The Bad Boy and His Dad Visit the Pope--They Bow to the King
of Italy and His Nine Spots--Dad Finds That “The Catacombs”
Is Not a Comic Opera.
Rome, Italy.--Dear Old Friend: You remember, don't you when you were
a boy, playing “tag, you're it,” and “button, button, who's got the
button?” that one of the trying situations was to be judged to “go to
Rome,” which meant that you were to kiss every girl in the room.
[Illustration: Had to kiss anybody they brought to me 238]
I never got enough “going to Rome” when I attended church sociables
and parties, but always got blindfolded, and had to kiss anybody they
brought to me, which was usually a boy or a colored cook, so I teased
dad to take me to Rome, and when he got over his being rattled and
robbed and burned by lava at Vesuvius, he said he didn't care where
he went, and, besides, I told him about the Roman Coliseum, where they
turned hungry tigers and lions and hyenas loose among the gladiators,
and the people could see the beasts eat them alive, and dad said that
was something like it, as the way he had been robbed and misued in
Italy, he would enjoy seeing a good share of the population chewed by
lions, if the lions could stand it. I didn't tell dad that the wild
animal show had not been running for a couple of thousand years, 'cause
I thought he would find it out when we got here.
Say, old man, I guess I can help you to locate Rome. You remember the
time I spoke a piece at the school exhibition, when I put my hand inside
my flannel shirt, like an orator, and said: “And this is Rome, that
sat on her seven hills, and from her throne of beauty ruled the whole
world.” Well, this is it, where I am now, but the seven hills have been
graded down, and Rome don't rule the whole world a little bit; but she
has got religion awful.
The pope lives here, and he is the boss of more religious people than
anybody, and though you may belong to any other kind of church, and when
you are home you don't care a continental for any religion except your
own, or your wife's religion, and you act like an infidel, and scoff
at good people, when you get to Rome and see the churches thicker than
saloons in Milwaukee, and everybody attending church and looking pious,
you catch the fever, and try to forget bad things you have done, and if
you get a chance to see the pope, you may go to his palace just 'cause
you want to see everything that is going on, and you think you don't
care whether school keeps or not, and you feel independent, as though
this religion was something for weak people to indulge in, and finally
you come face to face with the pope, and see his beautiful face, and his
grand eyes, and his every movement is full of pious meaning, you “penuk”
right there, and want to kneel down and let him bless you, by gosh.
Say, I never saw dad weaken like he did when the pope came in. We got
tickets to go to his reception, but dad said he had rather go to the
catacombs, or the lion show at the Coliseum. He said he didn't want to
encourage popes, because he didn't believe they amounted to any more
than presiding elders at home. He said he had always been a Baptist, and
they didn't have any popes in his church, and he didn't believe in 'em,
but some other Americans were going to see the pope, and dad consented
to go, under protest, it being understood that he didn't care two
whoops, anyway.
Well, sir, we went, and it was the grandest thing you ever saw. There
were guards by the thousand, beautiful gardens that would make Central
Park look like a hay marsh, hundreds of people in church vestments, and
an air of sanctity that we never dreamed; jewels that are never seen
outside the pope's residence, and we lined up to see the holy father
pass.
Gee, but dad trembled like a dog tied out in the snow, and the
perspiration stood out on his face, and he looked sorry for himself.
Then came the procession, all nobles and great people, and then there
was a party of pious men carrying the most beautiful man we ever saw on
a platform above us, and it was the pope, and he smiled at me, and the
tears came to my eyes, and I couldn't swallow something which I s'pose
was my sins, and then he looked at dad, and held up one hand, and dad
was pale, and there was no funny business about dad any more, and then
they set the platform down and the pope sat in a chair, and those who
wanted to went up to him, and he blessed them.
[Illustration: For awhile dad dassent go up 241]
Say, for awhile dad dassent go up, 'cause he thought the pope could see
right through him, and would know he was a Baptist, but the rest of the
Americans were going up, and dad didn't want to be eccentric, so he and
I went up. The pope put out his hand to dad, and instead of shaking it,
as he would the hand of any other man on earth, and asking how his folks
were, dad bent over and kissed the pope's hand, and the pope blessed
him. Dad looked like a new man, a good man, and when the pope put his
hand on my head, and blessed me, my heart came up in my throat, 'cause
I thought he must know of all the mean things I had ever done, but I can
feel his soft, beautiful hand on my head now, and from this out I would
fight any boy twice my size that ever said a word against the pope and
his religion. When we got outside dad says to me: “Hennery, don't you
ever let me hear of your doing a thing that would make the good man
sorry if he was to hear about it.” And we went to our hotel and stayed
all the afternoon, and all night, and just thought of that pope's
angelic face, and when one of the Americans came to our room and wanted
dad to play cinch, he was indignant, and said: “I would as soon think
of robbing a child's bank,” and we went to bed, and if dad wasn't a
converted man I never saw one.
