UC-NRLF 
 
 B M 71T 571 
 
jfiction, JFact, aub JTaunj 0cries 
 
 EDITED BY ARTHUR STEDMAN 
 
 MERRY TALES 
 
JFktton, JFact, emit JFancg Series. 
 
 MERRY TALES. 
 
 BY MARK TWAIN. 
 
 THE GERMAN EMPEROR AND HIS EASTERN 
 NEIGHBORS. 
 
 BY POULTNEY BlGELOW. 
 
 SELECTED POEMS. 
 
 BY WALT WHITMAN. 
 
 DON FINIMONDONE : CALABRIAN 
 SKETCHES. 
 
 BY ELISABETH CAVAZZA. 
 
 Other Volumes to be Announced. 
 
 Bound in Illuminated Cloth, each, 75 Cents. 
 
 #** For Sale by all Booksellers, or sent postpaid, on re 
 ceipt of price, by the Publishers, 
 
 OHAS, L, WEBSTEK & 00,, NEW YOKK 
 
MERRY TALES 
 
 BY 
 
 MARK TWAIN 
 
 12 or k 
 
 CHARLES L. WEBSTER & CO. 
 1892 
 
Copyright, 1892, 
 CHARLES L. WEBSTER & CO. 
 
 rights reserved.} 
 
 PRESS OF 
 
 JENKINS & McCowAN, 
 
 NEW YORK. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 ^, ** 
 
 PAGE 
 
 ^ THE PRIVATE HISTORY OF A CAMPAIGN THAI- 
 FAILED, 9 
 
 1 THE INVALID S STORY, 5 1 
 
 - LUCK, 66 
 
 i THE CAPTAIN S STORY, ?6 
 
 . A CURIOUS EXPERIENCE, 85 
 
 / MRS. McWlLLIAMS AND THE LIGHTNING, . . 144 
 
 MEISTERSCHAFT 161 
 
MERRY TALES. 
 
 THE PRIVATE HISTORY OF A CAM 
 PAIGN THAT FAILED. 
 
 YOU have heard from a great many people 
 who did something in the war; is it not 
 fair and right that you listen a little moment 
 to one who started out to do something in it, 
 but didn t ? Thousands entered the war, got 
 just a taste of it, and then stepped out again, 
 permanently. These, by their very numbers, 
 are respectable, and are therefore entitled to a 
 sort of voice, not a loud one, but a modest 
 one; not a boastful one, but an apologetic one. 
 They ought not to be allowed much space 
 among better people people who did some 
 thing I grant that; but they ought at least to 
 be allowed to state why they didn t do any 
 thing, and also to explain the process by which 
 they didn t do anything. Surely this kind of 
 light must have a sort of value. 
 
10 THE PRIVATE HISTORY OF 
 
 Out West there was a good deal of confusion 
 in men s minds during the first months of the 
 great troublea good deal of unsettledness, 
 of leaning first this way, then that, then the 
 other way. It was hard for us to get our 
 bearings. I call to mind an instance of this. 
 I was piloting on the Mississippi when the news 
 came that South Carolina had gone out of the 
 Union on the 2Oth of December, 1860. My 
 pilot-mate was a New Yorker. He was strong 
 for the Union; so was I. But he would not 
 listen to me with any patience; my loyalty was 
 smirched, to his eye, because my father had 
 owned slaves. I said, in palliation of this dark 
 fact, that I had heard my father say, some 
 years before he died, that slavery was a great 
 wrong, and that he would free the solitary ne 
 gro he then owned if he could think it right to 
 give away the property of the family when he 
 was so straitened in means. My mate retorted 
 that a mere impulse was nothing anybody 
 could pretend to a good impulse; and went on 
 decrying my Unionism and libeling my ances 
 try. A month later the secession atmosphere 
 
A CAMPAIGN THAT FAILED. II 
 
 had considerably thickened on the Lower Mis 
 sissippi, and I became a rebel; so did he. We 
 were together in New Orleans, the 26th of Jan 
 uary, when Louisiana went out of the Union. 
 He did his full share of the rebel shouting, but 
 was bitterly opposed to letting me do mine. 
 He said that I came of bad stock of a father 
 who had been willing to set slaves free. In the 
 following summer he was piloting a Federal 
 gun-boat and shouting for the Union again, 
 and I was in the Confederate army. I held his 
 note for some borrowed money. He was one 
 of the most upright men I ever knew; but he 
 repudiated that note without hesitation, be 
 cause I was a rebel, and the son of a man who 
 owned slaves. 
 
 In that summer of 1861 the first was-h of 
 the wave of war broke upon the shores of Mis 
 souri. Our State was invaded by the Union 
 forces. They took possession of St. Louis, Jef 
 ferson Barracks, and some other points. The 
 Governor, Claib Jackson, issued his proclama 
 tion calling out fifty thousand militia to repel 
 the invader. 
 
12 THE PRIVATE HISTORY OF 
 
 I was visiting in the small town where my 
 boyhood had been spent Hannibal, Marion 
 County. Several of us got together in a se 
 cret place by night and formed ourselves into 
 a military company. One Tom Lyman, a 
 young fellow of a good deal of spirit but of 
 no military experience, was made captain; I 
 was made second lieutenant. We had no first 
 lieutenant; I do not know why; it was long 
 ago. There were fifteen of us. By the advice 
 of an innocent connected with the organiza 
 tion, we called ourselves the Marion Rangers. 
 I do not remember that any one found fault 
 with the name. I did not; I thought it sounded 
 quite well. The young fellow who proposed 
 this title was perhaps a fair sample of the kind 
 of stuff we were made of. He was young, ig 
 norant, good-natured, well-meaning, trivial, 
 full of romance, and given to reading chival- 
 ric novels and singing forlorn love-ditties. He 
 had some pathetic little nickel-plated aristo 
 cratic instincts, and detested his name, which 
 was Dunlap ; detested it, partly because it 
 was nearly as common in that region as Smith, 
 
A CAMPAIGN THAT FAILED. 13 
 
 but mainly because it had a plebeian sound to 
 his ear. So he tried to ennoble it by writing 
 it in this way: (TUnlap. That contented his 
 eye, but left his ear unsatisfied, for people gave 
 the new name the same old pronunciation- 
 emphasis on the front end of it. He then did 
 the bravest thing that can be imagined, a 
 thing to make one shiver when one remem 
 bers how the world is given to resenting shams 
 and affectations; he began to write his name so: 
 d Un Lap. And he waited patiently through 
 the long storm of mud that was flung at this 
 work of art, and he had his reward at last; for 
 he lived to see that name accepted, and the 
 emphasis put where he wanted it, by people 
 who had known him all his life, and to whom 
 the tribe of Dunlaps had been as familiar as 
 the rain and the sunshine for forty years. So 
 sure of victory at last is the courage that can 
 wait. He said he had found, by consulting 
 some ancient French chronicles, that the name 
 was rightly and originally written d Un Lap; 
 and said that if it were translated into English 
 it would mean Peterson: Lap, Latin or Greek, 
 
14 THE PRIVATE HISTORY OF 
 
 he said, for stone or rock, same as the French 
 pierre, that is to say, Peter; d\ of or from; 
 un, a or one; hence, d Un Lap, of or from a 
 stone or a Peter ; that is to say, one who is 
 the son of a stone, the son of a Peter Peter 
 son. Our militia company were not learned, 
 and the explanation confused them; so they 
 called him Peterson Dunlap. He proved use 
 ful to us in his way; he named our camps for 
 us, and he generally struck a name that was 
 " no slouch," as the boys said. 
 
 That is one sample cf us. Another was Ed 
 Stevens, son of the town jeweler, trim-built, 
 handsome, graceful, neat as a cat; bright, ed 
 ucated, but given over entirely to fun. There 
 was nothing serious in life to him. As far as 
 he was concerned, this military expedition of 
 ours was simply a holiday. I should say that 
 about half of us looked upon it in the same way; 
 not consciously, perhaps, but unconsciously. 
 We did not think; we were not capable of it. 
 As for myself, I was full of unreasoning joy to 
 be done with turning out of bed at midnight 
 and four in the morning, for a while; grateful 
 
A CAMPAIGN THAT FAILED. 15 
 
 to have a change, new scenes, new occupa 
 tions, a new interest. In my thoughts that 
 was as far as I went; I did not go into 
 the details; as a rule one doesn t at twenty- 
 four. 
 
 Another sample was Smith, the blacksmith s 
 apprentice. This vast donkey had some pluck, 
 of a slow and sluggish nature, but a soft heart; 
 at one time he would knock a horse down for 
 some impropriety, and at another he would 
 get homesick and cry. However, he had one 
 ultimate credit to his account which some of 
 us hadn t: he stuck to the war, and was killed 
 in battle at last. 
 
 Jo Bowers, another sample, was a huge, 
 good-natured, flax-headed lubber; lazy, senti 
 mental, full of harmless brag, a grumbler by 
 nature; an experienced, industrious, ambitious, 
 and often quite picturesque liar, and yet not a 
 successful one, for he had had no intelligent 
 training, but was allowed to come up just any 
 way. This life was serious enough to him, 
 and seldom satisfactory. But he was a good 
 fellow anyway, and the boys all liked him. He 
 
JO THE PRIVATE HISTORY OF 
 
 was made orderly sergeant; Stevens was made 
 corporal. 
 
 These samples will answer and they are 
 quite fair ones. Well, this herd of cattle start 
 ed for the war. What could you expect of them ? 
 They did as well as they knew how, but really 
 what was justly to be expected of them ? Noth 
 ing, I should say. That is what they did. 
 
 We waited for a dark night, for caution and 
 secrecy were necessary; then, toward mid 
 night, we stole in couples and from various di 
 rections to the Griffith place, beyond the town; 
 from that point we set out together on foot. 
 Hannibal lies at the extreme southeastern 
 corner of Marion County, on the Mississippi 
 River; our objective point was the hamlet of 
 New London, ten miles away, in Rails County. 
 
 The first hour was all fun, all idle nonsense 
 and laughter. But that could not be kept up. 
 The steady trudging came to be like work; the 
 play had somehow oozed out of it; the stillness 
 of the woods and the somberness of the night 
 began to throw a depressing influence over the 
 spirits of the boys, and presently the talking 
 
A CAMPAIGN THAT FAILED. I/ 
 
 died out and each person shut himself up in his 
 own thoughts. During the last half of the 
 second hour nobody said a word. 
 
 Now we approached a log farm-house where, 
 according to report, there was a guard of five 
 Union soldiers. Lyman called a halt; and 
 there, in the deep gloom of the overhanging 
 branches, he began to whisper a plan of as 
 sault upon that house, which made the gloom 
 more depressing than it was before. It was a 
 crucial moment; we realized, with a cold sud 
 denness, that here was no jest we were stand 
 ing face to face with actual war. We were 
 equal to the occasion. In our response there 
 was no hesitation, no indecision : we said 
 that if Lyman wanted to meddle with those 
 soldiers, he could go ahead and do it; but if he 
 waited for us to follow him, he would wait a 
 long time. 
 
 Lyman urged, pleaded, tried to shame us, 
 but it had no effect. Our course was plain, our 
 minds were made up: we would flank the farm 
 house go out around. And that is what we did. 
 
 We struck into the woods and entered upon 
 
18 THE PRIVATE HISTORY OF 
 
 a rough time, stumbling over roots, getting 
 tangled in vines, and torn by briers. At last 
 we reached an open place in a safe region, and 
 sat down, blown and hot, to cool off and nurse 
 our scratches and bruises. Lyman was annoyed, 
 but the rest of us were cheerful; we had flank 
 ed the farm-house, we had made our first mili 
 tary movement, and it was a success; we had 
 nothing to fret about, we were feeling just the 
 other way. Horse-play and laughing began 
 again; the expedition was become a holiday 
 frolic once more. 
 
 Then we had two more hours of dull trudg 
 ing and ultimate silence and depression; then, 
 about dawn, we straggled into New London, 
 soiled, heel-blistered, fagged with our little 
 march, and all of us except Stevens in a sour 
 and raspy humor and privately down on the 
 war. We stacked our shabby old shot-guns in 
 Colonel Ralls s barn, and then went in a body 
 and breakfasted with that veteran of the Mex 
 ican War. Afterwards he took us to a distant 
 meadow, and there in the shade of a tree we 
 listened to an old-fashioned speech from him, 
 
A CAMPAIGN THAT FAILED. IO 
 
 full of gunpowder and glory, full of that adjec 
 tive-piling, mixed metaphor, and windy decla 
 mation which was regarded as eloquence in 
 that ancient time and that remote region; and 
 then he swore us on the Bible to be faithful to 
 the State of Missouri and drive all invaders 
 from her soil, no matter whence they might 
 come or under what flag they might march. 
 This mixed us considerably, and we could not 
 make out just what service we were embarked 
 in; but Colonel Rails, the practiced politician 
 and phrase-juggler, was not similarly in doubt; 
 he knew quite clearly that he had invested us 
 in the cause of the Southern Confederacy. He 
 closed the solemnities by belting around me 
 the sword which his neighbor, Colonel Brown, 
 had worn at Buena Vista and Molino del Rey; 
 and he accompanied this act with another im 
 pressive blast. 
 
 Then we formed in line of battle and marched 
 four miles to a shady and pleasant piece of 
 woods on the border of the far-reaching ex 
 panses of a flowery prairie. It was an enchant 
 ing region for war our kind of war. 
 
20 THE PRIVATE HISTORY OF 
 
 We pierced the forest about half a mile, and 
 took up a strong position, with some low, rocky, 
 and wooded hills behind us, and a purling, 
 limpid creek in front. Straightway half the 
 command were in swimming, and the other 
 half fishing. The ass with the French name 
 gave this position a romantic title, but it was 
 too long, so the boys shortened and simplified 
 it to Camp Rails. 
 
 We occupied an old maple-sugar camp, 
 whose half-rotted troughs were still propped 
 against the trees. A long corn-crib served for 
 sleeping quarters for the battalion. On our 
 left, half a mile away, was Mason s farm and 
 house; and he was a friend to the cause. 
 Shortly after noon the farmers began to arrive 
 from several directions, with mules and horses 
 for our use, and these they lent us for as long 
 as the war might last, which they judged would 
 be about three months. The animals were of 
 all sizes, all colors, and all breeds. They were 
 mainly young and frisky, and nobody in the 
 command could stay on them long at a time; 
 for we were town boys, and ignorant of horse- 
 
A CAMPAIGN THAT FAILED. 21 
 
 manship. The creature that fell to my share 
 was a very small mule, and yet so quick and 
 active that it could throw me without difficulty; 
 and it did this whenever I got on it. Then it 
 would bray stretching its neck out, laying its 
 ears back, and spreading its jaws till you could 
 see down to its works. It was a disagreeable 
 animal, in every way. If I took it by the bridle 
 and tried to lead it off the grounds, it would sit 
 down and brace back, and no one could budge 
 it. However, I was not entirely destitute of 
 military resources, and I did presently manage 
 to spoil this game ; for I had seen many a steam 
 boat aground in my time, and knew a trick or 
 two which even a grounded mule would be 
 obliged to respect. There was a well by the 
 corn-crib; so I substituted thirty fathom of 
 rope for the bridle, and fetched him home with 
 the windlass. 
 
 I will anticipate here sufficiently to say that 
 we did learn to ride, after some days practice, 
 but never well. We could not learn to like 
 our animals; they were not choice ones, and 
 most of them had annoying peculiarities of 
 
22 THE PRIVATE HISTORY OF 
 
 one kind or another. Stevens s horse would 
 carry him, when he was not noticing, under 
 the huge excrescences which form on the 
 trunks of oak-trees, and wipe him out of the 
 saddle; in this way Stevens got several bad 
 hurts. Sergeant Bowers s horse was very large 
 and tall, with slim, long legs, and looked like 
 a railroad bridge. His size enabled him to 
 reach all about, and as far as he wanted to, 
 with his head; so he was always biting Bow 
 ers s legs. On the march, in the sun, Bowers 
 slept a good deal; and as soon as the horse 
 recognized that he was asleep he would reach 
 around and bite him on the leg. His legs were 
 black and blue with bites. This was the only 
 thing that could ever make him swear, but this 
 always did; whenever the horse bit him he 
 always swore, and of course Stevens, who 
 laughed at everything, laughed at this, and 
 would even get into such convulsions over it 
 as to lose his balance and fall off his horse; 
 and then Bowers, already irritated by the pain 
 of the horse-bite, would resent the laughter 
 with hard language, and there would be a 
 
A CAMPAIGN THAT FAILED. 23 
 
 quarrel; so that horse made no end of trouble 
 and bad blood in the command. 
 
 However, I will get back to where I was 
 our first afternoon in the sugar-camp. The 
 sugar-troughs came very handy as horse- 
 troughs, and we had plenty of corn to fill them 
 with. I ordered Sergeant Bowers to feed my 
 mule; but he said that if I reckoned he went 
 to war to be dry-nurse to a mule, it wouldn t 
 take me very long to find out my mistake. I 
 believed that this was insubordination, but I 
 was full of uncertainties about everything mili 
 tary, and so I let the thing pass, and went and 
 ordered Smith, the blacksmith s apprentice, to 
 feed the mule; but he merely gave me a large, 
 cold, sarcastic grin, such as an ostensibly 
 seven-year-old horse gives you when you lift 
 his lip and find he is fourteen, and turned his 
 back on me. I then went to the captain, and 
 asked if it was not right and proper and mili 
 tary for me to have an orderly. He said it 
 was, but as there was only one orderly in the 
 corps, it was but right that he himself should 
 have Bowers on his staff. Bowers said he 
 
24 THE PRIVATE HISTORY OF 
 
 wouldn t serve on anybody s staff; and if any 
 body thought he could make him, let him try 
 it. So, of course, the thing had to be dropped; 
 there was no other way. 
 
 Next, nobody would cook; it was consid 
 ered a degradation; so we had no dinner. 
 We lazied the rest of the pleasant afternoon 
 away, some dozing under the trees, some 
 smoking cob-pipes and talking sweethearts 
 and war, some playing games. By late sup 
 per-time all hands were famished; and to meet 
 the difficulty all hands turned to, on an equal 
 footing, and gathered wood, built fires, and 
 cooked the meal. Afterward everything was 
 smooth for a while; then trouble broke out 
 between the corporal and the sergeant, each 
 claiming to rank the other. Nobody knew 
 which was the higher office; so Lyman had to 
 settle the matter by making the rank of both 
 officers equal. The commander of an ignorant 
 crew like that has many troubles and vexations 
 which probably do not occur in the regular 
 army at all. However, with the song-singing 
 and yarn-spinning around the camp-fire, every- 
 
A CAMPAIGN THAT FAILED. 25 
 
 thing presently became serene again; and by 
 and by we raked the corn down level in one 
 end of the crib, and all went to bed on it, tying 
 a horse to the door, so that he would neigh if 
 any one tried to get in.* 
 
 We had some horsemanship drill every 
 forenoon; then, afternoons, we rode off here 
 and there in squads a few miles, and visited 
 the farmers girls, and had a youthful good 
 time, and got an honest good dinner or sup 
 per, and then home again to camp, happy and 
 content. 
 
 For a time, life was idly delicious, it was 
 perfect; there was nothing to mar it. Then 
 came some farmers with an alarm one day. 
 
 * It was always my impression that that was what the 
 horse was there for, and I know that it was also the im 
 pression of at least one other of the command, for we talked 
 about it at the time, and admired the military ingenuity of 
 the device; but when I was out West three years ago I was 
 told by Mr. A. G. Fuqua, a member of our company, that 
 the horse was his, that the leaving him tied at the door was 
 a matter of mere forgetfulness, and that to attribute it to 
 intelligent invention was to give him quite too much credit. 
 In support of his position, he called my attention to the 
 suggestive fact that the artifice was not employed again. 
 I had not thought of that before. 
 
26 THE PRIVATE HISTORY OF 
 
 They said it was rumored that the enemy were 
 advancing in our direction, from over Hyde s 
 prairie. The result was a sharp stir among us, 
 and general consternation. It was a rude 
 awakening from our pleasant trance. The 
 rumor was but a rumor nothing definite about 
 it; so, in the confusion, we did not know which 
 way to retreat. Lyman was for not retreating 
 at all, in these uncertain circumstances; but 
 he found that if he tried to maintain that atti 
 tude he would fare badly, for the command 
 were in no humor to put up with insubordina 
 tion. So he yielded the point and called a 
 council of war to consist of himself and the 
 three other officers; but the privates made 
 such a fuss about being left out, that we had to 
 allow them to remain, for they were already 
 present, and doing the most of the talking too. 
 The question was, which way to retreat; but 
 all were so flurried that nobody seemed to 
 have even a guess to offer. Except Lyman. 
 He explained in a few calm words, that inas 
 much as the enemy were approaching from 
 over Hyde s prairie, our course was simple: all 
 
A CAMPAIGN THAT FAILED. 2/ 
 
 we had to do was not to retreat toward him; 
 any other direction would answer our needs 
 perfectly. Everybody saw in a moment how 
 true this was, and how wise; so Lyman got a 
 great many compliments. It was now decided 
 that we should fall back on Mason s farm. 
 
 It was after dark by this time, and as we 
 could not know how soon the enemy might ar 
 rive, it did not seem best to try to take the 
 horses and things with us; so we only took the 
 guns and ammunition, and started at once. The 
 route was very rough and hilly and rocky, and 
 presently the night grew very black and rain 
 began to fall; so we had a troublesome time of 
 it, struggling and stumbling along in the dark; 
 and soon some person slipped and fell, and then 
 the next person behind stumbled over him and 
 fell, and so did the rest, one after the other; 
 and then Bowers came with the keg of powder 
 in his arms, whilst the command were all mixed 
 together, arms and legs, on the muddy slope; 
 and so he fell, of course, with the keg, and this 
 started the whole detachment down the hill in 
 a body, and they landed in the brook at the 
 
28 THE PRIVATE HISTORY OF 
 
 bottom in a pile, and each that was undermost 
 pulling the hair and scratching and biting those 
 that were on top of him; and those that were 
 being scratched and bitten, scratching and bit 
 ing the rest in their turn, and all saying they 
 would die before they would ever go to war 
 again if they ever got out of this brook this 
 time, and the invader might rot for all they 
 cared, and the country along with him and all 
 such talk as that, which was dismal to hear and 
 take part in, in such smothered, low voices, and 
 such a grisly dark place and so wet, and the 
 enemy may be coming any moment. 
 
 The keg of powder was lost, and the guns 
 too; so the growling and complaining contin 
 ued straight along whilst the brigade pawed 
 around the pasty hillside and slopped around in 
 the brook hunting for these things; conse 
 quently we lost considerable time at this; and 
 then we heard a sound, and held our breath 
 and listened, and it seemed to be the enemy 
 coming, though it could have been a cow, for 
 it had a cough like a cow; but we did not wait, 
 but left a couple of guns behind and struck out 
 
A CAMPAIGN THAT FAILED. 29 
 
 for Mason s again as briskly as we could scram 
 ble along in the dark. But we got lost pres 
 ently among the rugged little ravines, and 
 wasted a deal of time finding the way again, so 
 it was after nine when we reached Mason s 
 stile at last; and then before we could open 
 our mouths to give the countersign, several 
 dogs came bounding over the fence, with great 
 riot and noise, and each of them took a soldier 
 by the slack of his trousers and began to back 
 away with him. We could not shoot the dogs 
 without endangering the persons they were at 
 tached to; so we had to look on, helpless, at 
 what was perhaps the most mortifying specta 
 cle of the civil war. There was light enough, 
 and to spare, for the Masons had now run out 
 on the porch with candles in their hands. The 
 old man and his son came and undid the dogs 
 without difficulty, all but Bowers s; but they 
 couldn t undo his dog, they didn t know his 
 combination; he was of the bull kind, and 
 seemed to be set with a Yale time-lock; but 
 they got him loose at last with some scalding 
 water, of which Bowers got his share and re- 
 
30 THE PRIVATE HISTORY OF 
 
 turned thanks. Peterson Dunlap afterwards 
 made up a fine name for this engagement, and 
 also for the night march which preceded it, but 
 both have long ago faded out of my memory. 
 We now went into the house, and they be 
 gan to ask us a world of questions, whereby it 
 presently came out that we did not know any 
 thing concerning who or what we were run 
 ning from; so the old gentleman made him 
 self very frank, and said we were a curious 
 breed of soldiers, and guessed we could be de 
 pended on to end up the war in time, because 
 no government could stand the expense of the 
 shoe-leather we should cost it trying to follow 
 us around. " Marion Rangers ! good name, 
 b gosh ! " said he. And wanted to know why 
 we hadn t had a picket-guard at the place where 
 the road entered the prairie, and why we hadn t 
 sent out a scouting party to spy out the enemy 
 and bring us an account of his strength, and so 
 on, before jumping up and stampeding out of 
 a strong position upon a mere vague rumor 
 and so on, and so forth, till he made us all feel 
 shabbier than the dogs had done, not half so 
 
A CAMPAIGN THAT FAILED. 31 
 
 enthusiastically welcome. So we went to 
 bed shamed and low-spirited; except Stevens. 
 Soon Stevens began to devise a garment for 
 Bowers which could be made to automatically 
 display his battle-scars to the grateful, or con 
 ceal them from the envious, according to his 
 occasions; but Bowers was in no humor for 
 this, so there was a fight, and when it was over 
 Stevens had some battle-scars of his own to 
 think about. 
 
 Then we got a little sleep. But after all we 
 had gone through, our activities were not over 
 for the night ; for about two o clock in the 
 morning we heard a shout of warning from 
 down the lane, accompanied by a chorus from 
 all the dogs, and in a moment everybody was 
 up and flying around to find out what the alarm 
 was about. The alarmist was a horseman 
 who gave notice that a detachment of Union 
 soldiers was on its way from Hannibal with or 
 ders to capture and hang any bands like ours 
 which it could find, and said we had no time to 
 lose. Farmer Mason was in a flurry this time, 
 himself. He hurried us out of the house with 
 
32 THE PRIVATE HISTORY OF 
 
 all haste, and sent one of his negroes with us 
 to show us where to hide ourselves and our 
 tell-tale guns among the ravines half a mile 
 away. It was raining heavily. 
 
 We struck down the lane, then across some 
 rocky pasture-land which offered good advan 
 tages for stumbling; consequently we were 
 down in the mud most of the time, and every 
 time a man went down he blackguarded the 
 war, and the people that started it, and every 
 body connected with it, and gave himself the 
 master dose of all for being so foolish as to go 
 into it. At last we reached the wooded mouth 
 of a ravine, and there we huddled ourselves 
 under the streaming trees, and sent the negro 
 back home. It was a dismal and heart-breaking 
 time. We were like to be drowned with the 
 rain, deafened with the howling wind and the 
 booming thunder, and blinded by the light 
 ning. It was indeed a wild night. The drench 
 ing we were getting was misery enough, but a 
 deeper misery still was the reflection that the 
 halter might end us before we were a day old 
 er. A death of this shameful sort had not oc- 
 
A CAMPAIGN THAT FAILED. 33 
 
 curred to us as being among the possibilities of 
 war. It took the romance all out of the cam 
 paign, and turned our dreams of glory into a 
 repulsive nightmare. As for doubting that so 
 barbarous an order had been given, not one of 
 us did that. 
 
 The long night wore itself out at last, and 
 then the negro came to us with the news that 
 the alarm had manifestly been a false one, and 
 that breakfast would soon be ready. Straight 
 way we were light-hearted again, and the 
 world was bright, and life as full of hope and 
 promise as ever for we were young then. 
 How long ago that was ! Twenty - four 
 years. 
 
 The mongrel child of philology named the 
 night s refuge Camp Devastation, and no soul 
 objected. The Masons gave us a Missouri 
 country breakfast, in Missourian abundance, 
 and we needed it: hot biscuits; hot " wheat 
 bread " prettily criss-crossed in a lattice pat 
 tern on top; hot corn pone; fried chicken; 
 bacon, coffee, eggs, milk, buttermilk, etc.; 
 and the world may be confidently challenged 
 
34 THE PRIVATE HISTORY OF 
 
 to furnish the equal to such a breakfast, as it is 
 cooked in the South. 
 
