"Oh," exclaimed the little Sultan in surprise, "you

haven't heard! I see--you've only just arrived. Why,

to-day is the last day. After to-day it is all over."

"Last day for what?" I asked.

"For intervention. For the intervention of the United

States. The only thing that can save us. It was to have

come to-day, by the end of this full moon--our astrologers

had predicted it--Smith Pasha, Minister under Heaven of

the United States, had promised, if it came, to send it

to us at the earliest moment. How do they send it, do

you know, in a box, or in paper?"

"Stop," I said as my ear caught the sound of footsteps.

"There's some one coming now."

The sound of slippered feet was distinctly heard on the

stones in the outer corridor.

Abdul listened intently a moment.

"I know his slippers," he said.

"Who is it?"

"It is my chief secretary, Toomuch Koffi. Yes, here he

comes."

As the Sultan spoke, the doors swung open and there

entered an aged Turk, in a flowing gown and coloured

turban, with a melancholy yellow face, and a long white

beard that swept to his girdle.

"Who do you say he is?" I whispered to Abdul.

"My chief secretary," he whispered back. "Toomuch Koffi."

"He looks like it," I murmured.

Meantime, Toomuch Koffi had advanced across the broad

flagstones of the hall where we were sitting. With hands

lifted he salaamed four times--east, west, north, and

south.

"What does that mean?" I whispered.

"It means," said the Sultan, with visible agitation,

"that he has a communication of the greatest importance

and urgency, which will not brook a moment's delay."

"Well, then, why doesn't he get a move on?" I whispered.

"Hush," said Abdul.

Toomuch Koffi now straightened himself from his last

salaam and spoke.

"Allah is great!" he said.

"And Mohammed is his prophet," rejoined the Sultan.

"Allah protect you! And make your face shine," said

Toomuch.

"Allah lengthen your beard," said the Sultan, and he

added aside to me in English, which Toomuch Koffi evidently

did not understand, "I'm all eagerness to know what it

is--it's something big, for sure." The little man was

quite quivering with excitement as he spoke. "Do you know

what I think it is? I think it must be the American

Intervention. The United States is going to intervene.

Eh? What? Don't you think so?"

"Then hurry him up," I urged.

"I can't," said Abdul. "It is impossible in Turkey to do

business like that. He must have some coffee first and

then he must pray and then there must be an interchange

of presents."

I groaned, for I was getting as impatient as Abdul himself.

"Do you not do public business like that in Canada?" the

Sultan continued.

"We used to. But we have got over it," I said.

Meanwhile a slippered attendant had entered and placed

a cushion for the secretary, and in front of it a little

Persian stool on which he put a quaint cup filled with

coffee black as ink.

A similar cup was placed before the Sultan.

"Drink!" said Abdul.

"Not first, until the lips of the Commander of the

Faithful--"

"He means 'after you,'" I said. "Hurry up, Abdul."

Abdul took a sip.

"Allah is good," he said.

"And all things are of Allah," rejoined Toomuch.

Abdul unpinned a glittering jewel from his robe and threw

it to the feet of Toomuch.

"Take this poor bauble," he said.

Toomuch Koffi in return took from his wrist a solid bangle

of beaten gold.

"Accept this mean gift from your humble servant," he said.

"Right!" said Abdul, speaking in a changed voice as the

ceremonies ended. "Now, then, Toomuch, what is it? Hurry

up. Be quick. What is the matter?"

Toomuch rose to his feet, lifted his hands high in the

air with the palms facing the Sultan.

"One is without," he said.

"Without what?" I asked eagerly of the Sultan.

"Without--outside. Don't you understand Turkish? What

you call in English--a gentleman to see me."

"And did he make all that fuss and delay over that?" I

asked in disgust. "Why with us in Canada, at one of the

public departments of Ottawa, all that one would have to

do would be simply to send in a card, get it certified,

then simply wait in an anteroom, simply read a newspaper,

send in another card, wait a little, then simply send in

a third card, and then simply--"

"Pshaw!" said Abdul. "The cards might be poisoned. Our

system is best. Speak on, Toomuch. Who is without? Is it

perchance a messenger from Smith Pasha, Minister under

Heaven of the United States?"

"Alas, no!" said Toomuch. "It is HE. It is THE LARGE ONE!"

As he spoke he rolled his eyes upward with a gesture of

despair.

"HE!" cried Abdul, and a look of terror convulsed his

face. "The Large One! Shut him out! Call the Chief Eunuch

and the Major Domo of the Harem! Let him not in!"

"Alas," said Toomuch, "he threw them out of the window.

Lo! he is here, he enters."

As the secretary spoke, a double door at the end of the

hall swung noisily open, at the blow of an imperious

fist, and with a rattle of arms and accoutrements a man

of gigantic stature, wearing full military uniform and

a spiked helmet, strode into the room.

As he entered, an attendant who accompanied him, also in

a uniform and a spiked helmet, called in a loud strident

voice that resounded to the arches of the hall:

"His High Excellenz Feld Marechal von der Doppelbauch,

Spezial Representant of His Majestat William II, Deutscher

Kaiser and King of England!"

Abdul collapsed into a little heap. His fez fell over

his face. Toomuch Koffi had slunk into a corner.

Von der Doppelbauch strode noisily forward and came to

a stand in front of Abdul with a click and rattle after

the Prussian fashion.

"Majestat," he said in a deep, thunderous voice, "I greet

you. I bow low before you. Salaam! I kiss the floor at

your feet."

But in reality he did nothing of the sort. He stood to

the full height of his six feet six and glowered about him.

"Salaam!" said Abdul, in a feeble voice.

"But who is this?" added the Field-Marshal, looking

angrily at me.

My costume, or rather my disguise, for, as I have said,

I was wearing a poke bonnet with a plain black dress,

seemed to puzzle him.

"My new governess," said Abdul. "She came this morning.

She is a professor--"

"Bah!" said the Field-Marshal, "a _woman_ a professor! Bah!"

"No, no," said Abdul in protest, and it seemed decent of

the little creature to stick up for me. "She's all right,

she is interesting and knows a great deal. She's from

Canada!"

"What!" exclaimed Von der Doppelbauch. "From Canada!

But stop! It seems to me that Canada is a country that

we are at war with. Let me think, Canada? I must look at

my list"--he pulled out a little set of tablets as he

spoke--"let me see, Britain, Great Britain, British North

America, British Guiana, British Nigeria--ha! of course,

under K--Kandahar, Korfu. No, I don't seem to see it

--Fritz," he called to the aide-de-camp who had announced

him, "telegraph at once to the Topographical Staff at

Berlin and find out if we are at war with Canada. If we

are"--he pointed at me--"throw her into the Bosphorus.

If we are not, treat her with every consideration, with

every distinguished consideration. But see that she

doesn't get away. Keep her tight, till we _are_ at war

with Canada, as no doubt we shall be, wherever it is,

and _then_ throw her into the Bosphorus."

The aide clicked his heels and withdrew.

"And now, your majesty," continued the Field-Marshal,

turning abruptly to the Sultan, "I bring you good news."

"More good news," groaned Abdul miserably, winding his

clasped fingers to and fro. "Alas, good news again!"

"First," said Von der Doppelbauch, "the Kaiser has raised

you to the order of the Black Dock. Here is your feather."

"Another feather," moaned Abdul. "Here, Toomuch, take it

and put it among the feathers!"

"Secondly," went on the Field-Marshal, checking off his

items as he spoke, "your contribution, your personal

contribution to His Majesty's Twenty-third Imperial Loan,

is accepted."

"I didn't make any!" sobbed Abdul.

"No difference," said Von der Doppelbauch. "It is accepted

anyway. The telegram has just arrived accepting all your

money. My assistants are packing it up outside."

Abdul collapsed still further into his cushions.

"Third, and this will rejoice your Majesty's heart: Your

troops are again victorious!"

"Victorious!" moaned Abdul. "Victorious again! I knew

they would be! I suppose they are all dead as usual?"

"They are," said the Marshal. "Their souls," he added

reverently, with a military salute, "are in Heaven!"

"No, no," gasped Abdul, "not in Heaven! don't say that!

Not in Heaven! Say that they are in Nishvana, our Turkish

paradise."

"I am sorry," said the Field-Marshal gravely. "This is

a Christian war. The Kaiser has insisted on their going

to Heaven."

The Sultan bowed his head.

"Ishmillah!" he murmured. "It is the will of Allah."

"But they did not die without glory," went on the

Field-Marshal. "Their victory was complete. Set it out

to yourself," and here his eyes glittered with soldierly

passion. "There stood your troops--ten thousand! In front

of them the Russians--a hundred thousand. What did your

men do? Did they pause? No, they charged!"

"They _charged!_" cried the Sultan in misery. "Don't say

that! Have they charged again! Just Allah!" he added,

turning to Toomuch. "They have charged again! And we must

pay, we shall have to pay--we always do when they charge.

Alas, alas, they have charged again. Everything is

charged!"

"But how nobly," rejoined the Prussian. "Imagine it to

yourself! Here, beside this stool, let us say, were your

men. There, across the cushion, were the Russians. All

the ground between was mined. We knew it. Our soldiers

knew it. Even our staff knew it. Even Prinz Tattelwitz

Halfstuff, our commander, knew it. But your soldiers did

not. What did our Prinz do? The Prinz called for volunteers

to charge over the ground. There was a great shout--from

our men, our German regiments. He called again. There

was another shout. He called still again. There was a

third shout. Think of it! And again Prinz Halfstuff called

and again they shouted."

"Who shouted?" asked the Sultan gloomily.

"Our men, our Germans."

"Did my Turks shout?" asked Abdul.

"They did not. They were too busy tightening their belts

and fixing their bayonets. But our generous fellows

shouted for them. Then Prinz Halfstuff called out, 'The

place of honour is for our Turkish brothers. Let them

charge!' And all our men shouted again."

"And they charged?"

"They did--and were all gloriously blown up. A magnificent

victory. The blowing up of the mines blocked all the

ground, checked the Russians and enabled our men, by a

prearranged rush, to advance backwards, taking up a new

strategic--"

"Yes, yes," said Abdul, "I know--I have read of it, alas,

only too often! And they are dead! Toomuch," he added

quietly, drawing a little pouch from his girdle, "take

this pouch of rubies and give them to the wives of the

dead general of our division--one to each. He had, I

think, but seventeen. His walk was quiet. Allah give him

peace."

"Stop," said Von der Doppelbauch. "I will take the rubies.

I myself will charge myself with the task and will myself

see that I do it myself. Give me them."

"Be it so, Toomuch," assented the Sultan humbly. "Give

them to him."

"And now," continued the Field-Marshal, "there is yet

one other thing further still more." He drew a roll of

paper from his pocket. "Toomuch," he said, "bring me

yonder little table, with ink, quills and sand. I have

here a manifesto for His Majesty to sign."

"No, no," cried Abdul in renewed alarm. "Not another

manifesto. Not that! I signed one only last week."

"This is a new one," said the Field-Marshal, as he lifted

the table that Toomuch had brought into place in front

of the Sultan, and spread out the papers on it. "This is

a better one. This is the best one yet."

"What does it say?" said Abdul, peering at it miserably,

"I can't read it. It's not in Turkish."

"It is your last word of proud defiance to all your

enemies," said the Marshal.

"No, no," whined Abdul. "Not defiance; they might not

understand."

"Here you declare," went on the Field-Marshal, with his

big finger on the text, "your irrevocable purpose. You

swear that rather than submit you will hurl yourself into

the Bosphorus."

"Where does it say that?" screamed Abdul.

"Here beside my thumb."

"I can't do it, I can't do it," moaned the little Sultan.

"More than that further," went on the Prussian quite

undisturbed, "you state hereby your fixed resolve, rather

than give in, to cast yourself from the highest pinnacle

of the topmost minaret of this palace."

"Oh, not the highest; don't make it the highest," moaned

Abdul.

"Your purpose is fixed. Nothing can alter it. Unless the

Allied Powers withdraw from their advance on Constantinople

you swear that within one hour you will fill your mouth

with mud and burn yourself alive."

"Just Allah!" cried the Sultan. "Does it say all that?"

"All that," said Von der Doppelbauch. "All that within

an hour. It is a splendid defiance. The Kaiser himself

has seen it and admired it. 'These,' he said, 'are the

words of a man!'"