Well, sir, trouble, and sorrow, and religion, don't last very long on
dad. The next morning we talked things over, and I quoted all the Roman
stuff I could think of to dad, such as “In that elder day, to be a Roman
was greater than a king,” but before I could think twice there was a
commotion in the streets and a porter came and made us take off our
hats, because the king was riding by, and we looked at the king, and dad
was hot. He said that fellow was nothing but a railroad hand, disguised
in a uniform, and, by ginger, if we had seen that king out west working
on a railroad, with canvas clothes on, he would not have looked like
a king, on a bet. There was nothing but his good clothes that stood
between the king and a dago digging sewers in Chicago.
After the king and his ninespots had passed, dad said: “When you are in
Rome, you must do as the Romans do,” and he said he wanted to get
that heavy feeling off his shoulders, which he got at the religious
procession, and wanted me to suggest something devilish that we could
do, and I told him we better go and see the “Catacombs.” He wanted
to know if it was anything like “a trip to Chinatown,” or the “Black
Crook,” and I told him it was worse. Then he asked me if there was much
low neck and long stockings in the “Catacombs,” and I told him there was
a plenty, and he said he was just ripe to see that kind of a show, and
so we took a carriage for the “Catacombs,” and dad could hardly keep
still till we got there.
I suppose I ought to be killed for fooling dad, but he craved for
excitement, and he got it. The “Catacombs” are where Roman citizens have
been buried for thousands of years, in graves hewn out of solid rock,
and they are petrified, and after they have laid in the graves for a
few hundred years, the mummified bodies are taken out and stood up in
corners, if the bodies will hang together, and if not the bones are
piled up around for scenery.
We had to take torches to go in, and we wandered through corridors,
gazing at the remains, until dad asked one of the men with us what it
all meant, and the man said it was the greatest show on earth. Dad began
to think he was nutty, and when I laughed, and said: “That is great,”
and clapped my hands, and said: “Encore,” dad stopped and said:
“Hennery, this is no leg show, this is a morgue,” but to cheer him up I
told him his head must be wrong, and I pointed to about a hundred dried
corpses, a thousand years old, in a corner, with grinning skulls all
around, and told him that was the ballet, and told him to look at the
leading dancer, and asked him if she wasn't a beaut, from Butte, Mont.,
and that killed dad. He leaned against me, and said his eyes must have
gone back on him, because everything looked dead to him. I told him he
would get over it after awhile, and to stay where he was while I went
and spoke to one of the ballet that was beckoning to me, and I left him
there, dazed, and went around a corner and hid.
People were coming along with torches all the time, looking at the
catacombs and reading the inscriptions cut in the rock, and after awhile
I went back to where I left dad, and he was gone, but after awhile I
found him standing up with the stiffs. He was glad to see me, and wanted
to know if I thought he was' dead. I told him I was sure he was alive,
though he had a deathly look on his face.
[Illustration: He would break me up into bones, and throw me into a pile
246]
“Well, sir,” says dad, “I thought it was all over with me, after you
left, for a man came along and moved me around, and took hold under my
arms and jumped me along here by these stiffs, and told me if I didn't
stay where I belonged he would break me up into bones, and throw me into
a pile, and I thought I would have to do as the Romans do and stay here,
and before the man left me he reached into my pocket and took my money,
and said I couldn't spend any money in there where I was going to stay
for a million years, and, by gosh, I was so petrified I couldn't stop
him from robbing me. Say, Hennery, they will rob you anywhere, even in
the grave, and if this Catacomb show is over, and the curtain has gone
down, I want to get out of here, and go to the Coliseum or the Roman
amphitheater, where the wild beasts eat people alive.” And so we left
the Catacombs and went back to town, and dad began to show life again.
Say, you tell the folks at home that dad is gaining every day, and his
vacation is doing him good. He has promised to kill me for taking him to
the Catacomb show, but dad never harbors revenge for long, and I guess
your little nephew will pull through. I wish I had my skates, cause dad
wants to go to Russia.
Yours,
Hennery.