On a summer's day, while the city was rocking with the din and red
uproar of patriotism, Billy Casparis told me this story.
In his way, Billy is Ulysses, Jr. Like Satan, he comes from going
to and fro upon the earth and walking up and down in it. To-morrow
morning while you are cracking your breakfast egg he may be off with
his little alligator grip to boom a town site in the middle of Lake
Okeechobee or to trade horses with the Patagonians.
We sat at a little, round table, and between us were glasses holding
big lumps of ice, and above us leaned an artificial palm. And
because our scene was set with the properties of the one they
recalled to his mind, Billy was stirred to narrative.
"It reminds me," said he, "of a Fourth I helped to celebrate down in
Salvador. 'Twas while I was running an ice factory down there, after
I unloaded that silver mine I had in Colorado. I had what they
called a 'conditional concession.' They made me put up a thousand
dollars cash forfeit that I would make ice continuously for six
months. If I did that I could draw down my ante. If I failed to do
so the government took the pot. So the inspectors kept dropping in,
trying to catch me without the goods.
"One day when the thermometer was at 110, the clock at half-past
one, and the calendar at July third, two of the little, brown, oily
nosers in red trousers slid in to make an inspection. Now, the
factory hadn't turned out a pound of ice in three weeks, for a
couple of reasons. The Salvador heathen wouldn't buy it; they said
it made things cold they put it in. And I couldn't make any more,
because I was broke. All I was holding on for was to get down my
thousand so I could leave the country. The six months would be up
on the sixth of July.
"Well, I showed 'em all the ice I had. I raised the lid of a darkish
vat, and there was an elegant 100-pound block of ice, beautiful and
convincing to the eye. I was about to close down the lid again when
one of those brunette sleuths flops down on his red knees and lays
a slanderous and violent hand on my guarantee of good faith. And in
two minutes more they had dragged out on the floor that fine chunk
of molded glass that had cost me fifty dollars to have shipped down
from Frisco.
"'Ice-y?' says the fellow that played me the dishonourable trick;
'verree warm ice-y. Yes. The day is that hot, señor. Yes. Maybeso it
is of desirableness to leave him out to get the cool. Yes.'
"'Yes,' says I, 'yes,' for I knew they had me. 'Touching's
believing, ain't it, boys? Yes. Now there's some might say the seats
of your trousers are sky blue, but 'tis my opinion they are red.
Let's apply the tests of the laying on of hands and feet.' And so I
hoisted both those inspectors out the door on the toe of my shoe,
and sat down to cool off on my block of disreputable glass.
"And, as I live without oats, while I sat there, homesick for money
and without a cent to my ambition, there came on the breeze the most
beautiful smell my nose had entered for a year. God knows where it
came from in that backyard of a country--it was a bouquet of soaked
lemon peel, cigar stumps, and stale beer--exactly the smell of
Goldbrick Charley's place on Fourteenth Street where I used to play
pinochle of afternoons with the third-rate actors. And that smell
drove my troubles through me and clinched 'em at the back. I began
to long for my country and feel sentiments about it; and I said
words about Salvador that you wouldn't think could come legitimate
out of an ice factory.
"And while I was sitting there, down through the blazing sunshine in
his clean, white clothes comes Maximilian Jones, an American
interested in rubber and rosewood.
"'Great carrambos!' says I, when he stepped in, for I was in a bad
temper, 'didn't I have catastrophes enough? I know what you want.
You want to tell me that story again about Johnny Ammiger and the
widow on the train. You've told it nine times already this month.'
"'It must be the heat,' says Jones, stopping in at the door, amazed.
'Poor Billy. He's got bugs. Sitting on ice, and calling his best
friends pseudonyms. Hi!--_muchacho!_' Jones called my force of
employees, who was sitting in the sun, playing with his toes, and
told him to put on his trousers and run for the doctor.
"'Come back,' says I. 'Sit down, Maxy, and forget it. 'Tis not
ice you see, nor a lunatic upon it. 'Tis only an exile full of
homesickness sitting on a lump of glass that's just cost him a
thousand dollars. Now, what was it Johnny said to the widow first?
I'd like to hear it again, Maxy--honest. Don't mind what I said.'