"Did he say that?" said Abdul, evidently flattered. "And

is he too about to hurl himself off his minaret?"

"For the moment, no," replied Von der Doppelbauch sternly.

"Well, well," said Abdul, and to my surprise he began

picking up the pen and making ready. "I suppose if I must

sign it, I must." Then he marked the paper and sprinkled

it with sand. "For one hour? Well, well," he murmured.

"Von der Doppelbauch Pasha," he added with dignity, "you

are permitted to withdraw. Commend me to your Imperial

Master, my brother. Tell him that, when I am gone, he

may have Constantinople, provided only"--and a certain

slyness appeared in the Sultan's eye--"that he can get

it. Farewell."

The Field-Marshal, majestic as ever, gathered up the

manifesto, clicked his heels together and withdrew.

As the door closed behind him, I had expected the little

Sultan to fall into hopeless collapse.

Not at all. On the contrary, a look of peculiar cheerfulness

spread over his features.

He refilled his narghileh and began quietly smoking at it.

"Toomuch," he said, quite cheerfully, "I see there is no

hope."

"Alas!" said the secretary.

"I have now," went on the Sultan, "apparently but sixty

minutes in front of me. I had hoped that the intervention

of the United States might have saved me. It has not.

Instead of it, I meet my fate. Well, well, it is Kismet.

I bow to it."

He smoked away quite cheerfully.

Presently he paused.

"Toomuch," he said, "kindly go and fetch me a sharp

knife, double-edged if possible, but sharp, and a stout

bowstring."

Up to this time I had remained a mere spectator of what

had happened. But now I feared that I was on the brink

of witnessing an awful tragedy.

"Good heavens, Abdul," I said, "what are you going to do?"

"Do? Why kill myself, of course," the Sultan answered,

pausing for a moment in an interval of his cheerful

smoking. "What else should I do? What else is there to

do? I shall first stab myself in the stomach and then

throttle myself with the bowstring. In half an hour I

shall be in paradise. Toomuch, summon hither from the

inner harem Fatima and Falloola; they shall sit beside

me and sing to me at the last hour, for I love them well,

and later they too shall voyage with me to paradise. See

to it that they are both thrown a little later into the

Bosphorus, for my heart yearns towards the two of them,"

and he added thoughtfully, "especially perhaps towards

Fatima, but I have never quite made up my mind."

The Sultan sat back with a little gurgle of contentment,

the rose water bubbling soothingly in the bowl of his pipe.

Then he turned to his secretary again.

"Toomuch," he said, "you will at the same time send a

bowstring to Codfish Pasha, my Chief of War. It is our

sign, you know," he added in explanation to me--"it gives

Codfish leave to kill himself. And, Toomuch, send a

bowstring also to Beefhash Pasha, my Vizier--good fellow,

he will expect it--and to Macpherson Effendi, my financial

adviser. Let them all have bowstrings."

"Stop, stop," I pleaded. "I don't understand."

"Why surely," said the little man, in evident astonishment,

"it is plain enough. What would you do in Canada? When

your ministers--as I think you call them--fail and no

longer enjoy your support, do you not send them bowstrings?"

"Never," I said. "They go out of office, but--"

"And they do not disembowel themselves on their retirement?

Have they not that privilege?"

"Never!" I said. "What an idea!"

"The ways of the infidel." said the little Sultan, calmly

resuming his pipe, "are beyond the compass of the true

intelligence of the Faithful. Yet I thought it was so

even as here. I had read in your newspapers that after

your last election your ministers were buried alive--buried

under a landslide, was it not? We thought it--here in

Turkey--a noble fate for them."

"They crawled out," I said.

"Ishmillah!" ejaculated Abdul. "But go, Toomuch. And

listen, thou also--for in spite of all thou hast served

me well--shalt have a bowstring."

"Oh, master, master," cried Toomuch, falling on his knees

in gratitude and clutching the sole of Abdul's slipper.

"It is too kind!"

"Nay, nay," said the Sultan. "Thou hast deserved it. And

I will go further. This stranger, too, my governess, this

professor, bring also for the professor a bowstring, and

a two-bladed knife! All Canada shall rejoice to hear of

it. The students shall leap up like young lambs at the

honour that will be done. Bring the knife, Toomuch; bring

the knife!"

"Abdul," I said, "Abdul, this is too much. I refuse. I

am not fit. The honour is too great."

"Not so," said Abdul. "I am still Sultan. I insist upon

it. For, listen, I have long penetrated your disguise

and your kind design. I saw it from the first. You knew

all and came to die with me. It was kindly meant. But

you shall die no common death; yours shall be the honour

of the double knife--let it be extra sharp, Toomuch--and

the bowstring."

"Abdul," I urged, "it cannot be. You forget. I have an

appointment to be thrown into the Bosphorus."

"The death of a dog! Never!" cried Abdul. "My will is

still law. Toomuch, kill him on the spot. Hit him with

the stool, throw the coffee at him--"

But at this moment there were heard loud cries and shouting

as in tones of great gladness, in the outer hall of the

palace, doors swinging to and fro and the sound of many

running feet. One heard above all the call, "It has

come! It has come!"

The Sultan looked up quickly.

"Toomuch," he said eagerly and anxiously, "quick, see

what it is. Hurry! hurry! Haste! Do not stay on ceremony.

Drink a cup of coffee, give me five cents--fifty cents,

anything--and take leave and see what it is."

But before Toomuch could reply, a turbaned attendant had

already burst in through the door unannounced and thrown

himself at Abdul's feet.

"Master! Master!" he cried. "It is here. It has come."

As he spoke he held out in one hand a huge envelope,

heavy with seals. I could detect in great letters stamped

across it the words, WASHINGTON and OFFICE OF THE SECRETARY

OF STATE.

Abdul seized and opened the envelope with trembling hands.

"It is it!" he cried. "It is sent by Smith Pasha, Minister

under the Peace of Heaven of the United States. It is

the Intervention. I am saved."

Then there was silence among us, breathless and anxious.

Abdul glanced down the missive, reading it in silence to

himself.

"Oh noble," he murmured. "Oh generous! It is too much.

Too splendid a lot!"

"What does it say?"

"Look," said the Sultan. "The United States has used its

good offices. It has intervened! All is settled. My fate

is secure."

"Yes, yes," I said, "but what is it?"

"Is it believable?" exclaimed Abdul. "It appears that

none of the belligerents cared about _me_ at all. None

had designs upon me. The war was _not_ made, as we

understood, Toomuch, as an attempt to seize my person.

All they wanted was Constantinople. Not _me_ at all!"

"Powerful Allah!" murmured Toomuch. "Why was it not so

said?"

"For me," said the Sultan, still consulting the letter,

"great honours are prepared! I am to leave Constantinople

--that is the sole condition. It shall then belong to

whoever can get it. Nothing could be fairer. It always

has. I am to have a safe conduct--is it not noble?--to

the United States. No one is to attempt to poison me--is

it not generosity itself?--neither on land nor even--mark

this especially, Toomuch--on board ship. Nor is anyone

to throw me overboard or otherwise transport me to

paradise."

"It passes belief!" murmured Toomuch Koffi. "Allah is

indeed good."

"In the United States itself," went on Abdul, "or, I

should say, themselves, Toomuch, for are they not

innumerable? I am to have a position of the highest trust,

power and responsibility."

"Is it really possible?" I said, greatly surprised.

"It is so written," said the Sultan. "I am to be placed

at the head, as the sole head or sovereign of--how is it

written?--a _Turkish Bath Establishment_ in New York.

There I am to enjoy the same freedom and to exercise just

as much--it is so written--exactly as much political

power as I do here. Is it not glorious?"

"Allah! Illallah!" cried the secretary.

"You, Toomuch, shall come with me, for there is a post

of great importance placed at my disposal--so it is

written--under the title of Rubber Down. Toomuch, let

our preparations be made at once. Notify Fatima and

Falloola. Those two alone shall go, for it is a Christian

country and I bow to its prejudices. Two, I understand,

is the limit. But we must leave at once."

The Sultan paused a moment and then looked at me.

"And our good friend here," he added, "we must leave to

get out of this Yildiz Kiosk by whatsoever magic means

he came into it."

Which I did.

And I am assured, by those who know, that the intervention

was made good and that Abdul and Toomuch may be seen to

this day, or to any other day, moving to and fro in their

slippers and turbans in their Turkish Bath Emporium at

the corner of Broadway and--

But stop; that would be saying too much, especially as

Fatima and Falloola occupy the upstairs.

And it is said that Abdul has developed a very special

talent for heating up the temperature for his Christian

customers.

Moreover, it is the general opinion that, whether or not

the Kaiser and such people will get their deserts, Abdul

Aziz has his.

XIII. In Merry Mexico

I stood upon the platform of the little deserted railway

station of the frontier and looked around at the wide

prospect. "So this," I said to myself, "is Mexico!"

About me was the great plain rolling away to the Sierras

in the background. The railroad track traversed it in a

thin line. There were no trees--only here and there a

clump of cactus or chaparral, a tuft of dog-grass or a

few patches of dogwood. At intervals in the distance one

could see a hacienda standing in majestic solitude in a

cup of the hills. In the blue sky floated little banderillos

of white cloud, while a graceful hidalgo appeared poised

on a crag on one leg with folded wings, or floated lazily

in the sky on one wing with folded legs.

There was a drowsy buzzing of cicadas half asleep in the

cactus cups, and, from some hidden depth of the hills

far in the distance, the tinkling of a mule bell.

I had seen it all so often in moving pictures that I

recognised the scene at once.

"So this is Mexico?" I repeated.

The station building beside me was little more than a

wooden shack. Its door was closed. There was a sort of

ticket wicket opening at the side, but it too was closed.

But as I spoke thus aloud, the wicket opened. There

appeared in it the head and shoulders of a little wizened

man, swarthy and with bright eyes and pearly teeth.

He wore a black velvet suit with yellow facings, and a

tall straw hat running to a point. I seemed to have seen

him a hundred times in comic opera.

"Can you tell me when the next train--?" I began.

The little man made a gesture of Spanish politeness.

"Welcome to Mexico!" he said.

"Could you tell me--?" I continued.

"Welcome to our sunny Mexico!" he repeated--"our beautiful,

glorious Mexico. Her heart throbs at the sight of you."

"Would you mind--?" I began again.

"Our beautiful Mexico, torn and distracted as she is,

greets you. In the name of the _de facto_ government,

thrice welcome. _Su casa!_" he added with a graceful

gesture indicating the interior of his little shack.

"Come in and smoke cigarettes and sleep. _Su casa!_ You

are capable of Spanish, is it not?"

"No," I said, "it is not. But I wanted to know when the

next train for the interior--"

"Ah!" he rejoined more briskly. "You address me as a

servant of the _de facto_ government. _Momentino!_ One

moment!"

He shut the wicket and was gone a long time. I thought

he had fallen asleep.

But he reappeared. He had a bundle of what looked like

railway time tables, very ancient and worn, in his hand.

"Did you say," he questioned, "the _in_terior or the

_ex_terior?"

"The interior, please."

"Ah, good, excellent--for the interior." The little

Mexican retreated into his shack and I could hear him

murmuring, "For the interior, excellent," as he moved to

and fro.

Presently he reappeared, a look of deep sorrow on his

face.

"Alas," he said, shrugging his shoulders, "I am _desolado!_

It has gone! The next train has gone!"

"Gone! When?"

"Alas, who can tell? Yesterday, last month? But it has

gone."

"And when will there be another one?" I asked.

"Ha!" he said, resuming a brisk official manner. "I

understand. Having missed the next, you propose to take

another one. Excellent! What business enterprise you

foreigners have! You miss your train! What do you do? Do

you abandon your journey? No. Do you sit down--do you

weep? No. Do you lose time? You do not."

"Excuse me," I said, "but when is there another train?"

"That must depend," said the little official, and as he

spoke he emerged from his house and stood beside me on

the platform fumbling among his railway guides. "The

first question is, do you propose to take a _de facto_

train or a _de jure_ train?"

"When do they go?" I asked.

