Then, standing rather each by himself, are Melville Davisson Post
(1871- ), a master of psychological mystery stories, and Wilbur Daniel
Steele (1886- ), whose work it is hard to classify. These ten names
represent much that is best in American short story production since
the beginning of the twentieth century (1900). Not all are notable for
humor; but inasmuch as any consideration of the American humorous
short story cannot be wholly dissociated from a consideration of the
American short story in general, it has seemed not amiss to mention
these authors here. Although Sarah Orne Jewett (1849-1909) lived on
into the twentieth century and Mary E. Wilkins Freeman (1862- ) is
still with us, the best and most typical work of these two writers
belongs in the last two decades of the previous century. To an earlier
period also belong Charles Egbert Craddock (1850- ), George Washington
Cable (1844- ), Thomas Nelson Page (1853- ), Constance Fenimore
Woolson (1848-1894), Harriet Prescott Spofford (1835- ), Hamlin
Garland (1860- ), Ambrose Bierce (1842-?), Rose Terry Cooke
(1827-1892), and Kate Chopin (1851-1904).
"O. Henry" was the pen name adopted by William Sydney Porter. He began
his short story career by contributing _Whistling Dick's Christmas
Stocking_ to _McClure's Magazine_ in 1899. He followed it with many
stories dealing with Western and South- and Central-American life, and
later came most of his stories of the life of New York City, in which
field lies most of his best work. He contributed more stories to the
_New York World_ than to any other one publication - as if the stories
of the author who later came to be hailed as "the American Maupassant"
were not good enough for the "leading" magazines but fit only for the
sensation-loving public of the Sunday papers! His first published
story that showed distinct strength was perhaps _A Blackjack
Bargainer_ (August, 1901, _Munsey's_). He followed this with such
masterly stories as: _The Duplicity of Hargraves_ (February, 1902,
_Junior Munsey_), _The Marionettes_ (April, 1902, _Black Cat_), _A
Retrieved Reformation_ (April, 1903, _Cosmopolitan_), _The Guardian of
the Accolade_ (May, 1903, _Cosmopolitan_), _The Enchanted Kiss_
(February, 1904, _Metropolitan_), _The Furnished Room_ (August 14,
1904, _New York World_), _An Unfinished Story_ (August, 1905,
_McClure's_), _The Count and the Wedding Guest_ (October 8, 1905, _New
York World_), _The Gift of the Magi_ (December 10, 1905, _New York
World_), _The Trimmed Lamp_ (August, 1906, _McClure's_), _Phoebe_
(November, 1907, _Everybody's_), _The Hiding of Black Bill_ (October,
1908, _Everybody's_), _No Story_ (June, 1909, _Metropolitan_), _A
Municipal Report_ (November, 1909, _Hampton's_), _A Service of Love_
(in _The Four Million_, 1909), _The Pendulum_ (in _The Trimmed Lamp_,
1910), _Brickdust Row_ (in _The Trimmed Lamp_, 1910), and _The
Assessor of Success_ (in _The Trimmed Lamp_, 1910). Among O. Henry's
best volumes of short stories are: _The Four Million_ (1909),
_Options_ (1909), _Roads of Destiny_ (1909), _The Trimmed Lamp_
(1910), _Strictly Business: More Stories of the Four Million_ (1910),
_Whirligigs_ (1910), and _Sixes and Sevens_ (1911).
"Nowhere is there anything just like them. In his best work - and his
tales of the great metropolis are his best - he is unique. The soul of
his art is unexpectedness. Humor at every turn there is, and sentiment
and philosophy and surprise. One never may be sure of himself. The end
is always a sensation. No foresight may predict it, and the sensation
always is genuine. Whatever else O. Henry was, he was an artist, a
master of plot and diction, a genuine humorist, and a philosopher. His
weakness lay in the very nature of his art. He was an entertainer bent
only on amusing and surprising his reader. Everywhere brilliancy, but
too often it is joined to cheapness; art, yet art merging swiftly into
caricature. Like Harte, he cannot be trusted. Both writers on the
whole may be said to have lowered the standards of American
literature, since both worked in the surface of life with theatric
intent and always without moral background, O. Henry moves, but he
never lifts. All is fortissimo; he slaps the reader on the back and
laughs loudly as if he were in a bar-room. His characters, with few
exceptions, are extremes, caricatures. Even his shop girls, in the
limning of whom he did his best work, are not really individuals;
rather are they types, symbols. His work was literary vaudeville,
brilliant, highly amusing, and yet vaudeville."[9] _The Duplicity of
Hargraves_, the story by O. Henry given in this volume, is free from
most of his defects. It has a blend of humor and pathos that puts it
on a plane of universal appeal.