"Maximilian Jones and I sat down and talked. He was about as sick of
the country as I was, for the grafters were squeezing him for half
the profits of his rosewood and rubber. Down in the bottom of a tank
of water I had a dozen bottles of sticky Frisco beer; and I fished
these up, and we fell to talking about home and the flag and Hail
Columbia and home-fried potatoes; and the drivel we contributed
would have sickened any man enjoying those blessings. But at that
time we were out of 'em. You can't appreciate home till you've left
it, money till it's spent, your wife till she's joined a woman's
club, nor Old Glory till you see it hanging on a broomstick on the
shanty of a consul in a foreign town.
"And sitting there me and Maximilian Jones, scratching at our
prickly heat and kicking at the lizards on the floor, became
afflicted with a dose of patriotism and affection for our country.
There was me, Billy Casparis, reduced from a capitalist to a pauper
by over-addiction to my glass (in the lump), declares my troubles
off for the present and myself to be an uncrowned sovereign of the
greatest country on earth. And Maximilian Jones pours out whole drug
stores of his wrath on oligarchies and potentates in red trousers
and calico shoes. And we issues a declaration of interference in
which we guarantee that the fourth day of July shall be celebrated
in Salvador with all the kinds of salutes, explosions, honours
of war, oratory, and liquids known to tradition. Yes, neither me
nor Jones breathed with soul so dead. There shall be rucuses in
Salvador, we say, and the monkeys had better climb the tallest
cocoanut trees and the fire department get out its red sashes and
two tin buckets.
"About this time into the factory steps a native man incriminated
by the name of General Mary Esperanza Dingo. He was some pumpkin
both in politics and colour, and the friend of me and Jones. He was
full of politeness and a kind of intelligence, having picked up
the latter and managed to preserve the former during a two years'
residence in Philadelphia studying medicine. For a Salvadorian he
was not such a calamitous little man, though he always would play
jack, queen, king, ace, deuce for a straight.
"General Mary sits with us and has a bottle. While he was in the
States he had acquired a synopsis of the English language and the
art of admiring our institutions. By and by the General gets up
and tiptoes to the doors and windows and other stage entrances,
remarking 'Hist!' at each one. They all do that in Salvador before
they ask for a drink of water or the time of day, being conspirators
from the cradle and matinee idols by proclamation.
"'Hist!' says General Dingo again, and then he lays his chest on
the table quite like Gaspard the Miser. 'Good friends, señores,
to-morrow will be the great day of Liberty and Independence. The
hearts of Americans and Salvadorians should beat together. Of your
history and your great Washington I know. Is it not so?'
"Now, me and Jones thought that nice of the General to remember when
the Fourth came. It made us feel good. He must have heard the news
going round in Philadelphia about that disturbance we had with
England.
"'Yes,' says me and Maxy together, 'we knew it. We were talking
about it when you came in. And you can bet your bottom concession
that there'll be fuss and feathers in the air to-morrow. We are few
in numbers, but the welkin may as well reach out to push the button,
for it's got to ring.'
"'I, too, shall assist,' says the General, thumping his collar-bone.
'I, too, am on the side of Liberty. Noble Americans, we will make
the day one to be never forgotten.'
"'For us American whisky,' says Jones--'none of your Scotch smoke or
anisada or Three Star Hennessey to-morrow. We'll borrow the consul's
flag; old man Billfinger shall make orations, and we'll have a
barbecue on the plaza.'
"'Fireworks,' says I, 'will be scarce; but we'll have all the
cartridges in the shops for our guns. I've got two navy sixes I
brought from Denver.'
"'There is one cannon,' said the General; 'one big cannon that will
go "BOOM!" And three hundred men with rifles to shoot.'
"'Oh, say!' says Jones, 'Generalissimo, you're the real silk
elastic. We'll make it a joint international celebration. Please,
General, get a white horse and a blue sash and be grand marshal.'
"'With my sword,' says the General, rolling his eyes. 'I shall ride
at the head of the brave men who gather in the name of Liberty.'
"'And you might,' we suggest 'see the commandante and advise him
that we are going to prize things up a bit. We Americans, you know,
are accustomed to using municipal regulations for gun wadding when
we line up to help the eagle scream. He might suspend the rules for
one day. We don't want to get in the calaboose for spanking his
soldiers if they get in our way, do you see?'
