The Enchanted Typewriter Read online

  II. MR. BOSWELL IMPARTS SOME LATE NEWS OF HADES

  Boswell was a little late in arriving the next night. He had agreed tobe on hand exactly at midnight, but it was after one o'clock before themachine began to click and the bell to ring. I had fallen asleep in thesoft upholstered depths of my armchair, feeling pretty thoroughly wornout by the experiences of the night before, which, in spite of theirpleasant issue, were nevertheless somewhat disturbing to a nervousorganization like mine. Suddenly I waked, and with the awakening thereentered into my mind the notion that the whole thing was merely a dream,and that in the end it would be the better for me if I were to give upAldus and other club dinners with nightmare inducing menus. But I wassoon convinced that the real state of affairs was quite otherwise, andthat everything really had happened as I have already related it to you,for I had hardly gotten my eyes free from what my poetic son calls "theseeds of sleep" when I heard the type-writer tap forth:

  "Hello, old man!"

  Incidentally let me say that this had become another interesting featureof the machine. Since my first interview with Boswell the taps seemedto speak, and if some one were sitting before it and writing a line themere differentiation of sounds of the various keys would convey to themind the ideas conveyed to it by the printed words. So, as I say, myears were greeted with a clicking "Hello, old man!" followed immediatelyby the bell.

  "You are late," said I, looking at my watch.

  "I know it," was the response. "But I can't help it. During the campaignI am kept so infernally busy I hardly know where I am."

  "Campaign, eh?" I put in. "Do you have campaigns in Hades?"

  "Yes," replied Boswell, "and we are having a--well, to be polite, aregular Gehenna of a time. Things have changed much in Hades latterly.There has been a great growth in the democratic spirit below, and hisMajesty is having a deuce of a time running his kingdom. Washington andCromwell and Caesar have had the nerve to demand a constitution from thevenerable Nicholas--"

  "From whom?" I queried, perplexed somewhat, for I was not yet fullyawake.

  "Old Nick," replied Boswell; "and I can tell you there's a pretty fighton between the supporters of the administration and the opposition.Secure in his power, the Grand Master of Hades has been somewhatarbitrary, and he has made the mistake of doing some of his subjectsa little too brown. Take the case of Bonaparte, for instance: thegovernment has ruled that he was personally responsible for all the warsof Europe from 1800 up to Waterloo, and it was proposed to hang him oncefor every man killed on either side throughout that period. Bonapartenaturally resisted. He said he had a good neck, which he did not objectto have broken three or four times, because he admitted he deserved it;but when it came to hanging him five or six million times, once a month,for, say, five million months, or twelve times a year for 415,000 years,he didn't like it, and wouldn't stand it, and wanted to submit thequestion to arbitration.

  "Nicholas observed that the word arbitration was not in his especiallyexpurgated dictionary, whereupon Bonaparte remarked that he wasn'tresponsible for that; that he thought it a good word and worthy ofincorporation in any dictionary and in all vocabularies.

  "'I don't care what you think,' retorted his Majesty. 'It's what I don'tthink that goes;' and he commanded his imps to prepare the gallows onthe third Thursday of each month for Bonaparte's expiation; ordered hissecretary to send Bonaparte a type-written notice that his presence oneach occasion was expected, and gave orders to the police to see that hewas there willy-nilly. Naturally Bonaparte resisted, and appealed to thecourts. Blackstone sustained his appeal, and Nicholas overruled him.The first Thursday came, and the police went for the Emperor, but he wassurrounded by a good half of the men who had fought under him, andthe minions of the law could do nothing against them. In consequence,Bonaparte's brother, Joseph, a quiet, inoffensive citizen, was draggedfrom his home and hanged in his place, Nicholas contending that when asoldier could not, or would not, serve, the government had a right toexpect a substitute. Well," said Boswell, at this point, "that setall Hades on fire. We were divided as to Bonaparte's deserts, but thehanging of other people as substitutes was too much. We didn't knowwho'd be substituted next. The English backed up Blackstone, of course.The French army backed up Bonaparte. The inoffensive citizens werearoused in behalf of Joseph, for they saw at once whither theywere drifting if the substitute idea was carried out to its logicalconclusion; and in half an hour the administration was on thedefensive, which, as you know, is a very, very, very bad thing for anadministration."

