retorted Noah. "You get a beast like the elephant shuffling one of his
fore-feet up and down, up and down, a plank for twenty-four hours a day
for forty days in one of your boats, and see where your boat would be."
"Thanks," said Charon, calmly. "But the elephants don't patronize my line.
All the elephants I've ever seen in Hades waded over, except Jumbo, and he
reached his trunk across, fastened on to a tree limb with it, and swung
himself over. However, the Ark isn't at all what you want, unless you are
going to man her with a lot of centaurs. If that's your intention, I'd
charter her; the accommodations are just the thing for a crew of that
kind."
"Well, what do you suggest?" asked Raleigh, somewhat impatiently. "You've
told us what we can't do. Now tell us what we can do."
"I'd stay right here," said Charon, "and let the ladies rescue themselves.
That's what I'd do. I've had the honor of bringing 'em over here, and I
think I know 'em pretty well. I've watched 'em close, and it's my private
opinion that before many days you'll see your club-house sailing back
here, with Queen Elizabeth at the hellum, and the other ladies on the
for'ard deck knittin' and crochetin', and tearin' each other to pieces in
a conversational way, as happy as if there never had been any Captain Kidd
and his pirate crew."
"That suggestion is impossible," said Blackstone, rising. "Whether the
relief expedition amounts to anything or not, it's good to be set going.
The ladies would never forgive us if we sat here inactive, even if they
were capable of rescuing themselves. It is an accepted principle of law
that this climate hath no fury like a woman left to herself, and we've got
enough professional furies hereabouts without our aiding in augmenting the
ranks. We must have a boat."
"It'll cost you a thousand dollars a week," said Charon.
"I'll subscribe fifty," cried Hamlet.
"I'll consult my secretary," said Solomon, "and find out how many of my
wives have been abducted, and I'll pay ten dollars apiece for their
recovery."
"That's liberal," said Hawkshaw. "There are sixty-three of 'em on board,
together with eighty of his fiancées. What's the quotation on fiancées,
King Solomon?"
"Nothing," said Solomon. "They're not mine yet, and it's their fathers'
business to get 'em back. Not mine."
Other subscriptions came pouring in, and it was not long before everybody
save Shylock had put his name down for something. This some one of the
more quick-witted of the spirits soon observed, and, with reckless
disregard of the feelings of the Merchant of Venice, began to call:
"Shylock! Shylock! How much?"
The Merchant tried to leave the pier, but his path was blocked.
"Subscribe, subscribe!" was the cry. "How much?"
"Order, gentlemen, order!" said Sir Walter, rising and holding a bottle
aloft. "A black person by the name of Friday, a valet of our friend Mr.
Crusoe, has just handed me this bottle, which he picked up ten minutes ago
on the bank of the river a few miles distant. It contains a bit of paper,
and may perhaps give us a clew based upon something more substantial than
even the wonderful theories of our new brother Holmes."
[Illustration: A BLACK PERSON BY THE NAME OF FRIDAY FINDS A BOTTLE]
A deathly silence followed the chairman's words, as Sir Walter drew a
cork-screw from his pocket and opened the bottle. He extracted the paper,
and, as he had surmised, it proved to be a message from the missing
vessel. His face brightening with a smile of relief, Sir Walter read,
aloud:
"Have just emerged into the Atlantic. Club in hands of Kidd and forty
ruffians. One hundred and eighty-three ladies on board. Headed for the
Azores. Send aid at once. All well except Xanthippe, who is seasick in the
billiard-room. (Signed) Portia."
"Aha!" cried Hawkshaw. "That shows how valuable the Holmes theory is."
"Precisely," said Holmes. "No woman knows anything about seafaring, but
Portia is right. The ship is headed for the Azores, which is the first
tack needed in a windward sail for London under the present conditions."
The reply was greeted with cheers, and when they subsided the cry for
Shylock's subscription began again, but he declined.
"I had intended to put up a thousand ducats," he said, defiantly, "but
with that woman Portia on board I won't give a red obolus!" and with that
he wrapped his cloak about him and stalked off into the gathering shadows
of the wood.
And so the funds were raised without the aid of Shylock, and the shapely
twin-screw steamer the _Gehenna_ was chartered of Charon, and put under
the command of Mr. Sherlock Holmes, who, after he had thanked the company
for their confidence, walked abstractedly away, observing in strictest
confidence to himself that he had done well to prepare that bottle
beforehand and bribe Crusoe's man to find it.
