Books: The Enchanted Typewriter
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John Kendrick Bangs >> The Enchanted Typewriter
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7 The Enchanted Typewriter
by John Kendrick Bangs
I
THE DISCOVERY
It is a strange fact, for which I do not expect ever
satisfactorily to account, and which will receive little
credence even among those who know that I am not given to
romancing--it is a strange fact, I say, that the substance of
the following pages has evolved itself during a period of six
months, more or less, between the hours of midnight and four
o'clock in the morning, proceeding directly from a type-writing
machine standing in the corner of my library, manipulated by
unseen hands. The machine is not of recent make. It is, in fact,
a relic of the early seventies, which I discovered one morning
when, suffering from a slight attack of the grip, I had remained
at home and devoted my time to pottering about in the attic,
unearthing old books, bringing to the light long-forgotten
correspondences, my boyhood collections of "stuff," and other
memory-inducing things. Whence the machine came originally I do
not recall. My impression is that it belonged to a stenographer
once in the employ of my father, who used frequently to come
to our house to take down dictations. However this may be, the
machine had lain hidden by dust and the flotsam and jetsam of
the house for twenty years, when, as I have said, I came upon
it unexpectedly. Old man as I am--I shall soon be thirty--the
fascination of a machine has lost none of its potency. I am as
pleased to-day watching the wheels of my watch "go round" as
ever I was, and to "monkey" with a type-writing apparatus has
always brought great joy into my heart--though for composing
give me the pen. Perhaps I should apologize for the use here
of the verb monkey, which savors of what a friend of mine
calls the "English slanguage," to differentiate it from what
he also calls the "Andrew Language." But I shall not do so,
because, to whatever branch of our tongue the word may belong,
it is exactly descriptive, and descriptive as no other word
can be, of what a boy does with things that click and "go,"
and is therefore not at all out of place in a tale which I
trust will be regarded as a polite one.
The discovery of the machine put an end to my attic
potterings. I cared little for finding old bill-files and
collections of Atlantic cable-ends when, with a whole morning,
a type-writing machine, and a screw-driver before me I could
penetrate the mysteries of that useful mechanism. I shall
not endeavor to describe the delightful sensations of that
hour of screwing and unscrewing; they surpass the powers of
my pen. Suffice it to say that I took the whole apparatus
apart, cleaned it well, oiled every joint, and then put it
together again. I do not suppose a seven-year-old boy could have
derived more satisfaction from taking a piano to pieces. It was
exhilarating, and I resolved that as a reward for the pleasure
it had given me the machine should have a brand-new ribbon and
as much ink as it could consume. And that, in brief, is how it
came to be that this machine of antiquated pattern was added to
the library bric-a-brac. To say the truth, it was of no more
practical use than Barye's dancing bear, a plaster cast of
which adorns my mantel-shelf, so that when I classify it with
the bric-a-brac I do so advisedly. I frequently tried to write
a jest or two upon it, but the results were extraordinarily
like Sir Arthur Sullivan's experience with the organ into
whose depths the lost chord sank, never to return. I dashed
off the jests well enough, but somewhere between the keys
and the types they were lost, and the results, when I came to
scan the paper, were depressing. And once I tried a sonnet on
the keys. Exactly how to classify the jumble that came out of
it I do not know, but it was curious enough to have appealed
strongly to D'Israeli or any other collector of the literary
oddity. More singular than the sonnet, though, was the fact
that when I tried to write my name upon this strange machine,
instead of finding it in all its glorious length written upon
the paper, I did find "William Shakespeare" printed there in
its stead. Of course you will say that in putting the machine
together I mixed up the keys and the letters. I have no doubt
that I did, but when I tell you that there have been times
when, looking at myself in the glass, I have fancied that
I saw in my mirrored face the lineaments of the great bard;
that the contour of my head is precisely the same as was his;
that when visiting Stratford for the first time every foot
of it was pregnant with clearly defined recollections to me,
you will perhaps more easily picture to yourself my sensations
at the moment.
However, enough of describing the machine in its relation
to myself. I have said sufficient, I think, to convince you
that whatever its make, its age, and its limitations, it was
an extraordinary affair; and, once convinced of that, you may
the more readily believe me when I tell you that it has gone
into business apparently for itself--and incidentally for me.
