LIBRARY THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA SANTA BARBARA PRESENTED BY GEORGE COBB UCSB LIBRARY MAVERICKS THE RECORDING SPOOK. MAVERICKS SHORT STORIES ROUNDED UP by PUCK'S AUTHORS illustrated by PUCK'S ARTISTS PUCK KEPPLER & SCHWARZMANN NEW YORK 1892 Copyright 1892 by KEPFLER & SCHWAKZMANN TO PUCK'S READERS CONTENTS Page A Modern Hans Sachs W. J. Henderson i Chesterfield's Postal-Cards to His Son Brander Matthews 13 Misther Handhrigan's Love Story Madeline S. Bridges 23 Old Jonesy Walter Learned 31 The Romance of a Spotted Man William Wallace Cook 43 Recollections of a Busy Life Williston Fisli 57 The Wight that Quailed Kate VV. Rider 71 Biddy's Dream George H. Jessop ^3 True Love's Triumph If. L. Wilson 91 Aunt Mary's Obituary James L. Ford 99 Internecine Comparison James S. Goodwin 109 A Drawn Battle Tudor Jetiks 117 The Magic City " Sidney" 127 Mr. Wilkenning's Hobby C. If. Augur 135 The Cashier and the Burglar Thomas Wharton 149 A Timely Hint Harry Romaine 161 A Brilliant Idea Flavcl S. Mines 171 The Man With the Black Crape Mask R. K. Miuiki/trick 181 The Recording Spook H. C. Bitniier 193 A MODERN HANS SACHS. A MODERN HANS SACHS. IT WAS NOT Frederick Treble's fault that he fell in love with Amalie Knecht. Providence, in its inscrutable wisdom, always makes a tenor in the image of man. Frederick was a tenor, and having been made according to the customary plans and specifications of Providence, he had eyes, ears and a heart. The girl was there ; he saw her. He could n't help seeing her unless he shut his eyes; and, of course, he never wished to do that. He heard her, too. And with his musically trained ear he noted that her laugh was an ascending chromatic scale, ending on a peculiarly piquant G sharp. So he fell in love with her. And I, for one, do not see how he could help it. He saw her every day ; for he lived in the same house as she did. To be sure, his apartment was just under the chimney, while her father and herself oc- cupied the floor behind the front door. But love laughs at four flights of stairs. Why, Frederick's heart, every time ha heard her laugh, used MAVERICKS. to fall down those four flights of stairs, bumpetty-bump, to lie at her feet. It was all covered with bruises of love, that heart of Frederick's ; and still it kept on beat- ing away, for her, for her. But Papa Knecht would not have it. He was will- ing to admit that Frederick was a "nice" young man and could sing; but he did not seem to be able to sing for dollars. Papa Knecht had lots of dollars. Some of them had been left to him by Grandpa'pa Knecht, who came over years and years ago ; and the rest Papa Knecht had got by planting Grandpapa Knecht's harvest in good soil and tend- ing it while it grew. Papa Knecht loved music, like a good German, and he liked to hear tencrs sing; but he did not like to have them marry his daughter unless they got very large salaries and plenty of free adver- tising in the newspapers. Frederick got fifteen dollars a week for singing in the chorus, and did not even have his name in the programme. Papa Knecht did not like that. Hans Sachs said Papa Knecht was right. His name was not Hans Sachs. It was Jacob Spie- gelheim ; but that is not a pretty name, so we shall call him Hans Sachs. He was not a poet; but a cobbler, and a right-good cobbler, too. He cobbled in the base- ment of the house in which Amalie and Frederick lived, and he knew what was going on. For the matter of that, A MODERN HANS SACHS. 3 he knew everything that was going on in the neighbor- hood ; but we shall say nothing about that. It was Hans Sachs who found out that there was to be a great prize singing contest in Wiehawken. It was he who found out that the manager of the Delicatessen Opera Company had announced that if the prize was won by a tenor, he would offer him a good engagement. It was he who finally induced Frederick to enter the contest; though it must not be denied that Amalie temporarily suppressed the laugh and added a few in- fluential tears to Hans's arguments. And it was Hans Sachs who induced Papa Knecht to go with his daughter to the singing contest. Hans Sachs shut up his shop and went, too. It was a very great contest. First, a little weazened man, with yellow eyes and a goat's beard, took three- quarters of an hour to read the conditions in a voice which sounded like the squeak of a toy chicken. No one . heard the conditions ; but that made no difference ; the contest was just as fierce. The first singer was a tenor with a voice like a superannuated flute, and he sang, " Let Me Like a Soldier Fall." He fell more like a raw oyster. The next was a sub-cutaneous bass ; he made your flesh creep. He sang " Ohe, Mama!" It was very touching. Then came a baritone, whose vocal chords had been transformed, by years of application to the flowing bowl, into a long-distance telephone, so that his voice sounded as if it came from Chicago. He sang "The Christmas Tree." MA VER1CKS. There were several more with voices that could not be classed except, possibly, as glassware and Hans Sachs began to be tired. " Of somepotty don'd got dot prize putty soon," he said, "I vill hef to gone und god me ein shchooner." "Wait a little," said Papa Knecht, whose dialect had been mellowed by being filtered through a previous generation. The next singer was a baritone, and he knew his business. He sang " The Yeo- man's Wedding Song" in a style that car- ried away the audience and the judges. So, when poor Frederick came out next, and with his lovely tenor voice sang Mo- zart's "Violets," he made the assembly sad. The judges gave the prize to the bari- tone ; the opera manager went off in a huff ; Papa Knecht smiled a two-edged smile, tucked his daughter under his arm and went home ; and Hans Sachs went and drank " drei shchooner." The next morning, Frederick walked into Hans Sachs's shop and sat down in a corner, whence he gazed upon Hans with an expression more melancholy than that of an overripe melon left drying on the vine. " Ach, Himmel !" sighed Sachs. "Oh, clear!" sighed Frederick; "that was fine advice you gave me, Meister." " Dot atvice don'd got noddings wrong mit it. Abcr you vos ein jump." " A what? " A MODERN HANS SACHS. 5 " Ein jump ein Esel. Vat for you sings dot put- me-in-mein-grafe kind of ein song for ! Don'd you got no senses, at all? Vot you oxpect?" "It is a lovely song, Meister," said Frederick; "the first art-song ever written." "Yah, yah, ich weiss aber id vos too goot ! Vat for you trow away high art on dose tuffers ? " " I trust I am always true to my art." " By chimineddy ! You 'd pedder bin drue to Amalie." " Why, Meister, I am ! " " Nein ! You can'd bin drue to art and her, too. Of you vant dot gel, dot beaudiful, heafenly anchel, you must shtop singin' vor art und sing vor tollars. " " O Meister ! Must I do that ? " "You ped your sveet life! Can you ein high C sing?" "I can sing," replied Frederick, proudly, "a high C that will put the gas out." " Den vat for you don'd do dot?" "What, put the gas out?" "Nein; nein ! sing your high C." "Where, and when?" "Leaf dot to me; I fix dot." Hans Sachs was as good as his word. He went to a musical agent in Union Square, and told him he had discovered a tenor who could sing a tremendous high C. The musical agent sent for Frederick, heard him sing it, and promptly secured him an engagement to sing at a Sunday night concert. MA VERICKS. Hans knew the announcement of a new tenor, with a high C attachment, would induce the manager of the Delicatessen Opera Company to attend the concert. But he could not induce Papa Knecht to go. No ; Papa Knecht had lost all interest in He was now looking for a nice, young society man, who was blase and ready to settle down and to introduce a wife into his charm- ed circle. Hans Sachs shook his head. Amalie went to his shop and wept. "O Meister ! " she said, sob- bing; "what has become of Fred- erick? I haven't seen him since the contest." "He vas all righd," said Hans; "und he vas godding reatty to I vas lookin' oud vor dot." "O Meister!" she said, falling upon his neck; "you have been our true friend." " Dere, dere," he said, pushing her away some- what hastily; "don't do dot; you shpiles my gollar." And as he did not have one on, that made Amalie smile through her tears, so that her face looked like the fairy scene coming out from