Chapter V: Front Matter (5)

Yestday was Valentines day and some wicked feller he sent me one which was the ugliest ever see. It is drew with a pen, and its me a settin on a Noays ark with wooden animals before me, and me a writin about them with my toung out and my legs twisted to gather like grape vines, but not a bit like me, more like Billy. There is a big jackus a standin behine me with his mouth to my ear, like he was a whisperin in school, and this is the poetry which is under the pictur, bad spellin and all, I never see such fool poetry!

Now here you are, Johnny, and heres Uncle Ned,
Composing your stories all out of his head.
With Genius behind you and Nature before,
No truth can “kanock” you, no mystery “flore.”
You’re true as a clock to your subject—at least,
You write about beasts, and you write like a beast.

When I got that I took it strait to Uncle Ned, and when he had read it he looked mighty mad. Then I said: “Uncle Ned, what becomes of wicked fellers souls when they die?”

Uncle Ned he said: “Johnny, that is a question which will keep till you have a optunity to see for your self. This gum dasted villin says no mystry can flore you, but I guess its just as well not to go out of your way for to tackle mystries which are peaceful disposed. I respeck your motive in askin the riddle, cause it is the same which under lies the holy religion of the Pattigonions, but the Bible it says for us to love our enmies, cause they dont know any better. So I move we forgive this feller and content our selfs with the hope that what ever is done to him in a other and bitter world it will be good and plenty.”

Thats all I know bout bears to day, but Billy he can crow like a cockadoodle, and the Bible it says let us be up and doin.

THE TAIL END

Uncle Ned he said yesterday did I know what was up. I said the girafts head was upper than any thing. Then he said, Uncle Ned did: “Thats so, Johnny, but what I mean is do you know what is a goin for to happen in this house, right under your 2 eyes?”

Then I looked at my sister to see if she knew, but she was red in the face, like she was a lobster, and I said why didnt she set further away from the fire, but mother she said: “Never mind your sister, Johnny, your uncle is talkin to you, why dont you anser?”

So I told him no, I didn’t know what was goin for to happen, less Billy was a goin to get a lickin, and he said: “That’s a safe guess, but what I mean is you are to have a new brother.”

I said: “Hooray, I vote we name him Tommy!”

Uncle Ned he beganned for to laugh, and mother she said: “Edard, if you have got any thing to say to Johnny why dont you say it like you was a man of sense, Johnny, you hush this minnute, where did Billy put them sizzors, I think baby is awoke, and that roast has got to be took out of the uven fore it burns.” And then she walked out of the room like a thing of life.

When she was gone, and Missy too, Uncle Ned he stoppd laughin and said: “Johnny, you have made a mess of this thing. Its nothin but jest only that your sister is a goin to be married.”

I said would it be for long, and after a while he said: “I give it up, ask me a easier one.”

Last night we had supper late, but I was let stay up, and I et so much frute cake that I fell a sleep in my chair at the table, and what do you bet I dreamed? I thought I was a settin all alone at a other long table, and pretty soon all the animals which I had wrote about come in and set theirselfs down in the chairs. There was a ephalent, and a rhi nosey rose, and a giraft, and a wale, and a hi potamus, and a eagle, and a cammle, and a ostridge, and a big snake, and a rat, and a cow, and a ri nupple dinky, and a dog, and a cracky dile, and a munky, and evry kind of feller which roams the plain. I said to my own self: “I guess this is Noahs ark and its beginnin for to rain.”

Each animal had its feed before it, what ever it liked best. The ephalent had pea nuts, and the bear had ginger bread, and the giraft had a wether cock off a steeple, and the ostridge had some black smith tools, and the rat it was a eatin some Dutch cheese on a trap, and the cow had a holly hock, and the tagger had a cow, and the snake had a tagger, and the cracky dile had a natif nigger, you never seen such a fine dinner, and Missy was a waitin on the gests with a white veil on and some orang owtang blossoms. Jest as she was a passin Jack Brily to the shark, the wale, which was eatin scum longside of me at the head of the table, stood up on his tail, the wale did, and he had a boat full of wine under his fin, like it was a cup. The wale he blowed a while, and then he bellerd like a organ, and bime by he spoke up and said: “Ladys and gents, it isent any use me tellin you why we have met together to night, cause you know all about it. You know, too, that we havent ever had a square deal from the relatives of our friend the gorilly, which calls theirselfs yuman beins. They have been aginst us from the first, and shiver my timbers if I dont believe thay would send us all to the bottom if they had the power! Blow me tight, if I wouldnt rather be a native of Nantucket than any one of them! We hav had only but just 2 friends in the whole damb outfit. One was old Noah, which wasent any use to me, and the other we have with us this evening, our distingished guest, a true friend which under stands us, the only yuman bein which has ever saw the point of our jokes and the beauty of our moral charackters. Ime sure we all hopes that his yarns mark the dawn of a new ery, and men will larn from them that we aint sech bad fellers as some of us looks—meanin no offense to my friend the pecock; though I dont go so fur as to say that I approove certain dishes which I see bein et at this table, particklar by that shark. And now, ladys and gents, I have the honor to ask you to join me in drinkin a bumper to our ship mate, our guest, our friend, Little Johnny.”