 We staid several days at Mason s; and after 
 all these years the memory of the dullness, the 
 stillness and lifelessness of that slumberous 
 farm-house still oppresses my spirit as with a 
 sense of the presence of death and mourning. 
 There was nothing to do, nothing to think 
 about; there was no interest in life. The male 
 part of the household were away in the fields 
 all day, the women were busy and out of our 
 sight; there was no sound but the plaintive 
 wailing of a spinning-wheel, forever moaning 
 out from some distant room, the most lone 
 some sound in nature, a sound steeped and 
 sodden with homesickness and the emptiness 
 of life. The family went to bed about dark 
 every night, and as we were not invited to in 
 trude any new customs, we naturally followed 
 theirs. Those nights were a hundred years 
 long to youths accustomed to being up till 
 twelve. We lay awake and miserable till that 
 hour every time, and grew old and decrepit 
 waiting through the still eternities for the 
 
A CAMPAIGN THAT FAILED. 35 
 
 clock-strikes. This was no place for town 
 boys. So at last it was with something very 
 like joy that we received news that the enemy 
 were on our track again. With a new birth of 
 the old warrior spirit, we sprang to our places 
 in line of battle and fell back on Camp Rails. 
 Captain Lyman had taken a hint from Ma 
 son s talk, and he now gave orders that our 
 camp should be guarded against surprise by 
 the posting of pickets. I was ordered to place 
 a picket at the forks of the road in Hyde s 
 prairie. Night shut down black and threaten 
 ing. I told Sergeant Bowers to go out to that 
 place and stay till midnight; and, just as I was 
 expecting, he said he wouldn t do it. I tried 
 to get others to go, but all refused. Some 
 excused themselves on account of the weather; 
 but the rest were frank enough to say they 
 wouldn t go in any kind of weather. This 
 kind of thing sounds odd now, and impossible, 
 but there was no surprise in it at the time. 
 On the contrary, it seemed a perfectly natural 
 thing to do. There were scores of little camps 
 scattered over Missouri where the same thing 
 
36 THE PRIVATE HISTORY OF 
 
 was happening. These camps were composed 
 of young men who had been born and reared 
 to a sturdy independence, and who did not 
 know what it meant to be ordered around by 
 Tom, Dick, and Harry, whom they had known 
 familiarly all their lives, in the village or on the 
 farm. It is quite within the probabilities that 
 this same thing was happening all over the 
 South. James Redpath recognized the justice 
 of this assumption, and furnished the following 
 instance in support of it. During a short stay 
 in East Tennessee he was in a citizen colonel s 
 tent one day, talking, when a big private ap 
 peared at the door, and without salute or other 
 circumlocution said to the colonel, 
 
 " Say, Jim, I m a-goin home for a few days." 
 
 "What for?" 
 
 " Well, I hain t b en there for a right smart 
 while, and I d like to see -how things is comin 
 on." 
 
 " How long are you going to be gone ? " 
 
 " Bout two weeks." 
 
 "Well, don t be gone longer than that; and 
 get back sooner if you can." 
 
A CAMPAIGN THAT FAILED. 3/ 
 
 That was all, and the citizen officer resumed 
 his conversation where the private had broken 
 it off. This was in the first months of the war, 
 of course. The camps in our part of Missouri 
 were under Brigadier-General Thomas H. 
 Harris. He was a townsman of ours, a first- 
 rate fellow, and well liked; but we had all 
 familiarly known him as the sole and modest- 
 salaried operator in our telegraph office, where 
 he had to send about one dispatch a week in 
 ordinary times, and two when there was a 
 rush of business; consequently, when he ap 
 peared in our midst one day, on the wing, and 
 delivered a military command of some sort, in 
 a large military fashion, nobody was surprised 
 at the response which he got from the as 
 sembled soldiery, 
 
 " Oh, now, what ll you take to dont, Tom 
 Harris ! " 
 
 It was quite the natural thing. One might 
 justly imagine that we were hopeless material 
 for war. And so we seemed, in our ignorant 
 state ; but there were those among us who 
 afterward learned the grim trade; learned to 
 
38 THE PRIVATE HISTORY OF 
 
 obey like machines; became valuable soldiers; 
 fought all through the war, and came out at 
 the end with excellent records. One of the 
 very boys who refused to go out on picket 
 duty that night, and called me an ass for think 
 ing he would expose himself to danger in such 
 a foolhardy way, had become distinguished for 
 intrepidity before he was a year older. 
 
 I did secure my picket that night not by 
 authority, but by diplomacy. I got Bowers to 
 go, by agreeing to exchange ranks with him 
 for the time being, and go along and stand the 
 watch with him as his subordinate. We staid 
 out there a couple of dreary hours in the pitchy 
 darkness and the rain, with nothing to modify 
 the dreariness but Bowers s monotonous 
 growlings at the war and the weather; then 
 we began to nod, and presently found it next 
 to impossible to stay in the saddle; so we 
 gave up the tedious job, and went back to the 
 camp without waiting for the relief guard. We 
 rode into camp without interruption or objec 
 tion from anybody, and the enemy could have 
 done the same, for there were no sentries. 
 
A CAMPAIGN THAT FAILED. 39 
 
 Everybody was asleep; at midnight there was 
 nobody to send out another picket, so none 
 was sent. We never tried to establish a watch 
 at night again, as far as I remember, but we 
 generally kept a picket out in the daytime. 
 
 In that camp the whole command slept on 
 the corn in the big corn-crib; and there was 
 usually a general row before morning, for the 
 place was full of rats, and they would scramble 
 over the boys bodies and faces, annoying and 
 irritating everybody; and now and then they 
 would bite some one s toe, and the person 
 who owned the toe would start up and mag 
 nify his English and begin to throw corn in 
 the dark. The ears were half as heavy as 
 bricks, and when they struck they hurt. The 
 persons struck would respond, and inside of 
 five minutes every man would be locked in a 
 death-grip with his neighbor. There was a 
 grievous deal of blood shed in the corn-crib, 
 but this was all that was spilt while I was in 
 the war. No, that is not quite true. But for 
 one circumstance it would have been all. I 
 will come to that now. 
 
40 THE PRIVATE HISTORY OF 
 
 Our scares were frequent. Every few days 
 rumors would come that the enemy were ap 
 proaching. In these cases we always fell back 
 on some other camp of ours; we never staid 
 where we were. But the rumors always turned 
 out to be false; so at last even we began to 
 grow indifferent to them. One night a negro 
 was sent to our corn-crib with the same old 
 warning : the enemy was hovering in our 
 neighborhood. We all said let him hover. 
 We resolved to stay still and be comfortable. 
 It was a fine warlike resolution, and no doubt 
 we all felt the stir of it in our veins for a mo 
 ment. We had been having a very jolly time, 
 that was full of horse-play and school-boy 
 hilarity; but that cooled down now, and pres 
 ently the fast-waning fire of forced jokes and 
 forced laughs died out altogether, and the 
 company became silent. Silent and nervous. 
 And soon uneasy worried apprehensive. 
 We had said we would stay, and we were com 
 mitted. We could have been persuaded to go, 
 but there was nobody brave enough to sug 
 gest it. An almost noiseless movement pres- 
 
A CAMPAICzN THAT FAILED. 4! 
 
 ently began in the dark, by a general but un 
 voiced impulse. When the movement was 
 completed, each man knew that he was not 
 the only person who had crept to the front 
 wall and had his eye at a crack between the 
 logs. No, we were all there; all there with 
 our hearts in our throats, and staring out 
 toward the sugar - troughs where the forest 
 foot - path came through. It was late, and 
 was a deep woodsy stillness everywhere. 
 There was a veiled moonlight, which was only 
 just strong enough to enable us to mark the 
 general shape of objects. Presently a muffled 
 sound caught our ears, and we recognized it 
 as the hoof-beats of a horse or horses. And 
 right away a figure appeared in the forest path; 
 it could have been made of smoke, its mass 
 had so little sharpness of outline. It was a 
 man on horseback; and it seemed to me that 
 there were others behind him. I got hold of a 
 gun in the dark, and pushed it through a crack 
 between the logs, hardly knowing what I was 
 doing, I was so dazed with fright. Somebody 
 said " Fire ! " I pulled the trigger. I seemed 
 
42 THE PRIVATE HISTORY OF 
 
 to see a hundred flashes and hear a hundred 
 reports, then I saw the man fall down out of 
 the saddle. My first feeling was of surprised 
 gratification; my first impulse was an appren 
 tice-sportsman s impulse to run and pick up 
 his game. Somebody said, hardly audibly, 
 "Good we ve got him! wait for the rest." 
 But the rest did not come. We waited 
 listened still no more came. There was not 
 a sound, not the whisper of a leaf; just per 
 fect stillness; an uncanny kind of stillness, 
 which was all the more uncanny on account 
 of the damp, earthy, late-night smells now ris 
 ing and pervading it. Then, wondering, we 
 crept stealthily out, and approached the man. 
 When we got to him the moon revealed him 
 distinctly. He was lying on his back, with 
 his arms abroad; his mouth was open and his 
 chest heaving with long gasps, and his white 
 shirt-front was all splashed with blood. The 
 thought shot through me that I was a mur 
 derer; that I had killed a man a man who 
 had never done me any harm. That was the 
 coldest sensation that ever went through my 
 
A CAMPAIGN THAT FAILED. 43 
 
 marrow. I was down by him in a moment, 
 helplessly stroking his forehead; and I would 
 have given anything then my own life freely 
 to make him again what he had been five 
 minutes before. And all the boys seemed to 
 be feeling in the same way; they hung over 
 him, full of pitying interest, and tried all they 
 could to help him, and said all sorts of re 
 gretful things. They had forgotten all about 
 the enemy ; they thought only of this one 
 forlorn unit of the foe. Once my imagina 
 tion persuaded me that the dying man gave 
 me a reproachful lookout of his shadowy eyes, 
 and it seemed to me that I could rather he had 
 stabbed me than done that. He muttered and 
 mumbled like a dreamer in his sleep, about 
 his wife and his child; and I thought with a 
 new despair, "This thing that I have done 
 does not end with him; it falls upon them too, 
 and they never did me any harm, any more 
 than he." 
 
 In a little while the man*was dead. He was 
 killed in war; killed in fair and legitimate war; 
 killed in battle, as you may say; and yet he 
 
44 THE PRIVATE HISTORY OF 
 
 was as sincerely mourned by the opposing 
 force as if he had been their brother. The 
 boys stood there a half hour sorrowing over 
 him, and recalling the details of the tragedy, 
 and wondering who he might be, and if he 
 were a spy, and saying that if it were to do 
 over again they would not hurt him unless he 
 attacked them first. It soon came out that 
 mine was not the only shot fired; there were 
 five others, a division of the guilt which was 
 a grateful relief to me, since it in some degree 
 lightened and diminished the burden I was 
 carrying. There were six shots fired at once; 
 but I was not in my right mind at the time, 
 and my heated imagination had magnified my 
 one shot into a volley. 
 
 The man was not in uniform, and was not 
 armed. He was a stranger in the country; 
 that was all we ever found out about him. 
 The thought of him got to preying upon me 
 every night; I could not get rid of it. I could 
 not drive it away, the taking of that unoffend 
 ing life seemed such a wanton thing. And it 
 seemed an epitome of war; that all war must 
 
A CAMPAIGN THAT FAILED. 45 
 
 be just that the killing of strangers against 
 whom you feel no personal animosity; stran 
 gers whom, in other circumstances, you would 
 help if you found them in trouble, and who 
 would help you if you needed it. My cam 
 paign was spoiled. It seemed to me that I 
 was not rightly equipped for this awful busi 
 ness; that war was intended for men, and I 
 for a child s nurse. I resolved to retire from 
 this avocation of sham soldiership while I 
 could save some remnant of my self-respect. 
 These morbid thoughts clung to me against 
 reason; for at bottom I did not believe I had 
 touched that man. The law of probabilities 
 decreed me guiltless of his blood; for in all 
 my small experience with guns I had never 
 hit anything I had tried to hit, and I knew I 
 had done my best to hit him. Yet there was 
 no solace in the thought. Against a diseased 
 imagination, demonstration goes for nothing. 
 
 The rest of my war experience was of a 
 piece with what I have already told of it. We 
 kept monotonously falling back upon one 
 camp or another, and eating up the country. 
 
46 THE PRIVATE HISTORY OF 
 
 I marvel now at the patience of the farmers 
 and their families. They ought to have shot 
 us; on the contrary, they were as hospitably 
 kind and courteous to us as if we had de 
 served it. In one of these camps we found Ab 
 Grimes, an Upper Mississippi pilot, who after 
 wards became famous as a dare-devil rebel 
 spy, whose career bristled with desperate ad 
 ventures. The look and style of his comrades 
 suggested that they had not come into the war 
 to play, and their deeds made good the con 
 jecture later. They were fine horsemen and 
 good revolver-shots ; but their favorite arm 
 was the lasso. Each had one at his pommel, 
 and could snatch a man out of the saddle with 
 it every time, on a full gallop, at any reason 
 able distance. 
 
 In another camp the chief was a fierce and 
 profane old blacksmith of sixty, and he had 
 furnished his twenty recruits with gigantic 
 home-made bowie-knives, to be swung with 
 the two hands, like the machetes of the Isth 
 mus. It was a grisly spectacle to see that 
 earnest band practicing their murderous cuts 
 
A CAMPAIGN THAT FAILED. 47 
 
 and slashes under the eye of that remorseless 
 old fanatic. 
 
 The last camp which we fell back upon was 
 in a hollow near the village of Florida, where 
 I was born in Monroe County. Here we 
 were warned, one day, that a Union colonel 
 was sweeping down on us with a whole regi 
 ment at his heels. This looked decidedly se 
 rious. Our boys went apart and consulted; 
 then we went back and told the other com 
 panies present that the war was a disappoint 
 ment to us and we were going to disband. 
 They were getting ready, themselves, to fall 
 back on some place or other, and were only 
 waiting for General Tom Harris, who was ex 
 pected to arrive at any moment; so they tried 
 to persuade us to wait a little while, but the 
 majority of us said no, we were accustomed to 
 falling back, and didn t need any of Tom Har 
 ris s help; we could get along perfectly well 
 without him and save time too. So about 
 half of our fifteen, including myself, mounted 
 and left on the instant; the others yielded to 
 persuasion and staid staid through the war. 
 
48 THE PRIVATE HISTORY OF 
 
 An hour later we met General Harris on the 
 road, with two or three people in his company 
 his staff, probably, but we could not tell; 
 none of them were in uniform; uniforms had 
 not come into vogue among us yet. Harris 
 ordered us back; but we told him there was a 
 Union colonel coming with a whole regiment 
 in his wake, and it looked as if there was go 
 ing to be a disturbance; so we had concluded 
 to go home. He raged a little, but it was of 
 no use; our minds were made up. We had 
 done our share; had killed one man, exter 
 minated one army, such as it was; let him go 
 and kill the rest, and that would end the war. 
 I did not see that brisk young general again 
 until last year; then he was wearing white hair 
 and whiskers. 
 
 In time I came to know that Union colonel 
 whose coming frightened me out of the war 
 and crippled the Southern cause to that extent 
 General Grant. I came within a few hours 
 of seeing him when he was as unknown as I 
 was myself; at a time when anybody could 
 have said, " Grant ? Ulysses S. Grant? I do 
 
A CAMPAIGN THAT FAILED. 49 
 
 not remember hearing the name before." It 
 seems difficult to realize that there was once a 
 time when such a remark could be rationally 
 made; but there was, and I was within a few 
 miles of the place and the occasion too, though 
 proceeding in the other direction. 
 
 The thoughtful will not throw this war-pa 
 per of mine lightly aside as being valueless. 
 It has this value: it is a not unfair picture of 
 what went on in many and many a militia 
 camp in the first months of the rebellion, when 
 the green recruits were without discipline, 
 without the steadying and heartening influ 
 ence of trained leaders; when all their circum 
 stances were new and strange, and charged 
 with exaggerated terrors, and before the in 
 valuable experience of actual collision in the 
 field had turned them from rabbits into soldiers. 
 If this side of the picture of that early day has 
 not before been put into history, then history 
 has been to that degree incomplete, for it had 
 and has its rightful place there. There was 
 more Bull Run material scattered through the 
 early camps of this country than exhibited 
 
50 A CAMPAIGN THAT FAILED. 
 
 itself at Bull Run. And yet it learned its 
 trade presently, and helped to fight the great 
 battles later. I could have become a soldier 
 myself, if I had waited. I had got part of it 
 learned ; I knew more about retreating than 
 the man that invented retreating. 
 
THE INVALID S STORY. 
 
 I SEEM sixty and married, but these effects 
 are due to my condition and sufferings, 
 for I am a bachelor, and only forty-one. It 
 will be hard for you to believe that I, who am 
 now but a shadow, was a hale, hearty man two 
 short years ago, a man of iron, a very athlete! 
 yet such is the simple truth. But stranger 
 still than this fact is the way in which I lost 
 my health. I lost it through helping to take 
 care of a box of guns on a two-hundred-mile 
 railway journey one winter s night. It is the 
 actual truth, and I will tell you about it. 
 
 I belong in Cleveland, Ohio. One winter s 
 night, two years ago, I reached home just after 
 dark, in a driving snow-storm, and the first 
 thing I heard when I entered the house was 
 that my dearest boyhood friend and school 
 mate, John B. Hackett, had died the day be 
 fore, and that his last utterance had been a 
 51 
 
52 THE INVALID S STORY. 
 
 desire that I would take his remains home to 
 his poor old father and mother in Wisconsin. 
 I was greatly shocked and grieved, but there 
 was no time to waste in emotions; I must start 
 at once. I took the card, marked " Deacon 
 Levi Hackett, Bethlehem, Wisconsin," and 
 hurried off through the whistling storm to the 
 railway station. Arrived there I found the 
 long white-pine box which had been described 
 to me; I fastened the card to it with some 
 tacks, saw it put safely aboard the express car, 
 and then ran into the eating-room to provide 
 myself with a sandwich and some cigars. 
 When I returned, presently, there was my 
 coffin-box back again, apparently, and a young 
 fellow examining around it, with a card in his 
 hand, and some tacks and a hammer ! I was 
 astonished and puzzled. He began to nail on 
 his card, and I rushed out to the express car, 
 in a good deal of a state of mind, to ask for an 
 explanation. But no there was my box, all 
 right, in the express car; it hadn t been dis 
 turbed. [The fact is that without my suspect 
 ing it a prodigious mistake had been made. I 
 
THE INVALID S STORY. 53 
 
 was carrying off a box of guns which that 
 young fellow had come to the station to ship 
 to a rifle company in Peoria, Illinois, and he 
 had got my corpse !] Just then the conductor 
 sung out " All aboard," and I jumped into the 
 express car and got a comfortable seat on a 
 bale of buckets. The expressman was there, 
 hard at work, a plain man of fifty, with a 
 simple, honest, good - natured face, and a 
 breezy, practical heartiness in his general style. 
 As the train moved off a stranger skipped into 
 the car and set a package of peculiarly mature 
 and capable Limburger cheese on one end of 
 my coffin-box I mean my box of guns. That 
 is to say, I know now that it was Limburger 
 cheese, but at that time I never had heard of 
 the article in my life, and of course was wholly 
 ignorant of its character. Well, we sped 
 through the wild night, the bitter storm raged 
 on, a cheerless misery stole over me, my heart 
 went down, down, down ! The old express 
 man made a brisk remark or two about the 
 tempest and the arctic weather, slammed his 
 sliding doors to, and bolted them, closed his 
 
54 THE INVALID S STORY. 
 
 window down tight, and then went bustling 
 around, here and there and yonder, setting 
 things to rights, and all the time contentedly 
 humming " Sweet By and By," in a low tone, 
 and flatting a good deal. Presently I began 
 to detect a most evil and searching odor steal 
 ing about on the frozen air. This depressed my 
 spirits still more, because of course I attribut 
 ed it to my poor departed friend. There was 
 something infinitely saddening about his call 
 ing himself to my remembrance in this dumb 
 pathetic way, so it was hard to keep the tears 
 back. Moreover, it distressed me on account 
 of the old expressman, who, I was afraid, 
 might notice it. However, he went humming 
 tranquilly on, and gave no sign; and for this 
 I was grateful. Grateful, yes, but still uneasy; 
 and soon I began to feel more and more un 
 easy every minute, for every minute that went 
 by that odor thickened up the more, and got to 
 be more and more gamey and hard to stand. 
 Presently, having got things arranged to his 
 satisfaction, the expressman got some wood 
 and made up a tremendous fire in his stove. 
 
THE INVALID S STORY. 
 
 This distressed me more than I can tell, for I 
 could not but feel that it was a mistake. I was 
 sure that the effect would be deleterious upon 
 my poor departed friend. Thompson the 
 expressman s name was Thompson, as I found 
 out in the course of the night now went pok 
 ing around his car, stopping up whatever stray 
 cracks he could find, remarking that it didn t 
 make any difference what kind of a night it 
 was outside, he calculated to make us comfort 
 able, anyway. I said nothing, but I believed 
 he was not choosing the right way. Meantime 
 he was humming to himself just as before; and 
 meantime, too, the stove was getting hotter 
 and hotter, and the place closer and closer. I 
 felt myself growing pale and qualmish, but 
 grieved in silence and said nothing. Soon I 
 noticed that the " Sweet By and By" was grad 
 ually fading out; next it ceased altogether, 
 and there was an ominous stillness. After a 
 few moments Thompson said, 
 
 " Pfew ! I reckon it ain t no cinnamon t I ve 
 loaded up thish-yer stove with ! " 
 
 He gasped once or twice, then moved toward 
 
56 THE INVALID S STORY. 
 
 the cof gun-box, stood over that Limburger 
 cheese part of a moment, then came back and 
 sat down near me, looking a good deal im 
 pressed. After a contemplative pause, he said, 
 indicating the box with a gesture, 
 
 " Friend of yourn ? " 
 
 " Yes," I said with a sigh. 
 
 " He s pretty ripe, aint he ! " 
 
 Nothing further was said for perhaps a cou 
 ple of minutes, each being busy with his own 
 thoughts ; then Thompson said, in a low, awed 
 voice, 
 
 Sometimes it s uncertain whether they re 
 really gone or not, seem gone, you know- 
 body warm, joints limber and so, although 
 you think they re gone, you don t really know. 
 I ve had cases in my car. It s perfectly aw 
 ful, becuz you don t know what rninute they ll 
 rise up and look at you ! " Then, after a pause, 
 and slightly lifting his elbow toward the box, 
 " But he ain t in no trance ! No, sir, I go bail 
 for him ! " 
 
 We sat some time, in meditative silence, lis 
 tening to the wind and the roar of the train; 
 
THE INVALID S STORY. 57 
 
 then Thompson said, with a good deal of feel 
 ing, 
 
 " Well-a-well, we ve all got to go, they ain t 
 no getting around it. Man that is born of wo 
 man is of few days and far between, as Scrip- 
 tur says. Yes, you look at it any way you 
 want to, it s awful solemn and cur us : they 
 ain t nobody can get around it ; all s got to go 
 just everybody, as you may say. One day 
 you re hearty and strong" here he scrambled 
 to his feet and broke a pane and stretched his 
 nose out at it a moment or two, then sat down 
 again while I struggled up and thrust my nose 
 out at the same place, and this we kept on do 
 ing every now and then " and next day he s 
 cut down like the grass, and the places which 
 knowed him then knows him no more forever, 
 as Scriptur says. Yes ndeedy, it s awful sol 
 emn and cur us ; but we ve all got to go, one 
 time or another; they ain t no getting around 
 it." 
 
 There was another long pause ; then, 
 
 "What did he die of?" 
 
 I said I didn t know. 
 
58 THE INVALID S STORY. 
 
 " How long has he ben dead ? " 
 
 It seemed judicious to enlarge the facts to fit 
 the probabilities ; so I said, 
 
 " Two or three days." 
 
 But it did no good; for Thompson received 
 it with an injured look which plainly said, 
 "Two or three years, you mean." Then he 
 went right along, placidly ignoring my state 
 ment, and gave his views at considerable 
 length upon the unwisdom of putting off bur 
 ials too long. Then he lounged off toward the 
 box, stood a moment, then came back on a 
 sharp trot and visited the broken pane, observ 
 ing, 
 
 " Twould a ben a . dum sight better, all 
 around, if they d started him along last sum 
 mer." 
 
 Thompson sat down and buried his face in 
 his red silk handkerchief, and began to slowly 
 sway and rock his body like one who is doing 
 his best to endure the almost unendurable. By 
 this time the fragrance if you may call it fra 
 grance was just about suffocating, as near as 
 you can come at it. Thompson s face was turn- 
 
THE INVALID S STORY. 59 
 
 ing gray; I knew mine hadn t any color left in it. 
 By and by Thompson rested his forehead in his 
 left hand, with his elbow on his knee, and sort 
 of waved his red handkerchief towards the box 
 with his other hand, and said, 
 
 " I ve carried a many a one of em, some of 
 em considerable overdue, too, but, lordy, he 
 just lays over em all ! and does it easy. 
 Cap., they was heliotrope to him / " 
 
 This recognition of my poor friend gratified 
 me, in spite of the sad circumstances, because 
 it had so much the sound of a compliment. 
 
 Pretty soon it was plain that something had 
 got to be done. I suggested cigars. Thomp 
 son thought it was a good idea. He said, 
 
 " Likely it ll modify him some." 
 
 We puffed gingerly along for a while, and 
 tried hard to imagine that things were im 
 proved. But it wasn t any use. Before very 
 long, and without any consultation, both cigars 
 were quietly dropped from our nerveless fingers 
 at the same moment. Thompson said, with a 
 sigh, 
 
 " No, Cap., it don t modify him worth a cent. 
 
6o THE INVALID S STORY. 
 
 Fact is, it makes him worse, becuz it appears 
 to stir up his ambition. What do you reckon 
 we better do, now ? " 
 
 I was not able to suggest anything; indeed, 
 I had to be swallowing and swallowing, all the 
 time, and did not like to trust myself to speak. 
 Thompson fell to maundering, in a desultory 
 and low-spirited way, about the miserable ex 
 periences of this night; and he got to referring 
 to my poor friend by various titles, some 
 times military ones, sometimes civil ones; and 
 I noticed that as fast as my poor friend s 
 effectiveness grew, Thompson promoted him 
 accordingly, gave him a bigger title. Finally 
 he said, 
 
 " I ve got an idea. Suppos n we buckle 
 down to it and give the Colonel a bit of a shove 
 towards t other end of the car ? about ten foot, 
 say. He wouldn t have so much influence, 
 then, don t you reckon ? " 
 
 I said it was a good scheme. So we took in 
 a good fresh breath at the broken pane, calcu 
 lating to hold it till we got through; then we 
 went there and bent over that deadly cheese 
 
THE INVALID S STORY. 6l 
 
 and took a grip on the box. Thompson nod 
 ded " All ready," and then we threw ourselves 
 forward with all our might; but Thompson 
 slipped, and slumped down with his nose on 
 the cheese, and his breath got loose. He 
 gagged and gasped, and floundered up and 
 made a break for the door, pawing the air and 
 saying, hoarsely, " Don t hender me ! gimme 
 the road! I m a-dying; gimme the road!" 
 Out on the cold platform I sat down and held 
 his head a while, and he revived. Presently he 
 said, 
 
 " Do you reckon we started the Gen rul 
 any ? " 
 
 I said no; we hadn t budged him. 
 
 "Well, then, that idea s up the flume. We 
 got to think up something else. He s suited 
 wher he is, I reckon ; and if that s the way he 
 feels about it, and has made up his mind that 
 he don t wish to be disturbed, you bet he s 
 a-going to have his own way in the business. 
 Yes, better leave him right wher he is, long as 
 he wants it so ; becuz he holds all the trumps, 
 don t you know, and -so it stands to reason 
 
TTP- Tr;frr 
 
 ^TITT -ft"** fi-. 
 
 nrrsir 
 
 ^rr j JTT r ~v^ ~w=* 
 ~~^ ~-~ ~ ~ - ~ L -~r- ~ : i T er^ "r^ i 
 
 - " " " 
 
 
 
 * W-i r^ iZ riric nrv " I 
 
 - ~jr 
 
 e i TTTTT, 
 
 i 
 
 r ir jim^ 
 x: -rrr-r ^mr -; 
 Tr*g> iir 
 
 -* :r ^-" - :-i; j 
 
 ^ ian - 
 
THE INVALID S STORY. 63 
 
 He just utilizes everything we put up to modify 
 him with, and gives it his own flavor and plays 
 it back on us. Why, Cap., don t you know, it s 
 as much as a hundred times worse in there now 
 than it was when he first got a-going. I never 
 did see one of em warm up to his work so, and 
 take such a dumnation interest in it. Xo, sir, 
 I never did, as long as I ve ben on the road ; 
 and I ve carried a many a one of em, as I was 
 telling you." 
 
