affection for cattle from the branding-yard to the butcher's block;
Michigan, so called because he said he came from California but spoke
not the Californian tongue; Jim from San Diego, to distinguish him
from other Jims, and The Corpse, were the outposts of the herd. The
Corpse had won his name from a statement, made in the fulness of much
McBrayer whisky, that he had once been a graduate of Corpus Christi. He
spoke truth, but to the wrong audience. The inhabitants of the Elite
Saloon, after several attempts to get the hang of the name, dubbed the
speaker The Corpse, and as long as he cinched a broncho or jingled a
spur within four hundred miles of Livingston--yea, far in the south,
even to the unexplored borders of the sheep-eater Indians--he was known
by that unlovely name. How he had passed from college to cattle no man
knew, and, according to the etiquette of the West, no man asked. He was
not by any means a tenderfoot--had no unmanly weakness for washing,
did not in the least object to appearing at the wild and wonderful
reunions held nightly in "Miss Minnie's parlour," whose flaring
advertisement did not in the least disturb the proprieties of Wachoma
Junction, and, in common with his associates, was, when drunk, ready
to shoot at anything or anybody. He was not proud. He had condescended
to take in hand and educate a young and promising Chicago drummer, who
by evil fate had wandered into that wilderness, where all his cunning
was of no account; and from that youth's quivering hand--outstretched
by command--had shot away the top of a wine-glass. The Corpse was
recognised in the freemasonry of the craft as "one of the C.M.R.'s
boys, and tough at that."
The C.M.R. controlled much cattle, and their slaughter-houses in
Chicago bubbled the blood of beeves all day long. Their salt-beef fed
the sailor on the sea, and their iced, best firsts, the housekeeper
in the London suburbs. Not even the firm knew how many cowboys they
employed, but all the firm knew that on the fourteenth day of July
their stockyards at Wachoma Junction were to be filled with two
thousand head of cattle, ready for immediate shipment to Chicago while
prices yet ruled high, and before the grass had withered utterly.
Lafe, Michigan, Jim, The Corpse and the others knew this too, and were
heartily glad of it, because they would be paid up in Chicago for their
half-year's work, and would then do their best towards painting that
town in purest vermilion. They would get drunk; they would gamble, and
would otherwise enjoy themselves till they were broke; and then they
would hire out again.
The sun dropped behind the rolling hills; and the cattle halted for
the night, cheered and cooled by a little wandering breeze. The red
steer's mother had been caught in a hailstorm five years ago. Till she
went the way of all cow-flesh she missed no opportunity of telling her
son to beware of the hot day and the cold wind that does not know its
own mind. "When it blows five ways at once," said she, "and makes your
horns feel creepy, get away, my son. Follow the time-honoured instinct
of our tribe, and run. I ran"--she looked ruefully at the scars on her
side--"but that was in a barb-wire country, and it hurt me. None the
less, run." The red steer chewed his cud, and the little wind out of
the darkness played round his horns--all five ways at once. The cowboys
lifted up their voices in unmelodious song, that the cattle might know
where they were, and began slowly walking round the recumbent herd. "Do
anybody's horns feel creepy?" queried the red steer of his neighbours.
"My mother told me"--and he repeated the tale, to the edification of
the yearlings and the three-year-olds breathing heavily at his side.
The song of the cowboys rose higher. The cattle bowed their heads.
Their men were at hand. They were safe. Something had happened to
the quiet stars. They were dying out one by one, and the wind was
freshening. "Bless my hoofs!" muttered a yearling, "my horns are
beginning to feel creepy." Softly the red steer lifted himself from
the ground. "Come away," quoth he to the yearling. "Come away to the
outskirts, and we'll move. My mother said...." The innocent fool
followed, and a white heifer saw them move. Being a woman she naturally
bellowed "Timber wolves!" and ran forward blindly into a dun steer
dreaming over clover. Followed the thunder of cattle rising to their
feet, and the triple crack of a whip. The little wind had dropped for a
moment, only to fall on the herd with a shriek and a few stinging drops
of hail, that stung as keenly as the whips. The herd broke into a trot,
a canter, and then a mad gallop. Black fear was behind them, black
night in front. They headed into the night, bellowing with terror;
and at their side rode the men with the whips. The ponies grunted as
they felt the raking spurs. They knew that an all-night gallop lay
before them, and woe betide the luckless cayuse that stumbled in that
ride. Then fell the hail--blinding and choking and flogging in one and
the same stroke. The herd opened like a fan. The red steer headed a
contingent he knew not whither. A man with a whip rode at his right
flank. Behind him the lightning showed a field of glimmering horns, and
of muzzles flecked with foam; a field of red terror-strained eyes and
shaggy frontlets. The man looked back also, and his terror was greater
than that of the beasts. The herd had surrounded him in the darkness.
