From Pillar to Post: Leaves from a Lecturer's Note-Book

"Well, you've got it, haven't you?"

"Yes, I've got it all right," I replied; "but I can't get into it without putting a yard of extra width in the back. Come on – be a good fellow and sell it to me," I added with all the pathos that I could summon.

"No," he answered with a chuckle, "no – I couldn't sell it to you; but I'll give it to you with all the pleasure in the world!"

In this fashion was the emergency met, and I went out before my audience that night on time in improvised raiment pinned on to my person, "a thing of shreds and patches," and blazoning as to my shirt-front with all the resplendent gilt of three brass tacks, all of which brought vividly to my mind the words of Antonio in "The Merchant of Venice":

O, what a goodly outside falsehood hath!

It may seem to the casual observer that such matters as shirt studs and white waistcoats are of too slight importance to worry a speaker; but a "whole date" was once saved to me by the fact that I wore a high silk hat, which caused a kindly livery-stable keeper to drive me eighteen miles from a stranded railway train through a blizzard to the town of my destination, because he judged from my hat that I was a member of a favorite minstrel troupe that was to perform there the same night. When he discovered that I was only one of "them lecture fellers," for whose free tickets he had no use, he was terribly disappointed.

Anyhow, an audience likes a man to be wholly himself, and cares little for a speaker who modifies his dress according to his ideas of how they wish him to look. A popular and prominent candidate for Governor of New York once lost a large number of votes that might have elected him because in addressing a gathering of workingmen at an East Side rally, the night being insufferably hot, he took off his coat and collar, and spoke to them in his shirt sleeves. The men were deeply offended. They significantly asked if he would have taken off his coat in the presence of a fashionable uptown audience, and would have none of his presumed assumption that they were any less worthy of his respect, or careful of their own dignity, than his so-called smarter, better-class people.

I have always found the full evening dress and high collar of an effete civilization wholly comfortable, and wear them accordingly wherever I lecture, whether it be in the rarefied social atmosphere of high academic circles, or in a mining camp where there dwell possibly rougher, but none the less genuine, human folk. I think that in the latter environment indeed it is a positive aid to success to do so; for there can be no doubt that reduced to its essentials the evening dress of the modern male creature is really a funny thing, and in an evening devoted somewhat to humor any element that is in even the least degree mirth-provoking does not come amiss.

Perhaps the most overpowering sense of being confronted by an emergency came to me again back in 1898 out of an experience that turned out to be critical only in my own imaginings. Most of our troubles are, I fancy, imaginary – purely psychological, as the modern phrase has it – but while they are on they are none the less acute for all that. On the occasion of which I write, at a more than feverish moment in our relations with Spain and Cuba, I was summoned to lecture at the attractive little port of Brunswick, Georgia. It was here, by the way, that I first had the pleasure of seeing my name on a hotel bill of fare, which in the platform world is the height of fame, just as in the theatrical world it is the acme of distinction for a star to see his name pasted on an ash barrel, or spread across the hoardings of a ten-acre lot full of tin cans and other undesirable bric-à-brac. They had me down on the supper bill among the hot breads, somewhat like this:

HOT BREAD

Tea Biscuit. Corn Muffins. Graham Gems

Popovers

John Kendrick Bangs, Casino, To-night

But that was not the Emergent Moment of which I would speak. This came later, at the conclusion of my lecture, when a young man who in the dim light of the street was scarcely perceptible, intercepted me as I left the hall.

"Mr. Bangs," said he, "I have come here from Captain Maguffy of the Samuel J. Taylor, to present his compliments to the skipper of the 'House-Boat on the Styx.' The captain was detained from your lecture to-night, to his very great regret; but he wishes you would drop all formality and join him at supper."

Knowing neither Captain Maguffy (the name is a substitute for the real one) nor his ambassador, I thanked the latter, saying that while I was grateful for his courtesy I was really very tired, had much work ahead of me, and begged to be excused.

"The captain never takes no for an answer," persisted the young man. "He will be terribly disappointed if you don't come, and as a matter of fact, counting surely upon your good fellowship, he has made special preparations for you."

Unfortunately – or fortunately, as it later turned out – among other serious defects in my education I have never been taught the firmer uses of the negative. I have never been able to say no to anybody as if I really meant it, and it has involved me in more difficulties than I care to record here or elsewhere. In any event, my regrets growing fainter and fainter, and Captain Maguffy's ambassador's insistence more and more marked, the sum total of some thirty-two negatives soon developed into one positive affirmative.

"All right," I said finally, "I'll run in on the captain; but only for a moment, just long enough to shake hands, say howdido, and get back to bed. I must be in bed by midnight as a matter of principle."

The ambassador thereupon assisted me into one of those indescribable one-horse "shays" that seem to sprout in the vicinity of Southern railway stations and hotels about as lushly as mint in the patches of the Carolinas. I used to think when I was a resident of Yonkers that the Hudson River Valley was a sort of hack heaven, whither all sorts of deceased vehicles went when they died; but several tours of the South since have convinced me that that idea was mere presumption on my part. The South, as well as the Hudson River Valley, fairly burgeons with vehicular antiques that would delight the soul of an archæologist anxious to find the connecting link between the carriages of the Cæsars and those of Andrew Jackson and his successors up to the merry days of Hayes.

The particular rattledy-bang old combination of wabbling wheels and hair-erupting cushions into which I was ushered was drawn by a white horse, and driven by a colored man. The horse was so very white that it could hardly be seen on the white coquina roads, and the negro was so black that he was equally imperceptible against the background of the night; so that I seemed to be floating through the night enjoying sensations similar to those of a man on his first journey in an aëroplane. The whole effect was eery in the extreme, especially as we drove and drove and drove, and floated and floated and floated, without apparently getting anywhere.

