W. L. Alden

“ Well, it’s a sort of monster combination, as we would say in the profession. All the churches agree to hold meetings together, and all the preaching talent of the whole of them is collected in one pulpit, and each man preaches in turn. Of course every minister has his own backers, who are anxious to see him do himself and his denomination credit, and who turn out in full force so as to give him their support. The result is that a union meeting will always draw, even in a town where no single church can get a full house, no matter what attractions it may offer. ”

“ The gorilla was wearing Jewseppy’s coat, and was grinding away at the organ with one hand and holding Jewseppy’s rope with the other. Every few minutes he would haul in the rope, hand over hand, empty all the money out of Jewseppy’s pocket, and start him out again. If the man stopped to speak to anybody for a moment the gorilla would haul him in and give him a taste of the whip, and if he didn’t collect enough money to suit the gorilla’s idea, the animal would hold him out at arm’s length with one hand and lay into him with the other till the crowd were driven wild with delight. ”

“ Colonel Hoskins used to insist that the only thing that made [142] a man go wrong was the lack of kindness, and that the sure way to reform a criminal was to treat him with so much kindness that he would grow ashamed of being wicked, and would fall on everybody’s neck and devote the rest of his life to weeping tears of repentance and singing hymns of joy.
“While Colonel Hoskins was fond of all styles of criminals, burglars were his particular pets. According to him, a burglar was more deserving of kindness than any other man. ”

“ You look as if you didn’t altogether believe me, though why you should doubt that a man can learn cat language when the world is full of men that pretend to have learned German, and nobody calls their word in question, I don’t precisely see. ”

“ That noble bird sat silent as the grave, and looked at the parrot as if to say, ‘This is indeed a melancholy exhibition of imbecility!’ Well, before night that parrot was so ashamed of himself that he closed for repairs, and from that day forth he never spoke an unnecessary word. Such, gentlemen, is the influence of example even on the worst of birds.”
The American lit a fresh cigar, and pulling his hat over his eyes, fell into profound meditation. His three auditors made no comment on his story, and did not repeat the inquiry why he had asked the waiter for an owl. ”

“ While she was in this painful position—at least she said at the time that it was painful—a sleigh containing two of her deacons and a prominent Baptist drove by. Miss Marsh saw them and saw the horrified expression on their faces. She knew quick enough that her usefulness as a minister in New Berlinopolisville was at an end and that there was going to be a terrible scandal. So, being a woman, she burst into tears and said that she wished she were dead. ”

“ The affair cost considerable, but it taught me a lesson, and I have quit believing that you can’t travel in a European railroad car without being locked up with a lunatic or a murderer. I admit that the whole trouble was due to my foolishness. When the Frenchman began to make a row, I ought to have killed him and dropped the body out of the door, instead of fooling with him half the night and trying to make him comfortable. But we can’t always command presence of mind or see just where our duty lies at all times. ”

“ The Baptist house was crowded every Sunday, while ours was thin and discouraging. We had a good old gentleman for a minister, but he was over seventy, and a married man besides, which kept the women from taking much interest in him; while his old-fashioned notions didn’t suit the young men of the congregation. The Baptists, on the other hand, had a young unmarried preacher, with a voice that you could hear a quarter of a mile off, and a way of giving it to the Jews, and the Mormons, and other safe and distant sinners that filled his hearers with enthusiasm and offended nobody. ”

“ You may say that some one carries word to the darkies that there is a new chicken-house waiting to be visited, but the answer to this is that it isn’t true. My own idea is that it is a matter of instinct. When you carry a cat twenty miles away from home in a bag and let her out, we all know that her instinct will show her the way home again before you can get there yourself. ”

“ There is nothing more brutal than the way in which society treats the burglar; and so long as society refuses to put him in the way of earning an easier and less dangerous living, he cannot be blamed [143] if he continues to practise his midnight profession.’
“I must say this for Colonel Hoskins. He did not confine himself to talk, like many other philanthropists, but was always trying to carry out his principles. He really meant what he said about burglars, and there isn’t the least doubt that he had more sympathy for them than he had for the honest men of his acquaintance. ”