It was on the morning of the 26th of March last that I
discovered the curious condition of affairs concerning which
I have essayed to write. My family do not agree with me as to
the date. They say that it was on the evening of the 25th of
March that the episode had its beginning; but they are not
aware, for I have not told them, that it was not evening,
but morning, when I reached home after the dinner at the
Aldus Club. It was at a quarter of three A.M. precisely that
I entered my house and proceeded to remove my hat and coat,
in which operation I was interrupted, and in a startling
manner, by a click from the dark recesses of the library. A
man does not like to hear a click which he cannot comprehend,
even before he has dined. After he has dined, however, and
feels a satisfaction with life which cannot come to him before
dinner, to hear a mysterious click, and from a dark corner,
at an hour when the world is at rest, is not pleasing. To say
that my heart jumped into my mouth is mild. I believe it jumped
out of my mouth and rebounded against the wall opposite back
though my system into my boots. All the sins of my past life,
and they are many--I once stepped upon a caterpillar, and I have
coveted my neighbor both his man-servant and his maid-servant,
though not his wife nor his ass, because I don't like his wife
and he keeps no live-stock--all my sins, I say, rose up before
me, for I expected every moment that a bullet would penetrate
my brain, or my heart if perchance the burglar whom I suspected
of levelling a clicking revolver at me aimed at my feet.
"Who is there?" I cried, making a vocal display of bravery I
did not feel, hiding behind our hair sofa.
The only answer was another click.
"This is serious," I whispered softly to myself. "There are
two of 'em; I am in the light, unarmed. They are concealed by
the darkness and have revolvers. There is only one way out of
this, and that is by strategy. I'll pretend I think I've made
a mistake." So I addressed myself aloud.
"What an idiot you are," I said, so that my words could be
heard by the burglars. "If this is the effect of Aldus Club
dinners you'd better give them up. That click wasn't a click
at all, but the ticking of our new eight-day clock."
I paused, and from the corner there came a dozen more clicks
in quick succession, like the cocking of as many revolvers.
"Great Heavens!" I murmured, under my breath. "It must be Ali
Baba with his forty thieves."
As I spoke, the mystery cleared itself, for following close
upon a thirteenth click came the gentle ringing of a bell, and
I knew then that the type-writing machine was in action; but
this was by no means a reassuring discovery. Who or what could
it be that was engaged upon the type-writer at that unholy hour,
3 A.M.? If a mortal being, why was my coming no interruption? If
a supernatural being, what infernal complication might not
the immediate future have in store for me?
My first impulse was to flee the house, to go out into the night
and pace the fields--possibly to rush out to the golf links and
play a few holes in the dark in order to cool my brow, which
was rapidly becoming fevered. Fortunately, however, I am not
a man of impulse. I never yield to a mere nerve suggestion,
and so, instead of going out into the storm and certainly
contracting pneumonia, I walked boldly into the library to
investigate the causes of the very extraordinary incident. You
may rest well assured, however, that I took care to go armed,
fortifying myself with a stout stick, with a long, ugly steel
blade concealed within it--a cowardly weapon, by-the-way, which
I permit to rest in my house merely because it forms a part
of a collection of weapons acquired through the failure of a
comic paper to which I had contributed several articles. The
editor, when the crash came, sent me the collection as part
payment of what was owed me, which I think was very good of
him, because a great many people said that it was my stuff
that killed the paper. But to return to the story. Fortifying
myself with the sword-cane, I walked boldly into the library,
and, touching the electric button, soon had every gas-jet in
the room giving forth a brilliant flame; but these, brilliant
as they were, disclosed nothing in the chair before the machine.
The latter, apparently oblivious of my presence, went clicking
merrily and as rapidly along as though some expert young
woman were in charge. Imagine the situation if you can. A
type-writing machine of ancient make, its letters clear, but
out of accord with the keys, confronted by an empty chair,
three hours after midnight, rattling off page after page of
something which might or might not be readable, I could not
at the moment determine. For two or three minutes I gazed in
open-mouthed wonder. I was not frightened, but I did experience
a sensation which comes from contact with the uncanny. As I
gradually grasped the situation and became used, somewhat,
to what was going on, I ventured a remark.
"This beats the deuce!" I observed.
The machine stopped for an instant. The sheet of paper upon
which the impressions of letters were being made flew out
from under the cylinder, a pure white sheet was as quickly
substituted, and the keys clicked off the line:
"What does?"