"There is a _de jure_ train," continued the stationmaster,

peering into his papers, "at two p.m. A very good

train--sleepers and diners--one at four, a through

train--sleepers, observation car, dining car, corridor

compartments--that also is a _de jure_ train--"

"But what is the difference between the _de jure_ and

the _de facto?_"

"It's a distinction we generally make in Mexico. The _de

jure_ trains are those that ought to go; that is, in

theory, they go. The _de facto_ trains are those that

actually do go. It is a distinction clearly established

in our correspondence with Huedro Huilson."

"Do you mean Woodrow Wilson?"

"Yes, Huedro Huilson, president--_de jure_--of the United

States."

"Oh," I said. "Now I understand. And when will there be

a _de facto_ train?"

"At any moment you like," said the little official with

a bow.

"But I don't see--"

"Pardon me, I have one here behind the shed on that side

track. Excuse me one moment and I will bring it."

He disappeared and I presently saw him energetically

pushing out from behind the shed a little railroad lorry

or hand truck.

"Now then," he said as he shoved his little car on to

the main track, "this is the train. Seat yourself. I

myself will take you."

"And how much shall I pay? What is the fare to the

interior?" I questioned.

The little man waved the idea aside with a polite gesture.

"The fare," he said, "let us not speak of it. Let us

forget it How much money have you?"

"I have here," I said, taking out a roll of bills, "fifty

dollars--"

"And that is _all_ you have?"

"Yes."

"Then let _that_ be your fare! Why should I ask more?

Were I an American, I might; but in our Mexico, no. What

you have we take; beyond that we ask nothing. Let us

forget it. Good! And, now, would you prefer to travel

first, second, or third class?"

"First class please," I said.

"Very good. Let it be so." Here the little man took from

his pocket a red label marked FIRST CLASS and tied it on

the edge of the hand car. "It is more comfortable," he

said. "Now seat yourself, seize hold of these two handles

in front of you. Move them back and forward, thus. Beyond

that you need do nothing. The working of the car, other

than the mere shoving of the handles, shall be my task.

Consider yourself, in fact, _senor_, as my guest."

We took our places. I applied myself, as directed, to

the handles and the little car moved forward across the

plain.

"A glorious prospect," I said, as I gazed at the broad

panorama.

"_Magnifico!_ Is it not?" said my companion. "Alas, my

poor Mexico! She want nothing but water to make her the

most fertile country of the globe! Water and soil, those

only, and she would excel all others. Give her but water,

soil, light, heat, capital and labour, and what could

she not be! And what do we see? Distraction, revolution,

destruction--pardon me, will you please stop the car a

moment? I wish to tear up a little of the track behind us."

I did as directed. My companion descended, and with a

little bar that he took from beneath the car unloosed a

few of the rails of the light track and laid them beside

the road.

"It is our custom," he explained, as he climbed on board

again. "We Mexicans, when we move to and fro, always

tear up the track behind us. But what was I saying? Ah,

yes--destruction, desolation, alas, our Mexico!"

He looked sadly up at the sky.

"You speak," I said, "like a patriot. May I ask your

name?"

"My name is Raymon," he answered, with a bow, "Raymon

Domenico y Miraflores de las Gracias."

"And may I call you simply Raymon?"

"I shall be delirious with pleasure if you will do so,"

he answered, "and dare I ask you, in return, your business

in our beautiful country?"

The car, as we were speaking, had entered upon a long

gentle down-grade across the plain, so that it ran without

great effort on my part.

"Certainly," I said. "I'm going into the interior to see

General Villa!"

At the shock of the name, Raymon nearly fell off the car.

"Villa! General Francesco Villa! It is not possible!"

The little man was shivering with evident fear.

"See him! See Villa! Not possible. Let me show you a

picture of him instead? But approach him--it is not

possible. He shoots everybody at sight!"

"That's all right," I said. "I have a written safe conduct

that protects me."

"From whom?"

"Here," I said, "look at them--I have two."

Raymon took the documents I gave him and read aloud:

"'The bearer is on an important mission connected with

American rights in Mexico. If anyone shoots him he will

be held to a strict accountability. W. W.' Ah! Excellent!

He will be compelled to send in an itemised account.

Excellent! And this other, let me see. 'If anybody

interferes with the bearer, I will knock his face in. T.

R.' Admirable. This is, if anything, better than the

other for use in our country. It appeals to our quick

Mexican natures. It is, as we say, _simpatico_. It touches

us."

"It is meant to," I said.

"And may I ask," said Raymon, "the nature of your business

with Villa?"

"We are old friends," I answered. "I used to know him

years ago when he kept a Mexican cigar store in Buffalo.

It occurred to me that I might be able to help the cause

of peaceful intervention. I have already had a certain

experience in Turkey. I am commissioned to make General

Villa an offer."

"I see," said Raymon. "In that case, if we are to find

Villa let us make all haste forward. And first we must

direct ourselves yonder"--he pointed in a vague way

towards the mountains--"where we must presently leave

our car and go on foot, to the camp of General Carranza."

"Carranza!" I exclaimed. "But he is fighting Villa!"

"Exactly. It is _possible_--not certain--but possible,

that he knows where Villa is. In our Mexico when two of

our generalistas are fighting in the mountains, they keep

coming across one another. It is hard to avoid it."

"Good," I said. "Let us go forward."

It was two days later that we reached Carranza's camp in

the mountains.

We found him just at dusk seated at a little table beneath

a tree.

His followers were all about, picketing their horses and

lighting fires.

The General, buried in a book before him, noticed neither

the movements of his own men nor our approach.

I must say that I was surprised beyond measure at his

appearance.

The popular idea of General Carranza as a rude bandit

chief is entirely erroneous.

I saw before me a quiet, scholarly-looking man, bearing

every mark of culture and refinement. His head was bowed

over the book in front of him, which I noticed with

astonishment and admiration was _Todhunter's Algebra_.

Close at his hand I observed a work on _Decimal Fractions_,

while, from time to time, I saw the General lift his eyes

and glance keenly at a multiplication table that hung on

a bough beside him.

"You must wait a few moments," said an aide-de-camp, who

stood beside us. "The General is at work on a simultaneous

equation!"

"Is it possible?" I said in astonishment.

The aide-de-camp smiled.

"Soldiering to-day, my dear Senor," he said, "is an exact

science. On this equation will depend our entire food

supply for the next week."

"When will he get it done?" I asked anxiously.

"Simultaneously," said the aide-de-camp.

The General looked up at this moment and saw us.

"Well?" he asked.

"Your Excellency," said the aide-de-camp, "there is a

stranger here on a visit of investigation to Mexico."

"Shoot him!" said the General, and turned quickly to his

work.

The aide-de-camp saluted.

"When?" he asked.

"As soon as he likes," said the General.

"You are fortunate, indeed," said the aide-de-camp, in

a tone of animation, as he led me away, still accompanied

by Raymon. "You might have been kept waiting round for

days. Let us get ready at once. You would like to be

shot, would you not, smoking a cigarette, and standing

beside your grave? Luckily, we have one ready. Now, if

you will wait a moment, I will bring the photographer

and his machine. There is still light enough, I think.

What would you like it called? _The Fate of a Spy?_ That's

good, isn't it? Our syndicate can always work up that

into a two-reel film. All the rest of it--the camp, the

mountains, the general, the funeral and so on--we can do

to-morrow without you."

He was all eagerness as he spoke.

"One moment," I interrupted. "I am sure there is some

mistake. I only wished to present certain papers and

get a safe conduct from the General to go and see Villa."

The aide-de-camp stopped abruptly.

"Ah!" he said. "You are not here for a picture. A thousand

pardons. Give me your papers. One moment--I will return

to the General and explain."

He vanished, and Raymon and I waited in the growing dusk.

"No doubt the General supposed," explained Raymon, as he

lighted a cigarette, "that you were here for _las machinas_,

the moving pictures."

In a few minutes the aide-de-camp returned.

"Come," he said, "the General will see you now."

We returned to where we had left Carranza.

The General rose to meet me with outstretched hand and

with a gesture of simple cordiality.

"You must pardon my error," he said.

"Not at all," I said.

"It appears you do not desire to be shot."

"Not at present."

"Later, perhaps," said the General. "On your return, no

doubt, provided," he added with grave courtesy that sat

well on him, "that you do return. My aide-de-camp shall

make a note of it. But at present you wish to be guided

to Francesco Villa?"

"If it is possible."

"Quite easy. He is at present near here, in fact much

nearer than he has any right to be." The General frowned.

"We found this spot first. The light is excellent and

the mountains, as you have seen, are wonderful for our

pictures. This is, by every rule of decency, _our_ scenery.

Villa has no right to it. This is _our_ Revolution"--the

General spoke with rising animation--"not his. When you

see the fellow, tell him from me--or tell his manager--that

he must either move his revolution further away or, by

heaven, I'll--I'll use force against him. But stop," he

checked himself. "You wish to see Villa. Good. You have

only to follow the straight track over the mountain there.

He is just beyond, at the little village in the hollow,

El Corazon de las Quertas."

The General shook hands and seated himself again at his

work. The interview was at an end. We withdrew.

The next morning we followed without difficulty the path

indicated. A few hours' walk over the mountain pass

brought us to a little straggling village of adobe houses,

sleeping drowsily in the sun.

There were but few signs of life in its one street--a

mule here and there tethered in the sun, and one or two

Mexicans drowsily smoking in the shade.

One building only, evidently newly made, and of lumber,

had a decidedly American appearance. Its doorway bore

the sign GENERAL OFFICES OF THE COMPANY, and under it

the notice KEEP OUT, while on one of its windows was

painted GENERAL MANAGER and below it the legend NO

ADMISSION, and on the other, SECRETARY'S OFFICE: GO AWAY.

We therefore entered at once.

"General Francesco Villa?" said a clerk, evidently

American. "Yes, he's here all right. At least, this is

the office."

"And where is the General?" I asked.

The clerk turned to an assistant at a desk in a corner

of the room.

"Where's Frank working this morning?" he asked.

"Over down in the gulch," said the other, turning round

for a moment. "There's an attack on American cavalry this

morning."

"Oh, yes, I forgot," said the chief clerk. "I thought it

was the Indian Massacre, but I guess that's for to-morrow.

Go straight to the end of the street and turn left about

half a mile and you'll find the boys down there."

We thanked him and withdrew.

We passed across the open plaza, and went down a narrow

side road, bordered here and there with adobe houses,

and so out into the open country. Here the hills rose

again and the road that we followed wound sharply round

a turn into a deep gorge, bordered with rocks and sage

brush. We had no sooner turned the curve of the road than

we came upon a scene of great activity. Men in Mexican

costume were running to and fro apparently arranging a

sort of barricade at the side of the road. Others seemed

to be climbing the rocks on the further side of the gorge,

as if seeking points of advantage. I noticed that all

were armed with rifles and machetes and presented a

formidable appearance. Of Villa himself I could see

nothing. But there was a grim reality about the glittering

knives, the rifles and the maxim guns that I saw concealed

in the sage brush beside the road.

"What is it?" I asked of a man who was standing idle,

watching the scene from the same side of the road as

ourselves.

"Attack of American cavalry," he said nonchalantly.

"Here!" I gasped.

"Yep, in about ten minutes: soon as they are ready."

"Where's Villa?"

"It's him they're attacking. They chase him here, see!

This is an ambush. Villa rounds on them right here, and

they fight to a finish!"

"Great heavens!" I exclaimed. "How do you know that?"

"Know it? Why because I _seen_ it. Ain't they been trying

it out for three days? Why, I'd be in it myself only I'm

off work. Got a sore toe yesterday--horse stepped on it."

All this was, of course, quite unintelligible to me.

"But it's right here where they're going to fight?" I

asked.

"Sure," said the American, as he moved carelessly aside,

"as soon as the boss gets it all ready."

I noticed for the first time a heavy-looking man in an

American tweed suit and a white plug hat, moving to and

fro and calling out directions with an air of authority.

"Here!" he shouted, "what in h--l are you doing with that

machine gun? You've got it clean out of focus. Here,

Jose, come in closer--that's right. Steady there now,

and don't forget, at the second whistle you and Pete are

dead. Here, you, Pete, how in thunder do you think you

can die there? You're all out of the picture and hidden

by that there sage brush. That's no place to die. And,

boys, remember one thing, now, _die slow_. Ed"--he turned

and called apparently to some one invisible behind the

rocks--"when them two boys is killed, turn her round on

them, slew her round good and get them centre focus. Now

then, are you all set? Ready?"