 We went in ag-ain, after we were frozen 
 pretty stiff; but my, we couldn t star in, now. 
 So we just waltzed back and forth, freezing, 
 and thawing, and stifling, by turns. In about 
 an hour we stopped at another station ; and as 
 we left it Thompson came in with a bag, and 
 said, 
 
 " Cap., I m a-going to chance him once 
 more, just this once; and if we don t fetch him 
 this time, the thing for us to do, is to just throw 
 up the sponge and withdraw from the canvass. 
 That s the way / put it up." 
 
 He had brought a lot of chicken feathers, 
 and dried apples, and leaf tobacco, and rags. 
 
64 THE INVALID S STORY. 
 
 and old shoes, and sulphur, and assafoetida, 
 and one thing or another ; and he piled them 
 on a breadth of sheet iron in the middle of the 
 floor, and set fire to them. When they got 
 well started, I couldn t see, myself, how even 
 the corpse could stand it. All that went be 
 fore was just simply poetry to that smell, but 
 mind you, the original smell stood up out of it 
 just as sublime as ever, fact is, these other 
 smells just seemed to give it a better hold ; 
 and my, how rich it was ! I didn t make these 
 reflections there there wasn t time made 
 them on the platform. And breaking for the 
 platform, Thompson got suffocated and fell ; 
 and before I got him dragged out, which I did 
 by the collar, I was mighty near gone myself. 
 When we revived, Thompson said deject- 
 edly,- 
 
 " We got to stay out here, Cap. We got to 
 do it. They ain t no other way. The Govern 
 or wants to travel alone, and he s fixed so he 
 can outvote us." 
 
 And presently he added, 
 
 " And don t you know, we re pisoned. It s 
 
THE INVALID S STORY. 65 
 
 our last trip, you can make up your mind to it. 
 Typhoid fever is what s going to come of this. 
 I feel it a-coming right now. Yes, sir, we re 
 elected, just as sure as you re born." 
 
 We were taken from the platform an hour 
 later, frozen and insensible, at the next station, 
 and I went straight off into a virulent fever, 
 and never knew anything again for three weeks. 
 I found out, then, that I had spent that awful 
 night with a harmless box of rifles and a lot of 
 innocent cheese ; but the news was too late to 
 save me; imagination had done its work, and 
 my health was permanently shattered; neither 
 Bermuda nor any other land can ever bring it 
 back to me. This is my last trip; I am on my 
 way home to die. 
 
LUCK. 
 
 T T was at a banquet in London in honor of 
 -*- one of the two or three conspicuously il 
 lustrious English military names of this gener 
 ation. For reasons which will presently ap 
 pear, I will withhold his real name and titles, 
 and call him Lieutenant-General Lord Arthur 
 Scoresby, Y.C., K.C.B., etc., etc., etc. What a 
 fascination there is in a renowned name ! There 
 sat the man, in actual flesh, whom I had heard 
 of so many thousands of times since that day, 
 thirty years before, when his name shot sud 
 denly to the zenith from a Crimean battle-field, 
 to remain forever celebrated. It was food and 
 drink to me to look, and look, and look at that 
 demigod; scanning, searching, noting: the 
 quietness, the reserve, the noble gravity of his 
 countenance; the simple honesty that ex- 
 
 [NoTE. This is not a fancy sketch. I got it from a 
 clergyman who was an instructor at Woolwich forty years 
 ago, and who vouched for its truth. M. T.] 
 
 66 
 
LUCK. 67 
 
 pressed itself all over him; the sweet uncon 
 sciousness of his greatness unconsciousness of 
 the hundreds of admiring eyes fastened upon 
 him, unconsciousness of the deep, loving, 
 sincere worship welling out of the breasts of 
 those people and flowing toward him. 
 
 The clergyman at my left was an old ac 
 quaintance of mine clergyman now, but had 
 spent the first half of his life in the camp and 
 field, and as an instructor in the military 
 school at Woolwich. Just at the moment I 
 have been talking about, a veiled and singular 
 light glimmered in his eyes, and he leaned 
 down and muttered confidentially to me in 
 dicating the hero of the banquet with a ges 
 ture, 
 
 " Privately he s an absolute fool." 
 This verdict was a great surprise to me. If 
 its subject had been Napoleon, or Socrates, or 
 Solomon, my astonishment could not have 
 been greater. Two things I was well aware 
 of: that the Reverend was a man of strict 
 veracity, and that his judgment of men was 
 good. Therefore I knew, beyond doubt or 
 
68 LUCK. 
 
 question, that the world was mistaken about 
 this hero: he was a fool. So I meant to find 
 out, at a convenient moment, how the Rev 
 erend, all solitary and alone, had discovered 
 the secret. 
 
 Some days later the opportunity came, and 
 this is what the Reverend told me: 
 
 About forty years ago I was an instructor in 
 the military academy at Woolwich. I was 
 present in one of the sections when young 
 Scoresby underwent his preliminary examina 
 tion. I was touched to the quick with pity; 
 for the rest of the class answered up brightly 
 and handsomely, while he why, dear me, he 
 didn t know anything, so to speak. He was 
 evidently good, and sweet, and lovable, and 
 guileless; and so it was exceedingly painful to 
 see him stand there, as serene as a graven 
 image, and deliver himself of answers which 
 were veritably miraculous for stupidity and 
 ignorance. All the compassion in me was 
 aroused in his behalf. I said to myself, when 
 he comes to be examined again, he will be 
 
LUCK. 69 
 
 flung over, of course; so it will be simply a 
 harmless act of charity to ease his fall as much 
 as I can. I took him aside, and found that he 
 knew a little of Caesar s history; and as he 
 didn t know anything else, I went to work and 
 drilled him like a galley-slave on a certain line 
 of stock questions concerning Caesar which I 
 knew would be used. If you ll believe me, he 
 went through with flying colors on examina 
 tion day ! He went through on that purely 
 superficial " cram," and got compliments too, 
 while others, who knew a thousand times more 
 than he, got plucked. By some strangely 
 lucky accident an accident not likely to hap 
 pen twice in a century he was asked no ques 
 tion outside of the narrow limits of his drill. 
 
 It was stupefying. Well, all through his 
 course I stood by him, with something of the 
 sentiment which a mother feels for a crippled 
 child; and he always saved himself just by 
 miracle, apparently. 
 
 Now of course the thing that would expose 
 him and kill him at last was mathematics. I 
 resolved to make his death as easy as I could; 
 
70 LUCK. 
 
 so I drilled him and crammed him, and cram 
 med him and drilled him, just on the line of 
 questions which the examiners would be most 
 likely to use, and then launched him on his 
 fate. Well, sir, try to conceive of the result: 
 to my consternation, he took the first prize ! 
 And with it he got a perfect ovation in the 
 way of compliments. 
 
 Sleep ? There was no more sleep for me for 
 a week. My conscience tortured me day and 
 night. What I had done I had done purely 
 through chanty, and only to ease the poor 
 youth s fall I never had dreamed of any such 
 preposterous result as the thing that had hap 
 pened. I felt as guilty and miserable as the 
 creator of Frankenstein. Here was a wooden- 
 head whom I had put in the way of glittering 
 promotions and prodigious responsibilities, and 
 but one thing could happen: he and his re 
 sponsibilities would all go to ruin together at 
 the first opportunity. 
 
 The Crimean war had just broken out. Of 
 course there had to be a war, I said to myself: 
 we couldn t have peace and give this donkey a 
 
LUCK. 71 
 
 chance to die before he is found out. I waited 
 for the earthquake. It came. And it made 
 me reel when it did come. He was actually 
 gazetted to a captaincy in a marching regi 
 ment ! Better men grow old and gray in the 
 service before they climb to a sublimity like 
 that. And who could ever have foreseen that 
 they would go and put such a load of respon 
 sibility on such green and inadequate shoul 
 ders ? I could just barely have stood it if 
 they had made him a cornet; but a captain 
 think of it! I thought my hair would turn 
 white. 
 
 Consider what I did I who so loved repose 
 and inaction. I said to myself, I am respon 
 sible to the country for this, and I must go 
 along with him and protect the country against 
 him as far as I can. So I took my poor little 
 capital that I had saved up through years of 
 work and grinding economy, and went with a 
 sigh and bought a cornetcy in his regiment, 
 and away we went to the field. 
 
 And there oh dear, it was awful. Blun 
 ders ? why, he never did anything but blun- 
 
72 LUCK. 
 
 der. But, you see, nobody was in the fellow s 
 secret everybody had him focussed wrong, 
 and necessarily misinterpreted his performance 
 every time consequently they took his idiotic 
 blunders for inspirations of genius; they did, 
 honestly ! His mildest blunders were enough 
 to make a man in his right mind cry; and they 
 did make me cry and rage and rave too, 
 privately. And the thing that kept me always 
 in a sweat of apprehension was the fact that 
 every fresh blunder he made increased the 
 lustre of his reputation ! I kept saying to my 
 self, he ll get so high, that when discovery 
 does finally come, it will be like the sun falling 
 out of the sky. 
 
 He went right along up, from grade to grade, 
 over the dead bodies of his superiors, until at 
 last, in the hottest moment of the battle of 
 * * * * down went our colonel, and my heart 
 jumped into my mouth, for Scoresby was next 
 in rank ! Now for it, said I; we ll all land in 
 Sheol in ten minutes, sure. 
 
 The battle was awfully hot; the allies were 
 steadily giving way all over the field. Our 
 
LUCK. 73 
 
 regiment occupied a position that was vital; a 
 blunder now must be destruction. At this 
 crucial moment, what does this immortal fool 
 do but detach the regiment from its place and 
 order a charge over a neighboring hill where 
 there wasn t a suggestion of an enemy ! "There 
 you go ! " I said to myself; "this is the end at 
 last." 
 
 And away we did go, and were over the 
 shoulder of the hill before the insane move 
 ment could be discovered and stopped. And 
 what did we find ? An entire and unsuspected 
 Russian army in reserve ! And what happen 
 ed ? We were eaten up ? That is necessarily 
 what would have happened in ninety-nine 
 cases out of a hundred. But no; those Rus 
 sians argued that no single regiment would 
 come browsing around there at such a time. It 
 must be the entire English army, and that the 
 sly Russian game was detected and blocked; 
 so they turned tail, and away they went, pell- 
 mell, over the hill and down into the field, in 
 wild confusion, and we after them; they them 
 selves broke the solid Russian centre in the 
 
74 LUCK. 
 
 field, and tore through, and in no time there 
 was the most tremendous rout you ever saw, 
 and the defeat of the allies was turned into a 
 sweeping and splendid victory ! Marshal Can- 
 robert looked on, dizzy with astonishment, ad 
 miration, and delight; and sent right off for 
 Scoresby, and hugged him, and decorated him 
 on the field, in presence of all the armies ! 
 
 And what was Scoresby s blunder that time? 
 Merely the mistaking his right hand for his 
 left that was all. An order had come to him 
 to fall back and support our right; and instead, 
 he fell forward and went over the hill to the 
 left. But the name he won that day as a mar 
 vellous military genius filled the world with his 
 glory, and that glory will never fade while his 
 tory books last. 
 
 He is just as good and sweet and lovable and 
 unpretending as a man can be, but he doesn t 
 know enough to come in when it rains. Now 
 that is absolutely true. He is the supremest 
 ass in the universe; and until half an hour ago 
 nobody knew it but himself and me. He has 
 been pursued, day by day and year by year, by 
 
LUCK. 75 
 
 a most phenomenal and astonishing luckiness. 
 He has been a shining soldier in all our wars 
 for a generation; he has littered his whole 
 military life with blunders, and yet has never 
 committed one that didn t make him a knight 
 or a baronet or a lord or something. Look at 
 his breast; why, he is just clothed in domestic 
 and foreign" decorations. Well, sir, every one 
 of them is the record of some shouting stupidity 
 or other; and taken together, they are proof 
 that the very best thing in all this world that 
 can befall a man is to be born lucky. I say 
 again, as I said at the banquet, Scoresby s an 
 absolute fool. 
 
THE CAPTAIN S STORY. 
 
 "^HERE was a good deal of pleasant gossip 
 -* about old Captain "Hurricane" Jones, of 
 the Pacific Ocean, peace to his ashes ! Two 
 or three of us present had known him; I, par 
 ticularly well, for I had made four sea-voyages 
 with him. He was a very remarkable man. 
 He was born on a ship; he picked up what 
 little education he had among his shipmates; 
 he began life in the forecastle, and climbed 
 grade by grade to the captaincy. More than 
 fifty years of his sixty-five were spent at sea. 
 He had sailed all oceans, seen all lands, and 
 borrowed a tint from all climates. When a 
 man has been fifty years at sea, he necessarily 
 knows nothing of men, nothing of the world 
 but its surface, nothing of the world s thought, 
 nothing of the world s learning but its ABC, 
 and that blurred and distorted by the unfocussed 
 lenses of an untrained mind. Such a man is 
 
THE CAPTAIN S STORY. 77 
 
 only a gray and bearded child. That is what 
 old Hurricane Jones was, simply an innocent, 
 lovable old infant. When his spirit was in re 
 pose he was as sweet and gentle as a girl; when 
 his wrath was up he was a hurricane that made 
 his nickname seem tamely descriptive. He 
 was formidable in a fight, for he was of power 
 ful build and dauntless courage. He was fres 
 coed from head to heel with pictures and mot 
 toes tattooed in red and blue India ink. I was 
 with him one voyage when he got his last va 
 cant space tattooed; this vacant space was 
 around his left ankle. During three days he 
 stumped about the ship with his ankle bare and 
 swollen, and this legend gleaming red and an 
 gry out from a clouding of India ink : " Virtue 
 is its own R d." (There was a lack of room.) 
 He was deeply and sincerely pious, and swore 
 like a fish-woman. He considered swearing 
 blameless, because sailors would not under 
 stand an order unillumined by it. He was a 
 profound Biblical scholar, that is, he thought 
 he was. He believed everything in the Bible, 
 but he had his own methods of arriving at his 
 
78 THE CAPTAIN S STORY. 
 
 beliefs. He was of the " advanced " school of 
 thinkers, and applied natural laws to the inter 
 pretation of all miracles, somewhat on the plan 
 of the people who make the six days of crea 
 tion six geological epochs, and so forth. With 
 out being aware of it, he was a rather severe 
 satire on modern scientific religionists. Such a 
 man as I have been describing is rabidly fond 
 of disquisition and argument; one knows that 
 without being told it. 
 
 One trip the captain had a clergyman on 
 board, but did not know he was a clergyman, 
 since the passenger list did not betray the fact. 
 He took a great liking to this Rev. Mr. Peters, 
 and talked with him a great deal : told him 
 yarns, gave him toothsome scraps of personal 
 history, and wove a glittering streak of profan 
 ity through his garrulous fabric that was re 
 freshing to a spirit weary of the dull neutrali 
 ties of undecorated speech. One day the cap 
 tain said, "Peters, do you ever read the Bi 
 ble ? " 
 
 " Well yes." 
 
 " I judge it ain t often, by the way you say 
 
THE CAPTAIN S STORY. 79 
 
 it. Now, you tackle it in dead earnest once, 
 and you ll find it ll pay. Don t you get dis 
 couraged, but hang right on. First, you won t 
 understand it; but by and by things will begin 
 to clear up, and then you wouldn t lay it down 
 to eat." 
 
 " Yes, I have heard that said." 
 
 " And it s so, too. There ain t a book that be 
 gins with it. It lays over em all, Peters. 
 There s some pretty tough things in it, there 
 ain t any getting around that, but you stick 
 to them and think them out, and when once 
 you get on the inside everything s plain as 
 day." 
 
 " The miracles, too, captain ? " 
 
 " Yes, sir! the miracles, too. Every one of 
 them. Now, there s that business with the 
 prophets of Baal; like enough that stumped 
 you ? " 
 
 " Well, I don t know but " 
 
 "Own up, now; it stumped you. Well, I 
 don t wonder. You hadn t had any experience 
 in ravelling such things out, and naturally it 
 was too many for you. Would you like to 
 
8o THE CAPTAIN S STORY. 
 
 have me explain that thing to you, and show 
 you how to get at the meat of these matters ? " 
 " Indeed, I would, captain, if you don t mind." 
 Then the captain proceeded as follows : "I ll 
 do it with pleasure. First, you see, I read and 
 read, and thought and thought, till I got to 
 understand what sort of people they were in 
 the old Bible times, and then after that it was 
 clear and easy. Now, this was the way I put 
 it up, concerning Isaac * and the prophets of 
 Baal. There was some mighty sharp men 
 amongst the public characters of that old an 
 cient day, and Isaac was one of them. Isaac 
 had his failings, plenty of them, too; it ain t 
 for me to apologize for Isaac; he played on the 
 prophets of Baal, and like enough he was justi 
 fiable, considering the odds that was against 
 him. No, all I say is, t wa n t any miracle, and 
 that I ll show you so s t you can see it your 
 self. 
 
 " Well, times had been getting rougher and 
 rougher for prophets, that is, prophets of 
 Isaac s denomination. There were four hun- 
 
 * This is the captain s own mistake. 
 
THE CAPTAIN S STORY. 81 
 
 dred and fifty prophets of Baal in the commu 
 nity, and only one Presbyterian ; that is, if 
 Isaac was a Presbyterian, which I reckon he 
 was, but it don t say. Naturally, the prophets 
 of Baal took all the trade. Isaac was pretty 
 low-spirited, I reckon, but he was a good deal 
 of a man, and no doubt he went a-prophesying 
 around, letting on to be doing a land-office 
 business, but t wa n t any use; he couldn t run 
 any opposition to amount to anything. By 
 and by things got desperate with him; he sets 
 his head to work and thinks it all out, and then 
 what does he do ? Why, he begins to throw 
 out hints that the other parties are this and 
 that and t other, nothing very definite, may 
 be, but just kind of undermining their reputa 
 tion in a quiet way. This made talk, of course, 
 and finally got to the king. The king asked 
 Isaac what he meant by his talk. Says Isaac, 
 Oh, nothing particular; only, can they pray 
 down fire from heaven on an altar ? It ain t 
 much, maybe, your majesty, only can they do 
 it ? That s the idea. So the king was a good 
 deal disturbed, and he went to the prophets of 
 
82 THE CAPTAIN S STORY. 
 
 Baal, and they said, pretty airy, that if he had 
 an altar ready, they were ready; and they in 
 timated he better get it insured, too. 
 
 " So next morning all the children of Israel 
 and their parents and the other people gather 
 ed themselves together. Well, here was that 
 great crowd of prophets of Baal packed to 
 gether on one side, and Isaac walking up and 
 down all alone on the other, putting up his 
 job. When time was called, Isaac let on to be 
 comfortable and indifferent ; told the other 
 team to take the first innings. So they went 
 at it, the whole four hundred and fifty, praying 
 around the altar, very hopeful, and doing their 
 level best. They prayed an hour, two hours, 
 three hours, and so on, plumb till noon. It 
 wa n t any use; they had n t took a trick. Of 
 course they felt kind of ashamed before all 
 those people, and well they might. Now, 
 what would a magnanimous man do ? Keep 
 still, wouldn t he ? Of course. What did 
 Isaac do ? He gravelled the prophets of 
 Baal every way he could think of. Says he, 
 You don t speak up loud enough; your god s 
 
THE CAPTAIN S STORY. 83 
 
 asleep, like enough, or may be he s taking a 
 walk; you want to holler, you know, or 
 words to that effect; I don t recollect the exact 
 language. Mind, I don t apologize for Isaac; 
 he had his faults. 
 
 " Well, the prophets of Baal prayed along 
 the best they knew how all the afternoon, and 
 never raised a spark. At last, about sundown, 
 they were all tuckered out, and they owned up 
 and quit. 
 
 " What does Isaac do, now ? He steps up 
 and says to some friends of his, there, Pour 
 four barrels of water on the altar ! Every 
 body was astonished; for the other side had 
 prayed at it dry, you know, and got white 
 washed. They poured it on. Says he, Heave 
 on four more barrels. Then he says, Heave 
 on four more. Twelve barrels, you see, alto 
 gether. The water ran all over the altar, and 
 all down the sides, and filled up a trench 
 around it that would hold a couple of hogs 
 heads, measures, it says; I reckon it means 
 about a hogshead. Some of the people were 
 going to put on their things and go, for they 
 
84 THE CAPTAIN S STORY. 
 
 allowed he was crazy. They didn t know 
 Isaac. Isaac knelt down and began to pray: 
 he strung along, and strung along, about the 
 heathen in distant lands, and about the sister 
 churches, and about the state and the country 
 at large, and about those that s in authority in 
 the government, and all the usual programme, 
 you know, till everybody had got tired and 
 gone to thinking about something else, and 
 then, all of a sudden, when nobody was notic 
 ing, he outs with a match and rakes it on the 
 under side of his leg, and pff! up the whole 
 thing blazes like a house afire! Twelve bar 
 rels of water ? Petroleum, sir, PETROLEUM ! 
 that s what it was ! " 
 
 " Petroleum, captain ? " 
 
 4 Yes, sir; the country was full of it. Isaac 
 knew all about that. You read the Bible. 
 Don t you worry about the tough places. 
 They ain t tough when you come to think 
 them out and throw light on them. There 
 ain t a thing in the Bible but what is true; all 
 you want is to go prayerfully to work and 
 cipher out how t was done." 
 
T 
 
 A CURIOUS EXPERIENCE. 
 
 HIS is the story which the Major told me, 
 as nearly as I can recall it: 
 
 In the winter of 1862-3, I was commandant 
 of Fort Trumbull, at New London, Conn. 
 Maybe our life there was not so brisk as life at 
 " the front"; still it was brisk enough, in its 
 way one s brains did n t cake together there 
 for lack of something to keep them stirring. 
 For one thing, all the Northern atmosphere at 
 .that time was thick with mysterious rumors 
 rumors to the effect that rebel spies were flit 
 ting everywhere, and getting ready to blow up 
 our Northern forts, burn our hotels, send in 
 fected clothing into our towns, and all that 
 sort of thing. You remember it. All this had 
 a tendency to keep us awake, and knock the 
 traditional dulness out of garrison life. Be 
 sides, ours was a recruiting station which is 
 the same as saying we had n t any time to 
 85 
 
86 A CURIOUS EXPERIENCE. 
 
 waste in dozing, or dreaming, or fooling 
 around. Why, with all our watchfulness, fifty 
 per cent, of a day s recruits would leak out of 
 our hands and give us the slip the same night. 
 The bounties were so prodigious that a recruit 
 could pay a sentinel three or four hundred dol 
 lars to let him escape, and still have enough of 
 his bounty-money left to constitute a fortune 
 for a poor man. Yes, as I said before, our life 
 was not drowsy. 
 
 Well, one day I was in my quarters alone, 
 doing some writing, when a pale and ragged 
 lad of fourteen or fifteen entered, made a neat 
 bow, and said, 
 
 " I believe recruits are received here ? " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " Will you please enlist me, sir ? " 
 
 " Dear me, no! You are too young, my 
 boy, and too small." 
 
 A disappointed look came into his face, and 
 quickly deepened into an expression of de 
 spondency. He turned slowly away, as if to 
 go; hesitated, then faced me again, and said, 
 in a tone which went to my heart, 
 
A CURIOUS EXPERIENCE. 87 
 
 " I have no home, and not a friend in the 
 world. If you could only enlist me ! " 
 
 But of course the thing was out of the ques 
 tion, and I said so as gently as I could. Then 
 I told him to sit down by the stove and warm 
 himself, and added, 
 
 "You shall have something to eat, present 
 ly. You are hungry ? " 
 
 He did not answer; he did not need to; the 
 gratitude in his big soft eyes was more elo 
 quent than any words could have been. He 
 sat down by the stove, and I went on writing. 
 Occasionally I took a furtive glance at him. I 
 noticed that his clothes and shoes, although 
 soiled and damaged, were of good style and 
 material. This fact was suggestive. To it I 
 added the facts that his voice was low and 
 musical; his eyes deep and melancholy; his 
 carriage and address gentlemanly; evidently 
 the poor chap was in trouble. As a result, I 
 was interested. 
 
 However, I became absorbed in my work, 
 by and by, and forgot all about the boy. I 
 don t know how long this lasted; but, at length, 
 
88 A CURIOUS EXPERIENCE. 
 
 I happened to look up. The boy s back was 
 toward me, but his face was turned in such a 
 way that I could see one of his cheeks and 
 down that cheek a rill of noiseless tears was 
 flowing. 
 
 " God bless my soul ! " I said to myself; " I 
 forgot the poor rat was starving." Then I 
 made amends for my brutality by saying to 
 him, " Come along, my lad; you shall dine 
 with me; I am alone to-day." 
 
 He gave me another of those grateful looks, 
 and a happy light broke in his face. At the 
 table he stood with his hand on his chair-back 
 until I was seated, then seated himself. I took 
 up my knife and fork and well, I simply held 
 them, and kept still; for the boy had inclined 
 his head and was saying a silent grace. A 
 thousand hallowed memories of home and my 
 childhood poured in upon me, and I sighed to 
 think how far I had drifted from religion and 
 its balm for hurt minds, its comfort and solace 
 and support. 
 
 As our meal progressed, I observed that 
 young Wicklow Robert Wicklow was his full 
 
A CURIOUS EXPERIENCE. 89 
 
 name knew what to do with his napkin; and 
 well, in a word, I observed that he was a 
 boy of good breeding; never mind the details. 
 He had a simple frankness, too, which won 
 upon me. We talked mainly about himself, 
 and I had no difficulty in getting his history 
 out of him. When he spoke of his having 
 been born and reared in Louisiana, I warmed 
 to him decidedly, for I had spent some time 
 down there. I knew all the " coast" region of 
 the Mississippi, and loved it, and had not been 
 long enough away from it for my interest in it 
 to begin to pale. The very names that fell 
 from his lips sounded good to me, so good 
 that I steered the talk in directions that would 
 bring them out. Baton Rouge, Plaquemine, 
 Donaldsonville, Sixty - mile Point, Bonnet- 
 Carre, the Stock - Landing, Carrollton, the 
 Steamship Landing, the Steamboat Landing, 
 New Orleans, Tchoupitoulas Street, the Es 
 planade, the Rue des Bons Enfants, the St. 
 Charles Hotel, the Tivoli Circle, the Shell 
 Road, Lake Pontchartrain; and it was particu 
 larly aelightful to me to hear once more of the 
 
QO A CURIOUS EXPERIENCE. 
 
 "R. E. Lee, the "Natchez," the "Eclipse," 
 the " General Quitman," the " Duncan F. 
 Kenner," and other old familiar steamboats. 
 It was almost as good as being back there, 
 these names so vividly reproduced in my mind 
 the look of the things they stood for. Briefly, 
 this was little Wicklow s history: 
 
 When the war broke out, he and his invalid 
 aunt and his father were living near Baton 
 Rouge, on a great and rich plantation which 
 had been in the family for fifty years. The 
 father was a Union man. He was persecuted 
 in all sorts of ways, but clung to his principles. 
 At last, one night, masked men burned his 
 mansion down, and the family had to fly for 
 their lives. They were hunted from place to 
 place, and learned all there was to know about 
 poverty, hunger, and distress. The invalid 
 aunt found relief at last : misery and exposure 
 killed her ; she died in an open field, like a 
 tramp, the rain beating upon her and the thun 
 der booming overhead. Not long afterward, 
 the father was captured by an armed band; 
 and while the son begged and pleaded, the 
 
A CURIOUS EXPERIENCE. 91 
 
 victim was strung up before his face. [At this 
 point a baleful light shone in the youth s eyes, 
 and he said, with the manner of one who talks 
 to himself: " If I cannot be enlisted, no matter 
 I shall find a way I shall find a way."] As 
 soon as the father was pronounced dead, the 
 son was told that if he was not out of that re 
 gion within twenty-four hours, it would go 
 hard with him. That night he crept to the 
 riverside and hid himself near a plantation 
 landing. By and by the " Duncan F. Kenner," 
 stopped there, and he swam out and concealed 
 himself in the yawl that was dragging at her 
 stern. Before daylight the boat reached the 
 Stock-Landing, and he slipped ashore. He 
 walked the three miles which lay between that 
 point and the house of an uncle of his in Good- 
 Children Street, in New Orleans, and then his 
 troubles were over for the time being. But 
 this uncle was a Union man, too, and before 
 very long he concluded that he had better 
 leave the South. So he and young Wicklow 
 slipped out of the country on board a sailing 
 vessel, and in due time reached New York. 
 
