Peck's Bad Boy in an airship

by George W. Peck

Just as we got Pa fixed up, and we had all stopped laughing, there was a knock at the door of the state room, and I opened it, and two semi-Englishmen came in looking for Pa and the cowboy, but when I waved my hand and said, “Behold the King of Natabeland,” and the cowboy bit the duster and saluted Pa, and Pa looked savage and said in broken negro, “What, ho! varlets,” the officers said, “Beg pardon, don’t you know, your ’ighness,” and they backed out of the door, making salaams, and soon disappeared. Gee, it was a close call.

Soon after the engine began to turn the screw of the propeller, and when we looked out of the porthole the vessel was going towards the ocean, and when I told Pa he got down off his throne and danced a jig and hugged the cowboy, and we were having a jollification when there was another rap at the door, and Pa jumped up on the throne and put on his tin basin crown, and I opened the door, and the steward of the vessel came in with his hat in his hands, and asked Pa what he would have for supper. Pa said he didn’t care what he had if he only got it quick, and the steward said mostly when they were carrying African kings to England they served the meals in the state rooms, as the kings did not care to sit at the same table with the common herd, and Pa said that suited him all right, and the steward added that the passengers also complained of the manners of the African kings, and the smell that they emitted in the cabin.

There Was a Knock at the Door of the Stateroom.

Pa was going to get hot at that remark, but I was afraid the burnt cork would rub off, so I said His Highness would be served in his state room, and to bring the best the ship offered, and bring it quick if he didn’t want trouble aboard, and he bowed low and went out, and pretty soon the waiters began to bring in oysters and soup and turkey and boiled pheasants, and ice cream, and we kings and things didn’t do a thing to the food, and when the dishes were taken away empty, and the wine had been drank, and the cigars brought in, King Pa got down from his throne and just yelled, and he said to the cowboy, “Say, Alkali Ike, wouldn’t this skin you?” and Ike said he guessed it would when they found out what frauds we were, and after awhile we turned in and slept just like we were at home.

For several days they fed us like they were fattening us for a sausage factory, and the ocean was blue and calm, and we were let out on deck near our state room for exercise, and I kept burning cork and keeping us all blacked up nice, and Pa would repeat African words that he had picked up, mixed with English words, and everybody kept their distance and thought we were the real nigger thing.

Well, everything was going along beautifully, and we thought we had never struck such a snap in all our lives, until about the fifth day.

We had eaten so much that our appetites had gone, and Pa and the cowboy took to drinking more and more, and one night it began to blow, and the vessel was part of the time on one end and then on the other, and then rolling from side to side, so that Pa couldn’t sit on his throne without sideboards, and towards morning we all got seasick and fell all over the state room, and Pa had a pain under his belt that doubled him up like a jackknife, and he yelled for a doctor. I told him never to send for a doctor until the boat tied up at a dock, because it was dangerous, but Pa said he had to have a doctor, and the cowboy had drank a bottle of Scotch whiskey and had laid down under a bunk, and he was no good, so I rang for the ship’s doctor, but I told Pa he must keep the parts of his body that were not black covered up, or the doctor would find out he was a white man, and then it would be all off in the nigger king masquerade.

Pretty soon the ship’s doctor came with a female trained nurse, and Pa was a pitiful sight when he saw them. The doctor felt of Pa’s pulse, and asked him where the pain was, and Pa, like a darn fool, put his hand on his stomach, and before Pa could stop it the doctor had opened Pa’s shirt, and was feeling where the appendix gets in its work.