Chapter XI: Part TWO: Technical Training (4)

"Milors and Gentlemans!" commences the Frenchman, elevating his eyebrows and shrugging his shoulders. "Milors and Gentlemans--You excellent chairman, M. le Baron de Mount-Stuart, he have say to me, 'Make de toast.' Den I say to him dat I have no toast to make; but he nudge my elbow ver soft, and say dat dere is von toast dat nobody but von Frenchman can make proper; and, derefore, wid your kind permission, I vill make de toast. 'De brevete is de sole of de feet,' as you great philosophere, Dr. Johnson, do say, in dat amusing little vork of his, de Pronouncing Dictionnaire; and, derefore, I vill not say ver moch to de point. Ven I vas a boy, about so moch tall, and used for to promenade de streets of Marseilles et of Rouen, vid no feet to put onto my shoe, I nevare to have expose dat dis day vould to have arrive. I vas to begin de vorld as von garēon--or, vat you call in dis countrie, von vaitaire in a café--vere I vork ver hard, vid no habillemens at all to put onto myself, and ver little food to eat, excep' von old blue blouse vat vas give to me by de proprietaire, just for to keep myself fit to be showed at; but, tank goodness, tings dey have change ver moch for me since dat time, and I have rose myself, seulement par mon industrie et perseverance. Ah! mes amis! ven I hear to myself de flowing speech, de oration magnifique of you Lor' Maire, Monsieur Gobbledown, I feel dat it is von great privilege for von étrangé to sit at de same table, and to eat de same food, as dat grand, dat majestique man, who are de terreur of de voleurs and de brigands of de metropolis; and who is also, I for to suppose, a halterman and de chef of you common scoundrel. Milors and gentlemans, I feel dat I can perspire to no greatare honneur dan to be von common scoundrelman myself; but, hélas! dat plaisir are not for me, as I are not freeman of your great cité, not von liveryman servant of von of you compagnies joint-stock. But I must not forget de toast. Milors and Gentlemans! De immortal Shakispeare he have write, 'De ting of beauty are de joy for nevermore.' It is de ladies who are de toast. Vat is more entrancing dan de charmante smile, de soft voice, der vinking eye of de beautiful lady! It is de ladies who do sweeten de cares of life. It is de ladies who are de guiding stars of our existence. It is de ladies who do cheer but not inebriate, and, derefore, vid all homage to de dear sex, de toast dat I have to propose is, "De Ladies! God bless dem all!"

PARTRIDGE AT THE PLAY

From "Tom Jones"

BY HENRY FIELDING

In the first row of the first gallery did Mr. Jones, Mrs. Miller, her youngest daughter, and Partridge, take their places. Partridge immediately declared it was the finest place he had ever been in. When the first music was played, he said, "It was a wonder how so many fiddlers could play at one time, without putting one another out." While the fellow was lighting the upper candles, he cried out to Mrs. Miller, "Look, look, madam, the very picture of the man in the end of the common-prayer book before the gunpowder-treason service." Nor could he help observing, with a sigh, when all the candles were lighted, "That here were candles enough burnt in one night, to keep an honest poor family for a whole twelvemonth."

As soon as the play, which was Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, began, Partridge was all attention, nor did he break silence till the entrance of the ghost; upon which he asked Jones, "What man that was in the strange dress; something," said he, "like what I have seen in a picture. Sure it is not armor, is it?" Jones answered, "That is the ghost." To which Partridge replied with a smile, "Persuade me to that, sir, if you can. ... No, no, sir, ghosts don't appear in such dresses as that, neither." In this mistake, which caused much laughter in the neighborhood of Partridge, he was suffered to continue, till the scene between the ghost and Hamlet, when Partridge gave that credit to Mr. Garrick, which he had denied to Jones, and fell into so violent a trembling, that his knees knocked against each other. Jones asked him what was the matter, and whether he was afraid of the warrior upon the stage? "O la! sir," said he, "I perceive now it is what you told me. ... Nay, you may call me coward if you will; but if that little man there upon the stage is not frightened, I never saw any man frightened in my life. Ay, ay: go along with you: Ay, to be sure! Who's fool then? Will you? Lud have mercy upon such foolhardiness!--Whatever happens, it is good enough for you.--Follow you? I'd follow the devil as soon. Nay, perhaps it is the devil--for they say he can put on what likeness he pleases.--Oh! here he is again.--No farther! No, you have gone far enough already; farther than I'd have gone for all the king's dominions." Jones offered to speak, but Partridge cried, "Hush, hush! dear sir, don't you hear him?" And during the whole speech of the ghost, he sat with his eyes fixed partly on the ghost and partly on Hamlet, and with his mouth open; the same passions which succeeded each other in Hamlet, succeeding likewise in him.