I presumed the line was in response to my assertion, so
I replied:
"You do. What uncanny freak has taken possession of you to-night
that you start in to write on your own hook, having resolutely
declined to do any writing for me ever since I rescued you
from the dust and dirt and cobwebs of the attic?"
"You never rescued me from any attic," the machine
replied. "You'd better go to bed; you've dined too well,
I imagine. When did you rescue me from the dust and dirt and
the cobwebs of any attic?"
"What an ungrateful machine you are!" I cried. "If you have
sense enough to go into writing on your own account, you ought
to have mind enough to remember the years you spent up-stairs
under the roof neglected, and covered with hammocks, awnings,
family portraits, and receipted bills."
"Really, my dear fellow," the machine tapped back, "I must
repeat it. Bed is the place for you. You're not coherent. I'm
not a machine, and upon my honor, I've never seen your darned
old attic."
"Not a machine!" I cried. "Then what in Heaven's name are
you?--a sofa-cushion?"
"Don't be sarcastic, my dear fellow," replied the machine. "Of
course I'm not a machine; I'm Jim--Jim Boswell."
"What?" I roared. "You? A thing with keys and type and a bell--"
"I haven't got any keys or any type or a bell. What on earth
are you talking about?" replied the machine. "What have you
been eating?"
"What's that?" I asked, putting my hand on the keys.
"That's keys," was the answer.
"And these, and that?" I added, indicating the type and
the bell.
"Type and bell," replied the machine.
"And yet you say you haven't got them," I persisted.
"No, I haven't. The machine has got them, not I," was the
response. "I'm not the machine. I'm the man that's using
it--Jim--Jim Boswell. What good would a bell do me? I'm not a
cow or a bicycle. I'm the editor of the Stygian Gazette, and
I've come here to copy off my notes of what I see and hear,
and besides all this I do type-writing for various people in
Hades, and as this machine of yours seemed to be of no use to
you I thought I'd try it. But if you object, I'll go."
As I read these lines upon the paper I stood amazed and
delighted.
"Go!" I cried, as the full value of his patronage of my machine
dawned upon me, for I could sell his copy and he would be none
the worse off, for, as I understand the copyright laws, they
are not designed to benefit authors, but for the protection
of type-setters. "Why, my dear fellow, it would break my
heart if, having found my machine to your taste, you should
ever think of using another. I'll lend you my bicycle, too,
if you'd like it--in fact, anything I have is at your command."
"Thank you very much," returned Boswell through the medium of
the keys, as usual. "I shall not need your bicycle, but this
machine is of great value to me. It has several very remarkable
qualities which I have never found in any other machine. For
instance, singular to relate, Mendelssohn and I were fooling
about here the other night, and when he saw this machine he
thought it was a spinet of some new pattern; so what does he do
but sit down and play me one of his songs without words on it,
and, by jove! when he got through, there was the theme of the
whole thing printed on a sheet of paper before him."
"You don't really mean to say--" I began.
"I'm telling you precisely what happened," said
Boswell. "Mendelssohn was tickled to death with it, and he
played every song without words that he ever wrote, and every
one of 'em was fitted with words which he said absolutely
conveyed the ideas he meant to bring out with the music. Then
I tried the machine, and discovered another curious thing about
it. It's intensely American. I had a story of Alexander Dumas'
about his Musketeers that he wanted translated from French into
American, which is the language we speak below, in preference
to German, French, Volapuk, or English. I thought I'd copy
off a few lines of the French original, and as true as I'm
sitting here before your eyes, where you can't see me, the
copy I got was a good, though rather free, translation. Think
of it! That's an advanced machine for you!"
I looked at the machine wistfully. "I wish I could make it
work," I said; and I tried as before to tap off my name, and
got instead only a confused jumble of letters. It wouldn't
even pay me the compliment of transforming my name into that
of Shakespeare, as it had previously done.
It was thus that the magic qualities of the machine were made
known to me, and out of it the following papers have grown. I
have set them down without much editing or alteration, and now
submit them to your inspection, hoping that in perusing them
you will derive as much satisfaction and delight as I have in
being the possessor of so wonderful a machine, manipulated by
so interesting a person as "Jim--Jim Boswell"--as he always
calls himself--and others, who, as you will note, if perchance
you have the patience to read further, have upon occasions
honored my machine by using it.
