came—the Palm Beach Flier, northbound, was compelled by reason of a
wreck ahead to detour over a side line. When the passengers on the
Pullmans awoke in the morning they found the train halted for an
indefinite stop at a small settlement set among the scrub oaks, jack
pines and dwarf palmettos of interior Florida. Next only to the tiny
station the most important looking structure in sight was an unpainted
frame shack facing the tracks. Over its doorway, in awkward capitals,
was lettered this imposing promise:
NEW YORK BAR.
ALL KINDS OF FANCY DRINKS SERVED HERE.
Reading this sign, two Easterners on board one of the sleeping cars were
seized with a waggish idea. They left their stateroom and, crossing the
rails, entered the establishment.
Its interior decorations were exceedingly simple. At the front was a
broad, unpainted board, supported on two barrels. Behind this barrier,
against the wall, a small bleared mirror hung. On either side of the
mirror, upon a narrow shelf, stood a black bottle, flanked by a meagre
store of smeary toddy glasses. Beneath it was a beer keg, resting upon
the floor on its side.
In the rear was a small rusty stove. The air being chilly, a fire of
pine knots blazed in it. A lanky individual, plainly the proprietor, sat
in a broken chair close up to the stove with his bare feet in the warm
ashes, reading a tattered copy of a Jacksonville paper.
He did not raise his head as the strangers entered, nor did they hail
him. They lined up side by side before the makeshift bar and one of
them, addressing space, said:
“Seeing that they serve all sorts of fancy drinks here, I’ll have a gin
rickey. What are you going to take?” he added, addressing his fellow
joker.
“Well,” said the other, “I think I’ll take a dry martini cocktail, made
with French vermouth.”
Without shifting his position or lifting his eyes from his paper the
proprietor now spoke:
“I kin lick airy dam’ Yankee in the house—an’ I ain’t even looked yit!”
§ 48 A Born Snob
In those bygone times when New York’s Chinatown was in its
heyday—whatever a heyday is—there were three cronies among its
habitués who were popular with newspaper reporters and others in search
of local color. One was Blinky Britt and one was Honest John Clary, so
called because once upon a time when Blinky went to sleep and his glass
eye fell out of its socket and rolled across the floor Honest John
picked it up and gave it back to him; and the third was Dingo Katz.
Honest John was a barkeeper in a Doyers street saloon. Blinky was a
lobby-gow, or messenger, for Chinese residents, and Dingo was a
pickpocket, making a specialty of robbing women passengers on crosstown
trolley cars. They were the Three Musketeers of the Oriental quarter.
In an evil hour the law broke up the triumvirate. Dingo, while plying
his profession, was arrested and lodged in the Tombs. At his trial he
was found guilty, and the Judge sentenced him to three years at Sing
Sing. Although the Underworld agreed that his friends had done all for
him that it was humanly possible to do, it is said that an unreasonable
rancor filled his soul on the morning when he was taken to prison.
Some months later a journalist prowling through Chinatown looking for
material happened upon Blinky Britt sitting in Nigger Mike Callahan’s
bar.
“Hello, Blinky,” he said; “when did you hear from your old sidekick,
Dingo?”
“Aw, say,” answered Blinky, “cheese on dat sidekick stuff. I’m off of
dat Dingo for life.”
“Why, I thought you two were pals,” said the newspaper man.
“So did I t’ink we wuz pals,” said Blinky, “so did I t’ink so. But, say,
lissen, bo, and lemme slip you de lowdown on dis Dingo. Like you knows
already, Dingo he gits sloughed up fur moll-buzzin’ on a Canal street
rattler. Well, it looks like de sneezers is got him nailed fur fair wid
de goods. But all de same I’m de one dat goes to de bat wid de
fall-money fur to hire him a swell mouthpiece to git him cleared. But it
ain’t no use. A jury of twelve delicatesseners and the likes of dat dey
t’rows de hooks into him and de old pappy-guy in the silk night-shirt on
the bench hands him a t’reetime jolt at Warble-Twice-on-the-Hudson.
