O. Henry

“ The phonograph idea was Henry's, but I took to it freely, being fond of machinery of all kinds.
"The Latin races," says Henry, explaining easy in his idioms he learned at college, "are peculiarly adapted to be victims of the phonograph. They possess the artistic temperament. They yearn for music and color and gaiety. They give up wampum to the hand organ man or the four-legged chicken when they're months behind with the grocery and the breadfruit-tree." ”

“ Yes, I think he was a kind of Dutchman, being very sad and genial in his ways.
" 'The marvelous invention,' he says, 'entitled the phonograph, has never before invaded these shores. The people have never heard it. They would not believe it if they should. Simple-hearted children of nature, progress has never condemned them to accept the work of a can-opener as an overture, and rag-time might incite them to a bloody revolution. But you can try the experiment. The best chance you have is that the populace may not wake up when you play. There's two ways,' says the consul, 'they may take it. ”

“ The government knows it; the people know it; the boodlers know it; the foreign investors know it. I make the government keep its faith. If a man is promised a job he gets it. If outside capital buys a concession they get the goods. I run a monopoly of square dealing here. There's no competition. If Colonel Diogenes were to flash his lantern in this precinct he'd have my address inside of two minutes. There isn't big money in it, but it's a sure thing, and lets a man sleep of nights.'
"Thus Homer P. Mellinger made oration to me and Henry Horsecollar in Sore-toe-kangaroo. ”

“ I'm sick,' goes on Mellinger, 'of comic opera. I want to smell East River and wear suspenders again. At times I feel like throwing up my job, but I'm d—n fool enough to be sort of proud of it. 'There's Mellinger,' they say here, 'Por Dios! you can't touch him with a million.' I'd like to take that record back and show it to Billy Renfrew some day; and that tightens my grip whenever I see a fat thing that I could corral just by winking one eye—and losing my graft. By ——, they can't monkey with me. They know it. What money I get I make honest and spend it. ”

“ We had them and other things.
"Mine and Henry's money was counterfeit. Everything was on Homer P. Mellinger. That man could find rolls of bills in his clothes where Hermann the Wizard couldn't have conjured out an omelette. He could have founded universities and had enough left to buy the colored vote of his country. Henry and me wondered what his graft was. One evening he told us.
" 'Boys,' says he, 'I've deceived you. Instead of a painted butterfly, I'm the hardest worked man in this country. ”

“ I'll confide in you because you are my countrymen and guests, even if you have committed an assault upon my adopted shores with the worst system of noises ever set to music.
" 'My job is private secretary to the President of this Republic, and my duties are running it. I'm not headlined in the bills, but I'm the mustard in the salad dressing. ”

“ I've got every one of their names, and they're invited to listen to the phonograph to-night, compliments of H. P. M. That's the way I'll get them in a bunch, and things are on the programme to happen to them.'
"We three were sitting at table in the cantina of the Purified Saints. Mellinger poured out wine, and was looking some worried; I was thinking.
" 'They're a sharp crowd,' he says, kind of fretful. 'They're capitalized by a foreign syndicate after rubber, and they're loaded to the muzzle for bribing. ”