I must add in behalf of my own reputation for honesty that
Mr. Boswell has given me all right, title, and interest in
these papers in this world as a return for my permission to
him to use my machine.
"What if they make a hit and bring in barrels of gold in
royalties," he said. "I can't take it back with me where I live,
so keep it yourself."
II
MR. BOSWELL IMPARTS SOME LATE NEWS OF HADES
Boswell was a little late in arriving the next night. He had
agreed to be on hand exactly at midnight, but it was after
one o'clock before the machine began to click and the bell
to ring. I had fallen asleep in the soft upholstered depths
of my armchair, feeling pretty thoroughly worn out by the
experiences of the night before, which, in spite of their
pleasant issue, were nevertheless somewhat disturbing to a
nervous organization like mine. Suddenly I waked, and with the
awakening there entered into my mind the notion that the whole
thing was merely a dream, and that in the end it would be the
better for me if I were to give up Aldus and other club dinners
with nightmare inducing menus. But I was soon convinced that the
real state of affairs was quite otherwise, and that everything
really had happened as I have already related it to you, for
I had hardly gotten my eyes free from what my poetic son calls
"the seeds of sleep" when I heard the type-writer tap forth:
"Hello, old man!"
Incidentally let me say that this had become another interesting
feature of the machine. Since my first interview with Boswell
the taps seemed to speak, and if some one were sitting before
it and writing a line the mere differentiation of sounds of the
various keys would convey to the mind the ideas conveyed to it
by the printed words. So, as I say, my ears were greeted with
a clicking "Hello, old man!" followed immediately by the bell.
"You are late," said I, looking at my watch.
"I know it," was the response. "But I can't help it. During the
campaign I am kept so infernally busy I hardly know where I am."
"Campaign, eh?" I put in. "Do you have campaigns in Hades?"
"Yes," replied Boswell, "and we are having a--well, to be
polite, a regular Gehenna of a time. Things have changed
much in Hades latterly. There has been a great growth in the
democratic spirit below, and his Majesty is having a deuce
of a time running his kingdom. Washington and Cromwell and
Caesar have had the nerve to demand a constitution from the
venerable Nicholas--"
"From whom?" I queried, perplexed somewhat, for I was not yet
fully awake.
"Old Nick," replied Boswell; "and I can tell you there's a
pretty fight on between the supporters of the administration
and the opposition. Secure in his power, the Grand Master of
Hades has been somewhat arbitrary, and he has made the mistake
of doing some of his subjects a little too brown. Take the
case of Bonaparte, for instance: the government has ruled
that he was personally responsible for all the wars of Europe
from 1800 up to Waterloo, and it was proposed to hang him
once for every man killed on either side throughout that
period. Bonaparte naturally resisted. He said he had a good
neck, which he did not object to have broken three or four
times, because he admitted he deserved it; but when it came to
hanging him five or six million times, once a month, for, say,
five million months, or twelve times a year for 415,000 years,
he didn't like it, and wouldn't stand it, and wanted to submit
the question to arbitration.
"Nicholas observed that the word arbitration was not in his
especially expurgated dictionary, whereupon Bonaparte remarked
that he wasn't responsible for that; that he thought it a
good word and worthy of incorporation in any dictionary and
in all vocabularies.
"'I don't care what you think,' retorted his Majesty. 'It's
what I don't think that goes;' and he commanded his imps
to prepare the gallows on the third Thursday of each month
for Bonaparte's expiation; ordered his secretary to send
Bonaparte a type-written notice that his presence on each
occasion was expected, and gave orders to the police to see
that he was there willy-nilly. Naturally Bonaparte resisted,
and appealed to the courts. Blackstone sustained his appeal,
and Nicholas overruled him. The first Thursday came, and the
police went for the Emperor, but he was surrounded by a good
half of the men who had fought under him, and the minions
of the law could do nothing against them. In consequence,
Bonaparte's brother, Joseph, a quiet, inoffensive citizen,
was dragged from his home and hanged in his place, Nicholas
contending that when a soldier could not, or would not, serve,
the government had a right to expect a substitute. Well,"
said Boswell, at this point, "that set all Hades on fire. We
were divided as to Bonaparte's deserts, but the hanging of
other people as substitutes was too much. We didn't know who'd
be substituted next. The English backed up Blackstone, of
course. The French army backed up Bonaparte. The inoffensive
citizens were aroused in behalf of Joseph, for they saw at
once whither they were drifting if the substitute idea was
carried out to its logical conclusion; and in half an hour
the administration was on the defensive, which, as you know,
is a very, very, very bad thing for an administration."