“ In order to make him comfortable, Lije fastened a pillow under the boy’s head, so that he could go to sleep in case he should feel sleepy, which he nearly always did. If Aristophanes could only have managed to take his dinner with him and eat it in the air, he would have been about as happy as a darky can be, and an average darky can hold more happiness to the square inch than any white man. ”

“ Why, sir, in every town there was a parish church of the regulation pattern and one other kind of church, which was generally some sort of Methodist in its persuasion. Now, in America there is hardly a village which hasn’t half a dozen different kinds of churches, and as a rule at least one of them belongs to some brand-new denomination, one that has just been patented and put on the market, as you might say. ”

“ Speaking of flying-machines reminds me of him, for he invented seven of them, and one of the lot was a stunning success. Stunned one darky and came very near stunning a whole camp-meeting of darkies. My brother Lije—his name was Elijah—was what you might call a general inventor. He didn’t stick to any one line, such as electricity, for example, but he would invent anything, from a woman’s pocket to a new motive power. He invented a pocket for a woman’s skirt that was warranted never to be found by the most expert pickpocket, and he put the pocket in the skirt of his wife’s dress on trial. ”

“ Why, although I am an old theatrical manager, I should not like to undertake to run a first-class American church in opposition to one run by some young preacher who had been trained to the business and knew just what the popular religious taste demanded. ”

“ In thirty years there have been just four [27] felonious assaults in English railroad cars. There have been a few more than that in France, but not a single one in Germany. Now, I admit that you are in no danger of being shot in an American car, unless, of course, two gentlemen happen to have a difficulty and shoot wild, or unless the train is held up by train robbers who are a little too free with their weapons. But I do say that the way in which we heat our cars with coal-stoves kills thousands of passengers with pneumonia and burns hundreds alive when the trains are wrecked. ”

“ Did I tell you that I had a large gray cat by the name of Thomas Aquinas? He was in some respects the most remarkable cat I ever met. Most people considered him rather a dull person, but among cats he was conceded to have a colossal mind. Cats would come from miles away to ask his advice about things. I don’t mean such trifling matters as his views on [164] mice-catching—which, by the way, is a thing that has very little interest for most cats—or his opinion of the best way in which to get a canary bird through the bars of a cage. ”

“ Now, I suppose that some one will be enough of an idiot to repeat this story with variations as a proof of the wonderful intelligence of the St. Bernard dog. If it is intelligence that leads a dog to steal other people’s babies and dump them on a respectable man, I’d like to see what idiocy would do for such a dog. ”

“ A group of half a dozen men were sitting in the lee of one of the deck-houses, smoking silently, when one of the number, a young and sanguine person, suddenly exclaimed:
“I don’t believe any honest man ever has any trouble with the custom-house. It’s the fellows who want to defraud the Government who make all the complaints.” ”

“ The elderly American leaned back in his chair searching for inspiration with his gaze [4] fixed on the chandelier. He rolled his cigar lightly from one corner of his mouth to the other and back again, and presently began:
“A parrot, gentlemen, is the meanest of all creation. People who are acquainted with parrots, and I don’t know that you are, generally admit that there is nothing that can make a parrot ashamed of himself. Now this is a mistake, for I’ve seen a parrot made ashamed of himself, and he was the most conceited parrot that was ever seen outside of Congress. ”

“ I used to watch the game pretty closely, because I had staked my professional reputation on the financial success of the girl-preacher, and I didn’t want her to marry and so put an end to her attractiveness with the general public. I didn’t really think that there was much danger of any such thing, for Miss Marsh seemed to be [75] entirely absorbed in her work, and her salary was exceptionally large. Still, you can never tell when a woman will break the very best engagement, and that is one reason why they will never succeed as preachers. ”

“ Now, everybody knows that diving is one of the most dangerous things a kite can do, and that unless it can be stopped it is sure to bring the kite down and smash it to pieces. Moreover, in this particular case there was Aristophanes, who was pretty sure to be frightened by the diving of the kite—that is, supposing that he was awake. When a kite dives the only remedy is to give it string. As Lije had no more string to let out he was obliged to do the next best thing, which was to slack the string by running with it toward the kite. ”

