Books: The Enchanted Typewriter
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John Kendrick Bangs >> The Enchanted Typewriter
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LOCALITY
Whither do we drift,
Insensate souls, whose every breath
Foretells the doom of nothingness?
Yet onward, upward let it be
Through all the myriad circles
Of the ensuing years--
And then, pray what?
Alas! 'tis all, and never shall be stated.
Atoms, yet atomless we drift,
But whitherward?
I had intended this for one of our leading magazines, but it
seemed so to lack the mystical quality, which is essential
to a successful magazine poem in our sphere, that I deemed it
best to try it on Boswell.
VI
THE BOSWELL TOURS: PERSONALLY CONDUCTED
It was and will no doubt be considered, even by those who
are not too friendly towards myself, a daring idea, and it
was all my own. One night, several weeks after the interview
with Boswell just narrated, the idea came to me simultaneously
with the first tapping of the keys for the evening upon the
Enchanted Type-Writer. It was Boswell's touch that summoned
me from my divan. My family were on the eve of departure for
a month's rest from care and play in the mountains, and I was
looking forward to a period of very great loneliness. But as
Boswell materialized and began his work upon the machine, the
great idea flashed across my mind, and I resolved to "play it"
for all it was worth.
"Jim," said I, as I approached the vacant chair in which he
sat--for by this time the great biographer and I had got upon
terms of familiarity--"Jim," said I, "I've got a very gloomy
prospect ahead of me."
"Well, why not?" he tapped off. "Where do you expect to have
your gloomy prospects? They can't very well be behind you."
"Humph!" said I. "You are facetious this evening."
"Not at all," he replied. "I have been spending the day with
my old-time boss, Samuel Johnson, and I am so saturated with
purism that I hardly know where I am. From the Johnsonian
point of view you have expressed yourself ill--"
"Well, I am ill," I retorted. "I don't know how far you are
acquainted with home life, but I do know that there is no
greater homesickness in the world than that of the man who is
sick of home."
"I am not an imitator," said Boswell, "but I must imitate you
to the extent of saying humph! I quote you, and, doing so,
I honor you. But really, I never thought you could be sick
of home, as you put it--you who are so happy at home and who
so wildly hate being away from home."
"I'm not surprised at that, my dear Boswell," said I. "But
you are, of course, familiar with the phrase 'Stone walls do
not a prison make?'"
"I've heard it," said Boswell.
"Well, there's another equally valid phrase which I have not
yet heard expressed by another, and it is this: 'Stone walls
do not a home make.'"
"It isn't very musical, is it?" said he.
"Not very," I answered, "but we don't all live magazine lives,
do we? We have occasionally a sentiment, a feeling, out of
which we do not try 'to make copy.' It is undoubtedly a truth
which I have not yet seen voiced by any modern poet of my
acquaintance, not even by the dead-baby poets, that home is
not always preferable to some other things. At any rate, it is
my feeling, and is shortly to represent my condition. My home,
you know. It has its walls and its pictures, and its thousand
and one comforts, and its associations, but when my wife and
my children are away, and the four walls do not re-echo the
voices of the children, and my library lacks the presence of
madame, it ceases truly to be home, and if I've got to stay
here during the month of August alone I must have diversion,
else I shall find myself as badly off as the butterfly man,
to whom a vaudeville exhibition is the greatest joy in life."
"I think you are queer," said Boswell.
"Well, I am not," said I. "However low we may set the standard
of man, Mr. B."--and I called him Mr. B. instead of Jim, because
I wished to be severe and yet retain the basis of familiarity--
"however low we may set the standard of man, I think man as a
rule prefers his home to the most seductive roof-garden life
in existence."
"Wherefore?" said he, coldly.
"Wherefore my home about to become unattractive through
the absence of my boys and their mother, I shall need some
extraordinary diversion to accomplish my happiness. Now if you
can come here, why can't others? Suppose to-night you dash off
on the machine a lot of invitations to the pleasantest people
in Hades to come up here with you and have an evening on earth,
which isn't all bad."
"It's a scheme and a half," said Boswell, with more enthusiasm
than I had expected. "I'll do it, only instead of trying to
get these people to make a pilgrimage to your shrine, which
I think they would decline to do--Shakespeare, for instance,
wouldn't give a tuppence to inspect your birthplace as you have
inspected his--I'll institute a series of 'Boswell's Personally
Conducted Pleasure Parties,' and make you my agent here. That,
you see, will naturally make your home our headquarters, and
I think the scheme would work a charm, because there are a
great many well-known Stygians who are curious to revisit the
scenes of their earlier state, but who are timid about coming
on their own responsibility."
