Books: The Enchanted Typewriter
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John Kendrick Bangs >> The Enchanted Typewriter
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"That seems to savor somewhat of sarcasm."
"Oh, ultimately Hades is bound to be a republic," replied
Boswell. "There are too many clever and ambitious politicians
among us for the place to go along as a despotism much
longer. If the place were filled up with poets and society
people, and things like that, it might go on as an autocracy
forever, but you see it isn't. To men of the caliber of
Alexander the Great and Bonaparte and Caesar, and a thousand
other warriors who never were used to taking orders from
anybody, but were themselves headquarters, the despotic sway
of Apollyon is intolerable, and he hasn't made any effort
to conciliate any of them. If he had appointed Bonaparte
commander-in-chief of his army and made a friend of him, instead
of ordering him to be hanged every month for 415,000 years,
or put Caesar in as Secretary of State, instead of having him
roasted three times a month for seventy or eighty centuries, he
would have strengthened his hold. As it is, he has ignored all
these people officially, treats them like criminals personally;
makes friends with Mazarin and Powhatan, awards the office of
Tax Assessor to Dick Turpin, and makes old Falstaff commander of
his Imperial Guard. And just because poor Ben Jonson scribbled
off a rhyme for my paper, The Gazette--a rhyme running:
Mazarin And Powhatan,
Turpin and Falstaff,
Form, you bet, A cabinet
To make a donkey laugh.
Mazarin And Powhatan
Run Apollyon's state.
The Dick and Jacks Collect the tax--
The people pay the freight.
--just because Jonson wrote that and I published it, my paper
was confiscated, Jonson was boiled in oil for ten weeks, and I
was seized and thrown into a dungeon where a lot of savages from
the South Sea Islands tattooed the darned old jingle between
my shoulder blades in green letters, and not satisfied with
this barbaric act, right under the jingle they added the line,
in red letters, 'This edition strictly limited to one copy, for
private circulation only,' and they every one of 'em, Apollyon,
Mazarin, and the rest, signed the guarantee personally with
red-hot pens dipped in sulphuric acid. It makes a valuable
collection of autographs, no doubt, but I prefer my back as
nature made it. Talk about enlightened government under a man
who'll permit things like that to be done!"
I ought not to have done it, but I couldn't help smiling.
"I must say," I observed, apologetically, "that the treatment
was barbarous, but really I do think it showed a sense of
humor on the part of the government."
"No doubt," replied Boswell, with a sigh; "but when the
joke is on me I don't enjoy it very much. I'm only human,
and should prefer to observe that the government had some
sense of justice."
The apparently empty chair before the machine gave a slight
hitch forward, and the type-writer began to tap again.
"You'll have to excuse me now," observed Boswell through the
usual medium. "I have work to do, and if you'll go to bed like
a good fellow, while I copy off the minutes of the last meeting
of the Authors' Club, I'll see that you don't lose anything by
it. After I get the minutes done I have an interesting story for
my Sunday paper from the advance sheets of Munchausen's Further
Recollections, which I shall take great pleasure in leaving for
you when I depart. If you will take the bundle of manuscript
I leave with you and boil it in alcohol for ten minutes, you
will be able to read it, and, no doubt, if you copy it off,
sell it for a goodly sum. It is guaranteed absolutely genuine."
"Very well," said I, rising, "I'll go; but I should think you
would put in most of your time whacking at the government
editorially, instead of going in for minutes and abstract
stories of adventure."
"You do, eh?" said Boswell. "Well, if you were in my place you'd
change your mind. After my unexpected endorsement by the Emperor
and his cabinet, I've decided to keep out of politics for a
little while. I can stand having a poem tattooed on my back,
but if it came to having a three-column editorial expressing my
emotions etched alongside of my spine, I'm afraid I'd disappear
into thin air."
So I left him at work and retired. The next morning I found
the promised bundle of manuscripts, and, after boiling the
pages as instructed, discovered the following tale.
III
FROM ADVANCE SHEETS OF BARON MUNCHAUSEN'S FURTHER RECOLLECTIONS
It is with some very considerable hesitation that I come to this
portion of my personal recollections, and yet I feel that I owe
it to my fellow-citizens in this delightful Stygian country,
where we are all enjoying our well-earned rest, to lay before
them the exact truth concerning certain incidents which have now
passed into history, and for participation in which a number
of familiar figures are improperly gaining all the credit, or
discredit, as the case may be. It is not a pleasant task to
expose an impostor; much less is it agreeable to expose four
impostors; but to one who from the earliest times--and when I
say earliest times I speak advisedly, as you will see as you
read on--to one, I say, who from the earliest times has been
actuated by no other motive than the promulgation of truth, the
task of exposing fraud becomes a duty which cannot be ignored.