behind the cloud-drop in the last act of a pantomime. Hans Sachs turned away and sighed as she left the shop. On Sunday night, Hans dressed himself in his finest and went to the concert. No doubt it was an interesting susprise eferypotty. A MODERN HANS SACHS. entertainment. No doubt the programme was, as the daily papers said, next morning, "long and varied." But Sachs could see only one announcement, which read thus : 6. " Di quella pira'V'^ Trovatore" ) . . . . VERDI. SIGNOR FREDERICO PREBELI.IO. (His First Appearance in America.) "Yah, yah," he said to himself; "dot ish righd. Now he vill ein gross sugcess make." The eventful moment, big with fate, finally arrived. Frederick had insisted on being allowed to preface the " Di quella pira " with the "Ah, si ben mio," passing from one to the other without a break. That was for the critics. The audience did not care much about the "Ah, si," but when the orchestra began the familiar two measures of introduction to the high C aria, there was a flutter of expectation. . Frederick dashed into the aria boldly. When the time for the high C came, he took it at the back of the stage and walked down to the foot-lights with it. He shook it as a dog shakes a rat, and when he retired, the audience screamed with delight. They called him out and made him do it over and again and again and a fourth time, before they would let him go. "Dot 's nod art," said Hans Sachs, smiling; "dot 's peesness. " And then he went home, 8 MA VERICKS. The next morning, he, Frederick and Amalie, sat in his shop and read all the morning papers. With one accord they declared that Frederick had no art, that he had only one good note, (the high C,) and that he had achieved a phenomenal hit with the audience. Frederick was half wild with mortification. Amalie wept on Sachs's collarless neck. But Sachs said : "Vat do you vand? Dot von node, dot high C, is goot vor hundreds of tollars efery veek. Vaid a bit." They did wait. They waited two days, and no offers came for Frederick. Sachs was troubled. He declared that the managers were holding off for fear they would have to give too high a salary. Finally he advised Fred- erick to call on the Delicatessen manager. He did so. The manager wanted him badly, but he pretended he did n't. He would not make an offer, though he said he would be willing to engage Frederick at a reason- able salary. In despair the young tenor arose and left the office, saying: ''I won't take a cent less than seventy-five dollars a night. I 'm worth that or nothing." When he went home, he kept away from Sachs. He saw Amalie and told her all. "And now, my own dear little girl," he said; "there is but one road for us to happiness." After that, their conversation fell into a whisper. They whispered upstairs and down, and Sachs saw them. " Dere vas some mischiefs prewing," he said tq A MODERN HANS SACHS. g himself. " Dot poy don'd come near me, und now dey vispers. Veil, I ped you I keeps mine eyes oben." That night, hiding in his shop, he heard the front door open and close very softly, and the next moment voices murmuring in front of his basement window. Then he threw open the shutter, and a stream of light shot out and illumined the figures of Frederick and Amalie, each carrying a small satchel. Hans Sachs was in the street in an instant. " Nein ; nein ! " he said ; " you vos going do elobe. Dot von'd do." "We must. There is no other way left," said Frederick. " O Meister ! " sobbed Amalie, trying to fall on his neck; but he would n't let her. "You must shtay ! " he exclaimed. And then he began to sing at the top of his lungs. Papa Knecht put his head out of the window and shouted : " Stop that noise ! " Hans seized Amalie, and ran into the shop with her. " Upshtairs mit you, gvick ! Before you fadder vinds out ! " he exclaimed. That ended the elopement. The next morning Frederick got a letter from the manager, agreeing to engage him at seventy-five dollars a night, to sing three times a night. He took the letter at once to Papa Knecht, who embraced him and said: " I always liked you, Freddy. Let me see you kiss her." Thr*D they all went down to see Hans Sachs, who io MA VERICKS. was so delighted he tried to drive pegs butt end first. Amalie fell upon his neck successfully, once more laugh- ing her sweet chromatic laugh, and then went off into a corner with Frederick. Papa Knecht shook Sachs's hand, and said: "You have been a good friend. But tell me why you have taken so much interest in this matter? " Hans Sachs laid down his hammer, blew his nose, and then looked up with his blue eyes swimming in moisture. "Veil," he said, in a trembling whisper; "I lofe dot gel minezelf. " W. J. Henderson. CHESTERFIELD'S POSTAL- CARDS TO HIS SON. I CHESTERFIELD'S POSTAL-CARDS TO HIS SON. The first postal-card contained the following message: N. Y., 3/1/80. My Dear Boy : You are big enough to go to meeting barefoot, as the Yankee captain said to me in '55 when I ran away to sea, no older than you are now. I expect you to hoe your own row, as I 'm off by the 10: 30 Pacific express. I 've no time for long letters, but I '11 drop you a postal- card of advice now and then. Rule No. i : Tell the truth. Rule No. 2 : Show the sand that 's in you. Verbum sap-head, as the foreman used to say when I ran a country weekly in '68. Your ajjTte Father, J. Quincy A. Chesterfield. I 4 MAVERICKS. The second postal-card : LEADVILLE, COL., 17/1/80. Dear Boy : It 's as cold here as the north end of a gravestone. I 'm glad you 're getting a good grip on the classics. Latin is useful : get the inside track and give the mare the head, as I heard the sports say in Cal., when I was lecturing in '75 on "Rum and Reform." Don't be scared of Greek either especially as you have n't be- gun it yet. Rule 3 : Never borrow trouble : it 's no good crossing a river before you get there. Your affectionate Father. P. S. The mine is doing A I. The third postal-card : CHICAGO, 3/2/80. Dear Boy: Sorry to hear you fought that Smith a little bit of a cuss, looking like a bar of soap after a hard day's wash. I knew his father in '69, when I was in the Conn, legislature. He 's a pretty poor shoat, as we used to say in Chin, in '60, when I was a telegraph clerk. Let the fellow alone. Rule 4 : Keep out of a row, if you can. Rule 5 : If you can't keep out, go in head- first and fight like a fire-zouave. It 's the first fight that prevents more; just as we used to nail the skin of a chipmunk to the barn to warn off the rest. Y'r Father. CHESTERFIELD'S POSTAL- CARDS. 15 The fourth postal-card : OMAHA. 18/2/80. Dear Boy : A difference of opinion makes horse-races, as I 've heard many a time in Ky., when I was a walking gent, on the southern circuit, in '58. But now you 've whaled the Smith boy, go easy. The mine gets better and better. -., ^ , 7 Your Father. The fifth postal-card: ON PALACE CAR "DAKOTA," % ILL. C. C. Ry, 29/2/80. The mine is splendid. Over two millions in sight ; and your revered dad owns a whole and undivided 1/5. Of course, I'll send you the $10. Rule No. 6: Pay C. O. D. always. I was clerk for an auctioneer in '57, and I saw that if a man don't pay on the nail, he soon gets sold out under the hammer. Tell the principal to draw on me for amt. due for schooling. Y'r Father. The sixth postal-card : S. F., 21/3/80. D'r Boy: Yours rec'd. I taught school myself in '66, and I found all the boys knew more than I did. Rule 7 : Don't think too much of yourself. The sun would shine, even if the cock did n't crow. J. Quincy A. Chesterfield, id MA VERICKS. The seventh postal-card : Dear Abe: LEADVILLE, 29/3/80. Stick to the French grammar ; it is n't easy. When I studied it in the trenches before Richmond in '64 the irregular verbs nearly threw me, but I mounted them every day as regularly as I did guard though I didn't hone for it, as Johnny Reb used to say. What should I have done in Europe in '76, when I was introducing Cal. wines, if I 'd not known French ? Rule 8 : Learn all the foreign tongues you can. Rule 9 : Learn to hold your own. .,, /,.,,,, Y'r off. Father. The eighth postal-card : CHICAGO, 30/4^80. Dr Boy : I 've had no time to write. I Ve gone into big spec with a man I first met in '65 when I took photos in Boston. They call Boston a good place to hail from : lie and I got out of it quick, so as to hail from it as soon as possible. How do you get on with your mathematics? Your Father, J. Quincy A. Chesterfield. The ninth postal-card : Dear Abe: ST ' L UIS ' IO /5/8o. I am sorry the arithmetic teacher is going to leave. I hope your next one will be as good. As I found in CHESTERFIELD'S POSTAL-CARDS. 