At this moment the speaker turned and saw Raymon and

myself.

"Here, youse," he shouted, "get further back, you're in

the picture. Or, say, no, stay right where you are.

You," he said, pointing to me, "stay right where you are

and I'll give you a dollar to just hold that horror; you

understand, just keep on registering it. Don't do another

thing, just register that face."

His words were meaningless to me. I had never known before

that it was possible to make money by merely registering

my face.

"No, no," cried out Raymon, "my friend here is not wanting

work. He has a message, a message of great importance

for General Villa."

"Well," called back the boss, "he'll have to wait. We

can't stop now. All ready, boys? One--two--now!"

And with that he put a whistle to his lips and blew a

long shrill blast.

Then in a moment the whole scene was transformed. Rifle

shots rang out from every crag and bush that bordered

the gully.

A wild scamper of horses' hoofs was heard and in a moment

there came tearing down the road a whole troop of mounted

Mexicans, evidently in flight, for they turned and fired

from their saddles as they rode. The horses that carried

them were wild with excitement and flecked with foam.

The Mexican cavalry men shouted and yelled, brandishing

their machetes and firing their revolvers. Here and there

a horse and rider fell to the ground in a great whirl of

sand and dust. In the thick of the press, a leader of

ferocious aspect, mounted upon a gigantic black horse,

waved his sombrero about his head.

"Villa--it is Villa!" cried Raymon, tense with excitement.

"Is he not _magnifico?_ But look! Look--the _Americanos!_

They are coming!"

It was a glorious sight to see them as they rode madly

on the heels of the Mexicans--a whole company of American

cavalry, their horses shoulder to shoulder, the men bent

low in their saddles, their carbines gripped in their

hands. They rode in squadrons and in line, not like the

shouting, confused mass of the Mexicans--but steady,

disciplined, irresistible.

On the right flank in front a grey-haired officer steadied

the charging line. The excitement of it was maddening.

"Go to it," I shouted in uncontrollable emotion. "Your

Mexicans are licked, Raymon, they're no good!"

"But look!" said Raymon. "See--the ambush, the ambuscada!"

For as they reached the centre of the gorge in front of

us the Mexicans suddenly checked their horses, bringing

them plunging on their haunches in the dust, and then

swung round upon their pursuers, while from every crag

and bush at the side of the gorge the concealed riflemen

sprang into view--and the sputtering of the machine guns

swept the advancing column with a volley.

We could see the American line checked as with the buffet

of a great wave, men and horses rolling in the road.

Through the smoke one saw the grey-haired leader

--dismounted, his uniform torn, his hat gone, but still

brandishing his sword and calling his orders to his men,

his face as one caught in a flash of sunlight, steady

and fearless. His words I could not hear, but one saw

the American cavalry, still unbroken, dismount, throw

themselves behind their horses, and fire with steady aim

into the mass of the Mexicans. We could see the Mexicans

in front of where we stood falling thick and fast, in

little huddled bundles of colour, kicking the sand. The

man Pete had gone down right in the foreground and was

breathing out his soul before our eyes.

"Well done," I shouted. "Go to it, boys! You can lick

'em yet! Hurrah for the United States. Look, Raymon,

look! They've shot down the crew of the machine guns.

See, see, the Mexicans are turning to run. At 'em, boys!

They're waving the American flag! There it is in all the

thick of the smoke! Hark! There's the bugle call to

mount again! They're going to charge again! Here they

come!"

As the American cavalry came tearing forward, the Mexicans

leaped from their places with gestures of mingled rage

and terror as if about to break and run.

The battle, had it continued, could have but one end.

But at this moment we heard from the town behind us the

long sustained note of a steam whistle blowing the hour

of noon.

In an instant the firing ceased.

The battle stopped. The Mexicans picked themselves up

off the ground and began brushing off the dust from their

black velvet jackets. The American cavalry reined in

their horses. Dead Pete came to life. General Villa and

the American leader and a number of others strolled over

towards the boss, who stood beside the fence vociferating

his comments.

"That won't do!" he was shouting. "That won't do! Where

in blazes was that infernal Sister of Mercy? Miss

Jenkinson!" and he called to a tall girl, whom I now

noticed for the first time among the crowd, wearing a

sort of khaki costume and a short skirt and carrying a

water bottle in a strap. "You never got into the picture

at all. I want you right in there among the horses, under

their feet."

"Land sakes!" said the Sister of Mercy. "You ain't no

right to ask me to go in there among them horses and be

trampled."

"Ain't you _paid_ to be trampled?" said the manager

angrily. Then as he caught sight of Villa he broke off

and said: "Frank, you boys done fine. It's going to be

a good act, all right. But it ain't just got the right

amount of ginger in it yet. We'll try her over _once_

again, anyway."

"Now, boys," he continued, calling out to the crowd with

a voice like a megaphone, "this afternoon at three-thirty

--Hospital scene. I only want the wounded, the doctors

and the Sisters of Mercy. All the rest of youse is free

till ten to-morrow--for the Indian Massacre. Everybody

up for that."

It was an hour or two later that I had my interview with

Villa in a back room of the little _posada_, or inn, of

the town. The General had removed his ferocious wig of

straight black hair, and substituted a check suit for

his warlike costume. He had washed the darker part of

the paint off his face--in fact, he looked once again

the same Frank Villa that I used to know when he kept

his Mexican cigar store in Buffalo.

"Well, Frank," I said, "I'm afraid I came down here under

a misunderstanding."

"Looks like it," said the General, as he rolled a cigarette.

"And you wouldn't care to go back even for the offer that

I am commissioned to make--your old job back again, and

half the profits on a new cigar to be called the Francesco

Villa?"

The General shook his head.

"It sounds good, all right," he said, "but this

moving-picture business is better."

"I see," I said, "I hadn't understood. I thought there

really was a revolution here in Mexico."

"No," said Villa, shaking his head, "been no revolution

down here for years--not since Diaz. The picture companies

came in and took the whole thing over; they made us a

fair offer--so much a reel straight out, and a royalty,

and let us divide up the territory as we liked. The first

film we done was the bombardment of Vera Cruz. Say, that

was a dandy; did you see it?"

"No," I said.

"They had us all in that," he continued. "I done an

American Marine. Lots of people think it all real when

they see it."

"Why," I said, "nearly everybody does. Even the President--"

"Oh, I guess he knows," said Villa, "but, you see, there's

tons of money in it and it's good for business, and he's

too decent a man to give It away. Say, I heard the boy

saying there's a war in Europe. I wonder what company

got that up, eh? But I don't believe it'll draw. There

ain't the scenery for it that we have in Mexico."

"Alas!" murmured Raymon. "Our beautiful Mexico. To what

is she fallen! Needing only water, air, light and soil

to make her--"

"Come on, Raymon," I said, "let's go home."

XIV. Over the Grape Juice; or, The Peacemakers

Characters

MR. W. JENNINGS BRYAN.

DR. DAVID STARR JORDAN.

A PHILANTHROPIST.

MR. NORMAN ANGELL.

A LADY PACIFIST.

A NEGRO PRESIDENT.

AN EMINENT DIVINE.

THE MAN ON THE STREET.

THE GENERAL PUBLIC.

And many others.

"War," said the Negro President of Haiti, "is a sad

spectacle. It shames our polite civilisation."

As he spoke, he looked about him at the assembled company

around the huge dinner table, glittering with cut glass

and white linen, and brilliant with hot-house flowers.

"A sad spectacle," he repeated, rolling his big eyes in

his black and yellow face that was melancholy with the

broken pathos of the African race.

The occasion was a notable one. It was the banquet of

the Peacemakers' Conference of 1917 and the company

gathered about the board was as notable as it was numerous.

At the head of the table the genial Mr. Jennings Bryan

presided as host, his broad countenance beaming with

amiability, and a tall flagon of grape juice standing

beside his hand. A little further down the table one saw

the benevolent head and placid physiognomy of Mr. Norman

Angell, bowed forward as if in deep calculation. Within

earshot of Mr. Bryan, but not listening to him, one

recognised without the slightest difficulty Dr. David

Starr Jordan, the distinguished ichthyologist and director

in chief of the World's Peace Foundation, while the bland

features of a gentleman from China, and the presence of

a yellow delegate from the Mosquito Coast, gave ample

evidence that the company had been gathered together

without reference to colour, race, religion, education,

or other prejudices whatsoever.

But it would be out of the question to indicate by name

the whole of the notable assemblage. Indeed, certain of

the guests, while carrying in their faces and attitudes

something strangely and elusively familiar, seemed in a

sense to be nameless, and to represent rather types and

abstractions than actual personalities. Such was the

case, for instance, with a female member of the company,

seated in a place of honour near the host, whose demure

garb and gentle countenance seemed to indicate her as a

Lady Pacifist, but denied all further identification.

The mild, ecclesiastical features of a second guest, so

entirely Christian in its expression as to be almost

devoid of expression altogether, marked him at once as

An Eminent Divine, but, while puzzlingly suggestive of

an actual and well-known person, seemed to elude exact

recognition. His accent, when he presently spoke, stamped

him as British and his garb was that of the Established

Church. Another guest appeared to answer to the general

designation of Capitalist or Philanthropist, and seemed

from his prehensile grasp upon his knife and fork to

typify the Money Power. In front of this guest, doubtless

with a view of indicating his extreme wealth and the

consideration in which he stood, was placed a floral

decoration representing a broken bank, with the figure

of a ruined depositor entwined among the debris.

Of these nameless guests, two individuals alone, from

the very significance of their appearance, from their

plain dress, unsuited to the occasion, and from the

puzzled expression of their faces, seemed out of harmony

with the galaxy of distinction which surrounded them.

They seemed to speak only to one another, and even that

somewhat after the fashion of an appreciative chorus to

what the rest of the company was saying; while the manner

in which they rubbed their hands together and hung upon

the words of the other speakers in humble expectancy

seemed to imply that they were present in the hope of

gathering rather than shedding light. To these two humble

and obsequious guests no attention whatever was paid,

though it was understood, by those who knew, that their

names were The General Public and the Man on the Street.

"A sad spectacle," said the Negro President, and he sighed

as he spoke. "One wonders if our civilisation, if our

moral standards themselves, are slipping from us." Then

half in reverie, or as if overcome by the melancholy of

his own thought, he lifted a spoon from the table and

slid it gently into the bosom of his faded uniform.

"Put back that spoon!" called The Lady Pacifist sharply.

"Pardon!" said the Negro President humbly, as he put it

back. The humiliation of generations of servitude was

in his voice.

"Come, come," exclaimed Mr. Jennings Bryan cheerfully,

"try a little more of the grape juice?"

"Does it intoxicate?" asked the President.

"Never," answered Mr. Bryan. "Rest assured of that. I

can guarantee it. The grape is picked in the dark. It is

then carried, still in the dark, to the testing room.

There every particle of alcohol is removed. Try it."

"Thank you," said the President. "I am no longer thirsty."

"Will anybody have some more of the grape juice?" asked

Mr. Bryan, running his eye along the ranks of the guests.

No one spoke.

"Will anybody have some more ground peanuts?"

No one moved.

"Or does anybody want any more of the shredded tan bark?

No? Or will somebody have another spoonful of sunflower

seeds?"

There was still no sign of assent.

"Very well, then," said Mr. Bryan, "the banquet, as such,

is over, and we now come to the more serious part of our

business. I need hardly tell you that we are here for

a serious purpose. We are here to do good. That I know

is enough to enlist the ardent sympathy of everybody

present."

There was a murmur of assent.

"Personally," said The Lady Pacifist, "I do nothing else."

"Neither do I," said the guest who has been designated

The Philanthropist, "whether I am producing oil, or making

steel, or building motor-cars."

"Does he build motor-cars?" whispered the humble person

called The Man in the Street to his fellow, The General

Public.

"All great philanthropists do things like that," answered

his friend. "They do it as a social service so as to

benefit humanity; any money they make is just an accident.

They don't really care about it a bit. Listen to him.

He's going to say so."

"Indeed, our business itself," The Philanthropist continued,

while his face lighted up with unselfish enthusiasm, "our

business itself--"

"Hush, hush!" said Mr. Bryan gently. "We know--"

"Our business itself," persisted The Philanthropist, "is

one great piece of philanthropy."

