INTRODUCTORY.
I was sitting in my den desperately seeking the germ thought for a story when Cap’n Wiley blew in and appropriated the easy-chair.
“Ah, there, old top,” said he. “So I’ve caught you red-handed in your little sanctum sanctotum. What meaneth the distraught look which corregateth thy dome of thought?”
“Cap’n,” said I, “you jar me. I’m thinking.”
“Don’t do it,” he entreated. “You’re taking a frightful chance when you put such a strain on your impoverished gray matter. You don’t have to think to write the sort of souperific stuff you slosh out.”
“Don’t I!” I cried, exasperated. “Well, now, perhaps you think you could write it yourself?”
“No,” he answered cheerfully, “nothing quite as distressing. Now, if I was going to write, I’d hand the yearning public some real littery litterchewer, just for a change. I say, Burt, old sport, I think I’ll try one of your Havana imperfectos, if you have one inconvenient at hand.”
I brought out a box of cigars, and he helped himself to a handful. Then he “borrowed” a match, fired up, and settled back, with a sigh of satisfaction, on the easy-chair.
“Yes,” he murmured, “I think I could do it. I come from an immoderately cultured family. Why, my sister was educated in a female cemetery.”
“You mean a female seminary?”
“No, I don’t; I mean a female cemetery. Why, where else would a young lady learn the dead languages?”
I had no reply to make.
“But,” pursued the marine marvel, “it really wouldn’t be necessary for me to consort to fiction; if I were to write a truthful verbatem history of my own career from the cradle to the Hall of Fame, it would prove so fascinating that the reading public would gobble it up with humidity.”
I slipped him the skeptical smile, which seemed to arouse him to a point of high resentment.
“Say, you give me a cramp!” he exclaimed resentfully. “You think I can’t deliver the goods, hey? Well, I’ll show you, some. You’ve been grafting off me for some time by plaguerizing such little mementos of my chilling adventures as I have chanced to let drop in casual conversation with you, and I’m highly distended over it.
“Now, take it from me, Burt, from this mementous hour you cease to yearn your bread and butter by parisiting on little Walter. I’m going to write my own naughty biography, and I’ll do a job at it that will put your style of bunkoing the reading public strictly on the blink. I have only one fear: what if, on publication of my personal reminoosances, some one should be unfeeling and thoughtless enough to doubt my absolute voracity? That would break my tender heart.
“Nevertheless, I’ll take a chance, remembering, as the poet puts it, that truth must rise triumphant, even though it may seem to be getting walloped groggy. Farewell, Burt. Bide a wee. You’ll gaze on my beaming counterpane no more until I have completed the colossal task I have vowed to undertake. I observe by the beautiful hand-painted culendar above your rosewood desk that it is now the conclusive day of the month of March. I shall begin my labors upon the morrow.”
He was at the door when I laughingly called:
“Don’t forget that to-morrow is the first day of April, cap’n.”
He seared me with a look of scorn, and vanished.
I did not set eyes upon him again for more than two months, but, as he frequently absented himself for more or less protracted periods, I thought nothing of it. When he did turn up again I had quite forgotten about his threat to write his autobiography, and I don’t think I ever mentioned it to him. Some months later he met with that sad and terrible accident which brought his really adventurous life to a tragic termination.
Recently, in looking through a trunk in which were stowed some of the cap’n’s effects, a relative discovered a huge bundle of foolscap paper carefully tied up with ribbons made of cigar bands taken from my own cigars on various visits of Walter to my den. The paper was covered with writing, almost undecipherable in its hasty scrawl, which told that the penman had dashed off every line at fever heat. It proved to be the autobiography, and was given into my hands.
I have edited it with some pains, being at times compelled to use the blue pencil freely, and to tone down in many places the cap’n’s flamboyant style.
Burt L. Standish.
CHAPTER I.
ITCHING FOR ADVENTURE.
I was a beautiful baby, even though, like most babies, I was born without any hair or teeth to speak of; and if I had had them I probably wouldn’t have spoken of them at the time, which I offer as absolute proof of my natural modesty. I was also a most precocious baby, absolutely remarkable, in evidence of which I will state that at the age of six months I was distinctly heard to say “boo” and “oog.”