"I see," said I. "Immortals are but mortal after all, with
all the timidity and weaknesses of mortality. But I agree to
the proposition, and if you wish it I'll prepare to give them
a rousing old time."
"And be sure to show them something characteristic," said
Boswell.
"I will," I replied; "I may even get up a trolley-party
for them."
"I don't know what a trolley-party is, but it sounds well," said
Boswell, "and I'll advertise the enterprise at once. 'Boswell's
Personally Conducted Pleasure Parties. First Series, No. 1.
Trolleying Through Hoboken. For the Round Trip, Four Dollars.
Supper and All Expenses Included. No Tips. Extra Lady's Ticket,
One Dollar.'"
"Hold on!" I cried. "That can't be. These affairs will really
have to be stag-parties--with my wife away, you know."
"Not if we secure a suitable chaperon," said Boswell.
"Anyhow!" said I, with great positiveness. "You don't suppose
that in the absence of my family I'm going to have my neighbors
see me cavorting about the country on a trolley-car full of
queens and duchesses and other females of all ages? Not a bit
of it, my dear James. I'm not a strictly conventional person,
but there are some points between which I draw lines. I've
got to live on this earth for a little while yet, and until
I leave it I must be guided more or less in what I do by what
the world approves or disapproves."
"Very well," Boswell answered. "I suppose you are right,
but in the autumn, when your family has returned--"
"We can discuss the matter again," said I, resolved to put
off the question for as long a time as I could, for I candidly
confess that I had no wish to make myself responsible for the
welfare of such Stygian ladies as might avail themselves of
the opportunity to go off on one of Boswell's tours. "Show
the value and beauties of your plan to the influential men
of Hades first, my dear Boswell," I added, "and then if they
choose they can come again and bring their wives with them on
their own responsibility."
"I fancy that is the best plan, but we ought to have some
variety in these tours," he replied. "A trolley-party, however
successful, would not make a great season for an entertainment
bureau, would it?"
"No, indeed," said I. "You are perfectly right about that. What
you want is one function a week during the summer season. Open
with the trolley-party as No. 1 of your first series. Follow
this with 'An Evening of Vaudeville: The Grand Tour of the
Roof Gardens.' After that have a 'Sunday at the Sea-side--Surf
Bathing, Summer Girls and Sand.' That would make a mighty
attractive line for your advertisement."
"Magnificent. I don't see why you don't give up poetry and
magazine work and get a position as poster-writer for a circus.
You are only a mediocre magazinist, but in the poster business
you'd be a genius."
This was tapped off with such manifest sincerity that I could
not take offence, so I thanked him and resumed.
"The grand finale of your first series might be 'A Tandem
Scorch: A Century Run on a Bicycle Built for Two Hundred!'"
"Magnificent!" cried Boswell, with such enthusiasm that
I feared he would smash the machine. "I'll devote a whole
page of my Sunday issue to the prospectus--but, to return
to the woman question, we ought really to have something to
announce for them. Hades hath no fury like a woman scorned,
and I can't afford to scorn the sex. You needn't have anything
to do with them if you don't want to--only tell me something
I can announce, and I'll make Henry the Eighth solid again by
putting that branch of the enterprise in his wives' hands. In
that way I'll kill two birds with one stone."
"That's all very well, Boswell, but I'm afraid I can't,"
said I. "It's hard enough to know how to please a mortal
woman without attempting to get up a series of picnics for the
rather miscellaneous assortment of ladies who form your social
structure below. All men are alike, and man's pleasures in all
times have been generally the same, but every woman is unique. I
never knew two who were alike, and if it's all the same to you
I'd rather you left me out of your ladies' tours altogether. Of
course I know that even the Queen of Sheba would enjoy a visit
to a Monday sale at one of our big department stores, and I
am quite as well aware that nine out of ten women in Hades or
out of it would enjoy the millinery exhibition at the opera
matinee--and if these two ideas impress you at all you are
welcome to them--but beyond this I have nothing to suggest."