92 A CURIOUS EXPERIENCE. 
 
 They put up at the Astor House. Young 
 Wicklow had a good time of it for a while, 
 strolling up and down Broadway, and observ 
 ing the strange Northern sights ; but in the 
 end a change came, and not for the better. 
 The uncle had been cheerful at first, but now he 
 began to look troubled and despondent; more 
 over, he became moody and irritable; talked 
 of money giving out, and no way to get more, 
 4i not enough left for one, let alone two." 
 Then, one morning, he was missing did not 
 come to breakfast. The boy inquired at the 
 office, and was told that the uncle had paid his 
 bill the night before and gone away to Bos 
 ton, the clerk believed, but was not certain. 
 
 The lad was alone and friendless. He did 
 not know what to do, but concluded he had 
 better try to follow and find his uncle. He 
 went down to the steamboat landing; learned 
 that the trifle of money in his pocket would not 
 carry him to Boston; however, it would carry 
 him to New London; so he took passage for 
 that port, resolving to trust to Providence to 
 furnish him means to travel the rest of the way. 
 
A CURIOUS EXPERIENCE. 93 
 
 He had now been wandering about the streets 
 of New London three days and nights, getting 
 a bite and a nap here and there for charity s 
 sake. But he had given up at last; courage 
 and hope were both gone. If he could enlist, 
 nobody could be -more thankful ; if he could not 
 get in as a soldier, couldn t he be a drummer- 
 boy ? Ah, he would work so hard to please, 
 and would be so grateful ! 
 
 Well, there s the history of young Wicklow, 
 just as he told it to me, barring details. I 
 said, 
 
 " My boy, you are among friends, now, 
 don t you be troubled any more." How his 
 eyes glistened ! I called in Sergeant John 
 Rayburn, he was from Hartford; lives in 
 Hartford yet; maybe you know him, and 
 said, " Rayburn, quarter this boy with the 
 musicians. I am going to enroll him as a 
 drummer-boy, and I want you to look after 
 him and see that he is well treated." 
 
 Well, of course, intercourse between the 
 commandant of the post and the drummer-boy 
 came to an end, now; but the poor little 
 
94 A CURIOUS EXPERIENCE. 
 
 friendless chap lay heavy on my heart, just the 
 same. I kept on the lookout, hoping to see 
 him brighten up and begin to be cheery and 
 gay; but no, the days went by, and there was 
 no change. He associated with nobody; he 
 was always absent-minded, always thinking; 
 his face was always sad. One morning Ray- 
 burn asked leave to speak to me privately. 
 Said he, 
 
 " I hope I don t offend, sir; but the truth is, 
 the musicians are in such a sweat it seems as if 
 somebody s got to speak." 
 
 " Why, what is the trouble ? " 
 
 " It s the Wicklow boy, sir. The musicians 
 are down on him to an extent you can t im 
 agine." 
 
 " Well, go on, go on. What has he been 
 doing ? " 
 
 "Prayin , sir." 
 
 " Praying !" 
 
 " Yes, sir; the musicians haven t any peace 
 of their life for that boy s prayin . First thing 
 in the morning he s at it; noons he s at it; and 
 nights well, nig Jits he just lays into em like 
 
A CURIOUS EXPERIENCE. 95 
 
 all possessed ! Sleep ? Bless you, they can t 
 sleep: he s got the floor, as the sayin is, and 
 then when he once gets his supplication-mill 
 agoin , there just simply ain t any let-up to 
 him. He starts in with the band-master, and 
 he prays for him; next he takes the head 
 bugler, and he prays for him; next the bass 
 drum, and he scoops him in; and so on, right 
 straight through the band, givin them all a 
 show, and takin that amount of interest in it 
 which would make you think he thought he 
 warn t but a little while for this world, and be 
 lieved he couldn t be happy in heaven without 
 he had a brass band along, and wanted to pick 
 em out for himself, so he could depend on em 
 to do up the national tunes in a style suitin to 
 the place. Well, sir, heavin boots at him don t 
 have no effect; it s dark in there; and, besides, 
 he don t pray fair, anyway, but kneels down 
 behind the big drum; so it don t make no dif 
 ference if they rain boots at him, he don t give 
 a dern warbles right along, same as if it was 
 applause. They sing out, Oh, dry up ! Give 
 us a rest ! Shoot him ! * Oh, take a walk ! 
 
96 A CURIOUS EXPERIENCE. 
 
 and all sorts of such things. But what of it ? 
 It don t phaze him. He don t mind it." After 
 a pause : " Kind of a good little fool, too ; gits 
 up in the mornin and carts all that stock of 
 boots back, and sorts em out and sets each 
 man s pair where they belong. And they ve 
 been throwed at him so much now, that he 
 knows every boot in the band, can sort em 
 out with his eyes shut." 
 
 After another pause, which I forebore to 
 interrupt, 
 
 " But the roughest thing about it is, that 
 when he s done prayin , when he ever does 
 get done, he pipes up and begins to sing. 
 Well, you know what a honey kind of a voice 
 he s got when he talks; you know how it 
 would persuade a cast-iron dog to come down 
 off of a doorstep and lick his hand. Now if 
 you ll take my word for it, sir, it ain t a circum 
 stance to his singin ! Flute music is harsh to 
 that boy s singin . Oh, he just gurgles it out 
 so soft and sweet and low, there in the dark, 
 that it makes you think you are in heaven." 
 
 "What is there * rough about that?" 
 
A CURIOUS EXPERIENCE. 97 
 
 " Ah, that s just it, sir. You hear him sing 
 " Just as I am poor, wretched, blind, 
 
 just you hear him sing that, once, and see if 
 you don t melt all up and the water come into 
 your eyes ! I don t care what he sings, it goes 
 plum straight home to you it goes deep down 
 to where you live and it fetches you every 
 time ! Just you hear him sing: 
 
 " Child of sin and sorrow, filled with dismay, 
 Wait not till to-morrow, yield thee to-day; 
 Grieve not that love 
 Which, from above 
 
 and so on. It makes a body feel like the 
 wickedest, ungratefulest brute that walks. 
 And when he sings them songs of his about 
 home, and mother, and childhood, and old 
 memories, and things that s vanished, and old 
 friends dead and gone, it fetches everything 
 before your face that you ve ever loved and 
 lost in all your life and it s just beautiful, it s 
 just divine to listen to, sir but, Lord, Lord, 
 the heart-break of it! The band well, they 
 all cry every rascal of them blubbers, and 
 
98 A CURIOUS EXPERIENCE. 
 
 don t try to hide it, either; and first you know, 
 that very gang that s been slammin boots at 
 that boy will skip out of their bunks all of a 
 sudden, and rush over in the dark and hug 
 him ! Yes, they do and slobber all over him, 
 and call him pet names, and beg him to for 
 give them. And just at that time, if a regi 
 ment was to offer to hurt a hair of that cub s 
 head, they d go for that regiment, if it was a 
 whole army corps ! " 
 
 Another pause. 
 
 "Is that all ?" said I. 
 
 " Yes, sir." 
 
 "Well, dear me, what is the complaint? 
 What do they want done ? " 
 
 " Done ? Why, bless you, sir, they want 
 you to stop him from singiri " 
 
 "What an idea! You said his music was 
 divine." 
 
 " That s just it. It s too divine. Mortal man 
 can t stand it. It stirs a body up so; it turns a 
 body inside out ; it racks his feelin s all to 
 rags; it makes him feel bad and wicked, and 
 not fit for any place but perdition. It keeps a 
 
A CURIOUS EXPERIENCE. 99 
 
 body in such an everlastin state of repentin , 
 that nathin don t taste good and there ain t no 
 comfort in life. And then the cryiri , you see 
 every mornin they are ashamed to look one 
 another in the face." 
 
 "Well, this is an odd case, and a singular 
 complaint. So they really want the singing 
 stopped ? " 
 
 " Yes, sir, that is the idea. They don t 
 wish to ask too much; they would like power 
 ful well to have the prayin shut down on, or 
 leastways trimmed off around the edges; but 
 the main thing s the singin . If they can only 
 get the singin choked off, they think they can 
 stand the prayin , rough as it is to be bully 
 ragged so much that way." 
 
 I told the sergeant I would take the matter 
 under consideration. That night I crept into 
 the musicians quarters and listened. The 
 sergeant had not overstated the case. I heard 
 the praying voice pleading in the dark; I 
 heard the execrations of the harassed men; I 
 heard the rain of boots whiz through the air, 
 and bang and thump around the big drum. 
 
100 A CURIOUS EXPERIENCE. 
 
 The thing touched me, but it amused me, too. 
 By and by, after an impressive silence, came 
 the singing. Lord, the pathos of it, the en 
 chantment of it ! Nothing in the world was 
 ever so sweet, so gracious, so tender, so holy, 
 so moving. I made my stay very brief; I was 
 beginning to experience emotions of a sort not 
 proper to the commandant of a fortress. 
 
 Next day I issued orders which stopped the 
 praying and singing. Then followed three or 
 four days which were so full of bounty -jumping 
 excitements and irritations that I never once 
 thought of my drummer-boy. But now comes 
 Sergeant Rayburn, one morning, and says, 
 " That new boy acts mighty strange, sir." 
 " How ? " 
 
 Well, sir, he s all the time writing." 
 " Writing ? What does he write letters ?" 
 " I don t know, sir; but whenever he s off 
 duty, he is always poking and nosing around 
 the fort, all by himself, blest if I think there s 
 a hole or corner in it he hasn t been into, and 
 every little while he outs with pencil and paper 
 and scribbles something down." 
 
A CURIOUS EXPERIENCE. IOI 
 
 This gave me a most unpleasant sensation. 
 I wanted to scoff at it, but it was not a time to 
 scoff at anything that had the least suspicious 
 tinge about it. Things were happening all 
 around us, in the North, then, that warned us to 
 be always on the alert, and always suspecting. 
 I recalled to mind the suggestive fact that this 
 boy was from the South, the extreme South, 
 Louisiana, and the thought was not of a re 
 assuring nature, under the circumstances. 
 Nevertheless, it cost me a pang to give the 
 orders which I now gave to Rayburn. I felt 
 like a father who plots to expose his own child 
 to shame and injury. I told Rayburn to keep 
 quiet, bide his time, and get me some of those 
 writings whenever he could manage it without 
 the boy s finding it out. And I charged him 
 not to do anything which might let the boy 
 discover that he was being watched. I also 
 ordered that he allow the lad his usual liber 
 ties, but that he be followed at a distance when 
 he went out into the town. 
 
 During the next two days, Rayburn report 
 ed to me several times. No success. The 
 
102 A CURIOUS EXPERIENCE. 
 
 boy was still writing, but he always pocketed 
 his paper with a careless air whenever Ray- 
 burn appeared in his vicinity. He had gone 
 twice to an old deserted stable in the town, 
 remained a minute or two, and come out 
 again. One could not pooh-pooh these things 
 they had an evil look. I was obliged to 
 confess to myself that I was getting uneasy. 
 I went into my private quarters and sent for 
 my second in command an officer of intelli 
 gence and judgment, son of General James 
 Watson Webb. He was surprised and troub 
 led. We had a long talk over the matter, and 
 came to the conclusion that it would be worth 
 while to institute a secret search. I deter 
 mined to take charge of that myself. So I 
 had myself called at two in the morning; and, 
 pretty soon after, I was in the musicians quar 
 ters, crawling along the floor on my stomach 
 among the snorers. I reached my slumbering 
 waifs bunk at last, without disturbing any 
 body, captured his clothes and kit, and crawled 
 stealthily back again. When I got to my own 
 quarters, I found Webb there, waiting and 
 
A CURIOUS EXPERIENCE. 103 
 
 eager to know the result. We made search 
 immediately. The clothes were a disappoint 
 ment. In the pockets we found blank paper 
 and a pencil ; nothing else, except a jack- 
 knife and such queer odds and ends and use 
 less trifles as boys hoard and value. We 
 turned to the kit hopefully. Nothing there 
 but a rebuke for us! a little Bible with this 
 written on the fly-leaf: " Stranger, be kind to v 
 my boy, for his mother s sake." 
 
 I looked at Webb he dropped his eyes; he 
 looked at me I dropped mine. Neither spoke. 
 I put the book reverently back in its place. 
 Presently Webb got up and went away, with- 
 out remark. After a little I nerved myself up 
 to my unpalatable job, and took the plunder 
 back to where it belonged, crawling on my 
 stomach as before. It seemed the peculiarly 
 appropriate attitude for the business I was 
 in. 
 
 I was most honestly glad when it was over 
 and done with. 
 
 About noon next day Rayburn came, as usu 
 al, to report. I cut him short. I said, 
 
104 A CURIOUS EXPERIENCE. 
 
 " Let this nonsense be dropped. We are 
 making a bugaboo out of a poor little cub 
 who has got no more harm in him than a 
 hymn-book." 
 
 The sergeant looked surprised, and said, 
 
 " Well, you know it was your orders, sir, and 
 I ve got some of the writing." 
 
 " And what does it amount to ? How did 
 you get it ? " 
 
 " I peeped through the key-hole, and see 
 him writing. So when I judged he was about 
 done, I made a sort of a little cough, and I see 
 him crumple it up and throw it in the fire, 
 and look all around to see if anybody was com 
 ing. Then he settled back as comfortable and 
 careless as anything. Then I comes in, and 
 passes the time of day pleasantly, and sends 
 him of an errand. He never looked uneasy, 
 but went right along. It was a coal-fire and 
 new-built; the writing had gone over behind a 
 chunk, out of sight; but I got it out; there it is; 
 it ain t hardly scorched, you see." 
 
 I glanced at the paper and took in a sentence 
 or two. Then I dismissed the sergeant and 
 
A CURIOUS EXPERIENCE. 105 
 
 told him to send Webb to me. Here is the 
 paper in full : 
 
 " FORT TRUMBULL, the 8th. 
 
 " COLONEL, I was mistaken as to the calibre of the 
 three guns I ended my list with. They are i8-pound- 
 ers; all the rest of the armament is as I stated. The 
 garrison remains as before reported, except that the 
 two light infantry companies that were to be detached 
 for service at the front are to stay here for the present 
 can t find out for how long, just now, but will soon. 
 We are satisfied that, all things considered, matters 
 had better be postponed un 
 
 There it broke off there is where Rayburn 
 coughed and interrupted the writer. All my 
 affection for the boy, all my respect for him and 
 charity for his forlorn condition, withered in a 
 moment under the blight of this revelation of 
 cold-blooded baseness. 
 
 But never mind about that. Here was busi 
 ness, business that required profound and im 
 mediate attention, too. Webb and I turned 
 the subject over and over, and examined it all 
 around. Webb said, 
 
 " What a pity he was interrupted ! Some 
 thing is going to be postponed until when ? 
 And what is the something ? Possibly he 
 
IO6 A CURIOUS EXPERIENCE. 
 
 would have mentioned it, the pious little rep 
 tile ! " 
 
 " Yes," I said, " we have missed a trick. 
 And who is we, in the letter ? Is it conspir 
 ators inside the fort or outside ? " 
 
 That "we" was uncomfortably suggestive. 
 However, it was not worth while to be guess 
 ing around that, so we proceeded to matters 
 more practical. In the first place, we decided 
 to double the sentries and keep the strictest 
 possible watch. Next, we thought of calling 
 Wicklow in and making him divulge every 
 thing; but that did not seem wisest until other 
 methods should fail. We musthave some more 
 of the writings; so we began to plan to that 
 end. And now we had an idea : Wicklow 
 never went to the post-office, perhaps the de 
 serted stable was his post-office. W T e sent for 
 my confidential clerk a young German named 
 Sterne, who was a sort of natural detective 
 and told him all about the case and ordered 
 him to go to work on it. Within the hour we 
 got word that Wicklow was writing again. 
 Shortly afterward, word came that he had 
 
A CURIOUS EXPERIENCE. IO/ 
 
 asked leave to go out into the town. He was 
 detained awhile, and meantime Sterne hurried 
 off and concealed himself in the stable. By 
 and by he saw Wicklow saunter in, look about 
 him, then hide something under some rubbish 
 in a corner, and take leisurely leave again. 
 Sterne pounced upon the hidden article a let 
 ter and brought it to us. It had no super 
 scription and no signature. It repeated what we 
 had already read, and then went on to say : 
 
 " We think k best to postpone till the two companies 
 are gone. I mean the four inside think so; have not 
 communicated with the others afraid of attracting 
 attention. I say four because we have lost two; they 
 had hardly enlisted and got inside when they were 
 shipped off to the front. It will be absolutely neces 
 sary to have two in their places. The two that went 
 were the brothers from Thirty-mile Point. I have 
 something of the greatest importance to reveal, but 
 must not trust it to this method of communication ; 
 will try the other." 
 
 " The little scoundrel! "said Webb; "who 
 could have supposed he was a spy ? However, 
 never mind about that; let us add up our par 
 ticulars, such as they are, and see how the case 
 stands to date. First, we ve got a rebel spy in 
 
108 A CURIOUS EXPERIENCE. 
 
 our midst, whom we know; secondly, we ve 
 got three more in our midst whom we don t 
 know; thirdly, these spies have been intro 
 duced among us through the simple and easy 
 process of enlisting as soldiers in the Union 
 army and evidently two of them have got 
 sold at it, and been shipped off to the front; 
 fourthly, there are assistant spies * outside 
 number indefinite; fifthly, Wicklow has very 
 important matter which he is afraid to commu 
 nicate by the present method will try the 
 other. That is the case, as it now stands. 
 Shall we collar Wicklow and make him con 
 fess ? Or shall we catch the person who re 
 moves the letters from the stable and make him 
 tell ? Or shall we keep still and find out 
 more ? " 
 
 We decided upon the last course. We 
 judged that we did not need to proceed to 
 summary measures now, since it was evident 
 that the conspirators were likely to wait till 
 those two light infantry companies were out of 
 the way. We fortified Sterne with pretty 
 ample powers, and told him to use his best en- 
 
A CURIOUS EXPERIENCE. 109 
 
 deavors to find out Wicklow s " other method " 
 of communication. We meant to play a bold 
 game; and to this end we proposed to keep 
 the spies in an unsuspecting state as long as 
 possible. So we ordered Sterne to return to 
 the stable immediately, and, if he found the 
 coast clear, to conceal Wicklow s letter where 
 it was before, and leave it there for the con 
 spirators to get. 
 
 The night closed down without further event. 
 It was cold and dark and sleety, with a raw 
 wind blowing; still I turned out of my warm 
 bed several times during the night, and went 
 the rounds in person, to see that all was right 
 and that every sentry was on the alert. I al 
 ways found them wide awake and watchful; 
 evidently whispers of mysterious dangers had 
 been floating about, and the doubling of the 
 guards had been a kind of indorsement of those 
 rumors. Once, toward morning, I encountered 
 Webb, breasting his way against the bitter 
 wind, and learned then that he, also, had been 
 the rounds several times to see that all was 
 going right. 
 
HO A CURIOUS EXPERIENCE. 
 
 Next day s events hurried things up some 
 what. Wicklow wrote another letter; Sterne 
 preceded him to the stable and saw him de 
 posit it; captured it as soon as Wicklow was 
 out of the way, then slipped out and followed 
 the little spy at a distance, with a detective in 
 plain clothes at his own heels, for we thought 
 it judicious to have the law s assistance handy 
 in case of need. Wicklow went to the railway 
 station, and waited around till the train from 
 New York came in, then stood scanning the 
 faces of the crowd as they poured out of the 
 cars. Presently an aged gentleman, with green 
 goggles and a cane, came limping along, stop 
 ped in Wicklow s neighborhood, and began to 
 look about him expectantly. In an instant 
 Wicklow darted forward, thrust an envelope 
 into his hand, then glided away and disap 
 peared in the throng. The next instant 
 Sterne had snatched the letter; and as he hur 
 ried past the detective, he said: " Follow the 
 old gentleman don t lose sight of him." Then 
 Sterne skurried out with the crowd, and came 
 straight to the fort. 
 
A CURIOUS EXPERIENCE. Ill 
 
 We sat with closed doors, and instructed 
 the guard outside to allow no interruption. 
 
 First we opened the letter captured at the 
 stable. It read as follows: 
 
 " HOLY ALLIANCE, Found, in the usual gun, com 
 mands from the Master, left there last night, which set 
 aside the instructions heretofore received from the 
 subordinate quarter. Have left in the gun the usual 
 indication that the commands reached the proper 
 hand " 
 
 Webb, interrupting: "Isn t the boy under 
 constant surveillance now ? " 
 
 I said yes; he had been under strict surveil 
 lance ever since the capturing of his former 
 letter. 
 
 "Then how could he put anything into a 
 gun, or take anything out of it, and not get 
 caught ?" 
 
 " Well," I said, " I don t like the look of that 
 very well." 
 
 " I don t, either," said Webb. " It simply 
 means that there are conspirators among the 
 very sentinels. Without their connivance in 
 some way or other, the thing could n t have 
 been done." 
 
112 A CURIOUS EXPERIENCE. 
 
 I sent for Rayburn, and ordered him to 
 examine the batteries and see what he could 
 find. The reading of the letter was then re 
 sumed: 
 
 " The new commands are peremptory, and require 
 that the MMMM shall be FFFFF at 3 o clock to-mor 
 row morning. Two hundred will arrive, in small 
 parties, by train and otherwise, from various directions, 
 and will be at appointed place at right time. I will 
 distribute the sign to-day. Success is apparently sure, 
 though something must have got out, for the sentries 
 have been doubled, and the chiefs went the rounds 
 last night several times. W. W. comes from southerly 
 to-day and will receive secret orders by the other 
 method. All six of you must be in 166 at sharp 2 A. M. 
 You will find B. B. there, who will give you detailed 
 instructions. Password same as last time, only re 
 versed put first syllable last and last syllable first. 
 REMEMBER XXXX. Do not forget. Be of good 
 heart; before the next sun rises you will be heroes; 
 your fame will be permanent; you will have added a 
 deathless page to history. Amen." 
 
 " Thunder and Mars," said Webb, " but we 
 are getting into mighty hot quarters, as I look 
 at it ! " 
 
 I said there was no question but that things 
 were beginning to wear a most serious aspect. 
 Said I, 
 
A CURIOUS EXPERIENCE. 113 
 
 " A desperate enterprise is on foot, that is 
 plain enough. To-night is the time set for it, 
 that, also, is plain. The exact nature of the 
 enterprise I mean the manner of it is hid 
 den away under those blind bunches of M s 
 and F s, but the end and aim, I judge, is the 
 surprise and capture of the post. We must 
 move quick and sharp now. I think nothing 
 can be gained by continuing our clandestine 
 policy as regards Wicklow. We must know, 
 and as soon as possible, too, where 166 is 
 located, so that we can make a descent upon 
 the gang there at 2 A. M.; and doubtless the 
 quickest way to get that information will be to 
 force it out of that boy. But first of all, and 
 before we make any important move, I must 
 lay the facts before the War Department, and 
 ask for plenary powers." 
 
 The despatch was prepared in cipher to go 
 over the wires; I read it, approved it, and sent 
 it along. 
 
 We presently finished discussing the letter 
 which was under consideration, and then 
 opened the one which had been snatched from 
 
114 A CURIOUS EXPERIENCE. 
 
 the lame gentleman. It contained nothing but 
 a couple of perfectly blank sheets of note- 
 paper ! It was a chilly check to our hot eager 
 ness and expectancy. We felt as blank as the 
 paper, for a moment, and twice as foolish. 
 But it was for a moment only; for, of course, 
 we immediately afterward thought of " sympa 
 thetic ink." We held the paper close to the 
 fire and watched for the characters to come 
 out, under the influence of the heat; but noth 
 ing appeared but some faint tracings, which 
 we could make nothing of. We then called in 
 the surgeon, and sent him off with orders to 
 apply every test he was acquainted with till he 
 got the right one, and report the contents of the 
 letter to me the instant he brought them to the 
 surface. This check was a confounded annoy 
 ance, and we naturally chafed under the delay; 
 for we had fully expected to get out of that letter 
 some of the most important secrets of the plot. 
 Now appeared Sergeant Rayburn, and drew 
 from his pocket a piece of twine string about a 
 foot long, with three knots tied in it, and held 
 it up. 
 
A CURIOUS EXPERIENCE. IK 
 
 " I got it out of a gun on the water-front," 
 said he. " I took the tompions out of all the 
 guns and examined close; this string was the 
 only thing that was in any gun." 
 
 So this bit of string was Wicklow s " sign " to 
 signify that the " Master s" commands had not 
 miscarried. I ordered that every sentinel who 
 had served near that gun during the past twen 
 ty-four hours be put in confinement at once and 
 separately, and not allowed to communicate 
 with any one without my privity and consent. 
 
 A telegram now came from the Secretary of 
 War. It read as follows : 
 
 " Suspend habeas corpus. Put town under martial 
 law. Make necessary arrests. Act with vigor and 
 promptness. Keep the Department informed." 
 
 We were now in shape to go to work. I 
 sent out and had the lame gentleman quietly 
 arrested and as quietly brought into the fort; 
 I placed him under guard, and forbade speech 
 to him or from him. He was inclined to blus 
 ter at first, but he soon dropped that. 
 
 Next came word that Wicklow had been 
 seen to give something to a couple of our new 
 
Il6 A CURIOUS EXPERIENCE. 
 
 recruits; and that, as soon as his back was 
 turned, these had been seized and confined. 
 Upon each was found a small bit of paper, 
 bearing these words and signs in pencil : 
 
 EAGLE S THIRD FLIGHT. 
 
 REMEMBER xxxx. 
 
 166. 
 
 In accordance with instructions, I tele 
 graphed to the Department, in cipher, the 
 progress made, and also described the above 
 ticket. We seemed to be in a strong enough 
 position now to venture to throw off the mask 
 as regarded Wicklow ; so I sent for him. I 
 also sent for and received back the letter writ 
 ten in sympathetic ink, the surgeon accompa 
 nying it with the information that thus far it 
 had resisted his tests, but that there were oth 
 ers he could apply when I should be ready for 
 him to do so. 
 
 Presently Wicklow entered. He had a 
 
A CURIOUS EXPERIENCE. 1 1/ 
 
 somewhat worn and anxious look, but he was 
 composed and easy, and if he suspected any 
 thing it did not appear in his face or manner. 
 I allowed him to stand there a moment or two, 
 then I said pleasantly, 
 
 44 My boy, why do you go to that old stable 
 so much ? " 
 
 He answered, with simple demeanor and 
 without embarrassment, 
 
 Well, I hardly know, sir; there isn t any 
 particular reason, except that I like to be 
 alone, and I amuse myself there." 
 
 44 You amuse yourself there, do you ? " 
 
 4< Yes, sir," he replied, as innocently and 
 simply as before. 
 
 " Is that all you do there ? " 
 
 44 Yes, sir," he said, looking up with childlike 
 wonderment in his big soft eyes. 
 
 44 You are sure ?" 
 
 4 Yes, sir, sure." 
 
 After a pause, I said, 
 
 44 Wicklow, why do you write so much ?" 
 
 44 I ? I do not write much, sir." 
 
 44 You don t?" 
 
Il8 A CURIOUS EXPERIENCE. 
 
 " No, sir. Oh, if you mean scribbling, I do 
 scribble some, for amusement." 
 
 44 What do you do with your scribblings ?" 
 
 " Nothing, sir throw them away." 
 
 "Never send them to anybody ? " 
 
 44 No, sir." 
 
 I suddenly thrust before him the letter to the 
 " Colonel." He started slightly, but immedi 
 ately composed himself. A slight tinge spread 
 itself over his cheek. 
 
 44 How came you to send this piece of scrib 
 bling, then ? " 
 
 " I nev never meant any harm, sir." 
 
 " Never meant any harm ! You betray the 
 armament and condition of the post, and mean 
 no harm by it ? " 
 
 He hung his head and was silent. 
 
 44 Come, speak up, and stop lying. Whom 
 was this letter intended for ? " 
 
 He showed signs of distress, now ; but quick 
 ly collected himself, and replied, in a tone of 
 deep earnestness, 
 
 44 1 will tell you the truth, sir the whole 
 truth. The letter was never intended for any- 
 
A CURIOUS EXPERIENCE. 1 19 
 
 body at all. I wrote it only to amuse myself. 
 I see the error and foolishness of it, now, but 
 it is the only offence, sir, upon my honor." 
 
 " Ah, I am glad of that. It is dangerous to 
 be writing such letters. I hope you are sure 
 this is the only one you wrote ? " 
 
 " Yes, sir, perfectly sure." 
 
 His hardihood was stupefying. He told that 
 lie with as sincere a countenance as any crea 
 ture ever wore. I waited a moment to soothe 
 down my rising temper, and then said, 
 
 " Wicklow, jog your memory now, and see 
 if you can help me with two or three little mat 
 ters which I wish to inquire about." 
 
