John Kendrick Bangs

“ Thisbe could have been seen by her doting lover, Pyramus, through the wall that separated them, but nothing known to man could have shut out the supreme gloriousness of the interior of Jupiter's palace. Even with the goggles of the Argus regulated to protect one thousand eyes upon my nose, it made my dazzled optics blink.
I do not know what the proportions of the palace were. I regret to say that I forgot to ask, but I am quite confident that I walked at least eight miles along that corridor, and never was a mansion designed that was better equipped in the matter of luxuries. ”

“ The soft greenness of the earthly grass was superseded by the glistening yellow of golden spears, and here and there, where a drop of dew would have fallen, were diamonds of purest ray. The paths were of silken rugs of richest texture, and the palace, as it burst upon my vision, fashioned out of undreamed-of blocks of onyx, [Pg 158] resembled more a massive opal filled with flashing, living, fire, than the mere home of a splendid royalty.
I was glad when the procession stopped before the gorgeous entrance to the palace. Another minute of such splendor would have blinded me. ”

“ Knowing that two is company and three otherwise, you have been guilty of allowing many a young couple who have trusted in you to begin house-keeping with an inevitable third person. We see it every day among the mortals."
"What has been good enough for me, sir," the boy returned, with a comical assumption of sternness—he looked so like a fat baby of three just ready for his bath—"is good enough for mortals. When I married Psyche, I brought her home to my mother's house, and for some nineteen thousand years we lived together. If Love can stand it, mortals must." ”

“ The response was instant. My fingers had hardly left the button when a superb creature stood before me. Whence he sprang I do not know. There were no opening of doors, no traps or false panels, that I could see. The individual simply materialized.
"At your service, sir," said he, with a graceful obeisance.
"Pardon me," I replied, overcome once more by what was going on. "I—ah—think there must be some mistake. I—ah—I didn't ring for a god, I rang for a valet." ”

“ I observed, forgetting that it is bad form to converse with a servant, and remembering only that I was addressing an old flame of Madame Venus. "Hades isn't a bad place for a little while, I should fancy."
"True," sighed Adonis. "But the society there is very mixed. It's full of self-made immortals, whereas we are all immortals by birth." ”

“ My courteous host handed me a pair of spectacles which I put upon my nose, and there, seemingly two inches away, but in reality five and a quarter miles, was the hole. The glasses were a revelation, but I had seen too much that was wonderful to express surprise.
"Dead easy," I said, referring to the putt, now that I had the glasses on.
"Looks so," said Jupiter, "but be careful. You can't hope to putt until you know your ball." ”

“ Callisto received it with a manifestation of delight which moved me greatly, and I bethought myself of the magic properties of my coat, and plunging my hand into its capacious pockets, I found there an oyster pâté that made my mouth water, and an omelette soufflée that looked as if it had been made by a Parisian milliner, it was so dainty.
"If madam will permit me," said I, with a bow to Callisto.
"Thank you kindly," the bear replied, in that same thrillingly sweet voice, and dancing with joy. "You are a dear, good man, and if you ever have an enemy, let me know and I'll hug him to death." ”

“ Surely Olympus was a great place, where one who appeared in the guise of a beggar was treated like a regiment of prodigal sons, furnished with a gorgeous apartment, and supplied with a wardrobe that would have aroused the envy of a reigning sovereign. ”

“ It has been said by men who have heard both that Nero of Hades can do more to move an audience with his fiddle with two strings broken and his bow wrist sprained than Apollo can do with the aid of his lyre and a special dispensation of divine inspiration from Zeus himself."
[Pg 13]
"There are various ways of moving audiences, Hippopopolis," I ventured. "Now Nero, I should say, could move an audience—out of the hall—in a very few moments. In fact, I have always believed that that is why he fiddled when Rome was burning: so that people would run out of the city limits before they perished." ”

“ Can he teach me how to drive a ball seventy-five miles?"
"That depends on your capacity," said Adonis. "Some of the best players frequently drive seventy-five miles—the record is ninety-six miles, made by Jove himself. Willie taught him."
"For Heaven's sake!" I cried, losing my self-poise for an instant. "What do you drive with? Olympian Gatling guns?"
"Not at all," replied Adonis. "We use one of our regular drivers—the best is called the 'celestial catapult.' Phœbus sells 'em at the Caddie House for five hundred dollars apiece. ”