"For now," he said, with a chuckle, "I can get back to earth again free of
cost on my own hook, whether my eminent inventor wants me there or not. I
never approved of his killing me off as he did at the very height of my
popularity."
IV
ON BOARD THE HOUSE-BOAT
Meanwhile the ladies were not having such a bad time, after all. Once
having gained possession of the House-boat, they were loath to think of
ever having to give it up again, and it is an open question in my mind if
they would not have made off with it themselves had Captain Kidd and his
men not done it for them.
"I'll never forgive these men for their selfishness in monopolizing all
this," said Elizabeth, with a vicious stroke of a billiard-cue, which
missed the cue-ball and tore a right angle in the cloth. "It is not
right."
"No," said Portia. "It is all wrong; and when we get back home I'm going
to give my beloved Bassanio a piece of my mind; and if he doesn't give in
to me, I'll reverse my decision in the famous case of Shylock _versus_
Antonio."
"Then I sincerely hope he doesn't give in," retorted Cleopatra, "for I
swear by all my auburn locks that that was the very worst bit of injustice
ever perpetrated. Mr. Shakespeare confided to me one night, at one of Mrs.
Cæsar's card-parties, that he regarded that as the biggest joke he ever
wrote, and Judge Blackstone observed to Antony that the decision wouldn't
have held in any court of equity outside of Venice. If you owe a man a
thousand ducats, and it costs you three thousand to get them, that's your
affair, not his. If it cost Antonio every drop of his bluest blood to pay
the pound of flesh, it was Antonio's affair, not Shylock's. However, the
world applauds you as a great jurist, when you have nothing more than a
woman's keen instinct for sentimental technicalities."
"It would have made a horrid play, though, if it had gone on," shuddered
Elizabeth.
"That may be, but, carried out realistically, it would have done away with
a raft of bad actors," said Cleopatra. "I'm half sorry it didn't go on,
and I'm sure it wouldn't have been any worse than compelling Brutus to
fall on his sword until he resembles a chicken liver _en brochette_, as is
done in that Julius Cæsar play."
"Well, I'm very glad I did it," snapped Portia.
"I should think you would be," said Cleopatra. "If you hadn't done it,
you'd never have been known. What was that?"
The boat had given a slight lurch.
"Didn't you hear a shuffling noise up on deck, Portia?" asked the Egyptian
Queen.
"I thought I did, and it seemed as if the vessel had moved a bit,"
returned Portia, nervously; for, like most women in an advanced state of
development, she had become a martyr to her nerves.
"It was merely the wash from one of Charon's new ferry-boats, I fancy,"
said Elizabeth, calmly. "It's disgusting, the way that old fellow allows
these modern innovations to be brought in here! As if the old paddle-boats
he used to carry shades in weren't good enough for the immigrants of this
age! Really this Styx River is losing a great deal of its charm. Sir
Walter and I were upset, while out rowing one day last summer, by the
waves kicked up by one of Charon's excursion steamers going up the river
with a party of picnickers from the city--the Greater Gehenna Chowder
Club, I believe it was--on board of her. One might just as well live in
the midst of the turmoil of a great city as try to get uninterrupted quiet
here in the suburbs in these days. Charon isn't content to get rich
slowly; he must make money by the barrelful, if he has to sacrifice all
the comfort of everybody living on this river. Anybody'd think he was an
American, the way he goes on; and everybody else here is the same way. The
Erebeans are getting to be a race of shopkeepers."
"I think myself," sighed Cleopatra, "that Hades is being spoiled by the
introduction of American ideas--it is getting by far too democratic for my
tastes; and if it isn't stopped, it's my belief that the best people will
stop coming here. Take Madame Récamier's salon as it is now and compare it
with what it used to be! In the early days, after her arrival here,
everybody went because it was the swell thing, and you'd be sure of
meeting the intellectually elect. On the one hand you'd find Sophocles; on
the other, Cicero; across the room would be Horace chatting gayly with
some such person as myself. Great warriors, from Alexander to Bonaparte,
were there, and glad of the opportunity to be there, too; statesmen like
Macchiavelli; artists like Cellini or Tintoretto. You couldn't move
without stepping on the toes of genius. But now all is different. The
money-getting instinct has been aroused within them all, with the result
that when I invited Mozart to meet a few friends at dinner at my place
last autumn, he sent me a card stating his terms for dinners. Let me see,
I think I have it with me; I've kept it by me for fear of losing it, it is
such a complete revelation of the actual condition of affairs in this
locality. Ah! this is it," she added, taking a small bit of paste-board
from her card-case. "Read that."
