A Bird of Bagdad

by O. Henry

　　

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Without a doubt much of the spirit and genius of the Caliph Harun AlRashid descended to the Margrave August Michael von Paulsen Quigg.Quigg's restaurant is in Fourth Avenue--that street that the city seemsto have forgotten in its growth. Fourth Avenue--born and bred in theBowery--staggers northward full of good resolutions.Where it crosses Fourteenth Street it struts for a brief moment proudlyin the glare of the museums and cheap theatres. It may yet become a fitmate for its high-born sister boulevard to the west, or its roaring,polyglot, broad-waisted cousin to the east. It passes Union Square; andhere the hoofs of the dray horses seem to thunder in unison, recallingthe tread of marching hosts--Hooray! But now come the silent andterrible mountains--buildings square as forts, high as the clouds,shutting out the sky, where thousands of slaves bend over desks all day.On the ground floors are only little fruit shops and laundries and bookshops, where you see copies of "Littell's Living Age" and G. W. M.Reynold's novels in the windows. And next--poor Fourth Avenue!--thestreet glides into a mediaeval solitude. On each side are shops devotedto "Antiques."Let us say it is night. Men in rusty armor stand in the windows andmenace the hurrying cars with raised, rusty iron gauntlets. Hauberks andhelms, blunderbusses, Cromwellian breastplates, matchlocks, creeses, andthe swords and daggers of an army of dead-and-gone gallants gleam dullyin the ghostly light. Here and there from a corner saloon (lit withJack-o'-lanterns or phosphorus), stagger forth shuddering, home-boundcitizens, nerved by the tankards within to their fearsome journey adownthat eldrich avenue lined with the bloodstained weapons of the fightingdead. What street could live inclosed by these mortuary relics, and trodby these spectral citizens in whose sunken hearts scarce one good whoopor tra-la-la remained?Not Fourth Avenue. Not after the tinsel but enlivening glories of theLittle Rialto--not after the echoing drum-beats of Union Square. Thereneed be no tears, ladies and gentlemen; 'tis but the suicide of astreet. With a shriek and a crash Fourth Avenue dives headlong into thetunnel at Thirty-fourth and is never seen again.Near the sad scene of the thoroughfare's dissolution stood the modestrestaurant of Quigg. It stands there yet if you care to view itscrumbling red-brick front, its show window heaped with oranges,tomatoes, layer cakes, pies, canned asparagus--its papier-mch lobsterand two Maltese kittens asleep on a bunch of lettuce--if you care tosit at one of the little tables upon whose cloth has been traced in theyellowest of coffee stains the trail of the Japanese advance--to sitthere with one eye on your umbrella and the other upon the bogus bottlefrom which you drop the counterfeit sauce foisted upon us by the cursedcharlatan who assumes to be our dear old lord and friend, the "Noblemanin India."Quigg's title came through his mother. One of her ancestors was aMargravine of Saxony. His father was a Tammany brave. On account ofthe dilution of his heredity he found that he could neither becomea reigning potentate nor get a job in the City Hall. So he opened arestaurant. He was a man full of thought and reading. The business gavehim a living, though he gave it little attention. One side of his housebequeathed to him a poetic and romantic adventure. The other gave himthe restless spirit that made him seek adventure. By day he was Quigg,the restaurateur. By night he was the Margrave--the Caliph--the Princeof Bohemia--going about the city in search of the odd, the mysterious,the inexplicable, the recondite.One night at 9, at which hour the restaurant closed, Quigg set forthupon his quest. There was a mingling of the foreign, the military andthe artistic in his appearance as he buttoned his coat high up under hisshort-trimmed brown and gray beard and turned westward toward the morecentral life conduits of the city. In his pocket he had stored anassortment of cards, written upon, without which he never stirred out ofdoors. Each of those cards was good at his own restaurant for its facevalue. Some called simply for a bowl of soup or sandwiches and coffee;others entitled their bearer to one, two, three or more days of fullmeals; a few were for single regular meals; a very few were, in effect,meal tickets good for a week.Of riches and power Margrave Quigg had none; but he had a Caliph'sheart--it may be forgiven him if his head fell short of the measure ofHarun Al Rashid's. Perhaps some of the gold pieces in Bagdad had putless warmth and hope into the complainants among the bazaars than hadQuigg's beef stew among the fishermen