"Well, I'm sure those two ideas are worth a great deal,"
returned Boswell, making a note of them; "I shall announce
four trips to Monday sales--"
"Call 'em 'To Bargaindale and Back: The Great Marked-down Tour,'
and be sure you add, 'For Able-bodied Women Only. No Tickets
Issued Except on Recommendation of your Family Physician.' This
is especially important, for next to a war or a football match
there's nothing that I know of that is quite so dangerous to
the participants as a bargain day."
"I'll bear what you say in mind," quoth Boswell, and he made
a note of my injunction. "And immediately upon my return to
Hades I will request an audience with Henry's queens, and
ask them to devise a number of other tours likely to prove
profitable and popular."
Shortly after my visitor departed and I retired. The next day my
family deserted me and went to the mountains, and all my fears
as to the inordinate sense of loneliness which was to be my lot
were realized. Even Boswell neglected me apparently for a week.
I went to my desk daily and returned at night hoping that
my type-writer would bring forth something of an interesting
nature, but naught other than disappointment awaited me. For
a whole blessed week I was thrown back upon the society of my
neighbors for diversion. The type-writer gave no sign of being.
Little did I guess that Boswell was busy working up my scheme
in his Stygian home!
But it came to pass finally that I was roused up. Walking
one morning to my desk to find a bit of memoranda I needed, I
discovered a type-written slip marked, "No time for small talk.
Boswell's tours grand success. Trolley-party to-night. Ten
cars wanted. Jim."
It was a large order for a town like mine, where forty
thousand people have to get along with five cars--two open
ones for winter and two closed for summer, and one, which we
have never seen, which is kept for use in the repair-shop. I
was in despair. Ten car-loads of immortals coming to my house
for a trolley-party under such conditions! It was frightful! I
did the best I could, however.
I ordered one trolley-car to be ready at eight, and a large
variety of good things edible and drinkable, the latter to be
held subject to the demand-notes of our guests.
As may be imagined, I did little real work that day, and when
I returned home at night I was on tenter-hooks lest something
should go wrong; but fortunately Boswell himself came early
and relieved me of my worry--in fact, he was at the machine
when I entered the house.
"Well," he said, "have you the ten cars?"
"What do you take me for," said I, "a trolley-car trust? Of
course I haven't. There are only five cars in town, one of
which is kept in the repair-shop for effect. I've hired one."
"Humph!" he cried. "What will the kings do?"
"Kings!" I cried. "What kings?"
"I have nine kings and one car-load of common souls besides
for this affair," he explained. "Each king wants a special car."
"Kings be jiggered!" said I. "A trolley-party, my much beloved
James, is an essentially democratic institution, and private
cars are not de rigueur. If your kings choose to come, let
'em hang on by the straps."
"But I've charged 'em extra!" cried Boswell.
"That's all right," said I, "they receive extra. They have the
ride plus the straps, with the privilege of standing out on
the platform and ringing the gong if they want to. The great
thing about the trolley-party is that there's no private car
business about it."
"Well, I don't know," Boswell murmured, reflectively. "If
Charles the First and Louis Fourteenth don't kick about
being crowded in with all the rest, I can stand anything that
Frederick the Great or Nero might say; but those two fellows
are great sticklers for the royal prerogative."
"There isn't any such thing as royal prerogative on a
trolley-car," I retorted, "and if they don't like what they
get they can sit down in the waiting-room and wait until we
get back."
But Boswell's fears were not realized. Charles and Louis were
perfectly delighted with the trolley-party, and long before
we reached home the former had rung up the fare-register to
its full capacity, while the latter, a half-a-dozen times,
delightedly occupied himself in mastering the intricacies of the
overhead wire. The trolley-party was an undoubted success. The
same remains to be said of the vaudeville expedition of the
following week. The same guests and potentates attended this,
to the number of twenty, and the Boswell tours were accounted
a great enterprise, and bade fair to redeem the losses of the
eminent journalist incurred during Xanthippe's administration
of his affairs; but after the bicycle night I had to withdraw
from the combination to save my reputation. The fact upon
which I had not counted was that my neighbors began to think
me insane. I had failed to remember that none of these visiting
spirits was visible to us in this material world, and while my
fellow-townsmen were disposed to lay up my hiring of a special
trolley-car for my own private and particular use against
the eccentricity of genius, they marvelled greatly that I
should purchase twenty of the best seats at a vaudeville show
seemingly for my own exclusive use. When, besides this, they saw
me start off apparently alone on one tandem bicycle, followed
by twenty-eight other empty wheels, which they could not know
were manipulated by some of the most famous legs in the history
of the world, from Noah's down to those of Henry Fielding the
novelist, they began to regard me as something uncanny.