Then, of a sudden, I became terribly uneasy. The thought flashed through my mind, "Why, here you are, all alone, after ten o'clock at night, in a strange country, going to see a man you never heard of before, in company of an individual whose name you haven't asked, and whose face you have seen only dimly in the dark! You are known to have several hundred dollars in your pocket, and nobody under Heaven but yourself and your companion knows where you are, or in what kind of company." It really seemed time for a diplomatic "hedge."

"Where is Captain Maguffy's house?" I inquired as a starter, after we had driven for an overlong time.

"Newark, New Jersey," was the consoling reply, but soberly made.

"Well – I don't feel equal to a drive that far," I said dryly. "I supposed when I accepted this invitation that your captain was living around the corner somewhere."

"No," said my companion. "He's aboard his boat – the Samuel J. Taylor."

"His boat?" I cried. "Oh, come now, my friend – if I'd known that – well, really, I think we'd better turn back."

"Not now," said he. "We're almost there."

"But why doesn't the captain keep his boat closer to civilization?" I queried. "Isn't there room for him closer to town?"

"Yes, there's plenty of room closer to town," replied my strange acquaintance, "but the captain prefers to be closer to the sea in case he needs to make a quick get-away. He and the government aren't on the best of terms. Between you and me, he's doing a little stunt in filibustering, and the folks up at Washington are getting suspicious."

My heart sank into my boots and then rebounded to my throat. "You should have told me all this before we started," said I.

"Well, I should have," said he; "but – well, I was afraid if I did you wouldn't come, and the captain told me not to come back without you. What he says goes with me."

I could think of only one word. The simple term kidnapped flashed across my mind, and then the pleasing little phrase, so nice for a headline, Held for Ransom, burned itself into my nerve. The beating of my heart sounded like the muffled tread of that invisible steed ahead on the coquina road. I glanced out of the chaise to see what my chances of escape might be in case I made a break for liberty, and saw off to the right of me the lines of a rotting pierhead, and the towering masts of a huge schooner that was moored to its decaying piling. At the inner end of the pier was a white-washed shed. Everything in sight except the driver, the chaise, and my future looked white – a ghastly, ghostly white that made me think of all the tales of horrid spooks I had ever heard. Here the carriage came to a sudden halt, and a tall black figure loomed up from behind the shed.

"Did you get him?" came a deep bass voice out of the night.

"You betcha!" was the reply from my companion.

I descended from the carriage, and my conductor led the way along the rotting stringpiece of the pier, a little more than a foot wide, the chill waters of St. Simon's Sound lapping about six feet below on each side, and the dark figure from behind the shed immediately to the rear. I was completely a captive. A moment later we came to a narrow gangplank leading to the broad, holy-stoned deck of the schooner, in the fore part of which was an open hatchway, out of which there streamed a steady shaft of yellow light.

"Down this way, please," said my companion as we reached the hatchway.

Tremulously I followed him down the steps, and in a moment found myself – in the prettiest, daintiest, little, white and gold parlor one could have hoped to find anywhere outside of a mansion designed for a Marie Antoinette, or a Madame de Maintenon! Everywhere was gold and white – chairs, walls, table – and set in the panels of the walls (built in) were a half-dozen exquisite little water-color paintings, all in most perfect keeping with the general color scheme of the room; and on each side of a door leading to an adjoining apartment, impassive as two bits of sculpture, stood two negroes of gigantic size, not an inch under six feet in height – two veritable genii out of the pages of the Arabian Nights, but clad in blue flannel coats with brass buttons, white duck trousers, and glazed white hats with black vizors.

It was really a wonderful picture; but I had hardly had time to take it in when from behind me again the bass voice of the figure behind the shed broke upon my hearing.

"Welcome, O Skipper of the Stygian House Boat, to the Samuel J. Taylor!" it said, and quickly turning I found myself gazing into the dark, flashing eyes of my host. If the white and gold cabin had amazed me, the captain completely took my breath away. He looked as if he had just come in from a five o'clock tea on Fifth avenue – frock coat, dark gray trousers, all of perfect fit, white waistcoat, lavender tie with an exquisite pearl pin stuck carelessly into its soft folds, and in his hand the very latest thing in imported high silk hats! He was the beau ideal of your conventional gentleman of society. As I have said, I was breathless, and consequently speechless, for a moment; but I did manage at the end of a few seconds to blurt out:

"Am I – am I awake, Captain?"

"Well – if you're not, we've plenty of room and time for you to sleep it out," he replied.

"But this cabin – this saloon – these – these water colors!" I went on.

"A little fancy of my wife's," said mine host. "She fitted it all up herself. The water colors, by the way, are all her own work. Rather nice, I think. She was a pupil of a fellow Centurion of yours, Mr. – ." Here he mentioned one of our famous artists, a member of my club, and a painter of rare distinction.

My desire to get away had become less keen; but I deemed it wise nevertheless to make the effort. I still needed some reassurance as to my safety.

"Well, Captain," said I, "it has been a pleasure to meet you, and I hate to run; but I have had a hard day of it, and I'm very tired. I have come just to shake hands with you and say howdido, before turning in for the night."

"Oh, you mustn't go until you have broken bread with me," said he.

"I told him he could be in bed by twelve if he wanted to," interposed my conductor.

"All right," said the captain. "We'll live up to your promise. You may serve the supper at once," he added, turning to the two genii at the door, who had not stirred a muscle through the whole conversation.

Then began the service of a supper in which for the first time I tasted the joys of alligator pears, the sweets of real grapefruit made into salad, the full possibilities of Moro crabs à la Newburg, alongside of which even my beloved Maine lobsters are dull and dreary reptiles, and of many other delightful edibles as well, with my choice of a liquid refreshment as if from the cellar of a Lucullus – and through it all the captain talked.