Ruggles of Red Gap

by Harry Leon Wilson

“Which is why I suspect them. That Kenner woman, Hobbs, the baker, the others of their set—they’re not thinking people; I dare say they never consider social problems seriously. And you may have noticed that they announce an amateur minstrel performance for a week hence. I’m quite convinced that they mean to be vulgar to the last extreme—there has been so much talk of the behaviour of the wretched Floud, a fellow who really has no place in our modern civilization. He should be compelled to remain on his ranche.”

And indeed these suspicions proved to be only too well founded. That which followed was so atrociously personal that in any country but America we could have had an action against them. As Mr. Belknap-Jackson so bitterly said when all was over, “Our boasted liberty has degenerated into license.”

It is best told in a few words, this affair of the minstrel performance, which I understood was to be an entertainment wherein the participants darkened themselves to resemble blackamoors. Naturally, I did not attend, it being agreed that the best people should signify their disapproval by staying away, but the disgraceful affair was recounted to me in all its details by more than one of the large audience that assembled. In the so-called “grand first part” there seemed to have been little that was flagrantly insulting to us, although in their exchange of conundrums, which is a peculiar feature of this form of entertainment, certain names were bandied about with a freedom that boded no good.

It was in the after-piece that the poltroons gave free play to their vilest fancies. Our piece having been announced as “Ghosts; a Drama for Thinking People,” this part was entitled on their programme, “Gloats; a Dram for Drinking People,” a transposition that should perhaps suffice to show the dreadful lengths to which they went; yet I feel that the thing should be set down in full.

The stage was set as our own had been, but it would scarce be credited that the Kenner woman in male attire had made herself up in a curiously accurate resemblance to Belknap-Jackson as he had rendered the part of Oswald, copying not alone his wig, moustache, and fashion of speech, but appearing in a golfing suit which was recognized by those present as actually belonging to him.

Nor was this the worst, for the fellow Hobbs had copied my own dress and make-up and persisted in speaking in an exaggerated manner alleged to resemble mine. This, of course, was the most shocking bad taste, and while it was quite to have been expected of Hobbs, I was indeed rather surprised that the entire assembly did not leave the auditorium in disgust the moment they perceived his base intention. But it was Cousin Egbert whom they had chosen to rag most unmercifully, and they were not long in displaying their clumsy attempts at humour.

As the curtain went up they were searching for him, affecting to be unconscious of the presence of their audience, and declaring that the play couldn’t go on without him. “Have you tried all the saloons?” asked one, to which another responded, “Yes, and he’s been in all of them, but now he has fled. The sheriff has put bloodhounds on his trail and promises to have him here, dead or alive.”

“Then while we are waiting,” declared the character supposed to represent myself, “I will tell you a wheeze,” whereupon both the female characters fell to their knees shrieking, “Not that! My God, not that!” while Oswald sneered viciously and muttered, “Serves me right for leaving Boston.”

To show the infamy of the thing, I must here explain that at several social gatherings, in an effort which I still believe was praiseworthy, I had told an excellent wheeze which runs: “Have you heard the story of the three holes in the ground?” I mean to say, I would ask this in an interested manner, as if I were about to relate the anecdote, and upon being answered “No!” I would exclaim with mock seriousness, “Well! Well! Well!” This had gone rippingly almost quite every time I had favoured a company with it, hardly any one of my hearers failing to get the joke at a second telling. I mean to say, the three holes in the ground being three “Wells!” uttered in rapid succession.

Of course if one doesn’t see it at once, or finds it a bit subtle, it’s quite silly to attempt to explain it, because logically there is no adequate explanation. It is merely a bit of nonsense, and that’s quite all to it. But these boors now fell upon it with their coarse humour, the fellow Hobbs pretending to get it all wrong by asking if they had heard the story about the three wells and the others replying: “No, tell us the hole thing,” which made utter nonsense of it, whereupon they all began to cry, “Well! well! well!” at each other until interrupted by a terrific noise in the wings, which was followed by the entrance of the supposed Cousin Egbert, a part enacted by the cab-driver who had conveyed us from the station the day of our arrival. Dragged on he was by the sheriff and two of the town constables, the latter being armed with fowling-pieces and the sheriff holding two large dogs in leash. The character himself was heavily manacled and madly rattled his chains, his face being disguised to resemble Cousin Egbert’s after the beard had been adjusted.