Tears gathered in his eyes.

"Come, come," said Mr. Bryan firmly, "we must get to

business. Our friend here," he continued, turning to

the company at large and indicating the Negro President

on his right, "has come to us in great distress. His

beautiful island of Haiti is and has been for many years

overwhelmed in civil war. Now he learns that not only

Haiti, but also Europe is engulfed in conflict. He has

heard that we are making proposals for ending the war

--indeed, I may say are about to declare that the war in

Europe _must stop_--I think I am right, am I not, my

friends?"

There was a general chorus of assent.

"Naturally then," continued Mr. Bryan, "our friend the

President of Haiti, who is overwhelmed with grief at what

has been happening in his island, has come to us for

help. That is correct, is it not?"

"That's it, gentlemen," said the Negro President, in a

voice of some emotion, wiping the sleeve of his faded

uniform across his eyes. "The situation is quite beyond

my control. In fact," he added, shaking his head

pathetically as he relapsed into more natural speech,

"dis hyah chile, gen'l'n, is clean done beat with it.

Dey ain't doin' nuffin' on the island but shootin',

burnin', and killin' somethin' awful. Lawd a massy! it's

just like a real civilised country, all right, now. Down

in our island we coloured people is feeling just as bad

as youse did when all them poor white folks was murdered

on the _Lusitania!_"

But the Negro President had no sooner used the words

"Murdered on the _Lusitania_," than a chorus of dissent

and disapproval broke out all down the table.

"My dear sir, my dear sir," protested Mr. Bryan, "pray

moderate your language a little, if you please. Murdered?

Oh, dear, dear me, how can we hope to advance the cause

of peace if you insist on using such terms?"

"Ain't it that? Wasn't it murder?" asked the President,

perplexed.

"We are all agreed here," said The Lady Pacifist, "that

it is far better to call it an incident. We speak of the

'_Lusitania_ Incident,'" she added didactically, "just

as one speaks of the _Arabic_ Incident, and the Cavell

Incident, and other episodes of the sort. It makes it so

much easier to forget."

"True, quite true," murmured The Eminent Divine, "and

then one must remember that there are always two sides

to everything. There are two sides to murder. We must

not let ourselves forget that there is always the murderer's

point of view to consider."

But by this time the Negro President was obviously confused

and out of his depth. The conversation had reached a

plane of civilisation which was beyond his reach.

The genial Mr. Bryan saw fit to come to his rescue.

"Never mind," said Mr. Bryan soothingly. "Our friends

here, will soon settle all your difficulties for you.

I'm going to ask them, one after the other, to advise

you. They will tell you the various means that they are

about to apply to stop the war in Europe, and you may

select any that you like for your use in Haiti. We charge

you nothing for it, except of course your fair share of

the price of this grape juice and the shredded nuts."

The President nodded.

"I am going to ask our friend on my right"--and here Mr.

Bryan indicated The Lady Pacifist--"to speak first."

There was a movement of general expectancy and the two

obsequious guests at the foot of the table, of whom

mention has been made, were seen to nudge one another

and whisper, "Isn't this splendid?"

"You are not asking me to speak first merely because I

am a woman?" asked The Lady Pacifist.

"Oh no," said Mr. Bryon, with charming tact.

"Very good," said the lady, adjusting her glasses. "As

for stopping the war, I warn you, as I have warned the

whole world, that it may be too late. They should have

called me in sooner. That was the mistake. If they had

sent for me at once and had put my picture in the papers

both in England and Germany, with the inscription 'The

True Woman of To-day,' I doubt if any of the men who

looked at it would have felt that it was worth while to

fight. But, as things are, the only advice I can give is

this. Everybody is wrong (except me). The Germans are a

very naughty people. But the Belgians are worse. It was

very, very wicked of the Germans to bombard the houses

of the Belgians. But how naughty of the Belgians to go

and sit in their houses while they were bombarded. It is

to that that I attribute--with my infallible sense of

justice--the dreadful loss of life. So you see the only

conclusion that I can reach is that everybody is very

naughty and that the only remedy would be to appoint me

a committee--me and a few others, though the others don't

really matter--to make a proper settlement. I hope I make

myself clear."

The Negro President shook his head and looked mystified.

"Us coloured folks," he said, "wouldn't quite understand

that. We done got the idea that sometimes there's such

a thing as a quarrel that is right and just." The

President's melancholy face lit up with animation and

his voice rose to the sonorous vibration of the negro

preacher. "We learn that out of the Bible, we coloured

folks--we learn to smite the ungodly--"

"Pray, pray," said Mr. Bryan soothingly, "don't introduce

religion, let me beg of you. That would be fatal. We

peacemakers are all agreed that there must be no question

of religion raised."

"Exactly so," murmured The Eminent Divine, "my own feelings

exactly. The name of--of--the Deity should never be

brought in. It inflames people. Only a few weeks ago I

was pained and grieved to the heart to hear a woman in

one of our London streets raving that the German Emperor

was a murderer. Her child had been killed that night by

a bomb from a Zeppelin; she had its body in a cloth hugged

to her breast as she talked--thank heaven, they keep

these things out of the newspapers--and she was calling

down God's vengeance on the Emperor. Most deplorable!

Poor creature, unable, I suppose, to realise the Emperor's

exalted situation, his splendid lineage, the wonderful

talent with which he can draw pictures of the apostles

with one hand while he writes an appeal to his Mohammedan

comrades with the other. I dined with him once," he added,

in modest afterthought.

"I dined with him, too," said Dr. Jordan. "I shall never

forget the impression he made. As he entered the room

accompanied by his staff, the Emperor looked straight at

me and said to one of his aides, 'Who is this?' 'This is

Dr. Jordan,' said the officer. The Emperor put out his

hand. 'So this is Dr. Jordan,' he said. I never witnessed

such an exhibition of brain power in my life. He had

seized my name in a moment and held it for three seconds

with all the tenaciousness of a Hohenzollern.

"But may I," continued the Director of the World's Peace,

"add a word to what has been said to make it still clearer

to our friend? I will try to make it as simple as one of

my lectures in Ichthyology. I know of nothing simpler

than that."

Everybody murmured assent. The Negro President put his

hand to his ear.

"Theology?" he said.

"Ichthyology," said Dr. Jordan. "It is better. But just

listen to this. War is waste. It destroys the tissues.

It is exhausting and fatiguing and may in extreme cases

lead to death."

The learned gentleman sat back in his seat and took a

refreshing drink of rain water from a glass beside him,

while a murmur of applause ran round the table. It was

known and recognised that the speaker had done more than

any living man to establish the fact that war is dangerous,

that gunpowder, if heated, explodes, that fire burns,

that fish swim, and other great truths without which the

work of the peace endowment would appear futile.

"And now," said Mr. Bryan, looking about him with the

air of a successful toastmaster, "I am going to ask our

friend here to give us his views."

Renewed applause bore witness to the popularity of The

Philanthropist, whom Mr. Bryan had indicated with a wave

of his hand.

The Philanthropist cleared his throat.

"In our business--" he began.

Mr. Bryan plucked him gently by the sleeve.

"Never mind your business just now," he whispered.

The Philanthropist bowed in assent and continued:

"I will come at once to the subject. My own feeling is

that the true way to end war is to try to spread abroad

in all directions goodwill and brotherly love."

"Hear, hear!" cried the assembled company.

"And the great way to inspire brotherly love all round

is to keep on getting richer and richer till you have so

much money that every one loves you. Money, gentlemen,

is a glorious thing."

At this point, Mr. Norman Angell, who had remained silent

hitherto, raised his head from his chest and murmured

drowsily:

"Money, money, there isn't anything but money. Money is

the only thing there is. Money and property, property

and money. If you destroy it, it is gone; if you smash

it, it isn't there. All the rest is a great illus--"

And with this he dozed off again into silence.

"Our poor Angell is asleep again," said The Lady Pacifist.

Mr. Bryan shook his head.

"He's been that way ever since the war began--sleeps all

the time, and keeps muttering that there isn't any war,

that people only imagine it, in fact that it is all an

illusion. But I fear we are interrupting you," he added,

turning to The Philanthropist.

"I was just saying," continued that gentleman, "that you

can do anything with money. You can stop a war with it

if you have enough of it, in ten minutes. I don't care

what kind of war it is, or what the people are fighting

for, whether they are fighting for conquest or fighting

for their homes and their children. I can stop it, stop

it absolutely by my grip on money, without firing a shot

or incurring the slightest personal danger."

The Philanthropist spoke with the greatest emphasis,

reaching out his hand and clutching his fingers in the

air.

"Yes, gentlemen," he went on, "I am speaking here not of

theories but of facts. This is what I am doing and what

I mean to do. You've no idea how amenable people are,

especially poor people, struggling people, those with

ties and responsibilities, to the grip of money. I went

the other day to a man I know, the head of a bank, where

I keep a little money--just a fraction of what I make,

gentlemen, a mere nothing to me but everything to this

man because he is still not rich and is only fighting

his way up. 'Now,' I said to him, 'you are English, are

you not?' 'Yes, sir,' he answered. 'And I understand you

mean to help along the loan to England with all the power

of your bank.' 'Yes,' he said, 'I mean it and I'll do

it.' 'Then I'll tell you what,' I said, 'you lend one

penny, or help to lend one penny, to the people of England

or the people of France, and I'll break you, I'll grind

you into poverty--you and your wife and children and all

that belongs to you.'"

The Philanthropist had spoken with so great an intensity

that there was a deep stillness over the assembled company.

The Negro President had straightened up in his seat, and

as he looked at the speaker there was something in his

erect back and his stern face and the set of his faded

uniform that somehow turned him, African though he was,

into a soldier.

"Sir," he said, with his eye riveted on the speaker's

face, "what happened to that banker man?"

"The fool!" said The Philanthropist. "He wouldn't hear

--he defied me--he said that there wasn't money enough

in all my business to buy the soul of a single Englishman.

I had his directors turn him from his bank that day, and

he's enlisted, the scoundrel, and is gone to the war.

But his wife and family are left behind; they shall learn

what the grip of the money power is--learn it in misery

and poverty."

"My good sir," said the Negro President slowly and

impressively, "do you know why your plan of stopping war

wouldn't work in Haiti?"

"No," said The Philanthropist.

"Because our black people there would kill you. Whichever

side they were on, whatever they thought of the war, they

would take a man like you and lead you out into the town

square, and stand you up against the side of an adobe

house, and they'd shoot you. Come down to Haiti, if you

doubt my words, and try it."

"Thank you," said The Philanthropist, resuming his

customary manner of undisturbed gentleness, "I don't

think I will. I don't think somehow that I could do

business in Haiti."

The passage at arms between the Negro President and The

Philanthropist had thrown a certain confusion into the

hitherto agreeable gathering. Even The Eminent Divine

was seen to be slowly shaking his head from side to side,

an extreme mark of excitement which he never permitted

himself except under stress of passion. The two humble

guests at the foot of the table were visibly perturbed.

"Say, I don't like that about the banker," squeaked one

of them. "That ain't right, eh what? I don't like it."

Mr. Bryan was aware that the meeting was in danger of

serious disorder. He rapped loudly on the table for

attention. When he had at last obtained silence, he

spoke.

"I have kept my own views to the last," he said, "because

I cannot but feel that they possess a peculiar importance.

There is, my dear friends, every prospect that within a

measurable distance of time I shall be able to put them

into practice. I am glad to be able to announce to you

the practical certainty that four years from now I shall

be President of the United States."

At this announcement the entire company broke into

spontaneous and heartfelt applause. It had long been felt

by all present that Mr. Bryan was certain to be President

of the United States if only he ran for the office often

enough, but that the glad moment had actually arrived

seemed almost too good for belief.

"Yes, my friends," continued the genial host, "I have

just had a communication from my dear friend Wilson, in

which he tells me that he, himself, will never contest

the office again. The Presidency, he says, interfered

too much with his private life. In fact, I am authorised

to state in confidence that his wife forbids him to run."

"But, my dear Jennings," interposed Dr. Jordan thoughtfully,

"what about Mr. Hughes and Colonel Roosevelt?"

"In that quarter my certainty in the matter is absolute.