Then they all stood up and drinked, and then a old rooster, which was to the other end of the table, he flopped his wings and crowed out “Three cheers for Little Johnny!” which was give by all present, each feller in the languidge that he had been teached at his mothers knee. This made such a awful noise, that it woked me up, and my sister was a pullin my ear for time to go to bed.

When I was in my bed and she was in hern the door between us was open and I said “Missy.”

She said: “Hold your tungue, you bad boy, what was you a going to say?”

I said: “Missy, are you a goin to be married?” and she said: “No, you little goose, why not?”

Then I said: “Missy, I know you are, and marryin is poligamy and means movin into a other house. When you have done it I want you to do me a partickler favor.”

She said no, indeed she wouldnt, what was it?

Then I spoke up and said “Missy, when you go for to live in your other house I want you to take your young man and let him live there too, cause he comes here so much to see Uncle Ned that he is a gum dasted nusance!”

And she said she would if she died for it.

The Bible it says that fellers which are nusances shall arise from the dead. And thats why I say eat drink and be merry, for to-morrow you dont. But a pigs tail, nice roasted is the king of beasts.

TWO ADMINISTRATIONS

A PROVISIONAL SETTLEMENT

_McKinley, a President. Sagasta, a Prime Minister. Aguinaldo, a
Patriot._

SAGASTA—Señor Presidente, you are very good, and you will find that Spain is not unreasonable. I have instructed my peace commissioners to concede quite a number of the demands that yours will probably make.

MCKINLEY—And the others?

SAG.—Why, of course, Señor, a demand that is not conceded is refused.

MCK.—But if my commissioners have the sorrow to insist?

SAG.—In that case Spain knows how to defend her honor.

MCK.—How, for example?

SAG.—If need be, with the naked breasts of her sons!

MCK.—My good friend, you err widely. The thing which there may be a dispute about is not Spanish honor, but Spanish soil.

SAG.—In every square foot of which, Senõr Porco—I mean Presidente—Spanish honor is rooted.

MCK.—Sir, I shall consult my Secretary of Agriculture as to the desirability of annexing land which produces a crop like that. But this is your day to be dull: can you really suppose that in permitting you to have peace commissioners I expected them to claim the right of dissent? However these matters may be debated, there is but one deciding power—the will of the American Executive.

SAG.—Señor, you forget. Supreme over all, there is God!

MCK.—O, I don’t know. He’s not the only——

SAG.—Holy cats!

[_Enter Aguinaldo._]

MCK.—First of all, Señor Prime Minister, you must renounce the island of Luzon, and——

AGUINALDO—Yes, Señor, that being the most important island of the group, and the one in which you have not now even a foothold, its renunciation will naturally precede that of the others, as my great and good ally is pleased to suggest. With regard to Luzon you have only to say, “We renounce”; I, “We accept.”

MCK.—Please have the goodness to hold your tongue.

AG.—With both hands, your Excellency.

MCK.—Second, Señor, you must assure a liberal government to the other islands.

SAG.—With great pleasure, your Excellency; quite cheerfully.

MCK.—Please do not wink. Third, there must be——

AG.—Excuse me; I was brought up a Spanish subject. What is a liberal government?

MCK.—That is for Spain to decide.

AG.—I don’t see what Spain will have to do with it.

MCK.—My friend, you slumber—peaceful be thy dreams. Third, there must be complete separation of church and state.

SAG.—What! a Diabolocracy? You shock me!

MCK.—Fourth, none of the islands, nor any part of them, is to be ceded to any foreign nation without the consent of the United States.