"'Hist!' says General Mary. 'The commandant is with us, heart and
soul. He will aid us. He is one of us.'
"We made all the arrangements that afternoon. There was a buck coon
from Georgia in Salvador who had drifted down there from a busted-up
coloured colony that had been started on some possumless land in
Mexico. As soon as he heard us say 'barbecue' he wept for joy and
groveled on the ground. He dug his trench on the plaza, and got half
a beef on the coals for an all-night roast. Me and Maxy went to see
the rest of the Americans in the town and they all sizzled like a
seidlitz with joy at the idea of solemnizing an old-time Fourth.
"There were six of us all together--Martin Dillard, a coffee
planter; Henry Barnes, a railroad man; old man Billfinger, an
educated tintype taker; me and Jonesy, and Jerry, the boss of the
barbecue. There was also an Englishman in town named Sterrett, who
was there to write a book on Domestic Architecture of the Insect
World. We felt some bashfulness about inviting a Britisher to help
crow over his own country, but we decided to risk it, out of our
personal regard for him.
"We found Sterrett in pajamas working at his manuscript with a
bottle of brandy for a paper weight.
"'Englishman,' says Jones, 'let us interrupt your disquisition
on bug houses for a moment. To-morrow is the Fourth of July. We
don't want to hurt your feelings, but we're going to commemorate
the day when we licked you by a little refined debauchery and
nonsense--something that can be heard above five miles off. If you
are broad-gauged enough to taste whisky at your own wake, we'd be
pleased to have you join us.'
"'Do you know,' says Sterrett, setting his glasses on his nose, 'I
like your cheek in asking me if I'll join you; blast me if I don't.
You might have known I would, without asking. Not as a traitor to my
own country, but for the intrinsic joy of a blooming row.'
"On the morning of the Fourth I woke up in that old shanty of an
ice factory feeling sore. I looked around at the wreck of all I
possessed, and my heart was full of bile. From where I lay on my
cot I could look through the window and see the consul's old ragged
Stars and Stripes hanging over his shack. 'You're all kinds of a
fool, Billy Casparis,' I says to myself; 'and of all your crimes
against sense it does look like this idea of celebrating the Fourth
should receive the award of demerit. Your business is busted up,
your thousand dollars is gone into the kitty of this corrupt country
on that last bluff you made, you've got just fifteen Chili dollars
left, worth forty-six cents each at bedtime last night and steadily
going down. To-day you'll blow in your last cent hurrahing for that
flag, and to-morrow you'll be living on bananas from the stalk and
screwing your drinks out of your friends. What's the flag done for
you? While you were under it you worked for what you got. You wore
your finger nails down skinning suckers, and salting mines, and
driving bears and alligators off your town lot additions. How much
does patriotism count for on deposit when the little man with the
green eye-shade in the savings-bank adds up your book? Suppose
you were to get pinched over here in this irreligious country
for some little crime or other, and appealed to your country for
protection--what would it do for you? Turn your appeal over to a
committee of one railroad man, an army officer, a member of each
labour union, and a coloured man to investigate whether any of your
ancestors were ever related to a cousin of Mark Hanna, and then
file the papers in the Smithsonian Institution until after the next
election. That's the kind of a sidetrack the Stars and Stripes would
switch you onto.'
"You can see that I was feeling like an indigo plant; but after
I washed my face in some cool water, and got out my navys and
ammunition, and started up to the Saloon of the Immaculate Saints
where we were to meet, I felt better. And when I saw those other
American boys come swaggering into the trysting place--cool, easy,
conspicuous fellows, ready to risk any kind of a one-card draw, or
to fight grizzlies, fire, or extradition, I began to feel glad I was
one of 'em. So, I says to myself again: 'Billy, you've got fifteen
dollars and a country left this morning--blow in the dollars and
blow up the town as an American gentleman should on Independence
Day.'
"It is my recollection that we began the day along conventional
lines. The six of us--for Sterrett was along--made progress among
the cantinas, divesting the bars as we went of all strong drink
bearing American labels. We kept informing the atmosphere as to
the glory and preeminence of the United States and its ability to
subdue, outjump, and eradicate the other nations of the earth. And,
as the findings of American labels grew more plentiful, we became
more contaminated with patriotism. Maximilian Jones hopes that our
late foe, Mr. Sterrett, will not take offense at our enthusiasm. He
sets down his bottle and shakes Sterrett's hand. 'As white man to
white man,' says he, 'denude our uproar of the slightest taint of
personality. Excuse us for Bunker Hill, Patrick Henry, and Waldorf
Astor, and such grievances as might lie between us as nations.'