“Well, w’en de poor nut is been up dere fur going on maybe two or t’ree
weeks I says to myse’f dat it’s no more’n de act of a friend dat I
should go to see him. So I rolls a come-on fur five iron men and I takes
t’ree of dem front wheels and I buys some makin’s and some crullers and
some sweet slum out of a candy shop and some soft scoffin’ out of a pie
shop and one t’ing and another dat I knows Dingo likes, and, come a
Sunday I gits on de rattler and I rides up dere to dat town of Boid
Center and I walks up de road to de big stone hoosgow on de hill. Dere’s
a bull in harness on de gate. See? So I says to dis here bull, I says,
‘Is dis visitors’ day?’ And he says, ‘It ’tis.’ So I says, ‘You pass de
news to Dingo Katz dat his old pal, Blinky Britt, is come to see him.’
“And say, cull, do you know de woid dat Dingo sends back to me?
“HE SENDS ME WOID HE AIN’T IN.”
§ 49 Maybe Not on the Second Day, Either
For his topic that Sabbath morning the reverend father chose the
Judgment. He painted a shining picture of the scene which would be
presented on the Last Day, when all the race of mankind, the quick and
the dead, the old and the young, from Adam to the newest born babe,
assembled before the throne of the Almighty to be judged according to
their deeds done in the flesh.
When the service was over an elderly Irishman tarried after the rest of
the congregation had departed. He halted the priest as the latter was
leaving.
“Your Riverince,” he said, “I want to ask you a question or two, if you
please. I followed your sermon close this mornin’, but still I don’t
know if I got your meanin’ quite clear.”
“I rather thought my language was sufficiently plain for any
understanding,” said the clergyman.
“Oh, it was plain, and most beautiful besides,” said the parishioner.
“But, Father, what I want to know is this: Do you mane to say thot on
the Last Day whin Gabriel’s Trumpet blows iverybody thot iver lived in
this world will be gathered togither at the wan place and the wan time?”
“That is my conception of the meaning of the Scriptures and the
Gospels,” said the priest.
“Do you think now, f’rinstance, thot Cain and Abel ’ll be there, side be
side?”
“Beyond a doubt.”
“And thot little fella David and thot big slob Goliath—thim also, you
think?”
“Surely.”
“And Brian Boru and Oliver Cromwell?”
“Of course, they will.”
“And the _A.P.A._’s and the _A.O.H._’s?”
“Naturally.”
“Father,” said the parishioner, “there’ll be dom little judgin’ done the
first day.”
§ 50 Calling a Spade a Spade
A Christmas entertainment was being planned in a remote Nevada town. The
affair was to take place at the church, and the local Sunday school
superintendent, a mild and gentle man, with a temperamental Adam’s apple
and an aggravated habit of wearing white string ties on week days, had
charge. Up until the eleventh hour it looked as though the manager of
the show must depend exclusively upon home talent in making up the bill.
But late in the afternoon of Christmas eve, as though directed by
Providence, a shabby stranger dropped off a passing freight train
carrying a slender instrument case under his arm. He sought out the
superintendent, introduced himself—modestly—as a distinguished
musician on tour and volunteered to take part in the night’s program.
Delighted at having enlisted a visiting star from out of the East, the
superintendent assigned him the place of honor.
At the proper moment the pleased promoter in his rôle of master of
ceremonies, came forth upon the improvised stage and announced that he
had a delightful surprise and a wonderful treat for the audience. Prof.
Bilbus, a famous clarinet player direct from New York city and at
present sojourning temporarily in their midst, would now favor the
assembled citizens with a solo. He stepped to one side and from the
wings issued the visitor, who bowed low, and then, lifting his
instrument to his lips, emitted one of the sourest and most dismal of
notes.
