Richard Connell

“ But a man does not make seven million dollars, as Colonel Fowler had, by yielding to every passing fit of passion. He had only recently bought The Morning Voice, but he knew its history; he could remember the anemic state of its circulation and the paucity of its advertising in the distant days before Marcus Quigley became its guiding spirit. That nose of Mr. Quigley's had breathed life into the Morning Voice and made it the necessary breakfast companion of a quarter of a million people. The colonel was too shrewd a newspaper man himself not to see the asset he had in that nose. ”

“ No; it would not be that kind of smile. It would be a patient, brave smile—the smile of one concealing a secret sorrow, a pensive smile that would say to any one who cared to analyze it: "The world has not used me well, but I forgive it. See? I smile." She practised this smile as she took her stand behind the counter and began to do some landscape-gardening with olives and salmon salad.
"Hello, Tiny!" called Gertrude Shultz from her counter. "Why so happy? Got that dark, handsome feller?"
It cost Winnie an effort of will, but she smiled back. The other girls in Dignowity's noticed it. ”

“ You are condemning a man for love of country, for love of France. Wherever true hearts beat in French bosoms, messieurs the judges, there will the crime of Jerome Chibou be understood, and there will the name of Jerome Chibou be honored. Put him in prison, messieurs the judges. Load his poor feeble old body with chains. And a nation will tear down the prison walls, break his chains, and pay homage to the man who loved Napoleon and France so much that he was willing to sacrifice himself on the altar of patriotism.”
Advocate Dufayel sat down; Papa Chibou raised his eyes to the judges' bench. ”

“ It is exactly as you planned it, Bain, in this very club last night."
"Man alive, do you think I'm crazy?" cried Simon Bain, impatiently. "Do you think I'm an utter fool—to tell the district attorney of my plan to commit an unusual crime, and the next day commit it under his very nose?"
The district attorney shook his head.
"Come, come, Bain," he said, "you know as wen as I do that that would not be the act of a fool, but of a particularly clever man. It is a daring idea; it will be hard to make the ordinary lunk-headed jury comprehend just how clever you've been." ”

“ I’m not going to be a stuffed uniform any longer. If a dummy can be a prince I don’t want to be. Let them have a dummy in my place. I’m going to be a man.”
He addressed these words to the emptiness of the royal chamber, and his tone was steeped in the vinegar of bitter realization. Prince Ernest was working himself up to quite a pinch of resolution, when the chamber door opened and in came the king. Behind him wabbled the vast bulk and incandescent nose of the Emperor of Zabonia. ”

“ We're extremely, almost unbelievably, careful of our money. We have to be. We respect our dollars because they represent our hard and unremitting toll; they are the trophies of our unending slugging match with a tough and stubborn Nature. When we do get hold of an extra dollar our roughened fingers close tightly on its green throat, and we bear it off to the savings bank or invest it in solid first mortgage. Gambling—the risking of money—Is a heinous sin. So, if that story about the Reverend Pendlebury did prove to have even a vestige of truth in it—but, of course it couldn't have. ”

“ He became passionately devoted to Uncle Sam; he appeared to derive unlimited comfort and inspiration from the fact that a benevolent old gentleman in a tall gray hat, a star-spangled vest, striped trousers and a goatee was his friend and protector. Though Ug's notions of what a ward is were slightly fogbound, he was very proud of the fact that he was a ward of Uncle Sam. He rather looked down on the white farmers whose land adjoined the reservation; they were mere citizens; he was a ward. No longer, when larger Indians kicked him, did he plan to massacre them as they slept. ”

“ Moving-picture titles have made poets of us all.
Truth to tell, in business-hours Winnie was aloof, brisk, dignified. This untrammeled mode of expression was reserved for that happiest hour of her day when, after her work behind the counter in Dignowity's delicatessen store, she came back to her furnished room, sat at her kimono-clad ease in a battered wicker chair and gave way to reverie. It was then that Winnie Bout really lived; her hours behind the bean counter were the unreal part of her life, a nightmare that recurred daily. ”

“ That he had any human weaknesses was unthinkable; it seemed incredible that the great Hector Gower should hesitate nonplused over a tray of French pastry; or that he should fear a hat-check boy's disdain; or that he should laugh when a fat man slipped on a vacant banana; or that he should worry about his liver. When his time comes to die every one will be amazed that he should make this concession to human frailty. No one will be sorry. ”

