Delphi complete works of.., p.18
Delphi Complete Works of Stephen Leacock, page 18
“Very good, sir,” said the man deferentially. “You will find him on the first floor.”
Hezekiah turned and shot the footman twice through the livery and went upstairs.
In an upper room was a man sitting at a desk under a reading-lamp. In front of him was a pile of gold.
“What are you doing?” said Hezekiah.
“I am counting my money,” said the man.
“What are you?” asked Hezekiah sternly.
“I am a philanthropist,” said the man. “I give my money to deserving objects. I establish medals for heroes. I give prizes for ship captains who jump into the sea, and for firemen who throw people from the windows of upper stories at the risk of their own; I send American missionaries to China, Chinese missionaries to India, and Indian missionaries to Chicago. I set aside money to keep college professors from starving to death when they deserve it.”
“Stop!” said Hezekiah, “you deserve to die. Stand up. Open your mouth and shut your eyes.”
The old man stood up.
There was a loud report. The philanthropist fell. He was shot through the waistcoat and his suspenders were cut to ribbons.
Hezekiah, his eyes glittering with the mania of crime, crammed his pockets with gold pieces.
There was a roar and hubbub in the street below.
“The police!” Hezekiah muttered. “I must set fire to the house and escape in the confusion.”
He struck a safety match and held it to the leg of the table.
It was a fireproof table and refused to burn. He held it to the door. The door was fireproof. He applied it to the bookcase. He ran the match along the books. They were all fireproof. Everything was fireproof.
Frenzied with rage, he tore off his celluloid collar and set fire to it. He waved it above his head. Great tongues of flame swept from the windows.
“Fire! Fire!” was the cry.
Hezekiah rushed to the door and threw the blazing collar down the elevator shaft. In a moment the iron elevator, with its steel ropes, burst into a mass of flame; then the brass fittings of the door took fire, and in a moment the cement floor of the elevator was one roaring mass of flame. Great columns of smoke burst from the building.
“Fire! Fire!” shouted the crowd.
Reader, have you ever seen a fire in a great city? The sight is a wondrous one. One realises that, vast and horrible as the city is, it nevertheless shows its human organisation in its most perfect form.
Scarcely had the fire broken out before resolute efforts were made to stay its progress. Long lines of men passed buckets of water from hand to hand.
The water was dashed on the fronts of the neighbouring houses, thrown all over the street, splashed against the telegraph poles, and poured in torrents over the excited crowd. Every place in the neighbourhood of the fire was literally soaked. The man worked with a will. A derrick rapidly erected in the street reared itself to the height of sixteen or seventeen feet. A daring man mounted on the top of it, hauled bucket after bucket of water on the pulley. Balancing himself with the cool daring of the trained fireman, he threw the water in all directions over the crowd.
The fire raged for an hour. Hezekiah, standing at an empty window amid the flames, rapidly filled his revolver and emptied it into the crowd.
From one hundred revolvers in the street a fusillade was kept up in return.
This lasted for an hour. Several persons were almost hit by the rain of bullets, which would have proved fatal had they struck anyone.
Meantime, as the flames died down, a squad of policemen rushed into the doomed building.
Hezekiah threw aside his revolver and received them with folded arms.
“Hayloft,” said the chief of police, “I arrest you for murder, burglary, arson, and conspiracy. You put up a splendid fight, old man, and I am only sorry that it is our painful duty to arrest you.”
As Hayloft appeared below a great cheer went up from the crowd. True courage always appeals to the heart of the people.
Hayloft was put in a motor and whirled rapidly to the police station.
On the way the chief handed him a flask and a cigar.
They chatted over the events of the evening.
Hayloft realised that a new life had opened for him. He was no longer a despised outcast. He had entered the American criminal class.
At the police station the chief showed Hezekiah to his room.
“I hope you will like this room,” he said a little anxiously. “It is the best that I can give you to-night. To-morrow I can give you a room with a bath, but at such short notice I am sure you will not mind putting up with this.”
He said good night and shut the door. In a moment he reappeared.
“About breakfast?” he said. “Would you rather have it in your room, or will you join us at our table d’hote? The force are most anxious to meet you.”
Next morning, before Hezekiah was up, the chief brought to his room a new outfit of clothes — a silk hat, frock-coat, shepherd’s-plaid trousers and varnished boots with spats.
“You won’t mind accepting these things, Mr. Hayloft. Our force would like very much to enable you to make a suitable appearance in the court.”
Carefully dressed and shaved, Hezekiah descended. He was introduced to the leading officials of the force, and spent a pleasant hour of chat over a cigar, discussing the incidents of the night before.
In the course of the morning a number of persons called to meet and congratulate Hezekiah.
“I want to tell you, sir,” said the editor of a great American daily, “that your work of last night will be known and commented on all over the States. Your shooting of the footman was a splendid piece of nerve, sir, and will do much in defence of the unwritten law.”