During the second act, Partridge made very few remarks. He greatly admired the fineness of the dresses; nor could he help observing upon the king's countenance. "Well," said he, "how people may be deceived by faces! _Nulla fides fronti_ is, I find, a true saying. Who would think, by looking into the king's face, that he had ever committed a murder?" He then inquired after the ghost; but Jones, who intended he should be surprised, gave him no other satisfaction than "that he might possibly see him again soon, and in a flash of fire."

Partridge sat in a fearful expectation of this; and now, when the ghost made his next appearance, Partridge cried out, "There, sir, now; what say you now? is he frightened now or no? As much frightened as you think me, and, to be sure, nobody can help some fears. I would not be in so bad a condition as what's his name, squire Hamlet, is there, for all the world. Bless me! what's become of the spirit! As I am a living soul, I thought I saw him sink into the earth." "Indeed, you saw right," answered Jones, "Well, well," cries Partridge, "I know it is only a play: and besides, if there was any thing in all this, Madam Miller would not laugh so; for as to you, sir, you would not be afraid, I believe, if the devil was here in person.--There, there--Aye, no wonder you are in such a passion; shake the vile wicked wretch to pieces. If she was my own mother, I would serve her so. To be sure all duty to a mother is forfeited by such wicked doings.--Aye, go about your business, I hate the sight of you."

Little more worth remembering occurred during the play, at the end of which Jones asked him which of the players he had liked best? To this he answered, with some appearance of indignation at the question, "The king, without doubt." "Indeed, Mr. Partridge," says Mrs. Miller, "you are not of the same opinion with the town; for they are all agreed, that Hamlet is acted by the best player who ever was on the stage." "He the best player!" cries Partridge, with a contemptuous sneer, "why, I could act as well as he myself. I am sure, if I had seen a ghost, I should have looked in the very same manner, and done just as ne did. And then, to be sure, in that scene, as you called it, between him and his mother, where you told me he acted so fine, why, Lord help me, any man, that is, any good man, that had such a mother, would have done exactly the same. I know you are only joking with me; but indeed, madam, though I was never at a play in London, yet I have seen acting before in the country; and the king for my money; he speaks all his words distinctly, half as loud again as the other.--Anybody may see he is an actor."

A MAN'S A MAN FOR A' THAT

BY ROBERT BURNS

Is there for honest poverty
That hings his head, an' a' that?
The coward slave, we pass him by--
We dare be poor for a' that.
For a' that, an' a' that,
Our toils obscure, an' a' that,
The rank is but the guinea's stamp,
The man's the gowd [Footnote: gold] for a' that!

What tho' on hamely [Footnote: homely, plain] fare we dine,
Wear hoddin [Footnote: homespun] gray, an' a' that;
Gie fools their silks, and knaves their wine--
A man's a man, for a' that.
For a' that, an' a' that,
Their tinsel show, an' a' that,
The honest man, though e'er sae poor,
Is king o' men for a' that!

Ye see yon birkie [Footnote: fellow], ca'd a lord,
Wha struts, an' stares, an' a' that;
Tho' hundreds worship at his word,
He's but a coof [Footnote: fool (pronounce like German _o_ or
_oe_)] for a' that;
For a' that, an' a' that,
His riband, star, an' a' that;
The man of independent mind,
He looks an' laughs at a' that.

A prince can mak a belted knight,
A marquis, duke, an' a' that;
But an honest man's aboon [Footnote: above] his might--
Gude faith, he maunna fa' [Footnote: must not claim (to make the
honest man)] that!
For a' that, an' a' that,
Their dignities, an' a' that,
The pith o' sense, an' pride o' worth,
Are higher ranks than a' that.