In his shock and disappointment a big miner at the back of the house
forgot the proprieties.
“Well, the blanketty blank!” he exclaimed in a voice which reached
beyond the footlights.
Quivering with indignation the introducer sprang forward again to the
centre.
“Wait!” he called out. “Who called the clarinet player a blanketty
blank?”
From the audience a third voice was lifted:
“Who called the blanketty blank a clarinet player?”
§ 51 Poor Aim but Good Intent
After his retirement from the presidency Colonel Roosevelt was making
one of his periodical trips through the Southwest, when word came to him
in a town in New Mexico that one of his old Rough Riders, a cow hand,
was in jail on a serious charge over in Arizona and craved that his
beloved commander would come to see him and, if possible, aid him in his
present troubles.
Promptly the Colonel crossed the line. In a small brick coop of a county
prison he found the veteran. When greetings had been exchanged through
the bars, Col. Roosevelt said:
“Jim, I’m certainly sorry to see you in this place.”
“Kernel,” stated the captive, “I’m sorry ’bout it myself. And I’m hopin’
you kin use your influence to git me out pronto. They really ain’t got
no right to keep me locked up. My bein’ here is all due to a mistake
anyway.”
“A mistake?” echoed the Colonel. “Why, I understood you were charged
with some serious offence—shooting somebody, wasn’t it?”
“Well,” said the prisoner, “it’s true I did shoot a lady in the eye. But
it was an accident, Colonel.”
“An accident?”
“Yes suh, a pure accident. I wasn’t shootin’ at that lady at all. I was
shootin’ at my wife.”
§ 52 There Spake True Friendship
To a prosperous cloak and suit merchant on the lower East Side came an
acquaintance of many years’ standing. The newcomer had made a failure of
it as a pushcart huckster, and then as a dealer in castoff garments. But
he was undismayed; his ambition still soared. It seemed that now he
aspired to open a regular store—on borrowed capital.
“But I don’t want I should ask my friends for the money,” he explained.
“So this morning I go by that bank over yonder on the other side of the
street and I talk with the bank president, a feller named Howard, about
it. But what should I know about banks? Nothing, that’s what. He says to
me I should make him a note with indorsements. I asks him what is a
note, and what is this here indorsement? So he asks me who do I know in
this neighborhood what has plenty money, and I says to him that I know
you—that we came over together, greeners, on the same ship from Poland
eighteen years ago. And then he fixes up this here piece of paper, and
he says to me I should bring it over here and get you to sign your name
on the back of it, and then I should bring it back to him and he would
right away give me the two thousand dollars I need. So, here I am,
Goldberg.”
Mr. Goldberg’s voice was husky with emotion as he answered:
“Moe,” he said, “honestly for you I am positively ashamed that you
should do this thing. Ain’t always we been friends both in the old
country and over here? Ain’t always I loved you like a brother? And now
when you need some money do you come to me and ask for it, man to man?
No, you go to a goy like that Howard. Oy! Oy! for you I hang my head
that you should do so!
“Listen: I am the one which is going to help you and not some feller in
a bank. You get that Howard to sign his name on the back of this paper
and then I give you the money!”
§ 53 The Tools Were Lacking
Two traveling men sat at breakfast in the hotel dining room of a South
Carolina mill town. To them came a polite negro, soliciting their
orders.
Said the first:
“Bring me grape fruit, coffee with hot milk, corn muffins, bacon and
eggs.”
“Yassuh,” confirmed the waiter. He addressed the second patron:
“Whut’s yourn goin’ be, Cap’n?”
“I’ll take the same as my friend here, except that the eggs should be
eliminated.”
At the sound of that last mysterious word the darky stiffened.
“’Scuse me, suh—how’d you say you wanted ’em aigs?” he asked.
The white man caught the point. He was by way of being something of a
practical joker anyhow. He raised his voice slightly for added emphasis:
“I said I wanted them eliminated.”