“Mr. Hayloft,” said another caller, “I am sorry not to have met you sooner. Our friends here tell me that you have been in New York for some months. I regret, sir, that we did not know you. This is the name of my firm, Mr. Hayloft. We are leading lawyers here, and we want the honour of defending you. We may! Thank you, sir. And now, as we have still an hour or two before the court, I want to run you up to my house in my motor. My wife is very anxious to have a little luncheon with you.”
The court met that afternoon. There was a cheer as Hezekiah entered.
“Mr. Hayloft,” said the judge, “I am adjourning this court for a few days. From what I hear the nerve strain that you have undergone must have been most severe. Your friends tell me that you can hardly be in a state to take a proper interest in the case till you have had a thorough rest.”
As Hayloft left the court a cheer went up from the crowd, in which the judge joined.
The next few days were busy days for Hezekiah. Filled with receptions, civic committees, and the preparation of the brief, in which Hezekiah’s native intelligence excited the admiration of the lawyers.
Newspaper men sought for interviews. Business promoters called upon Hezekiah. His name was put down as a director of several leading companies, and it was rumoured that in the event of his acquittal he would undertake a merger of all the great burglar protection corporations of the United States.
The trial opened a week later, and lasted two months. Hezekiah was indicted on five charges — arson, for having burned the steel cage of the elevator; misdemeanour, for shooting the footman; the theft of the money, petty larceny; the killing of the philanthropist, infanticide; and the shooting at the police without hitting them, aggravated felony.
The proceedings were very complicated — expert evidence was taken from all over the United States. An analytical examination was made of the brain of the philanthropist. Nothing was found.
The entire jury were dismissed three times on the grounds of prejudice, twice on the ground of ignorance, and finally disbanded on the ground of insanity.
The proceedings dragged on.
Meanwhile Hezekiah’s business interests accumulated.
At length, at Hezekiah’s own suggestion, it was necessary to abandon the case.
“Gentlemen,” he said, in his final speech to the court, “I feel that I owe an apology for not being able to attend these proceedings any further. At any time, when I can snatch an hour or two from my business, you may always count on my attendance. In the meantime, rest assured that I shall follow your proceedings with the greatest interest.”
He left the room amid three cheers and the singing of “Auld Lang Syne.”
After that the case dragged hopeless on from stage to stage.
The charge of arson was met by a nolle prosequi. The accusation of theft was stopped by a ne plus ultra. The killing of the footman was pronounced justifiable insanity.
The accusation of murder for the death of the philanthropist was withdrawn by common consent. Damages in error were awarded to Hayloft for the loss of his revolver and cartridges. The main body of the case was carried on a writ of certiorari to the Federal Courts and appealed to the Supreme Court of the United States.
It is there still.
Meantime, Hezekiah, as managing director of the Burglars’ Security Corporation, remains one of the rising generation of financiers in New York, with every prospect of election to the State Senate.
Sorrows of a Super Soul: or, The Memoirs of Marie Mushenough
(Translated, by Machinery, out of the Original Russian.)
DO YOU EVER look at your face in the glass?
I do.
Sometimes I stand for hours and peer at my face and wonder at it. At times I turn it upside down and gaze intently at it. I try to think what it means. It seems to look back at me with its great brown eyes as if it knew me and wanted to speak to me.
Why was I born?
I do not know.
I ask my face a thousand times a day and find no answer.
At times when people pass my room — my maid Nitnitzka, or Jakub, the serving-man — and see me talking to my face, they think I am foolish.
But I am not.
At times I cast myself on the sofa and bury my head in the cushions.
Even then I cannot find out why I was born.
I am seventeen.
Shall I ever be seventy-seven? Ah!
Shall I ever be even sixty-seven, or sixty-seven even? Oh!
And if I am both of these, shall I ever be eighty-seven?
I cannot tell.
Often I start up in the night with wild eyes and wonder if I shall be eighty-seven.
* * *
Next Day.
I passed a flower in my walk to-day. It grew in the meadow beside the river bank.
It stood dreaming on a long stem.
I knew its name. It was a Tchupvskja. I love beautiful names.
I leaned over and spoke to it. I asked it if my heart would ever know love. It said it thought so.
On the way home I passed an onion.
It lay upon the road.
Someone had stepped upon its stem and crushed it. How it must have suffered. I placed it in my bosom. All night it lay beside my pillow.
* * *
Another Day.
My heart is yearning for love! How is it that I can love no one?
I have tried and I cannot. My father — Ivan Ivanovitch — he is so big and so kind, and yet I cannot love him; and my mother, Katoosha Katooshavitch, she is just as big, and yet I cannot love her. And my brother, Dimitri Dimitrivitch, I cannot love him.
And Alexis Alexovitch!
I cannot love him. And yet I am to marry him. They have set the day. It is a month from to-day. One month. Thirty days. Why cannot I love Alexis? He is tall and strong. He is a soldier. He is in the Guard of the Czar, Nicholas Romanoff, and yet I cannot love him.
* * *
Next Day but one.
How they cramp and confine me here — Ivan Ivanovitch my father, and my mother (I forget her name for the minute), and all the rest.
I cannot breathe.
They will not let me.