  "It is, if it desires to be returned to office," said I.

  "It is anyhow," replied Boswell through the medium of the keys. "It'sin exactly the same position as that of a humorist who has to printexplanatory diagrams with all of his jokes. The administration paperswere hot over the situation. The king can do no wrong idea was workedfor all it was worth, but beyond this they drew pathetic pictures ofthe result of all these deplorable tendencies. What was Hades for, theyasked, if a man, after leading a life of crime in the other world, wasnot to receive his punishment there? The attitude of the opposition wasa radical and vicious blow at the vital principles of the sphere itself.The opposition papers coolly and calmly took the position that the vitalprinciples of Hades were all right; that it was the extreme view as tothe power of the Emperor taken by that person himself that wouldn'tgo in these democratic days. Punishment for Bonaparte was the correctthing, and Bonaparte expected some, but was not grasping enough towant it all. They added that recent fully settled ideas as to a humaneapplication of the laws required the bunching of the indictments orthe selection of one and a fair trial based upon that, and that anyhow,under no circumstances, should a wholly innocent person be made tosuffer for the crimes of another. These journals were suppressed, butthe next day a set of new papers were started to promulgate the sametheories as to individual rights. The province of Cimmeria declareditself independent of the throne, and set up in the business ofgovernment for itself. Gehenna declared for the Emperor, but insistedupon home rule for cities of its own class, and finally, as I informedyou at the beginning, Washington, Cromwell, and Caesar went in person toApollyon and demanded a constitution. That was the day before yesterday,and just what will come of it we don't as yet know, because Washingtonand Cromwell and Caesar have not been seen since, but we have greatfears for them, because seventeen car-loads of vitriol and a thousandextra tons of coal were ordered by the Lord High Steward of the palaceto be delivered to the Minister of Justice last night."

  "Quite a complication," said I. "The Americanization of Hades has begunat last. How does society regard the affair?"

  "Variously," observed Boswell. "Society hates the government as much asanybody, and really believes in curtailing the Emperor's powers, but,on the other hand, it desires to maintain all of its own aristocraticprivileges. The main trouble in Hades at present is the gradualdisintegration of society; that is to say, its former component partsare beginning to differentiate themselves the one from the other."

  "Like capital and labor here?" I queried.

  "In a sense, yes--possibly more like your Colonial Dames, and Daughtersof the Revolution. For instance, great organizations are in processof formation--people are beginning to flock together for purposesof protection. Charles the First and Henry the Eighth and Louis theFourteenth have established Ye Ancient and Honorable Order of Kings, towhich only those who have actually worn crowns shall be eligible. Thepainters have gotten together with a Society of Fine Arts, the sculptorshave formed a Society of Chisellers, and all the authors from Homerdown to myself have got up an Authors' Club where we have a lovelytime talking about ourselves, no man to be eligible who hasn't writtensomething that has lasted a hundred years. Perhaps, if you are thinkingof coming over soon, you'll let me put you on our waiting-list?"

  I smiled at his seeming inconsistency and let myself into his snare.

  "I haven't written anything that has lasted a hundred years yet," saidI.

  "Oh, yes, I think you have," repl
ied Boswell, and the machine seemed tolaugh as he wrote out his answer. "I saw a joke of yours the other daythat's two hundred centuries old. Diogenes showed it to me and said thatit was a great favorite with his grandfather, who had inherited it fromone of his remote ancestors."

  A hot retort was on my lips, but I had no wish to offend my guest, soI smiled and observed that I had frequently indulged in unconsciousplagiarism of that sort.

  "I should imagine," I hastened to add, "that to men like Charles theFirst this uncertainty as to the safety of Cromwell would be great joy."

