WHEN I broke the back of knight-errantry
that time, I no longer felt
obliged to work in secret.
So, the very next day I exposed my hidden schools,
my mines, and my vast system of clandestine factories
and workshops to an astonished world. That is to
say, I exposed the nineteenth century to the inspection of the sixth.
Well, it is
always a good plan to follow
up an advantage promptly.
The knights were temporarily
down, but if I would keep them
so I must just simply paralyze
them -- nothing short of that
would answer. You see, I was "bluffing" that
last time in the field; it would
be natural for them to work around
to that conclusion, if I gave
them a chance. So I must not
give them time; and I didn't.
I renewed my challenge, engraved
it on brass, posted it up where
any priest could read it to them,
and also kept it standing in
the advertising columns of the
paper.
I not only renewed it, but
added to its proportions. I said,
name the day, and I would take
fifty assistants and stand up
AGAINST THE MASSED CHIVALRY OF
THE WHOLE EARTH AND DESTROY IT.
I was not bluffing
this time. I meant what I said;
I could
do what I promised. There wasn't
any way to misunderstand the
language of that challenge. Even
the dullest of the chivalry perceived
that this was a plain case of "put
up, or shut up." They were wise
and did the latter. In all the
next three years they gave me
no trouble worth mentioning.
Consider the three years sped.
Now look around on England. A
happy and prosperous country,
and strangely altered. Schools
everywhere, and several colleges;
a number of pretty good newspapers.
Even authorship was taking a
start; Sir Dinadan the Humorist
was first in the field, with
a volume of gray-headed jokes
which I had been familiar with
during thirteen centuries. If
he had left out that old rancid
one about the lecturer I wouldn't
have said anything; but I couldn't
stand that one. I suppressed
the book and hanged the author.
Slavery was dead and gone;
all men were equal before the
law; taxation had been equalized.
The telegraph, the telephone,
the phonograph, the typewriter,
the sewing-machine, and all the
thousand willing and handy servants
of steam and electricity were
working their way into favor.
We had a steamboat or two on
the Thames, we had steam warships,
and the beginnings of a steam
commercial marine; I was getting
ready to send out an expedition
to discover America.
We were building
several lines of railway, and
our line from
Camelot to London was already
finished and in operation. I
was shrewd enough to make all
offices connected with the passenger
service places of high and distinguished
honor. My idea was to attract
the chivalry and nobility, and
make them useful and keep them
out of mischief. The plan worked
very well, the competition for
the places was hot. The conductor
of the 4.33 express was a duke;
there wasn't a passenger conductor
on the line below the degree
of earl. They were good men,
every one, but they had two defects
which I couldn't cure, and so
had to wink at: they wouldn't
lay aside their armor, and they
would "knock down" fare -- I
mean rob the company.
There was hardly a knight in
all the land who wasn't in some
useful employment. They were
going from end to end of the
country in all manner of useful
missionary capacities; their
penchant for wandering, and their
experience in it, made them altogether
the most effective spreaders
of civilization we had. They
went clothed in steel and equipped
with sword and lance and battle-axe,
and if they couldn't persuade
a person to try a sewing-machine
on the installment plan, or a
melodeon, or a barbed-wire fence,
or a prohibition journal, or
any of the other thousand and
one things they canvassed for,
they removed him and passed on.
I was very happy. Things were
working steadily toward a secretly
longed-for point. You see, I
had two schemes in my head which
were the vastest of all my projects.
The one was to overthrow the
Catholic Church and set up the
Protestant faith on its ruins
-- not as an Established Church,
but a go-as-you-please one; and
the other project was to get
a decree issued by and by, commanding
that upon Arthur's death unlimited
suffrage should be introduced,
and given to men and women alike
-- at any rate to all men, wise
or unwise, and to all mothers
who at middle age should be found
to know nearly as much as their
sons at twenty-one. Arthur was
good for thirty years yet, he
being about my own age -- that
is to say, forty -- and I believed
that in that time I could easily
have the active part of the population
of that day ready and eager for
an event which should be the
first of its kind in the history
of the world -- a rounded and
complete governmental revolution
without bloodshed. The result
to be a republic. Well, I may
as well confess, though I do
feel ashamed when I think of
it: I was beginning to have a
base hankering to be its first
president myself. Yes, there
was more or less human nature
in me; I found that out.
Clarence was
with me as concerned the revolution,
but in a modified
way. His idea was a republic,
without privileged orders, but
with a hereditary royal family
at the head of it instead of
an elective chief magistrate.
