John Kendrick Bangs

“ At any rate, there was a sniff of contempt imparted, as I have said, to the atmosphere I was breathing as Xanthippe answered my question, and the sniff saved me, just as it did in the London hotel, when I complained of the lordly lack of manners on the part of the head waiter. I asserted my independence.
“Don't trouble yourself,” I put in. “Of course I shall be interested in anything you may choose to say, but as a gentleman I do not care to put a woman to any inconvenience and I do not press the question.” ”

“ But it makes him king-pin in golf circles just the same, because nobody can go back on his logic,” said Boswell. “Munchausen reasoned it out very logically indeed, and largely, he said, to protect his own reputation. Here is an imaginary warrior, said he, who makes a bully, but wholly imaginary, score at golf. He sends me an imaginary challenge to play him forty-seven holes. I accept, not so much because I consider myself a golfer as because I am an imaginer—if there is such a word.” ”

“ I began.
“You asked me a moment ago why I laughed,” clicked the machine.
“I know it,” said I. “But I withdraw the question. There is no great principle involved in a woman's laughter. I have known women who have laughed at a broken heart, as well as at jokes, which shows that there is no principle involved there; and as a problem, I have never cared enough about why women laugh to inquire deeply into it. If she'll just consent to laugh, I'm satisfied without inquiring into the causes thereof. Let us get down to an agreeable basis for yourself. ”

“ I'm not the machine. I'm the man that's using it—Jim—Jim Boswell. What good would a bell do me? I'm not a cow or a bicycle. I'm the editor of the Stygian Gazette, and I've come here to copy off my notes of what I see and hear, and besides all this I do type-writing for various people in Hades, and as this machine of yours seemed to be of no use to you I thought I'd try it. ”

“ I ejaculated.
“Don't sneer,” said Boswell. “You know yourself that the links you imagine are far better than any others.”
“What is Munchausen's strongest point?” I asked, seeing that there was no arguing with the man—“driving, approaching, or putting?”
“None of the three. He cannot put, he foozles every drive, and at approaching he's a consummate ass,” said Boswell.
“Then what can he do?” I cried.
“Count,” said Boswell. “Haven't you learned that yet? You can spend hours learning how to drive, weeks to approach, and months to put. But if you want to win you must know how to count.” ”

“ Why don't you come out with a plain statement of the facts? Apologize.”
“You forget, my dear sir,” interposed Boswell, “that one of the fundamental principles of Hades as an institution is that excuses don't count. It isn't a place for repentance so much as for expiation, and I might apologize nine times a minute for forty years and would still have to suffer the penalty of the offence. No, there is nothing to be done but to begin my newspaper work again, build up again the institution that Xanthippe has destroyed, and bear my misfortunes like a true spirit.” ”

“ I sincerely hope that the result of the fight will prove as satisfactory to my friend in Hawaii as it was to me; for while I have no particular admiration for Samson, I have always rejoiced to hear of the discomfitures of Goliath, who, so far as I have been able to ascertain, was not only not a gentleman, but, in addition, had no more regard for the rights of others than a member of the New York police force or the editor of a Sunday newspaper with a thirst for sensation. ”

“ I'm really a man in all my views of life—that's the inevitable end of an advanced woman who persists in following her 'newness' to its logical conclusion. Her habits of thought gradually come to be those of a man. Even I have a great deal more sympathy with Socrates than I used to have. I used to think I was the one that should be emancipated, but I'm really reaching that stage in my manhood where I begin to believe that he needs emancipation.”
“Then you admit, do you,” I cried, with great glee, “that this new-woman business is all Tommy-rot?”
“Not by a great deal,” snapped the machine. ”

“ It seems to me that if I saw one man scorching along a road alone on a tandem bicycle chatting to an empty front-seat, I should think him queer, but if following in his wake I perceived twenty-eight other wheels, scorching up hill and down dale without any visible motive power, I should regard him as one who was in league with the devil himself. ”