and one-eyed calenders ofManhattan.Continuing his progress in search of romance to divert him, or ofdistress that he might aid, Quigg became aware of a fast-gathering crowdthat whooped and fought and eddied at a corner of Broadway and thecrosstown street that he was traversing. Hurrying to the spot he behelda young man of an exceedingly melancholy and preoccupied demeanorengaged in the pastime of casting silver money from his pockets in themiddle of the street. With each motion of the generous one's hand thecrowd huddled upon the falling largesse with yells of joy. Traffic wassuspended. A policeman in the centre of the mob stooped often to theground as he urged the blockaders to move on.The Margrave saw at a glance that here was food for his hunger afterknowledge concerning abnormal working of the human heart. He made hisway swiftly to the young man's side and took his arm. "Come with me atonce," he said, in the low but commanding voice that his waiters hadlearned to fear."Pinched," remarked the young man, looking up at him with expressionlesseyes. "Pinched by a painless dentist. Take me away, flatty, and give megas. Some lay eggs and some lay none. When is a hen?"Still deeply seized by some inward grief, but tractable, he allowedQuigg to lead him away and down the street to a little park.There, seated on a bench, he upon whom a corner of the great Caliph'smantle has descended, spake with kindness and discretion, seeking toknow what evil had come upon the other, disturbing his soul and drivinghim to such ill-considered and ruinous waste of his substance andstores."I was doing the Monte Cristo act as adapted by Pompton, N. J., wasn'tI?" asked the young man."You were throwing small coins into the street for the people toscramble after," said the Margrave."That's it. You buy all the beer you can hold, and then you throwchicken feed to-- Oh, curse that word chicken, and hens, feathers,roosters, eggs, and everything connected with it!""Young sir," said the Margrave kindly, but with dignity, "though I donot ask your confidence, I invite it. I know the world and I knowhumanity. Man is my study, though I do not eye him as the scientisteyes a beetle or as the philanthropist gazes at the objects of hisbounty--through a veil of theory and ignorance. It is my pleasureand distraction to interest myself in the peculiar and complicatedmisfortunes that life in a great city visits upon my fellow-men. You maybe familiar with the history of that glorious and immortal ruler, theCaliph Harun Al Rashid, whose wise and beneficent excursions among hispeople in the city of Bagdad secured him the privilege of relieving somuch of their distress. In my humble way I walk in his footsteps. I seekfor romance and adventure in city streets--not in ruined castles or incrumbling palaces. To me the greatest marvels of magic are those thattake place in men's hearts when acted upon by the furious and diverseforces of a crowded population. In your strange behavior this eveningI fancy a story lurks. I read in your act something deeper than thewanton wastefulness of a spendthrift. I observe in your countenance thecertain traces of consuming grief or despair. I repeat--I invite yourconfidence. I am not without some power to alleviate and advise. Willyou not trust me?""Gee, how you talk!" exclaimed the young man, a gleam of admirationsupplanting for a moment the dull sadness of his eyes. "You've got theAstor Library skinned to a synopsis of preceding chapters. I mind thatold Turk you speak of. I read 'The Arabian Nights' when I was a kid. Hewas a kind of Bill Devery and Charlie Schwab rolled into one. But, say,you might wave enchanted dishrags and make copper bottles smoke up coongiants all night without ever touching me. My case won't yield to thatkind of treatment.""If I could hear your story," said the Margrave, with his lofty, serioussmile."I'll spiel it in about nine words," said the young man, with a deepsigh, "but I don't think you can help me any. Unless you're a peach atguessing it's back to the Bosphorus for you on your magic linoleum."THE STORY OF THE YOUNG MAN AND THE HARNESS MAKER'S RIDDLE"I work in Hildebrant's saddle and harness shop down in Grant Street.I've worked there five years. I get $18 a week. That's enough to marryon, ain't it? Well, I'm not going to get married. Old Hildebrant isone of these funny Dutchmen--you know the kind--always getting off bumjokes. He's got about a million riddles and things that he faked fromRogers Brothers' great-grandfather. Bill Watson works there, too. Me andBill have to stand for them chestnuts day after day. Why do we do it?Well, jobs ain't to be picked off every Anheuser bush-- And then there'sLaura."What? The old man's daughter. Comes in the shop every day. Aboutnineteen, and the picture of the blonde that sits on the palisades ofthe Rhine and charms the clam-diggers into the surf. Hair the color ofstraw matting, and eyes as black and shiny as the best harnessblacking--think of that!"Me? well, it's either me or Bill Watson. She treats us both equal. Billis all to the psychopathic about her; and me?