Then let us pray that come it may,
As come it will for a' that,
That sense an' worth, o'er a' the earth,
Shall bear the gree, [Footnote: prize] an' a' that.
For a' that, an' a' that,
It's comin' yet, for a' that--
That man to man, the warld o'er,
Shall brothers be for a' that.

ARTEMUS WARD'S LECTURE

From "Complete Works of Artemus Ward" with the permission of the G. W. Dillingham Company, New York, publishers.

BY CHARLES FARRAR BROWN (ARTEMUS WARD)

I don't expect to do great things here--but I have thought that if I could make money enough to buy me a passage to New Zealand I should feel that I had not lived in vain. I don't want to live in vain. I'd rather live in Texas--or here.

If you should be dissatisfied with anything here to-night--I will admit you all free in New Zealand--if you will come to me there for the orders. Any respectable cannibal will tell you where I live. This shows that I have a forgiving spirit.

I really don't care for money. I only travel round to see the world and to exhibit my clothes. These clothes I have on have been a great success in America.

How often do large fortunes ruin young men! I should like to be ruined, but I can get on very well as I am.

I am not an Artist. I don't paint myself--though perhaps if I were a middle-aged single lady I should--yet I have a passion for pictures.--I have had a great many pictures--photographs--taken of myself. Some of them are very pretty--rather sweet to look at for a short time--and as I said before, I like them. I've always loved pictures. I could draw on wood at a very tender age. When a mere child I once drew a small cartload of raw turnips over a wooden bridge.--The people of the village noticed me. I drew their attention. They said I had a future before me. Up to that time I had an idea it was behind me.

Time passed on. It always does, by the way. You may possibly have noticed that Time passes on.--It is a kind of way Time has.

I became a man. I haven't distinguished myself at all as an artist--but I have always been more or less mixed up with art. I have an uncle who takes photographs--and I have a servant who--takes anything he can get his hands on.

When I was in Rome--Rome in New York State, I mean--a distinguished sculpist wanted to sculp me. But I said "No." I saw through the designing man. My model once in his hands--he would have flooded the market with my busts--and I couldn't stand it to see everybody going round with a bust of me. Everybody would want one of course--and wherever I should go I should meet the educated classes with my bust, taking it home to their families. This would be more than my modesty could stand--and I should have to return home--where my creditors are.

I like art. I admire dramatic art--although I failed as an actor.

It was in my schoolboy days that I failed as an actor.--The play was "The Ruins of Pompeii."--I played the ruins. It was not a very successful performance--but it was better than the "Burning Mountain." He was not good. He was a bad Vesuvius.

The remembrance often makes me ask--"Where are the boys of my youth?" I assure you this is not a conundrum. Some are amongst you here--some in America--some are in jail.

Hence arises a most touching question--"Where are the girls of my youth?" Some are married--some would like to be.

Oh, my Maria! Alas! she married another. They frequently do. I hope she is happy--because I am.--Some people are not happy. I have noticed that.

A gentleman friend of mine came to me one day with tears in his eyes. I said, "Why these weeps?" He said he had a mortgage on his farm--and wanted to borrow $200. I lent him the money--and he went away. Some time afterward he returned with more tears. He said he must leave me forever. I ventured to remind him of the $200 he borrowed. He was much cut up. I thought I would not be hard upon him--so told him I would throw off $100. He brightened--shook my hand--and said,--"Old friend-- I won't allow you to outdo me in liberality--I'll throw off the other hundred."

I like Music.--I can't sing. As a singist I am not a success. I am saddest when I sing. So are those who hear me. They are sadder even than I am.

I met a man in Oregon who hadn't any teeth--not a tooth in his head-- yet that man could play on the bass drum better than any man I ever met. He kept a hotel. They have queer hotels in Oregon. I remember one where they gave me a bag of oats for a pillow--I had nightmares of course. In the morning the landlord said,--"How do you feel--old hoss-- hay?"--I told him I felt my oats.

As a manager I was always rather more successful than as an actor.