 " I will do my very best, sir." 
 
 "Then, to begin with who is the Mas 
 ter ? " 
 
 It betrayed him into darting a startled 
 glance at our faces, but that was all. He was 
 serene again in a moment, and tranquilly 
 answered, 
 
 "I do not know, sir." 
 
 " You do not know ?" 
 
 "I do not know." 
 
120 A CURIOUS EXPERIENCE. 
 
 " You are sure you do not know ? " 
 
 He tried hard to keep his eyes on mine, but 
 the strain was too great; his chin sunk slowly 
 toward his breast and he was silent; he stood 
 there nervously fumbling with a button, an ob 
 ject to command one s pity, in spite of his base 
 acts. Presently I broke the stillness with the 
 question, 
 
 " Who are the * Holy Alliance ? " 
 
 His body shook visibly, and he made a slight 
 random gesture with his hands, which to me 
 was like the appeal of a despairing creature for 
 compassion. But he made no sound. He con 
 tinued to stand with his face bent toward the 
 ground. As we sat gazing at him, waiting for 
 him to speak, we saw the big tears begin to roll 
 down his cheeks. But he remained silent. Af 
 ter a little, I said, 
 
 " You must answer me, my boy, and you 
 must tell me the truth. Who are the Holy Al 
 liance ? " 
 
 He wept on in silence. Presently I said, 
 somewhat sharply, 
 
 " Answer the question ! " 
 
A CURIOUS EXPERIENCE. 121 
 
 He struggled to get command of his voice; 
 and then, looking up appealingly, forced the 
 words out between his sobs, 
 
 " Oh, have pity on me, sir ! I cannot an 
 swer it, for I do not know." 
 "What!" 
 
 " Indeed, sir, I am telling the truth. I never 
 have heard of the Holy Alliance till this mo 
 ment. On my honor, sir, this is so." 
 
 " Good heavens ! Look at this second 
 letter of yours ; there, do you see those 
 words, Holy Alliance? What do you say 
 now ? " 
 
 He gazed up into my face with the hurt look 
 of one upon whom a great wrong had been 
 wrought, then said, feelingly, 
 
 " This is some cruel joke, sir; and how could 
 they play it upon me, who have tried all I 
 could to do right, and have never done harm 
 to anybody ? Some one has counterfeited my 
 hand; I never wrote a line of this; I have 
 never seen this letter before ! " 
 
 " Oh, you unspeakable liar ! Here, what do 
 you say to this ? " and I snatched the sympa- 
 
122 A CURIOUS EXPERIENCE. 
 
 thetic-ink letter from my pocket and thrust it 
 before his eyes. 
 
 His face turned white ! as white as a dead 
 person s. He wavered slightly in his tracks, 
 and put his hand against the wall to steady 
 himself. After a moment he asked, in so faint 
 a voice that it was hardly audible, 
 
 "Have you read it ? " 
 
 Our faces must have answered the truth be 
 fore my lips could get out a false "yes," for I 
 distinctly saw the courage come back into that 
 boy s eyes. I waited for him to say something, 
 but he kept silent. So at last I said, 
 
 " Well, what have you to say as to the rev 
 elations in this letter ? " 
 
 He answered, with perfect composure, 
 
 "Nothing, except that they are entirely 
 harmless and innocent; they can hurt no 
 body." 
 
 I was in something of a corner now, as I 
 couldn t disprove his assertion. I did not know 
 exactly how to proceed. However, an idea 
 came to my relief, and I said, 
 
 " You are sure you know nothing about the 
 
A CURIOUS EXPERIENCE. 123 
 
 Master and the Holy Alliance, and did not 
 write the letter which you say is a forgery ? " 
 
 " Yes, sir sure." 
 
 I slowly drew out the knotted twine string 
 and held it up without speaking. He gazed at 
 it indifferently, then looked at me inquiringly. 
 My patience was sorely taxed. However, I 
 kept my temper down, and said in my usual 
 voice, 
 
 " Wicklow, do you see this ? " 
 
 " Yes, sir." 
 
 "What is it?" 
 
 " It seems to be a piece of string." 
 
 " Seems ? It is a piece of string. Do you 
 recognize it ? " 
 
 " No, sir," he replied, as calmly as the words 
 could be uttered. 
 
 His coolness was perfectly wonderful ! I 
 paused now for several seconds, in order that 
 the silence might add impressiveness to what 
 I was about to say ; then I rose and laid my 
 hand on his shoulder, and said gravely, 
 
 "It will do you no good, poor boy, none in 
 the world. This sign to the Master, this 
 
124 A CURIOUS EXPERIENCE. 
 
 knotted string, found in one of the guns on the 
 water-front 
 
 " Found in the gun ! Oh, no, no, no ! do not 
 say in the gun, but in a crack in the tompion ! 
 it must have been in the crack ! " and down 
 he went on his knees and clasped his hands 
 and lifted up a face that was pitiful to see, 
 so ashy it was, and wild with terror. 
 
 " No, it was in the gun." 
 
 " Oh, something has gone wrong ! My God, 
 I am lost ! " and he sprang up and darted this 
 way and that, dodging the hands that were put 
 out to catch him, and doing his best to escape 
 from the place. But of course escape was im 
 possible. Then he flung himself on his knees 
 again, crying with all his might, and clasped 
 me around the legs; and so he clung to me and 
 begged and pleaded, saying, " Oh, have pity 
 on me ! Oh, be merciful to me ! Do not be 
 tray me; they would not spare my life a mo 
 ment ! Protect me, save me. I will confess 
 everything ! " 
 
 It took us some time to quiet him down 
 and modify his fright, and get him into some- 
 
A CURIOUS EXPERIENCE. 125 
 
 thing like a rational frame of mind. Then 
 I began to question him, he answering 
 humbly, with downcast eyes, and from time 
 to time swabbing away his constantly flow 
 ing tears. 
 
 " So you are at heart a rebel ? " 
 
 " Yes, sir." 
 
 " And a spy?" 
 
 " Yes, sir." 
 
 " And have been acting under distinct or 
 ders from outside ? " 
 
 " Yes, sir." 
 
 " Willingly ?" 
 
 " Yes, sir." 
 
 " Gladly, perhaps ? " 
 
 " Yes, sir ; it would do no good to deny it. 
 The South is my country ; my heart is South- 
 ern, and it is all in her cause." 
 
 " Then the tale you told me of your wrongs 
 and the persecution of your family was made 
 up for the occasion ? " 
 
 " They they told me to say it, sir." 
 " And you would betray and destroy those 
 who pitied and sheltered you. Do you com- 
 
126 A CURIOUS EXPERIENCE. 
 
 prehend how base you are, you poor misguided 
 thing ? " 
 
 He replied with sobs only. 
 
 " Well, let that pass. To business. Who is 
 the Colonel, and where is he ? " 
 
 He began to cry hard, and tried to beg off 
 from answering. He said he would be killed 
 if he told. I threatened to put him in the dark 
 cell and lock him up if he did not come out 
 with the information. At the same time I 
 promised to protect him from all harm if he 
 made a clean breast. For all answer, he closed 
 his mouth firmly and put on a stubborn air 
 which I could not bring him out of. At last I 
 started with him; but a single glance into the 
 dark cell converted him. He broke into a 
 passion of weeping and supplicating, and de 
 clared he would tell everything. 
 
 So I brought him back, and he named the 
 Colonel," and described him particularly. 
 Said he would be found at the principal hotel 
 in the town, in citizen s dress. I had to 
 threaten him again, before he would describe 
 and name the " Master." Said the Master 
 
A CURIOUS EXPERIENCE. I2/ 
 
 would be found at No. 15 Bond Street, New 
 York, passing under the name of R. F. Gay- 
 lord. I telegraphed name and description to 
 the chief of police of the metropolis, and asked 
 that Gaylord be arrested and held till I could 
 send for him. 
 
 " Now," said I, " it seems that there are sev 
 eral of the conspirators outside, presumably 
 in New London. Name and describe them." 
 
 He named and described three men and two 
 women, all stopping at the principal hotel. I 
 sent out quietly, and had them and the " Colo 
 nel " arrested and confined in the fort. 
 
 " Next, I want to know all about your three 
 fellow-conspirators who are here in the fort." 
 
 He was about to dodge me with a falsehood, 
 I thought; but I produced the mysterious bits 
 of paper which had been found upon two of 
 them, and this had a salutary effect upon him. 
 I said we had possession of two of the men, and 
 he must point out the third. This frightened 
 him badly, and he cried out, 
 
 " Oh, please don t make me ; he would kill 
 me on the spot ! " 
 
128 A CURIOUS EXPERIENCE. 
 
 I said that that was all nonsense; I would 
 have somebody near by to protect him, and, 
 besides, the men should be assembled without 
 arms. I ordered all the raw recruits to be 
 mustered, and then the poor trembling little 
 wretch went out and stepped along down the 
 line, trying to look as indifferent as possible. 
 Finally he spoke a single word to one of the 
 men, and before he had gone five steps the 
 man was under arrest. 
 
 As soon as Wicklow was with us again, I 
 had those three men brought in. I made one 
 of them stand forward, and said, 
 
 " Now, Wicklow, mind, not a shade s diver 
 gence from the exact truth. Who is this man, 
 and what do you know about him ? " 
 
 Being " in for it," he cast consequences aside, 
 fastened his eyes on the man s face, and spoke 
 straight along without hesitation, to the fol 
 lowing effect. 
 
 " His real name is George Bristow. He is 
 from New Orleans; was second mate of the 
 coast-packet Capitol, two years ago ; is a 
 desperate character, and has served two terms 
 
A CURIOUS EXPERIENCE. I2Q 
 
 for manslaughter, one for killing a deck-hand 
 named Hyde with a capstan-bar, and one for 
 killing a roustabout for refusing to heave the 
 lead, which is no part of a roustabout s busi 
 ness. He is a spy, and was sent here by the 
 Colonel, to act in that capacity. He was third 
 mate of the * St. Nicholas, when she blew up 
 in the neighborhood of Memphis, in 58, and 
 came near being lynched for robbing the dead 
 and wounded while they were being taken 
 ashore in an empty wood-boat." 
 
 And so forth and so on he gave the man s 
 biography in full. When he had finished, I 
 said to the man, 
 
 4 What have you to say to this?" 
 
 " Barring your presence, sir, it is the infer- 
 nalest lie that ever was spoke ! " 
 
 I sent him back into confinement, and called 
 the others forward in turn. Same result. The 
 boy gave a detailed history of each, without 
 ever hesitating for a word or a fact; but all I 
 could get out of either rascal was the indignant 
 assertion that it was all a lie. They would 
 confess nothing. I returned them to captivity, 
 
130 A CURIOUS EXPERIENCE. 
 
 and brought out the rest of my prisoners, one 
 by one. Wicklow told all about them what 
 towns in the South they were from, and every 
 detail of their connection with the con 
 spiracy. 
 
 But they all denied his facts, and not one of 
 them confessed a thing. The men raged, the 
 women cried. According to their stories, 
 they were all innocent people from out West, 
 and loved the Union above all things in this 
 world. I locked the gang up, in disgust, and 
 fell to catechising Wicklow once more. 
 "Where is No. 166, and who is B. B.?" 
 But tJicre he was determined to draw the 
 line. Neither coaxing nor threats had any 
 effect upon him. Time was flying it was 
 necessary to institute sharp measures. So I 
 tied him up a-tiptoe by the thumbs. As the 
 pain increased, it wrung screams from him 
 which were almost more than I could bear. 
 But I held my ground, and pretty soon he 
 shrieked out, 
 
 " Oh, please let me down, and I will tell ! " 
 "No you ll tell before I let you clown." 
 
A CURIOUS EXPERIENCE. 131 
 
 Every instant was agony to him, now, so out 
 it came, 
 
 "No. 166, Eagle Hotel!" naming a wretch 
 ed tavern down by the water, a resort of com 
 mon laborers, longshoremen, and less rep 
 utable folk. 
 
 So I released him, and then demanded to 
 know the object of the conspiracy. 
 
 " To take the fort to-night," said he, dog 
 gedly and sobbing. 
 
 "Have I got all the chiefs of the conspiracy?" 
 
 " No. You ve got all except those that are 
 to meet at 166." 
 
 "What does Remember XXXX mean?" 
 
 No reply. 
 
 "What is the password to No. 166?" 
 
 No reply. 
 
 "What do those bunches of letters mean, 
 FFFFF and MMMM ? Answer! or you 
 will catch it again." 
 
 " I never will answer ! I will die first. Now 
 do what you please." 
 
 " Think what you are saying, Wicklow. Is 
 it final ? " 
 
132 A CURIOUS EXPERIENCE. 
 
 He answered steadily, and without a quiver 
 in his voice, 
 
 "It is final. As sure as I love my wronged 
 country and hate everything this Northern 
 sun shines on, I will die before I will reveal 
 those things." 
 
 I triced him up by the thumbs again. When 
 the agony was full upon him, it was heart 
 breaking to hear the poor thing s shrieks, but 
 we got nothing else out of him. To every 
 question he screamed the same reply : " I can 
 die, and I will die; but I will never tell." 
 
 Well, we had to give it -up. We were con 
 vinced that he certainly would die rather than 
 confess. So we took him down and imprisoned 
 him, under strict guard. 
 
 Then for some hours we busied ourselves 
 with sending telegrams to the War Depart 
 ment, and with making preparations for a de 
 scent upon No. 166. 
 
 It was stirring times, that black and bitter 
 night. Things had leaked out, and the whole 
 garrison was on the alert. The sentinels were 
 trebled, and nobody could move, outside or in, 
 
A CURIOUS EXPERIENCE. 133 
 
 without being brought to a stand with a mus 
 ket levelled at his head. However, Webb and 
 I were less concerned now than we had pre 
 viously been, because of the fact that the con 
 spiracy must necessarily be in a pretty crippled 
 condition, since so many of its principals were 
 in our clutches. 
 
 I determined to be at No. 166 in good sea 
 son, capture and gag B. B., and be on hand 
 for the rest when they arrived. At about a 
 quarter past one in the morning I crept out of 
 the fortress with half a dozen stalwart and 
 gamy U. S. regulars at my heels and the boy 
 Wicklow, with his hands tied behind him. I 
 told him we were going to No. 166, and that if 
 I found he had lied again and was misleading 
 us, he would have to show us the right place 
 or suffer the consequences. 
 
 We approached the tavern stealthily and 
 reconnoitred. A light was burning in the 
 small bar-room, the rest of the house was 
 dark. I tried the front door; it yielded, and 
 we softly entered, closing the door behind us. 
 Then we removed our shoes, and I led the 
 
134 A CURIOUS EXPERIENCE. 
 
 way to the bar-room. The German landlord 
 sat there, asleep in his chair. I woke him 
 gently, and told him to take off his boots and 
 precede us; warning him at the same time to 
 utter no sound. He obeyed without a mur 
 mur, but evidently he was badly frightened. 
 I ordered him to lead the way to 166. We 
 ascended two or three flights of stairs as softly 
 as a file of cats; and then, having arrived near 
 the farther end of a long hall, we came to a 
 door through the glazed transom of which we 
 could discern the glow of a dim light from 
 within. The landlord felt for me in the dark 
 and whispered me that that was 166. I tried 
 the door it was locked on the inside. I whis 
 pered an order to one of my biggest soldiers; 
 we set our ample shoulders to the door and 
 with one heave we burst it from its hinges. I 
 caught a half-glimpse of a figure in a bed- 
 saw its head dart toward the candle; out went 
 the light, and we were in pitch darkness. 
 With one big bound I lit on that bed and 
 pinned its occupant down with my knees. My 
 prisoner struggled fiercely, but I got a grip on 
 
A CURIOUS EXPERIENCE. 135 
 
 his throat with my left hand, and that was a 
 good assistance to my knees in holding him 
 down. Then straightway I snatched out my 
 revolver, cocked it, and laid the cold barrel 
 warningly against his cheek. 
 
 Now somebody strike a light!" said I. 
 " I ve got him safe." 
 
 It was done. The flame of the match burst 
 up. I looked at my captive, and, by George, 
 it was a young woman ! 
 
 I let go and got off the bed, feeling pretty 
 sheepish. Everybody stared stupidly at his 
 neighbor. Nobody had any wit or sense left, 
 so sudden and overwhelming had been the 
 surprise. The young woman began to cry, 
 and covered her face with the sheet. The 
 landlord said, meekly, 
 
 "My daughter, she has been doing some 
 thing that is not right, nicht wahr?" 
 
 "Your daughter? Is she your daughter?" 
 
 "Oh, yes, she is my daughter. She is just 
 to-night come home from Cincinnati a little 
 bit sick." 
 
 "Confound it, that boy has lied again. This 
 
136 A CURIOUS EXPERIENCE. 
 
 is not the right 166; this is not B. B. Now, 
 Wicklow, you will find the correct 166 for us, 
 or hello ! where is that boy ? " 
 
 Gone, as sure as guns ! And, what is more, 
 we failed to find a trace of him. Here was an 
 awkward predicament. I cursed my stupidity 
 in not tying him to one of the men; but it was 
 of no use to bother about that now. What 
 should I do in the present circumstances ? 
 that was the question. That girl might be 
 B. B., after all. I did not believe it, but still it 
 would not answer to take unbelief for proof. 
 So I finally put my men in a vacant room 
 across the hall from 166, and told them to cap 
 ture anybody and everybody that approached 
 the girl s room, and to keep the landlord with 
 them, and under strict watch, until further or 
 ders. Then I hurried back to the fort to see 
 if all was right there yet. 
 
 Yes, all was right. And all remained right. 
 I stayed up all night to make sure of that. 
 Nothing happened. I was unspeakably glad 
 to see the dawn come again, and be able 
 to telegraph the Department that the Stars 
 
A CURIOUS EXPERIENCE. 137 
 
 and Stripes still floated over Fort Trum- 
 bull. 
 
 An immense pressure was lifted from my 
 breast. Still I did not relax vigilance, of 
 course, nor effort either; the case was too 
 grave for that. I had up my prisoners, one by 
 one, and harried them by the hour, trying to 
 get them to confess, but it was a failure. They 
 only gnashed their teeth and tore their hair, 
 and revealed nothing. 
 
 About noon came tidings of my missing boy. 
 He had been seen on the road, tramping west 
 ward, some eight miles out, at six in the morn 
 ing. I started a cavalry lieutenant and a pri 
 vate on his track at once. They came in sight 
 of him twenty miles out. He had climbed a 
 fence and was wearily dragging himself across 
 a slushy field toward a large old-fashioned 
 mansion in the edge of a village. They rode 
 through a bit of woods, made a detour, and 
 closed up on the house from the opposite side; 
 then dismounted and skurried into the kitchen. 
 Nobody there. They slipped into the next 
 room, which was also unoccupied; the door 
 
138 A CURIOUS EXPERIENCE. 
 
 from that room into the front or sitting room 
 was open. They were about to step through 
 it when they heard a low voice; it was some 
 body praying. So they halted reverently, and 
 the lieutenant put his head in and saw an old 
 man and an old woman kneeling in a corner 
 of that sitting-room. It was the old man that 
 was praying, and just as he was finishing his 
 prayer, the Wicklow boy opened the front 
 door and stepped in. Both of those old people 
 sprang at him and smothered him with em 
 braces, shouting, 
 
 "Our boy! our darling! God be praised. 
 The lost is found ! He that was dead is alive 
 again ! " 
 
 Well, sir, what do you think ! That young 
 imp was born and reared on that homestead, 
 and had never been five miles away from it in 
 all his life, till the fortnight before he loafed 
 into my quarters and gulled me with that 
 maudlin yarn of his ! It s as true as gospel. 
 That old man was his father a learned old 
 retired clergyman; and that old lady was his 
 mother. 
 
A CURIOUS EXPERIENCE. 139 
 
 Let me throw in a word or two of explana 
 tion concerning that boy and his performances. 
 It turned out that he was a ravenous devourer 
 of dime novels and sensation-story papers 
 therefore, dark mysteries and gaudy heroisms 
 were just in his line. Then he had read news 
 paper reports of the stealthy goings and com 
 ings of rebel spies in our midst, and of their 
 lurid purposes and their two or three startling 
 achievements, till his imagination was all 
 aflame on that subject. His constant comrade 
 for some months had been a Yankee youth of 
 much tongue and lively fancy, who had served 
 for a couple of years as "mud clerk" (that is, 
 subordinate purser) on certain of the packet- 
 boats plying between New Orleans and points 
 two or three hundred miles up the Mississippi 
 hence his easy facility in handling the names 
 and other details pertaining to that region. 
 Now I had spent two or three months in that 
 part of the country before the war; and I knew 
 just enough about it to be easily taken in by 
 that boy, whereas a born Louisianian would 
 probably have caught him tripping before he 
 
140 A CURIOUS EXPERIENCE. 
 
 had talked fifteen minutes. Do you know the 
 reason he said he would rather die than ex 
 plain certain of his treasonable enigmas ? 
 Simply because he could n t explain them ! 
 they had no meaning; he had fired them out 
 of his imagination without forethought or after 
 thought; and so, upon sudden call, he was n t 
 able to invent an explanation of them. For 
 instance, he could n t reveal what was hidden 
 in the " sympathetic ink" letter, for the ample 
 reason that there was n t anything hidden in 
 it; it was blank paper only. He had n t put 
 anything into a gun, and had never intended 
 to for his letters were all written to imaginary 
 persons, and when he hid one in the stable he 
 always removed the one he had put there the 
 day before; so he was not acquainted with 
 that knotted string, since he was seeing it for 
 the first time when I showed it to him; but as 
 soon as I had let him find out where it came 
 from, he straightway adopted it, in his roman 
 tic fashion, and got some fine effects out of it. 
 He invented Mr. " Gaylord ; " there was n t 
 any 15 Bond Street, just then it had been 
 
A CURIOUS EXPERIENCE. 141 
 
 pulled down three months before. He in 
 vented the " Colonel;" he invented the glib 
 histories of those unfortunates whom I cap 
 tured and confronted with him; he invented 
 " B. B.;" he even invented No. 166, one may 
 say, for he did n t know there was such a 
 number in the Eagle Hotel until we went 
 there. He stood ready to invent anybody or 
 anything whenever it was wanted. If I called 
 for " outside" spies, he promptly described 
 strangers whom he had seen at the hotel, and 
 whose names he had happened to hear. Ah, 
 he lived in a gorgeous, mysterious, romantic 
 world during those few stirring days, and I 
 think it was real to him, and that he enjoyed 
 it clear down to the bottom of his heart. 
 
 But he made trouble enough for us, and just 
 no end of humiliation. You see, on account 
 of him we had fifteen or twenty people under 
 arrest and confinement in the fort, with senti 
 nels before their doors. A lot of the captives 
 were soldiers and such, and to them I did n t 
 have to apologize; but the rest were first-class 
 citizens, from all over the country, and no 
 
142 A CURIOUS EXPERIENCE. 
 
 amount of apologies was sufficient to satisfy 
 them. They just fumed and raged and made 
 no end of trouble ! And those two ladies, 
 one was an Ohio Congressman s wife, the other 
 a Western bishop s sister, well, the scorn and 
 ridicule and angry tears they poured out on 
 me made up a keepsake that was likely to 
 make me remember them for a considerable 
 time, and I shall. That old lame gentleman 
 with the goggles was a college president from 
 Philadelphia, who had come up to attend his 
 nephew s funeral. He had never seen young 
 Wicklow before, of course. Well, he not only 
 missed the funeral, and got jailed as a rebel 
 spy, but Wicklow had stood up there in my 
 quarters and coldly described him as a counter 
 feiter, nigger-trader, horse-thief, and fire-bug 
 ) \i 
 
 from the most notorious rascal-nest in Galves- 
 
 ton; and this was a thing which that poor old 
 gentleman could n t seem to get over at all. 
 
 And the War Department ! But, O my 
 soul, let s draw the curtain over that part ! 
 
 NOTE. I showed my manuscript to the Major, and he 
 said: " Your unfamiliarity with military matters has be- 
 
A CURIOUS EXPERIENCE. 143 
 
 trayed you into some little mistakes. Still, they are pic 
 turesque ones let them go; military men will smile at 
 them, the rest won t detect them. You have got the main 
 facts of the history right, and have set them down just 
 about as they occurred." M. T. 
 
MRS. McWILLIAMS AND THE 
 LIGHTNING. 
 
 \~\TEL~L, sir, continued Mr. McWilliams, 
 * * for this was not the beginning of his 
 talk; the fear of lightning is one of the most 
 distressing infirmities a human being can be 
 afflicted with. It is mostly confined to women; 
 but now and then you find it in a little dog, 
 and sometimes in a man. It is a particularly 
 distressing infirmity, for the reason that it 
 takes the sand out of a person to an extent 
 which no other fear can, and it can t be rea 
 soned with, and neither can it be shamed out 
 of a person. A woman who could face the 
 very devil himself or a mouse loses her grip 
 and goes all to pieces in front of a flash of 
 lightning. Her fright is something pitiful to 
 see. 
 
 Well, as I was telling you, I woke up, with 
 
 that smothered and unlocatable cry of " Mor- 
 144 
 
MRS. McWILLIAMS. H5 
 
 timer ! Mortimer ! " wailing in my ears ; and 
 as soon as I could scrape my faculties together 
 I reached over in the dark and then said, 
 
 " Evangeline, is that you calling ? What is 
 the matter ? Where are you ? " 
 
 " Shut up in the boot-closet. You ought to 
 be ashamed to lie there and sleep so, and such 
 an awful storm going on." 
 
 " Why, how can one be ashamed when he is / 
 asleep ? It is unreasonable ; a man cant be 
 ashamed when he is asleep, Evangeline." 
 
 " You never try, Mortimer, you know very 
 well you never try." 
 
 I caught the sound of muffled sobs. 
 
 That sound smote dead the sharp speech 
 that was on my lips, and I changed it to 
 
 "I m sorry, dear, I m truly sorry. I never 
 meant to act so. Come back and " 
 
 " MORTIMER ! " 
 
 " Heavens ! what is the matter, my love ? " 
 
 " Do you mean to say you are in that bed 
 yet ? " 
 
 " Why, of course." 
 
 " Come out of it instantly. I should think 
 
146 MRS. McWILLIAMS 
 
 you would take some little care of your life, for 
 my sake and the children s, if you will not for 
 your own." 
 
 " But my love - 
 
 " Don t talk to me, Mortimer. You know 
 there is no place so dangerous as a bed, in 
 such a thunder-storm as this, all the books 
 say that ; yet there you would lie, and deliber 
 ately throw away your life, for goodness 
 knows what, unless for the sake of arguing and 
 arguing, and 
 
 " But, confound it, Evangeline, I m not in the 
 bed, now. I m 
 
 [Sentence interrupted by a sudden glare of 
 lightning, followed by a terrified little scream 
 from Mrs. McWilliams and a tremendous blast 
 of thunder.] 
 
 " There ! You see the result. Oh, Morti 
 mer, how can you be so profligate as to swear 
 at such a time as this ? " 
 
 " I didn t swear. And that was nt a result 
 of it, any way. It would have come, just the 
 same, if I had n t said a word ; and you know 
 very well, Evangeline, at least you ought to 
 
AND THE LIGHTNING. 147 
 
 know,- that when the atmosphere is charged 
 with electricity 
 
 " Oh, yes, now argue it, and argue it, and 
 argue it ! I don t see how you can act so, 
 when you know there is not a lightning-rod on 
 the place, and your poor wife and children are 
 absolutely at the mercy of Providence. What 
 are you doing ? lighting a match at such a 
 time as this ! Are you stark mad ? " 
 
 " Hang it, woman, where s the harm ? The 
 place is as dark as the inside of an infidel, 
 and" 
 
 " Put it out ! put it out instantly ! Are you 
 determined to sacrifice us all ? You know there 
 is nothing attracts lightning like a light. \Fst! 
 crash ! boom boloom-boom-boom /] Oh, 
 just hear it ! Now you see what you ve 
 done ! " 
 
 " No, I don t see what I ve done. A match 
 may attract lightning, for all I know, but it 
 don t cause lightning, I ll go odds on that. 
 And it didn t attract it worth a cent this time ; 
 for if that shot was levelled at my match, it 
 was blessed poor marksmanship, about f an 
 
148 MRS. McWILLIAMS 
 
 average of none out of a possible million, I 
 should say. Why, at Dollymount, such marks 
 manship as that 
 
 " For shame, Mortimer ! Here we are 
 standing right in the very presence of death, 
 and yet in so solemn a moment you are ca 
 pable of using such language as that. If you 
 have no desire to Mortimer ! " 
 
 "Well?" 
 