Therefore, with regret I set down this chapter of my memoirs,
regardless of its consequences to certain figures which have
been of no inconsiderable importance in our community for many
years--figures which in my own favorite club, the Associated
Shades, have been most welcome, but which, as I and they alone
know, have been nothing more than impostures.
In previous volumes I have confined my attention to my memoirs
as Baron Munchausen--but, dear reader, there are others. I WAS
NOT ALWAYS BARON MUNCHAUSEN; I HAVE BEEN OTHERS! I am not aware
that it has fallen to the lot of any but myself in the whole
span of universal existence to live more than one life upon
that curious, compact little ball of land and water called the
Earth, but, in any event, to me has fallen that privilege or
distinction, or whatever it may be, and upon the record made by
me in four separate existences, placed centuries apart, four
residents of this sphere are basing their claims to notice,
securing election to our clubs, and even venturing so far at
times as to make themselves personally obnoxious to me, who
with a word could expose their wicked deceit in all its naked
villainy to an astounded community. And in taking this course
they have gone too far. There is a limit beyond which no man
shall dare go with me. Satisfied with the ultimate embodiment
of my virtues in the Baron Munchausen, I have been disposed to
allow the impostors to pursue their deception in peace so long
as they otherwise behave themselves, but when Adam chooses
to allude to my writings as frothy lies, when Jonah attacks
my right as a literary person to tell tales of leviathans,
when Noah states that my ignorance in yachting matters is
colossal, and when William Shakespeare publicly brands me as
a person unworthy of belief who should be expelled from the
Associated Shades, then do I consider it time to speak out
and expose four of the greatest frauds that have ever been
inflicted upon a long-suffering public.
To begin at the beginning then, let me state that my first
recollection dates back to a beautiful summer morning, when
in a lovely garden I opened my eyes and became conscious of
two very material facts: first, a charming woman arranging
her hair in the mirror-like waters of a silver lake directly
before me; and, second, a poignant pain in my side, as
though I had been operated upon for appendicitis, but which
in reality resulted from the loss of a rib which had in turn
evoluted into the charming and very human being I now saw
before me. That woman was Eve; that mirror-like lake was set
in the midst of the Garden of Eden; I was Adam, and not this
watery-eyed antediluvian calling himself by my name, who is a
familiar figure in the Anthropological Society, an authority
on evolution, and a blot upon civilization.
I have little to say about this first existence of mine. It
was full of delights. Speech not having been invented, Eve
was an attractive companion to a man burdened as I was with
responsibilities, and until our children were born we went
our way in happiness and silence. It is not in the nature of
things, however, that children should not wish to talk, and
it was through the irrepressible efforts of Cain and Abel to
be heard as well as seen that first called the attention of
Eve and myself to the desirability of expressing our thoughts
in words rather than by masonic signs.
I shall not burden my readers with further recollections of
this period. It was excessively primitive, of necessity,
but before leaving it I must ask the reader to put one or two
questions to himself in this matter.
1st. How is it that this bearded patriarch, who now poses as
the only original Adam, has never been able, with any degree
of positiveness, to answer the question as to whether or not
he was provided with a caudal appendage--a question which I am
prepared to answer definitely, at any moment, if called upon
by the proper authorities, and, if need be, to produce not
only the tail itself, but the fierce and untamed pterodactyl
that bit it off upon that unfortunate autumn afternoon when
he and I had our first and last conflict.
2d. Why is it that when describing a period concerning which
he is supposed to know all, he seems to have given voice to
sentiments in phrases which would have delighted Sheridan and
shed added glory upon the eloquence of Webster, AT A TIME WHEN,
AS I HAVE ALREADY SHOWN, THERE WAS NO SUCH THING AS SPEECH?
Upon these two points alone I rest my case against Adam: the
first is the reticence of guilt--he doesn't know, and he knows
he doesn't know; the second is a deliberate and offensive
prevarication, which shows again that he doesn't know, and
assumes that we are all equally ignorant.