On hearing these pearls of intelligence and wisdom fall from my rosebud lips my mother became quite convinced that I was doomed to a wonderful career as a statesman, a diplomap, or a street-car conductor. Chauffeurs were not in vogue at the time.
It may be well to skim over the days of my childhood and early youth, and plunge at once into the seething vortext of adventures which befell me when, at the tender age of sweet sixteen, I fared forth with an eager heart, and a father’s good riddance, to face the world and grapple with fortune. Perhaps it is not strictly accurate to say that I fared forth, as, not having the necessary wampum with which to pay my fare by rail, I locomoted per Shank’s mare.
It was at the witching hour of midnight that I bade the ancestral rooftree so long, sincerely hoping that it would be so long before I beheld it again that I might forget to remember what it looked like. The discerning reader will divine by this naïve confession of my feelings at the time, that my life up to that date had not exactly been one grand, sweet song.
When I crept down the back stairs and let myself out of the Wiley tepee by the kitchen door, I took with me a more or less elaborate cuisine of extra clothing tied up in a bandanna handkerchief. I was followed by little Fido, my faithful dog. Little Fido was a cross between a Skioodle and an Angostora goat, and he weighed about three pounds and seven ounces, when trained down to fighting condition. I’ve seen him chaw up a forty-pound bulldog quicker than a woodchuck could whip a bear.
Between little Fido and myself there existed an affection that was deep and tender and touching. He was an animal of high intelligence, and I was perfectly convinced by the stealthy and syruptitious manner in which he slunk from the house at my heels that he was fully aware of the fact that I was running away, and he was determined to flee with me.
You understand, it is not difficult for a dog to flea with any one, and we had slept together many a night. Is it any wonder that I had an itching for adventure? When the time came to set forth in quest of that for which I itched I certainly came up to the scratch.
And so, behold me, gentle reader, on that dark and gloomy midnight, making my get-away with faithful little Fido gamboling at my heels. Dark it was, indeed—so dark that a load of coal that had been dumped outside the back door of the Wiley domicile looked like a snowdrift. Nevertheless, also, and likewise, I knew the lay of the land, and the points of the compass, and, having reached the highway, I hastened to hie away.
It must not be thought for a single fleeting zodiac of time that I was taking this nocturnal departure from home without feeling as much as a transient emotion of regret, for I have a naturally tender and touching nature, in proof of which I might call upon hundreds of persons whom I have touched on various occasions.
I shed tears at the thought of all I was leaving behind me—tears of sincere regret; for there were about ten or a dozen persons in that town whom I had sworn to thrash within an inch of their lives, and I was saddened by the thought that I was leaving the work unaccomplished.
Blinded by these tears, as well as the intense darkness, I came near meeting with a frightful disaster while taking a short cut across a back yard; for I fell about twenty-five feet into an old well, and landed in water that was at least umsteen feet deep. Perhaps it is not precisely accurate to say that I landed in that water; suffice it to say that I dropped into it casually up to my pompadore, and found it extremely wet.
“Ah-ha!” I exclaimed, coughing up about a gallon of aqua pura which I had thoughtlessly swallowed. “I’m in a hole now.”
I began to feel of the wet and slippery rocks around me, and I must assert that, in spite of my unpleasant predicament, I was feeling well. In vain I tried to fasten my flippers on those slippery rocks; they were smoother than a con man. I couldn’t obtain a sustaining hold anywhere, and I was compelled to tread water to keep my head above the surface.
Now, treading water in a well about twenty-five feet below the level of terra firma is an occupation that becomes monotonous in the course of time. If you don’t believe me, just try it once. It will make you tired. It did me. I sought to brace my hands and feet against opposite sides of the well, and to crawl upward in that manner, but every time I attempted it I slipped down. If I could only have slipped up I should have been very happy indeed.
I could hear little Fido howling dolefully and despairingly above me. The intelligent beast knew, beyond doubt, the full extent of my frightful peril.
Gradually I was growing benumbed by the icy chill of the water and exhausted by my efforts, and I realized that unless I could soon find some method of extricating myself from that well my bath was going to disagree with me very extensively. So, while still treading water, I put my colossal intellect at work upon the problem.
It seemed a terrible thing to have the career of adventure upon which I had set forth cut short at such an early date. The prospect was far from pleasing.
“Water death to die!” I groaned, in anguish.