The card was passed about, and all the ladies were much astonished--and
naturally so, for it ran this wise:
--------------------------------------------------
| NOTICE TO HOSTESSES. |
| |
| Owing to the very great, constantly growing, |
| and at times vexatious demands upon his time |
| socially, |
| |
| HERR WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART |
| |
| takes this method of announcing to his |
| friends that on and after January 1, 1897, |
| his terms for functions will be as follows: |
| |
| Marks. |
| Dinners with conversation on the |
| Theory of Music ................. 500 |
| Dinners with conversation on the |
| Theory of Music, illustrated .... 750 |
| Dinners without any conversation .. 300 |
| Receptions, public, with music .... 1000 |
| " private, " ...... 750 |
| Encores (single) .................. 100 |
| Three encores for ................. 150 |
| Autographs ........................ 10 |
| |
| Positively no Invitations for Five-o'Clock |
| Teas or Morning Musicales considered. |
--------------------------------------------------
"Well, I declare!" tittered Elizabeth, as she read. "Isn't that
extraordinary? He's got the three-name craze, too!"
"It's perfectly ridiculous," said Cleopatra. "But it's fairer than Artemus
Ward's plan. Mozart gives notice of his intentions to charge you; but with
Ward it's different. He comes, and afterwards sends a bill for his fun.
Why, only last week I got a 'quarterly statement' from him showing a
charge against me of thirty-eight dollars for humorous remarks made to my
guests at a little chafing-dish party I gave in honor of Balzac, and,
worst of all, he had marked it 'Please remit.' Even Antony, when he wrote
a sonnet to my eyebrow, wouldn't let me have it until he had heard whether
or not Boswell wanted it for publication in the _Gossip_. With Rubens
giving chalk-talks for pay, Phidias doing 'Five-minute Masterpieces in
Putty' for suburban lyceums, and all the illustrious in other lines
turning their genius to account through the entertainment bureaus, it's
impossible to have a salon now."
"You are indeed right," said Madame Récamier, sadly. "Those were palmy
days when genius was satisfied with chicken salad and lemonade. I shall
never forget those nights when the wit and wisdom of all time
were--ah--were on tap at my house, if I may so speak, at a cost to me of
lights and supper. Now the only people who will come for nothing are those
we used to think of paying to stay away. Boswell is always ready, but you
can't run a salon on Boswell."
"Well," said Portia, "I sincerely hope that you won't give up the
functions altogether, because I have always found them most delightful. It
is still possible to have lights and supper."
"I have a plan for next winter," said Madame Récamier, "but I suppose I
shall be accused of going into the commercial side of it if I adopt it.
The plan is, briefly, to incorporate my salon. That's an idea worthy of an
American, I admit; but if I don't do it I'll have to give it up entirely,
which, as you intimate, would be too bad. An incorporated salon, however,
would be a grand thing, if only because it would perpetuate the salon.
'The Récamier Salon (Limited)' would be a most excellent title, and,
suitably capitalized, would enable us to pay our lions sufficiently.
Private enterprise is powerless under modern conditions. It's as much as I
can afford to pay for a dinner, without running up an expense account for
guests; and unless we get up a salon trust, as it were, the whole affair
must go to the wall."
[Illustration: MADAME RÉCAMIER HAS A PLAN]
"How would you make it pay?" asked Portia. "I can't see where your
dividends would come from."
"That is simple enough," said Madame Récamier. "We could put up a large
reception-hall with a portion of our capital, and advertise a series of
nights--say one a week throughout the season. These would be Warriors'
Night, Story-tellers' Night, Poets' Night, Chafing-dish Night under the
charge of Brillat-Savarin, and so on. It would be understood that on these
particular evenings the most interesting people in certain lines would be
present, and would mix with outsiders, who should be admitted only on
payment of a certain sum of money. The commonplace inhabitants of this
country could thus meet the truly great; and if I know them well, as I
think I do, they'll pay readily for the privilege. The obscure love to rub
up against the famous here as well as they do on earth."
"You'd run a sort of Social Zoo?" suggested Elizabeth.