17 '59 when I was a surveyor, it 's a handy thing to have figures at the ends of your fingers. The spec looks bigger still. We 've taken in the man who edited the N. Y. daily on which I was a reporter in '67. Y'r affectionate Father. The tenth postal-card : LEADVILLE, 20/5/80. D'r Boy: The mine is paying big money and I 'm putting it all in the spec for a permanent investment, as Uncle Dan'l said when I was on the Street in '72, before the panic made rne sell my seat in the board. I 've struck a streak of luck sure. Rule 10: When in luck, crowd things. J. Quincy A. Chesterfield. The eleventh postal-card : LEADVILLE, 13/6/80. My Dear Abe : Mine looks badly ; spec looks worse. But I don't give in ; I 've Yankee grit. I believe if a Yankee was lying at the point of death, he 'd whittle it off to pick his teeth with. But I 'm worried and hurried. Tell the principal I '11 remit the quarter now due in a week or two. J. Q. A. C. TS MA V BRICKS. The twelfth postal-card : N. Y., 20/6/80. My dear Boy : The spec has caved in and all that 's left of that whole and undivided 1/5 of mine has gone to pay the loss. Y'r father is as badly off as he was in '65 when he peddled a History of the Rebellion, or in '73 when he went to Fla. to manage an orange plantation. I must have time to look around. Telegraph me at once if the principal has not a teacher of mathematics yet. I '11 apply for the place. I shall be glad to be with you again, my Abe. Your affectionate Father. The thirteenth postal-card : GRAND CENTRAL DEPOT, N. Y., 21/6/80. D'r Boy : Y'r telegram rec'd. Can't accept place. Have sent ck. for quarter due. Leave 3:45 for China to introduce American inventions. Will write fully on P. M. steamer. Shall be back in 8 or 10 mo's unless I run clown to Australia. I think there 's a spec in patent medicines down there. Bless you, my boy. Vr Father, J. Oiiincy A. Chesterfield. CHESTERFIELD'S POSTAL-CARDS. ig cJ blrvccb cJ MAVERICKS. " Then, noble girl, behold your reward!" and John Hemlock waved before her astonished eyes a large roll of currency. "Here are nine million dollars, which I found hidden in a secret compartment of the old sec- retary ; with this, and the income from my pen, I shall be enabled to support you in comparative affluence." " Oh, is n't that nice ! " said Mary, well nigh over- come ; and she hid her head on his shoulder. And no happier pair could be found in all the land, than John Hemlock and Mary Bloggs. H. L. Wilson. AUNT MARY'S OBITUARY. AUNT MARY'S OBITUARY. TEN O'CLOCK in the office of the Beanville Clarion, and by two the forms must be ready for the press. Seated in his easy -chair by the office stove, the editorial "We" lit a pipe and abandoned himself to a few moments of well-earned relaxation. Secure in the consciousness that all the "locals" had been gathered in, that the first Spring batch of county snake stories had been read and corrected, and that Jack, the apprentice, was now on his way to the undertaker's shop to get a list of the deaths, the editor felt that he could well indulge in a fif- teen minute smoke and meditation. There was nothing more to do except to write the death notices and to pre- pare whatever obituary paragraphs might be necessary. "Any new deaths, Jack?" enquired the editor, as the apprentice entered the office. too MAVERICKS. " Yes," replied the boy, laying a bit of paper on the desk; "old Miss Larrabee died yesterday." John Whittlesea, editor of the Beanville Clarion, leaped from his ehajr and then fell back into it, gasping for breath, while his face turned white and then red, and his hand shook as he tried to read the slip of dirty paper that lay on the desk before him. There it was, plain enough, just as the boy had copied it from the silver plate in the undertaker's shop : Mary Larrabee. Born, 1851 -^- Died, 1890. "Jack," said the editor, in an eager, excited voice; "are you sure you got this straight?" "In course, I am," replied the boy; "I copied it off the coffin plate, same as I did the others, same as I always do." " What sort of a coffin was it ? " "I did n't see no coffin. They was just a-finishing the plate." " Likely enough it 's a pine one," rejoined the edi- torial Whittlesea. " She probably bargained for it with old Screws two weeks before she died. 'Born, 1851 !' Surely, that must be a mistake. I '11 bet it's 1831." "No, 't ain't," declared Jack, sturdily. "I knowed she was older 'n that, so I looked at it twicet." "Well, you go downstairs and tell Bill Clarke to keep the front page open for an obituary. He can put that clothing ad. in the other form." Jack clattered off to the composing room, and AUNT MARY'S OBITUARY. for Whittlcsea tilted back his chair, put his feet on the desk and began to think very industriously. Old Mary Lar- rabec had lived for more years than any one could re- member in the rickety, rambling old homestead at the foot of Bald Cliff. The house had been built by her grandfather a dozen years before the Revolution. Her father had been born and had died in the south chamber over the family " settin'-room," and Mary, the last of her line, had never been for more than a week at a time out of the house in which she had drawn her first breath, and in which, since her father's death, she had dwelt alone with no companionship but that of her parrot and the neighbor who came in every day to help with the housework. Old Mary Larrabee had but one blood relation in the world her niece, Matilda whom she had never forgiven for marrying against her wishes. That niece had married John Whittlesea, at that time a journeyman printer, and now editor and proprietor of the Beanville Clarion. No; she had never forgiven poor Matilda, unless she had done so during the last week of her life, and that was a point that John Whittlesea was very curious about just at this moment, for the Larrabees had always been a thrifty and saving people, and there was no doubt that "Aunt Mary" was the possessor of a snug sum laid away in bank stocks and government bonds, to say nothing of the broad fertile acres that stretched from end to end of'" Larrabee's Hollow." " Where would all this property go if not to Ma- 102 MA VERICKS. tilda?" said John to himself, as he puffed gleefully away at his pipe. Then he turned white about the gills as he recalled Aunt Mary's fondness for a certain Home for Friendless Seventh Day Baptists in Hartford, to which she had once contributed six quilts of her own making, a burst of generosity that set the whole neighborhood talking, and started the rumor that she had made her will in favor of that admirable charity. She certainly had been closeted with Squire Doolittle a whole after- noon a few days after the big bundle of quilts was expressed to the Hartford institution ; but what had taken place during that interview, whether she had made a new will or altered an old one, was never re- vealed to the curious ones of Beanville. No one dared to ask the Squire, and as for Mary Larrabee, she was as tight as the traditional drum in regard to whatever concerned herself, though decidedly free with her tongue whenever any of the neighbors were being weighed in the balance. " She could n't have had the heart to cut Matilda off entirely," meditated John. "I '11 bet she 's left that parrot of hers an income for the rest of its life. It 's the only thing that breathes she ever cared for. 'Born, 1851 !' Why, Mary Larrabee was sixty-three last Janu- uary though she never would own to forty. I never did see any one as sensitive as she was about her age. I believe the real reason she was down on me was that paragraph I put in fifteen years ago about her birthday party. Well, it was a sort of mean dig, I '11 admit." He smiled as he recalled her foolish endeavors to AUNT MARY'S OBITUARY. 