His salvation lay in the legs of _Whisky Peat_--and _Whisky Peat_ knew
it--knew it until an unseen gopher hole received his near forefoot as
he strained every nerve--in the heart of the flying herd, with the red
steer at his flanks. Then, being only over-worked cayuse, _Whisky
Peat_ fell, and the red steer fancied that there was something soft on
the ground.
* * * * *
It was Michigan, Jim and Lafe who at last brought the herd to a
standstill as the dawn was breaking, "What's come to The Corpse?" quoth
Lafe. Jim loosened the girths of his quivering pony and made answer
slowly: "Onless I'm a blamed fool, the gentleman is now livin' up to
his durned appellation 'bout fifteen miles back--what there is of him
and the cayuse." "Let's go and look," said Lafe, shuddering slightly,
for the morning air, you must understand, was raw. "Let's go to--a
much hotter place than Texas," responded Jim. "Get the steers to the
Junction first. Guess what's left of The Corpse will keep."
And it did. And that was how the fat man in Chicago got his beef. It
belonged to the red steer.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 7: "Turnovers," Vol. VII.]
THE HISTORY OF A FALL[8]
_Mere English will not do justice to the event. Let us attempt it
according to the custom of the French. Thus and so following:_
Listen to a history of the most painful--and of the most true.
You others, the Governors, the Lieutenant-Governors, and the
Commissionaires of the Oriental Indias.
It is you, foolishly outside of the truth in prey to illusions so blind
that I of them remain so stupefied--it is to you that I address myself!
Know you Sir Cyril Wollobie, K.C.S.I., C.M.G., and all the other little
things?
He was of the Sacred Order of Yourself--a man responsible
enormously--charged of the conservation of millions....
Of people. That is understood. The Indian Government conserves not its
rupees.
He was the well-loved of kings. I have seen the Viceroy--which is the
Lorr-Maire--embrace him of both arms.
That was in Simla. All things are possible in Simla.
Even embraces.
His wife! Mon Dieu, his wife!
The aheuried imagination prostrates itself at the remembrance of the
splendours Orientals of the Lady Cyril--the very respectable the Lady
Wollobie.
That was in Simla. All things are possible in Simla. Even wives. In
those days I was--what you call--a Schnobb. I am now a much larger
Schnobb. _Voila_ the only difference. Thus it is true that travel
expands the mind.
But let us return to our Wollobies.
I admired that man there with the both hands. I crawled before the
Lady Wollobie--platonically. The man the most brave would be only
platonic towards that lady. And I was also afraid. Subsequently I
went to a dance. The wine equalled not the splendour of the Wollobies.
Nor the food. But there was upon the floor an open space--large and
park-like. It protected the dignity Wollobi-callisme. It was guarded by
Aides-de-Camp. With blue silk in their coat-tails--turned up. With pink
eyes and white moustaches to ravish. Also turned up.
To me addressed himself an Aide-de-Camp.
That was in Simla. To-day I do not speak to Aides-de-Camp.
I confine myself exclusively to the cab-drivaire. He does not know so
much bad language, but he can drive better.
I approached, under the protection of the Aide-de-Camp, the luminosity
of Sir Wollobie.
The world entire regarded.
The band stopped. The lights burned blue. A domestic dropped a plate.
It was an inspiring moment.
From the summit of Jakko forty-five monkies looked down upon the crisis.
Sir Wollobie spoke.
To me in that expanse of floor cultured and park-like. He said: "I have
long desired to make your acquaintance."
The blood bouilloned in my head. I became pink. I was aneantied under
the weight of an embarras insubrimable.
At that moment Sir Wollobie became oblivious of my personality. That
was his custom.
Wiping my face upon my coat-tails I refugied myself among the foules.
_I had been spoken to by Sir Wollobie._ That was in Simla. That also is
history.
* * * * *
Pass now several years. To the day before yesterday!
This also is history--farcical, immense, tragi-comic, but true.
Know you the Totnam Cortrode?
Here lives Maple, who sells washing appliances and tables of exotic
legs.
Here voyages also a Omnibuse Proletariat.