"Precisely; and provide entertainment for private residences too. An
advertisement in Boswell's paper, which everybody buys--"
"And which nobody reads," said Portia.
"They read the advertisements," retorted Madame Récamier. "As I was
saying, an advertisement could be placed in Boswell's paper as follows:
'Are you giving a Function? Do you want Talent? Get your Genius at the
Récamier Salon (Limited).' It would be simply magnificent as a business
enterprise. The common herd would be tickled to death if they could get
great people at their homes, even if they had to pay roundly for them."
"It would look well in the society notes, wouldn't it, if Mr. John Boggs
gave a reception, and at the close of the account it said, 'The supper was
furnished by Calizetti, and the genius by the Récamier Salon (Limited)'?"
suggested Elizabeth, scornfully.
"I must admit," replied the French lady, "that you call up an unpleasant
possibility, but I don't really see what else we can do if we want to
preserve the salon idea. Somebody has told these talented people that they
have a commercial value, and they are availing themselves of the demand."
"It is a sad age!" sighed Elizabeth.
"Well, all I've got to say is just this," put in Xanthippe: "You people
who get up functions have brought this condition of affairs on yourselves.
You were not satisfied to go ahead and indulge your passion for lions in a
moderate fashion. Take the case of Demosthenes last winter, for instance.
His wife told me that he dined at home three times during the winter. The
rest of the time he was out, here, there, and everywhere, making
after-dinner speeches. The saving on his dinner bills didn't pay his
pebble account, much less remunerate him for his time, and the fearful
expense of nervous energy to which he was subjected. It was as much as she
could do, she said, to keep him from shaving one side of his head, so that
he couldn't go out, the way he used to do in Athens when he was afraid he
would be invited out and couldn't scare up a decent excuse for refusing."
"Did he do that?" cried Elizabeth, with a roar of laughter.
"So the cyclopædias say. It's a good plan, too," said Xanthippe. "Though
Socrates never had to do it. When I got the notion Socrates was going out
too much, I used to hide his dress clothes. Then there was the case of
Rubens. He gave a Carbon Talk at the Sforza's Thursday Night Club, merely
to oblige Madame Sforza, and three weeks later discovered that she had
sold his pictures to pay for her gown! You people simply run it into the
ground. You kill the goose that when taken at the flood leads on to
fortune. It advertises you, does the lion no good, and he is expected to
be satisfied with confectionery, material and theoretical. If they are
getting tired of candy and compliments, it's because you have forced too
much of it upon them."
"They like it, just the same," retorted Récamier. "A genius likes nothing
better than the sound of his own voice, when he feels that it is falling
on aristocratic ears. The social laurel rests pleasantly on many a noble
brow."
"True," said Xanthippe. "But when a man gets a pile of Christmas wreaths a
mile high on his head, he begins to wonder what they will bring on the
market. An occasional wreath is very nice, but by the ton they are apt to
weigh on his mind. Up to a certain point notoriety is like a woman, and a
man is apt to love it; but when it becomes exacting, demanding instead of
permitting itself to be courted, it loses its charm."
"That is Socratic in its wisdom," smiled Portia.
"But Xanthippic in its origin," returned Xanthippe. "No man ever gave me
my ideas."
As Xanthippe spoke, Lucretia Borgia burst into the room.
"Hurry and save yourselves!" she cried. "The boat has broken loose from
her moorings, and is floating down the stream. If we don't hurry up and do
something, we'll drift out to sea!"
"What!" cried Cleopatra, dropping her cue in terror, and rushing for the
stairs. "I was certain I felt a slight motion. You said it was the wash
from one of Charon's barges, Elizabeth."
"I thought it was," said Elizabeth, following closely after.
"Well, it wasn't," moaned Lucretia Borgia. "Calpurnia just looked out of
the window and discovered that we were in mid-stream."
The ladies crowded anxiously about the stair and attempted to ascend,
Cleopatra in the van; but as the Egyptian Queen reached the doorway to the
upper deck, the door opened, and the hard features of Captain Kidd were
thrust roughly through, and his strident voice rang out through the
gathering gloom. "Pipe my eye for a sardine if we haven't captured a
female seminary!" he cried.
[Illustration: "THE HARD FEATURES OF KIDD WERE THRUST THROUGH"]
And one by one the ladies, in terror, shrank back into the billiard-room,
while Kidd, overcome by surprise, slammed the door to, and retreated into
the darkness of the forward deck to consult with his followers as to "what
next."