“ With which comforting assurance Adonis left me, and I started for the dining-room, my appetite considerably whetted by the idea of a game of golf over links four thousand miles in length with balls that could be driven fifty or sixty miles, and cherubs for caddies, at no cost to myself whatsoever. ”

“ I retorted, with some surliness.
"Verging a trifle on your cheekbones, and thence to the optic nerve," he said, calmly, still gazing into my soul. "I'll try your sight. Look [Pg 120] at that card over there, and tell me—"
"What nonsense is this, doctor?" I cried, angry at his airy manner and manifest control over my symptoms. "There is nothing the matter with my eyes. They're as good as any one of the million eyes of your friend the Argus."
"Then what, in the name of Jupiter, is the matter with you?" he ejaculated, elevating his eyebrows. ”

“ I cried, lost now in admiration of the way the gods were ordering things on Olympus. "So they've made you a valet, have they?"
"Yes," replied Adonis. "I hold office for the six months that I am here. You know that I am a resident of Olympus only half the time. The balance I live in Hades."
"It's a common custom," said I. "Even with us, our swellest people go south for the winter."
"Hum—yes," said Adonis, somewhat confused. "It's very good of you to draw that parallel. Your construction of the situation does credit to your sense of what is polite, sir. ”

“ What a chance lay here for a man to be rid of certain things on earth that he did not like! What a vast amount of ugly American architecture one could be rid of in the twinkling of an eye! What a lot of enemies and eyesores it was now in my power to have removed by an electrical process availed of in the guise of sport! I spent an hour on that list of targets, and if only I had been allowed to prolong my stay in the home of the gods, the [Pg 214] world itself would have benefited, for I was not altogether personal in my selection of things for Jupiter to aim at. ”

“ Apollo's music would drive you mad and make you welcome a xylophone duet; and as for Mercury's business capacity, that is merely a capacity for getting away from his creditors. Why shouldn't a man wax rich if, after floating a thousand bogus [Pg 9] corporations, selling the stock at par and putting the money into his own pocket, he could unfold his wings and fly off into the empyrean, leaving his stock and bond holders to mourn their loss?"
"Excuse me, Hippopopolis," I put in, interrupting him fearlessly for the moment, "pray don't try to deceive me by any such statement as that. ”

“ From the magnificent office on the ground floor to the glorious dining-room on the forty-eighth, the broad corridor runs round and round and round again with an upward incline that is barely perceptible—indeed, not perceptible at all either to the eye or to the muscles of the leg. And while there are the most speedy elevators connecting all the various floors, one can, if one chooses, walk from cellar to roof of this marvellous place without realizing that he is mounting to an unusual elevation. ”

“ It is not easy to use, because it has such wonderful force. Hercules drove a ball three times around the planet at one stroke with it yesterday. To use it properly requires judgment. Up here you have to play golf with your head, as well as with your clubs."
"Well, I played it with mine all right," I put in, rubbing the lump on the back of my head ruefully. "Shall I play two?"
"Certainly," said Jupiter. "You've a good brassey lie behind the tee there. Play gently now, for this hole isn't more than three hundred miles long." ”

“ All Hades played the Olympian eleven for the championship of the universe. We licked 'em four hundred to nothing; but of course we had an exceptional team. When Hercules is in shape there isn't a man-jack in all Hades that can withstand him. He's rush-line, centre, full-back, half-back, and flying wedge, all rolled into one. Then the Hades chaps made the bad mistake of sending a star team. When you have an eleven made up of Hannibal and Julius Cæsar and Alexander the Great and Napoleon Bonaparte and the Duke of Wellington and Achilles and other fellows like that you can't expect any team-play. ”

“ If I were a profane mortal, I should call him a condemned nuisance. Most birds build their own nests, and a well-built nest lasts them a whole season. This infernal bird has to have a furnace-man to make his bed for him night and morning, and if, by some mischance, the fire goes out, as fires will do in the best-regulated families, he begins to squawk, and he squawks, and he squawks, and he squawks until the keeper comes and sets his nest a-blazing again. ”