That is to say for One penny.
Two pence is the refined volupté of the Aristocrat.
I am of the people.
_Entre nous_ the connection is not desired by us. The people address to
me epithets, entirely unprintable. I reply that they should wash. The
situation is strained. Hence the Strike Docks and the Demonstrations
Laborious.
Upon the funeste tumbril of the Proletariat I take my seat.
I demand air outside upon the roof.
I will have all my penny.
The tumbril advances.
A man aged loses his equilibrium and deposits himself into my lap.
Following the custom of the Brutal Londoner I demand the Devil where he
shoves himself.
He apologises supplicatorically.
I grunt.
Encore the tumbril shakes herself.
I appropriate the desired seat of the old man.
The conductaire cries to loud voice: "Fare, Guvnor."
He produces one penny.
A reminiscence phantasmal provokes itself.
I beat him on the back.
It is Sir Wollobie; the ex-Everything!
Also the ex-Everything else!
Figure you the situation!
He clasps my hand.
As a child clasps the hand of its nurse.
He demands of me particular rensignments of my health. It is to him a
matter important.
Other time he regulated the health of forty-five millions.
I riposte. I enquire of his liver--his pancreas, his abdomen.
The sacred internals of Sir Wollobie!
He has them all. And they all make him ill.
He is very lonely. He speaks of his wife. There is no Lady Wollobie,
but a woman in a flat in Bayswater who cries in her sleep for more
curricles.
He does not say this, but I understand.
He derides the Council of the Indian Office. He imprecates the
Government.
He curses the journals.
He has a clob. He curses that clob.
Females with teeth monstrous explain to him the theory of Government.
Men of long hair, the psychologues of the paint-pots, correct him
tenderly, but from above.
He has known of the actualities of life--Death, Power, Responsibility,
Honour--the Good accomplished, the effacement of Wrong for forty years.
There remains to him a seat in a penny 'bus.
If I do not take him from that.
I rap my heels on the knife-board. I sing "_tra la la_." I am also well
disposed to larmes.
He courbes himself underneath an ulstaire and he damns the fog to
eternity.
He wills not that I leave him. He desires that I come to dinner.
I am grave. I think upon Lady Wollobie--shorn of chaprassies--at the
Clob. Not in Bayswater.
I accept. He will bore me affreusely, but ... I have taken his seat.
He descends from the tumbril of his humiliation, and the street hawker
rolls a barrow up his waistcoat.
Then intervenes the fog--dense, impenetrable, hopeless, without end.
It is because of the fog that there is a drop upon the end of my nose
so chiselled.
Gentlemen the Governors, the Lieutenant-Governors and the Commissaires,
behold the doom prepared.
I am descended to the gates of your Life in Death. Which is Brompton or
Bayswater.
You do not believe? You will try the constituencies when you return; is
it not so?
You will fail. As others failed.
Your seat waits you on the top of an Omnibuse Proletariat.
I shall be there.
You will embrace me as a shipwrecked man embraces a log. You will be
"dam glad t' see me."
I shall grin.
Oh Life! Oh Death! Oh Power! Oh Toil! Oh Hope! Oh Stars! Oh Honour! Oh
Lodgings! Oh Fog! Oh Omnibuses! Oh Despair! Oh Skittles!
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 8: "Turnovers," Vol. VIII.]
GRIFFITHS THE SAFE MAN[9]
As the title indicates, this story deals with the safeness of Griffiths
the safe man, the secure person, the reliable individual, the sort of
man you would bank with. I am proud to write about Griffiths, for I owe
him a pleasant day. This story is dedicated to my friend Griffiths, the
remarkably trustworthy mortal.
In the beginning there were points about Griffiths. He quoted proverbs.
A man who quotes proverbs is confounded by proverbs. He is also
confounded by his friends. But I never confounded Griffiths--not even
in that supreme moment when the sweat stood on his brow in agony and
his teeth were fixed like bayonets and he swore horribly. Even then, I
say, I sat on my own trunk, the trunk that opened, and told Griffiths
that I had always respected him, but never more than at the present
moment. He was so safe, y' know.
Safeness is a matter of no importance to me. If my trunk won't lock
when I jump on it thrice, I strap it up and go on to something else. If
my carpet-bag is too full, I let the tails of shirts and the ends of
ties bubble over and go down the street with the affair. It all comes
right in the end, and if it does not, what is a man that he should
fight against Fate?