V
A CONFERENCE ON DECK
"Here's a kettle of fish!" said Kidd, pulling his chin whisker in
perplexity as he and his fellow-pirates gathered about the capstan to
discuss the situation. "I'm blessed if in all my experience I ever sailed
athwart anything like it afore! Pirating with a lot of low-down ruffians
like you gentlemen is bad enough, but on a craft loaded to the water's
edge with advanced women--I've half a mind to turn back."
[Illustration: "'HERE'S A KETTLE OF FISH,' SAID KIDD"]
"If you do, you swim--we'll not turn back with you," retorted Abeuchapeta,
whom, in honor of his prowess, Kidd had appointed executive officer of the
House-boat. "I have no desire to be mutinous, Captain Kidd, but I have not
embarked upon this enterprise for a pleasure sail down the Styx. I am out
for business. If you had thirty thousand women on board, still should I
not turn back."
"But what shall we do with 'em?" pleaded Kidd. "Where can we go without
attracting attention? Who's going to feed 'em? Who's going to dress 'em?
Who's going to keep 'em in bonnets? You don't know anything about these
creatures, my dear Abeuchapeta; and, by-the-way, can't we arbitrate that
name of yours? It would be fearful to remember in the excitement of a
fight."
"Call him Ab," suggested Sir Henry Morgan, with an ill-concealed sneer,
for he was deeply jealous of Abeuchapeta's preferral.
"If you do I'll call you Morgue, and change your appearance to fit,"
retorted Abeuchapeta, angrily.
"By the beards of all my sainted Buccaneers," began Morgan, springing
angrily to his feet, "I'll have your life!"
"Gentlemen! Gentlemen--my noble ruffians!" expostulated Kidd. "Come, come;
this will never do! I must have no quarrelling among my aides. This is no
time for divisions in our councils. An entirely unexpected element has
entered into our affairs, and it behooveth us to act in concert. It is no
light matter--"
"Excuse me, captain," said Abeuchapeta, "but that is where you and I do
not agree. We've got our ship and we've got our crew, and in addition we
find that the Fates have thrown in a hundred or more women to act as
ballast. Now I, for one, do not fear a woman. We can set them to work.
There is plenty for them to do keeping things tidy; and if we get into a
very hard fight, and come out of the mêlée somewhat the worse for wear, it
will be a blessing to have 'em along to mend our togas, sew buttons on our
uniforms, and darn our hosiery."
Morgan laughed sarcastically. "When did you flourish, if ever, colonel?"
he asked.
"Do you refer to me?" queried Abeuchapeta, with a frown.
"You have guessed correctly," replied Morgan, icily. "I have quite
forgotten your date; were you a success in the year one, or when?"
"Admiral Abeuchapeta, Sir Henry," interposed Kidd, fearing a further
outbreak of hostilities--"Admiral Abeuchapeta was the terror of the seas
in the seventh century, and what he undertook to do he did, and his
piratical enterprises were carried on on a scale of magnificence which is
without parallel off the comic-opera stage. He never went forth without at
least seventy galleys and a hundred other vessels."
Abeuchapeta drew himself up proudly.
"Six-ninety-eight was my great year," he said.
"That's what I thought," said Morgan. "That is to say, you got your ideas
of women twelve hundred years ago, and the ladies have changed somewhat
since that time. I have great respect for you, sir, as a ruffian. I have
no doubt that as a ruffian you are a complete success, but when it comes
to 'feminology' you are sailing in unknown waters. The study of women, my
dear Abeuchadnezzar--"
"Peta," retorted Abeuchapeta, irritably.
"I stand corrected. The study of women, my dear Peter," said Morgan, with
a wink at Conrad, which fortunately the seventh-century pirate did not
see, else there would have been an open break--"the study of women is more
difficult than that of astronomy; there may be two stars alike, but all
women are unique. Because she was this, that, or the other thing in your
day does not prove that she is any one of those things in our day--in
fact, it proves the contrary. Why, I venture even to say that no
individual woman is alike."
"That's rather a hazy thought," said Kidd, scratching his head in a
puzzled sort of way.
"I mean that she's different from herself at different times," said
Morgan. "What is it the poet called her?--'an infinite variety show,' or
something of that sort; a perpetual vaudeville--a continuous performance,
as it were, from twelve to twelve."