George Randolph Chester (1869- ) gained distinction by creating the
genial modern business man of American literature who is not content
to "get rich quick" through the ordinary channels. Need I say that I
refer to that amazing compound of likeableness and sharp practices,
Get-Rich-Quick Wallingford? The story of his included in this volume,
_Bargain Day at Tutt House_ (June, 1905, _McClure's_), was nearly his
first story; only two others, which came out in _The Saturday Evening
Post_ in 1903 and 1904, preceded it. Its breathless dramatic action is
well balanced by humor. Other stories of his deserving of special
mention are: _A Corner in Farmers_ (February, 29, 1908, _Saturday
Evening Post_), _A Fortune in Smoke_ (March 14, 1908, _Saturday
Evening Post_), _Easy Money_ (November 14, 1908, _Saturday Evening
Post_), _The Triple Cross_ (December 5, 1908, _Saturday Evening
Post_), _Spoiling the Egyptians_ (December 26, 1908, _Saturday Evening
Post_), _Whipsawed!_ (January 16, 1909, _Saturday Evening Post_), _The
Bubble Bank_ (January 30 and February 6, 1909, _Saturday Evening
Post_), _Straight Business_ (February 27, 1909, _Saturday Evening
Post_), _Sam Turner: a Business Man's Love Story_ (March 26, April 2
and 9, 1910, _Saturday Evening Post_), _Fundamental Justice_ (July 25,
1914, _Saturday Evening Post_), _A Scropper Patcher_ (October, 1916,
_Everybody's_), and _Jolly Bachelors_ (February, 1918,
_Cosmopolitan_). His best collections are: _Get-Rich-Quick
Wallingford_ (1908), _Young Wallingford_ (1910), _Wallingford in His
Prime_ (1913), and _Wallingford and Blackie Daw_ (1913). It is often
difficult to find in his books short stories that one may be looking
for, for the reason that the titles of the individual stories have
been removed in order to make the books look like novels subdivided
into chapters.
Grace MacGowan Cooke (1863- ) is a writer all of whose work has
interest and perdurable stuff in it, but few are the authors whose
achievements in the American short story stand out as a whole. In _A
Call_ (August, 1906, _Harper's_) she surpasses herself and is not
perhaps herself surpassed by any of the humorous short stories that
have come to the fore so far in America in the twentieth century. The
story is no less delightful in its fidelity to fact and understanding
of young human nature than in its relish of humor. Some of her stories
deserving of special mention are: _The Capture of Andy Proudfoot_
(June, 1904, _Harper's_), _In the Strength of the Hills_ (December,
1905, _Metropolitan_), _The Machinations of Ocoee Gallantine_ (April,
1906, _Century_), _A Call_ (August, 1906, _Harper's_), _Scott
Bohannon's Bond _(May 4, 1907, _Collier's_), and _A Clean Shave_
(November, 1912, _Century_). Her best short stories do not seem to
have been collected in volumes as yet, although she has had several
notable long works of fiction published, such as _The Power and the
Glory_ (1910), and several good juveniles.
William James Lampton (?-1917), who was known to many of his admirers
as Will Lampton or as W.J.L. merely, was one of the most unique and
interesting characters of literary and Bohemian New York from about
1895 to his death in 1917. I remember walking up Fifth Avenue with him
one Sunday afternoon just after he had shown me a letter from the man
who was then Comptroller of the Currency. The letter was signed so
illegibly that my companion was in doubts as to the sender, so he
suggested that we stop at a well-known hotel at the corner of 59th
Street, and ask the manager who the Comptroller of the Currency then
was, so that he might know whom the letter was from. He said that the
manager of a big hotel like that, where many prominent people stayed,
would be sure to know. When this problem had been solved to our
satisfaction, John Skelton Williams proving to be the man, Lampton
said, "Now you've told me who he is, I'll show you who I am." So he
asked for a copy of _The American Magazine_ at a newsstand in the
hotel corridor, opened it, and showed the manager a full-page picture
of himself clad in a costume suggestive of the time of Christopher
Columbus, with high ruffs around his neck, that happened to appear in
the magazine the current month. I mention this incident to illustrate
the lack of conventionality and whimsical originality of the man, that
stood out no less forcibly in his writings than in his daily life. He
had little use for "doing the usual thing in the usual sort of way."
He first gained prominence by his book of verse, _Yawps_ (1900). His
poems were free from convention in technique as well as in spirit,
although their chief innovation was simply that as a rule there was no
regular number of syllables in a line; he let the lines be any length
they wanted to be, to fit the sense or the length of what he had to
say. He once said to me that if anything of his was remembered he
thought it would be his poem,_Lo, the Summer Girl_. His muse often
took the direction of satire, but it was always good-natured even when
it hit the hardest. He had in his makeup much of the detached
philosopher, like Cervantes and Mark Twain.