AG.—You understand, Señor—you hear that! Spain can never again acquire a square foot of these islands, not even by reconquest or a corrupt bargain with a recreant Filipino dictator, for she will again have to reckon with our powerful protectors, whom may the good God reward!

MCK.—The trouble with you is, you talk too much. Fifth, the United States must have in the Philippines equal commercial privileges with Spain.

AG.—Equal? May I never again run amuck if they shall not have superior! Why, I have it in mind to issue a proclamation closing every port to the ships of Spain. As to the United States, commercial primacy is a small reward for their assistance in the closing scene of our successful rebellion.

SAG.—Of course, as you say, I shall have to accept whatever terms you have the great kindness to offer. As I understand your proposal, Spain retains all the islands but Luzon; that is to belong to the United States, and——

AG.—What!

SAG.—This worthy Oriental appears to be laboring under a misapprehension.

MCK.—I know of nothing else that could make an Oriental labor.

AG.—Señores, the language of diplomacy is to me an unfamiliar tongue: I have imperfectly understood—pardon me. Is it indeed intended that the United States shall take Luzon and Spain take all else?

MCK.—“Retain” is the word.

AG.—“Retain?” Why, that means to keep, to hold what is already possessed. What you gentlemen have in possession in this archipelago is the ground covered by the feet of your soldiers. Now, what right have you, Señor Presidente, to the island of Luzon? The right of conquest? You have not conquered it.

MCK.—My dear fellow, you distress me. I conquered this gentleman, and he is going to be good enough to give me the island as a testimonial of his esteem.

AG.—But he doesn’t own it. I had taken it away from him before you defeated him—all but the capital, and by arrangement with your man Dewey——

SAG.—Caram——!

AG.—I assisted to take that. Why, he supplied me with arms for the purpose!

SAG.—Arms with which I had had the unhappiness to supply _him_.

AG.—What is my reward? I am driven from the city which I assisted to conquer, and you take not only that but the entire island, which you had no hand in conquering.

SAG. (_aside_)—Faith! he’ll conquer it before he gets it.

MCK.—My friend, you are a Malay, with a slight infusion of Chinese, Hindu and Kanaka. Naturally, you cannot understand these high matters.

AG.—I understand this: We Filipinos rebelled against Spain to liberate our country from oppression. We wrested island after island, city after city, from her until Manila was virtually all that she had left. As we were about to deprive her of that and regain the independence which, through four hundred years of misrule, she had denied us we experienced a dire mischance. You quarreled with her because she denied independence to Cuba. Spanish dominion, which we had stabbed, was already dead, but you arrived just in time to kick the corpse while it was yet warm, and for this service you propose to administer upon the estate, keeping the most valuable part for your honesty. You will then revive the dead, buried and damned and reinstate him in possession of the remainder!

MCK. (_aside_)—O, will I?

SAG.—Apparently, Señor Presidente, this worthy person is afflicted with a flow of language. (_Aside_) The Porco Americano has the habit of blushing.

MCK. (_to Sagasta_)—Yes, the Filipino always has his tongue in his ear. (_To Aguinaldo_) Proceed with the address.

AG.—It is as if the French, having assisted your forefathers to independence, had kept Boston and all New England for themselves and restored the other colonies to Great Britain. If the Good Samaritan, arriving while the man fallen among thieves was still struggling with them, had assisted him to beat them off, had then taken his purse and delivered him to the thieves again you would have had a Scriptural precedent.

SAG. (_writing in a notebook_)—“At a certain temperature the Porco Americano can sweat.”

MCK.—My great and good friend, you seem to have your climate with you, as well as your chin. I must beg you to abridge your oration against manifest destiny.

AG.—Destiny was a long time manifesting herself, but she has not been idle since. In the last four months you have torn up the three American political Holy Scriptures: Washington’s Farewell Address, the Monroe Doctrine and the Declaration of Independence. You now stand upon the fragments of the last and declare it an error that governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed. In Hawaii you are founding a government on the consent of less than three per centum of the governed. In my country you propose to found one government and restore another against the unanimous dissent of eight millions of people whom you cheated into an alliance to that end. You cajoled them into assisting at the cutting of their own throats. Your only justification in making this war at all was Spain’s denial in Havana of the political principle which you now repudiate in Honolulu and Manila. Señores, we shall resist both the American and the Spanish occupation. You will be allies—embrace!