3 pass for twenty-five years younger than she was, in the community in which she had been born and brought up. John Whittlesea might have gone on with his medi- tations until two o'clock if he had not been awakened by a sharp demand for copy, shouted by the foreman through the speaking tube ; and a moment later Jack appeared at the head of the stairs and said that the lady compositors, wanted to know if there was to be any more matter to set that day. " Yes," exclaimed tne editor, suddenly bringing down his chair on four legs, and taking up his pen; "wait a minute and you can take down the first page of this obituary." He was in a hopeful mood as he began the con- ventional paragraph about the "sad and unexpected removal from our midst of Miss Mary Larrabee, a mem- ber of one of the oldest families in the county, and a woman whose liberal and unostentatious charities " He smiled when he came to this, laid down his pen, reflected for a moment, and then tore the page up and started afresh. He had written and sent downstairs three or four pages of manuscript enough to keep the lady compositors quiet for a few minutes when the absurdity of what he was writing suddenly struck him. There was not a man, woman or child in the whole county who did not know exactly how he stood in re- gard to Aunt Mary Larrabee, and how ridiculous it must seem to them to read his edifying remarks about the "grief-stricken relatives bowing in resignation to the Divine Will." 104. , MA VRRICKS. " If I tried to write a comic obituary it could n't be funnier than that." He took up his pen again, and a malicious grin spread over his features as he wrote the concluding pages of the notice. "There," he said to the boy, "have that set up right away, and then the forms can go to press. Don't forget to leave a couple of papers at my house. I 've got to go out to Bricktop Corners and won't be back till late in the afternoon." It was nearly five o'clock when John Whittlesea reached home and found his wife waiting for him on the doorstep. " O John!" she cried; "what do you think has happened ? Aunt Mary "I know, dear," he responded; "I heard about it downstrcet, and you '11 find it all in the paper this after- noon. When is the funeral to be?" "They're going to bury her to-morrow, and we must go. Aunt Mary was here herself to tell us about it, only half an hour ago why, what's the matter, John? Are you sick ? " The editor of the Clarion was leaning against the house, with a face as white as chalk. "Aunt Mary was here half an hour ago to invite us to attend her own funeral ? " he gasped. "No; the funeral of her parrot, which died yester- day. And she says she 's no one but us to love, now that the bird has gone, and she 's going to bury her in a beautiful rose -wood coffin, with her name on a silver AUNT MARY'S OBITUARY. 105 plate ; and she asked how you were getting along, and I left her in the parlor looking over to-day's paper the boy brought up for you. She seemed real interested ; but when I came back she 'd gone away. Why, what 's the matter, John ? " " Matter enough," replied the editor; "let me see that paper. Yes ; I thought so. Read that obituary, and tell me what you think of the last paragraph." The paragraph read as follows : 'Our grief and agitation as we pen these hurried lines can only be appreciated by those who have been similarly afflicted. To lose a wife's aunt, and be uncer- tain whether the hoardings of sixty years will enrich the io6. MA VERICKS. editorial coffers or swell the fund for the preservation of friendless Seventh Day Baptists is a grief of bitterness which is like that of death itself; and not until this matter has been decided will the editorial head lie easy on its pillow." /. L. Ford. INTERNECINE COMPARISON. '-'A most interesting game of poker," INTERNECINE COMPARISON. E WERE IN CAMP at Newport News, and my tent had been unluckily pitched on as the rendez- vous for about all the harum-scarum lights of the regi- ment. Matters bel- licose had been so quiet for a month that the men were getting careless and uneasy. The officers had planned more fake cam- paigns, and partaken of more "Sutler's Squeeze" than was con- ducive to the best of discipline ; and, taken all around, there was a spirit of happy-go-luckiness in the air, ill fitting the seriousness of the complications that had brought us into soldiering. no MA VERICKS. Tom Kelso's mother had sent him a box of circular- pressed Damascus figs some weeks before the transport left New York, and as the package had been billed by mistake to Newport, Kentucky, and from there to New- port, Rhode Island, prior to its getting on the right track, and had lain in the store-house at the News, marked be- yond recognition, for two months after our arrival, the fruit had assumed a consistency-and polish suggestive, I am sorry to say, of a fair quality of poker-chips. The resemblance was quickly noted as soon as the box was opened ; and after Tom had worn the enamel from a tooth and English expletives out in an effort to be filial, he turned the case over to the mess; and one evening found the condiments stacked at a quarter a-piece on the four respective corners of the Adjutant's table. As I was the Adjutant, courtesy would not permit me to object, and with Tom as first dealer, the Doctor as "age," and the old Colonel as the "blind," a most interesting game of poker was soon under way. Like most similar games, it had its ups and downs, and at the end of three hours I had to buy a double stack, and start in anew. The Colonel, who was banking, had eaten several of the softer of his chips by this time ; but he was good for any reasonable amount, and as he could, by no possi- bility, eat them fast, we said nothing, and the game went on. This is not a poker story, so that those who have followed it along in the expectation of reading of some INTERNECINE COMPARISON. phenomenal winning on a'" rag-end-flush," or of a jack-pot that stacked up so high that it lifted the tent ridge-pole, will, like many side-column readers of the press, be patent-medicined. I only wanted to give a phase of human nature, which intro- duced itself just after my second investment, when the Colonel was called out by an orderly to look at a suspicious package for the sutler, marked "hymnals." The Colonel was a gentleman, and a brave and gallant soldier; but by some accident, either hereditary or otherwise, he was fitted with a head shaped more than anything else like an im- mense pear set on his neck, so that his nose answered for the stem. As hands were laid down, and he disappeared through the tent-flap, Kelso observed : " I 've traveled to a considerable extent, and as a diligent observer have noted a great many people, but that man has got the queerest-shaped head of any one I ever came across. Wonder what kind of spasm struck Nature when she flag-topped him like that." Just then the Colonel appeared again, and the entrance of his face through the canvas aperture did suggest a sun -fish ploughing through a wave. The game was continued, until a little later the Doctor was 112 MA VERICKS. called out to attend a man who had snapped the gun- lock on his finger in an effort to light his pipe from a percussion cap. Hands went down again, and the Colonel observed : "There goes a good surgeon and a good man, but he 's got the blamedest looking nose I ever saw. Looks as if it had been caught in a muskrat trap. Of course, I would n't ask him for the world what the matter is with it, but I 'd give a month's pay to know. "Pass that throat-vase, will you, Tom?" and the bric-a-brac went around. The Doctor came in presently, and once more the flip-flap of paste-board went on. At last Kelso stretched himself with a yawn, after a loss, when he had confidently expected to win, and said : "Roys, let 's make this a progressive game. I 'm all tired out. We Ml let the bank just stand as it is, with debts and credits recorded, and resume again to- morrow night where we left off." This was agreed to, in spite of the unkind suspicion that Tom failed to have the necessary amount to cash up with, and he went out into the darkness. " Did you ever notice anything peculiar about Tom ? " asked the Doctor. "Yes; I have," replied the Colonel, "and I never could determine just what it was. He has got an open, pleasant face, but there is something lacking in it ; and I Ye watched him many a time, trying to think out what that something: is." INTERNECINE COMPARISON. 