There was something cosmic about his attitude to life, and this showed
in much that he did. He was the only American writer of humorous verse
of his day whom I always cared to read, or whose lines I could
remember more than a few weeks. This was perhaps because his work was
never _merely_ humorous, but always had a big sweep of background to
it, like the ruggedness of the Kentucky mountains from which he came.
It was Colonel George Harvey, then editor of _Harper's Weekly_, who
had started the boom to make Woodrow Wilson President. Wilson
afterwards, at least seemingly, repudiated his sponsor, probably
because of Harvey's identification with various moneyed interests.
Lampton's poem on the subject, with its refrain, "Never again, said
Colonel George," I remember as one of the most notable of his poems on
current topics. But what always seemed to me the best of his poems
dealing with matters of the hour was one that I suggested he write,
which dealt with gift-giving to the public, at about the time that
Andrew Carnegie was making a big stir with his gifts for libraries,
beginning:
Dunno, perhaps
One of the yaps
Like me would make
A holy break
Doing his turn
With money to burn.
Anyhow, I
Wouldn't shy
Making a try!
and containing, among many effective touches, the pathetic lines,
... I'd help
The poor who try to help themselves,
Who have to work so hard for bread
They can't get very far ahead.
When James Lane Allen's novel, _The Reign of Law_, came out (1900), a
little quatrain by Lampton that appeared in _The Bookman_ (September,
1900) swept like wildfire across the country, and was read by a
hundred times as many people as the book itself:
"The Reign of Law"?
Well, Allen, you're lucky;
It's the first time it ever
Rained law in Kentucky!
The reader need not be reminded that at that period Kentucky family
feuds were well to the fore. As Lampton had started as a poet, the
editors were bound to keep him pigeon-holed as far as they could, and
his ambition to write short stories was not at first much encouraged
by them. His predicament was something like that of the chief
character of Frank R. Stockton's story, "_His Wife's Deceased Sister_"
(January, 1884, _Century_), who had written a story so good that
whenever he brought the editors another story they invariably answered
in substance, "We're afraid it won't do. Can't you give us something
like '_His Wife's Deceased Sister_'?" This was merely Stockton's
turning to account his own somewhat similar experience with the
editors after his story, _The Lady or the Tiger_? (November, 1882,
_Century_) appeared. Likewise the editors didn't want Lampton's short
stories for a while because they liked his poems so well.
Do I hear some critics exclaiming that there is nothing remarkable
about _How the Widow Won the Deacon_, the story by Lampton included in
this volume? It handles an amusing situation lightly and with grace.
It is one of those things that read easily and are often difficult to
achieve. Among his best stories are: _The People's Number of the
Worthyville Watchman_ (May 12, 1900, _Saturday Evening Post_), _Love's
Strange Spell_ (April 27, 1901, _Saturday Evening Post_), _Abimelech
Higgins' Way_ (August 24, 1001, _Saturday Evening Post_), _A Cup of
Tea_ (March, 1902, _Metropolitan_), _Winning His Spurs_ (May, 1904,
_Cosmopolitan_), _The Perfidy of Major Pulsifer_ (November, 1909,
_Cosmopolitan_), _How the Widow Won the Deacon_ (April, 1911,
_Harper's Bazaar_), and _A Brown Study_ (December, 1913,
_Lippincott's_). There is no collection as yet of his short stories.
Although familiarly known as "Colonel" Lampton, and although of
Kentucky, he was not merely a "Kentucky Colonel," for he was actually
appointed Colonel on the staff of the governor of Kentucky. At the
time of his death he was about to be made a brigadier-general and was
planning to raise a brigade of Kentucky mountaineers for service in
the Great War. As he had just struck his stride in short story
writing, the loss to literature was even greater than the patriotic
loss.
_Gideon_ (April, 1914, _Century_), by Wells Hastings (1878- ), the
story with which this volume closes, calls to mind the large number of
notable short stories in American literature by writers who have made
no large name for themselves as short story writers, or even otherwise
in letters. American literature has always been strong in its "stray"
short stories of note. In Mr. Hastings' case, however, I feel that the
fame is sure to come. He graduated from Yale in 1902, collaborated
with Brian Hooker (1880- ) in a novel, _The Professor's Mystery_
(1911) and alone wrote another novel, _The Man in the Brown Derby_
(1911). His short stories include: _The New Little Boy_ (July, 1911,
_American_), _That Day_ (September, 1911, _American_), _The Pick-Up_
(December, 1911, _Everybody's_), and _Gideon_ (April, 1914,
_Century_). The last story stands out. It can be compared without
disadvantage to the best work, or all but the very best work, of
Thomas Nelson Page, it seems to me. And from the reader's standpoint
it has the advantage - is this not also an author's advantage? - of a
more modern setting and treatment. Mr. Hastings is, I have been told,
a director in over a dozen large corporations. Let us hope that his
business activities will not keep him too much away from the
production of literature - for to rank as a piece of literature,
something of permanent literary value, _Gideon_ is surely entitled.