"'Fellow hoodlums,' says Sterrett, 'on behalf of the Queen I ask
you to cheese it. It is an honour to be a guest at disturbing the
peace under the American flag. Let us chant the passionate strains
of "Yankee Doodle" while the señor behind the bar mitigates the
occasion with another round of cochineal and aqua fortis.'
"Old Man Billfinger, being charged with a kind of rhetoric, makes
speeches every time we stop. We explained to such citizens as we
happened to step on that we were celebrating the dawn of our own
private brand of liberty, and to please enter such inhumanities as
we might commit on the list of unavoidable casualties.
"About eleven o'clock our bulletins read: 'A considerable rise in
temperature, accompanied by thirst and other alarming symptoms.' We
hooked arms and stretched our line across the narrow streets, all
of us armed with Winchesters and navys for purposes of noise and
without malice. We stopped on a street corner and fired a dozen or
so rounds, and began a serial assortment of United States whoops and
yells, probably the first ever heard in that town.
"When we made that noise things began to liven up. We heard a
pattering up a side street, and here came General Mary Esperanza
Dingo on a white horse with a couple of hundred brown boys following
him in red undershirts and bare feet, dragging guns ten feet long.
Jones and me had forgot all about General Mary and his promise to
help us celebrate. We fired another salute and gave another yell,
while the General shook hands with us and waved his sword.
"'Oh, General,' shouts Jones, 'this is great. This will be a real
pleasure to the eagle. Get down and have a drink.'
"'Drink?' says the general. 'No. There is no time to drink. _Viva
la Libertad!_'
"'Don't forget _E Pluribus Unum!_' says Henry Barnes.
"'_Viva_ it good and strong,' says I. 'Likewise, _viva_ George
Washington. God save the Union, and,' I says, bowing to Sterrett,
'don't discard the Queen.'
"'Thanks,' says Sterrett. 'The next round's mine. All in to the bar.
Army, too.'
"But we were deprived of Sterrett's treat by a lot of gunshots
several squares sway, which General Dingo seemed to think he ought
to look after. He spurred his old white plug up that way, and the
soldiers scuttled along after him.
"'Mary is a real tropical bird,' says Jones. 'He's turned out the
infantry to help us do honour to the Fourth. We'll get that cannon
he spoke of after a while and fire some window-breakers with it.
But just now I want some of that barbecued beef. Let us on to the
plaza.'
"There we found the meat gloriously done, and Jerry waiting,
anxious. We sat around on the grass, and got hunks of it on our tin
plates. Maximilian Jones, always made tender-hearted by drink, cried
some because George Washington couldn't be there to enjoy the day.
'There was a man I love, Billy,' he says, weeping on my shoulder.
'Poor George! To think he's gone, and missed the fireworks. A little
more salt, please, Jerry.'
"From what we could hear, General Dingo seemed to be kindly
contributing some noise while we feasted. There were guns going off
around town, and pretty soon we heard that cannon go 'BOOM!' just as
he said it would. And then men began to skim along the edge of the
plaza, dodging in among the orange trees and houses. We certainly
had things stirred up in Salvador. We felt proud of the occasion and
grateful to General Dingo. Sterrett was about to take a bite off a
juicy piece of rib when a bullet took it away from his mouth.
"'Somebody's celebrating with ball cartridges,' says he, reaching
for another piece. 'Little over-zealous for a non-resident patriot,
isn't it?'
"'Don't mind it,' I says to him. ''Twas an accident. They happen,
you know, on the Fourth. After one reading of the Declaration of
Independence in New York I've known the S. R. O. sign to be hung out
at all the hospitals and police stations.'
"But then Jerry gives a howl and jumps up with one hand clapped to
the back of his leg where another bullet has acted over-zealous. And
then comes a quantity of yells, and round a corner and across the
plaza gallops General Mary Esperanza Dingo embracing the neck of his
horse, with his men running behind him, mostly dropping their guns
by way of discharging ballast. And chasing 'em all is a company of
feverish little warriors wearing blue trousers and caps.