  "I hardly know," returned Boswell. "That very question has beendiscussed among us. Charles made a great outward show of grief whenhe heard of the coal being delivered at the office of the Minister ofJustice, and we all thought him quite magnanimous, but it leaked out,just before I left to come here, that he sent his private secretary tothe palace with a Panama hat and a palm-leaf fan for Cromwell, with hiscongratulations.

  "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 theplace to go along as a despotism much longer. If the place were filledup with poets and society people, and things like that, it might go onas an autocracy forever, but you see it isn't. To men of the caliberof Alexander the Great and Bonaparte and Caesar, and a thousand otherwarriors who never were used to taking orders from anybody, but werethemselves headquarters, the despotic sway of Apollyon is intolerable,and he hasn't made any effort to conciliate any of them. If he hadappointed Bonaparte commander-in-chief of his army and made a friend ofhim, instead of ordering him to be hanged every month for 415,000 years,or put Caesar in as Secretary of State, instead of having him roastedthree times a month for seventy or eighty centuries, he would havestrengthened his hold. As it is, he has ignored all these peopleofficially, treats them like criminals personally; makes friends withMazarin and Powhatan, awards the office of Tax Assessor to Dick Turpin,and makes old Falstaff commander of his Imperial Guard. And just becausepoor Ben Jonson scribbled off a rhyme for my paper, The Gazette--a rhymerunning:

  Mazarin And Powhatan, Turpin and Falstaff, Form, you bet, A cabinet To make a donkey laugh.

  Mazarin And Powhatan Run Apollyon's state. The Dick and Jacks Collect the tax-- The people pay the freight.

  --just because Jonson wrote that and I published it, my paper wasconfiscated, Jonson was boiled in oil for ten weeks, and I was seizedand thrown into a dungeon where a lot of savages from the South SeaIslands tattooed the darned old jingle between my shoulder blades ingreen letters, and not satisfied with this barbaric act, right underthe jingle they added the line, in red letters, 'This edition strictlylimited to one copy, for private circulation only,' and they every oneof 'em, Apollyon, Mazarin, and the rest, signed the guarantee personallywith red-hot pens dipped in sulphuric acid. It makes a valuablecollection of autographs, no doubt, but I prefer my back as nature madeit. Talk about enlightened government under a man who'll permit thingslike 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 wasbarbarous, but really I do think it showed a sense of humor on the partof the government."

  "No doubt," replied Boswell, with a sigh; "but when the joke is on me Idon't enjoy it very much. I'm only human, and should prefer to observethat the government had some sense of justice."

  The apparently empty chair before the machine gave a slight hitchforward, and the type-writer began to tap again.

  "You'll have to excuse me now," observed Boswell through the usualmedium. "I have work to do, and if you'll go to bed like a good fellow,while I copy off the minutes of the last meeting of the Authors' Club,I'll see that you don't lose anything by it. After I get the minutesdone I have an interesting story for my Sunday paper from the advancesheets of Munchausen's Further Recollections, which I shall take greatpleasure in leaving for you when I depart. If you will take the bundleof manuscript I leave with you and boil it in alcohol for ten minutes,you will be able to read it, and, no doubt, if you copy it off, sell itfor a goodly sum. It is guaranteed absolutely genuine."

  "Very well," said I, rising, "I'll go; but I should think you would putin most of your time whacking at the government editorially, instead ofgoing in for minutes and abstract stories of adventure."

  "You do, eh?" said Boswell. "Well, if you were in my place you'd changeyour mind. After my unexpected endorsement by the Emperor and hiscabinet, I've decided to keep out of politics for a little while. Ican stand having a poem tattooed on my back, but if it came to havinga three-column editorial expressing my emotions etched alongside of myspine, I'm afraid I'd disappear into thin air."

  So I left him at work and retired. The next morning I found the promisedbundle of manuscripts, and, after boiling the pages as instructed,discovered the following tale.