ALEXANDER JESSUP.
CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION
_Alexander Jessup_
THE LITTLE FRENCHMAN AND HIS WATER LOTS (1839)
_George Pope Morris_
THE ANGEL OF THE ODD (1844)
_Edgar Allan Poe_
THE SCHOOLMASTER'S PROGRESS (1844)
_Caroline M.S. Kirkland_
THE WATKINSON EVENING (1846)
_Eliza Leslie_
TITBOTTOM'S SPECTACLES (1854)
_George William Curtis_
MY DOUBLE; AND HOW HE UNDID ME (1859)
_Edward Everett Hale_
A VISIT TO THE ASYLUM FOR AGED AND DECAYED PUNSTERS (1861)
_Oliver Wendell Holmes_
THE CELEBRATED JUMPING FROG OF CALAVERAS COUNTY (1865)
_Mark Twain_
ELDER BROWN'S BACKSLIDE (1885)
_Harry Stillwell Edwards_
THE HOTEL EXPERIENCE OF MR. PINK FLUKER (1886)
_Richard Malcolm Johnston_
THE NICE PEOPLE (1890)
_Henry Cuyler Bunner_
THE BULLER-PODINGTON COMPACT (1897)
_Frank Richard Stockton_
COLONEL STARBOTTLE FOR THE PLAINTIFF (1901)
_Bret Harte_
THE DUPLICITY OF HARGRAVES (1902)
_O. Henry_
BARGAIN DAY AT TUTT HOUSE (1905)
_George Randolph Chester_
A CALL (1906)
_Grace MacGowan Cooke_
HOW THE WIDOW WON THE DEACON (1911)
_William James Lampton_
GIDEON (1914)
_Wells Hastings_
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
_The Nice People_, by Henry Cuyler Bunner, is republished from his
volume, _Short Sixes_, by permission of its publishers, Charles
Scribner's Sons. _The Buller-Podington Compact_, by Frank Richard
Stockton, is from his volume, _Afield and Afloat_, and is republished
by permission of Charles Scribner's Sons. _Colonel Starbottle for the
Plaintiff_, by Bret Harte, is from the collection of his stories
entitled _Openings in the Old Trail_, and is republished by permission
of the Houghton Mifflin Company, the authorized publishers of Bret
Harte's complete works. _The Duplicity of Hargraves_, by O. Henry, is
from his volume, _Sixes and Sevens_, and is republished by permission
of its publishers, Doubleday, Page & Co. These stories are fully
protected by copyright, and should not be republished except by
permission of the publishers mentioned. Thanks are due Mrs. Grace
MacGowan Cooke for permission to use her story, _A Call_, republished
here from _Harper's Magazine_; Wells Hastings, for permission to
reprint his story, _Gideon_, from _The Century Magazine_; and George
Randolph Chester, for permission to include _Bargain Day at Tutt
House_, from _McClure's Magazine_. I would also thank the heirs of the
late lamented Colonel William J. Lampton for permission to use his
story, _How the Widow Won the Deacon_, from _Harper's Bazaar_. These
stories are all copyrighted, and cannot be republished except by
authorization of their authors or heirs. The editor regrets that their
publishers have seen fit to refuse him permission to include George W.
Cable's story, "_Posson Jone'_," and Irvin S. Cobb's story, _The Smart
Aleck_. He also regrets he was unable to obtain a copy of Joseph C.
Duport's story, _The Wedding at Timber Hollow_, in time for inclusion,
to which its merits - as he remembers them - certainly entitle it. Mr.
Duport, in addition to his literary activities, has started an
interesting "back to Nature" experiment at Westfield, Massachusetts.
[Footnote 1: This I have attempted in _Representative American Short
Stories_ (Allyn & Bacon: Boston, 1922).]
[Footnote 2: Will D. Howe, in _The Cambridge History of American
Literature_, Vol. II, pp. 158-159 (G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1918).]
[Footnote 3: _A History of American Literature Since 1870_, p. 317
(The Century Co.: 1915).]
[Footnote 4: _A History of American Literature Since 1870_, pp 79-81.]
[Footnote 5: "The Works of Bret Harte," twenty volumes. The Houghton
Mifflin Company, Boston.]