"It is, if it desires to be returned to office," said I.
"It is anyhow," replied Boswell through the medium of the keys.
"It's in exactly the same position as that of a humorist who
has to print explanatory diagrams with all of his jokes. The
administration papers were hot over the situation. The king
can do no wrong idea was worked for all it was worth, but
beyond this they drew pathetic pictures of the result of all
these deplorable tendencies. What was Hades for, they asked,
if a man, after leading a life of crime in the other world,
was not to receive his punishment there? The attitude of
the opposition was a radical and vicious blow at the vital
principles of the sphere itself. The opposition papers coolly
and calmly took the position that the vital principles of Hades
were all right; that it was the extreme view as to the power
of the Emperor taken by that person himself that wouldn't go in
these democratic days. Punishment for Bonaparte was the correct
thing, and Bonaparte expected some, but was not grasping enough
to want it all. They added that recent fully settled ideas as
to a humane application of the laws required the bunching of
the indictments or the selection of one and a fair trial based
upon that, and that anyhow, under no circumstances, should
a wholly innocent person be made to suffer for the crimes of
another. These journals were suppressed, but the next day a
set of new papers were started to promulgate the same theories
as to individual rights. The province of Cimmeria declared
itself independent of the throne, and set up in the business
of government for itself. Gehenna declared for the Emperor,
but insisted upon home rule for cities of its own class,
and finally, as I informed you at the beginning, Washington,
Cromwell, and Caesar went in person to Apollyon and demanded
a constitution. That was the day before yesterday, and just
what will come of it we don't as yet know, because Washington
and Cromwell and Caesar have not been seen since, but we have
great fears for them, because seventeen car-loads of vitriol
and a thousand extra tons of coal were ordered by the Lord
High Steward of the palace to be delivered to the Minister of
Justice last night."
"Quite a complication," said I. "The Americanization of Hades
has begun at last. How does society regard the affair?"
"Variously," observed Boswell. "Society hates the government as
much as anybody, and really believes in curtailing the Emperor's
powers, but, on the other hand, it desires to maintain all of
its own aristocratic privileges. The main trouble in Hades at
present is the gradual disintegration of society; that is to
say, its former component parts are beginning to differentiate
themselves the one from the other."
"Like capital and labor here?" I queried.
"In a sense, yes--possibly more like your Colonial Dames, and
Daughters of the Revolution. For instance, great organizations
are in process of formation--people are beginning to flock
together for purposes of protection. Charles the First and
Henry the Eighth and Louis the Fourteenth have established Ye
Ancient and Honorable Order of Kings, to which only those who
have actually worn crowns shall be eligible. The painters have
gotten together with a Society of Fine Arts, the sculptors have
formed a Society of Chisellers, and all the authors from Homer
down to myself have got up an Authors' Club where we have a
lovely time talking about ourselves, no man to be eligible
who hasn't written something that has lasted a hundred
years. Perhaps, if you are thinking of coming over soon,
you'll let me put you on our waiting-list?"
I smiled at his seeming inconsistency and let myself into
his snare.
"I haven't written anything that has lasted a hundred years
yet," said I.
"Oh, yes, I think you have," replied Boswell, and the machine
seemed to laugh as he wrote out his answer. "I saw a joke of
yours the other day that's two hundred centuries old. Diogenes
showed it to me and said that it was a great favorite with
his grandfather, who had inherited it from one of his remote
ancestors."
A hot retort was on my lips, but I had no wish to offend my
guest, so I smiled and observed that I had frequently indulged
in unconscious plagiarism of that sort.
"I should imagine," I hastened to add, "that to men like Charles
the First this uncertainty as to the safety of Cromwell would
be great joy."
"I hardly know," returned Boswell. "That very question has been
discussed among us. Charles made a great outward show of grief
when he heard of the coal being delivered at the office of the
Minister of Justice, and we all thought him quite magnanimous,
but it leaked out, just before I left to come here, that he
sent his private secretary to the palace with a Panama hat and
a palm-leaf fan for Cromwell, with his congratulations.
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