113 "Why, man alive," resumed the Doctor, "he ain't got an eyebrow to his name. Bald-faced above the bridge of his nose as a soap-bubble. Funny you never tumbled to it, Colonel." With this, the two old war-horses gathered them- selves together and sought their own quarters. As the lantern was put out, and I crawled into my bunk, I wondered whether I, myself, had any uncouth characteristic which might cause comment in a tempo- rary absence; and just as I was losing myself in a dream of home, I heard my sentinel murmur in an undertone to his comrade on the next beat : " Don't shuffle so on the turn, podner ! Ole Torch- whisker Jim 's tryin' t' sleep off his beauty ! " James S. Goodwin. A DRAWN BATTLE. A DRAWN BATTLE. THOUGHT I did a very clever thing when I invited Miss Hawkins, Mr. Dash and a few other friends to take a sail in my yacht. I say " my " yacht, because I was entitled to her for that day, because of my owning a third of her; and I do not give the names of the other friends, because they were only meant to fill in the background. Still, I will mention one gentleman of the super- numeraries. Mr. Vincent was one of the party, and he was a very welcome addition to the number. Every- body liked Vincent. He was the sort of man who gave tone to any set of people. It is difficult to say exactly why, for really he had no "points." He was quiet, rather dignified, and of a good figure the sort of figure which enables one to wear ready-made clothes without explaining why one prefers them. I have nothing to say against Vincent, even now. But Dash was different. He was really clever and knowing. But he had his limitations. Yachting was MAVERICKS. one of them. He did n't know a sharpie from a lugger, and that 's the reason I gave the yachting party. You see, Dash had confided to me that he thought Miss Hawkins was a "stunner." That is the way he put it. He did n't confide in me because I was his particular confidant and crony, but only because I hap- pened to be with him when his intellect, so to speak, came to the conclusion that she was a "stunner." I did not disagree with him. In fact, I thought then, as I think now, that Miss Hawkins threw into a coolirrg shade any young woman of her time. For that reason, I got up the yachting party. Miss Hawkins accepted with pleasure: and when I told Dash that she was coming, he said he would accept with pleasure, too. Now, that was not true. Dash hated the salt water, and only went because he knew he would be green with jeal- ousy if he should stay at home. It was a charming day for a sail the water was gently rippling against the side of the boat when we started, but there were tiny white caps showing just beyond the headlands which flanked the harbor. Miss Hawkins sat upon a canvas chair on deck, and Dash and I were beside her, engaged in a sprightly small-talk competition. Poor victim ! By easy stages I led him on until he was fairly launched in wild career. "Yes, Miss Hawkins," said he; "there is, as you say, a certain wild sense of exhilaration in sailing upon the free blue sea." A DRA\VN BATTLE. 119 " I said," she answered with a smile, "that I had always heard so. But I have had but little experience in sailing. I feel very grateful to Mr. Seaborn for an opportunity of enjoying this delicious breeze and bright sunshine." I sighed a gentle acknowledgment and bowed. "But, after all," Dash broke in, hastily; "one finds the same pleasure in driving." "Oh, do you think so?" answered Miss Hawkins. "Well, perhaps there may be certain features of sailing which one might prefer," he replied, weakly enough. Just then we passed the lee of one of the headlands, and the yacht began to jump. Everything worked to a charm. The boat would lift her forefoot gracefully against the oncoming wave, the wave would slide under the keel, and the boat would come down with a thump. And at every thump Dash would wilt. I said very little, and kept well in the background, so that he was com- pelled to devote himself to Miss Hawkins. Vincent was devoting his efforts to entertaining Miss Hawkins's aunt, a most agreeable chaperon. That was 'always the way with Vincent he could be depended upon. Soon Dash began to weaken ; he grew pale, and his conversation lost all vivacity. Full of solicitude I hovered about him. I suggested that he would feel bet- ter if he should go forward and lie down. Of course, he would n't, and his conversation soon became perfectly inane. Being at my best on a yacht, he was soon nowhere, and I had the field all to myself. 120 MA VERICKS. I named the interesting points along shore; explained that marvelous invention, the mariner's compass ; showed how the boat ran against the wind, or came about ; taught Miss Hawkins to steer; gave peremptory orders to the skipper and crew; superintended the dainty lunch- eon on deck, and sympathized properly with poor Dash, who had long since gone below. That settled Dash. When we rounded to at the moorings, I think Dash may be said to have been out of it. He went at once to his rooms, a pale, ghastly and utterly uninteresting iand-lubber, while Vincent and I escorted home the Miss Hawkins contingent. After the ladies had gone in, Vincent turned to me and said significantly: " Seaborn, did you know that Dash was so poor a sailor ? " "Well," I said, lightly; -'he said he would be de- lighted to come but I think he made a mistake." "Yes," he answered, in his solemn way; "Miss Hawkins asked me to tell ' poor Mr. Dash ' how sorry she was for him." But Dash did n't know when he was whipped. So he got up a coaching party. That was ingenious, too; for he did n't say anything about it beforehand, and I supposed it was only an ordinary picnic a luncheon in the woods. Then he arranged things so as to have Miss Hawkins and myself seated with him on the front seat, while, as was inevitable, Vincent and the aunt were behind us. I did n't suspect anything until we had gone a few miles into the country, and then he asked A DRAWN BATTLE. 121 me to take the reins for a few moments, while he went to help the footman fasten one of the hampers. No sooner had he reached the back of the tally-ho, than he called out : . "All right, Seaborn, go ahead. There is none too much time. I can fix this while we drive along ! " Then was my time to rise, and say frankly and simply: " But, Mr. Dash, I never drove anything but an old family hack. I shall have to decline." Perhaps you would have done so. I did n't. I made a ghastly click, and that awful menagerie in leather sprang into life. I think I shook like an aspen. My head whirled, and the road looked like a black mist. Miss Hawkins said something quickly, and I turned to hear what it was, and dropped a rein. 122 MA VERICKS. Vincent must have climbed down into Dash's vacant seat and stopped the maddened steeds, I am sure ; for the next thing I knew, they were standing all in a bunch, head to head. Then I volunteered to fasten the hamper; and long after that hamper was fastened like a safe-deposit security box, I sat there on that back seat with the foot- men. Thus did / take a back seat. And, to be perfectly fair, I think I was out of it from that moment. I don't blame Miss Hawkins, for, may be, neither Dash nor I stood a ghost of a show. Hereafter, if I meet another "stunner," I shall devote myself to a waiting-race with the chaperon, and leave it to others to set the pace and make the running. We dined at the Vincents not long ago, and, really, they seemed so happy that I think Dash and I both resolved to bury the hatchet. At all events, as we were coming away, Dash said : "After all, there is nothing plcasanter than a quiet dinner with a pleasant host and hostess. I think these out-door sports and entertainments are an awful bore, you know ! " "Well, I don't mind a sail," I answered, "on a quiet day." A DRAWN BATTLE. 