"'Assistance, amigos,' the General shouts, trying to stop his horse.
'Assistance, in the name of Liberty!'
"'That's the Compañia Azul, the President's bodyguard,' says Jones.
'What a shame! They've jumped on poor old Mary just because he was
helping us to celebrate. Come on, boys, it's our Fourth;--do we let
that little squad of A.D.T's break it up?'
"'I vote No,' says Martin Dillard, gathering his Winchester. 'It's
the privilege of an American citizen to drink, drill, dress up, and
be dreadful on the Fourth of July, no matter whose country he's in.'
"'Fellow citizens!' says old man Billfinger, 'In the darkest hour
of Freedom's birth, when our brave forefathers promulgated the
principles of undying liberty, they never expected that a bunch of
blue jays like that should be allowed to bust up an anniversary. Let
us preserve and protect the Constitution.'
"We made it unanimous, and then we gathered our guns and assaulted
the blue troops in force. We fired over their heads, and then
charged 'em with a yell, and they broke and ran. We were irritated
at having our barbecue disturbed, and we chased 'em a quarter of a
mile. Some of 'em we caught and kicked hard. The General rallied his
troops and joined in the chase. Finally they scattered in a thick
banana grove, and we couldn't flush a single one. So we sat down and
rested.
"If I were to be put, severe, through the third degree, I wouldn't
be able to tell much about the rest of the day. I mind that we
pervaded the town considerable, calling upon the people to bring out
more armies for us to destroy. I remember seeing a crowd somewhere,
and a tall man that wasn't Billfinger making a Fourth of July speech
from a balcony. And that was about all.
"Somebody must have hauled the old ice factory up to where I was,
and put it around me, for there's where I was when I woke up the
next morning. As soon as I could recollect by name and address I got
up and held an inquest. My last cent was gone. I was all in.
"And then a neat black carriage drives to the door, and out steps
General Dingo and a bay man in a silk hat and tan shoes.
"'Yes,' says I to myself, 'I see it now. You're the Chief de
Policeos and High Lord Chamberlain of the Calaboosum; and you want
Billy Casparis for excess of patriotism and assault with intent. All
right. Might as well be in jail, anyhow.'
"But it seems that General Mary is smiling, and the bay man shakes
my hand, and speaks in the American dialect.
"'General Dingo has informed me, Señor Casparis, of your gallant
service in our cause. I desire to thank you with my person. The
bravery of you and the other señores Americanos turned the struggle
for liberty in our favour. Our party triumphed. The terrible battle
will live forever in history.
"'Battle?' says I; 'what battle?' and I ran my mind back along
history, trying to think.
"'Señor Casparis is modest,' says General Dingo. 'He led his brave
compadres into the thickest of the fearful conflict. Yes. Without
their aid the revolution would have failed.'
"'Why, now,' says I, 'don't tell me there was a revolution
yesterday. That was only a Fourth of--'
"But right there I abbreviated. It seemed to me it might be best.
"'After the terrible struggle,' says the bay man, 'President Bolano
was forced to fly. To-day Caballo is President by proclamation. Ah,
yes. Beneath the new administration I am the head of the Department
of Mercantile Concessions. On my file I find one report, Señor
Casparis, that you have not made ice in accord with your contract.'
And here the bay man smiles at me, 'cute.
"'Oh, well,' says I, 'I guess the report's straight. I know they
caught me. That's all there is to it.'
"'Do not say so,' says the bay man. He pulls off a glove and goes
over and lays his hand on that chunk of glass.
"'Ice,' says he, nodding his head, solemn.
"General Dingo also steps over and feels of it.
"'Ice,' says the General; 'I'll swear to it.'
"'If Señor Casparis,' says the bay man, 'will present himself to the
treasury on the sixth day of this month he will receive back the
thousand dollars he did deposit as a forfeit. Adios, señor.'
"The General and the bay man bowed themselves out, and I bowed as
often as they did.
"And when the carriage rolls away through the sand I bows once more,
deeper than ever, till my hat touches the ground. But this time
'twas not intended for them. For, over their heads, I saw the old
flag fluttering in the breeze above the consul's roof; and 'twas to
it I made my profoundest salute."