_“Billy” Sunday’s Version._
Belshazzar’s feast was no common beer, pretzel and dill pickle blow-out,
but the real goods. Nude and lewd women wormed and wriggled their way
through the banquet hall. The bunch began to get soused and the revelry
increased.
Then came the obscene song, the drunken hiccough, the slavering lip, and
the guffaw of idiotic laugh bursting from the lips of princes, flushed,
reeling and bloodshot, while mingled with it all were the hurrahs for
great Belshazzar.
Then from the atmosphere flashed an armless hand which wrote upon the
frieze in words that blazed like fire and glistened like gold. Terror
froze Belshazzar to the very soul. His countenance changed, his thoughts
troubled him so that the joints of his loins were loose and his knees
smote together. I tell you old “Bel” was about all in.
In a few moments he hoarsely cried: “Bring in the astrologers, the
Chaldeans and the soothsayers (we’d call ’em mediums today). And in came
the Magi and when they couldn’t decipher the heiroglyphics, Belshazzar
cried, “Give ’em the hook.”
Then he sent for Daniel on his mother’s advice.
I can see him say: “Put her there Dan,” as he slapped his hand in
Daniel’s, and say, “My maw’s be tellin’ me about you. This bunch has got
on my nerves. The four-flushers have been feedin’ and fattenin’ around
here and can’t read that writing. If you’ll do it I’ll give you a chain
and a ring of gold.”
But Daniel said: “Nothin’ doing on the chain and ring proposition, Bel.”
Then Daniel read the writing. “MENE, MENE, TEKEL, UPHARSIN.”