So much for Adam. Now for the cheap and year-ridden person
who has taken unto himself my second personality, Noah; and
that other strange combination of woe and wickedness, Jonah,
who has chosen to pre-empt my third. I shall deal with both
at one and the same time, for, taken separately, they are not
worthy of notice.
Noah asserts that I know nothing of yachting. I will accept
the charge with the qualification that I know a great sight
more about Arking than he does; and as for Jonah, I can give
Jonah points on whaling, and I hereby challenge them both to a
Memoir Match for $2000 a side, in gold, to see which can give
to the world the most interesting reminiscences concerning the
cruises of the two craft in question, the Ark and the Whale,
upon neither of which did either of these two anachronisms
ever set foot, and of both of which I, in my two respective
existences, was commander-in-chief. The fact is that, as in
the case of the fictitious Adam, these two impersonators are
frauds. The man now masquerading as Noah was my hired man in
the latter part of the antediluvian period; was discharged
three years before the flood; was left on shore at the hour of
departure, and when last seen by me was sitting on the top of
an apple-tree, begging to do two men's work for nothing if we'd
only let him out of the wet. If he will at any time submit to
a cross-examination at my hands as to the principal events of
that memorable voyage, I will show to any fair-minded judge
how impossible is his claim that he was in command, or even
afloat, after the first week. I have hitherto kept silent in
this matter, in spite of many and repeated outrageous flings,
for the sake of his--or rather my--family, who have been
deceived, as have all the rest of us, barring, of course,
myself. References to portraits of leading citizens of that
period will easily show how this can be. We were all alike as
two peas in the olden days, and at a time when men reached to
an advanced age which is not known now, it frequently became
almost impossible to distinguish one old man from another.
I will say, finally, in regard to this person Noah that if
he can give to the public a statement telling the essential
differences between a pterodactyl and a double spondee that
will not prove utterly absurd to an educated person, I will
withdraw my accusation and resign from the club. BUT I KNOW
WELL HE CANNOT DO IT, and he does too, and that is about the
extent of his knowledge.
Now as to Jonah. I really dislike very much to tread upon this
worthy's toes, and I should not do it had he not chosen to clap
an injunction upon a volume of Tales of the Whales, which I
wrote for children last summer, claiming that I was infringing
upon his copyright, and feeling that I as a self-respecting
man would never claim the discredit of having myself been
the person he claims to have been. I will candidly confess
that I am not proud of my achievements as Jonah. I was a very
oily person even before I embarked upon the seas as Lord High
Admiral of H.M.S. Leviathan. I was not a pleasant person to
know. If I spent the night with a friend, his roof would fall
in or his house would burn down. If I bet on a horse, he would
lead up to the home-stretch and fall down dead an inch from the
finish. If I went into a stock speculation, I was invariably
caught on a rising or a falling market. In my youth I spoiled
every yachting-party I went on by attracting a gale. When I
came out the moon went behind a cloud, and people who began
by endorsing my paper ended up in the poor-house. Commerce
wouldn't have me. Boards of Trade everywhere repudiated me,
and I gradually sank into that state of despair which finds no
solace anywhere but on the sea or in politics, and as politics
was then unknown I went to sea. The result is known to the
world. I was cast overboard, ingulfed by a whale, which,
in his defence let me be generous enough to say, swallowed
me inadvertently and with the usual result. I came back, and
life went on. Finally I came here, and when it got to the ears
of the authorities that I was in Hades, they sent me back for
the fourth time to earth in the person of William Shakespeare.
That is the whole of the Jonah story. It is a sad story, and I
regret it; and I am sorry for the impostor when I reflect that
the character he has assumed possesses attractions for him. His
real life must have been a fearful thing if he is happy in his
impersonation, and for his punishment let us leave him where he
is. Having told the truth, I have done my duty. I cheerfully
resign my claim to the personality he claims--I relinquish
from this time on all right, title, and interest in the name;
but if he ever dares to interfere with me again in the use of
my personal recollections concerning the inside of whales I
shall hale him before the authorities.
And now, finally, I come to Shakespeare, whom I have kept
for the last, not because he was the last chronologically,
but because I like to work up to a climax.
Previous to my existence as Baron Munchausen I lived for a term
of years on earth as William Shakespeare, and what I have to
say now is more in the line of confession than otherwise.