[_Exit Sagasta._]

MCK.—My dear boy, you are unduly alarmed: the notion of letting Spain keep those other islands is merely a Proposal Retractable—in undiplomatic language, an offer with a string to it.

AG.—And your plan of holding Luzon—after taking it?

MCK.—Rest in peace: that is only what we call an Intention Augmentable.

AG.—Ah, Señor, you make me so happy!

ASPIRANTS THREE

_The Incumbent._ _The Born Candidate._
_The Ambitious Mariner._

INCUMBENT:

Sir Admiral, ’twas but two years ago
I turned you loose against a feeble foe,
Gave you a chance to write your unknown name
In shouting letters on the scroll of fame,
Stood by you with a firmness almost sinful,
Fed you with honors till you had a skinful,
Plied you with praise till drunk as any lord—
And this, George Dewey, this is my reward!
So drunken with success you seem to be
That you have visions of succeeding—Me!

AMBITIOUS MARINER:

Why, blast my tarry toplights! what’s this row?
And which of you is speaking, anyhow?

INCUMBENT (_aside_):

He thinks I am beside myself. Alas,
He sees, as through the bottom of a glass,
Darkly. Strange how this pirate of the main
With an eye single to his private gain
Beholds things double! Would that I, poor worm,
Could see in duplicate my four years’ term.
The fellow’s looked too long upon the cup—
I’ll get behind his back and trip him up,
Break his damned neck, and then the tale repeat
Of how, poor man, he fell o’er his own feet.
That’s politics.

[_Enter Born Candidate._]
Good Heavens, I am caught!

BORN CANDIDATE:

Hello, McPresident!

INCUMBENT:

Did you see aught
Suspicious in my actions?

BORN CANDIDATE:

Well, I guess
There might have been an aspirant the less
If I had longer stayed where I was “at.”

INCUMBENT:

And may I venture to ask where was that?

BORN CANDIDATE:

Along the roadside, hidden in the rye
To see the famous Admiral go by.
A look had done me good if I had got one.
It happened, by the by, I had a shotgun.

AMBITIOUS MARINER (_to Born Candidate_):

Shiver my timbers! you’re a dandy crimp—
That figure-head of yours would scare a shrimp.

INCUMBENT (_to Born Candidate_):

Let’s try less candid measures to remove him:
Moral dissuasion would perhaps improve him.
We can (when he’s not full of “old October”)
Appeal from Dewey drunk to Dewey sober.

BORN CANDIDATE (_to Incumbent_):

Said like a lawyer (’tis a grand profession!)
But that appellate court is ne’er in session.

AMBITIOUS MARINER (_aside_):

They think me half seas over. That’s all right—
I’m full, but what I’m full of is just fight.

(_Aloud, scowling_):

Some sailor men—rough fellows from the fleet—
Followed me here. They’re waiting in the street.
They’re loyal, but in temper they’re unsteady
And

[_goes to the window and speaks out_]

Gridley, you may fire when you are ready.

[_Cannon within. Exeunt, hurriedly, Incumbent and Born Candidate._]

That’s all—I never had the least intention
Of facing a political convention.

AT SANTIAGO

_Toral. Shafter._

TORAL—Ah, Señor, it was an anxious night—that of July 2. The angel of sleep did not visit me, and my pillow—I shame not to say it—was wet with tears.

SHAFTER—Me too. I never swore so much in my life. I tried every way to sleep, but couldn’t make it go.

TOR.—How sad! Señor, we are no longer enemies, and we are alone. May I hope that Heaven will put it into your heart to tell me why _you_ slept not that unhappy night?

SH.—That’s an easy one: I had made up my mind to demand your surrender.

TOR.—Ah, what a tender heart; what sensibility! It pained you, the thought of humiliating me.

SH.—Not a bit of it; what worried me was the fear that you would refuse.

TOR.—And then there would be such—what you call effusion of blood. You are all compassion.

SH.—Effusion of nothing. If you did not surrender to me I was going to surrender to you. My army was rotten with fever. Now what kept _you_ awake, old man?

TOR.—The fear that you would surrender first. God o’ my soul!—we could not eat you!

A CABINET CONFERENCE

_Hay, Secretary of State. Root, Secretary of War. Long, Secretary of the Navy._

HAY—Ah, glad to see you, gentlemen; punctuality is the politeness of princes. I feared we should have to postpone this Conference.