123 "Yes, in a calm," said he, laughing; " but a good, brisk drive is the real thing." "With another fellow to hold the ribbons," I sug- gested. We spent the evening playing double dummy at the club. Tudor Jenks. THE MAGIC CITY. "A messenger came to summon Petrudio to peel potatos for dinner," THE MAGIC CITY. A ROMANCE OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY. Chaps. I to VIII. ORCIVAL DE TWIRLIGER goes to Honduras as special agent for the New York Suspender Co. (Limited.) Firm speculates in new style of buckles and goes up. Orcival starts to hoof it to New York. Various ad- ventures. Separated from companion in wilds of Mexico. Lost on the desert. Great heavens! it is sad to die thus. What does he see ? a city ! Goes for it. Meets venerable man with long beard. Chap. IX. (NOTE. Story now begins. Prior portion put in to make the book sell for $1.50.) " I do not wonder at your surprise," said Petrudio, " although our city has been established twenty years. It was founded by Edward Bellamy, Sergius Stepniak, Joaquin Miller and Jules Verne. It is a paradise upon earth, where everything is in common, and where every- body works and is happy. We have no laws, because there is no crime." " Does no one ever break loose just for the fun of the thing?" inquired De Twirliger. " Never," replied Petrudio, with a patronizing smile. "Suppose they did?" persisted De Twirliger. "The supposition is inadmissible," returned the patriarch, sternly; "all people who live in the Magic City have divested themselves of love, hate, envy, am- bition or desires of any kind." " Something like a wooden image," suggested De Twirliger, winking at a young girl who floated past in an aluminium balloon. "How are the soft snaps in the working line dis- tributed ? " "All take their turns; there is no jealousy. In our community, work is a pleasure." At this moment a messenger came to summon Petrudio to peel potatos for dinner. THE MAGIC CITY. 129 Chaps. X to XXVI. Aluminium balloons glass railways electric lights, tubes, chutes and conveyances machines to make rain free concerts and theatrical performances by angelic singers and supernaturally gifted actors no doctors or lawyers complicated harangues about isms, asons, ologies and flub-dub. Chap. XXVII. " Say ! " exclaimed Orcival De Twirliger, with a capacious yawn; " this is turning sour. Honest Injun, Petrudino, would n't you like to be a man and own yourself for a month or two? " " I have occasionally thought," said Petrudio, stop- ping up a near-by speaking tube with the tail of his toga, " that this model city racket is being carried too far. A lot of old seeds with chin whiskers and the virility of a turnip might meander through life in this community, but a man with blood in his veins has no business to turn himself into a machine. Now I am thirty-two " " I took you to be one hundred and sixteen," re- marked De Twirliger ; " your beard and gown " " That is the model city regulation ; they all do it. It gives a patriarchal and gliding air to the people. To return : thirty-two, with the prospect of gliding and floating around for a half century, without a cent in my pockets, putting up stove-pipes one day and painting pictures the next, living a life of solid, unadulterated virtue, and not even allowed to choose an affinity." MA VER1CKS. " I thought you all had affinities? " " So we have. There is an annual drawing at the City Hall for affinities, and the one I drew last year would curdle the milk of human kindness." "The beautiful Etudia and I," said DeTwirliger, calmly, "are about to elope if we can steal the grand patriarch's balloon. If you can hook on to an affinity of your own choos- ing, we may make room for you as ballast." " There is a stout German girl who is de- tailed to dust the palace this month," said Petru- dio, musingly. " She squeezed my hand at the last mush -and -milk sociable, and made some earthly remark about giving the whole boiling fora glass of beer. If you '11 give me twenty-four hours, I '11 see if I can make a vacancy in the colony." Chaps. XXVIII, XXIX and XXX. Various monkeyings around to keep the reader in suspense. Chaps. XXXI and XXXII. The flight of l)e Twirliger and the beautiful Etudia, accompanied by Petrudio (with his whiskers cut off) and Loreeta. Crossing the desert. Water gives out got THE MAGIC CITY. 131 to give out everybody forgives everybody else, and all about to die in holy calm, when the balloon falls into Lake Pontchartrain. Chap. " Well," said Orcival, as the quartet sat at table in the dining-room of the St. Charles, "it is bad form to notice one's eating, but from the way you destroyed that steak, Etudia, I should judge that roses and dew are not. the only fare worth living for." Etudia showed her pearly teeth, but was too happy to make reply. Loreeta, meanwhile, had ordered her third piece of pie. Petrudio, who had been silent up to this point, now said, gravely : "Orcival, let us lift in some pale brandy to settle this repast, and then for a good old smoke." Half an hour later they were playing billiards. "After all," said Petru- dio, after a run of ten, "life is only enjoyable when you have to hustle and know that you can keep what you can grab. Without rivalry, there can be no material pro- gress. A man of spirit had better peddle shoestrings 132 v MAVERICKS. than link himself with cranks who surrender their brains to an idea that won't work." "And how fortunate," said Orcival, "that I relieved the colony of several bags of dross. It was only in their way, while we can put it where it will do the most good." Sidney. MR. WILKENNING'S HOBBY. MR. WILKENNING'S HOBBY. " /\A * " * ARY ' * >m ' n S to Q u ^ business." Miss Wilkenning, sewing away with nimble fingers and engrossed in her own thoughts, had not noticed that her brother had ceased reading; and this abrupt remark startled her. She looked up quickly and met his calm gaze. "Quit business! " she exclaim- ed. " What do you mean ? " Mr. Wilkenning laid his paper on the table, put his hands in his trousers' pockets and crossed his legs, while his sister waited. " I mean," he said, when he had adjusted himself satisfactorily, "that I 'm going to turn over the whole thing to Wharton and retire; go out; quit." " But, Alfred ! you 're only forty-six years old ! " " I 've got money enough." "But you 're an active, energetic man. What will you do with yourself when you have no business to at- tend to?" 136 MA VERICKS. Mr. Wilkenning elevated his eyebrows. " I '11 en- joy myself," he said in a contemplative tone. " I '11 let my inclinations lead me about from one thing to another for a while, and perhaps by and by I '11 take a little ride on my hobby." Miss Wilkenning slowly gathered up the work in her lap and placed it on the table, while her brother lowered his eyes from the ceiling and looked at her with a half furtive expression on his good-humored face. "Alfred," said Miss Wilkenning solemnly, folding her hands in her lap; "you are going to give up busi- ness on purpose to go into the country and buy a farm. You have had that on your mind for two years ever since you gave Mr. Wharton a half interest in the busi- ness. " You look back to the days of your boyhood, and you imagine that you could again be as happy and free as you were then. You don't consider that the con- ditions have changed ; that you have changed. You will relinquish all the comforts, all the luxuries you have been accustomed to here, all the friends whose society is a pleasure, an incentive to you ; you will go away from the city and rust out in some isolated country place, among narrow, plodding people whom you can not sympathize with or care for. " It is folly. " Why won't you put the idea out of your head and be contented where you are certain to be happiest ? " Mr. Wilkenning arose and walked two or three times across the room. Then he stopped in front of his sister. MR. WILKENNING'S HOBBY. lyj "Mary," said he; "the love of the country was born in me. I have lost sight of that fact while I slaved at business ; but now, when I am able to free myself, a longing for the old life comes back to me with a force you can't understand. " I 've trotted around on slabs of stone for as many years as I care to. 1 'd give ten dollars this minute if I just could take off my varnished boots and silk stockings and plant my bare feet on the damp, cold turf. " I 'd give five years of my life in this overcrowded, ill-smelling city of steaming sewer-pipes for one year of blessed stillness in a place where the sun shines on the earth and not on the tin roofs of office-buildings and tenement houses." Mr. Wilkenning took another turn around the room and stopped, facing his sister again. "Every chestnut-tree in the pasture lot" he went on "every apple-tree in the or- chard every old zig-zag fence on that farm is everlastingly fixed in my memory ; and they seem to be waiting for me to come back." He stopped abruptly and then added: "But you don't want to go, Mary." Miss Wilkenning took her work off the -table and began to sew again. " I am making some warm clothes for