carefully, round and around.
To the pulp of the fruit that remains in the sieve
A gallon of pure filtered water you give:
This you let stand for a dozen of hours,
Then add to the other to strengthen its powers.
Shut up the whole for the space of a day
And it will ferment in a riotous way.
When you see by the froth that the fluid grows thicker
You, should skim it (with glee) for it's turning to liquor!
While it ferments, please continue to skim:
At the end, you may murmur the Bartender's Hymn.
This makes a booze that is potent enough--
Seal in a hogshead--and hide it from Chuff!
Corporation for the
Perpetuation of Happiness.
The Pan-Antis were still muttering furiously over this daring act of
defiance when a shrill bugle-call pealed down the avenue. Bishop Chuff
rode out into the middle of the street on his famous coal-black
charger, John Barleycorn. There was a long hush. Then, with a wave of
his hand, he gave the signal. One hundred bands burst into the somber
and clanging strains of "The Face on the Bar-Room Floor." The great
parade had begun.
From a house-top farther up the street Dunraven Bleak watched them
come. He had taken Quimbleton's word seriously, and with his usual
enterprise had rented a roof overlooking the Boulevard, on which
several members of the Balloon staff were prepared to deal with any
startling events that might occur. A battery of telephones had been
installed on the house-top; Bleak himself sat with apparatus clamped to
his head like an operator at central. Two reporters were busy with
paper and pencil; the cartoonist sat on the cornice, with legs swinging
above two hundred feet of space, sketching the prodigious scene. The
young lady editor of the Woman's Page was there, with opera glasses,
noting down the "among those present."
It was an awe-inspiring spectacle. Between sidewalks jammed with silent
and morose citizens, the Pan-Antis passed like a conquering army. The
terrible Bishop, the man who had put military discipline into the ranks
of his mighty organization, rode his horse as the Kaiser would have
liked to ride entering Paris. His small, bitter, fanatical face wore a
deeply carved sneer. His great black beard flapped in the breeze, and
he sang as he rode. Behind him came huge floats depicting in startling
tableaux the hideous menace of the gooseberry. Bands blared and
crashed. Then, rank on rank, as far as eye could see, followed the
zealots in their garments of white. Each one, it was noticed, carried a
neat knapsack. Huge tractors rumbled along, groaning beneath a tonnage
of tracts which were shot into the watching crowd by pneumatic guns.
Banners whipped and fluttered.
The sound of shrill chanting vibrated in the blazing air like a visible
wave of power. These were conquerors of a nation, and they knew it. A
former bartender, standing in the front of the crowd, caught Chuff's
merciless gaze, wavered, and swooned. A retired distiller, sitting in
the window of the Brass Rail Club, fell dead of apoplexy.
Bleak trembled with nervousness. Had Quimbleton hoaxed him? What could
halt this mighty pageant now? He was about to telephone to his city
editor to go ahead with the one o'clock edition as originally
planned....
From the sky came a roar of engines that drowned for a moment the
thundering echoes of the parade. The three gray planes, which had been
circling far above, swooped down almost to a level with the tops of the
buildings. One of these, a huge two-seated bomber, passed directly over
Bleak's head. He craned upward, and caught a glimpse of what he thought
at first was a white pennant trailing over the bulwark of the cockpit.
A snowy shag of whiskers came tossing down through the air and fell in
his lap. It was Quimbleton's beard, torn from its moorings by the tug
of wind-pressure. Bleak thrust it quickly in his pocket. As the great
plane passed over the head of the parade, flying dangerously low, every
face save that of the iron-willed Bishop was turned upward. But even in
their curiosity the rigid discipline of the Pan-Antis prevailed. Now
they were singing, to the tune of "The Old Gray Mare."
Old John Barleycorn, he ain't what he used to be
AIN'T WHAT HE USED TO BE--
AIN'T WHAT HE USED TO BE!
Old John Barleycorn, he ain't what he used to be,
Many a year ago.
The great volume of gusty sound, hurled aloft by these thousands of
sky-pointing mouths, created an air-pocket in which the bombing plane
tilted dangerously. For a moment, Bleak, who was watching the plane,
thought it was going to careen into a tail-spin and crash down fatally.
