“Oh, not at all, not at all. But don’t you think yourself that the idea has been worked a little hard? It’s all right for the public to give to the things it knows about, but I was thinking it was becoming such an easy mark I might as well have my share. What I object to is being set down in history as the world’s champion pirate and all around bad man, when the fact is I was naturally the most peaceable individual you ever met. The trouble is, I was born about a hundred years too soon. If I were in business today I wouldn’t be a pirate; I’d be a head waiter in a New York hotel, with a foreign accent but able to understand all languages. Money talks. Probably I’d have served an apprenticeship at the place where they check your hat and coat.
“If I wasn’t a head waiter I’d be a steward on an ocean ship. Perhaps I’d feel more at home on the sea anyway. I was talking to my old friend, Jesse James, the other day and he said the difference between him and the modern professional tip extractor was that he never robbed the same man twice. But I suppose his successors believe that anybody who is worth doing at all is worth doing well. One of these days the American people will probably adopt a new Declaration of Independence against foreign waiters and resolve to give the enemy no quarter—and no half dollar either. They’ll change the old naval hero’s slogan to ‘Don’t give up the tip.’ ‘Millions for good meals, but not one cent for tribute.’ ‘All things come to him who waits.’ Well, I’m sorry for the waiter if he ever gets all that’s coming to him. Ta, ta! young man.”
And as he hobbled off to splice the main brace I could hear the old fellow muttering to himself: “And they used to call me a pirate!”
XIII
ALFRED THE GREAT TRIES TO FIND PROSPEROUS KING
“You want me to talk about modern monarchs!” Alfred the Great responded with a trace of irritation. “Why don’t you ask me to talk about the snakes in Ireland or the best method of preserving hen’s teeth? Why not interview me on the habits of the dodo? How about a little chat concerning that common domestic animal, the long-toed diplodocus, or that popular indoor pet, the megatherium? Let’s discuss that numerous class of estimable citizens, the mound builders. Let’s—”
“I beg pardon, your Majesty,” I hastened to interrupt, “but I had no intention of offending. I know kings are very few and far between these days, but I thought your views on the two or three who have managed to survive would be most interesting to the present generation. You yourself were such a mighty monarch, so generally respected for your honesty and ability and bravery and regal appearance, that I am sure—”
“There, there, say no more,” he replied with condescending affability, “I am just a trifle sensitive, I suppose, on the subject. When I see so many of my brothers sacrificed to the onrushing tide of democracy, naturally it makes me a bit sad.
“It’s just a month,” continued King Alfred, as he lighted his long meerschaum and settled down comfortably in his armchair, which was fashioned like a throne, “it’s just a month since I took my first trip down below to see how the earth had been getting along in my absence of a thousand years plus. And I am frank to confess I found some changes. I went down under the auspices of a spiritualist who wanted me to tell a woman’s club how to make griddle cakes. I suppose you’ve read about the time I let the cakes burn in the farmer’s cottage and the housewife bawled me out when she came back. It’s in every school reader. Well, the next day I called in my chief cook and had him show me how to make griddle cakes that would melt in your mouth. There’s no trick at all to it, really. The only thing is you must keep your mind on it. That time in the cottage I got to thinking about a new way to fight the Danes, and the first thing I knew there was a smell like burning rubber and the old dame rushed in and called me down. I’d have ordered her off to instant execution, but just then our side needed all the votes it could get, and I didn’t know whether her husband would thank me or be annoyed.
“Sometimes you can make a hit with a husband by giving his wife a ten-year sentence in jail, and again it makes him peevish—particularly if he has to do his own housework. So I spared her that time. Where was I? Oh, yes, as I was saying, I went down to tell the club how to make griddle cakes. After I’d filled that date I decided to take a little trip around the capitols of Europe and call on my cousins, the kings and queens. You know every king is supposed to be at least a cousin of every other one—that’s why we have such strained relations so often in royal circles. Well, I decided first to project my astral body up to Moscow, the ancient capitol of Russia. I’d never traveled that far during my previous existence on earth, because I couldn’t spare the time—our wars were a continuous performance. Arrived at the palace, I walked right up to the front door and was going in when a big fellow, roughly clad, his countenance concealed beneath a tangled growth of whiskers, barred my passage.