But Griffiths is not constructed in that manner. He says: "Safe bind is
safe find." That, rather, is what he used to say. He has seen reason
to alter his views. Everything about Griffiths is safe--entirely safe.
His trunk is locked by two hermetical gun-metal double-end Chubbs;
his bedding-roll opens to a letter padlock capable of two million
combinations; his hat-box has a lever patent safety on it; and the
grief of his life is that he cannot lock up the ribs of his umbrella
safely. If you could get at his soul you would find it ready strapped
up and labelled for heaven. That is Griffiths.
When we went to Japan together, Griffiths kept all his money under lock
and key. I carried mine in my coat-tail pocket. But all Griffiths'
contraptions did not prevent him from spending exactly as much as I
did. You see, when he had worried his way through the big strap, and
the little strap, and the slide-valve, and the spring lock, and the key
that turned twice and a quarter, he felt as though he had earned any
money he found, whereas I could get masses of sinful wealth by merely
pulling out my handkerchief--dollars and five dollars and ten dollars,
all mixed up with the tobacco or flying down the road. They looked much
too pretty to spend.
"Safe bind, safe find," said Griffiths in the treaty port.
He never really began to lock things up severely till we got our
passports to travel up-country. He took charge of mine for me, on the
ground that I was an imbecile. As you are asked for your passport at
every other shop, all the hotels, most of the places of amusement, and
on the top of each hill, I got to appreciate Griffiths' self-sacrifice.
He would be biting a strap with his teeth or calculating the
combinations of his padlocks among a ring of admiring Japanese while I
went for a walk into the interior.
"Safe bind, safe find," said Griffiths. That was true, because I was
bound to find Griffiths somewhere near his beloved keys and straps.
He never seemed to see that half the pleasure of his trip was being
strapped and keyed out of him.
We never had any serious difficulty about the passports in the whole
course of our wanderings. What I purpose to describe now is merely an
incident of travel. It had no effect on myself, but it nearly broke
Griffiths' heart.
We were travelling from Kyoto to Otsu along a very dusty road full of
pretty girls. Every time I stopped to play with one of them Griffiths
grew impatient. He had telegraphed for rooms at the only hotel in Otsu,
and was afraid that there would be no accommodation. There were only
three rooms in the hotel, and "Safe bind, safe find," said Griffiths.
He was telegraphing ahead for something.
Our hotel was three-quarters Japanese and one-quarter European. If
you walked across it it shook, and if you laughed the roof fell off.
Strange Japanese came in and dined with you, and Jap maidens looked
through the windows of the bathroom while you were bathing.
We had hardly put the luggage down before the proprietor asked for
our passports. He asked me of all people in the world. "I have the
passports," said Griffiths with pride. "They are in the yellow-hide
bag. Turn it very carefully on to the right side, my good man. You
have no such locks in Japan, I'm quite certain." Then he knelt down
and brought out a bunch of keys as big as his fist. You must know that
every Japanese carries a little _belaiti_-made handbag with nickel
fastenings. They take an interest in handbags.
"Safe bind, safe---- D----n the key! What's wrong with it?" said
Griffiths.
The hotel proprietor bowed and smiled very politely for at least five
minutes, Griffiths crawling over and under and round and about his bag
the while. "It's a percussating compensator," said he, half to himself.
"I've never known a percussating compensator do this before." He was
getting heated and red in the face.
"Key stuck, eh? I told you those fooling little spring locks are sure
to go wrong sooner or later."
"Fooling little devils. It's a percussating comp---- There goes
the key. Now it won't move either way. I'll give you the passport
to-morrow. Passport _kul demang manana_--catchee in a little time.
Won't that do for you?"
Griffiths was getting really angry. The proprietor was more polite than
ever. He bowed and left the room. "That's a good little chap," said
Griffiths. "Now we'll settle down and see what the mischief's wrong
with this bag. You catch one end."
"Not in the least," I said. "'Safe bind, safe find.' You did the
binding. How can you expect me to do the finding? I'm an imbecile unfit
to be trusted with a passport, and now I'm going for a walk." The
Japanese are really the politest nation in the world. When the hotel
proprietor returned with a policeman he did not at once thrust the man
on Griffiths' notice. He put him in the verandah and let him clank his
sword gently once or twice.
