"Oh, well! you can't expect every one to believe in your Struldbrug cure," replied his friend dreamily. "Even Her Majesty, Queen Anne, would not take your advice, though Mrs. Masham and Mr. Harley begged her to."
"Yes, about the only thing they ever agreed upon in their life. Where is Harley to-day?"
"Oh, I suppose in London," carelessly replied the other. "For a young bird of several centuries he's looking as fit as a fiddle; but see here, Swift, old boy, your bogy-tales are worrying our young friend," and with that Michael says they pointed to him, heartily laughed, and went away.
He crossed himself, and for a moment the electric lights burned dim, so it seemed to the superstitious laddie-buck. But he had had a good chance to study the odd pair. They were not, as he repeated, old men, neither were they youthful. Say thirty-five or forty years, and he noticed this time the freshness of their complexions, the brilliancy of their eyes. They were just gentlemen in evening clothes and had run across Broadway without overcoats, a reprehensible act even for a young man. But they were healthy, self-contained, and hard-headed—they took, according to the statistician behind the bar, about a quart of brandy between them, and were as fresh as daisies after the fiery stuff. Who were they? "Blagueurs," said I, after I had carefully deciphered the runic inscriptions in Michael's mind. (This was a week later.) Two fellows out on a lark, bent on scaring a poor Irish boy. But what was Swift, or Queen Anne, or Metternich, or Mr. Harley to him? Just words. Bonaparte he might be expected to remember. It was curious all the same that he could reel off the unusual names of Mrs. Masham and Casanova. The deuce! was there something in the horrid tale? Two immortals stalking the globe when their very bones should have been dissolved into everlasting dust! Two wraiths revisiting the glimpses of the moon—hold on! Struldbrug! Who was Struldbrug? What his cure? I tried to summon from the vasty deep all the worthies of the eighteenth century. Struldbrug. Swift. Struldbrug. Sir William Temple. Struldbrug—ah! by the great horn spoon! The Struldbrugs of the Island of Laputa! Gulliver's hideous immortals—and then the horror of the story enveloped me, but, despite my aversion to meeting the dead, I determined to live in the chop-house till I saw face to face these ghosts from a vanished past. My curiosity was soon gratified, as the sequel will show.
Just one week after the appearance of this pair I stood talking to the Irish barman, when I saw him start and pale. Ha! I thought, here are my men. I was not mistaken. Two well-built and well-groomed gentlemen asked for brandy, and swallowed it in silence. They were polite enough to avoid my rather rude stare. No wonder I stared. They recalled familiar faces, yet I couldn't at once place the owners. Presently they went over to a table and seated themselves. Loudly calling for a mug of musty ale, I boldly put myself at an adjacent spot, and continued my spying tactics. The friends were soon in hot dispute. It concerned the literary reputation of Balzac. I sat with my mouth wide open.
The elder of the pair, the one called Swift, snapped at his friend: "Zounds, sir! you and your Balzac. Hogwash and roosters in rut—that's about his capacity. Of course, when your own dull stuff appeared he praised you for the sake of the paradox. You moderns! Balzac the father of French fiction! You the father, or is it grandfather, of psychology—a nice crew! That boy Maupassant had more stuff in him than a wilderness of Zolas, Goncourts, and the rest. He is almost as amusing as Paul de Kock—" The other, the little man, bristled with rage.
"Because you wrote a popular boy's book, full of filth and pessimism, you think you know all literature. And didn't you copy Cyrano de Bergerac's Voyagers, and Defoe? You satirise every one except God, whom you spare because you don't know him. I don't care much for Balzac, though I'm free to confess he did treat me handsomely in praising my Chartreuse——"
"Good God!" I groaned, "it's Stendhal, otherwise Henry Beyle, laying down the law to the tremendous author of Gulliver's Travels." And yet neither man looked the accepted portrait of himself. Above all, no Struldbrug moles were in view. I forgot my former fear, being interested in the dispute of these two giant writers who are more akin artistically than ever taken cognisance of by criticism. Dead? What did I care! They were surely alive now, and I was not dreaming. I didn't need to pinch myself, for my eyes and ears reported the occurrence. A miracle? Why not. Miracles are daily, if we but knew it. Living is the most wonderful of all miracles. The discussion proceeded. Swift spoke tersely, just as he wrote:
"Enough, friend Beyle. You are a charlatan. Your knowledge of the human heart is on a par with your taste in literature. You abominate Flaubert because his prose is more rhythmic than yours."
"I vow I protest," interrupted Stendhal.