The Black Lion Inn

by Alfred Henry Lewis

Thus it came to pass that on the occasion when The Emperor’s Cigars were held aloft for bids, the garrulous lecturer employed in selling the collected plunder of three confiscation months, took up one of the two thousand boxes as a sample, and said:

“I offer for sale a lot of two thousand packages, of which the one I hold in my hand is a specimen. Each package is supposed to contain fifty cigars. What am I bid for the lot? What offer do I hear?”

That was the complete proffer as made by the government; for all that the bidding was briskly sharp. Those who had come to purchase were there for bargains not guarantees; moreover, there was the box; and could they not believe their experience? Each would-be bidder knew by the size and shape and character of the package that it was made for and should contain fifty cigars of the Emperor brand. Wherefore no one distrusted; the question of contents arose to no mind; and competition grew instant and close. Bid followed bid; five hundred dollars being the mark of each advance, as the noisy struggle between speculators for the lot’s ownership proceeded.

At last those celebrated marketeers, Grove and Filtord, received the lot—one hundred thousand of The Emperor’s Cigars—for forty-five thousand dollars. What thoughts may have come to them later, when they searched their bargain for its merits, I cannot say. Not one word of inquiry, condemnation or complaint came from Grove and Filtord. Whatever their discoveries, or whatever their deductions, they maintained a profound taciturnity. Probably they did not care to court the laughter of fellow dealers by disclosures of the trap into which they had so blindly bid their way. Surely, they must in its last chapters have been aware of the swindle! To have believed in the genuineness of the goods would have dissipated what remnant of good repute might still have clung to that last of the Napoleons who was their inventor, and justified the coming destruction of his throne and the birth of the republic which arose from its ruins. As I say, however, not one syllable of complaint came floating back from Grove and Filtord. They took their loss, and were dumb.

My own pocket was joyfully gorged with much fat advantage of this iniquity—for inside we were like whalers, each having a prearranged per cent, of what oil was made, no one working for himself alone—long prior to that bidding which so smote on Grove and Filtord. The ring had no money interest in the confiscation sales; those proceeds went all to government. We divided the profits of our own disposal of the right true Emperor’s Cigars on the occasion of their second appearance in port; and that business was ended and over and division done sundry weeks prior to the Grove and Filtord disaster.

That is the story of The Emperor’s Cigars; there came still one little incident, however, which was doubtless the seed of those apprehensions which soon drove me to quit the Customs. I had carried his double tithes to Betelnut Jack. This was no more the work of policy than right. The substitution of the bogus wares, the reshipment to Cuba of The Emperor’s Cigars, even the zinc-lined barrels, the repackage and second appearance and sale of our prizes, were one and all by direction of Betelnut Jack. He planned the campaign in each least particular. To him was the credit; and to him came the lion’s share, as, in good sooth! it should if there be a shadow of that honor among rogues whereof the proverb tells.

On the evening when I sought Betelnut Jack, we sat and chatted briefly of work at the wharfs. Not one word, mind you! escaped from either that might intimate aught of customs immorality. That would have been a gross breach of the etiquette understood by our flock of customs cormorants. No; Betelnut Jack and I confined discussion to transactions absolutely white; no other was so much as hinted at.

Then came Betelnut Jack’s proposal of his special Willow Run; he retired in quest of the demijohn; this was my cue to enrich “Josephus,” ready on the dwarf center table to receive the goods. My present to Betelnut Jack was five one-hundred-dol-lar bills.

Somewhat in haste, I took these from my pocket and opened “Josephus” to lay them between the pages. Any place would do; Betelnut Jack would know how to discover the rich bookmark. As I parted the book, my eye was arrested by a sentence. As I’ve asserted heretofore, I’m not superstitious; yet that casual sentence seemed alive and to spring upon me from out “Josephus” as a threat:

“And these men being thieves were destroyed by the King’s laws; and their people rended their garments, put on sackcloth, and throwing ashes on their heads went about the streets, crying out.”