Then he saw Quimbleton, still recognizable by an adhering shred of
whisker, lean over the side of the fuselage.
A small dark object dropped through the air, fell with a loud POP on
the street a few yards in front of the Bishop. A faint green vapor
arose, misting for a moment the proud figures of Chuff and his horse.
At the same instant the other two planes, throbbing down the line of
the parade, discharged a rain of similar projectiles along the vacant
strip of paving between the marching chuffs and the police-lined curb.
An eddying emerald fume filled the street, drifting with the brisk air
down through all the ranks of the procession. There were shouts and
screams; the clanging bands squawked discordantly.
"Holy cat!" shouted the cartoonist--"Poison gas!"
"Nix!" said Bleak, revealing Quimbleton's secret in his excitement.
"Gooseberry bombs. Every chuff that inhales it will be properly soused.
Oh, boy, some story! Look at the Bish! He's got a snootful already--his
face has turned black!"
"The whole crowd has turned black," said the cartoonist, almost falling
off his perch in a frantic effort to see more clearly through the olive
haze that filled the street.
It was true. Above the thousands of white figures, as they emerged from
the intoxicating cloud-bank of gooseberry gas, grinned ghastly,
inhuman, blackened faces, with staring goggle eyes. The Bishop was most
frightful of all. His horse was prancing and swaying wildly, and the
Bishop's transformed features were diabolic. His whole profile had
altered, seemed black and shapeless as the face of a tadpole. The
amazing truth burst upon Bleak. Chuff and his paraders were wearing
gas-masks. These were what they had carried in their knapsacks.
Indomitable Chuff, who had foreseen everything!
"Poor Quimbleton," said Bleak. "This will break his heart!"
"His neck too, I fancy," said one of the others, pointing to the sky,
and indeed one of the three planes was seen falling tragically to earth
behind the tower of the City Hall.
The cloud of gas was rapidly drifting off down the Boulevard, and
through the exhilarating and delicious fog the Pan-Antis waved their
defiant banners unscathed. The progress of the parade, however, was
halted by the behavior of the Bishop's horse, for which no mask had
been provided. The noble animal, under this sudden and extraordinary
stimulus, was almost human in its actions. At first it stood,
whinneying sharply, and pawing the air with one forefoot--as though
feeling for the brass rail, as one of Bleak's companions said. It
raised its head proudly, with open mouth and expanded nostrils. Then,
dashing off across the broad street, it seemed eager to climb a
lamp-post, and only the fierce restraint of the Bishop held it in. One
of the chuffs (perhaps only lukewarm in loyalty), ran up and offered to
give his mask to the horse, but was sternly motioned back to the ranks
by the infuriated leader, who was wildly wrestling to gain control of
the exuberant animal. At last the horse solved the problem by lying
down in the street, on top of the Bishop, and going to sleep. An
ambulance, marked Federal Home for Inebriates, Cana, N.J., dashed up
with shrilling gong. This had been arranged by Quimbleton, who had
wired a requisition for an ambulance to remove one intoxicated bishop.
As the Bishop was quite in command of his faculties, the horse, after
some delay, was hoisted into the ambulance instead. The Bishop was
given a dusting, and the parade proceeded. The self-control of the
police alone averted prolonged and frightful disorder, for when the
conduct of the horse was observed thousands of spectators fought
desperately to get through the ropes and out into the fumes that still
lingered in wisps and whorls of green vapor. Others tore off their
coats and attempted to bag a few cubic inches of the gas in these
garments. But the police, with a devotion to duty that was beyond
praise, kept the mob in check and themselves bore the brunt of the
lingering acid. Only one man, who leaped from an office-window with an
improvised parachute, really succeeded in getting into the middle of
the Boulevard, and he refused to be ejected on the ground that he was
chief of the street-cleaning department. This department, by the way,
was given a remarkable illustration of the fine public spirit of the
citizens, for by three o'clock in the afternoon two hundred thousand
applications had been received from those eager to act as volunteer
street-cleaners and help scour the Boulevard after the passage of the
great parade.