The waiter blinked hard but recovered gallantly.
“Yas suh,” he said, and departed for the kitchen. Almost immediately
there floated in through the swinging doors which separated kitchen from
dining room, a medley of sounds betokening a violent debate between two
persons of African antecedents. And then on the heels of this the waiter
reappeared, perspiring freely, and returned to where the two white men
sat.
“Cap’n,” he said, “wouldn’t you des’ ez soon have yore aigs fried? Or
mebbe scrambled? We also meks a mouty tasty om’let yere. Folks w’ich
tries our om’lets speaks mos’ highly of ’em. Or I mout——”
The joker broke in on him:
“Say,” he demanded, “what’s the matter with you? I gave you my order
once—told you what I wanted. Now, I’m on a diet. Under the doctor’s
orders I must always have my eggs eliminated. And I’m going to have them
that way here or else some nigger’s going to be looking for a job.”
“’Tain’t my fault, suh,” pleaded the waiter. “Hit’s de cook. I tells him
jes’ ez plain. I sez, ‘’Liminate a couple of fresh aigs fur a Naw’the’n
genelman,’ I sez, an’ ’en he starts argufyin’. An’ he tell me to come on
back yere an’ suggest to you——”
“Never mind that,” snapped the humorist, now seemingly in a highly
indignant state. “You go tell that cook that I want him to fill my order
according to instructions or there’ll be trouble.”
Once more the waiter sped away. Half a minute later he came through the
swinging doors. With him was a large, coal black person in a greasy
apron, and with a look of grave concern upon his face.
“Whar’s de gen’elman?” asked the newcomer.
“Thar he set,” said the waiter, pointing.
The cook presented himself at the table and bowed low.
“Boss,” he said, “I’se de cook yere an’ I strives to please. But you’ll
please, suh, haf’ to ’scuse me reguardin’ yore desires ’is mawnin’ fur
’liminated aigs—an’ tha’s a fact.”
“Don’t you know how to eliminate an egg?” demanded the joker.
The cook favored him with a winning smile.
“Who, me?—w’y to be suttinly, I does. Any other time dem ’liminated
aigs’d be settin’ right dar in front of you now, smokin’ hot. But to
tell you de truth, boss, dey wuz a flighty nigger gal come foolin’ round
de kitchen yistiddy w’ich she rightly didn’t have no business to be
there neither; an’ she drapped the ’liminator an’ bruk de handle off of
it.”
§ 54 A Tribute to Moderation
It befell in the old days that a mob one night took a negro out of a
county jail in southern Kentucky and carried him just across the line
into Tennessee and there hanged him at the roadside. As he dangled they
riddled him with bullets and then kindled a fire under him with intent
to destroy the body.
By the light of the mounting flames somebody saw something stirring in a
brush pile, close by the scene of execution. He kicked the brush away
and dragged out an old colored man, who had been on his way home when he
saw the lynchers coming. He had deemed it the part of prudence to take
cover immediately. But as luck would have it, he had gone into
retirement at the very spot where the mob halted to do its work.
Men poked big guns in his face and swore to take his life if ever he
dared reveal what he had that night beheld. The old man protested that
the whole thing was purely an affair of the white folks, in which he had
no concern nor interest. He was quite sure that by daybreak of the
following morning all memories of the night would be gone from his mind.
The leader of the mob felt it incumbent to press the lesson home to the
consciousness of the witness. Still casually cocking and uncocking a
long pistol, he flirted a thumb over his shoulder toward the
gallows-tree and said:
“Well, you know that black scoundrel yonder got what he deserved, don’t
you?”
The old man craned his neck about and gazed for a moment upon the grisly
spectacle.
“Boss,” he said fervently, “it looks lak to me he got off mighty light.”