LONG—Perhaps it would have been better. The newspapers have learned about it. As I entered there were seven hundred and fifty correspondents outside the door!

ROOT—The Navy Department is ever liberal in its estimates.

LONG—I’ll swear there are not fewer than a dozen; you saw them yourself.

ROOT—Not I. I entered by way of the chimney.

HAY—It is useless to try to conceal our movements; they learn everything.

LONG—It is to be hoped they will not learn the purpose of this Conference.

HAY—That will depend on your discretion; mine is unquestionable.

ROOT—Is the door locked?

HAY—Sure, and the keyhole stuffed. We are absolutely inaccessible to the curiosity of the vulgar.

LONG—Blast their tarry——

HAY—Mr. Secretary, I beg that you will not swear. Remember that the President is a pillar of the church.

ROOT—What church?

HAY (_scratching the head of the State Department_)—I’m damned if I know. I belong myself to the Church of England.

LONG—Let us proceed to business; the crisis waits.

HAY—Gentlemen (_opening secret drawer in table_), I have the honor to put before you a—[_tumult within and beating of sticks on the door_.] What’s that?

ROOT—The Filipinos!—the Filipinos! Where is Corbin?

LONG—Sounds like the Democratic party.

HAY—Ah, I forgot; it is the correspondents. I have the honor to put before you, with appropriate glasses, a bottle of pure Kentucky Bourbon fifty-five years old—a gift from Governor Taylor to the President. As the President drinks nothing——

LONG—What!

ROOT—What!

HAY—He drinks nothing from this bottle. I intercepted it.

[_They drink and repeat. The Conference adjourns. Exeunt omnes. Enter the Public Press._]

THE PUBLIC PRESS—There was a consultation at the State Department this afternoon among Secretaries Hay, Root and Long, the latter two of whom had been sent for in great haste. Extraordinary precautions to secure secrecy were taken, but it is understood that German aggression in Brazil was discussed, and nothing is more certain than that the next few days will witness grave and startling movements of our war ships in both the North and the South Atlantic. Senator Lodge’s recent alarming speech on the Navy Appropriation Bill is recalled, in connection with this subject, as is also Senator Pettigrew’s significant silence. Nor is it forgotten that last week there was a persistent rumor that the Government was about to consider the advisability of taking a step of which the importance could be determined only by its character and result.

AN INDEMNITY

_McKinley, the President. Hay, Secretary of State. The Czar
of Russia. The Sultan of Turkey. Ali Feroush Bey, the Turkish
Minister._

ACT I

MCKINLEY—John, have the goodness to say to the Turkish Minister that unless his Government pays up we shall send a fleet to the Dardanelles.

HAY—Yes, but would it not be better to say _through_ the Dardanelles?

MCK.—I don’t know about that. One does not like to promise more than one may be able to perform. Admiral Dewey tells me there is a doubt about getting through; the strait is fortified at every turn.

H.—Why, Admiral Dewey said, _àpropos_ of the Nicaragua canal, that fortifications were worthless—that they only invited attack!

MCK.—That was when he was standing by the Administration. He is now an aspirant to the Presidency, and dares to say what he thinks.

H. (_aside_)—Great Scott! I’d give ten years of life—nay, more: six weeks of office—for the same courage.

MCK.—John, what are you muttering in your beard?

H.—A prayer for your health.

MCK. (_aside_)—Ah, yes, I suffer from Hay fever.

[_Observing him about to sneeze, Hay gives himself the happiness of taking snuff._]

ACT II

HAY—I greet your Excellency with rapture.

ALI FEROUSH BEY—May your wives be as the leaves of the forest.

H.—May it please your Excellency, the President says that if your august master finds it inconvenient to pay that little account he need not hurry.

A. F. B.—Allah forbid that the Light of the Universe should hurry about anything!

H.—The matter will keep, and an ultimatum delivered about the first week in November would——

A. F. B.—May jackasses sing on your grandmother’s grave! Do you think you can use the Brother of the Prophet to further your cursed election schemes? I shall advise that the bill be paid at once.

H.—Exalted sir, I fear you are pleased to talk through your turban. But I pray that you will permit me to withdraw. I must acquaint the President with your answer.

[_Exit Hay._]

A. F. B.—The devil go with him! If I had him in Stamboul he’d be walking on wood!