In my boyhood I was wild and I poached. If I were not afraid
of having it set down as a joke, I should say that I poached
everything from eggs to deer. I was not a great joy to my
parents. There was no deviltry in Stratford in which I did not
take a leading part, and finally, for the good of Warwickshire,
I was sent to London, where a person of my talents was more
likely to find congenial and appreciative surroundings. A glance
at such of my autographs as are now extant will demonstrate
the fact that I never learned to write; a glance at the first
folios of the plays attributed to me will likewise show that
I never learned to spell; and yet I walked into London with
one of the most exquisite poems in the English language in my
pocket. I am still filled with merriment over it. How was it,
the critics of the years since have asked--how was it that
this untutored little savage from leafy Warwickshire, with no
training and little education, came into London with "Venus
and Adonis" in manuscript in his pocket? It is quite evident
that the critic fraternity have no Sherlock Holmes in their
midst. It would not take much of an eye, a true detective's eye,
to see the milk in that cocoanut, for it is but a simple tale
after all. The way of it was this: On my way from Stratford to
London I walked through Coventry, and I remained in Coventry
overnight. I was ill-clad and hungry, and, having no money
with which to pay for my supper, I went to the Royal Arms Hotel
and offered my services as porter for the night, having noted
that a rich cavalcade from London, en route to Kenilworth, had
arrived unexpectedly at the Royal Arms. Taken by surprise,
and, therefore, unprepared to accommodate so many guests,
the landlord was glad to avail himself of my services, and
I was assigned to the position of boots. Among others whom I
served was Walter Raleigh, who, noting my ragged condition and
hearing what a roisterer and roustabout I had been, immediately
took pity upon me, and gave me a plum-colored court-suit with
which he was through, and which I accepted, put upon my back,
and next day wore off to London. It was in the pocket of this
that I found the poem of "Venus and Adonis." That poem, to keep
myself from starving, I published when I reached London, sending
a complimentary copy of course to my benefactor. When Raleigh
saw it he was naturally surprised but gratified, and on his
return to London he sought me out, and suggested the publication
of his sonnets. I was the first man he'd met, he said, who
was willing to publish his stuff on his own responsibility. I
immediately put out some of the sonnets, and in time was making
a comfortable living, publishing the anonymous works of most of
the young bucks about town, who paid well for my imprint. That
the public chose to think the works were mine was none of my
fault. I never claimed them, and the line on the title-page,
"By William Shakespeare," had reference to the publisher only,
and not, as many have chosen to believe, to the author. Thus
were published Lord Bacon's "Hamlet," Raleigh's poems, several
plays of Messrs. Beaumont and Fletcher--who were themselves
among the cleverest adapters of the times--and the rest of
that glorious monument to human credulity and memorial to
an impossible, wholly apocryphal genius, known as the works
of William Shakespeare. The extent of my writing during this
incarnation was ten autographs for collectors, and one attempt
at a comic opera called "A Midsummer's Nightmare," which was
never produced, because no one would write the music for it,
and which was ultimately destroyed with three of my quatrains
and all of Bacon's evidence against my authorship of "Hamlet,"
in the fire at the Globe Theatre in the year 1613.
These, then, dear reader, are the revelations which I have
to make. In my next incarnation I was the man I am now known
to be, Baron Munchausen. As I have said, I make the exposure
with regret, but the arrogance of these impudent impersonators
of my various personalities has grown too great to be longer
borne. I lay the simple story of their villany before you for
what it is worth. I have done my duty. If after this exposure
the public of Hades choose to receive them in their homes and
at their clubs, and as guests at their functions, they will
do it with a full knowledge of their duplicity.
In conclusion, fearing lest there be some doubters among the
readers of this paper, I have allowed my friend, the editor
of this esteemed journal, which is to publish this story
exclusively on Sunday next, free access to my archives, and
he has selected as exhibits of evidence, to which I earnestly
call your attention, the originals of the cuts which illustrate
this chapter--viz:
I. A full-length portrait of Eve as she appeared at our first
meeting.
II. Portraits of Cain and Abel at the ages of two, five,
and seven.
III. The original plans and specifications of the Ark.
IV. Facsimile of her commission.
V. Portrait-sketch of myself and the false Noah, made at the
time, and showing how difficult it would have been for any
member of my family, save myself, to tell us apart.
VI. A cathode-ray photograph of the whale, showing myself,
the original Jonah, seated inside.