Some years ago I engaged a celebrated Living American Skeleton for a tour through Australia. He was the thinnest man I ever saw. He was a splendid skeleton. He didn't weigh anything scarcely--and I said to myself--the people of Australia will flock to see this tremendous cu- riosity. It is a long voyage--as you know--from New York to Melbourne-- and to my utter surprise the skeleton had no sooner got out to sea than he commenced eating in the most horrible manner. He had never been on the ocean before--and he said it agreed with him--I thought so!--I never saw a man eat so much in my life. Beef, mutton, pork--he swallowed them all like a shark--and between meals he was often discovered behind barrels eating hard-boiled eggs. The result was that, when we reached Melbourne, this infamous skeleton weighed sixty-four pounds more than I did!

I thought I was ruined--but I wasn't. I took him on to California-- another very long sea voyage--and when I got him to San Francisco I exhibited him as a fat man.

This story hasn't anything to do with my entertainment, I know--but one of the principal features of my entertainment is that it contains so many things that don't have anything to do with it.

JIM BLUDSO, OF THE PRAIRIE BELLE

By permission of, and by special arrangement with, Houghton Mifflin Company, authorized publishers of this author's work.

BY JOHN HAY

Wall, no! I can't tell whar he lives, Because he don't live, you see; Leastways, he's got out of the habit Of livin' like you and me. Whar have you been for the last three year That you haven't heard folks tell How Jimmy Bludso passed in his checks The night of the "Prairie Belle"?

He weren't no saint,--them engineers Is all pretty much alike,-- One wife in Natchez-under-the-Hill And another one here, in Pike; A keerless man in his talk was Jim, And an awkward hand in a row, But he never flunked, and he never lied,-- I reckon he never knowed how.

And this was all the religion he had,-- To treat his engine well; Never be passed on the river; To mind the pilot's bell; And if ever the "Prairie Belle" took fire,-- A thousand times he swore, He'd hold her nozzle agin the bank Till the last soul got ashore.

All boats has their day on the Mississip, And her day come at last,-- The "Movastar" was a better boat, But the "Belle" she _wouldn't_ be passed. And so she come tearin' along that night-- The oldest craft on the line-- With a nigger squat on her safety valve, And her furnace crammed, rosin and pine.

The fire bust out as she cleared the bar, And burnt a hole in the night, And quick as a flash she turned, and made For that willer-bank on the right. There was runnin' and cursing but Jim yelled out, Over all the infernal roar, "I'll hold her nozzle agin the bank Till the last galoot's ashore."

Through the hot, black breath of the burnin' boat Jim Bludso's voice was heard, And they all had trust in his cussedness, And knowed he would keep his word. And, sure's you're born, they all got off Afore the smokestacks fell,-- And Bludso's ghost went up alone In the smoke of the "Prairie Belle."

He weren't no saint,--but at jedgment I'd run my chance with Jim, 'Longside of some pious gentlemen That wouldn't shake hands with him. He seen his duty, a dead-sure thing,-- And he went for it thar and then; And Christ ain't agoing to be too hard On a man that died for men.

THE TRIAL OF ABNER BARROW

From "The Boy Orator of Zepata City" in "The Exiles and Other Stories." Copyrighted, 1894, Harper and Brothers. Reprinted with permission.

BY RICHARD HARDING DAVIS

Abe Barrow had been closely associated with the early history of Zepata; he had killed in his day several of the Zepata citizens. His fight with Thompson had been a fair fight--as those said who remembered it--and Thompson was a man they could well spare; but the case against Barrow had been prepared by the new and youthful district attorney, and the people were satisfied and grateful.

Harry Harvey, "The Boy Orator of Zepata City," as he was called, turned slowly on his heels, and swept the court room carelessly with a glance of his clever black eyes. The moment was his.

"This man," he said, and as he spoke even the wind in the corridors hushed for the moment, "is no part or parcel of Zepata city of to-day. He comes to us a relic of the past--a past that was full of hardships and glorious efforts in the face of daily disappointments, embitterments and rebuffs. But the part _this_ man played in that past lives only in the court records of that day. This man, Abe Barrow, enjoys, and has enjoyed, a reputation as a 'bad man,' a desperate and brutal ruffian. Free him to-day, and you set a premium on such reputations; acquit him of this crime, and you encourage others to like evil. Let him go, and he will walk the streets with a swagger, and boast that you were afraid to touch him--_afraid_, gentlemen--and children and women will point after him as the man who has sent nine others into eternity, and who yet walks the streets a free man. And he will become, in the eyes of the young and the weak, a hero and a god.