“ Bed is the place for you. You're not coherent. I'm not a machine, and upon my honor, I've never seen your darned old attic.”
“Not a machine!” I cried. “Then what in Heaven's name are you?—a sofa-cushion?”
“Don't be sarcastic, my dear fellow,” replied the machine. “Of course I'm not a machine; I'm Jim—Jim Boswell.”
“What?” I roared. “You? A thing with keys and type and a bell—”
“I haven't got any keys or any type or a bell. What on earth are you talking about?” replied the machine. “What have you been eating?” ”

“ It makes a valuable collection of autographs, no doubt, but I prefer my back as nature made it. Talk about enlightened government under a man who'll permit things like that to be done!”
I ought not to have done it, but I couldn't help smiling.
“I must say,” I observed, apologetically, “that the treatment was barbarous, but really I do think it showed a sense of humor on the part of the government.”
“No doubt,” replied Boswell, with a sigh; “but when the joke is on me I don't enjoy it very much. I'm only human, and should prefer to observe that the government had some sense of justice.” ”

“ You can't torture a city—”
“Oh, can't you!” laughed Boswell. “Humph. Apollyon can make it as hot for a city as he can for an individual. It is evident that you never heard of Sodom and Gomorrah—which is surprising to me, since your jokes about Lot's wife being too fresh and getting salted down, would seem to indicate that you had heard something about the punishment those cities underwent.” ”

“ Is he not the lord of creation? Is not woman his abject slave? I not the whole difference between them purely economic? Is it not the law of supply and demand that rules them both, he by nature demanding and she supplying?”
Dear reader, did you ever encounter a machine, man-made, merely a mechanism of ivory, iron, and ink, that could sniff contemptuously? ”

“ I cried. “What kings?”
“I have nine kings and one car-load of common souls besides for this affair,” he explained. “Each king wants a special car.”
“Kings be jiggered!” said I. “A trolley-party, my much beloved James, is an essentially democratic institution, and private cars are not de rigueur. If your kings choose to come, let 'em hang on by the straps.”
“But I've charged 'em extra!” cried Boswell.
“That's all right,” said I, “they receive extra. They have the ride plus the straps, with the privilege of standing out on the platform and ringing the gong if they want to. ”

“ All the sins of my past life, and they are many—I once stepped upon a caterpillar, and I have coveted my neighbor both his man-servant and his maid-servant, though not his wife nor his ass, because I don't like his wife and he keeps no live-stock—all my sins, I say, rose up before me, for I expected every moment that a bullet would penetrate my brain, or my heart if perchance the burglar whom I suspected of levelling a clicking revolver at me aimed at my feet. ”

“ Swan's-down, yellow hair, and a pair of silver-tinsel tights, while very interesting no doubt at times, do not form a very solid basis for a theory establishing the identity of so regal a person as my visitor. My first impression was that she was a vaudeville artist, and that the exhibits she had left me were a part of her make-up. This I was forced to abandon shortly, because no woman with the voice of my visitor would sing in vaudeville. The more ambitious stage was her legitimate field, if not grand opera itself. ”

“ I get out the Sunday edition on Saturdays.”
“Oh—I see. And you like it?” I queried.
“First rate,” she replied. “I'm in love with the work. I almost wish poor old Bos had been sentenced for ten years. I have enough of the woman in me to love minding other people's business, and, as far as I can find out, that's about all journalism amounts to. Sewing societies aren't to be mentioned in the same day with a newspaper for scandal and gossip, and, besides, I'm an ardent advocate of men's rights—have been for centuries—and I've got my first chance now to promulgate a few of my ideas. ”

“ She has frequently observed that while she had many things to be thankful for, her greatest blessing was that she was born a woman and not a man, and the new women of her native town never leave her presence without wondering in their own minds whether or not they are mere humorous contributions of the Almighty to a too serious world. I pulled myself together as best I could, and feeling that my better-half would perhaps decline the proffered invitation to meet with one of the most illustrious of her sex, I decided to fight my own battle. ”