§ 55 The Instantaneous Diagnosis
The traveling man had occasion to pass through the colored compartment
of the train on his way to the baggage car, where he wished to open one
of his trunks. He took note of a large black person who slept audibly,
with his head lolled back against the seat, his mouth agape and his
tongue hanging down on his chest like a pink plush necktie.
Now the traveling man was by way of being a practical joker. Also he had
in his waistcoat pocket a number of five-grain quinine capsules.
When he returned from the baggage car he held in his hand one of those
capsules, with its top removed. Along the furry surface of that pendant
tongue he gently sifted the crystals of quinine. The sleeper stirred but
did not waken.
The wag halted at the rear door of the Jim Crow section to await
results. Presently a fly lit on the nose of the slumbering one, and he
sucked his tongue back inside of his mouth. Instantly he was wide awake.
He spat violently, then arose with a look of deep concern on his face
and headed for the back platform.
At the door he encountered the traveling man. “Mister,” he demanded,
anxiously, “does you know ef dey’s a doctor on dis yere train?”
“Who needs a doctor?” countered the white man.
“I does, tha’s who.”
“Are you sick?”
“I shore is. An’ whut’s more I knows whut ails me, an’ I knows I needs
to git to a doctor right away.”
“Well, what does ail you?”
“Boss, my gall’s busted!”
§ 56 In Fact, a Positive Fad
Not long ago a very wise literary critic suggested in my presence the
attractiveness of the idea of compiling a funny book about hangings. He
pointed out that there were scores of yarns, all dealing more or less
humorously with the unhumorous subject of hangings, legal and otherwise.
He thought that a suitable beginning for the volume might be found in
the ancient anecdote of the shipwrecked mariner who, after drifting for
days on an improvised raft, was carried by a friendly current within
sight of a strange land. As he drew nearer he saw some men on the shore
erecting a gallows, and, falling upon his knees, cried out: “Thank
Heaven, I have reached a Christian country!”
I do not know whether my friend will carry out his threat of compiling
such a work, but if he ever does I claim the collection will be
incomplete unless in his pages he includes the narrative pertaining to
that colored person who was condemned to death on the scaffold, and who
was unable to readjust himself to the prospect. The nearer the date of
execution came the greater became the reluctance on his part, until
toward the end it amounted with him to what might be called a positive
diffidence.
On the night before the fatal day a clergyman sat with the prisoner
striving by counsel and admonition to prepare him for the ordeal.
“My brother, my poor brother,” said the minister, soothingly, “try to
face the fate which confronts you on the morrow with courage and
resolution. Remember that thousands and thousands before you all through
the ages, some justly condemned and some unjustly, have suffered this
same punishment with fortitude. Even the early Christian martyrs died
much as you must die.”
“Yas, suh, I knows,” quavered the condemned, “but—but it wuz a hobby
wid them.”
§ 57 Something Like a Wampus, Probably
They were holding an examination of aspirants for the position of
principal of a colored grade school in Louisville. One of the most
promising candidates for the vacancy was a small yellow man, who wore
shiny, gold-rimmed spectacles, and bore himself with that air of
assurance which learning sometimes imparts.
The superintendent of the public school system was sounding the
qualifications of this person. The subject was syntax. The inquisitor
would choose a word at random from the lexicon and the applicant would
give his conception of its proper definition.
Out of a clear sky, so to speak, the superintendent sped this one:
“Jeopardy.”
The candidate froze stiff. His eyes rolled in his head as he recoiled
from the shock.
“Which?” he inquired softly.
“Jeopardy.”
“I believe you said ‘jeopardy,’ didn’t you, suh?” said the little yellow
man, still sparring for time.
“Certainly, ‘jeopardy.’ You know the word, don’t you?”
“Oh, yas, suh, fluently.”
“Well, then, since you are familiar with it, what is your understanding
of its meaning?”
Like a man preparing to dive from a great height into vasty depths the
candidate took a deep breath. Then gallantly he leaped headlong.