“ The doctor was so engrossed in his experiment that he did not notice what was happening; he did not notice that I had left the dinning- room door ajar so that the thing in the cage saw the woman stab him. Very softly I slipped into the dining room and placed a long surgical knife outside the cage door. Then I unlocked the door of the cage, and hurried to my attic, where I knelt until below I heard the most terrified scream I had ever heard in that house of torture. I knew it could not be the thing that had been a man, for his tongue was dead. ”

“ Jerome Chibou is guilty. In the law's eyes he is a criminal. But in the eyes of France and those who love her his guilt is a glorious guilt; his guilt is more honorable than innocence itself.”
The three judges looked at one another blankly; Papa Chibou regarded his lawyer with wide eyes; George Dufayel spoke on.
“These are times of turmoil and change in our country, messieurs the judges. Proud traditions which were once the birthright of every Frenchman have been allowed to decay. Enemies beset us within and without. Youth grows careless of that honor which is the soul of a nation. ”

“ It was always a somewhat breathless moment for Francis Dawson when he swung open the glass door of the “D” box.
Some evenings he found a letter there; rather more often he did not. He played a game with himself as he walked to the club from his office downtown, a small office in a sunless building where from nine to five he applied himself assiduously to his work as an accountant. He bet with himself whether he'd get a letter. If he won, and did get a letter, he treated himself to the dollar-and-a-half table-d'hôte dinner, instead of the dollar dinner, his customary fare. ”

“ Then, out of the hurly-burly of panting torsos and whirling limbs, there seemed to pop one black figure, in startling contrast with the lighter-hued athletes about him. My eyes focused on the stranger and stayed focused.
He was the blackest thing I ever saw in my life—blacker than a crow at mid night, blacker than the interior of a whale, blacker than the cellar of the Mammoth Cave, blacker than black velvet. ”

“ Rook loved good food.
“Because,” said Saunders Rook, with fork poised, “it’s rotten.”
Around the table went murmurs of approbation and interest.
“But, my dear fellow,” exclaimed Deline, warmly laying his hand on Saunders Rook’s arm, “we need men like you.”
“Yes, yes,” cried others about the table. “America needs men with the courage of their convictions.”
“You see,” said Deline, with a wave of his hand. “You ’re needed.”
No one had ever before intimated to Saunders Rook that he was in the least needed. ”

“ The king was contrite.
“Sorry, son,” he said. “I shouldn’t speak like that of royalty, I know. But I have so much on my mind these days, with this tiresome visit and your mumps and the shadow of war and heaven knows what.”
“But, father,” said the prince, following up his advantage, “please don’t ask me to permit this monstrous thing. It’s not honorable. It’s not princely.”
The king patted his son’s silk pajamaed shoulder.
“Pish-tush, Ernie!” he said playfully. “I wish you wouldn’t always be so devilishly idealistic. You’re so high-minded one needs to get on a stepladder to talk to you. ”

“ Then the district attorney said:
"That was Alec Rae's face I saw on the bridge last night. He must have climbed up in the stays when he heard me coming. Like a wise man he was going over the ground before he committed the crime."
"Like a wise man?" snorted Simon Bain. "Wise man, huh! Only a fool thinks he can get away with a crime." ”

“ But even the staff did not understand how utterly the getting and printing of news absorbed the small man with the huge nose. To him it was a fetish—and more: it was his religion.
Once in a great while he gave voice to what was always in his mind, and preached his gospel to a group of reporters.
“A newspaper lives to give news. If it does not give the news—all the news—fully, clearly, it is no newspaper, but a dead rag. A newspaper is really a public institution, with a sacred duty to all the people.
“News is alive. It breathes. It has personality. ”

“ Down they went, with Ug on top. A shrill cry like the note of a drunken whippoorwill caught in a buzz saw cut the night; his breath and his spirit deserted Patrick Duffy; he knew that cry; years and years ago it had struck cold fear to the hearts of white pioneers; it was the war whoop of the Flatfeet.
“You let me up!” sniveled Patrick Duffy. “I was just havin' a little joke with you; honest I was, Ug.”
Even a braver man might well have been cowed by the ferocity of a Flatfoot on the warpath. Ug rose. ”