He believed that no nation that
had ever known the joy of worshiping
a royal family could ever be
robbed of it and not fade away
and die of melancholy. I urged
that kings were dangerous. He
said, then have cats. He was
sure that a royal family of cats
would answer every purpose. They
would be as useful as any other
royal family, they would know
as much, they would have the
same virtues and the same treacheries,
the same disposition to get up
shindies with other royal cats,
they would be laughably vain
and absurd and never know it,
they would be wholly inexpensive;
finally, they would have as sound
a divine right as any other royal
house, and "Tom VII., or Tom
XI., or Tom XIV. by the grace
of God King," would sound as
well as it would when applied
to the ordinary royal tomcat
with tights on. "And as a rule," said
he, in his neat modern English, "the
character of these cats would
be considerably above the character
of the average king, and this
would be an immense moral advantage
to the nation, for the reason
that a nation always models its
morals after its monarch's. The
worship of royalty being founded
in unreason, these graceful and
harmless cats would easily become
as sacred as any other royalties,
and indeed more so, because it
would presently be noticed that
they hanged nobody, beheaded
nobody, imprisoned nobody, inflicted
no cruelties or injustices of
any sort, and so must be worthy
of a deeper love and reverence
than the customary human king,
and would certainly get it. The
eyes of the whole harried world
would soon be fixed upon this
humane and gentle system, and
royal butchers would presently
begin to disappear; their subjects
would fill the vacancies with
catlings from our own royal house;
we should become a factory; we
should supply the thrones of
the world; within forty years
all Europe would be governed
by cats, and we should furnish
the cats. The reign of universal
peace would begin then, to end
no more forever...... Me-e-e-yow-ow-ow-ow
-- fzt! -- wow!"
Hang him, I supposed he was
in earnest, and was beginning
to be persuaded by him, until
he exploded that cat-howl and
startled me almost out of my
clothes. But he never could be
in earnest. He didn't know what
it was. He had pictured a distinct
and perfectly rational and feasible
improvement upon constitutional
monarchy, but he was too feather-headed
to know it, or care anything
about it, either. I was going
to give him a scolding, but Sandy
came flying in at that moment,
wild with terror, and so choked
with sobs that for a minute she
could not get her voice. I ran
and took her in my arms, and
lavished caresses upon her and
said, beseechingly:
"Speak, darling,
speak! What is it?"
Her head fell limp upon my
bosom, and she gasped, almost
inaudibly:
"HELLO-CENTRAL!"
"Quick!" I shouted to Clarence; "telephone
the king's homeopath to come!"
In two minutes I was kneeling
by the child's crib, and Sandy
was dispatching servants here,
there, and everywhere, all over
the palace. I took in the situation
almost at a glance -- membranous
croup! I bent down and whispered:
"Wake up, sweetheart!
Hello-Central"
She opened her soft eyes languidly,
and made out to say:
"Papa."
That was a comfort. She was
far from dead yet. I sent for
preparations of sulphur, I rousted
out the croup-kettle myself;
for I don't sit down and wait
for doctors when Sandy or the
child is sick. I knew how to
nurse both of them, and had had
experience. This little chap
had lived in my arms a good part
of its small life, and often
I could soothe away its troubles
and get it to laugh through the
tear-dews on its eyelashes when
even its mother couldn't.
Sir Launcelot, in his richest
armor, came striding along the
great hall now on his way to
the stockboard; he was president
of the stock-board, and occupied
the Siege Perilous, which he
had bought of Sir Galahad; for
the stock-board consisted of
the Knights of the Round Table,
and they used the Round Table
for business purposes now. Seats
at it were worth -- well, you
would never believe the figure,
so it is no use to state it.
Sir Launcelot was a bear, and
he had put up a corner in one
of the new lines, and was just
getting ready to squeeze the
shorts to-day; but what of that?
He was the same old Launcelot,
and when he glanced in as he
was passing the door and found
out that his pet was sick, that
was enough for him; bulls and
bears might fight it out their
own way for all him, he would
come right in here and stand
by little Hello-Central for all
he was worth. And that was what
he did. He shied his helmet into
the corner, and in half a minute
he had a new wick in the alcohol
lamp and was firing up on the
croup-kettle. By this time Sandy
had built a blanket canopy over
the crib, and everything was
ready.
Sir Launcelot got up steam,
he and I loaded up the kettle
with unslaked lime and carbolic
acid, with a touch of lactic
acid added thereto, then filled
the thing up with water and inserted
the steam-spout under the canopy.