 " Did you say your prayers to-night ?" 
 
 "I I meant to, but I got to trying to 
 cipher, out how much twelve times thirteen is, 
 and 
 
 \Fzt ! boom-berroom-boom ! bumble-nuible 
 
 "Oh, we are lost, beyond all help! How 
 could you neglect such a thing at such a time 
 as this ?" 
 
 " But it was rit ( such a time as this. There 
 was n t a cloud in the sky. How could /know 
 there was going to be all this rumpus and pow 
 wow about a little slip like that? And I don t 
 think it s just fair for you to make so much out 
 of it, any way, seeing it happens so seldom; I 
 
AND THE LIGHTNING. H9 
 
 have n t missed before since I brought on that 
 earthquake, four years ago." 
 
 "MORTIMER! How you talk! Have you 
 forgotten the yellow fever ?" 
 
 "My dear, you are always throwing up the 
 yellow fever to me, and I think it is perfectly 
 unreasonable. You can t even send a tele 
 graphic message as far as Memphis without 
 relays, so how is a little devotional slip of 
 mine going to carry so far ? I ll stand the 
 earthquake, because it was in the neighbor-^ 
 hood; but I ll be hanged if I m going to be re 
 sponsible for every blamed 
 
 \Fzt ! BOOM &erwm-boom ! boom! 
 BANG!] 
 
 " Oh, dear, dear, dear ! I know it struck 
 something, Mortimer. We never shall see the 
 light of another day; and if it will do you any 
 good to remember, when we are gone, that 
 your dreadful language Mortimer /" 
 
 " WELL ! What now ?" 
 
 "Your voice sounds as if Mortimer, are 
 you actually standing in front of that open 
 fireplace ?" 
 
ISO MRS. McWILLIAMS 
 
 " That is the very crime I am committing." 
 
 "Get away from it, this moment. You do 
 seem determined to bring destruction on us 
 all. Don t you know that there is no better 
 conductor for lightning than an open chimney? 
 Now where have you got to ?" 
 
 " I m here by the window." 
 
 " Oh, for pity s sake, have you lost your 
 mind ? Clear out from there, this moment. 
 The very children in arms know it is fatal to 
 stand near a window in a thunder-storm. 
 Dear, dear, I know I shall never see the light 
 of another day. Mortimer ?" 
 
 " Yes?" 
 
 What is that rustling ?" 
 
 " It s me." 
 
 " What are you doing?" 
 
 "Trying to find the upper end of my panta 
 loons." 
 
 " Quick ! throw those things away ! I do 
 believe you would deliberately put on those 
 clothes at such a time as this; yet you know 
 perfectly well that all authorities agree that 
 woolen stuffs attract lightning. Oh, dear, 
 
AND THE LIGHTNING. 151 
 
 dear, it isn t sufficient that one s life must be in 
 peril from natural causes, but you must do 
 everything you can possibly think of to aug 
 ment the danger. Oh, dorit sing ! What can 
 you be thinking of?" 
 
 " Now where s the harm in it ?" 
 
 " Mortimer, if I have told you once, I have 
 told you a hundred times, that singing causes 
 vibrations in the atmosphere which interrupt 
 the flow of the electric fluid, and What on 
 earth are you opening that door for ?" 
 
 "Goodness gracious, woman, is there is any 
 harm in that ?" 
 
 " Harm ? There s death in it. Anybody 
 that has given this subject any attention knows 
 that to create a draught is to invite the light 
 ning. You have n t half shut it; shut it tight > 
 and do hurry, or we are all destroyed. Oh, 
 it is an awful thing to be shut up with a lunatic 
 at such a time as this. Mortimer, what are you 
 doing ?" 
 
 " Nothing. Just turning on the water. 
 This room is smothering hot and close. I 
 want to bathe my face and hands." 
 
152 MRS. McWILLIAMS 
 
 " You have certainly parted with the rem 
 nant of your mind ! Where lightning strikes 
 any other substance once, it strikes water fifty 
 times. Do turn it off. Oh, dear, I am sure 
 that nothing in this world can save us. It does 
 seem to me that Mortimer, what was that ? " 
 
 " It was a da it was a picture. Knocked 
 it down." 
 
 "Then you are close to the wall! I never 
 heard of such imprudence ! Don t you know 
 that there s no better conductor for lightning 
 than a wall ? Come away from there ! And 
 you came as near as anything to swearing, 
 too. Oh, how can you be so desperately 
 wicked, and your family in such peril ? Mor 
 timer, did you order a feather bed, as I asked 
 you to do ?" 
 
 "No. Forgot it." 
 
 " Forgot it ! It may cost you your life. If 
 you had a feather bed, now, and could spread 
 it in the middle of the room and lie on it, you 
 would be perfectly safe. Come in here, 
 come quick, before you have a chance to com 
 mit any more frantic indiscretions." 
 
AND THE LIGHTNING. 153 
 
 I tried, but the little closet would not hold 
 us both with the door shut, unless we could be 
 content to smother. I gasped awhile, then 
 forced my way out. My wife called out, 
 
 " Mortimer, something must be done for 
 your preservation. Give me that German book 
 that is on the end of the mantel-piece, and a 
 candle; but don t light it; give me a match; I 
 will light it in here. That book has some 
 directions in it." 
 
 I got the book, at cost of a vase and some 
 other brittle things; and the madam shut her 
 self up with her candle. I had a moment s 
 peace; then she called out, 
 
 " Mortimer, what was that?" 
 
 " Nothing but the cat." 
 
 "The cat! Oh, destruction! Catch her, 
 and shut her up in the wash-stand. Do be 
 quick, love; cats are full of electricity. I just 
 know my hair will turn white with this night s 
 awful perils." 
 
 I heard the muffled sobbings again. But for 
 that, I should not have moved hand or foot in 
 such a wild enterprise in the dark. 
 
154 MRS. McWILLIAMS 
 
 However, I went at my task, over chairs, 
 and against all sorts of obstructions, all of 
 them hard ones, too, and most of them with 
 sharp edges, and at last I got kitty cooped 
 up in the commode, at an expense of over four 
 hundred dollars in broken furniture and shins. 
 Then these muffled words came from the 
 closet: 
 
 " It says the safest thing is to stand on a 
 chair in the middle of the room, Mortimer; and 
 the legs of the chair must be insulated, with 
 non-conductors. That is, you must set the 
 legs of the chair in glass tumblers. \Fzt / 
 boom bang ! smash /] Oh, hear that ! Do 
 hurry, Mortimer, before you are struck." 
 
 I managed to find and secure the tumblers. 
 I got the last four, broke all the rest. I in 
 sulated the chair legs, and called for further 
 instructions. 
 
 " Mortimer, it says, Wahrend eines Gewit- 
 ters entferne man Metalle, wie z. B., Ringe, 
 Uhren, Schliissel, etc., von sich und halte sich 
 auch nicht an solchen Stellen auf, wo viele 
 Metalle bei einander liegen, oder mit andern 
 
AND THE LIGHTNING. 155 
 
 Korpern verbunden sincl, wie an Herden, 
 Oefe n, Eisengittern u. dgl. What does that 
 mean, Mortimer ? Does it mean that you 
 must keep metals aboiityou, or keep them away 
 from you ? " 
 
 " Well, I hardly know. It appears to be a 
 little mixed. All German advice is more or 
 less mixed. However, I think that that sen 
 tence is mostly in the dative case, with a little 
 genitive and accusative sifted in, here and 
 there, for luck ; so I reckon it means that you \/ 
 must keep some metals about you." 
 
 " Yes, that must be it. It stands to reason 
 that it is. They are in the nature of lightning- 
 rods, you know. Put on your fireman s hel- >/ 
 met, Mortimer ; that is mostly metal." 
 
 I got it and put it on, a very heavy and 
 clumsy and uncomfortable thing on a hot night 
 in a close room. Even my night-dress seemed 
 to be more clothing than I strictly needed. 
 
 " Mortimer, I think your middle ought to be 
 protected. Won t you buckle on your militia 
 sabre, please ? " 
 
 I complied. 
 
1 5 MRS. McWILLIAMS 
 
 " Now, Mortimer, you ought to have some 
 way to protect your feet. Do please put on 
 your spurs." 
 
 I did it, in silence, and kept my temper 
 as well as I could. 
 
 "Mortimer, it says, Das Gewitter lauten ist 
 sehr gefahrlich, weil die Glocke selbst, sowie 
 der durch das Lauten veranlasste Luftzug und 
 die Hohe des Thurmes den Blitz anziehen 
 konnten. Mortimer, does that mean that it is 
 dangerous not to ring the church bells during 
 a thunder-storm?" 
 
 " Yes, it seems to mean that, if that is the 
 past participle of the nominative case singular, 
 and I reckon it is. Yes, I think it means that 
 on account of the height of the church tower 
 and the absence of Luftzug it would be very 
 dangerous (sehr gefdhrlicJt) not to ring the 
 bells in time of a storm; and moreover, don t 
 you see, the very wording 
 
 " Never mind that, Mortimer ; don t waste 
 the precious time in talk. Get the large din 
 ner-bell ; it is right there in the hall. Quick, 
 Mortimer dear ; we are almost safe. Oh, dear, 
 
AND THE LIGHTNING. 157 
 
 I do believe we are going to be saved, at 
 last ! " 
 
 Our little summer establishment stands on 
 top of a high range of hills, overlooking a val 
 ley. Several farm-houses are in our neighbor 
 hood, the nearest some three or four hundred 
 yards away. 
 
 When I, mounted on the chair, had been 
 clanging that dreadful bell a matter of seven or 
 eight minutes, our shutters were suddenly torn 
 open from without, and a brilliant bull s-eye 
 lantern was thrust in at the window, followed 
 by a hoarse inquiry : 
 
 " What in the nation is the matter here ? " 
 
 The window was full of men s heads, and 
 the heads were full of eyes that stared wildly 
 at my night-dress and my warlike accoutre 
 ments. 
 
 I dropped the bell, skipped down from the 
 chair in confusion, and said, 
 
 " There is nothing the matter, friends, 
 only a little discomfort on account of the 
 thunder-storm. I was trying to keep off the 
 lightning." 
 
r 5 MRS. McWILLIAMS 
 
 " Thunder-storm ? Lightning ? Why, Mr 
 McWilliams, have you lost your mind ? It is 
 a beautiful starlight night ; there has been nc 
 storm." 
 
 I looked out, and I was so astonishec 
 I could hardly speak for a while. Then . 
 said, 
 
 " I do not understand this. We distinctl} 
 saw the glow of the flashes through the cur 
 tains and shutters, and heard the thunder." 
 
 One after another of those people lay dowr 
 on the ground to laugh, and two of them 
 died. One of the survivors remarked, 
 
 " Pity you did n t think to open your blinds 
 and look over to the top of the high hill yon 
 der. What you heard was cannon ; what you 
 saw was the flash. You see, the telegraph 
 brought some news, just at midnight : Gar- 
 field s nominated, and that s what s the mat 
 ter ! " 
 
 Yes, Mr. Twain, as I was saying in the be 
 ginning (said Mr. McWilliams), the rules for 
 preserving people against lightning are so ex 
 cellent and so innumerable that the most in- 
 
AND THE LIGHTNING. 159 
 
 comprehensible thing in the world to me is how 
 anybody ever manages to get struck. 
 
 So saying, he gathered up his satchel and 
 umbrella, and departed ; for the train had 
 reached his town. 
 
[EXPLANATORY. I regard the idea of this play as a 
 valuable invention. I call it the Patent Universally- 
 Applicable Automatically- Adjustable Language Dra 
 ma. This indicates that it is adjustable to any tongue, 
 and performable in any tongue. The English portions 
 of the play are to remain just as they are, permanent 
 ly; but you change the foreign portions to any lan 
 guage you please, at will. Do you see ? You at once 
 have the same old play in a new tongue. And you can 
 keep on changing it from language to language, until 
 your private theatrical pupils have become glib and at 
 home in the speech of all nations. Zum Beispiel, sup 
 pose we wish to adjust the play to the French tongue. 
 First, we give Mrs. Blumenthal and Gretchen French 
 names. Next, we knock the German Meisterschaft 
 sentences out of the first scene, and replace them with 
 sentences from the French Meisterschaft like this, for 
 instance; " Je voudrais faire des emplettes ce matin; 
 voulez-vous avoir 1 obligeance de venir avec moi chez 
 le tailleur frangais?" And so on. Wherever you find 
 German, replace it with French, leaving the English 
 parts undisturbed. When you come to the long con 
 versation in the second act, turn to any pamphlet of 
 your French Meisterschaft, and shovel in as much 
 French talk on any subject as will fill up the gaps 
 left by the expunged German. Example page 423 
 French Meisterschaft: 
 On dirait qu il va faire chaud. 
 J ai chaud. 
 
 J ai extremement chaud. 
 Ah! qu il fait chaud ! 
 II fait une chaleur etouffante! 
 L air est brulant. 
 Je meurs de chaleur. 
 
 II est presque impossible de supporter la chaleur. 
 Cela vous fait transpirer. 
 Mettons nous a 1 ombre. 
 II fait du vent. 
 II fait un vent froid. 
 II fait un temps tres-agreable pour se promener aujour- 
 
 d hui. 
 
 And so on, all the way through. It is very easy to 
 adjust the play to any desired language. Anybody can 
 do it.] 
 
 160 
 
MEISTERSCHAFT : IN THREE ACTS. 
 
 DRAMATIS PERSONA: 
 
 MR. STEPHENSON. MARGARET STEPHENSON. 
 GEORGE FRANKLIN. ANNIE STEPHENSON. 
 WILLIAM JACKSON. MRS. BLUMENTHAL, the Wirthin. 
 GRETCHEN, Kellnerin. 
 
 ACT I. 
 
 SCENE I. 
 
 Scene of the play, the parlor of a small private dwell 
 ing in a village. 
 
 MARGARET. {Discovered crocheting -has a pam 
 phlet.} 
 
 MARGARET. ( Solus. ) Dear, dear ! it s 
 dreary enough, to have to study this impossi 
 ble German tongue : to be exiled from home 
 and all human society except a body s sister in 
 order to do it, is just simply abscheulich. Here s 
 only three weeks of the three months gone, 
 and it seems like three years. I don t believe 
 I can live through it, and I m sure Annie can t. 
 (Refers to her book, and rattles througJi, sev- 
 
 161 
 
162 MEISTERSCHAFT. 
 
 eral times, like one memorizing:} Entschuldi- 
 gen Sie, mein Herr, konnen Sie mir vielleicht 
 sagen, um wie viel Uhr der erste Zug nach 
 Dresden abgeht ? (Makes mistakes and cor 
 rects them.} I just hate Meisterschaft ! We 
 may see people; we can have society: yes, 
 on condition that the conversation shall be in 
 German, and in German only every single 
 word of it! Very kind oh, very! when 
 neither Annie nor I can put two words togeth 
 er, except as they are put together for us in 
 Meisterschaft or that idiotic Ollendorff ! (Re 
 fers to book, and memorizes : Mein Bruder hat 
 Ihren Herrn Vater nicht gesehen, als er ge stern 
 in dem Laden dcs deutschen Kaufmannes war} 
 Yes, we can have society, provided we talk 
 German. What would such a conversation be 
 like ! If you should stick to Meisterschaft, it 
 would change the subject every two minutes; 
 and if you stuck to Ollendorff, it would be all 
 about your sister s mother s good stocking of 
 thread, or your grandfather s aunt s good ham 
 mer of the carpenter, and who s got it, and 
 there an end. You couldn t keep up your in- 
 
MEISTERSCHAFT. 163 
 
 terest in such topics. {Memorizing: Wenn 
 irgend moglick, mochte ich nock heute Vor- 
 mittag dort ankommen, da es mir sehr daran 
 gelegen ist, einen meiner Geschdftsfreunde zu 
 treffen) My mind is made up to one thing: I 
 will be an exile, in spirit and in truth: I will 
 see no one during these three months. Father 
 is very ingenious oh, very ! thinks he is, any 
 way. Thinks he has invented a way to force 
 us to learn to speak German. He is a dear 
 good soul, and all that; but invention isn t his 
 fash . He will see. (With eloquent energy) 
 Why, nothing in the world shall Bitte, kon- 
 nen Sie mir vielleicht sagen, ob Herr Schmidt 
 mit diesem Zuge angekommen ist? Oh, dear, 
 dear George three weeks! It seems a whole 
 century since I saw him. I wonder if he sus 
 pects that I that I care for him j just a 
 
 wee, wee bit? I believe he does. And I be 
 lieve Will suspects that Annie cares for him a 
 little, that I do. And I know perfectly well 
 that they care for us. They agree with all our 
 opinions, no matter what they are; and if they 
 have a prejudice, they change it, as soon as 
 
164 MEISTERSCHAFT. 
 
 they see how foolish it is. Dear George ! at 
 first he just couldn t abide cats; but now, why 
 now he s just all for cats; he fairly welters in 
 cats. I never saw such a reform. And it s 
 just so with all his principles: he hasn t got 
 one that he had before. Ah, if all men were 
 
 like him, this world would (Memorizing : 
 
 Im Gegentheil, mein Herr, dieser Stoff is schr 
 billig. Bitte, selien Sie sick nur die Qualitat 
 an.} Yes, and what did they go to studying 
 German for, if it wasn t an inspiration of the 
 highest and purest sympathy? Any other ex 
 planation is nonsense why, they d as soon 
 
 have thought of studying American history. 
 ( Turns her back, buries herself in her pamphlet, 
 first memorizing aloud, until Annie enters, 
 then to herself, rocking to and fro, and rapidly 
 moving her lips, without uttering a sound.) 
 
 Enter Annie, absorbed in her pamphlet does not at 
 first see Margaret. 
 
 ANNIE. (Memorizing : Er Hess mich gvs- 
 tern friih rufen, und sagte mir dass er einen 
 selir unangenehmen Brief von Ihrem Lehrer 
 
MEISTERSCHAFT. 165 
 
 erhalten hattc. Repeats twice aloud, then to 
 herself, briskly moving her lips.} 
 
 M. (Still not seeing her sister.} Wie gehtes 
 Ihrem Herrn Schwiegervater? Es freut mich 
 sehr dass Ihre Frau Mutter wieder wohl 1st. 
 (Repeats. T/ien moutJis in silence.} 
 
 (Annie repeats her sentence a couple of times 
 aloud ; then looks up, working her lips, and 
 discovers Margaret.} Oh, you here ! (Run 
 ning to her.} O lovey-dovey, dovey-lovey, 
 I ve got the gr-reatest news ! Guess, guess, 
 guess ! You ll never guess in a hundred thou 
 sand million years and more ! 
 
 M. Oh, tell me, tell me, dearie; don t keep 
 me in agony. 
 
 A. Well, I will. What do you think ? 
 They re here ! 
 
 M. Wh-a-t ! Who ? When ? Which ? 
 Speak ! 
 
 A. Will and George ! 
 
 M. Annie Alexandra Victoria Stephenson, 
 what do you mean ! 
 
 A. As sure as guns ! 
 
 M. (Spasmodically unarming and kissing 
 
l66 MEISTERSCHAFT. 
 
 ker.) Sh ! don t use such language. O dar 
 ling, say it again ! 
 
 A. As sure as guns ! 
 
 M. I don t mean that! Tell me again, 
 that 
 
 A. {Springing up and TV alt zing about the 
 room.) They re here in this very village to 
 learn German for three months ! Es sollte 
 mich sehr freuen wenn Sie 
 
 M. {Joining in the danced] Oh, it s just too 
 lovely for anything ! (Unconsciously memoriz 
 ing .) Es ware mir lieb wenn Sie morgen mit 
 mir in die Kirche gehen konnten, aber ichkann 
 selbst nicht gehen, weil ich Sonntags gewohn- 
 lich krank bin. Juckhe ! 
 
 A. (Finishing some unconscious memoriz 
 ing^) morgen Mittag bei mir speisen konnten. 
 Juckhe ! Sit down and I ll tell you all I ve 
 heard. (They sit.) They re here, and under 
 that same odious law that fetters us our 
 tongues, I mean; the metaphor s faulty, but no 
 matter. They can go out, and see people, only 
 on condition that they hear and speak Ger 
 man, and German only. 
 
MEISTERSCHAFT. 167 
 
 M. Isn t that too lovely ! 
 
 A. And they re coming to see us ! 
 
 M. Darling ! {Kissing her.) But are you 
 sure ? 
 
 A. Sure as guns Catling guns ! 
 
 M. Sh ! don t child, it s schrecklich ! Dar 
 ling you aren t mistaken ? 
 
 A. As sure as g batteries ! 
 
 They jump up and dance a moment then 
 
 M. (With distress^) But, Annie dear! we 
 can t talk German and neither can they ! 
 
 A. (Sorrowfully^} I didn t think of that. 
 
 M. How cruel it is ! What can we do ? 
 
 A. {After a reflective pause, resolutely^) 
 Margaret we ve got to. 
 
 M. Got to what? 
 
 A. Speak German. 
 
 M. Why, how, child ? 
 
 A. (Contemplating her pamphlet with ear 
 nestness^} I can tell you one thing. Just give 
 me the blessed privilege: just hinsetzen Will 
 Jackson here in front of me and I ll talk Ger 
 man to him as long as this Meisterschaft holds 
 out to burn. 
 
l68 MEISTERSCHAFT. 
 
 M. (Joyously.) Oh, what an elegant idea ! 
 You certainly have got a mind that s a mine of 
 resources, if ever anybody had one. 
 
 A. I ll skin this Meisterschaft to the last sen 
 tence in it ! 
 
 M. ( With a happy idea.) Why, Annie, it s 
 the greatest thing in the world. I ve been all 
 this time struggling and despairing over these 
 few little Meisterschaft primers: but as sure as 
 you live, I ll have the whole fifteen by heart 
 before this time day after to-morrow. See if I 
 don t. 
 
 A. And so will I; and I ll trowel-in a layer 
 of Ollendorff mush between every couple of 
 courses of Meisterschaft bricks. Juckhe ! 
 
 M. Hoch ! hoch ! hoch ! 
 
 A. Stoss an ! 
 
 M. Juckhe ! Wir werden gleich gute 
 deutsche Schiilerinnen werden ! Juck 
 
 A. he ! 
 
 M. Annie, when are they coming to see us ? 
 To-night ? 
 
 A. No. 
 
 M. No ? Why not ? When are they coming ? 
 
MEISTERSCHAFT. 169 
 
 What are they waiting for ? The idea ! I never 
 heard of such a thing ! What do you 
 
 A. {Breaking in.) Wait, wait, wait ! give a 
 body a chance. They have their reasons. 
 
 M. Reasons ? what reasons ? 
 
 A. Well, now, when you stop and think, 
 they re royal good ones. They ve got to talk 
 German when they come, haven t they ? Of 
 course. Well, they don t know any German but 
 Wie befinden Sie sich, and Haben Sie gut 
 geschlafen, and Vater unser, and Ich trinke 
 lieber Bier als Wasser, and a few little parlor 
 things like that; but when it comes to talking, 
 why, they don t know a hundred and fifty Ger 
 man words, put them all together. 
 
 M. Oh, I see ! 
 
 A. So they re going neither to eat, sleep, 
 smoke, nor speak the truth till they ve cram 
 med home the whole fifteen Meisterschafts 
 auswendig ! 
 
 M. Noble hearts ! 
 
 A. They ve given themselves till day after 
 to-morrow, half-past 7 P. M., and then they ll 
 arrive here, loaded. 
 
170 MEISTERSCHAFT. 
 
 M. Oh, how lovely, how gorgeous, how beau 
 tiful ! Some think this world is made of mud; 
 I think it s made of rainbows. (Memorizing^) 
 Wenn irgend moglich, so mochte ich noch 
 heute Vormittag dort ankommen, da es mir 
 sehr daran gelegen ist, Annie, I can learn it 
 just like nothing ! 
 
 A. So can I. Meisterschaft s mere fun I 
 don t see how it ever could have seemed diffi 
 cult. Come ! We can be disturbed here: let s 
 give orders that we don t want anything to eat 
 for two days; and are absent to friends, dead 
 to strangers, and not at home even to nougat- 
 peddlers 
 
 M. Schon ! and we ll lock ourselves into our 
 rooms, and at the end of two days, whosoever 
 may ask us a Meisterschaft question shall get 
 a Meisterschaft answer and hot from the 
 bat ! 
 
 BOTH. (Reciting in unison^) Ich habe einen 
 Hut fur meinen Sohn, ein Paar Handschuhe 
 fur meinen Bruder, und einen Kamm fur mich 
 selbst gekauft. 
 
 (Exeunt.) 
 
MEISTERSCHAFT. I/I 
 
 Enter MRS. BLUMENTHAL, the Wirthin. 
 
 WIRTHIN. (Solus.) Ach, die armen Mad- 
 chen, sie hassen die deutsche Sprache, drum 
 ist es ganz und gar unmoglich dass sie sie je 
 lernen konnen. Es bricht mir ja mein Herz 
 ihre Kummeriiber die Studien anzusehen .... 
 Warum haben sie den Entchluss gefasst in 
 ihren Zimmern ein Paar Tage zu bleiben ? 
 . . . Ja gewiss dass versteht sich: sie sind 
 entmuthigt arme Kinder ! 
 
 (A knock at the door.) Herein ! 
 
 Enter Gretchen with card. 
 
 G. Er ist schon wieder da, und sagt dass er 
 nur Sie sehen will. (Hands the card) Auch 
 
 WIRTHIN. Gott im Himmel der Vater der 
 Madchen ! (Puts the card in her pocket) Er 
 wunscht die Tochter nicht zu treffen ? Ganz 
 recht; also, Du schweigst. 
 
 G. Zu Befehl. 
 
 WIRTHIN. Lass ihn hereinkommen. 
 
 G. Ja, Frau Wirthin ! 
 
 Exit Gretchen. 
 
 WIRTHIN. (Solus) Ah jetzt muss ich ihm 
 die Wahrheit offenbaren. 
 
1/2 MEISTERSCHAFT. 
 
 Enter Mr. Stephenson. 
 
 STEPHENSON. Good morning, Mrs. Blumen- 
 thal keep your seat, keep your seat, please. 
 I m only here for a moment merely to get 
 your report, you know. (Seating himself^ 
 Don t want to see the girls poor things, 
 they d want to go home with me. I m afraid 
 I couldn t have the heart to say no. How s 
 the German getting along ? 
 
 WlRTHlN. N-not very well; I was afraid you 
 would ask me that. You see, they hate it, they 
 don t take the least interest in it, and there 
 isn t anything to incite them to an interest, you 
 see. And so they can t talk at all. 
 
 S. M-m. That s bad. I had an idea that 
 they d get lonesome, and have to seek society; 
 and then, of course, my plan would work, con 
 sidering the cast-iron conditions of it. 
 
 WlRTHIN. But it hasn t so far. I ve thrown 
 nice company in their way I ve done my very 
 best, in every way I could think of but it s no 
 use; they won t go out, and they won t receive 
 anybody. And a body can t blame them; 
 they d be tongue-tied couldn t do anything 
 
MEISTERSCHAFT. 1/3 
 
 with a German conversation. Now when I 
 started to learn German such poor German as 
 I know the case was very different: my in 
 tended was a German. I was to live among 
 Germans the rest of my life; and so I had to 
 learn. Why, bless my heart ! I nearly lost 
 the man the first time he asked me I thought 
 he was talking about the measles. They were 
 very prevalent at the time. Told him I didn t 
 want any in mine. But I found out the mis 
 take, and I was fixed for him next time. . . Oh, 
 yes, Mr. Stephenson, a sweetheart s a prime 
 incentive ! 
 
 S. (Aside.} Good soul ! she doesn t suspect 
 that my plan is a double scheme includes a 
 speaking knowledge of German, which I am 
 bound they shall have, and the keeping them 
 away from those two young fellows though if 
 I had known that those boys were going off for 
 a year s foreign travel, I however, the girls 
 would never learn that language at home; 
 they re here, and I won t relent they ve got 
 to stick the three months out. (Alozid.) So 
 they are making poor progress ? Now tell 
 
174 MEISTERSCHAFT. 
 
 me will they learn it after a sort of fashion, 
 I mean in the three months ? 
 
 WIRTHIN. Well, now, I ll tell you the only 
 chance I see. Do what I will, they won t an 
 swer my German with anything but English; 
 if that goes on, they ll stand stock still. Now 
 I m willing to do this: I ll straighten every 
 thing up, get matters in smooth running order, 
 and day after to-morrow I ll go to bed sftk, and 
 stay sick three weeks. 
 