“ CEPHAS SAID. "YOU KNOW HOW THEY FEEL ABOUT A GAMBLER." "I ain't so sure about that, elder," he said. "You're a younger man than the rest of them; you've lived in a bit city; you see something different. But men like Luke Cobb and Joe Sanderson— they're of the old school. They're mighty strict; you know how they feel about a gambler. Well," Cephas drew on his mittens, "this ain't getting to the post-office, I guess."
As the black of Cephas' buffalo fur coat became speck on the vast whiteness of the hills I returned to my lamps. My heart was a little sick as I thought of old Mr. Pendlebury. ”

“ Ben Crosby threw back his head and laughed.
“Why, cats! if the little cuss ain’t afraid of lightning-bugs!” he said. “Hey, Velvet Pants, look here.”
He plucked the man out of the clock with one big hand, and with the other captured the firefly, and held it near the stranger’s wide eyes.
“Look,” said Ben Crosby in the loud tone that is supposed to make the American language intelligible to those who do not understand it when it is spoken in an ordinary tone of voice. “Bug! Bug! No hurt! Lightning-bug. Lightning-Bug!” ”

“ You must be a very wicked old man to go about stealing dummies. What will be safe now? One may expect to find the Eiffel Tower missing any morning. Dummy stealing! What a career! We have had a man in here who stole a trolley car, and one who made off with the anchor of a steamship, and even one who pilfered a hippopotamus from a zoo, but never one who stole a dummy—and an old one-eared dummy, at that! It is an affair extraordinary!”
“And what did they do to the gentleman who stole the hippopotamus?” inquired Papa Chibou tremulously. ”

“ Of course, I don’t say I have a divine right to be a prince; nowadays that isn’t considered in good taste. But, since I’m being perfectly frank with myself, I must admit that there is something—well, if not exactly sacred, at least sacerdotal about royalty. Being a prince isn’t at all like filling a place in the cabinet or the civil service or the army, where almost any sort of fellow can get ahead if he has enough push. A prince has no use for push ”

“ His long fingers closed on the police bulletin and tightened on the sheet of paper that meant to him disgrace, and the loss of everything he valued. He had felt that he could weather the Sheehan storm, but this scandal, coming on top of it, would mean his banishment; he knew that. The cords on his knuckle stood out as he gripped the crumpled paper.
“Sixty, broke and jobless,” he muttered “And alone!” He pressed his temples with his fingers. And then: “But this is news.” ”

“ Homeward through a quiet evening went Ug, very slowly; his square head was bent forward till his chin obscured his rubber collar; the path across the meadow was well defined by the rising moon, but Ug's feet now and then strayed from it; he walked like a man very tired. Not far from his small red, white and blue cabin Ug stopped short. Something was moving in the grass near the path. Ug bent toward it. It was a large, glistening, red earthworm. Ug's hands went up to his head, and when they came down one of them held his derby hat. ”

“ He was pleased to know that he was more than a mere name to his employer, and he wished to remain a personage.
“But, my dear young man,” cried Mr. Gowler, distressed, “I ask you, would that be fair to the magazine? People might hold us responsible, you know.”
“No, they won’t.”
“How can we be sure?”
“I have made it plain,” said Saunders Rook, “that no petty, personal motives are behind my act. It is to be purely a protest against the state of civilization in America.”
“America seems pretty civilized to me,” observed Mr. Gowler. “What’s wrong with it?”
“It’s rotten,” said Saunders Rook. ”

“ I swear I had no intention of killing him when I came out; the knife I carried was for myself if he should again spurn me I waited outside his house till nine-thirty, crouching against the hedge. At about nine I saw a big man, swinging a big stick, go up the path. I heard the sound of angry words, and then some blows, and the big man came running down the path as if fiends were after him, as indeed they were, in the shape of huge dogs. ”

“ No; something more drastic than exercise, and less dangerous, must be attempted.
Earnestly Winnie Bout began to diet. Three starved and anguished months crawled their slow, hungry way in Winnie's life. She breakfasted on toast and weak tea, lunched on parsley and dined on lettuce and oranges. Twice she fainted as she gazed at the cold pork on Dignowity's counters. Valiantly she walked miles, always after dusk, for she had grown acutely self-conscious. She shunned scales. Hopefully each morning, however, she studied her face in the mirror. Yes; she was growing thinner. ”

“ I decided it was he who had stolen your crime, Bain, after I had handed it to him on a silver platter. But how to prove it? Rae played the game cleverly. The bloodstains in the taxi were real blood. The button from his coat told nothing. That left the glasses. And it was that shattered pair of spectacles in the taxi that betrayed him."
"Betrayed him! How?" the district attorney and the banker chorused.
"By the merest chance in the world," Strang answered. "It only goes to show that even perfect crimes planned by efficient business men have pinholes in them somewhere." ”

