“Arise, Sir Scribe,” she said, glancing around apprehensively. “Your attitude is that of a lover proposing to his mistress, and as a penalty for posing in the upper world, Mephisto has decreed that whatever attitude a man assumes in Hades, he must set it to words or to music. I am going to be merciful and you may make of your proposal a frayed-out phonograph record which will repeat ‘I love you’ without variation. The warmth of your protestations may melt the wax? You need have no fear of that. You would be more likely to break the record; we do not use wax cylinders, but rubber. As for making you my official scribe, the touch of royalty is sufficient to confer knighthood. Since poor Walter took that ‘sharp remedy’ for all diseases, I have shunned the sword.”
Curiosity is my besetting sin—it is by no means a woman’s prerogative—and as it has been one of my fads to read a person’s character by a glance at his or her hands, I bowed in humble gratitude at the honor conferred upon me, but not without an upward look at the fair hand poised gracefully above me. That fleeting glance told me much. Certain chroniclers of the period Before Darwin tell us that marks were made on the hands of men—and women?—that the sons of men might know them. As the passage occurs in Job, some higher critics interpret the marks to mean boils, but we palmists know better. Palmistry is Cupid masquerading in a scientific costume; it gives a man a valid excuse for holding a girl’s hand. Of course even a scribe can’t take such liberties with a queen, although the cunning of chiromancy prompted me to attempt a revelation of Her Majesty’s character. Just what I found in the hand that swayed the destinies of the world She made me promise not to tell. “God save the Queen—” and the Gentle Reader!
After detailing her destiny, I arose with a muttered apology for consuming so much of her time.
“It isn’t only time that is consumed in Hades, but if you wish to go, you may,” assented Her Grace. “I never argue with a bored sign post about the distance to the street.”
I bowed and left. Outside was a sign which read: “To New York—twenty miles.” I stood a moment and pondered. Twenty miles expressed a nearness which made Hades a suburb of the metropolis! The call of the city was insistent, the lure of Broadway beckoned to the white lights and the clang of trolleys, but all about me were unfolding the wonders of the unknown Stygian country. I did not dispute the distance, nor did I heed the mute command. I simply turned my back on the sign post and walked away from the imperative pointing finger.
“BOSS” TWEED ON TAINTED
MONEY, WITH SOME NONSENSE
DEFINITIONS OF FADS
AND FINANCE.
CHAPTER VII.
“Boss” Tweed on Tainted Money, with Some Nonsense Definitions of Fads and Finance.
THE Asbestos Society of Sinners was in session. The subject of debate was, “Resolved that gold may be yellow, but it is not tainted.”
“‘An Englishman’s hell is want of money,’” mused Carlyle, repeating what he had said while a denizen of earth.
“It’s too bad he gets Hades in both the upper and lower worlds,” observed “Boss” Tweed, who as the reincarnated Dives handled the gavel. “Unfortunately, that condition is not confined to any one country. Wendell Phillips once said that if an American saw a silver dollar on the other side of Hell he would jump for it.”