Luckily for me, no one heard the remark, for if any one had he might have been tempted to drop a brick upon my head.
No one heard me except little Fido, and he howled worse than ever.
At last I was struck by a bright idea—an idea that made me chortle with glee and wonder why it had not occurred to me before. It was so simple!
I will explain for the edification of the unsuspecting reader that I have always been a great athlete, and the possessor of scandalous strength. I once lifted a horse and buggy. I had quite a time over it, I acknowledge; the judge gave me three months.
When the happy thought came over me I was almost overcome. As soon as I could find my breath I proceeded to put it into execution. More than one person has lost his breath by putting it into execution, but what’s the use of being hanged if you can help it? While treading water I reached down with both hands, secured a good, firm grip on the later portion of my trowserloons, took a long breath, and lifted with all my enormous strength.
The result justified my agreeable expectations. I felt myself rising! I kept on rising faster and faster, straining every nerve in the tremendous effort. In this manner I lifted myself clean out of that twenty-five-foot well, and fell, panting and exhausted, upon the solid earth, my strength failing me just as I was fully and fairly above ground.
If the skeptical reader doesn’t believe this I can show him the well.
CHAPTER II.
FIDO TO THE RESCUE.
Despite my narrow escape from a watery grave, my larder for adventure was not dampened in the least, and so, with my little dog percolating at my heels, I tramped onward throughout the remainder of that night, with my face set toward Boston.
Morning came at last. I was far from home when dawn broke across the wold. (I use the word “wold” instead of world because it sounds more poetic, and I am naturally of a highly poetic extinction.) Little birds began to carol in the wayside thickets, crickets cricked in the grass, in a near-by marsh frogs were celebrating morning mass in a masterly manner, and eventually the sun rose into a sky as blue as a poker player who has bet his last blooming chip on four kings and found that some other crook at the table holds four aces.
It was a beautiful morning, but, having been born with a decided penchant for food, without which I have unfortunately, up to the present date, found it quite difficult to subsist, I had no eye for the beauties of the universe scattered around me. My stomach was hollow.
I knew that little Fido must also be hungry, although he had bravely refrained from saying so.
I knocked at the door of a house, and a kind lady came out and asked me what I wanted. I told her I was that flemished that I knew I could find nutriment even in the hole of a doughnut, which I would demonstrate to her satisfaction if she had a few doughnut holes to spare.
At first the lady was somewhat suspicious. She asked me for my name and pedigree. I told her my name was Johnny Jones, but that I had carelessly mislaid my pedigree, and lost the blame thing. In order to allay her suspicions, I related a pathetic tale about a great-grandmother who was dying in Boston, and whose bedside I hoped to reach before the doctors could finish her.
She was touched. She told me she was a widow, and I congratulated her on the spur of the moment. She promised refreshments for me and my dog if I would perform some slight manual labor by sawing a cord of wood or so for her. The wood was in the woodshed. I inspected it with a sad and regretful eye. It never did agree with me to saw wood, and I offered to shovel the sunshine off the widow’s front walk.
But she was impervious to my argument, and so, peeling off my coat, I seized the bucksaw and went at it. The saw needed honing, and I must admit that I was greatly discouraged by the time I had amputated the first stick or two. I knew I’d never last to finish the job on an empty stomach, and this led me to set my colossal intellect at work on the problem.
The widow had gone into the house to get breakfast. I paused and pondered. A scheme came to me. I made an effort and found that by zizzing my breath through my teeth and lips I could produce an excellent imitation of a dull bucksaw cutting through a stick of wood. For the next half hour or more I sat on the chopping block zizzing with consummate industry, lifting and dropping a stick of wood at regular intervals, so that it would fall with a thud loud enough to be heard in the kitchen.
As soon as I dared, I put on my coat and strolled into the kitchen, pretending to wipe beads of perspiration from my alabaster brow, and betraying every skymptom of excessive exhaustion.
“Goodness!” exclaimed the widow, in surprise. “Did you saw the whole of that wood as soon as this?”
“Yes, madam,” I answered, “I saw the whole of that wood.”
Then she regaled me with a sumptuous breakfast of ham and beans and corn bread and coffee, and by the time little Fido and I were eternally satiated the table looked as if it had been keeping a date with a Kansas cyclone.