one of my children," she said; "you know I have forty-seven of them. What would they do if I should go away ? " " Ah, yes ! your mission. You have a hobby, too. I had forgotten that." /jc? MA VERICKS. Miss Wilkenning looked earnestly into her brother's face. "Alfred," she said; "you are tired of your home life. You are tired of seeing nothing but this old maid's face morning and evening, year after year. You don't know it, but that is the trouble. If you were married and had a family around you, you would be happy and " " Stop ! " Miss Wilkenning would have stopped about here, anyhow ; for her voice and lips were tremulous. Her brother came around to the back of her chair. " Let 's see that old maid's face," he said; and he took it between his hands. " You are the one that ought to have a husband and a house full of children to love and care for," he said; "you are wasting your life on a cranky old bache- lor brother. It 's a shame a downright shame ! But there! " he kissed her "I could n't get along with- out you ; no ; I could not, possibly. I have not thought of such a thing as a wife, Mary, in twenty-five years. I don't want a wife. I would n't have one around. Now, let 's stop our nonsense about getting married, and talk of something that is among the possibilities. "And here is one theme your unreasoning pre- judice against the country. I 'm going to remove that or else I 'in going to give up to it. I have a scheme which will result in one of those two things. Want to hear it?" Miss Wilkenning bowed her head. < fell to the floor. Reaching for the MS.' on his desk, the editor read it carefully. " It has some merit, after all," he said, as he fin- ished it; "I guess I 'II put it in the paper with the T?(> MAl'/iK/CKS. notice of the poor chap's death, and have Jones write an editorial on it. ' Alas ! for the rarity, Of Christmas Christian charity,' " he added, as he put a few notes in blue pencil upon the story that Tom Archer had smilingly finished that afternoon. The readers of the Christmas papers found in each a poem or story by the unfortunate author, accompanied by an account of his suicide and an editorial note on the struggles of Genius in the great metropolis. III. That Christmas afternoon the editor of The Echo sat in his home, discussing with his son and heir of five years the personality of Santa Claus. " Excuse me, sir," said a servant at the door; "but there 's a man downstairs who wants to see you." " P'haps it 's Santy," suggested the embryo editor. The real editor smiled he would foster the belief of liis son while he was able. " Perhap* it is," he said; "ask the gentleman to step in, please." The servant departed. A step was heard outside the door. The son and heir looked expect- ant and disappointed; for a poor specimen of humanity, unshaven and cold, entered. " I beg your pardon, sir," said the poor specimen, in better tones than such objects are in the habit of using; "I am sorry to disturb you at your home, but I A BRILLIANT IDEA. 777 should like a little money on account. Life has its demands, you know," he added, airily. "On account!" gasped the editor; "on account of what ? " The small boy crept closer to his father. "P'haps it 's Santy in disguise, an' he wants some money to get me more pwesents," whispered the hopeful, regardless of the morning's gifts that littered the floor. "I am the author of 'A Brilliant Idea,' published in to-day's Echo. Tom Archer is my name, now " "What!" cried the editor, leaping to his feet. " Archer jumped off of a dock last night. Do you take me for a fool ? " " Really, I never gave it much thought," responded Archer, haughtily; "but I am prepared to argue the question with you if you repeat your previous assertion. I can assure you that Archer is no idiot, however; and to prove my statement, he offers to write you up the exclusive account of the results of 'A Brilliant Idea.' " character as to bear the most critical scrutiny. If I shake hands with any man, I will thereafter think within, while he will think without, as 1 do now. And he will think without until he shakes hands with an- other, when the latter will be afflicted as 1 am now. I don't think you would dare to shake hands with me," said Mr. Drummond. " What ! I would n't dare to shake your hand ! " replied the Reverend. Kliphalet White, feeling all the virtuous strength of his good life tingling in his finger- tips. "There! " He extended his hand, and Mr. Drummond took it. " Now look in the glass." The clergyman did so for a moment, and burying his face in his hands, said : " Give me the mask ! " Mr. Drummond removed the black crape mask for the first time, and handed it to the clergyman. When he" returned that night to his own fireside, many of his parishioners were on hand awaiting his arrival in great suspense, to ascertain the result of his mission. When he entered the room with the black crape mask on his face, there was a great commotion. Although his face was not visible, he acted in the same mysterious way that had characterized Mr. Drummond. He seemed filled with a dreadful boding. His wife al- most fainted, as she asked for the explanation of the horrible fascination of the black crape mask. " Ah, would that I dare take it off," he said. 188 MAI'RRICKS. He then made an explanation of his visit. " I will shake your hand," said Deacon Briggs, one of the most highly esteemed men in Scuttle Hole. " I would rather not, Deacon," replied the clergy- man. " 1 think I need the black crape mask for some time to come." lint the Deacon, either out of what he considered a kindness to the clergyman, or to show the confidence he felt in the purity of his thoughts, grasped the hand of the latest owner of the black crape mask, and when he looked in the glass at the end of the room, he held his handkerchief over his features until he could hide his countenance behind the welcome shadow of the black crape mask. In a short time the mask changed faces so many times that no one could be found who cared to shake hands with its owner, for the fear of having to ask for it. For the many, many years that the black crape mask remained the wonder of Scuttle Hole, it covered the features of this man. It then became a belief that amounted to a superstition that no man could possess it, without using it as a screen for the thoughts that burned upon his features. But this, at least, proved to be fallacious. The impossible is always coming to pass. The black crape mask has found at last an owner whose thoughts are of so pure and chaste a character, that they would bear the sharpest scrutiny of the severest moral critic. He lives in a halo of the people's love; he is the idol and the model of all who Horv in walking THE MAN WITH THE BLACK CRATE MASK. /,s;, the straight and narrow path ; ho is at once the joy and the envy of the Rev. Eliphalet White; he is the man whose mind is never sullied by an impure thought. He is, in short, Dominick Funshon, Scuttle Hole's priic- tical plumber. A'. K. Mitnkittrick. THE RECORDING SPOOK. "'Sweets to the sweet'" he would say. " That '.< what you said to her when yoii gave her tJic rose." THE RECORDING .SPOOK. IT MAY BE that the brief statement which I have to make is to some extent out of place, coming from me, a mere layman. I have felt, indeed, that it ought to be left to a scientific man. But I think that, even in the incomplete manner in which I must present it, it may have a certain intrinsic interest for those who have given any thought to the great problem of what we know as the supernatural. The period which allows of the existence of a Society for Psychical Research the period which pries curiously into our personal relations with the unseen world must plead my excuse for offer- ing you my small contribution to the science of the unknowable. The incidents which I am about to narrate occurred some two years ago. It was toward the close of an exhausting season. I had striven for some months to perform that part known as "keeping one's end up." I had tried to keep my end up. There is concurrent and contemporaneous testimony to the effect that I did keep my end up. Looking back on it now, it seems to me that 1 kept two or three ends up. I kept my end up 194 MA VER1CKS. at afternoon teas. I kept my end up at early morning suppers. I was up before, and after, the lark. I gener- ally managed to see the moon to bed. 1 do not know whether I make this clear to you. As I said, perhaps I ought to have left the subject to a scientific man. Any scientific man could explain that this sort of a thing is wearing on the most cast-iron constitution. One dewy morn in February, I slipped into bed just as the first milk cart rattled under my window. I was very tired. I was very tired, indeed. My eyes were just closing when I saw, seated upon the foot of my bed, what I can only describe as a supernatural visitant. It was a pale-gray, mottled spook, about sixteen hands high. I was n't afraid of it. I said: " Hello ! who are you ? " " I 'm a spook," it replied. "All right," I said; "spook when you're spooken to. Good night." And then 1 turned over. THE RECORDING SPOOK. 