[Footnote 6: _The Cambridge History of American Literature_, Vol. II,
p. 386.]
[Footnote 7: See this Introduction.]
[Footnote 8: _The Cambridge History of American Literature_, Vol. II,
p. 385.]
[Footnote 9: Fred Lewis Pattee, in The Cambridge History of American
Literature, Vol. II, p. 394.]
* * * * *
To: CHARLES GOODRICH WHITING, Critic, Poet, Friend
* * * * *
THE LITTLE FRENCHMAN AND HIS WATER LOTS
BY GEORGE POPE MORRIS (1802-1864)
[From _The Little Frenchman and His Water Lots, with Other Sketches of
the Times_ (1839), by George Pope Morris.]
Look into those they call unfortunate,
And, closer view'd, you'll find they are unwise. - _Young._
Let wealth come in by comely thrift,
And not by any foolish shift:
‘Tis haste
Makes waste:
Who gripes too hard the dry and slippery sand
Holds none at all, or little, in his hand. - _Herrick_.
Let well alone. - _Proverb_.
How much real comfort every one might enjoy if he would be contented
with the lot in which heaven has cast him, and how much trouble would
be avoided if people would only "let well alone." A moderate
independence, quietly and honestly procured, is certainly every way
preferable even to immense possessions achieved by the wear and tear
of mind and body so necessary to procure them. Yet there are very few
individuals, let them be doing ever so well in the world, who are not
always straining every nerve to do better; and this is one of the many
causes why failures in business so frequently occur among us. The
present generation seem unwilling to "realize" by slow and sure
degrees; but choose rather to set their whole hopes upon a single
cast, which either makes or mars them forever!
Gentle reader, do you remember Monsieur Poopoo? He used to keep a
small toy-store in Chatham, near the corner of Pearl Street. You must
recollect him, of course. He lived there for many years, and was one
of the most polite and accommodating of shopkeepers. When a juvenile,
you have bought tops and marbles of him a thousand times. To be sure
you have; and seen his vinegar-visage lighted up with a smile as you
flung him the coppers; and you have laughed at his little straight
queue and his dimity breeches, and all the other oddities that made up
the every-day apparel of my little Frenchman. Ah, I perceive you
recollect him now.
Well, then, there lived Monsieur Poopoo ever since he came from "dear,
delightful Paris," as he was wont to call the city of his
nativity - there he took in the pennies for his kickshaws - there he
laid aside five thousand dollars against a rainy day - there he was as
happy as a lark - and there, in all human probability, he would have
been to this very day, a respected and substantial citizen, had he
been willing to "let well alone." But Monsieur Poopoo had heard
strange stories about the prodigious rise in real estate; and, having
understood that most of his neighbors had become suddenly rich by
speculating in lots, he instantly grew dissatisfied with his own lot,
forthwith determined to shut up shop, turn everything into cash, and
set about making money in right-down earnest. No sooner said than
done; and our quondam storekeeper a few days afterward attended an
extensive sale of real estate, at the Merchants' Exchange.
There was the auctioneer, with his beautiful and inviting lithographic
maps - all the lots as smooth and square and enticingly laid out as
possible - and there were the speculators - and there, in the midst of
them, stood Monsieur Poopoo.
"Here they are, gentlemen," said he of the hammer, "the most valuable
lots ever offered for sale. Give me a bid for them!"
"One hundred each," said a bystander.
"One hundred!" said the auctioneer, "scarcely enough to pay for the
maps. One hundred - going - and fifty - gone! Mr. H., they are yours. A
noble purchase. You'll sell those same lots in less than a fortnight
for fifty thousand dollars profit!"
Monsieur Poopoo pricked up his ears at this, and was lost in
astonishment. This was a much easier way certainly of accumulating
riches than selling toys in Chatham Street, and he determined to buy
and mend his fortune without delay.
The auctioneer proceeded in his sale. Other parcels were offered and
disposed of, and all the purchasers were promised immense advantages
for their enterprise. At last came a more valuable parcel than all the
rest. The company pressed around the stand, and Monsieur Poopoo did
the same.
"I now offer you, gentlemen, these magnificent lots, delightfully
situated on Long Island, with valuable water privileges. Property in
fee - title indisputable - terms of sale, cash - deeds ready for delivery
immediately after the sale. How much for them? Give them a start at
something. How much?" The auctioneer looked around; there were no
bidders. At last he caught the eye of Monsieur Poopoo. "Did you say
one hundred, sir? Beautiful lots - valuable water privileges - shall I
say one hundred for you?"
"_Oui, monsieur_; I will give you von hundred dollar apiece, for de
lot vid de valuarble vatare privalege; _c'est ça_."