“You were indeed hungry,” said the kind widow. “You are very young to be walking all the way to Boston to reach the bedside of a dying great-grandmother. Now, your parents——”
“Are both dead,” I sighed.
“Oh,” said she, “you’re an orphan. Have you been so——”
“Not often,” I answered. “I believe I may truthfully say this is my first offense.”
“Your great-grandmother—is she very old?”
“That is the sad part of it,” I moaned, bursting into tears. “It is terrible for one to die so young. She is only thirty-five.”
The widow seemed surprised.
“Only thirty-five!” she exclaimed; “and your great-grandmother? You are at least sixteen or seventeen. It is impossible for you to have a great-grandmother who is only thirty-five!”
I perceived the necessity of side-stepping at once.
“Pardon me, madam,” I said. “The lady is my grandmother, but she weighs at least two hundred and ninety pounds, so I call her my great grandmother.”
And I got away with it. She was so relieved to find me strictly truthful that she did not question the possibility of my having a grandmother of that age. Had she done so, I should have explained that doubtless in my haste I got the figures reversed, and that my grandmother was fifty-three instead of thirty-five. Not being particularly strong in mathematics, I sometimes make these little fox paws with figures.
“Your poor father and mother,” murmured the widow; “were they people of a spiritual turn?”
“My father was,” I replied; “decidedly so. I have known him to go out with the parson for spiritual stimulation. They would go into a back room somewhere and sit down at an ordinary round table, and it would not be long before spirits appeared before them. When those spirits departed my father used to rap on the table, and more spirits would come. After a prolonged séance of this kind my father usually saw things.”
“Dear me!” said the widow. “How unfortunate to lose such a father. How old was he when he passed away?”
“He was only fifty-nine,” I answered, with criminal carelessness.
Immediately, if not sooner than that, I perceived that it was time for me to be wending my way onward, and I proceeded to wend, overloading her with such a burden of gratitude that she didn’t have time to get her breath before I was half a mile down the road.
Near noon I approached the hoop skirts of a large city. As I approached, I perceived posted on fences and the sides of old barns many carnivorous posters advertising a circus which was to appear in that town on that very date.
Entering the town, I lemonaded slowly down the principal street. Ere long my ears were saluted by a sound resembling a base libel on music, and soon the circus band at the head of a long procession made its appearance.
Both sides of the street were lined with gaping multitudes. It seemed that everybody in town and for miles around had assembled to witness that parade. Lawyers, doctors, storekeepers, clerks, stenographers, street laborers, everybody, in fact, had gathered upon the sidewalks to see the procession pass, and for the time being business in that town was placed horse de tomcat.
The music assassinators of the band were dressed in bright-red suits, and rode in a gilded chariot. Next in line, a short distance behind the band chariot, came the biggest elephant I have ever seen; certainly the creature must have weighed twelve or fourteen tons, more or less.
In the center of the city there was a wooden bridge spanning a deep, dark river. Unfortunately, this bridge was not of sufficient strength to sustain the weight of that huge elephant. Just as the monster reached the middle span of the structure there was a sudden cracking of timbers, and the bridge gave way, precipitating the immense creature into the water.
The excitement immediately became intense. Women shrieked, men shouted, and, to the relief of everybody, the circus band stopped firing. The splash of the elephant striking the surface of the river resembled a clap of thunder, and water was flung over the top of a five-story building near at hand.
Crowding to the nearest bank of the river, I perceived the poor beast floundering distressingly in the middle of the stream. Almost immediately I became aware that the creature could not swim, and was, therefore, doomed to be drowned unless some one could devise a means of its rescue. Right before the eyes of those helpless and horrified spectators the beast sank and rose and sank again.
The manager of the circus, who was likewise the owner, came tearing through the crowd, frothing at the mouth, and shrieking that he would pay a reward of five hundred dollars to any one who would rescue the elephant.
I saw my opportunity, and grappled with it.
“Clam yourself, sir,” said I. “I will relieve you of that five hundred. Your priceless treasure shall not perish.”
Then I called my faithful dog.
“Fido,” I cried, pointing toward the drowning mammal, “it’s up to you to get busy. We need the mazuma. Go fetch, Fido.”