 S. Good ! You are an angel ! I see your 
 idea. The servant girl 
 
 WlRTHIN. That s it; that s my project. She 
 doesn t know a word of English. And Gret- 
 chen s a real good soul, and can talk the slates 
 off a roof. Her tongue s just a flutter-mill. I ll 
 keep my room, just ailing a little, and 
 they ll never see my face except when they pay 
 their little duty-visits to me, and then I ll say 
 English disorders my mind. They ll be shut 
 up with Gretchen s wind-mill, and she ll just 
 grind them to powder. Oh, they II get a start 
 in the language sort of a one, sure s you live. 
 You come back in three weeks. 
 
MEISTERSCHAFT. 1/5 
 
 S. Bless you, my Retterin ! I ll be here to 
 the day ! Get ye to your sick-room you 
 shall have treble pay. (Looking at watch.) 
 Good ! I can just catch my train. Leben Sie 
 wohl ! (Exit.) 
 
 WlRTHiN. Leben Sie wohl! mein Herr ! 
 
 ACT II. 
 
 SCENE I. 
 
 Time, a couple of days later. 
 
 (The girls discovered with their work and primers.) 
 
 ANNIE. Was fehlt der Wirthin ? 
 
 MARGARET. Dass weiss ich nicht. Sie ist 
 schon vor zwei Tagen ins Bett gegangen 
 
 A. My ! how fleissend you speak ! 
 
 M. Danke schon und sagte dass sie nicht 
 wohl sei. 
 
 A. Good ! Oh, no, I don t mean that ! no 
 only lucky for us gliicklich, you know I 
 mean because it ll be so much nicer to have 
 them all to ourselves. 
 
 M. Oh, naturlich ! Ja ! Dass ziehe ich 
 
MEISTERSCHAFT. 
 
 durchaus vor. Do you believe your Meister- 
 schaft will stay with you, Annie ? 
 
 A. Well, I know it is with me every last 
 sentence of it; and a couple of hods of Olten- 
 dorff, too, for emergencies. May be they ll re 
 fuse to deliver, right off at first, you know 
 der Verlegenheit wegen aber ich will sie spa- 
 ter herausholen when I get my hand in und 
 vergisst Du dass nicht ! 
 
 M. Sei nicht grob, Liebste. What shall we 
 talk about first when they come ? 
 
 A. Well let me see. There s shopping 
 and all that about the trains, you know, 
 and going to church and buying tickets to 
 London, and Berlin, and all around and all 
 that subjunctive stuff about the battle in Af 
 ghanistan, and where the American was said 
 to be born, and so on and and ah oh, 
 there s so many things I don t think a body 
 can choose beforehand, because you know the 
 circumstances and the atmosphere always have 
 so much to do in directing a conversation, es 
 pecially a German conversation, which is only 
 a kind of an insurrection, any way. I believe 
 
MEISTERSCHAFT. 177 
 
 it s best to just depend on Prov (Glancing at 
 watch, and gasping) half past seven ! 
 
 M. Oh, dear, I m all of a tremble ! Let s get 
 something ready, Annie ! 
 
 (BotJifall nervously to reciting} : Entschuldi- 
 gen Sie, mem Herr, konnen Sie mir vielleicht 
 sagen wie ich nach dem norddeutchen Bahn- 
 hof gehe ? ( They repeat it several times, losing 
 their grip and mixing it all up.} 
 
 (A knock.) 
 
 BOTH. Herein ! Oh, dear ! O der heilige 
 Enter Gretchen. 
 
 GRETCHEN (Ruffled and indignant?} Ent- 
 schuldigen Sie, meine gnadigsten Fraulein, es 
 sind zwei junge rasende Herren drau.ssen, die 
 herein wollen, aber ich habe ihnen geschworen 
 dass {Handing the cards?) 
 
 M. Du liebe Zeit, they re here ! And of 
 course down goes my back hair ! Stay and re 
 ceive them, dear, while I {Leaving?) 
 
 A. I alone ? I won t ! I ll go with you ! 
 (To G.) Lass en Sie die Herren naher treten; 
 
MEISTERSCHAFT. 
 
 und sagen Sie ihnen dass wir gleich zuruck- 
 kommen werden. (Exit.) 
 
 GR. (Solus.) Was ! Sie freuen sich dariiber ? 
 Und ich sollte wirklich diese Blodsinnigen, dies 
 grobe Rindvieh hereinlassen ? In den hiilflosen 
 Umstanden meiner gnadigen jungen Damen ? 
 Unsinn ! (Pause thinking.) Wohlan ! Ich 
 werde sie mal beschiitzen ! Sollte man nicht 
 glauben, dass sie einen Sparren zu viel hatten ? 
 ( Tapping her skull significantly.) Was sie mir 
 doch Alles gesagt haben ! Der Eine : Guten 
 Morgen ! wie geht es Ihrem Herrn Schwieger- 
 vater ? Du liebe Zeit ! Wie sollte ich einen 
 Schwiegervater haben konnen ! Und der An- 
 dere: " Es thut mir sehr leid dass Ihrer Herr 
 Vater meinen Bruder nicht gesehen hat, als er 
 doch gestern in dem Laden des deutschen 
 Kaufmannes war ! " Potztausendhimmelsdon- 
 nerwetter ! Oh, ich war ganz rasend ! Wie ich 
 aber rief: " Meine Herren,ich kenne Sie nicht, 
 und Sie kennen meinen Vater nicht, wissen Sie, 
 denn er ist schon lange durchgebrannt, und 
 geht nicht beim Tage in einen Laden hinein, 
 wissen Sie, und ich habe keinen Schwieger- 
 
MEISTERSCHAFT. 
 
 vater, Gott sei Dank, werde auch nie einen 
 kriegen, werde ueberhaupt, wissen Sie, ein 
 solches Ding nie haben, nie dulden, nie ausste- 
 hen: warum greifen Sie ein Madchen an, das 
 nur Unschuld kennt, das Ihnen nie Etwas zu 
 Leide gethan hat ? " Dann haben sie sich 
 beide die Finger in die Ohren gesteckt und 
 gebetet : " Allmachtiger Gott ! Erbarme Dich 
 unser ! " (Pauses.) Nun, ich werde schon diesen 
 Schurken Einlass gonnen, aber ich werde 
 ein Auge mit ihnen haben, damit sie sich 
 nicht wie reine Teufel geberden sollen. 
 {Exit, grumbling and shaking her head?) 
 
 Enter William and George. 
 
 W. My land, what a girl ! and what an in 
 credible gift of gabble ! kind of patent cli 
 mate-proof compensation-balance self-acting 
 automatic Meisterschaft touch her button, 
 and br-r-r ! away she goes ! 
 
 GEO. Never heard anything like it; tongue 
 journaled on ball-bearings ! I wonder what 
 she said; seemed to be swearing, mainly. 
 
 W. (After mumbling Meisterschaft awhile.) 
 
180 MEISTERSCHAFT. 
 
 Look here, George, this is awful come to 
 think this project: we can t talk this frantic 
 language. 
 
 GEO. I know it, Will, and it is awful; but I 
 can t live without seeing Margaret I ve en 
 dured it as long as I can. I should die if I 
 tried to hold out longer and even German is 
 preferable to death. 
 
 W. (Hesitatingly^) Well, I don t know; 
 it s a matter of opinion, 
 
 GEO. (Irritably.} It is n t a matter of opin 
 ion either. German is preferable to death. 
 
 W. (Reflectively.) Well, I don t know the 
 problem is so sudden but I think you may be 
 right: some kinds of death. It is more than 
 likely that a slow, lingering well, now, there 
 in Canada in the early times a couple of cen 
 turies ago, the Indians would take a mission 
 ary and skin him, and get some hot ashes and 
 boiling water and one thing and another, and 
 by and by, that missionary well, yes, I can 
 see that, by and by, talking German could be 
 a pleasant change for him. 
 
 GEO. Why, of course. Das versteht sich; 
 
MEISTERSCHAFT. l8l 
 
 but you have to always think a thing out, or 
 you re not satisfied. But let s not go to both 
 ering about thinking out this present business; 
 we re here, we re in for it; you are as mori 
 bund to see Annie as I am to see Margaret; you 
 know the terms: we ve got to speak German. 
 Now stop your mooning and get at your Meis- 
 terschaft; we ve got nothing else in the world. 
 
 W. Do you think that 11 see us through ? 
 
 GEO. Why it s got to. Suppose we wan 
 dered out of it and took a chance at the lan 
 guage on our own responsibility, where the 
 nation would we be ? Up a stump, that s 
 where. Our only safety is in sticking like wax 
 to the text. 
 
 W. But what can we talk about ? 
 
 GEO. Why, anything that Meisterschaft talks 
 about. It ain t our affair. 
 
 W. I know; but Meisterschaft talks about 
 everything. 
 
 GEO. And yet don t talk about anything 
 long enough for it to get embarrassing. Meis 
 terschaft is just splendid for general conversa 
 tion. 
 
182 MEISTERSCHAFT. 
 
 W. Yes, that s so; but it s so blamed gen 
 eral ! Won t it sound foolish ? 
 
 GEO. Foolish? Why, of course; all Ger 
 man sounds foolish. 
 
 W. Well, that is true; I didn t think of that. 
 
 GEO. Now, don t fool around any more. 
 Load up; load up; get ready. Fix up some 
 sentences; you ll need them in two minutes 
 now. 
 
 ( They walk up and down, moving their lips 
 in dumb-show memorizing?) 
 
 W. Look here when we ve said all that s 
 in the book on a topic, and want to change 
 the subject, how can we say so ? how would 
 a German say it ? 
 
 GEO. Well, I don t know. But you know 
 when they mean " Change cars," they say Um- 
 steigen. Don t you reckon that will answer ? 
 
 W. Tip-top ! It s short and goes right to 
 the point; and it s got a business whang to it 
 that s almost American. Umsteigen ! change 
 subject ! why, it s the very thing. 
 
 GEO. All right, then,j/^ umsteigen for I 
 hear them coming. 
 
MEISTERSCHAFT- 183 
 
 Enter the girls. 
 
 A. TO W. (With solemnity.} Guten morgen, 
 mem Herr, es freut mich sehr, Sie zu sehen. 
 
 W. Guten morgen, mein Fraulein, es freut 
 mich sehr Sie zu sehen. 
 
 {Margaret and George repeat the same sen 
 tences. Then, after an embarrassing silence, 
 Margaret refers to her book and says .) 
 
 M. Bitte, meine Herren, setzen Sie sich. 
 
 THE GENTLEMEN. Danke schon. (The 
 four seat themselves in couples, the width of the 
 stage apart, and the two conversations begin. 
 The talk is not flowing at any rate at first; 
 there are painful silences all along. EacJi 
 couple worry out a remark and a reply: tJiere 
 is a pause of silent thinking, and then the other 
 couple deliver themselves^) 
 
 W. Haben Sie meinen Vater in dem Laden 
 meines Bruders nicht gesehen ? 
 
 A. Nein, mein Herr, ich habe Ihren Herrn 
 Vater in dem Laden Ihres Herrn Bruders 
 nicht gesehen. 
 
 GEO. Waren Sie gestern Abend im Koncert, 
 oder im Theater ? 
 
1 84 MEISTERSCHAFT. 
 
 M. Nein, ich war gestern Abend nicht im 
 Koncert, noch im Theater, ich war gestern 
 Abend zu Hause. 
 
 General break-down long pause. 
 
 W. Ich store doch nicht etwa ? 
 
 A. Sie storen mich durchaus nicht. 
 
 GEO. Bitte, lassen Sie sich nicht von mir 
 storen. 
 
 M. Aber ich bitte Sie, Sie storen mich dur 
 chaus nicht. 
 
 W. ( To both girls.) Wen wir Sie storen so 
 gehen wir gleich wieder. 
 
 A. O, nein ! Gewiss, nein ! 
 
 M. Im Gegentheil, es freut uns sehr, Sie zu 
 sehen alle Beide. 
 
 W. Schon! 
 
 GEO. Gott sei dank ! 
 
 M. (Aside.) It s just lovely ! 
 
 A. (Aside.) It s like a poem. 
 
 Pause. 
 
 W. Umsteigen ! 
 M. Um welches ? 
 W. Umsteigen. 
 
MEISTERSCHAFT. 185 
 
 GEO. Auf English, change cars oder sub 
 ject. 
 
 BOTH GIRLS. Wie schon ! 
 
 W. Wir haben uns die Freiheit genommen, 
 bei Ihnen vorzusprechen. 
 
 A. Sie sind sehr giitig. 
 
 GEO. Wir wollten uns erkundigen, wie Sie 
 sich befanden. 
 
 M. Ich bin Ihnen sehr verbunden meine 
 Schwester auch. 
 
 W. Meine Frau lasst sich Ihnen bestens 
 empfehlen. 
 
 A. Ihre Frau ? 
 
 W. (Examining his book.) Vielleicht habe 
 ich mich geirrt. (Shows the placed) Nein, 
 gerade so sagt das Buch. 
 
 A. (Satisfied^} Ganz recht. Aber 
 
 W. Bitte empfehlen Sie mich Ihrem Herrn 
 Bruder. 
 
 A. Ah, dass ist viel besser viel besser. 
 (Aside.) Wenigstens es ware viel besser wenn 
 ich einen Bruder hatte. 
 
 GEO. Wie ist es Ihnen gegangen, seitdem ich 
 das Vergniigen hatte, Sie anderswo zu sehen ? 
 
186 MEISTERSCHAFT. 
 
 M. Danke bestens, ich befinde mich ge- 
 wohnlich ziemlich wohl. 
 
 Gretchen slips in with a gun, and listens. 
 
 GEO. (Still to Margaret.} Befmdet sich 
 Ihre Frau Gemahlin wohl ? 
 
 GR. (Raising hands and eyes.) Frau Ge 
 mahlin heiliger Gott ! (Is like to betray her 
 self with her smothered laughter and glides 
 out) 
 
 M. Danke sehr, meine Frau ist ganz wohl. 
 Pause. 
 
 W. Diirfen wir vielleicht umsteigen ? 
 
 THE OTHERS. Gut ! 
 
 GEO. (Aside) I feel better, now. I m be 
 ginning to catch on. (Aloud) Ich mochte 
 gern morgen friih einige Einkaufe machen 
 und wiirde Ihnen sehr verbunden sein, wenn 
 Sie mir den Gefallen thaten, mir die Namen 
 der besten hiesigen Firmen aufzuschreiben. 
 
 M. (Aside) How sweet ! 
 
 W. (Aside) Hang it, / was going to say 
 that ! That s one of the noblest things in the 
 book. 
 
MEISTERSCHAFT. 187 
 
 A. Ich mochte Ihnen gern begleiten, aber 
 es ist mir wirklich heute Morgan ganz unmog- 
 lich auszugehen. (Aside.) It s getting as 
 easy as 9 times 7 is 46. 
 
 M. Sagen Sie dem Brieftager, wenn s gefal- 
 lig ist, er mochte Ihnen den ein geschriebenen 
 Brief geben lassen. 
 
 W. Ich wiirde Ihnen sehr verbunden sein, 
 wenn Sie diese Schachtel fur mich nach der 
 Post tragen wiirden, da mir sehr daran liegt 
 einen meiner Geschaftsfreunde in dem Laden 
 des deutchen Kaufmanns heute Abend treffen 
 zu konnen. (Aside.) All down but nine; 
 set m up on the other alley ! 
 
 A. Aber Herr Jackson ! Sie haben die Satze 
 gemischt. Es ist unbegreiflich wie Sie das 
 haben thun konnen. Zwischen Ihrem ersten 
 Theil und Ihrem letzten Theil haben Sie ganze 
 fiinfzig Seiten iibergeschlagen ! Jetzt bin ich 
 ganz verloren. Wie kann man reden, wenn 
 man seinen Platz durchaus nicht wieder finden 
 kann ? 
 
 W. Oh, bitte, verzeihen Sie; ich habe dass 
 wirklich nich beabsichtigt. 
 
188 MEISTERSCHAFT. 
 
 A. (Mollified) Sehr wohl, lassen Sie gut 
 sein. Aber thun Sie es nicht wieder. Sie 
 miissen ja doch einraumen, dass solche Dinge 
 unertragliche Verwirrung mit sich fuhren. 
 (Gr etc hen slips in again zuith her gun ) 
 W. Unzweifelhaft haben Sie Recht, meine 
 holdselige Landsmannin Umsteigen ! 
 
 (As George gets fairly into the following, Gretchen 
 draws a bead on him, and lets drive at the close, but 
 the gun snaps.) 
 
 GEO. Glauben Sie dass ich ein hiibsches 
 Wohnzimmer fur mich selbst und ein kleines 
 Schlafzimmer fur meinen Sohn in diesem 
 Hotel fiir fiinfzehn Mark die Woche bekom- 
 men kann, oder wiirden Sie mir rathen, in 
 einer Privatwohnung Logis zu nehmen ? 
 (Aside.) That s a daisy! 
 
 GR. (Aside.) Schade ! (She draws her 
 charge and reloads) 
 
 M. Glauben Sie nicht Sie werden besser 
 thun bei diesem Wetter zu Hause zu bleiben ? 
 
 A. Freilich glaube ich, Herr Franklin, Sie 
 werden sich erkalten, wenn Sie bei diesem 
 
MEISTERSCHAFT. 189 
 
 unbestandigen Wetter ohne Ueberrock aus- 
 gehen. 
 
 GR. (Relieved aside.} So ? Man redet von 
 Ausgehen. Das klingt schon besser. (Sits.) 
 
 W. (To A.) Wie theuer haben Sie das ge- 
 kauft ? (Indicating a part of her dress.) 
 
 A. Das hat achtzehn Mark gekostet. 
 
 W. Das ist sehr theuer. 
 
 GEO. Ja, obgleich dieser Stoff wunderschon 
 ist und das Muster sehr geschmackvoll und 
 auch das Vorzuglichste dass es in dieser Art 
 gibt, so ist es doch furchtbar theuer fur einen 
 solchen Artikel. 
 
 M. (Aside.) How sweet is this communion 
 of soul with soul ! 
 
 A. Im Gegentheil, mein Herr, das ist sehr 
 billig. Sehen Sie sich nur die Qualitat an. 
 
 (They all examine it.) 
 
 GEO. Moglicherweise ist es das allerneuste 
 dass man in diesem Stofifhat; aber das Muster 
 gefallt mir nicht. 
 
 (Pause.) 
 
 W. Umsteigen ! 
 
 A. Welchen Hund haben Sie ? Haben Sie 
 
ICX> MEISTERSCHAFT. 
 
 den hiibschen Hund des Kaufmanns, oder den 
 hasslichen Hund der Urgrossmutter des Lehr- 
 lings des bogenheinigen Zimmermanns ? 
 
 W. (Aside.} Oh, come, she s ringing in a 
 cold deck on us: that s Ollendorff. 
 
 GEO. Ich habe nicht den Hund des des 
 (Aside.) Stuck! That s no Meisterschaft; 
 they don t play fair. (Aloud.) Ich habe nicht 
 den Hund des des In unserem Buche 
 leider, gibt es keinen Hund; daher, ob ich 
 auch gern von solchen Thieren sprechen 
 mochte, ist es mir doch unmoglich, weil ich 
 nicht vorbereitet bin. Entschuldigen Sie, 
 meine Damen. 
 
 GR. (Aside.) Beim Teufel, sie sind alle 
 blodsinnig geworden. In meinem Leben habe 
 ich nie ein so narrisches, verfluchtes, ver- 
 dammtes Gesprach gehort 
 
 W. Bitte, umsteigen. 
 
 (Run the following rapidly through.) 
 
 M. (Aside.) Oh, I ve flushed an easy batch ! 
 (Aloud.) Wiirden Sie mir erlauben meine 
 Reisetasche hier hinzustellen ? 
 
MEISTERSCHAFT. IQI 
 
 GR. (Aside.) Wo ist seine Reisetasche ? 
 Ich sehe keine. 
 
 W. Bitte sehr. 
 
 GEO. Ist meine Reisetasche Ihnen im 
 Wege ? 
 
 GR. (Aside.) Und wo ist seine Reisetasche ? 
 
 A. Erlauben Sie mir Sie von meiner Reise 
 tasche zu befreien. 
 
 GR. (Aside.) Du Esel ! 
 
 W. Ganz und gar nicht. (To Geo.) Es ist 
 sehr schwiil in diesem Coupe. 
 
 GR. (Aside.) Coupe. 
 
 GEO. Sie haben Recht. Erlauben Sie mir, 
 gefalligst, das Fenster zu offhen. Ein wenig 
 Luft wiirde uns got thun. 
 
 M. Wir fahren sehr rasch. 
 
 A. Haben Sie den Namen jener Station 
 gehort ? 
 
 W. Wie lange halten wir auf dieser Station 
 an? 
 
 GEO. Ich reise nach Dresden, Schaffher. 
 Wo muss ich umsteigen ? 
 
 A. Sie steigen nicht um, Sie bleiben sitzen. 
 
 GR. (Aside.) Sie sind ja alle ganz und gar 
 
IQ2 MEISTERSCHAFT. 
 
 verruckt! Man denke sich sie glauben dass 
 sie auf der Eisenbahn reisen. 
 
 GEO. (Aside, to William) Now brace up; 
 pull all your confidence together, my boy, and 
 we ll try that lovely good-bye business a 
 flutter. I think it s about the gaudiest thing in 
 the book, if you boom it right along and don t 
 get left on a base. It ll impress the girls. 
 (Aloud.) Lassen Sie uns gehen: es ist schon 
 sehr spat, und ich muss morgen ganz friih 
 aufstehen. 
 
 GR. (Aside grateful) Gott sei Dank dass 
 sie endlich gehen. (Sets her gun aside) 
 
 W. (To Geo) Ich danke Ihnen hoflichst fur 
 die Ehre die sie mir erweisen, aber ich kann 
 nicht langer bleiben. 
 
 GEO. (71? W) Entschuldigen Sie mich gii- 
 tigst, aber ich kann wirklich nicht langer 
 bleiben. 
 
 Gretchen looks on stupefied. 
 
 W. (To Geo) Ich habe schon eine Ein- 
 ladung angenommen; ich kann wirklich nicht 
 langer bleiben. 
 
MEISTERSCHAFT. 193 
 
 Gretchen fingers her gun again. 
 
 GEO. (To W.) Ich muss gehen. 
 
 W. ( To Geo.) Wie ! Sie wollen schon wie- 
 der gehen ? Sie sind ja eben erst gekommen. 
 
 M. (Aside). It s just music ! 
 
 A. (Aside.) Oh, how lovely they do it ! 
 
 GEO. (To W.) Also denken sie doch noch 
 nicht an s Gehen. 
 
 W. (To Geo.) Es thut mir unendlich leid, 
 aber ich muss nach Hause. Meine Frau wird 
 sich wundern, was aus mir geworden ist. 
 
 GEO. (To W.) Meine Frau hat keine Ah- 
 nung wo ich bin: ich muss wirklich jetzt fort. 
 
 W. ( To Geo.) Dann will ich Sie nicht langer 
 auflialten; ich bedaure sehr dass Sie uns einen 
 so kurzen Besuch gemacht haben. 
 
 GEO. (To W.) Adieu auf recht baldiges 
 Wiedersehen. 
 
 W. UMSTEIGEN ! 
 
 Great hand-clapping from the gins. 
 
 M. (Aside.) Oh, how perfect ! how elegant ! 
 A. (Aside.) Per-fectly enchanting ! 
 JOYOUS CHORUS. (All.) Ich habe gehabt, 
 
194 MEISTERSCHAFT. 
 
 du hast gehabt, er hat gehabt, wir haben 
 gehabt, ihr habet gehabt, sie haben gehabt. 
 
 Gretchen faints, and tumbles from her chair, and 
 the gun goes off with a crash. Each girl, frightened, 
 seizes the protecting hand of her sweetheart. Gret 
 chen scrambles up. Tableau. 
 
 W. {Takes out some money beckons Gret 
 chen to him. George adds money to the pile.} 
 Hiibsches Madchen (giving her some of tJie 
 coins), hast Du etwas gesehen ? 
 
 GR. (Courtesy aside) Der Engel ! (Aloud 
 impressively) Ich habe nichts gesehen. 
 
 W. (More money) Hast Du etwas gehort ? 
 
 GR. Ich habe nichts gehort. 
 
 W. (More money) Und Morgen ? 
 
 GR. Morgen ware es nothig bin ich taub 
 und blind. 
 
 W. Unvergleichbares Madchen ! Und (giv 
 ing the rest of the money) darnach ? 
 
 GR. (Deep courtesy aside) Erzengel ! 
 (Aloud) Darnach, mien gnadgister, betrach- 
 ten Sie mich also taub blind todt! 
 
 ALL. (In chorus with reverent joy) Ich 
 habe gehabt, du hast gehabt, er hat gehabt, 
 
MEISTERSCHAFT. 195 
 
 wir haben gehab^, ihr habet gehabt, sie haben 
 ge-habt ! 
 
 ACT III. 
 
 Three weeks later. 
 
 SCENE I. 
 
 Enter Gretchen, and puts her shawl on a chair. 
 Brushing around with the traditional feather-duster 
 of the drama. Smartly dressed, for she is prosperous. 
 
 GR. Wie hatte man sich das vorstellen 
 konnen ! In nur drei Wochen bin ich schon 
 reich geworden ! (Gets out of Jier pocket hand 
 ful after handful of silver, which she piles on 
 tJie table, and proceeds to re-pile and count, oc 
 casionally ringing or biting a piece to try its 
 quality.) Oh, dass (with a sigh) die Frau 
 Wirthin nur eivig krank bliebe ! . . . . Diese 
 edlen jungen Manner sie sind ja so liebens- 
 wiirdig ! Und so fleissig ! und so treu ! 
 Jeden Morgen kommen sie gerade urn drei 
 Viertel auf neun; und plaudern und schwat- 
 zen, und plappern, und schnattern, die jungen 
 Damen auch; um Schlage zwolf nehmen sie 
 Abschied; um Schlage eins kommen sie schon 
 
196 MEISTERSCHAFT. 
 
 wieder, und plaudern und, schwatzen und 
 plappern und schnattern; gerade um sechs 
 Uhr nehmen sie wiederum Abschied; um halb 
 acht kehren sie noch emal zuriick, und plau 
 dern und schwatzen und plappern und schnat 
 tern bis zehn Uhr, oder vielleicht ein Viertel 
 nach, falls ihre Uhren nach gehen (und stets 
 gehen sie nach am Ende des Besuchs, aber 
 stets vor Beginn desselben), und zuweilen un- 
 terhalten sich die jungen Leute beim Spaz- 
 ierengehen ; und jeden Sonntag gehen sie 
 dreimal in die Kirche; und immer plaudern 
 sie, und schwatzen und plappern und schnat 
 tern bis ihnen die Zahnen aus dem Munde 
 fallen. Und ich f Durch Mangel an Uebung, 
 ist mir die Zunge mit Moos belegt worden ! 
 Freilich ist s mir eine dumme Zeit gewesen. 
 Aber um Gotteswillen, was geht das mir an ? 
 Was soil ich daraus machen ? Taglich sagt 
 die Frau Wirthin " Gretchen " (dumb-show of 
 paying a piece of money into her hand), " du 
 bist eine der besten Sprach-Lehrerinnen der 
 Welt!" Ach, Gott! Und taglich sagen die 
 edlen jungen Manner, "Gretchen, liebes 
 
MEISTERSCHAFT. 197 
 
 Kind " (money -pay i Kg again in dumb-show 
 three coins], " bleib taub blind todt ! " und 
 
 so bleibe ich Jetzt wird es ungefahr 
 
 neun Uhr sein; bald kommen sie vom Spazier- 
 gehen zuriick. Also, es ware gut dass ich 
 meinem eigenen Schatz einen Besuch abstatte 
 und spazieren gehe. (Dons her shawl.} 
 
 Exit. L. 
 Enter Wirthin. R. 
 
 WIRTHIN. That was Mr. Stephenson s train 
 that just came in. Evidently the girls are out 
 walking with Gretchen; can t find them, and 
 she doesn t seem to be around. (A ring at 
 the door.) That s him. I ll go see. 
 
 Exit. R. 
 Enter Stephenson and Wirthin. R. 
 
 S. Well, how does sickness seem to agree 
 with you ? 
 
 WIRTHIN. So well that I ve never been out of 
 my room since, till I heard your train come in. 
 