"Only one hundred apiece for these sixty valuable lots - only one
hundred - going - going - going - gone!"
Monsieur Poopoo was the fortunate possessor. The auctioneer
congratulated him - the sale closed - and the company dispersed.
"_Pardonnez-moi, monsieur_," said Poopoo, as the auctioneer descended
his pedestal, "you shall _excusez-moi_, if I shall go to _votre
bureau_, your counting-house, ver quick to make every ting sure wid
respec to de lot vid de valuarble vatare privalege. Von leetle bird in
de hand he vorth two in de tree, _c'est vrai_ - eh?"
"Certainly, sir."
"Vell den, _allons_."
And the gentlemen repaired to the counting-house, where the six
thousand dollars were paid, and the deeds of the property delivered.
Monsieur Poopoo put these carefully in his pocket, and as he was about
taking his leave, the auctioneer made him a present of the
lithographic outline of the lots, which was a very liberal thing on
his part, considering the map was a beautiful specimen of that
glorious art. Poopoo could not admire it sufficiently. There were his
sixty lots, as uniform as possible, and his little gray eyes sparkled
like diamonds as they wandered from one end of the spacious sheet to
the other.
Poopoo's heart was as light as a feather, and he snapped his fingers
in the very wantonness of joy as he repaired to Delmonico's, and
ordered the first good French dinner that had gladdened his palate
since his arrival in America.
After having discussed his repast, and washed it down with a bottle of
choice old claret, he resolved upon a visit to Long Island to view his
purchase. He consequently immediately hired a horse and gig, crossed
the Brooklyn ferry, and drove along the margin of the river to the
Wallabout, the location in question.
Our friend, however, was not a little perplexed to find his property.
Everything on the map was as fair and even as possible, while all the
grounds about him were as undulated as they could well be imagined,
and there was an elbow of the East River thrusting itself quite into
the ribs of the land, which seemed to have no business there. This
puzzled the Frenchman exceedingly; and, being a stranger in those
parts, he called to a farmer in an adjacent field.
"_Mon ami_, are you acquaint vid dis part of de country - eh?"
"Yes, I was born here, and know every inch of it."
"Ah, _c'est bien_, dat vill do," and the Frenchman got out of the gig,
tied the horse, and produced his lithographic map.
"Den maybe you vill have de kindness to show me de sixty lot vich I
have bought, vid de valuarble vatare privalege?"
The farmer glanced his eye over the paper.
"Yes, sir, with pleasure; if you will be good enough to _get into my
boat, I will row you out to them_!"
"Vat dat you say, sure?"
"My friend," said the farmer, "this section of Long Island has
recently been bought up by the speculators of New York, and laid out
for a great city; but the principal street is only visible _at low
tide_. When this part of the East River is filled up, it will be just
there. Your lots, as you will perceive, are beyond it; _and are now
all under water_."
At first the Frenchman was incredulous. He could not believe his
senses. As the facts, however, gradually broke upon him, he shut one
eye, squinted obliquely at the heavens - -the river - the farmer - and
then he turned away and squinted at them all over again! There was his
purchase sure enough; but then it could not be perceived for there was
a river flowing over it! He drew a box from his waistcoat pocket,
opened it, with an emphatic knock upon the lid, took a pinch of snuff
and restored it to his waistcoat pocket as before. Poopoo was
evidently in trouble, having "thoughts which often lie too deep for
tears"; and, as his grief was also too big for words, he untied his
horse, jumped into his gig, and returned to the auctioneer in hot
haste.
It was near night when he arrived at the auction-room - his horse in a
foam and himself in a fury. The auctioneer was leaning back in his
chair, with his legs stuck out of a low window, quietly smoking a
cigar after the labors of the day, and humming the music from the last
new opera.
"Monsieur, I have much plaisir to fin' you, _chez vous_, at home."
"Ah, Poopoo! glad to see you. Take a seat, old boy."
"But I shall not take de seat, sare."
"No - why, what's the matter?"
"Oh, _beaucoup_ de matter. I have been to see de gran lot vot you sell
me to-day."
"Well, sir, I hope you like your purchase?"
"No, monsieur, I no like him."
"I'm sorry for it; but there is no ground for your complaint."
"No, sare; dare is no _ground_ at all - de ground is all vatare!"
"You joke!"
"I no joke. I nevare joke; _je n'entends pas la raillerie_, Sare,
_voulez-vous_ have de kindness to give me back de money vot I pay!"
"Certainly not."
"Den vill you be so good as to take de East River off de top of my
lot?"
"That's your business, sir, not mine."
"Den I make von _mauvaise affaire_ - von gran mistake!"
"I hope not. I don't think you have thrown your money away in the
_land_."