“ I have often thought that the man Susan did marry might have been saved if he had known the cat language in time and had made the acquaintance of the Maltese.”
The Colonel paused, and presently I asked him if he really expected us to believe his story.
“Why not?” he replied. “It isn’t any stiffer than Darwin’s yarn about our being descended from monkeys. You believe that on the word of a man you never saw, and I expect you to believe my story that I understand the cat language on my unsupported word. ”

“ Good American is good enough for me. One reason why these Europeans have been enslaved for centuries is that they can’t make each other understand their views without shouting at the top of their lungs, and so bringing the police about their ears. But I did happen to know, or thought I did, the French word for going to sleep, [31] and so I thought I would just heave it at this chap so that he would understand that I didn’t require his conversation. I have always found that if you talk to a Frenchman in English very slowly and impressively he will get the hang of what you say. ”

“ You get an owl and hang him up close to that parrot’s cage, and in about two days you’ll find that your bird’s dead sick of unprofitable conversation.’
“Well, I got a small owl and put him in a cage close to the parrot’s cage. The parrot began by trying to dazzle the owl with his conversation, but it wouldn’t work. The owl sat and looked at the parrot just as solemn as a minister whose salary has been cut down, and after a while the parrot tried him with Spanish. ”

“ Nobody can marry in two States at the same time, and I shan’t recognize the pretended marriage till a court of law compels me to do so, which will be never. I hope this will teach you the folly of fooling with Methodism. When you want to get married next time try a Baptist minister, who will know the difference between a tombstone and a boundary mark.’ There were too many Smiths and they were too well armed to be reasoned with successfully, so [133] the upshot was that Melinda went home with her family and Josiah and the parson went to see a lawyer. ”

“ When a man can do his duty and make money by it his path is middling plain; and after Jewseppy had thought it over he saw that he must do justice to the gorilla without delay.
“It didn’t take the beast long to learn the higher branches of hand-organing.
“He saw the advantages of putting the money in his own pocket instead of collecting it and handing it over to Jewseppy, and he grasped the idea that when he was pushing the little cart that carried the organ and turning the handle, he was holding a much better place in the community than when he was dancing and begging at the end of a rope. ”

“ I wanted to see a few travellers rescued from the snow, but the monks said the supply of travellers had been running low of late years; still, they added, if I’d go and sleep in a snow-bank a mile or two from the convent, they would see what could be done. I wasn’t going to risk the forfeiture of my life-insurance policy by any such foolishness as that, so I came away without seeing any dog performance. However, I saw enough, a little later on, to convince me that the St. Bernard dog is about the biggest kind of canine fool that ever imposed on credulous people. ”

“ You see, the trouble with elevating the oppressed at home is that the moment you get them elevated they begin to oppress you. There is no better fellow in the world than the Irishman, so long as you govern him; but when he undertakes to govern you it’s time to look out for daybreak to westward. You see, we’ve been there and know all about it.
“Did I ever tell you about Jewseppy? He [13] was an organ-grinder, and, take him by and large, he was the best organ-grinder I ever met. ”

“ When he fitted up his chicken-house he had no more idea where his darkies would come from than I had, but he knew that the chickens would draw darkies and that his trap would hold them, so he felt that he had a sure thing. I have no more doubt that those darkies were drawn to Ephraim’s place by those chickens than I have that a magnet will draw a needle. I can’t explain how it was done, but I believe it all the same. It is what is called a mystery, and the good book says that the less you try to explain mysteries the better. ”

“ That was the end of the experiment of playing a woman-preacher on the boards of the First Methodist Church of Berlinopolisville. Everybody was content to call a man in the place of Miss Marsh, and everybody agreed to blame me for the failure of the experiment. I don’t know whether the lawyer ever had any reason to regret his marriage or not, but when I saw his wife at a fancy dress hall at Chicago, a year or two later, I could see that she was not sorry that she had given up the ministry. ”