Nor can I blame them. It seems to me that if I saw one man
scorching along a road alone on a tandem bicycle chatting to an
empty front-seat, I should think him queer, but if following in
his wake I perceived twenty-eight other wheels, scorching up
hill and down dale without any visible motive power, I should
regard him as one who was in league with the devil himself.
Nevertheless, I judge from what Boswell has told me that I am
regarded in Hades as a great benefactor of the people there,
for having established a series of excursions from that world
into this, a service which has done much to convince the
Stygians that after all, if only by contrast, the life below
has its redeeming features.
VII
AN IMPORTANT DECISION
For some time after the organization of the Pleasure Tours,
the Enchanted Type-Writer appeared to be deserted. Night after
night I watched over it with great care lest I should lose
any item of interest that might come to me from below, but,
much to my sorrow, things in Hades appeared to be dull--so
dull that the machine was not called into requisition at all. I
little guessed what important matters were transpiring in that
wonderful country. Had I done so, I doubt I should have waited
so patiently, although my only method of getting there was
suicide, for which diversion I have very little liking. On the
twenty-fourth night of waiting, however, the welcome sound of
the bell dragged me forth from my comfortable couch, whither,
expecting nothing, I had retired early.
"Glad to hear your pleasant tinkle again," I said. "I've
missed you."
"I'm glad to get back," returned Boswell, for it was he who was
manipulating the keys. "I've been so infernally busy, however,
over the court news, that I haven't had a minute to spare."
"Court news, eh?" I said. "You are going to open up a society
column, are you?"
"Not I," he replied. "It's the other kind of a court. We've
been having some pretty hot litigation down in Hades since I
was here last. The city of Cimmeria has been suing the State
of Hades for ten years back dog-taxes."
"For what?" I cried.
"Unpaid dog-taxes for ten years," Boswell explained. "We have
just as much government below in our cities as you have, and
I will say for Hades that our cities are better run than yours."
"I suppose that is due to the fact that when a man gets to
Hades he immediately becomes a reformer," I suggested, with
a wink at the machine, which somehow or other did not seem to
appreciate the joke.
"Possibly," observed Boswell. "Whatever the reason, however,
the fact remains that Cimmeria is a well-governed city, and,
what is more, it isn't afraid to assert its rights even as
against old Apollyon himself."
"It's safe enough for a corporation," said I. "Much safer for a
corporation which has no soul, than for an individual who has.
You can't torture a city--"
"Oh, can't you!" laughed Boswell. "Humph. Apollyon can make it
as hot for a city as he can for an individual. It is evident
that you never heard of Sodom and Gomorrah--which is surprising
to me, since your jokes about Lot's wife being too fresh and
getting salted down, would seem to indicate that you had heard
something about the punishment those cities underwent."
"You are right, Bozzy," I said. "I had forgotten. But tell me
about the dog-tax. Does the State own a dog?"
"Does it?" roared Boswell. "Why, my dear fellow, where were
you brought up and educated. Does the State own a dog!"
"That's what I asked you," I put in, meekly. "I may be very
ignorant, unless you mean the kind that we have in our
legislatures, called the watch-dogs of the treasury, or,
perhaps, the dogs of war. But I never thought any city would
be crazy enough to make the government take out a license
for them."
"Never heard of a beast named Cerberus, I suppose?" said
Boswell.
"Yes, I have," I answered. "He guards the gates to the infernal
regions."
"Well--he's the bone of contention," said Boswell. "You see,
about ten years ago the people of Cimmeria got rather tired of
the condition of their streets. They were badly paved. They were
full of good intentions, but the citizens thought they ought
to have something more lasting, so they voted to appropriate
an enormous sum for asphalting. They didn't realize how sloppy
asphalt would become in that climate, but after the asphalt
was put down they found out, and a Beelzebub of a time of it
they had. Pegasus sprained his off hind leg by slipping on
it, Bucephalus got into it with all four feet and had to be
lifted out with a derrick, and every other fine horse we had
was more or less injured, and the damage suits against the
city were enormous. To remedy this, the asphalting was taken
up and a Nicholson wood pavement was put down. This was worse
than the other. It used to catch fire every other night, and,
finally, to protect their houses, the people rose up en masse
and ripped it all to pieces.