"No, sare; but I tro it avay in de _vatare!_"
"That's not my fault."
"Yes, sare, but it is your fault. You're von ver gran rascal to
swindle me out of _de l'argent_."
"Hello, old Poopoo, you grow personal; and if you can't keep a civil
tongue in your head, you must go out of my counting-room."
"Vare shall I go to, eh?"
"To the devil, for aught I care, you foolish old Frenchman!" said the
auctioneer, waxing warm.
"But, sare, I vill not go to de devil to oblige you!" replied the
Frenchman, waxing warmer. "You sheat me out of all de dollar vot I
make in Shatham Street; but I vill not go to de devil for all dat. I
vish you may go to de devil yourself you dem yankee-doo-dell, and I
vill go and drown myself, _tout de suite_, right avay."
"You couldn't make a better use of your water privileges, old boy!"
"Ah, _miséricorde!_ Ah, _mon dieu, je suis abîmé_. I am ruin! I am
done up! I am break all into ten sousan leetle pieces! I am von lame
duck, and I shall vaddle across de gran ocean for Paris, vish is de
only valuarble vatare privalege dat is left me _Ã present!_"
Poor Poopoo was as good as his word. He sailed in the next packet, and
arrived in Paris almost as penniless as the day he left it.
Should any one feel disposed to doubt the veritable circumstances here
recorded, let him cross the East River to the Wallabout, and farmer
J - - will _row him out_ to the very place where the poor Frenchman's
lots still remain _under water_.
THE ANGEL OF THE ODD
[From _The Columbian Magazine_, October, 1844.]
BY EDGAR ALLAN POE (1809-1849)
It was a chilly November afternoon. I had just consummated an
unusually hearty dinner, of which the dyspeptic _truffe_ formed not
the least important item, and was sitting alone in the dining-room
with my feet upon the fender and at my elbow a small table which I had
rolled up to the fire, and upon which were some apologies for dessert,
with some miscellaneous bottles of wine, spirit, and _liqueur_. In the
morning I had been reading Glover's _Leonidas_, Wilkie's _Epigoniad_,
Lamartine's _Pilgrimage_, Barlow's _Columbiad_, Tuckerman's _Sicily_,
and Griswold's _Curiosities_, I am willing to confess, therefore, that
I now felt a little stupid. I made effort to arouse myself by frequent
aid of Lafitte, and all failing, I betook myself to a stray newspaper
in despair. Having carefully perused the column of "Houses to let,"
and the column of "Dogs lost," and then the columns of "Wives and
apprentices runaway," I attacked with great resolution the editorial
matter, and reading it from beginning to end without understanding a
syllable, conceived the possibility of its being Chinese, and so
re-read it from the end to the beginning, but with no more
satisfactory result. I was about throwing away in disgust
This folio of four pages, happy work
Which not even critics criticise,
when I felt my attention somewhat aroused by the paragraph which
follows:
"The avenues to death are numerous and strange. A London paper
mentions the decease of a person from a singular cause. He was playing
at 'puff the dart,' which is played with a long needle inserted in
some worsted, and blown at a target through a tin tube. He placed the
needle at the wrong end of the tube, and drawing his breath strongly
to puff the dart forward with force, drew the needle into his throat.
It entered the lungs, and in a few days killed him."
Upon seeing this I fell into a great rage, without exactly knowing
why. "This thing," I exclaimed, "is a contemptible falsehood - a poor
hoax - the lees of the invention of some pitiable penny-a-liner, of
some wretched concocter of accidents in Cocaigne. These fellows
knowing the extravagant gullibility of the age set their wits to work
in the imagination of improbable possibilities, of odd accidents as
they term them, but to a reflecting intellect (like mine, I added, in
parenthesis, putting my forefinger unconsciously to the side of my
nose), to a contemplative understanding such as I myself possess, it
seems evident at once that the marvelous increase of late in these
'odd accidents' is by far the oddest accident of all. For my own part,
I intend to believe nothing henceforward that has anything of the
'singular' about it."
"Mein Gott, den, vat a vool you bees for dat!" replied one of the most
remarkable voices I ever heard. At first I took it for a rumbling in
my ears - such as a man sometimes experiences when getting very
drunk - but upon second thought, I considered the sound as more nearly
resembling that which proceeds from an empty barrel beaten with a big
stick; and, in fact, this I should have concluded it to be, but for
the articulation of the syllables and words. I am by no means
naturally nervous, and the very few glasses of Lafitte which I had
sipped served to embolden me a little, so that I felt nothing of
trepidation, but merely uplifted my eyes with a leisurely movement and
looked carefully around the room for the intruder. I could not,
however, perceive any one at all.