Everything was ship-shape now,
and we sat down on either side
of the crib to stand our watch.
Sandy was so grateful and so
comforted that she charged a
couple of church-wardens with
willow-bark and sumach-tobacco
for us, and told us to smoke
as much as we pleased, it couldn't
get under the canopy, and she
was used to smoke, being the
first lady in the land who had
ever seen a cloud blown. Well,
there couldn't be a more contented
or comfortable sight than Sir
Launcelot in his noble armor
sitting in gracious serenity
at the end of a yard of snowy
church-warden. He was a beautiful
man, a lovely man, and was just
intended to make a wife and children
happy. But, of course Guenever
-- however, it's no use to cry
over what's done and can't be
helped.
Well, he stood watch-and-watch
with me, right straight through,
for three days and nights, till
the child was out of danger;
then he took her up in his great
arms and kissed her, with his
plumes falling about her golden
head, then laid her softly in
Sandy's lap again and took his
stately way down the vast hall,
between the ranks of admiring
men-at-arms and menials, and
so disappeared. And no instinct
warned me that I should never
look upon him again in this world!
Lord, what a world of heart-break
it is.
The doctors said we must take
the child away, if we would coax
her back to health and strength
again. And she must have sea-air.
So we took a man-of-war, and
a suite of two hundred and sixty
persons, and went cruising about,
and after a fortnight of this
we stepped ashore on the French
coast, and the doctors thought
it would be a good idea to make
something of a stay there. The
little king of that region offered
us his hospitalities, and we
were glad to accept. If he had
had as many conveniences as he
lacked, we should have been plenty
comfortable enough; even as it
was, we made out very well, in
his queer old castle, by the
help of comforts and luxuries
from the ship.
At the end of a month I sent
the vessel home for fresh supplies,
and for news. We expected her
back in three or four days. She
would bring me, along with other
news, the result of a certain
experiment which I had been starting.
It was a project of mine to replace
the tournament with something
which might furnish an escape
for the extra steam of the chivalry,
keep those bucks entertained
and out of mischief, and at the
same time preserve the best thing
in them, which was their hardy
spirit of emulation. I had had
a choice band of them in private
training for some time, and the
date was now arriving for their
first public effort.
This experiment was baseball.
In order to give the thing vogue
from the start, and place it
out of the reach of criticism,
I chose my nines by rank, not
capacity. There wasn't a knight
in either team who wasn't a sceptered
sovereign. As for material of
this sort, there was a glut of
it always around Arthur. You
couldn't throw a brick in any
direction and not cripple a king.
Of course, I couldn't get these
people to leave off their armor;
they wouldn't do that when they
bathed. They consented to differentiate
the armor so that a body could
tell one team from the other,
but that was the most they would
do. So, one of the teams wore
chain-mail ulsters, and the other
wore platearmor made of my new
Bessemer steel. Their practice
in the field was the most fantastic
thing I ever saw. Being ball-proof,
they never skipped out of the
way, but stood still and took
the result; when a Bessemer was
at the bat and a ball hit him,
it would bound a hundred and
fifty yards sometimes. And when
a man was running, and threw
himself on his stomach to slide
to his base, it was like an iron-clad
coming into port. At first I
appointed men of no rank to act
as umpires, but I had to discontinue
that. These people were no easier
to please than other nines. The
umpire's first decision was usually
his last; they broke him in two
with a bat, and his friends toted
him home on a shutter. When it
was noticed that no umpire ever
survived a game, umpiring got
to be unpopular. So I was obliged
to appoint somebody whose rank
and lofty position under the
government would protect him.
Here are the names of the nines:
BESSEMERS ULSTERS
KING ARTHUR. EMPEROR LUCIUS.
KING LOT OF LOTHIAN. KING LOGRIS.
KING OF NORTHGALIS. KING MARHALT OF IRELAND.
KING MARSIL. KING MORGANORE.
KING OF LITTLE BRITAIN. KING MARK OF CORNWALL.
KING LABOR. KING NENTRES OF GARLOT.
KING PELLAM OF LISTENGESE. KING MELIODAS OF LIONES.
KING BAGDEMAGUS. KING OF THE LAKE.
KING TOLLEME LA FEINTES. THE SOWDAN OF SYRIA.
Umpire -- CLARENCE.
The first public game would certainly draw fifty thousand people; and for solid
fun would be worth going around the world to see. Everything would be favorable;
it was balmy and beautiful spring weather now, and Nature was all tailored out
in her new clothes.
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