“Well, suh,” he stated, “in reply to the question just propounded I
should say that ‘jeopardy’ would properly refer to any act committed by
a jeopard.”
He got the job on the spot.
§ 58 An Education in Peril
The original of my fiction character of “Judge Priest” was a certain
Judge William Bishop, now deceased. He was a wonderful old man—shrewd,
simple, kindly, witty, gentle.
One time the old Judge was acting as chairman of a committee of three
lawyers who sat to examine a gangling young man from the country who
sought a license to practice at the local bar. The candidate had started
out to be a blacksmith, but he had decided that wearing a frock coat and
making speeches to juries would be easier than bending mule shoes and
shrinking wagon tires.
Judge Bishop opened the inquiry.
“Henry, my son,” he began in his usual benignant fashion, “I suppose you
have done a course of reading with a view to acquiring the rudiments of
this calling of ours and thereby fitting yourself for your new career?”
“Well, Jedge, I done some readin’ but not so very much,” confessed
Henry. “I aims to do the most of my readin’ after I opens an office.”
“Well, let’s see just what reading you have done,” pursued Judge Bishop.
“I assume naturally that you have read Blackstone?”
“Black which, Jedge?”
“Blackstone, author of great textbooks on the practice and principle of
the law.”
The candidate shook his head.
“I ain’t never heared of him,” he confessed.
“Well, how about Coke?”
“I don’t know ez I ever heared tell of him, neither.”
“Well, surely then you have studied the Constitution of the United
States of America and the Constitution and the Bill of Rights of the
State of Kentucky?”
“To tell you the truth, Jedge, I ain’t got round to them yit,” admitted
the aspiring blacksmith.
“Henry,” pressed Judge Bishop, “suppose you tell us just what
books—what authorities—you have studied since you became seized with
the desire to be a member of our bar?”
Henry pondered a moment. Then his face brightened.
“I tell you, Jedge,” he said, “I read one big book called ‘Revised
Statutes of the State of Kintucky’ mighty nigh through, an’ I kin
remember part of what it says.”
“My son,” stated Judge Bishop, “the trouble with you is that the next
Legislature is liable to meet and repeal every damn thing you know.”
§ 59 A Lover of Statistics
There was a seance on—a regular seance, with a trance medium and a
black cheesecloth cabinet and a mysterious table rapper and a ghostly
guitar picker and everything orthodox, like that. The medium was a stout
lady whose controls took those liberties with the English language which
seemingly is permitted in a realm where there is neither space nor
time—nor grammar. The audience was of fairish size. Amid the throng sat
a half-grown youth from about five miles out on R. F. D. No. 3. He was
attending his first spiritualistic seance. As manifestation succeeded
manifestation, his eyes popped and his ears twitched.
Presently the medium’s husband, who acted, so to speak, as ringmaster,
desired to know whether there was yet another present desirous of having
speech with some dear departed one. If so, Madame would undertake to
establish liaison.
This was the cue for the yokel. He mustered courage to stutter an
embarrassed plea. He wished to hear from the shade of his late father.
After a proper wait there were sounds in the cabinet and through the
darkness there spoke the tones of one of seeming hoary age.
“Is that you, my son?” asked the voice.
“Yes, paw, this here is me,” answered the youth.
“Was there any questions you wished to ast me concernin’ my present
state?” continued the accommodating voice.
The boy thought a moment. Then:
“Where air you, Paw?” he inquired with simple directness.
“Heaven, my son.”
“Air you an angel, Paw?”
“Oh, yes, my son.”
“An angel with wings and a harp and everything?”
The answer was somewhat muffled but seemingly in the affirmative. The
son considered a moment.
“Say, Paw,” he demanded eagerly, “whut do you measure frum tip to tip?”
§ 60 History in the Un-Making
There used to be a character in George Creel’s town in Missouri, a
transplanted Kentuckian and a veteran of Shelby’s command, who was a
born orator and an inspired romancer.