I have calculated it out mathematically that I am bound

to obtain, in view of my known principles, the entire

German vote--which carries with it all the great breweries

of the country--the whole Austrian vote, all the Hungarians

of the sugar refineries, the Turks; in fact, my friends,

I am positive that Roosevelt, if he dares to run, will

carry nothing but the American vote!"

Loud applause greeted this announcement.

"And now let me explain my plan, which I believe is shared

by a great number of sane, and other, pacifists in the

country. All the great nations of the world will be

invited to form a single international force consisting

of a fleet so powerful and so well equipped that no single

nation will dare to bid it defiance."

Mr. Bryan looked about him with a glance of something

like triumph. The whole company, and especially the Negro

President, were now evidently interested. "Say," whispered

The General Public to his companion, "this sounds like

the real thing? Eh, what? Isn't he a peach of a thinker?"

"What flag will your fleet fly?" asked the Negro President.

"The flags of all nations," said Mr. Bryan.

"Where will you get your sailors?"

"From all the nations," said Mr. Bryan, "but the uniform

will be all the same, a plain white blouse with blue

insertions, and white duck trousers with the word PEACE

stamped across the back of them in big letters. This will

help to impress the sailors with the almost sacred

character of their functions."

"But what will the fleet's functions be?" asked the

President.

"Whenever a quarrel arises," explained Mr. Bryan, "it

will be submitted to a Board. Who will be on this Board,

in addition to myself, I cannot as yet say. But it's of

no consequence. Whenever a case is submitted to the

Board it will think it over for three years. It will then

announce its decision--if any. After that, if any one

nation refuses to submit, its ports will be bombarded by

the Peace Fleet."

Rapturous expressions of approval greeted Mr. Bryan's

explanation.

"But I don't understand," said the Negro President,

turning his puzzled face to Mr. Bryan. "Would some of

these ships be British ships?"

"Oh, certainly. In view of the dominant size of the

British Navy about one-quarter of all the ships would be

British ships."

"And the sailors British sailors?"

"Oh, yes," said Mr. Bryan, "except that they would be

wearing international breeches--a most important point."

"And if the Board, made up of all sorts of people, were

to give a decision against England, then these

ships--British ships with British sailors--would be sent

to bombard England itself."

"Exactly," said Mr. Bryan. "Isn't it beautifully simple?

And to guarantee its working properly," he continued,

"just in case we have to use the fleet against England,

we're going to ask Admiral Jellicoe himself to take

command."

The Negro President slowly shook his head.

"Marse Bryan," he said, "you notice what I say. I know

Marse Jellicoe. I done seen him lots of times when he

was just a lieutenant, down in the harbour of Port au

Prince. If youse folks put up this proposition to Marse

Jellicoe, he'll just tell the whole lot of you to go

plumb to--"

But the close of the sentence was lost by a sudden

interruption. A servant entered with a folded telegram

in his hand.

"For me?" said Mr. Bryan, with a winning smile.

"For the President of Haiti, sir," said the man.

The President took the telegram and opened it clumsily

with his finger and thumb amid a general silence. Then

he took from his pocket and adjusted a huge pair of

spectacles with a horn rim and began to read.

"Well, I 'clare to goodness!" he said.

"Who is it from ?" said Mr. Bryan. "Is it anything about

me?"

The Negro President shook his head.

"It's from Haiti," he said, "from my military secretary."

"Read it, read it," cried the company.

"_Come back home right away,_" read out the Negro President,

word by word. "_Everything is all right again. Joint

British and American Naval Squadron came into harbour

yesterday, landed fifty bluejackets and one midshipman.

Perfect order. Banks open. Bars open. Mule cars all

running again. Things fine. Going to have big dance at

your palace. Come right back._"

The Negro President paused.

"Gentlemen," he said, in a voice of great and deep relief,

"this lets me out. I guess I won't stay for the rest of

the discussion. I'll start for Haiti. I reckon there's

something in this Armed Force business after all."

XV. The White House from Without In

Being Extracts from the Diary of a President of the United

States.

MONDAY. Rose early. Swept out the White House. Cooked

breakfast. Prayers. Sat in the garden reading my book

on Congressional Government. What a wonderful thing it

is! Why doesn't Congress live up to it? Certainly a lovely

morning. Sat for some time thinking how beautiful the

world is. I defy anyone to make a better. Afterwards

determined to utter this defiance publicly and fearlessly.

Shall put in list of fearless defiances for July speeches.

Shall probably use it in Oklahoma.

9.30 a.m. Bad news. British ship _Torpid_ torpedoed by

a torpedo. Tense atmosphere all over Washington. Retreated

instantly to the pigeon-house and shut the door. I must

_think_. At all costs. And no one shall hurry me.

10 a.m. Have thought. Came out of pigeon-house. It is

all right. I wonder I didn't think of it sooner. The

point is perfectly simple. If Admiral Tirpitz torpedoed

the _Torpid_ with a torpedo, where's the torpedo Admiral

Tirpitz torped? In other words, how do they know it's a

torpedo? The idea seems absolutely overwhelming. Wrote

notes at once to England and to Germany.

11 a.m. Gave out my idea to the Ass Press. Tense feeling

at Washington vanished instantly and utterly. Feeling

now loose. In fact everything splendid. Money became

easy at once. Marks rose. Exports jumped. Gold reserve

swelled.

3 p.m. Slightly bad news. Appears there is trouble in

the Island of Piccolo Domingo. Looked it up on map. Is

one of the smaller West Indies. We don't own it. I imagine

Roosevelt must have overlooked it. An American has been

in trouble there: was refused a drink after closing time

and burnt down saloon. Is now in jail. Shall send at once

our latest battleship--the _Woodrow_--new design, both

ends alike, escorted by double-ended coal barges the

_Wilson_, the _President_, the _Professor_ and the

_Thinker_. Shall take firm stand on American rights.

Piccolo Domingo must either surrender the American alive,

or give him to us dead.

TUESDAY. A lovely day. Rose early. Put flowers in all

the vases. Laid a wreath of early japonica beside my

egg-cup on the breakfast table. Cabinet to morning prayers

and breakfast. Prayed for better guidance.

9 a.m. Trouble, bad trouble. First of all Roosevelt has

an interview in the morning papers in which he asks why

I don't treat Germany as I treat Piccolo Domingo. Now,

what a fool question! Can't he _see_ why? Roosevelt never

could see reason. Bryan also has an interview: wants to

know why I don't treat Piccolo Domingo as I treat Germany?

Doesn't he _know_ why?

Result: strained feeling in Washington. Morning mail bad.

10 a.m. British Admiralty communication. To the pigeon-house

at once. They offer to send piece of torpedo, fragment

of ship and selected portions of dead American citizens.

Have come out of pigeon-house. Have cabled back: How do

they know it is a torpedo, how do they know it is a

fragment, how do they know he was an American who said

he was dead?

My answer has helped. Feeling in Washington easier at

once. General buoyancy. Loans and discounts doubled.

As I expected--a note from Germany. Chancellor very

explicit. Says not only did they not torpedo the _Torpid_,

but that on the day (whenever it was) that the steamer

was torpedoed they had no submarines at sea, no torpedoes

in their submarines, and nothing really explosive in

their torpedoes. Offers, very kindly, to fill in the date

of sworn statement as soon as we furnish accurate date

of incident. Adds that his own theory is that the _Torpid_

was sunk by somebody throwing rocks at it from the shore.

Wish, somehow, that he had not added this argument.

More bad news: Further trouble in Mexico. Appears General

Villa is not dead. He has again crossed the border, shot

up a saloon and retreated to the mountains of

Huahuapaxtapetl. Have issued instructions to have the

place looked up on the map and send the whole army to

it, but without in any way violating the neutrality of

Mexico.

Late cables from England. Two more ships torpedoed.

American passenger lost. Name of Roosevelt. Christian

name not Theodore but William. Cabled expression of

regret.

WEDNESDAY. Rose sad at heart. Did not work in garden.

Tried to weed a little grass along the paths but simply

couldn't. This is a cruel job. How was it that Roosevelt

grew stout on it? His nature must be different from mine.

What a miserable nature he must have.

Received delegations. From Kansas, on the prospect of

the corn crop: they said the number of hogs in Kansas

will double. Congratulated them. From Idaho, on the

blight on the root crop: they say there will soon not be

a hog left in Idaho. Expressed my sorrow. From Michigan,

beet sugar growers urging a higher percentage of sugar

in beets. Took firm stand: said I stand where I stood

and I stood where I stand. They went away dazzled,

delighted.

Mail and telegrams. British Admiralty. _Torpid_ Incident.

Send further samples. Fragment of valise, parts of cow-hide

trunk (dead passenger's luggage) which, they say, could

not have been made except in Nevada.

Cabled that the incident is closed and that I stand where

I stood and that I am what I am. Situation in Washington

relieved at once. General feeling that I shall not make

war.

Second Cable from England. The Two New Cases. Claim both

ships torpedoed. Offer proofs. Situation very grave.

Feeling in Washington very tense. Roosevelt out with a

signed statement, _What will the President Do?_ Surely

he knows what I will do.

Cables from Germany. Chancellor now positive as to

_Torpid_. Sworn evidence that she was sunk by some one

throwing a rock. Sample of rock to follow. Communication

also from Germany regarding the New Cases. Draws attention

to fact that all of the crews who were not drowned were

saved. An important point. Assures this government that

everything ascertainable will be ascertained, but that

pending juridical verification any imperial exemplification

must be held categorically allegorical. How well these

Germans write!

THURSDAY. A dull morning. Up early and read Congressional

Government. Breakfast. Prayers. We prayed for the United

States, for the citizens, for the Congress (both houses,

especially the Senate), and for the Cabinet. Is there

any one else?

Trouble. Accident to naval flotilla _en route_ to Piccolo

Domingo. The new battleship the _Woodrow_ has broken

down. Fault in structure. Tried to go with both ends

first. Appeared impossible. Went sideways a little and

is sinking. Wireless from the barges the _Wilson_, the

_Thinker_ and others. They are standing by. They wire

that they will continue to stand by. Why on earth do they

do that? Shall cable them to act.

Feeling in Washington gloomy.

FRIDAY. Rose early and tried to sweep out the White House.

Had little heart for it. The dust gathers in the corners.

How did Roosevelt manage to keep it so clean? An idea!

I must get a vacuum cleaner! But where can I get a vacuum?

Took my head in my hands and thought: problem solved.

Can get the vacuum all right.

Good news. Villa dead again. Feeling in Washington

relieved.

Trouble. Ship torpedoed. News just came from the French

Government. Full-rigged ship, the _Ping-Yan_, sailing

out of Ping Pong, French Cochin China, and cleared for

Hoo-Ra, Indo-Arabia. No American citizens on board, but

one American citizen with ticket left behind on wharf at

Ping Pong. Claims damages. Complicated case. Feeling in

Washington much disturbed. Sterling exchange fell and

wouldn't get up. French Admiralty urge treaty of 1778.

German Chancellor admits torpedoing ship but denies that

it was full-rigged. Captain of submarine drew picture of

ship as it sank. His picture unlike any known ship of

French navy.

SATURDAY. A day of trouble. Villa came to life and crossed

the border. Our army looking for him in Mexico: inquiry

by wire, are they authorised to come back? General Carranza

asks leave to invade Canada. Piccolo Domingo expedition

has failed. The _Woodrow_ is still sinking. The President

and the _Thinker_ cable that they are still standing by

and will continue to stand where they have stood. British

Admiralty sending shipload of fragments. German Admiralty

sending shipload of affidavits. Feeling in Washington

depressed to the lowest depths. Sterling sinking. Marks

falling. Exports dwindling.

An idea: Is this job worth while? I wonder if Billy Sunday

would take it?

Spent the evening watering the crocuses. Whoever is here

a year from now is welcome to them. They tell me that

Hughes hates crocuses. Watered them very carefully.

SUNDAY. Good news! Just heard from Princeton University.

I am to come back, and everything will be forgiven and

forgotten.

Timid Thoughts on Timely Topics

XVI. Are the Rich Happy?

Let me admit at the outset that I write this essay without

adequate material. I have never known, I have never seen,

any rich people. Very often I have thought that I had

found them. But it turned out that it was not so. They

were not rich at all. They were quite poor. They were

hard up. They were pushed for money. They didn't know

where to turn for ten thousand dollars.