Instantly my noble dog plunged into the river and swam swiftly toward the elephant. Just as the great beast was sinking for the third time, Fido seized it by one ear, and, holding the elephant’s head above the surface, turned and struck out for the nearest shore.
It was a fearful struggle. For a time the issue hung in the balance, or words to that effect. Once Fido, elephant, and all disappeared from view, and the crowd shouted in a high key. That is, most of the crowd; but, judging by the smell of the man’s breath next to me, the key he shouted in was whisky. I touched him gently on the shoulder, and admonished him to keep up his spirits. Hiccuping slightly, he assured me that it was frequently far more difficult for him to keep them down.
With folded arms, I serenely waited until little Fido reached the bank and dragged the elephant, limp and nearly drowned, but still alive, out upon dry ground.
The spectators cheered wildly, and the proprietor of the circus made a dastardly attempt to fall on my neck and kiss me, but I held him off.
“My dear boy,” he cried, “I owe you a thousand thanks.”
“No,” I answered; “you owe me five hundred dollars, and I’ll take it in frigid cash. Even a certified check will be scrutinized with suspicion.”
CHAPTER III.
THE CAPTAIN MEETS A RASCAL.
The proprietor of the circus was most profuse in his gratitude. He was a gent who, without exaggeration, could be called effulgent. He certainly had a rush of words to the mouth, but I declined to let the flow of gas overcome me, rigidly insisting on my rights, and demanding that he should make good and cough up. Seeing that I could not be bluffed, he finally extended an invitation for me to accompany him to his headquarters at the circus grounds, where he could renumerate me according to his promise.
“I want you to understand,” he said, “that I am a man of my word. I am Samuel P. Slick, proprietor and owner of Slick’s Mammoth Circus and Colossal Aggregation of Wild Beasts.”
“Glad to know you, Mr. Slick,” said I. “I am highly flavored. Lead on, and I will stick to you closer than a porous plaster to a rheumatic shoulder blade.”
Visions of that five hundred percolated through my cerebellum. In fancy I was already fingering various long, green certificates with pictures of presidents upon them. Why, I had that money spent before we even hove in sight of the circus grounds.
Mr. Slick led me to a small tent abaft the main tent. Little Fido followed us cheerfully. As soon as we were inside the small tent, and thus shielded from prying eyes, Mr. Slick sunk his grappling hooks into his trowsers pocket and dragged up a solitary greasy five-dollar bill, which he beamingly offered me.
“Take it, son—take it!” he urged magnanimously. “You deserve it, for that dog of yours is really a wonder.”
“I beg your hasty pudding,” said I, refraining from cleaving unto the fiver; “but haven’t you made a slight mistake?”
“Eh?” said he quickly. “Why, I thought I said five. Is it possible that I said one? Oh, well, never mind; we’ll call it five, just the same, for it certainly was worth it. It’s yours!”
“What under the canister of heaven do you take me for?” I cried warmly. “You said five hundred. Get busy, Mr. Slick, and add about ninety-nine duplicates to that lonesome William.”
Immediately Mr. Slick blew up. He turned purple in the face, and looked like a toad with the colic.
“Why, you young scoundrel,” he roared, “are you trying to bluff me out of a lot of real money? I said I’d give any one five dollars to save my elephant, and I meant it. Under the circumstances, I’m not obliged to pay you a cent, for you didn’t pull the elephant out; it was that there dog that did it. But I can’t give money to a dog, and so——”
He started to put the bill back into his pocket.
I reached right out and secured it.
“I can take money from one,” I remarked, “and that’s just about what you are—and then a few. Unfortunately the United States slanguage does not furnish adjectives suitable to fit your particular case, and, as it happens that I can’t speak French a great deal better than I can speak it, I’ll refrain from attempting the impossible task of telling you just what I think of you. It chances that I’m busted; otherwise I would spurn your filthy lucifer with ignominy.”
I left him in high dudgeon, and went right away from there. I’ll admit that I was extensively sore; but five bones would purchase a beefsteak and trimmings, and I was again languishing with hunger.
We dined, Fido and I, and we went the limit, from beef a la mud to demi tassles. When I had tipped the waiter munificently I found that only twenty cents of the late-lamented fiver remained in the exchequer. With that I purchased a flagrant Havana cigar, and again set forth upon my weary tramp toward my predestination.