"Little chap's brought a blacksmith," said Griffiths, but when he saw
the policeman his face became ugly. The policeman came into the room
and tried to assist. Have you ever seen a four-foot policeman in white
cotton gloves and a stand-up collar lunging percussating compensator
look with a five-foot sword? I enjoyed the sight for a few minutes
before I went out to look at Otsu, which is a nice town. No one
hindered me. Griffiths was so completely the head of the firm that had
I set the town on fire he would have been held responsible.
I went to a temple, and a policeman said "passport." I said, "The other
gentleman has got." "Where is other gentleman?" said the policeman,
syllable by syllable, in the Ollendorfian style. "In the ho-tel,"
said I; and he waddled off to catch him. It seemed to me that I could
do a great deal towards cheering Griffiths all alone in his bedroom
with that wicked bad lock, the hotel proprietor, the policeman, the
room-boy, and the girl who helped one to bathe. With this idea I stood
in front of four policemen, and they all asked for my passport and were
all sent to the hotel, syllable by syllable--I mean one by one.
Some soldiers of the 9th N.I. were strolling about the streets, and
they were idle. It is unwise to let a soldier be idle. He may get
drunk. When the fourth policeman said: "Where is other gentleman?" I
said: "In the hotel, and take soldiers--those soldiers."
"How many soldiers?" said the policeman firmly.
"Take all soldiers," I said. There were four files in the street just
then. The policeman spoke to them, and they caught up their big
sword-bayonets, nearly as long as themselves, and waddled after him.
I followed them, but first I bought some sweets and gave one to a
child. That was enough. Long before I had reached the hotel I had a
tail of fifty babies. These I seduced into the long passage that ran
through the house, and then I slid the grating that answers to the big
hall-door. That house was full--pit, boxes and galleries--for Griffiths
had created an audience of his own, and I also had not been idle.
The four files of soldiers and the five policemen were marking time on
the boards of Griffith's room, while the landlord and the landlord's
wife, and the two scullions, and the bath-girl, and the cook-boy, and
the boy who spoke English, and the boy who didn't, and the boy who
tried to, and the cook, filled all the space that wasn't devoted to
babies asking the foreigner for more sweets.
Somewhere in the centre of the mess was Griffiths and a yellow-hide
bag. I don't think he had looked up once since I left, for as he
raised his eyes at my voice I heard him cry: "Good heavens! are they
going to train the guns of the city on me? What's the meaning of the
regiment? I'm a British subject."
"What are you looking for?" I asked.
"The passports--your passports--the double-dyed passports! Oh, give a
man room to use his arms. Get me a hatchet."
"The passports, the passports!" I said. "Have you looked in your
great-coat? It's on the bed, and there's a blue envelope in it that
looks like a passport. You put it there before you left Kyoto."
Griffiths looked. The landlord looked. The landlord took the passport
and bowed. The five policemen bowed and went out one by one; the 9th
N.I. formed fours and went out; the household bowed, and there was a
long silence. Then the bath-girl began to giggle.
When Griffiths wanted to speak to me I was on the other side of the
regiment of children in the passage, and he had time to reflect before
he could work his way through them.
They formed his guard-of-honour when he took the bag to the locksmith.
I abode on the mountains of Otsu till dinner-time.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 9: "Turnovers," Vol. VII.]
IT![10]
There was no talk of it for a fortnight. We spoke of latitude and
longitude and the proper manufacture of sherry cobblers, while the
steamer cut open a glassy-smooth sea. Then we turned towards China and
drank farewell to the nearer East.
"We shall reach Hongkong without being it," said the nervous lady.
"Nobody of ordinary strength of mind ever was it," said the big fat man
with the voice. I kept my eye on the big fat man. He boasted too much.
The China seas are governed neither by wind nor calm. Deep down under
the sapphire waters sits a green and yellow devil who suffers from
indigestion perpetually. When he is unwell he troubles the waters above
with his twistings and writhings. Thus it happens that it is never
calm in the China seas.
The sun was shining brightly when the big fat man with the voice came
up the companion and looked at the horizon.
"Hah!" said he, "calm as ditch water! Now I remember when I was in
the _Florida_ in '80, meeting a tidal-wave that turned us upside down
for five minutes, and most of the people inside out, by Jove!" He
expatiated at length on the heroism displayed by himself when "even the
Captain was down, sir!"
I said nothing, but I kept my eyes upon the strong man.
The sun continued to shine brightly, and it also kept an eye in the
same direction. I went to the far-off fo'c'sle, where the sheep and the
cow and the bo'sun and the second-class passengers dwell together in
amity. "Bo'sun," said I, "how's her head?"