In all the cases that I have examined this same error

has crept in. I had often imagined, from the fact of

people keeping fifteen servants, that they were rich. I

had supposed that because a woman rode down town in a

limousine to buy a fifty-dollar hat, she must be well to

do. Not at all. All these people turn out on examination

to be not rich. They are cramped. They say it themselves.

Pinched, I think, is the word they use. When I see a

glittering group of eight people in a stage box at the

opera, I know that they are all pinched. The fact that

they ride home in a limousine has nothing to do with it.

A friend of mine who has ten thousand dollars a year told

me the other day with a sigh that he found it quite

impossible to keep up with the rich. On his income he

couldn't do it. A family that I know who have twenty

thousand a year have told me the same thing. They can't

keep up with the rich. There is no use trying. A man that

I respect very much who has an income of fifty thousand

dollars a year from his law practice has told me with

the greatest frankness that he finds it absolutely

impossible to keep up with the rich. He says it is better

to face the brutal fact of being poor. He says he can

only give me a plain meal, what he calls a home dinner

--it takes three men and two women to serve it--and he

begs me to put up with it.

As far as I remember, I have never met Mr. Carnegie. But

I know that if I did he would tell me that he found it

quite impossible to keep up with Mr. Rockefeller. No

doubt Mr. Rockefeller has the same feeling.

On the other hand there are, and there must be rich

people, somewhere. I run across traces of them all the

time. The janitor in the building where I work has told

me that he has a rich cousin in England who is in the

South-Western Railway and gets ten pounds a week. He says

the railway wouldn't know what to do without him. In the

same way the lady who washes at my house has a rich uncle.

He lives in Winnipeg and owns his own house, clear, and

has two girls at the high school.

But these are only reported cases of richness. I cannot

vouch for them myself.

When I speak therefore of rich people and discuss whether

they are happy, it is understood that I am merely drawing

my conclusions from the people whom I see and know.

My judgment is that the rich undergo cruel trials and

bitter tragedies of which the poor know nothing.

In the first place I find that the rich suffer perpetually

from money troubles. The poor sit snugly at home while

sterling exchange falls ten points in a day. Do they

care? Not a bit. An adverse balance of trade washes over

the nation like a flood. Who have to mop it up? The

rich. Call money rushes up to a hundred per cent, and

the poor can still sit and laugh at a ten cent moving

picture show and forget it.

But the rich are troubled by money all the time.

I know a man, for example--his name is Spugg--whose

private bank account was overdrawn last month twenty

thousand dollars. He told me so at dinner at his club,

with apologies for feeling out of sorts. He said it was

bothering him. He said he thought it rather unfair of

his bank to have called his attention to it. I could

sympathise, in a sort of way, with his feelings. My own

account was overdrawn twenty cents at the time. I knew

that if the bank began calling in overdrafts it might be

my turn next. Spugg said he supposed he'd have to telephone

his secretary in the morning to sell some bonds and cover

it. It seemed an awful thing to have to do. Poor people

are never driven to this sort of thing. I have known

cases of their having to sell a little furniture, perhaps,

but imagine having to sell the very bonds out of one's

desk. There's a bitterness about it that the poor man

can never know.

With this same man, Mr. Spugg, I have often talked of

the problem of wealth. He is a self-made man and he has

told me again and again that the wealth he has accumulated

is a mere burden to him. He says that he was much happier

when he had only the plain, simple things of life. Often

as I sit at dinner with him over a meal of nine courses,

he tells me how much he would prefer a plain bit of boiled

pork with a little mashed turnip. He says that if he had

his way he would make his dinner out of a couple of

sausages, fried with a bit of bread. I forgot what it is

that stands in his way. I have seen Spugg put aside his

glass of champagne--or his glass after he had drunk his

champagne--with an expression of something like contempt.

He says that he remembers a running creek at the back of

his father's farm where he used to lie at full length

upon the grass and drink his fill. Champagne, he says,

never tasted like that. I have suggested that he should

lie on his stomach on the floor of the club and drink a

saucerful of soda water. But he won't.

I know well that my friend Spugg would be glad to be rid

of his wealth altogether, if such a thing were possible.

Till I understood about these things, I always imagined

that wealth could be given away. It appears that it

cannot. It is a burden that one must carry. Wealth, if

one has enough of it, becomes a form of social service.

One regards it as a means of doing good to the world, of

helping to brighten the lives of others--in a word, a

solemn trust. Spugg has often talked with me so long and

so late on this topic--the duty of brightening the lives

of others--that the waiter who held blue flames for his

cigarettes fell asleep against a door post, and the

chauffeur outside froze to the seat of his motor.

Spugg's wealth, I say, he regards as a solemn trust. I

have often asked him why he didn't give it, for example,

to a college. But he tells me that unfortunately he is

not a college man. I have called his attention to the

need of further pensions for college professors; after

all that Mr. Carnegie and others have done, there are

still thousands and thousands of old professors of

thirty-five and even forty, working away day after day

and getting nothing but what they earn themselves, and

with no provision beyond the age of eighty-five. But Mr.

Spugg says that these men are the nation's heroes. Their

work is its own reward.

But, after all, Mr. Spugg's troubles--for he is a single

man with no ties--are in a sense selfish. It is perhaps

in the homes, or more properly in the residences, of the

rich that the great silent tragedies are being enacted

every day--tragedies of which the fortunate poor know

and can know nothing.

I saw such a case only a few nights ago at the house of

the Ashcroft-Fowlers, where I was dining. As we went in

to dinner, Mrs. Ashcroft-Fowler said in a quiet aside to

her husband, "Has Meadows spoken?" He shook his head

rather gloomily and answered, "No, he has said nothing

yet." I saw them exchange a glance of quiet sympathy and

mutual help, like people in trouble, who love one another.

They were old friends and my heart beat for them. All

through the dinner as Meadows--he was their butler--poured

out the wine with each course, I could feel that some

great trouble was impending over my friends.

After Mrs. Ashcroft-Fowler had risen and left us, and we

were alone over our port wine, I drew my chair near to

Fowler's and I said, "My dear Fowler, I'm an old friend

and you'll excuse me if I seem to be taking a liberty.

But I can see that you and your wife are in trouble."

"Yes," he said very sadly and quietly, "we are."

"Excuse me," I said. "Tell me--for it makes a thing easier

if one talks about it--is it anything about Meadows?"

"Yes," he said, "it is about Meadows."

There was silence for a moment, but I knew already what

Fowler was going to say. I could feel it coming.

"Meadows," he said presently, constraining himself to

speak with as little emotion as possible, "is leaving

us."

"Poor old chap!" I said, taking his hand.

"It's hard, isn't it?" he said. "Franklin left last

winter--no fault of ours; we did everything we could

--and now Meadows."

There was almost a sob in his voice.

"He hasn't spoken definitely as yet," Fowler went on,

"but we know there's hardly any chance of his staying."

"Does he give any reason?" I asked.

"Nothing specific," said Fowler. "It's just a sheer case

of incompatibility. Meadows doesn't like us."

He put his hand over his face and was silent.

I left very quietly a little later, without going up to

the drawing-room. A few days afterwards I heard that

Meadows had gone. The Ashcroft-Fowlers, I am told, are

giving up in despair. They are going to take a little

suite of ten rooms and four baths in the Grand Palaver

Hotel, and rough it there for the winter.

Yet one must not draw a picture of the rich in colours

altogether gloomy. There are cases among them of genuine,

light-hearted happiness.

I have observed this is especially the case among those

of the rich who have the good fortune to get ruined,

absolutely and completely ruined. They may do this on

the Stock Exchange or by banking or in a dozen other

ways. The business side of getting ruined is not difficult.

Once the rich are ruined, they are, as far as my observation

goes, all right. They can then have anything they want.

I saw this point illustrated again just recently. I was

walking with a friend of mine and a motor passed bearing

a neatly dressed young man, chatting gaily with a pretty

woman. My friend raised his hat and gave it a jaunty and

cheery swing in the air as if to wave goodwill and

happiness.

"Poor old Edward Overjoy!" he said, as the motor moved

out of sight.

"What's wrong with him?" I asked.

"Hadn't you heard?" said my friend. "He's ruined--absolutely

cleaned out--not a cent left."

"Dear me!" I said. "That's awfully hard. I suppose he'll

have to sell that beautiful motor?"

My friend shook his head.

"Oh, no," he said. "He'll hardly do that. I don't think

his wife would care to sell that."

My friend was right. The Overjoys have not sold their

motor. Neither have they sold their magnificent sandstone

residence. They are too much attached to it, I believe,

to sell it. Some people thought they would have given up

their box at the opera. But it appears not. They are too

musical to care to do that. Meantime it is a matter of

general notoriety that the Overjoys are absolutely ruined;

in fact, they haven't a single cent. You could buy

Overjoy--so I am informed--for ten dollars.

But I observe that he still wears a seal-lined coat worth

at least five hundred.

XVII. Humour as I See It

It is only fair that at the back of this book I should

be allowed a few pages to myself to put down some things

that I really think.

Until two weeks ago I might have taken my pen in hand to

write about humour with the confident air of an acknowledged

professional.

But that time is past. Such claim as I had has been taken

from me. In fact I stand unmasked. An English reviewer

writing in a literary journal, the very name of which is

enough to put contradiction to sleep, has said of my

writing, "What is there, after all, in Professor Leacock's

humour but a rather ingenious mixture of hyperbole and

myosis?"

The man was right. How he stumbled upon this trade secret

I do not know. But I am willing to admit, since the truth

is out, that it has long been my custom in preparing an

article of a humorous nature to go down to the cellar

and mix up half a gallon of myosis with a pint of hyperbole.

If I want to give the article a decidedly literary

character, I find it well to put in about half a pint of

paresis. The whole thing is amazingly simple.

But I only mention this by way of introduction and to

dispel any idea that I am conceited enough to write about

humour, with the professional authority of Ella Wheeler

Wilcox writing about love, or Eva Tanguay talking about

dancing.

All that I dare claim is that I have as much sense of

humour as other people. And, oddly enough, I notice that

everybody else makes this same claim. Any man will admit,

if need be, that his sight is not good, or that he cannot

swim, or shoots badly with a rifle, but to touch upon

his sense of humour is to give him a mortal affront.

"No," said a friend of mine the other day, "I never go

to Grand Opera," and then he added with an air of pride,

"You see, I have absolutely no ear for music."

"You don't say so!" I exclaimed.

"None!" he went on. "I can't tell one tune from another.

I don't know _Home, Sweet Home_ from _God Save the King_.

I can't tell whether a man is tuning a violin or playing

a sonata."

He seemed to get prouder and prouder over each item of

his own deficiency. He ended by saying that he had a dog

at his house that had a far better ear for music than he

had. As soon as his wife or any visitor started to play

the piano the dog always began to howl--plaintively, he

said--as if it were hurt. He himself never did this.

When he had finished I made what I thought a harmless

comment.

"I suppose," I said, "that you find your sense of humour

deficient in the same way: the two generally go together."

My friend was livid with rage in a moment.

"Sense of humour!" he said. "My sense of humour! Me

without a sense of humour! Why, I suppose I've a keener

sense of humour than any man, or any two men, in this

city!"

From that he turned to bitter personal attack. He said

that _my_ sense of humour seemed to have withered

altogether.

He left me, still quivering with indignation.

Personally, however, I do not mind making the admission,

however damaging it may be, that there are certain forms

of so-called humour, or, at least, fun, which I am quite

unable to appreciate. Chief among these is that ancient

thing called the Practical Joke.

"You never knew McGann, did you?" a friend of mine asked

me the other day.

When I said I had never known McGann, he shook his head

with a sigh, and said:

"Ah, you should have known McGann. He had the greatest

sense of humour of any man I ever knew--always full of

jokes. I remember one night at the boarding-house where

we were, he stretched a string across the passage-way

and then rang the dinner bell. One of the boarders broke

his leg. We nearly died laughing."

"Dear me!" I said. "What a humorist! Did he often do

things like that?"

"Oh, yes, he was at them all the time. He used to put

tar in the tomato soup, and beeswax and tin-tacks on the

chairs. He was full of ideas. They seemed to come to him

without any trouble."

McGann, I understand, is dead. I am not sorry for it.

Indeed, I think that for most of us the time has gone by

when we can see the fun of putting tacks on chairs, or

thistles in beds, or live snakes in people's boots.