"This necessitated a third new pavement, of Belgian blocks, to
pay for which the already overburdened city of Cimmeria had to
issue bonds to an enormous amount, all of which necessitated
an increase of taxes. Naturally, one of the first taxes to
be imposed was a dog-tax, and it was that which led to this
lawsuit, which, I regret to say, the city has lost, although
Judge Blackstone's decision was eminently fair."
"Wouldn't the State pay?" I asked.
"Yes--on Cerberus as one dog," said Boswell. "The city claimed,
however, that Cerberus was more than that, and endeavored to
collect on three dogs--one license for each head. This the State
declined to pay, and out of this grew further complications
of a distressing nature. The city sent its dog-catchers up to
abscond with the dog, intending to cut off two of its heads,
and return the balance as being as much of the beast as the
State was entitled to maintain on a single license. It was an
unfortunate move, for when Cerberus himself took the situation
in, which he did at a glance, he nabbed the dog-catcher by the
coat-tails with one pair of jaws, grabbed hold of his collar
with another, and shook him as he would a rat, meanwhile chewing
up other portions of the unfortunate official with his third set
of teeth. The functionary was then carried home on a stretcher,
and subsequently sued the city for damages, which he recovered.
"Another man was sent out to lure the ferocious beast to
the pound with a lasso, but it worked no better than the
previous attempt. The lasso fell all right tight about one
of the animal's necks, but his other two heads immediately
set to work and gnawed the rope through, and then set off
after the dog-catcher, overtaking him at the very door of the
pound. This time he didn't do any biting, but lifting the
dog-catcher up with his various sets of teeth, fastened to
his collar, coat-tails, and feet respectively, carried him
yelling like a trooper to the end of the wharf and dropped
him into the Styx. The result of this was nervous prostration
for the dog-catcher, another suit for damages for the city,
and a great laugh for the State authorities. In fact," Boswell
added, confidentially, "I think perhaps the reason why the
Prime-minister hasn't got Apollyon to hang the whole city
government has been due to the fun they've got out of seeing
Cerberus and the city fighting it out together. There's no doubt
about it that he is a wonderful dog, and is quite capable of
taking care of himself."
"But the outcome of the case?" I asked, much interested.
"Defeat for the city," said Boswell. "Failing to enforce
its authority by means of its servants, the city undertook to
recover by due process of law. The dog-catchers were powerless;
the police declined to act on the advice of the commissioners,
since dog-catching was not within their province; and the fire
department averred that it was designed for the putting out of
fires and not for extinguishing fiery canines like Cerberus. The
dog, meanwhile, to show his contempt for the city, chewed
the license-tag off the neck upon which it had been placed,
and dropped it into a smelting-pot inside the gates of the
infernal regions that was reserved to bring political prisoners
to their senses, and, worse than all, made a perfect nuisance of
himself by barking all day and baying all night, rain or shine."
"Papers in a suit at law were then served on Mazarin and the
other members of Apollyon's council, the causes of complaint
were recited, and damages for ten years back taxes on two dogs,
plus the amounts recovered from the city by the two injured
dog-catchers, were demanded. The suit was put upon the calendar,
and Apollyon himself sat upon the bench with Judge Blackstone,
before whom the case was to be tried.
"On both sides the arguments were exceedingly strong. Coke
appeared for the city and Catiline for the State. After the
complaint was read, the attorney for the State put in his
answer, that the State's contention was that the ordinance had
been complied with, that Cerberus was only one dog, and that
the license had been paid; that the license having been paid,
the dog-catchers had no right to endeavor to abduct the animal,
and that having done so they did it at their own peril; that
the suit ought to be dismissed, but that for the fun of it
the State was perfectly willing to let it go on.
"In rebuttal the plaintiff claimed that Cerberus was three
dogs to all intents and purposes, and the first dog-catcher
was called to testify. After giving his name and address he was
asked a few questions of minor importance, and then Coke asked:
"'Are you familiar with dogs?'
"'Moderately,' was the answer. 'I never got quite so intimate
with one as I did with him.'
"'With whom?' asked Coke.
"'Cerberus,' replied the witness.
"'Do you consider him to be one dog, two dogs or three dogs?'
"'I object!' cried Catiline, springing to his feet. 'The
question is a leading one.'
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