I think I had left the city about a mile astern, and was slowly oozing along, buried in deep thought, when the sudden consummate blast of an automobubble horn gave me such a start that I jumped about ten feet straight up into the ambient atmosphere.
Now, it happened that the gasoline jaunting car was approaching from behind with considerable acceleration. I am sure the buzz wagon could not have been more than ten rods behind me when the cheffonier blew that blast on his horn, and the blasted thing made me jump.
And the machine was moving with such expedience that when I came down I alighted fairly on the cushioned seat in the tonneau.
By the time I got my breath and quieted the spasmatic beatings of my heart, I realized that I was comfortably languishing in a strictly first-class, up-to-date naughty-mobile that was taking me toward Boston a great deal faster than I could walk.
Besides yours truly, the only other person in the car was the driver, who was so preoccupied with his job of taking the road turns at about seventy miles an hour, that he had not even seemed casually to notice the unceremonious manner in which I had dropped in on him.
The old gocart was a good one. On looking it over with the eye of a cricket, I perceived at once that in the way of such machines it might be called the ne plus ulster.
I congratulated myself with impunity. What could be more satisfactory than to make a portion of my journey in this manner? With a sigh of contentment, I settled back, murmuring in dulcet tones:
“Let her rip, old boy! As long as you don’t try to hurdle a stone wall or climb a tree, you can’t feaze little Walter.”
Then came a sudden horrifying thought: My dog—my poor little dog Fido! What had become of him?
I turned to cast my eyes backward, but, fearing I might not recover them if I did so, I refrained, and simply looked.
That is, I tried to look, but the course astern was simply blotted out by a cloud of dust. There was so much dust in the air that it seemed to crowd itself for room. I felt sure we were tearing up the solid earth at such a rate that where the road had been there would remain nothing but a long, deep ditch after we had passed over it.
Poor little Fido! Would I ever again behold my faithful little quinine companion? I feared not.
In a short time, however, we struck a long strip of macadamized bullyvard, and, again looking round, I pereevered that we were no longer distributing the highway over the adjacent country.
Imagine my unbounded amazement and joy on discovering my little dog a few rods abeam, coming like the wind, his eyes protruding like glass doorknobs, and something like a yard and a half of his tongue hanging from his mouth. He was simply making tremendous endeavors to keep up with that car, which now seemed to be only occasionally connecting slightly with the extremely remote elevations—and he was practically doing it.
But I realized that this could not last long. Speedy as he surely was, Fido could not continue to hit it up at something better than a mile a minute for more than forty or fifty miles without eventually becoming weary and discouraged.
On the spur of the momentum I decided that something must be done.
Then I called to little Fido, making at the same time an encouraging genuflexion with my lily-white hand. He responded at once with a tremendous burst of speed and a flying leap that brought him sailing over the back of the machine into the tonneau beside me.
TO BE CONTINUED.
A DIVER’S GREATEST DANGER.
The greatest enemy of the diver is paralysis, and this, strangely enough, is not caused by sending him into the sea, but in carelessly taking him out of it. In bringing a diver to the surface from any great depth, as much as half an hour is spent in what is known as “staging” him. He is brought up to a certain depth from the surface and there held, while he fights vigorously with arms and legs to quicken the circulation temporarily, and so to assist in sweeping the excess of nitrogen out of the tissues of the body. This excess of nitrogen, forced into the blood under pressure of air and water, is the cause of diver’s paralysis. At various depths before reaching the surface, the good diver, who understands what causes paralysis, will “stage” and prepare himself to leave the water. Once on the deck of the lugger, he will rest and recover himself for another descent, and so throughout the day.
PRESENCE OF MIND.
A passenger on a transatlantic liner had been sick for five days in succession. One evening he felt somewhat better, and promenaded the saloon for some time. About ten o’clock he thought of retiring to his stateroom, which was on the upper deck. Before leaving the saloon he sought the steward and said:
“I want you to send me some hot water for shaving at half past six in the morning. Will you remember it?”
The steward promised, and the passenger started up the saloon companionway. The steps were brass-covered and very slippery. He reached the first landing all right, but slipped on the first step of the second and came rattling all the way down again. He was picked up rather battered, but not a bit disconcerted.
“Steward,” he said gravely, “I just came back to tell you not to forget that hot water at half past six in the morning.”