"For the last ten years, your honor, this man, Abner Barrow, has been serving a term of imprisonment in the state penitentiary; I ask you to send him back there again for the remainder of his life. Abe Barrow is out of date. This Rip Van Winkle of the past returns to find a city where he left a prairie town; a bank where he spun his roulette-wheel; this magnificent courthouse instead of a vigilance committee! He is there, in the prisoner's pen, a convicted murderer and an unconvicted assassin, the last of his race,--the bullies and bad men of the border,--a thing to be forgotten and put away forever from the sight of men. And I ask you, gentlemen, to put him away where he will not hear the voice of man nor children's laughter, nor see a woman's smile. Bury him with the bitter past, with the lawlessness that has gone--that has gone, thank God--and which must not return."

The district attorney sat down suddenly, and was conscious of nothing until the foreman pronounced the prisoner at the bar guilty of murder in the second degree.

Judge Truax leaned across his desk and said, simply, that it lay in his power to sentence the prisoner to not less than two years' confinement in the state penitentiary, or for the remainder of his life.

"Before I deliver sentence on you, Abner Barrow," he said with an old man's kind severity, "is there anything you have to say on your own behalf?"

Barrow's face was white with the prison tan, and pinched and hollow- eyed and worn. When he spoke his voice had the huskiness which comes from non-use, and cracked and broke like a child's.

"I don't know, Judge," he said, "that I have anything to say in my own behalf. I guess what the gentleman said about me is all there is to say. I _am_ a back number, I _am_ out of date; I _was_ a loafer and a blackguard. He told you I had no part or parcel in this city, or in this world; that I belonged to the past; that I ought to be dead. Now that's not so. I have just one thing that belongs to this city, and to this world--and to me; one thing that I couldn't take to jail with me, and I'll have to leave behind me when I go back to it. I mean my wife. You, sir, remember her, sir, when I married her twelve years ago. She gave up everything a woman ought to have, to come to me. She thought she was going to be happy with me; that's why she come, I guess. Maybe she was happy for about two weeks. After that first two weeks her life, sir, was a hell, and I made it a hell. Respectable women wouldn't speak to her because she was my wife--and she had no children. That was her life. She lived alone over the dance-hall, and sometimes when I was drunk--I beat her.

"At the end of two years I killed Welsh, and they sent me to the pen for ten years, and she was free. She could have gone back to her folks and got a divorce if she'd wanted to, and never seen me again. It was an escape most women'd gone down on their knees and thanked their Maker for.

"But what did this woman do--my wife, the woman I misused and beat and dragged down in the mud with me? She was too mighty proud to go back to her people, or to the friends who shook her when she was in trouble; and she sold out the place, and bought a ranch with the money, and worked it by herself, worked it day and night, until in ten years she had made herself an old woman, as you see she is to-day.

"And for what? To get _me_ free again; to bring _me_ things to eat in jail, and picture papers, and tobacco--when she was living on bacon and potatoes, and drinking alkali water--working to pay for a lawyer to fight for _me_--to pay for the _best_ lawyer.

"And what I want to ask of you, sir, is to let me have two years out of jail to show her how I feel about it. It's all I've thought of when I was in jail, to be able to see her sitting in her own kitchen with her hands folded, and me working and sweating in the fields for her, working till every bone ached, trying to make it up to her.

"And I can't, I can't! It's too late! It's too late! Don't send me back for life! Give me a few years to work for her--to show her what I feel here, what I never felt for her before. Look at her, gentlemen, look how worn she is, and poorly, and look at her hands, and you men must feel how I feel--I don't ask you for myself. I don't want to go free on my own account. My God! Judge, don't bury me alive, as that man asked you to. Give me this last chance. Let me prove that what I'm saying is true."

Judge Truax looked at the papers on his desk for some seconds, and raised his head, coughing as he did so.

"It lies--it lies at the discretion of this Court to sentence the prisoner to a term of imprisonment of two years, or for an indefinite period, or for life. Owing to--on account of certain circumstances which were--have arisen--this sentence is suspended. This Court stands adjourned."