Half-Hours with Great Story-Tellers / Artemus Ward, George Macdonald, Max Adeler, Samuel Lover, and Others

by Various

"'But,' said I, 'though I am poor and need the money which you will pay me, I have one other condition, and that is that you shall give me your daughter's hand if I succeed.'

"The old man was rather taken aback at this, and flatly refused at first; and we wrangled over the matter for two or three days, but, after seeing me in the skin of the gorilla, and go through my antics and performances, he reluctantly gave in and agreed that after one year of gorilla life in his service, I should have the happiness of marrying Clara. He only stipulated that I should not hereafter tell anybody of the cheat, and that not even Clara should know of it now.

"I am aware that my profession is not high art as you call it, and on hot days it is precious uncomfortable. But what won't a fellow do under the pressure of an exchequer in distress, and enticed by the promise of the hand of the prettiest and best girl in the world? The pay is not much, but I keep soul and body together, which is more than some poor devils do in this great city. By the way, Sam, have you got five dollars about you?"

Now, if there was anything that Jack Gale specially loved, it was the state of being in debt. He was never so happy as when in debt, and when by accident, or the interference of friends, he got out of it, he was uneasy and wretched, apparently, until he got in again. The normal condition of the man was debt; so when he asked me for a loan, I could not help laughing; and I told him that he had undoubtedly found one of the greatest privations of his gorilla life to be the difficulty of contracting new debts.

"That's a fact," said Jack. "The menagerie opens at eight o'clock in the morning; it takes me a good hour to get myself up for the day; and we don't shut up until ten o'clock at night; so you see my professional duties are very confining, and a real, live African gorilla is not supposed to have first-rate credit with the people who poke stale sandwiches and peanuts through his cage-bars by day."

I promised Jack that if old Seanecks, of the Interoceanic Monthly, accepted my article on the Origin of the Human Species, I would divide the proceeds with him. Jack and I had shared and shared alike with our little gains too often in years gone by, for me to remember which owed the other now. Besides, I told him that I had studied his habits as a gorilla, and he had some claim upon the profits of an article in which his personal peculiarities figured so largely.

During the next few days I observed the characteristics of Coriander's African gorilla with new interest. He performed wonderfully well; it was difficult to realize that the hairy, ravening, agile, and grotesquely-moving beast, from which every visitor shrank back aghast, was only jolly Jack Gale serving out his hard servitude for an anticipated bride, very much after the ancient fashion of Laban's kinsman. The cunning rascal had a fashion of leaping at the bars when curious people came too near, driving them away from a narrow inspection by his hideous yells and angry mouthings. But his roars, which were really artistic in their brutal sonorousness, served us a good purpose. As I was night editor on the Daily Highflyer, and kept pretty close from ten until three o'clock in the morning, and Jack was caged until the hour at which I went to work, it was not easy for us to meet. So we exchanged the salutations of the day and a few scraps of news by using our old signals, learned long ago in the telegraph office. Instead of the rat-tat-tat of the little instrument so familiar to both of us, Jack, by a series of long or short howls and grunts, gave me his message, to which I replied by careless taps of my cane or hand, nobody suspecting that my casual movements meant anything, nor supposing for an instant that a sudden burst of African forest yells, which sent a fat lady nearly into hysterics, and made two small children howl with apprehension, merely meant "She with the pink bonnet is my Clara."

And it must be confessed that Clara Coriander was an exceedingly attractive young person. Blonde, slight in figure, and with one of those fair transparent complexions that make you think of a light shining through an alabaster vase, Clara Coriander was certainly as lovely a girl as one ever lays eyes upon. Besides, she was an only daughter, and old Coriander had grown rich in the menagerie business. Jack was a lucky dog (gorilla, I should say), to gain her hand—if he ever did; but one could not help thinking, as he noted her dainty manner and delicate, somewhat distingue face, that she was hardly the girl to fancy a fellow who had personated a gorilla, even for her hand. I was afraid that Jack had made a mistake in thus debasing himself to the absurd passion of her cruel parent for the possession of a gorilla. Moreover, by debarring himself from her society for a greater portion of the time (Sundays only excepted), he left the field open for some more fortunate rival who might, in the meantime, carry off the prize.

But Jack felt sure that he was all right, and by a precious bit of deception he had led Clara to believe that he was hard at work, night and day, at some legitimate calling, earning money for his future ambitious designs in life. The poor little thing believed in him, but Jack said it was very hard for him to be obliged to see his beloved flirting, right before his eyes at the menagerie (for the girl had a taste for natural history, and was there often), with some perfumed dangler who was in love with her pretty face and old Coriander's money. On these occasions, he hated himself for his mean disguise, and found satisfaction in howling at the gay party in such dreadful fashion as sent them quaking from his cage; and then he cursed himself for having driven away his lovely angel, and was smitten with sudden remorse as he saw her rose-hued cheeks blanch at his terrific cries. At such times he could with difficulty restrain himself from shouting: "Don't be frightened, dear, it's only Jack!" But he was fortunately preserved from such an untimely exposure.

Old Seanecks was very mean, and, though he accepted my article on the Origin of the Human Species, only paid me the pitiful sum of twenty dollars for that valuable contribution to knowledge. Twenty dollars for the labor and thought of weeks! Was ever anything so absurd! And there was Jack confidently expecting at least twenty-five dollars to purchase a birth-day present for Clara. Jack loved to make presents, and the deeper he got into debt, the more presents did he bestow on his friends. Such another whole-souled fellow as he was, to be sure.