“ I said, gazing back through the door that opened upon Jupiter's [Pg 164] yachting parlors, and realizing on a sudden a powerful sense of thirst.
"I have no doubt you can do so," said the Major Domo. "Indeed, I understand that his Majesty contemplates taking you for a sail to the lost island of Atlantis before you return to earth."
"What?" I cried. "The lost island of Atlantis here?"
"Of course," said my guide. "Why not? It was too beautiful for earth, so Jupiter had it transported to his own private yachting pond, and it has been here ever since. It is marvellously beautiful." ”

“ Inside we place a little gong, that begins to ring as soon as the ball lands. The electricity in it is what makes it fly so rapidly and so far, and even you mortals know the principle of the electric bell."
"Oh, indeed we do," said I, pulling at my mustache nervously. I was beginning to get excited over this celestial golf. On earth I have all of the essentials of a first-class golf maniac, except the ability to play the game. ”

“ Cephalus added, his voice sinking to a whisper, "I don't blame him. Diana treated him horribly."
"I always thought so," said I. "He really wasn't to blame."
"Certainly not," observed Cephalus. "If people will go in swimming out-of-doors, it's their own fault if chance wayfarers stumble upon them. To turn a man into a stag and then set his own dogs on him for a thing he couldn't help strikes me as rank injustice."
"Wonder to me that Jupiter doesn't interfere in this business," said I. "He could help Callisto out without much trouble." ”

“ They were companionable to a degree, and for a time, at least, would prove congenial associates for a summer outing, but as a steady diet—well, I am not at all surprised that, as men waxed more mature in years and in experience, these titanic members of the Olympian four hundred lost their power and became no greater factor in the life of the large society of mankind than any other group of people, equal in number and of seeming importance, whose days and nights are given over solely to pleasure and the morbid pursuit of notoriety. ”

“ But in his business suit, Mercury is a very different sort of a person. Even in Olympus he'd have been ruled off the stock exchange if he'd ventured to appear there as scantily attired as he is in most of his statuary appearances. You certainly are not so green as to [Pg 11] suppose that that suit he wears in his statues is the whole extent of his wardrobe?"
"I had supposed so," I confessed. "It's a trifle unconventional; but, then, he's one of the gods, and, I presumed, could dress as he pleased. Your gods are independent, I should imagine, of the mere decrees of fashion." ”

“ I continued, "who is your amateur champion?"
"Jupiter, of course," said Adonis, with an impatient shake of his head. "He's champion of everything. It's one of his prerogatives. We don't any of us dare win a cup from him for fear he'll use his power to destroy us. ”

“ I put in, "a caddie with no pockets is a very safe person to intrust with golf balls."
"That's very true," said Adonis, "and I suppose the cherubs make as good caddies as we can expect. Caddies will be caddies, and that's the end of it. You can't expect a caddie to do just right any more than you can expect water to flow uphill. There are certain immutable laws of the universe which [Pg 85] are as unchangeable in Olympus as on earth or in Hades. Ice is cold, fire is hot, water is wet, and caddies are caddies." ”

“ Since all the water hazards above described emptied into it, it was little more than a huge expanse of punch, one swallow of which, thanks to these ingredients and the sugar and nutmeg from the bunkers, would make a man forget an eternity of troubles until he woke up again, if he ever did. Here Jupiter sported every variety of pleasure craft, and, by an ingenious system of funnels arranged about its sixty-square-mile area, could at a moment's notice produce any variety of breeze he chanced to wish ”

“ Memnon then brought me a platter containing a small object that looked [Pg 104] like a Hamburg steak, and a most delicious cup of café au lait.
"Filet Olympus," he observed, "and coffee direct from the dairy of the gods."
Both were a joy.
"Never tasted such a steak!" I said, as the delicate morsel actually melted like butter in my mouth.
"No, sir, you never did," Memnon agreed. "It is cut from the steer bred for the sole purpose of supplying Jupiter and his family with tenderloin. We take the calf when it is very young, sir, and surround it with all the luxuries of a bovine existence. ”