To me it has always seemed that the very essence of good

humour is that it must be without harm and without malice.

I admit that there is in all of us a certain vein of the

old original demoniacal humour or joy in the misfortune

of another which sticks to us like our original sin. It

ought not to be funny to see a man, especially a fat and

pompous man, slip suddenly on a banana skin. But it is.

When a skater on a pond who is describing graceful circles,

and showing off before the crowd, breaks through the ice

and gets a ducking, everybody shouts with joy. To the

original savage, the cream of the joke in such cases was

found if the man who slipped broke his neck, or the man

who went through the ice never came up again. I can

imagine a group of prehistoric men standing round the

ice-hole where he had disappeared and laughing till their

sides split. If there had been such a thing as a prehistoric

newspaper, the affair would have headed up: "_Amusing

Incident. Unknown Gentleman Breaks Through Ice and Is

Drowned._"

But our sense of humour under civilisation has been

weakened. Much of the fun of this sort of thing has been

lost on us.

Children, however, still retain a large share of this

primitive sense of enjoyment.

I remember once watching two little boys making snow-balls

at the side of the street and getting ready a little

store of them to use. As they worked, there came along

an old man wearing a silk hat, and belonging by appearance

to the class of "jolly old gentlemen." When he saw the

boys his gold spectacles gleamed with kindly enjoyment.

He began waving his arms and calling, "Now, then, boys,

free shot at me! free shot!" In his gaiety he had, without

noticing it, edged himself over the sidewalk on to the

street. An express cart collided with him and knocked

him over on his back in a heap of snow. He lay there

gasping and trying to get the snow off his face and

spectacles. The boys gathered up their snow-balls and

took a run toward him. "Free shot!" they yelled. "Soak

him! Soak him!"

I repeat, however, that for me, as I suppose for most of

us, it is a prime condition of humour that it must be

without harm or malice, nor should it convey incidentally

any real picture of sorrow or suffering or death. There

is a great deal in the humour of Scotland (I admit its

general merit) which seems to me not being a Scotchman,

to sin in this respect. Take this familiar story (I quote

it as something already known and not for the sake of

telling it).

A Scotchman had a sister-in-law--his wife's sister--with

whom he could never agree. He always objected to going

anywhere with her, and in spite of his wife's entreaties

always refused to do so. The wife was taken mortally ill

and as she lay dying, she whispered, "John, ye'll drive

Janet with you to the funeral, will ye no?" The Scotchman,

after an internal struggle, answered, "Margaret, I'll do

it for ye, but it'll spoil my day."

Whatever humour there may be in this is lost for me by

the actual and vivid picture that it conjures up--the

dying wife, the darkened room and the last whispered

request.

No doubt the Scotch see things differently. That wonderful

people--whom personally I cannot too much admire--always

seem to me to prefer adversity to sunshine, to welcome

the prospect of a pretty general damnation, and to live

with grim cheerfulness within the very shadow of death.

Alone among the nations they have converted the devil

--under such names as Old Horny--into a familiar

acquaintance not without a certain grim charm of his own.

No doubt also there enters into their humour something

of the original barbaric attitude towards things. For a

primitive people who saw death often and at first hand,

and for whom the future world was a vivid reality that

could be _felt_, as it were, in the midnight forest and

heard in the roaring storm, it was no doubt natural to

turn the flank of terror by forcing a merry and jovial

acquaintance with the unseen world. Such a practice as

a wake, and the merry-making about the corpse, carry us

back to the twilight of the world, with the poor savage

in his bewildered misery, pretending that his dead still

lived. Our funeral with its black trappings and its

elaborate ceremonies is the lineal descendant of a

merry-making. Our undertaker is, by evolution, a genial

master of ceremonies, keeping things lively at the

death-dance. Thus have the ceremonies and the trappings

of death been transformed in the course of ages till the

forced gaiety is gone, and the black hearse and the gloomy

mutes betoken the cold dignity of our despair.

But I fear this article is getting serious. I must

apologise.

I was about to say, when I wandered from the point, that

there is another form of humour which I am also quite

unable to appreciate. This is that particular form of

story which may be called, _par excellence_, the English

Anecdote. It always deals with persons of rank and birth,

and, except for the exalted nature of the subject itself,

is, as far as I can see, absolutely pointless.

This is the kind of thing that I mean.

"His Grace the Fourth Duke of Marlborough was noted for

the open-handed hospitality which reigned at Blenheim,

the family seat, during his regime. One day on going in

to luncheon it was discovered that there were thirty

guests present, whereas the table only held covers for

twenty-one. 'Oh, well,' said the Duke, not a whit abashed,

'some of us will have to eat standing up.' Everybody, of

course, roared with laughter."

My only wonder is that they didn't kill themselves with

it. A mere roar doesn't seem enough to do justice to such

a story as this.

The Duke of Wellington has been made the storm-centre of

three generations of wit of this sort. In fact the typical

Duke of Wellington story has been reduced to a thin

skeleton such as this:

"A young subaltern once met the Duke of Wellington coming

out of Westminster Abbey. 'Good morning, your Grace,' he

said, 'rather a wet morning.' 'Yes' said the Duke, with

a very rigid bow, 'but it was a damn sight wetter, sir,

on the morning of Waterloo.' The young subaltern, rightly

rebuked, hung his head."

Nor is it only the English who sin in regard to anecdotes.

One can indeed make the sweeping assertion that the

telling of stories as a mode of amusing others ought to

be kept within strict limits. Few people realise how

extremely difficult it is to tell a story so as to

reproduce the real fun of it--to "get it over" as the

actors say. The mere "facts" of a story seldom make it

funny. It needs the right words, with every word in its

proper place. Here and there, perhaps once in a hundred

times, a story turns up which needs no telling. The humour

of it turns so completely on a sudden twist or incongruity

in the _denouement_ of it that no narrator, however

clumsy, can altogether fumble it.

Take, for example, this well-known instance--a story

which, in one form or other, everybody has heard.

"George Grossmith, the famous comedian, was once badly

run down and went to consult a doctor. It happened that

the doctor, though, like everybody else, he had often

seen Grossmith on the stage, had never seen him without

his make-up and did not know him by sight. He examined

his patient, looked at his tongue, felt his pulse and

tapped his lungs. Then he shook his head. 'There's nothing

wrong with you, sir,' he said, 'except that you're run

down from overwork and worry. You need rest and amusement.

Take a night off and go and see George Grossmith at the

Savoy.' 'Thank you,' said the patient, 'I _am_ George

Grossmith.'"

Let the reader please observe that I have purposely told

this story all wrongly, just as wrongly as could be, and

yet there is something left of it. Will the reader kindly

look back to the beginning of it and see for himself just

how it ought to be narrated and what obvious error has

been made? If he has any particle of the artist in his

make-up, he will see at once that the story ought to

begin:

"One day a very haggard and nervous-looking patient called

at the house of a fashionable doctor, etc. etc."

In other words, the chief point of the joke lies in

keeping it concealed till the moment when the patient

says, "Thank you, I am George Grossmith." But the story

is such a good one that it cannot be completely spoiled

even when told wrongly. This particular anecdote has been

variously told of George Grossmith, Coquelin, Joe Jefferson,

John Hare, Cyril Maude, and about sixty others. And I

have noticed that there is a certain type of man who, on

hearing this story about Grossmith, immediately tells it

all back again, putting in the name of somebody else,

and goes into new fits of laughter over it, as if the

change of name made it brand new.

But few people, I repeat, realise the difficulty of

reproducing a humorous or comic effect in its original

spirit.

"I saw Harry Lauder last night," said Griggs, a Stock

Exchange friend of mine, as we walked up town together

the other day. "He came on to the stage in kilts" (here

Grigg started to chuckle) "and he had a slate under his

arm" (here Griggs began to laugh quite heartily), "and

he said, 'I always like to carry a slate with me' (of

course he said it in Scotch but I can't do the Scotch

the way he does it) 'just in case there might be any

figures I'd be wanting to put down'" (by this time,

Griggs was almost suffocated with laughter)--"and he took

a little bit-of chalk out of his pocket, and he said"

(Griggs was now almost hysterical), "'I like to carry a

wee bit chalk along because I find the slate is'" (Griggs

was now faint with laughter) "'the slate is--is--not

much good without the chalk.'"

Griggs had to stop, with his hand to his side, and lean

against a lamp-post. "I can't, of course, do the Scotch

the way Harry Lauder does it," he repeated.

Exactly. He couldn't do the Scotch and he couldn't do

the rich mellow voice of Mr. Lauder and the face beaming

with merriment, and the spectacles glittering with

amusement, and he couldn't do the slate, nor the "wee

bit chalk"--in fact he couldn't do any of it. He ought

merely to have said, "Harry Lauder," and leaned up against

a post and laughed till he had got over it.

Yet in spite of everything, people insist on spoiling

conversation by telling stories. I know nothing more

dreadful at a dinner table than one of these amateur

raconteurs--except perhaps, two of them. After about

three stories have been told, there falls on the dinner

table an uncomfortable silence, in which everybody is

aware that everybody else is trying hard to think of

another story, and is failing to find it. There is no

peace in the gathering again till some man of firm and

quiet mind turns to his neighbour and says, "But after

all there is no doubt that whether we like it or not

prohibition is coming." Then everybody in his heart says,

"Thank heaven!" and the whole tableful are happy and

contented again, till one of the story-tellers "thinks

of another," and breaks loose.

Worst of all perhaps is the modest story-teller who is

haunted by the idea that one has heard this story before.

He attacks you after this fashion:

"I heard a very good story the other day on the steamer

going to Bermuda"--then he pauses with a certain doubt

in his face--"but perhaps you've heard this?"

"No, no, I've never been to Bermuda. Go ahead."

"Well, this is a story that they tell about a man who

went down to Bermuda one winter to get cured of rheumatism

--but you've heard this?"

"No, no."

"Well he had rheumatism pretty bad and he went to Bermuda

to get cured of it. And so when he went into the hotel

he said to the clerk at the desk--but, perhaps you know

this."

"No, no, go right ahead."

"Well, he said to the clerk, 'I want a room that looks

out over the sea'--but perhaps--"

Now the sensible thing to do is to stop the narrator

right at this point. Say to him quietly and firmly, "Yes,

I have heard that story. I always liked it ever since it

came out in _Tit Bits_ in 1878, and I read it every time

I see it. Go on and tell it to me and I'll sit back with

my eyes closed and enjoy it."

No doubt the story-telling habit owes much to the fact

that ordinary people, quite unconsciously, rate humour

very low: I mean, they underestimate the difficulty of

"making humour." It would never occur to them that the

thing is hard, meritorious and dignified. Because the

result is gay and light, they think the process must be.

Few people would realise that it is much harder to write

one of Owen Seaman's "funny" poems in _Punch_ than to

write one of the Archbishop of Canterbury's sermons. Mark

Twain's _Huckleberry Finn_ is a greater work than Kant's

_Critique of Pure Reason_, and Charles Dickens's creation

of Mr. Pickwick did more for the elevation of the human

race--I say it in all seriousness--than Cardinal Newman's

_Lead, Kindly Light, Amid the Encircling Gloom_. Newman

only cried out for light in the gloom of a sad world.

Dickens gave it.

But the deep background that lies behind and beyond what

we call humour is revealed only to the few who, by instinct

or by effort, have given thought to it. The world's

humour, in its best and greatest sense, is perhaps the

highest product of our civilisation. One thinks here not

of the mere spasmodic effects of the comic artist or the

blackface expert of the vaudeville show, but of the really

great humour which, once or twice in a generation at

best, illuminates and elevates our literature. It is no

longer dependent upon the mere trick and quibble of words,

or the odd and meaningless incongruities in things that

strike us as "funny." Its basis lies in the deeper

contrasts offered by life itself: the strange incongruity

between our aspiration and our achievement, the eager

and fretful anxieties of to-day that fade into nothingness

to-morrow, the burning pain and the sharp sorrow that

are softened in the gentle retrospect of time, till as

we look back upon the course that has been traversed we

pass in view the panorama of our lives, as people in old

age may recall, with mingled tears and smiles, the angry

quarrels of their childhood. And here, in its larger

aspect, humour is blended with pathos till the two are

one, and represent, as they have in every age, the mingled

heritage of tears and laughter that is our lot on earth.

END