“ His Majesty was in the cream-and-gold uniform of a field marshal of the King’s Very Own Royal Indefatigables, and he took his place at the emperor’s side, bowing. Then came the stunning blow to the mumps-stricken prince. Another figure had appeared on the balcony, a very erect, dignified figure in the dashing uniform of the Royal Purple Bombardiers. The prince in the bed perceived that the thing on the balcony was himself!
As, horrified, he watched, Prince Ernest saw the thing’s hand go up in a precise military salute. The great throng of people went wild. Their cheers made the palace tremble. ”

“ WHEN Ben Crosby came in to his late supper that evening he announced: “I was wrong about that new little fellow. He doesn’t seem to have done farm work. He’s willing enough, but he handles a hay-fork as dainty as if it was a toothpick. And, say, he certainly is the most scary human being I ever set eyes on. You should have seen him when the tractor came into the field with the mowing-machine. He gave a yelp and jumped on the stone wall. Pete High, who was driving it, said, ‘I guess it ain’t only his skin that’s yellow.’ I hope Pete isn’t right. I hate a coward.” ”

“ Visitors who peer into the gatehouse as they pass sometimes get a shock, for standing in one corner of its only room they see another small man, in uniform and a big hat. He never moves, but stands there by the window all day, one hand in the bosom of his coat, the other at his side, while his eyes look out over the garden. He is waiting for Papa Chibou to come home after his work among the asparagus beds to tell him the jokes and the news of the day. ”

“ I left the gym, mystified. A few days later I learned that Coco had been matched to meet Dad Finn again. Dad had a new lease on life, had done some strict training, and was doing the best fighting of his career. If Coco could beat him, the road of Billy's dusky pupil to a match with the champion was clear. But it is an old ring adage that “they never come back,” and that if a man once beats another one he can always beat him thereafter. That bout will test Tiger Syrup, all right, I thought. ”

“ It was Doctor Raffin's custom to keep the men and women—“his material”—in the iron cages in the dining room. He silenced them by paralyzing their tongues. At night he never permitted me in the laboratory; he made me go up to my little room in the attic, and then he took the ladder away. The screams and pleadings I have heard from those poor devils before Doctor Raffin silenced them were awful, awful. But I was too weak, too weak to do anything. Yesterday I saw that the cage contained a handsome man, just turned thirty, a man with red hair and the physique of an athlete. ”

“ If The Morning Voice runs that story Big Ed Sheehan will knife the colonel politically.”
Marcus Quigley looked grave.
“But it's news, Geppert,” he said.
“Not another paper in town will touch it.”
“It's news, nevertheless,” the editor repeated doggedly.
“But the colonel wants to be senator.”
“It's news,” repeated Marcus Quigley.
The younger man's temper began to escape from his control.
“News!” he exclaimed. “News! Man alive, don't you ever think of anything but news?”
To the thin lips in the shadow of the great nose came a smile. ”

“ The banker and the district attorney had slumped nervelessly in their chairs.
"As little a thing as that," muttered Yeager, half to himself. "As little a thing as that!"
"Yes," said the editor. "I don't think any of us, smart as we may be, would have thought that so small thing could betray us. Well, I must go; we're getting out an extra about Rae's arrest." He hurried away.
"Well, Bain," remarked the district attorney, "all we can do is say we're sorry and call it quits. It's a lesson to me. Crime is nothing for an honest man to play with." ”

“ To his teacher, as the nearest representative of Uncle Sam, Ug went and stated the case of the kidnaped General Grant. The teacher listened sympathetically, but he shook his gray head; he knew Patsy Duffy, his gusty temper, his heavy fist, his plethoric bank roll, his political power. He pointed out to Ug that the recovering of kidnaped pigs was not a pedagogical function; furthermore, Ug was no longer a schoolboy, but a man of the world. Ug suggested a direct appeal to Uncle Sam. The teacher said emphatically that that would never do. Uncle Sam was much too busy to be bothered about one pig. ”

“ Close to the auctioneer's desk stood a man, a wizened, rodent-eyed man with a diamond ring and dirty fingers. Papa Chibou's heart went down like an express elevator when he saw him, for he knew that the rodent-eyed man was Mogen, the junk king of Paris. ”