VII. Facsimiles of the Shakespeare autographs, proving that
he knew neither how to write nor to spell, and so of course
proving effectually that I was not the author of his works.
It must be confessed that I read this article of Munchausen's
with amazement, and I awaited with much excited curiosity
the coming again of the manipulator of my type-writing
machine. Surely a revelation of this nature should create
a sensation in Hades, and I was anxious to learn how it was
received. Boswell did not materialize, however, and for five
nights I fairly raged with the fever of curiosity, but on
the sixth night the familiar tinkle of the bell announced an
arrival, and I flew to the machine and breathlessly cried:
"Hullo, old chap, how did it come out?"
The reply was as great a surprise as I have yet had, for it
was not Boswell, Jim Boswell, who answered my question.
IV
A CHAT WITH XANTHIPPE
The machine stopped its clicking the moment I spoke, and the
words, "Hullo, old chap!" were no sooner uttered than my face
grew red as a carnation pink. I felt as if I had committed
some dreadful faux-pas, and instead of gazing steadfastly into
the vacant chair, as I had been wont to do in my conversation
with Boswell, my eyes fell, as though the invisible occupant
of the chair were regarding me with a look of indignant scorn.
"I beg your pardon," I said.
"I should think you might," returned the types. "Hullo, old
chap!" is no way to address a woman you've never had the honor
of meeting, even if she is of the most advanced sort. No amount
of newness in a woman gives a man the right to be disrespectful
to her."
"I didn't know," I explained. "Really, miss, I--"
"Madame," interrupted the machine, "not miss. I am
a married woman, sir, which makes of your rudeness an
even more reprehensible act. It is well enough to affect a
good-fellowship with young unmarried females, but when you
attempt to be flippant with a married woman--"
"But I didn't know, I tell you," I appealed. "How should I? I
supposed it was Boswell I was talking to, and he and I have
become very good friends."
"Humph!" said the machine. "You're a chum of Boswell's, eh?"
"Well, not exactly a chum, but--" I began.
"But you go with him?" interrupted the lady.
"To an extent, yes," I confessed.
"And does he GO with you?" was the query. "If he does, permit
me to depart at once. I should not feel quite in my element
in a house where the editor of a Sunday newspaper was an
attractive guest. If you like that sort of thing, your tastes--"
"I do not, madame," I replied, quickly. "I prefer the opium
habit to the Sunday-newspaper habit, and if I thought Boswell
was merely a purveyor of what is known as Sunday literature,
which depends on the goodness of the day to offset its
shortcomings, I should forbid him the house."
A distinct sigh of relief emanated from the chair.
"Then I may remain," was the remark rapidly clicked off on
the machine.
"I am glad," said I. "And may I ask whom I have the honor
of addressing?"
"Certainly," was the immediate response. "My name is Socrates,
nee Xanthippe."
I instinctively cowered. Candidly, I was afraid. Never in my
life before had I met a woman whom I feared. Never in my life
have I wavered in the presence of the sex which cheers, but I
have always felt that while I could hold my own with Elizabeth,
withstand the wiles of Cleopatra, and manage the recalcitrant
Katherine even as did Petruchio, Xanthippe was another story
altogether, and I wished I had gone to the club. My first
impulse was to call up-stairs to my wife and have her come
down. She knows how to handle the new woman far better than I
do. She has never wanted to vote, and my collars are safe in
her hands. She has frequently observed that while she had many
things to be thankful for, her greatest blessing was that she
was born a woman and not a man, and the new women of her native
town never leave her presence without wondering in their own
minds whether or not they are mere humorous contributions of
the Almighty to a too serious world. I pulled myself together
as best I could, and feeling that my better-half would perhaps
decline the proffered invitation to meet with one of the most
illustrious of her sex, I decided to fight my own battle. So
I merely said:
"Really? How delightful! I have always felt that I should like
to meet you, and here is one of my devoutest wishes gratified."
I felt cheap after the remark, for Mrs. Socrates, nee Xanthippe,
covered five sheets of paper with laughter, with an occasional
bracketing of the word "derisively," such as we find in the
daily newspapers interspersed throughout the after-dinner
speeches of a candidate of another party. Finally, to my
relief, the oft-repeated "Ha-ha-ha!" ceased, and the line,
"I never should have guessed it," closed her immediate
contribution to our interchange of ideas.
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