195 "Where are you going?" inquired the spook. "Going to sleep," I told him. " Not now, you 're not," said the spook. " What 's to hinder me?" I queried, in a scientific spirit. "I am," the spook said; "that's what I'm here for. I 'm the recording spook. I 'm sent here to wait on you every night, when you go to bed, and to report to you, before you go to sleep, every foolish, conven- tional or unnecessary thing that you have said during the day." I mildly intimated that he had a large contract on hand. "I have," said he, rubbing his hands; "and I 'm the boy that can fill it, too. Come now, young man, roll over so that I can see you, take your hands out of your ears and listen. The entertainment is going to begin right now, and the curtain 's up." I groaned. I might as well have whistled. " Let 's see," said the spook, grinning hideously and rubbing his hands; " let 's see. You met Jones at the Club this morning. You had n't seen Jones in two days, and what did you say to Jones? Why, you said: 'Quite a stranger, are n't you ? ' Now, that was brilliant, was n't it ? The edge had n't been rubbed off that observation MAVERICKS. in fifteen hundred third-class boarding-houses, had it ? Why, that was the regulation joke in the ark when Noah happened to miss a breakfast through sitting up too late the night before inspecting his private stock. " Go away," said I. " I want to go to sleep." But he did n't go away. He went he went on : "Then you went to the Turkish bath, did n't you ? And you went into the hot room temperature 200. And you saw Robinson there, eh ? And what did you say to Robinson ? " I said that I did n't remember. "You do remember," said the spook; "you said: ' Is it hot enough for you ? ' that 's what you said. You did n't happen to think of any other way of making an idiot of yourself, just at the moment, so you said that. Well, it filled the bill." That is the way he began, that spook; and he kept it up until daylight. He did n't seem to get tired, either. He just kept it up, talking away in that easy, pleasant, conversational manner, telling me all the idiotic things I had said that day. I rolled about, and tried to bury my ears in the pillows. Then I tried to bury the pillows in my ears. It was of no use. The experi- ence meeting came to a close about half-past six. The spook vanished, after making an appointment for the next morning. He was on time ; he was on time right straight along every night after that. 1 never went to sleep until THE RECORDING SPOOK. 197 I knew just how much of a conversational ass I had made of myself during the preceding twenty-four hours. Under these kindly ministrations I improved in my speech. I chastened my conversation, and turned the faucet on my flow of language. And I saw with pleasure that the spook began to dwindle and diminish and grow pale and peaky. He got in a ten or fifteen minutes' seance each night, to remind me that I had said " See you later," or " 1 should smile," or something of that sort, for I found it difficult to get rid of the slang habit. But he dwindled every blessed night he dwindled. But one night I came home and found that spook swollen to twice his original proportions. His head was bobbing up against the ceiling, and there was a grin of fiendish malice on his face. I knew what was the matter. I knew he had me, too. That evening I had met, for the first time, a certain young lady, and I felt as one does sometimes feel in such cases without any arguing about it, or making any investigation into the subject, that without her my life would be a barren blank, not to speak about a desert waste. I suppose that is what is called falling in love. Well, that is what I called it, a little later. But it was a great thing for the spook. He fairly battened on me from that time on. " ' Sweets to the sweet,' " he would say. " That 's what you said to her when you gave her the rose. Why, the girl must think you a perfect imbecile ! " "She doesn't," I would explain. "She told a friend of mine that I was a brilliant conversationalist." "Oh, you 're a brilliant conversationalist!" he would shriek; "and did the brilliant conversationalist brill this evening? Not this evening. The brilliant con- versationalist asked her if she did n't think the rooms were very warm. And he said that we had been having very pleasant weather for this time of year, and that it would probably be warmer in May. Oh, you just bris- tled all over with pungent epigrams, you did !" I did n't care, though. I have no use for a man who can be in love and not make a fool of himself. And I was happy. And the end came. There was one night when I got home, and found the spoo'k swelled to such pro- portions that he filled the apartments. I had to walk through him to get to bed. His gray, mottled sides shook with hysterical laughter. There was malicious THE RECORDING SPOOK. rw triumph in his distended eyes. He pointed his finger at me, and gasped out: "Oh, what a fool you 've made of yourself this evening! Oh, ain't I going to have fun with you ! " He never had it. His memory had got an overdose of conversational idiocy, and his surcharged brain gave way under the strain. He gurgled and burbled for a little, and tried to tell me all about it; but it was too much for him ; and at last, with one wild howl of im- becility, he vanished utterly away. That, I should explain, was the evening that I asked the young lady to be my wife. And it was also the evening when the young lady said : " Why yes." And what I said after that was too much, for the spook, H. C. Bunner. Stories founded on Fiction. By C. H. AUGUR. lustrated by C. J. TAYLOR. CONTENTS. The Man Who Went A -Fishing, The Little Store Around the Corner, The Man in the Box, At the Lonely Port, The Finding of the Finn, A Brief Account of Himself, A Night at McNaughton's, The Five Works of Art, The Switching of a Kicker, The Style of Benjamin, Teacher, A Fresh -Water Affair, A Romance of the Forest, Cheviot's Downward Career, A Summer Morning, Mr, Stubb Penn, Humorist, HANDSOMELY BOUND IN BOARDS, $1.00. IN PAPER COVER, 50c. Of all Booksellers. By mail from the publishers on receipt of price. ***** * * * ***** TO PUCK, whose enduring confidence in the foolishness of mortals has brought about the publication of these HALF-TRUE TALES, this volume is respectfully dedicated. The beauty of James L. Fiord's HYPNOTIC TALES is that they are intensely full of modern New York. Those who read them simply because they suspect that they are humor- ous will find to their surprise a lot of admirable satire. It is hard to imagine a better presentation of certain blemishes on the police department than " The Detect- ive's Tale." In " The Genial's Tale " he has for the first time classified a type and given it a name ; so that now when you speak of a Genial, everybody knows what you mean. Among the other sketches the best are " The Rich Presbyterian's Tale," and "At the Chromo- Literary Reception" - the latter a perfect picture of the sort of thing that the "New York Correspondent" of the Buugtowu Bugle revels in. Life. In Boards, $r.oo. In Paper, jo Cents. All Booksellers. By Mail, from the Publishers, on receipt of price. Illustrations by 1 C-J-T 4/ lr 5 F- Opper t S-5'Criflin IN BOARDS, $1.00. IN PAPER, 50c. 16ZX1.O. 'THE TENOR." 'COL. BRERETON'S AUNTY." 'A ROUND-UP." 'THE LOVE-LETTERS OF SMITH." 'HECTOR." 'THE NICE PEOPLE." 'MR. COPERNICUS AND THE PROLETARIAT." 'A SISTERLY SCHEME." 'ZOZO." 'THE OLD, OLD STORY." 'THE TWO CHURCHES OF "QUAWKET." Illustrated by F. OPPER. 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