Every time I try to commit suicide they hinder me.
Last night I tried again.
I placed a phial of sulphuric acid on the table beside my bed.
In the morning it was still there.
It had not killed me.
They have forbidden me to drown myself.
Why!
I do not know why? In vain I ask the air and the trees why I should not drown myself? They do not see any reason why.
And yet I long to be free, free as the young birds, as the very youngest of them.
I watch the leaves blowing in the wind and I want to be a leaf.
Yet here they want to make me eat!
Yesterday I ate a banana! Ugh!
* * *
Next Day.
To-day in my walk I found a cabbage.
It lay in a corner of the hedge. Cruel boys had chased it there with stones.
It was dead when I lifted it up.
Beside it was an egg.
It too was dead. Ah, how I wept —
* * *
This Morning.
How my heart beats. To-day A MAN passed. He passed: actually passed.
From my window I saw him go by the garden gate and out into the meadow beside the river where my Tchupvskja flower is growing!
How beautiful he looked! Not tall like Alexis Alexovitch, ah, no! but so short and wide and round — shaped like the beautiful cabbage that died last week.
He wore a velvet jacket and he carried a camp stool and an easel on his back, and in his face was a curved pipe with a long stem, and his face was not red and rough like the face of Alexis, but mild and beautiful and with a smile that played on it like moonlight over putty.
Do I love him? I cannot tell. Not yet. Love is a gentle plant. You cannot force its growth.
As he passed I leaned from the window and threw a rosebud at him.
But he did not see it.
Then I threw a cake of soap and a toothbrush at him. But I missed him, and he passed on.
* * *
Another Day.
Love has come into my life. It fills it. I have seen HIM again. I have spoken with him. He sat beside the river on his camp stool. How beautiful he looked, sitting on it: how strong he seemed and how frail the little stool on which he sat.
Before him was the easel and he was painting. I spoke to him.
I know his name now.
His name — . How my heart beats as I write it — no, I cannot write it, I will whisper it — it is Otto Dinkelspiel.
Is it not a beautiful name? Ah!
He was painting on a canvas — beautiful colours, red and gold and white, in glorious opalescent streaks in all directions.
I looked at it in wonder.
Instinctively I spoke to him. “What are you painting?” I said. “Is it the Heavenly Child?”
“No,” he said, “it is a cow!”
Then I looked again and I could see that it was a cow.
I looked straight into his eyes.
“It shall be our secret,” I said; “no one else shall know.”
And I knew that I loved him.
* * *
A Week Later.
Each morning I go to see Otto beside the river in the meadow.
He sits and paints, and I sit with my hands clasped about my knees and talk to him. I tell him all that I think, all that I read, all that I know, all that I feel, all that I do not feel.
He listens to me with that far-away look that I have learned to love and that means that he is thinking deeply; at times he almost seems not to hear.
The intercourse of our minds is wonderful.
We stimulate one another’s thought.
Otto is my master. I am his disciple!
Yesterday I asked him if Hegel or Schlegel or Whegel gives the truest view of life.
He said he didn’t know! My Otto!
* * *
To-day.
Otto touched me! He touched me!
How the recollection of it thrills me!
I stood beside him on the river bank, and as we talked the handle of my parasol touched the bottom button of his waistcoat.
It seemed to burn me like fire!
To-morrow I am to bring Otto to see my father.
But to-night I can think of nothing else but that Otto has touched me.
* * *
Next Day.
Otto has touched father! He touched him for ten roubles. My father is furious. I cannot tell what it means.
I brought Otto to our home. He spoke with my father, Ivan Ivanovitch. They sat together in the evening. And now my father is angry. He says that Otto wanted to touch him.
Why should he be angry?
But Otto is forbidden the house, and I can see him only in the meadow.
* * *
Two Days Later.
To-day Otto asked me for a keepsake.
I offered him one of my hatpins. But he said no. He has taken instead the diamond buckle from my belt.
I read his meaning.
He means that I am to him as a diamond is to lesser natures.
* * *
This Morning.
Yesterday Otto asked me for another keepsake. I took a gold rouble from my bag and said that he should break it in half and that each should keep one of the halves.
But Otto said no. I divined his thought. It would violate our love to break the coin.
He is to keep it for both of us, and it is to remain unbroken like our love.
Is it not a sweet thought?
Otto is so thoughtful. He thinks of everything.
To-day he asked me if I had another gold rouble.
* * *
Next Day.
To-day I brought Otto another gold rouble.
His eyes shone with love when he saw it.
He has given me for it a bronze kopek. Our love is to be as pure as gold and as strong as bronze.
Is it not beautiful?
* * *
Later.
I am so fearful that Alexis Alexovitch may return.
I fear that if he comes Otto might kill him. Otto is so calm, I dread to think of what would happen if he were aroused.
* * *
Next Day.
I have told Otto about Alexis. I have told him that Alexis is a soldier, that he is in the Guards of the Czar, and that I am betrothed to him. At first Otto would not listen to me. He feared that his anger might overmaster him. He began folding up his camp-stool.