 S. Thou miracle of fidelity ! Now I argue 
 from that, that the new plan is working. 
 
IQ8 MEISTERSCHAFT. 
 
 WlRTHlN. Working? Mr. Stephenson, you 
 never saw anything like it in the whole course 
 of your life ! It s absolutely wonderful the 
 way it works. 
 
 S. Succeeds ? No you don t mean it. 
 
 WlRTHlN. Indeed I do mean it. I tell you, 
 Mr. Stephenson, that plan was just an inspira 
 tionthat s what it was. You could teach a 
 cat German by it. 
 
 S. Dear me, this is noble news ! Tell me 
 about it. 
 
 WlRTHlN. Well, it s all Gretchen ev-ery 
 bit of it. I told you she was a jewel. And 
 then the sagacity of that child why, I never 
 dreamed it was in her. Sh-she, "Never you 
 ask the young ladies a question never let on 
 just keep mum leave the whole thing to 
 me," sh-she. 
 
 S. Good ! And she justified, did she ? 
 
 WlRTHlN. Well, sir, the amount of German 
 gabble that that child crammed into those two 
 girls inside the next forty-eight hours well, / 
 was satisfied ! So I ve never asked a question 
 never wanted to ask any. I ve just lain 
 
MEISTERSCHAFT. 199 
 
 curled up there, happy. The little dears ! they 
 ve flitted in to see me a moment, every morn 
 ing and noon and supper-time ; and as sure as 
 I m sitting here, inside of six days they were 
 clattering German to me like a house afire ! 
 
 S. Sp-lendid, splendid ! 
 
 WlRTHlN. Of course it ain t grammatical 
 the inventor of the language can t talk gram 
 matical ; if the Dative didn t fetch him the Ac 
 cusative would ; but it s German all the same, 
 and don t you forget it ! 
 
 S. Go on go on this is delicious news 
 
 WlRTHlN. Gretchen, she says to me at the 
 start, " Never you mind about company for 
 em," sh-she " I m company enough." And 
 I says, "All right fix it your own way, 
 child "; and that she was right is shown by the 
 fact that to this day they don t care a straw for 
 any company but hers. 
 
 S. Dear me ; why, it s admirable ! 
 
 WlRTHlN. Well, I should think so! They just 
 dote on that hussy can t seem to get enough 
 of her. Gretchen tells me so herself. And the 
 care she takes of them ! She tells me that 
 
200 MEISTERSCHAFT. 
 
 every time there s a moonlight night she coaxes 
 them out for a walk ; and if a body can believe 
 her, she actually bullies them off to church 
 three times every Sunday ! 
 
 S. Why, the little dev missionary ! Really, 
 she s a genius ! 
 
 WlRTHIN. She s a bud, / tell you ! Dear 
 me, how she s brought those girls health up ! 
 Cheeks ? just roses. Gait ? they walk on 
 watch-springs ! And happy ? by the bliss in 
 their eyes, you *d think they re in Paradise ! 
 Ah, that Gretchen ! Just you imagine our 
 trying to achieve these marvels ! 
 
 S. You re right every time. Those girls 
 why, all they d have wanted to know was 
 what we wanted done and then they wouldn t 
 have done it the mischievous young rascals ! 
 
 WlRTHIN. Don t tell me ? Bless you, I found 
 that out early when / was bossing. 
 
 S. Well, I m im - mensely pleased. Now 
 fetch them down. I m not afraid now. They 
 won t want to go home. 
 
 WlRTHIN. Home ! I don t believe you could 
 drag them away from Gretchen with nine span 
 
MEISTERSCIIAFT. 2OI 
 
 of horses. But if you want to see them, put on 
 your hat and come along; they re out some 
 where trapsing along with Gretchen. (Going.) 
 
 S. I m with you lead on. 
 
 WIRTHIN. We ll go out the side door. It s 
 toward the Anlage. 
 
 Exit both. L. 
 Enter George and Margaret. R. 
 
 Her head lies upon his shoulder, his arm is about her 
 waist; they are steeped in sentiment. 
 
 M. (Turning a fond face up at him.) Du 
 Engel ! 
 
 G. Liebste ! (Kiss.) 
 
 M. Oh, das Liedchen dass Du mir gewidmet 
 hast es ist so schon, so wunderschon. Wie 
 hatte ich je geahnt dass Du ein Poet warest ! 
 
 G. Mein Schatzchen ! es ist mir lieb wenn 
 Dir die Kleinigkeit gefallt. 
 
 M. Ah, es ist mit der zartlichsten Musik 
 gefiillt klingt ja so suss und selig wie das 
 Fliistern des Sommerwindes die Abenddam- 
 merung hindurch. Wieder, Theuerste! sag 
 es wieder. 
 
202 MEISTERSCHAFT. 
 
 G. Du bist wie eine Blume! 
 
 So schon und hold und rein 
 Ich schau Dich an, und Wehmuth 
 
 Schleicht mir ins Herz hinein. 
 Mir ist als ob ich die Hiinde 
 
 Aufs Haupt Dir legen sollt, 
 Betend dass Gott Dich erhalte, 
 
 So rein und schon und hold. 
 
 M. A-ch ! (Dumb-show sentiment aliswis.) 
 Georgie 
 
 G. Kindchen ! 
 
 M. Warum kommen sie nicht ? 
 
 G. Dass weiss ich gar nicht. Sie waren 
 
 M. Es wird spat. Wir mussen sie antreiben. 
 Komm ! 
 
 G. Ich glaube sie werden recht bald ankom- 
 
 men, aber 
 
 Exit both. L. 
 
 Enter Gretchen, R., in a state of mind. Slumps into 
 a chair limp with despair. 
 
 GR. Ach ! was wird jetzt aus mir werden ! 
 Zufallig habe ich in der Feme den verdamm- 
 ten Papa gesehen ! und die Frau Wirthin 
 auch ! Oh, diese Erscheinung, die hat mir 
 beinahe das Leben genommen. Sie suchen 
 die jungen Damen das weiss ich wenn sie 
 
MEISTERSCHAFT. 2O3 
 
 diese und die jungen Herren zusammen fanden 
 du heiliger Gott ! Wenn das geschicht, 
 waren wir Alle ganz und gar verloren ! Ich 
 muss sie gleich finden, und ihr eine Warnung 
 
 geben ! 
 
 Exit. L. 
 
 Enter Annie and Will. R. 
 Posed like the former couple and sentimental. 
 
 A. Ich liebe sich schon so sehr Deiner ed- 
 len Natur wegen. Dass du dazu auch ein Dich- 
 ter bist ! ach, mein Leben ist uebermassig 
 reich geworden ! Wir hatte sich doch einbilden 
 konnen dass ich einen Mann zu einem so wun- 
 derschonen Gedicht hatte begeistern konnen ! 
 
 W. Liebste ! Es ist nur eine Kleinigkeit. 
 
 A. Nein, nein, es ist ein echtes Wunder ! 
 Sage es noch einmal ichflehe Dich an. 
 
 W. Du bist wie eine Blume! 
 
 So schon und hold und rein 
 Ich schau Dich an, und Wehmuth 
 
 Schleicht mir ins Herz hinein. 
 Mir ist als ob ich die Hiinde 
 
 Aufs Haupt Dir legen sollt, 
 Betend dass Gott Dich erhalte, 
 
 So rein und schon und hold. 
 
204 MEISTERSCHAFT. 
 
 A. Ach, es ist himmlisch einfach himm- 
 lisch. (Kiss.) Schreibt auch George Ge- 
 dichte ? 
 
 W. Oh, ja zuweilen. 
 
 A. Wie schon ! 
 
 W. (Aside.) Smouches em, same as I do! 
 It was a noble good idea to play that little 
 thing on her. George wouldn t ever think of 
 that somehow he never had any invention. 
 
 A. (Arranging chairs.) Jetzt will ich bei 
 Dir sitzen bleiben, und Du 
 
 W. (They sit.) Ja, und ich 
 
 A. Du wirst mir die alte Geschichte die im- 
 mer neu bleibt, noch wieder erzahlen. 
 
 W. Zum Beispiel, dass ich Dich liebe ! 
 
 A. Wieder! 
 
 W. Ich sie kommen ! 
 
 Enter George and Margaret. 
 
 A. Das macht nichts. Fortan ! 
 
 (George unties M. s bonnet. She re- ties Jiis 
 cravat interspersings of love-pats, etc., and 
 dumb- s ho 10 of love-quarreling \y.) 
 
 W. Ich liebe Dich. 
 
MEISTERSCHAFT. 205 
 
 A. Ach ! Noch einmal ! 
 
 W. Ich habe Dich von Herzen lieb. 
 
 A. Ach ! Abermals ! 
 
 W. Bist Du denn noch nicht satt ? 
 
 A. Nein ! (The other couple sit down, and 
 Margaret begins a re-tying of the cravat. 
 Enter the Wirthin and Stephenson, he imposing 
 silence with a sign.} Mich hungert sehr, ich 
 
 W. Oh, Du armes Kind ! (Lays her head on 
 his shoulder. Dumb-show between Stephenson 
 and Wirthin.) Und hungert es nicht mich ? 
 Du hast mir nicht einmal gesagt 
 
 A. Dass ich Dich liebe ? Mein Eigener ! 
 (Frau Wirthin threatens to faint is supported 
 by Stephenson^ Hore mich nur an: Ich liebe 
 Dich, ich liebe Dich 
 
 Enter Gretchen. 
 
 GR. (Tears her hair.) Oh, dass ich in der 
 Holle ware ! 
 
 M. Ich liebe Dich, ich liebe Dich ! Ah, ich 
 bin so ^iucklich dass ich nicht schlafen kann, 
 nicht lesen kann, nicht reden kann, nicht 
 
206 MEISTERSCHAFT. 
 
 A. Und ich ! Ich bin auch so glucklich 
 dass ich nicht speisen kann, nicht studieren, 
 arbeiten, denken, schreiben 
 
 STEPHENSON. (To Wirtkm aside.) Oh, 
 there isn t any mistake about it Gretchen s 
 just a rattling teacher ! 
 
 WlRTHlN. (To Stephenson aside.) I ll skin 
 her alive when I get my hands on her ! 
 
 M. Komm, alle Verliebte ! (They jump zip, 
 join hands, and sing in chorus) 
 
 Du, Du, wie ich Dich liebe, 
 Du, Du, liebst auch mich! 
 Die, die zartlichsten Triebe 
 
 S. (Stepping forward.) Well ! 
 
 The girls throw themselves upon his neck with en 
 thusiasm. 
 
 THE GIRLS. Why, father ! 
 
 S. My darlings ! 
 
 The young men hesitate a moment, then they add 
 their embrace, flinging themselves on Stephenson s 
 neck, along with the girls. 
 
 THE YOUNG MEN. Why, father ! 
 S. (Struggling) Oh come, this is too thin ! 
 too quick, I mean. Let go, you rascals ! 
 
MEISTERSCHAFT. 2O/ 
 
 GEO. We ll never let go till you put us on 
 the family list. 
 
 M. Right ! hold to him ! 
 A. Cling to him, Will ! 
 
 Gretchen rushes in and joins the general embrace, 
 but is snatched away by the Wirthin, crushed up against 
 the wall and threatened with destruction. 
 
 S. (Suffocating^ All right, all right have 
 it your own way, you quartette of swindlers ! 
 
 W. He s a darling ! Three cheers for 
 papa ! 
 
 EVERYBODY. (Except Stephenson who bows 
 with hand on heart?) Hip hip hip : hurrah, 
 hurrah, hurrah ! 
 
 GR. Der Tiger ah-h-h ! 
 
 WIRTHIN. Sei ruhig, you hussy ! 
 
 S. Well, I ve lost a couple of precious 
 daughters, but I ve gained a couple of precious 
 scamps to fill up the gap with ; so it s all right. 
 I m satisfied, and everybody s forgiven (With 
 mock tJ treats at Gretchen) 
 
 W. Oh, wir werden fiir Dich sorgen du 
 herrliches Gretchen ! 
 
208 MEISTERSCHAFT. 
 
 GR. Danke schon ! 
 
 M. (To Wirthin.) Und fur Sie auch ; denn 
 wenn Sie nicht so freundlich gewesen waren, 
 krank zu warden, wie waren wir je sogliicklich 
 geworden wie jetzt ? 
 
 WIRTHIN. Well, dear, I was kind, but I 
 didn t mean it. But I ain t sorry not one bit 
 that I ain t. 
 
 Tableau. 
 
 S. Come now, the situation is full of hope, 
 and grace, and tender sentiment. If I had in 
 the least the poetic gift, I know I could impro 
 vise under such an inspiration (each girl nudges 
 her sweetheart) something worthy to to is 
 there no poet among us ? 
 
 Each youth turns solemnly his back upon the other 
 and raises his hands in benediction over his sweet 
 heart s bowed head. 
 
 Both youths at once. 
 
 Mir ist als ob ich die Hande 
 Aus Haupt Dir legen sollt 
 
 They turn and look reproachfully at each other the 
 girls contemplate them with injured surprise. 
 
MEISTERSCHAFT. 2OQ 
 
 S. {Reflectively .) I think I ve heard that be 
 fore somewhere. 
 
 WlRTHlN. (Aside.) Why the very cats in 
 Germany know it ! 
 
 Curtain. 
 
Price- List of "Publications issued by 
 CHARLES L. WEBSTER & CO. 
 
 William Sharp. 
 
 Flower o the Vine : Romantic Ballads and Sos- 
 piri di Roma. This volume contains the poems 
 in Mr. Sharp s latest books of verse, now entirely out of 
 print. His collaboration with Blanche Willis Howard 
 in the novel " A Fellowe and His Wife," has made his 
 name familiar to American readers. As one of the most 
 popular of the younger English poets, we anticipate an 
 equal success in America for " Flower 6 the Vine," for 
 which Mr. Thomas A. Janvier has prepared an Intro 
 duction. Handsomely bound, uniform with Aldrich s 
 " Sisters Tragedy " and Cora Fabbri s "Lyrics." Cloth, 
 $1.50. 
 
 Dan Beard. 
 
 Moonblight and Three Feet of Romance. Octa 
 vo, 300 pages, fully illustrated. This story we believe 
 will take rank with "Looking Backward." It treats of 
 some of the great social problems of the day in a novel, 
 powerful, and intensely interesting manner. The hero 
 becomes strangely endowed with the power of seeing 
 people in their true light. It is needless to say that this 
 power proves both a curse and a blessing, and leads to 
 many and strange adventures. Mr. Beard s reputation 
 as an artist is w r orld-wide, and the numerous illustra 
 tions he provides for this book powerfully portray the 
 spirit of the text. Cloth, ink and gold stamps, $2.00. 
 
 Mark Twain s Books. 
 
 Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Holiday edi 
 tion. Square 8vo, 366 pages. Illustrated by E. W. 
 Kemble. Sheep, $3.25; cloth, $2.75. 
 
 New Cheap Edition of Huckleberry Finn. 12mo, 
 318 pages, with a few illustrations. Cloth, $1.00. 
 
Price-List of Publications. 
 
 The Prince and the Pauper. A square 8vo volume 
 of 411 pages. Beautifully illustrated. Sheep $8.75; 
 cloth, $3.00. 
 
 A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur s Court. 
 A square 8vo of 575 pages; 221 illustrations by Dan 
 Beard. Half morocco, $5.00; sheep, $4.00; cloth, 
 $3.00. 
 
 Mark Twain Holiday Set. Three volumes in a box, 
 consisting of the best editions of "Huckleberry Finn," 
 " Prince and Pauper," and " A Connecticut Yankee." 
 Square 8vo. Uniform in size, binding, and color. 
 Sold only in sets. Cloth, $6.00. 
 
 Eighteen Short Stories and Sketches. By Mark 
 Twain. Including "The Stolen White Elephant," 
 "Some Rambling Notes," "The Carnival of Crime," 
 "A Curious Experience," "Punch, Brothers, Punch, " 
 "The Invalid s Story," etc., etc. 16mo, 306 pages. 
 Cloth, $1.00. 
 
 Mark Twain s "Library of Humor." A volume 
 of 145 Characteristic Selections from the Best Writers, 
 together with a Short Biographical Sketch of Each Au 
 thor quoted. Compiled by Mark Twain. Nearly 200 
 illustrations by E. W Kemble. 8vo, 707 pages. Full 
 Turkey morocco, $7.00; half morocco, $5.00; half seal, 
 $4.25; sheep, $4.00; cloth, $3.50. 
 
 Life on the Mississippi. 8vo, 624 pages; and over 
 300 illustrations. Sheep, $4.25; cloth, $3.50. 
 
 Innocents Abroad; or, The New Pilgrim s Progress. 
 Sheep, $4.00; cloth, $3.50. 
 
 Roughing It. 600 pages; 300 illustrations. Sheep, 
 $4.00; cloth, $3.50. 
 
 Sketches, Old and New. 320 pages; 122 illustrations. 
 Sheep, $3.50; cloth, $3.00. 
 
 Adventures of Tom Sawyer. 150 engravings; 275 
 pages. Sheep, $3.25; cloth, $2.75. 
 
 The Gilded Age. 576 pages; 212 illustrations. Sheep, 
 $4.00; cloth, $3.50. 
 
 A Tramp Abroad. Mark Twain in Europe. A 
 
 Companion Volume to "Innocents Abroad." 631 
 pages. Sheep, $4.00; cloth, $3.50. 
 
Charles Z. Webster f Co. 
 
 The War Series. 
 
 The Genesis of the Civil War. The Story of Sum- 
 ter, by Major-General S. W. Crawford, A. M., M. D., 
 LL. D. Illustrated with steel and wood engravings 
 and fac-siniiles of celebrated letters. 8vo, uniform with 
 Grant s Memoirs. Full morocco, $8.00; half morocco, 
 $5.50; sheep, $4.25; cloth, $3.50. 
 
 Personal Memoirs of General Grant. Illustra 
 tions and maps, etc. 2 vols. ; 8vo. Half morocco, per 
 set, $11.00; sheep, per set, $6.00; cloth, per set, $7.00. 
 A few sets in full Turkey morocco and tree calf for sale 
 at special low prices. 
 
 Personal Memoirs of General Sherman. With 
 appendix by Hon. James G. Blaine. Illustrated; 2 
 vols. ; 8vo, uniform with Grant s Memoirs. Half mo 
 rocco, per set, $8.50; sheep, per set, $7.00; cloth, per 
 set, $5.00. Cheap edition, in one large volume. Cloth, 
 $2.00. 
 
 Personal Memoirs of General Sheridan. Illus 
 trated with steel portraits and woodcuts; 26 maps; 2 
 vols. ; 8vo, uniform with Grant s Memoirs. Half mo 
 rocco, per set, $10.00; sheep, per set, $8.00; cloth, per 
 set, $6.00. A few sets in full Turkey morocco and tree 
 calf to be disposed of at very low figures. Cheap edi 
 tion, in one large volume, cloth binding, $2.00. 
 
 McClellan s Own Story. With illustrations from 
 sketches drawn on the field of battle by A. R. Wand, 
 the Great War Artist. 8vo, uniform with Grant s Me 
 moirs. Full morocco, $9.00; half morocco, $6.00; 
 sheep, $4.75; cloth, $3.75. 
 
 Memoirs of John A. Dahlgren. Rear - Admiral 
 United States Navy. By his widow, Madeleine Vinton 
 Dahlgren. A large octavo volume of 660 pages, with 
 steel portrait, maps and illustrations. Cloth, $3.00. 
 
 Reminiscences of Winfleld Scott Hancock. By 
 his wife. Illustrated; steel portraits of General and 
 Mrs. Hancock; 8vo, uniform with Grant s Memoirs. 
 Full morocco, $5.00; half morocco, $4.00; sheep, 
 $3.50; cloth, $2.75. 
 
Price-List of Publications. 
 
 Tenting on the Plains. With the Life of General 
 Ouster, by Mrs. E. B. Custer. Illustrated; 8vo, uni 
 form with Grant s Memoirs. Full morocco, $7.00; half 
 morocco, $5.50; sheep, $4.25; cloth, $3.50. 
 
 Portrait of General Sherman. A magnificent line 
 etching on copper; size 19x24 inches; by the celebrated 
 artist, Charles B. Hall. $2.00. (Special prices on 
 quantities.) 
 
 The Great War Library. Consisting of the best edi 
 tions of the foregoing seven publications (Grant, Sheri 
 dan, Sherman, Hancock, McClellan, Custer and Craw 
 ford). Ten volumes in a box; uniform in style and 
 binding. Half morocco, $50.00; sheep, $40.00; cloth, 
 $30.00. 
 
 Other Biographical Works. 
 
 Life of Jane Welsh Carlyle. By Mrs. Alexander 
 Ireland. With portrait and fac-simile letter; 8vo, 324 
 pages. Vellum cloth, gilt top, $1.75. 
 
 Life and. Letters of Roscoe Conkling. By Hon. 
 Alfred R. Conkling, Ph. B., LL.D. ; steel portrait and 
 fac-similes of important letters to Conkling from Grant, 
 Arthur, Garfield, etc. 8vo, over 700 pages. Half mo 
 rocco, $5.50; full seal, $5.00; sheep, $4.00; cloth, 
 $3.00. 
 
 Life of Pope Leo XIII. By Bernard O Reilly, D. D., 
 L. D. (Laval.) Written with the encouragement and 
 blessing of His Holiness, the Pope. 8vo, 635 pages; 
 colored and steel plates, and full-page illustrations. 
 Half morocco, $6.00; half Russia, $5.00; cloth, gilt 
 edges, $3.75. 
 
 Distinguished American Lawyers. With their 
 Struggles and Triumphs in the Forum. Containing an 
 elegantly engraved portrait, autograph and biography 
 of each subject, embracing the professional work and 
 the public career of those called to serve their country. 
 By Henry W. Scott. Introduction by Hon. John J. 
 Ingalls. A large royal octavo volume of 716 pages, 
 with 62 portraits of the most eminent lawyers. Sheep, 
 $4.25; cloth, $3.50. 
 
Charles L. IVcbster 6r Co. 
 
 Miscellaneous. 
 
 Concise Cyclopedia of Religious Knowledge. 
 
 Biblical, Biographical, Theological, Historical and Prac 
 tical; edited by Rev. E. B. Sanford, M. A., assisted by 
 over 30 of the most eminent religious scholars in the 
 country. 1 vol. ; royal 8vo, nearly 1,000 double-column 
 pages. Half morocco, $6.00; sheep, $5.00; cloth, 
 $3.50. 
 
 The Table. How to Buy Food, How to Cook It, and 
 How to Serve It, by A. Filippini, of Delmonico s; the 
 only cook-book ever endorsed by Delmonico; contains 
 three menus for each day in the year, and over 1,500 
 original recipes, the most of which have been guarded 
 as secrets by the chefs of Delmonico. Contains the sim 
 plest as well as the most elaborate recipes. Presenta 
 tion edition in full seal Russia, $4.50; Kitchen edition 
 in oil-cloth, $2.50. 
 
 One Hundred Ways of Cooking Eggs. Mr. Filip- 
 pini is probably the only man who can cook eggs in a 
 hundred different ways, and this little book will be 
 worth its price ten times over to any purchaser. Cloth 
 binding, ink and gold stamps, 50 cents. 
 Also uniform with the above, 
 
 One Hundred Recipes for Cooking and Serving 
 
 Fish. This book contains only the best recipes, all of 
 
 which have been tested by Mr. Filippini during 25 
 
 years experience with the Delmonicos. Cloth binding, 
 
 ink and gold stamps, 50 cents. 
 Yale Lectures on Preaching, and other Writings, by 
 
 Rev. Nathaniel Burton, D. D. ; edited by Richard E. 
 
 Burton. 8vo, 640 pages; steel portrait. Cloth, $3.75. 
 Legends and Myths of Hawaii. By the late King 
 
 Kalakaua; two steel portraits and 25 other illustrations. 
 
 8vo, 530 pages. Cloth, $3.00. 
 The Diversions of a Diplomat in Turkey. By 
 
 the late Hon. S. S. Cox. 8vo, 685 pages; profusely 
 
 illustrated. Half morocco, $6.00; sheep, $4.75; cloth, 
 
 $3.75. 
 Inside the White House in War Times. By W. 
 
 O. Stoddard, one of Lincoln s Private Secretaries. 
 
 12mo, 244 pages. Cloth, $1.00. 
 
Price-List of Publications. 
 
 Tinkletop s Crime, and eighteen other Short Stories, by 
 George II. Sims. 1 vol. ; 12mo, 316 pages. Cloth, 
 $1.00; paper covers, 50 cents. 
 
 My Life with Stanley s Rear Guard. By Herbert 
 Ward, one of the Captains of Stanley s Rear Guard; 
 includes Mr. Ward s Reply to H. M. Stanley. 12mo. 
 Cloth, $1.00; paper covers, 50 cents. 
 
 The Peril of Oliver Sargent. By Edgar Janes Bliss. 
 12mo. Cloth, $1.00; paper covers, 50 cents. 
 
 The Old Devil and the Three Little Devils ; or, 
 Ivan The Fool, by Count Leo Tolstoi, translated direct 
 from the Russian by Count Norraikpw, with illustra 
 tions by the celebrated Russian artist, Gribayedoff 
 12mo. Cloth, $1.00. 
 
 Life IS Worth Living, and Other Stories. 
 Translated direct from the Russian by Count Norrai- 
 kow. This work, unlike some of his later writings, 
 shows the great Russian at his best. The stories are 
 pure, simple and powerful; intensely interesting as 
 mere creations of fancy, but, like all Tolstoi s works, 
 written for a purpose, and containing abundant food for 
 earnest reflection. Cloth, ink and gold stamps, $1.00. 
 
 The Happy Isles, and Other Poems, by S. H. M. Byers. 
 Small 12mo. Cloth binding, $1.00. 
 
 Physical Beauty : How to Obtain and How to Preserve 
 It, by Annie Jenness Miller; including chapters on Hy- 
 
 f ene, Foods, Sleep, Bodily Expression, the Skin, the 
 yes, the Teeth, the Hair, Dress, the Cultivation of 
 Individuality, etc. , etc. An octavo volume of about 300 
 pages. Cloth, $2.00. 
 
 Hour-Glass Series. By Daniel B. Lucas, LL. D., and 
 J. Fairfax McLaughlin, LL. D. The first volume, 
 which is now ready, contains a series of historical epit 
 omes of national interest, with interesting sketches of 
 such men as Henry Clay, Daniel O Connell and Fisher 
 Ames. Large 12mo. Cloth, $1.00. 
 
 Adventures of A Fair Rebel. Author of "Zeki l," 
 " Bet Crow," " S phiry Ann," " Was It an Exceptional 
 Case?" etc. A story that is sure to be eagerly sought 
 after and read by Miss Crim s many admirers. Stamped 
 cloth, $1.00; paper covers, 50 cents. 
 
Charles L. Webster <5f Co. 
 
 In Beaver Cove and Elsewhere. Octavo, about 350 
 pages, illustrated. 
 
 PRESS OPINIONS. 
 
 " A writer who has quickly won wide recognition by short 
 stories of exceptional power. 1 New York Independent. 
 " Her magazine articles bear the stamp of genius." St. Paul 
 Globe. 
 
 This volume contains all of Miss Crim s most famous 
 short stories. These stories have received the highest 
 praise from eminent critics and prominent literary jour 
 nals, and have given Miss Grim a position among the 
 leading lady writers of America. Cloth, handsomely 
 stamped, $1.00; paper covers, 50 cents. 
 The Flowing Bowl : What and When to Drink ; by 
 the only William (William Schmidt); giving full in 
 structions how to prepare, mix, and serve drinks: also 
 receipts for 227 Mixed Drinks, 89 Liquors and Ratafias, 
 115 Punches, 58 Bowls, and 29 Extra Drinks. An 8vo 
 of 300 pages. Fine cloth, gilt stamp, $2.00. 
 
HOME USE 
 
 CIRCULATION DEPARTMENT 
 MAIN LIBRARY 
 
 This book is due on the last date stamped below. 
 1 -month loans may be renewed by calling 642-3405. 
 6-month loans may be recharged by bringing books 
 
 to Circulation Desk. 
 Renewals and recharges may be made 4 days prior 
 
 to due date. 
 
 ALL BOOKS ARE SUBJECT TO RECALL 7 DAYS 
 AFTER DATE CHECKED OUT. 
 
 SEP 20 1974 84 
 
 ^^ Cii. MM ? 7 
 
 MAY 8 1979 " 
 
 31984 
 
 KCI V TtD 
 
 LD2i-A30m-7, 73 General Library 
 
F ^ . ^ ff .