“ Charles made a great outward show of grief when he heard of the coal being delivered at the office of the Minister of Justice, and we all thought him quite magnanimous, but it leaked out, just before I left to come here, that he sent his private secretary to the palace with a Panama hat and a palm-leaf fan for Cromwell, with his congratulations.
“That seems to savor somewhat of sarcasm.”
“Oh, ultimately Hades is bound to be a republic,” replied Boswell. “There are too many clever and ambitious politicians among us for the place to go along as a despotism much longer. ”

“ We are all quiet along the Styx now. All animosities are buried in the general love of golf, and every one of us, high or low, autocrat and revolutionist, is hobnobbing away in peace and happiness on the links. Why, only six weeks ago, Apollyon was for cooking Bonaparte on a waffle iron, and yesterday the two went out to the Cimmerian links together and played a mixed foursome, Bonaparte and Medusa playing against Apollyon and Delilah. ”

“ I cried. “Didn't it kill him?”
“Of course not,” retorted Boswell. “You can't kill a shade. Diogenes didn't know he'd been hit, but if that had happened to one of you material golfers there'd have been a sickening end to that tournament.”
“There would, indeed,” said I. “There isn't much fun in being hit by a golf-ball. I can testify to that because I have had the experience,” and I called to mind the day at St. Peterkin's when I unconsciously stymied with my material self the celebrated Willie McGuffin, the Demon Driver from the Hootmon Links, Scotland. ”

“ We've been having some pretty hot litigation down in Hades since I was here last. The city of Cimmeria has been suing the State of Hades for ten years back dog-taxes.”
“For what?” I cried.
“Unpaid dog-taxes for ten years,” Boswell explained. “We have just as much government below in our cities as you have, and I will say for Hades that our cities are better run than yours.”
“I suppose that is due to the fact that when a man gets to Hades he immediately becomes a reformer,” I suggested, with a wink at the machine, which somehow or other did not seem to appreciate the joke. ”

“ It's the man who puts in the best card who becomes the champion.”
“I am afraid you are right,” I said, sadly, “but I am sorry to find that Hades is as badly off as we mortals in that matter.”
“Golf, sir,” retorted Boswell, sententiously, “is the same everywhere, and that which is dome in our world is directly in line with what is developed in yours.”
“I'm sorry for Hades,” said I; “but to continue about golf—do the ladies play much on your links?”
“Well, rather,” returned Boswell, “and it's rather amusing to watch them at it, too. ”

“ After he has dined, however, and feels a satisfaction with life which cannot come to him before dinner, to hear a mysterious click, and from a dark corner, at an hour when the world is at rest, is not pleasing. ”

“ Having told the truth, I have done my duty. I cheerfully resign my claim to the personality he claims—I relinquish from this time on all right, title, and interest in the name; but if he ever dares to interfere with me again in the use of my personal recollections concerning the inside of whales I shall hale him before the authorities. ”

“ To come right down to it, I am a great admirer of Henry. At any rate, he had the courage of his heart-convictions.”
“You really surprise me,” tapped Boswell. “I never expected to find an American so thoroughly in sympathy with kings and their needs.”
“Oh, as for that,” said I, “in America we are all kings and we are not without our needs, matrimonial and otherwise, only our courts are not quite so expeditious as Henry's little axe. But what was Henry's attitude towards this extraordinary flight of Xanthippe's?” ”

“ An agreement with a real good fellow, even when it ends in a row, is more or less diverting; but a disputation with a female good fellow places a man at a disadvantage. The argumentum ad hominem is not an easy thing with men, but with women it is impossible. Hence, I let the type-writer click and ring for a fortnight.
Finally, to my relief, I recognized Boswell's touch upon the keys and sauntered up to the side of the machine. ”

“ She thinks men and women are the same kind of animal, and that both need to be educated on precisely the same lines—the girls to be taught business, the boys to go through a course of domestic training. She called for subscriptions for a cooking-school for boys, and demanded the endowment of a commercial college for girls, and wound up by insisting upon a uniform dress for both sexes. I tell you, if you'd worked for years to establish a dignified newspaper the way I have, it would have broken your heart to see the suggested fashion-plates that woman printed. ”