"Humph!" resumed the voice as I continued my survey, "you mus pe so
dronk as de pig den for not zee me as I zit here at your zide."
Hereupon I bethought me of looking immediately before my nose, and
there, sure enough, confronting me at the table sat a personage
nondescript, although not altogether indescribable. His body was a
wine-pipe or a rum puncheon, or something of that character, and had a
truly Falstaffian air. In its nether extremity were inserted two kegs,
which seemed to answer all the purposes of legs. For arms there
dangled from the upper portion of the carcass two tolerably long
bottles with the necks outward for hands. All the head that I saw the
monster possessed of was one of those Hessian canteens which resemble
a large snuff-box with a hole in the middle of the lid. This canteen
(with a funnel on its top like a cavalier cap slouched over the eyes)
was set on edge upon the puncheon, with the hole toward myself; and
through this hole, which seemed puckered up like the mouth of a very
precise old maid, the creature was emitting certain rumbling and
grumbling noises which he evidently intended for intelligible talk.
"I zay," said he, "you mos pe dronk as de pig, vor zit dare and not
zee me zit ere; and I zay, doo, you mos pe pigger vool as de goose,
vor to dispelief vat iz print in de print. 'Tiz de troof - dat it
iz - ebery vord ob it."
"Who are you, pray?" said I with much dignity, although somewhat
puzzled; "how did you get here? and what is it you are talking about?"
"As vor ow I com'd ere," replied the figure, "dat iz none of your
pizziness; and as vor vat I be talking apout, I be talk apout vat I
tink proper; and as vor who I be, vy dat is de very ting I com'd here
for to let you zee for yourself."
"You are a drunken vagabond," said I, "and I shall ring the bell and
order my footman to kick you into the street."
"He! he! he!" said the fellow, "hu! hu! hu! dat you can't do."
"Can't do!" said I, "what do you mean? I can't do what?"
"Ring de pell," he replied, attempting a grin with his little
villainous mouth.
Upon this I made an effort to get up in order to put my threat into
execution, but the ruffian just reached across the table very
deliberately, and hitting me a tap on the forehead with the neck of
one of the long bottles, knocked me back into the armchair from which
I had half arisen. I was utterly astounded, and for a moment was quite
at a loss what to do. In the meantime he continued his talk.
"You zee," said he, "it iz te bess vor zit still; and now you shall
know who I pe. Look at me! zee! I am te _Angel ov te Odd_."
"And odd enough, too," I ventured to reply; "but I was always under
the impression that an angel had wings."
"Te wing!" he cried, highly incensed, "vat I pe do mit te wing? Mein
Gott! do you take me for a shicken?"
"No - oh, no!" I replied, much alarmed; "you are no chicken - certainly
not."
"Well, den, zit still and pehabe yourself, or I'll rap you again mid
me vist. It iz te shicken ab te wing, und te owl ab te wing, und te
imp ab te wing, und te head-teuffel ab te wing. Te angel ab _not_ te
wing, and I am te _Angel ov te Odd_."
"And your business with me at present is - is - - "
"My pizziness!" ejaculated the thing, "vy vat a low-bred puppy you mos
pe vor to ask a gentleman und an angel apout his pizziness!"
This language was rather more than I could bear, even from an angel;
so, plucking up courage, I seized a salt-cellar which lay within
reach, and hurled it at the head of the intruder. Either he dodged,
however, or my aim was inaccurate; for all I accomplished was the
demolition of the crystal which protected the dial of the clock upon
the mantelpiece. As for the Angel, he evinced his sense of my assault
by giving me two or three hard, consecutive raps upon the forehead as
before. These reduced me at once to submission, and I am almost
ashamed to confess that, either through pain or vexation, there came a
few tears into my eyes.
"Mein Gott!" said the Angel of the Odd, apparently much softened at my
distress; "mein Gott, te man is eder ferry dronk or ferry zorry. You
mos not trink it so strong - you mos put te water in te wine. Here,
trink dis, like a good veller, and don't gry now - don't!"
Hereupon the Angel of the Odd replenished my goblet (which was about a
third full of port) with a colorless fluid that he poured from one of
his hand-bottles. I observed that these bottles had labels about their
necks, and that these labels were inscribed "Kirschenwässer."
The considerate kindness of the Angel mollified me in no little
measure; and, aided by the water with which he diluted my port more
than once, I at length regained sufficient temper to listen to his
very extraordinary discourse. I cannot pretend to recount all that he
told me, but I gleaned from what he said that he was a genius who
presided over the _contretemps_ of mankind, and whose business it was
to bring about the _odd accidents_ which are continually astonishing
the skeptic. Once or twice, upon my venturing to express my total