--well, you saw me platingthe roadbed of the Great Maroon Way with silver to-night. That was onaccount of Laura. I was spiflicated, Your Highness, and I wot not ofwhat I wouldst."How? Why, old Hildebrandt says to me and Bill this afternoon: 'Boys,one riddle have I for you gehabt haben. A young man who cannot riddlesantworten, he is not so good by business for ein family to provide--isnot that--hein?' And he hands us a riddle--a conundrum, some callsit--and he chuckles interiorly and gives both of us till to-morrowmorning to work out the answer to it. And he says whichever of usguesses the repartee end of it goes to his house o' Wednesday night tohis daughter's birthday party. And it means Laura for whichever of usgoes, for she's naturally aching for a husband, and it's either me orBill Watson, for old Hildebrant likes us both, and wants her to marrysomebody that'll carry on the business after he's stitched his last pairof traces."The riddle? Why, it was this: 'What kind of a hen lays the longest?Think of that! What kind of a hen lays the longest? Ain't it like aDutchman to risk a man's happiness on a fool proposition like that?Now, what's the use? What I don't know about hens would fill severalincubators. You say you're giving imitations of the old Arab guy thatgave away--libraries in Bagdad. Well, now, can you whistle up a fairythat'll solve this hen query, or not?"When the young man ceased the Margrave arose and paced to and fro by thepark bench for several minutes. Finally he sat again, and said, in graveand impressive tones:"I must confess, sir, that during the eight years that I have spent insearch of adventure and in relieving distress I have never encountereda more interesting or a more perplexing case. I fear that I haveoverlooked hens in my researches and observations. As to theirhabits, their times and manner of laying, their many varieties andcross-breedings, their span of life, their--""Oh, don't make an Ibsen drama of it!" interrupted the young man,flippantly. "Riddles--especially old Hildebrant's riddles--don't haveto be worked out seriously. They are light themes such as Sim Ford andHarry Thurston Peck like to handle. But, somehow, I can't strike justthe answer. Bill Watson may, and he may not. To-morrow will tell. Well,Your Majesty, I'm glad anyhow that you butted in and whiled the timeaway. I guess Mr. Al Rashid himself would have bounced back if one ofhis constituents had conducted him up against this riddle. I'll say goodnight. Peace fo' yours, and what-you-may-call-its of Allah."The Margrave, still with a gloomy air, held out his hand."I cannot express my regret," he said, sadly. "Never before have Ifound myself unable to assist in some way. 'What kind of a hen lays thelongest? It is a baffling problem. There is a hen, I believe, calledthe Plymouth Rock that--""Cut it out," said the young man. "The Caliph trade is a mighty seriousone. I don't suppose you'd even see anything funny in a preacher'sdefense of John D. Rockefeller. Well, good night, Your Nibs."From habit the Margrave began to fumble in his pockets. He drew fortha card and handed it to the young man."Do me the favor to accept this, anyhow," he said. "The time may comewhen it might be of use to you.""Thanks!" said the young man, pocketing it carelessly. "My name isSimmons."* * * * * *Shame to him who would hint that the reader's interest shall altogetherpursue the Margrave August Michael von Paulsen Quigg. I am indeed astrayif my hand fail in keeping the way where my peruser's heart wouldfollow. Then let us, on the morrow, peep quickly in at the door ofHildebrant, harness maker.Hildebrant's 200 pounds reposed on a bench, silver-buckling a rawleather martingale.Bill Watson came in first."Vell," said Hildebrant, shaking all over with the vile conceit of thejoke-maker, "haf you guessed him? 'Vat kind of a hen lays der longest?'""Er--why, I think so," said Bill, rubbing a servile chin. "I think so,Mr. Hildebrant--the one that lives the longest-- Is that right?""Nein!" said Hildebrant, shaking his head violently. "You haf notguessed der answer."Bill passed on and donned a bed-tick apron and bachelorhood.In came the young man of the Arabian Night's fiasco--pale, melancholy,hopeless."Vell," said Hildebrant, "haf you guessed him? 'Vat kind of a hen laysder longest?'"Simmons regarded him with dull savagery in his eye. Should he curse thismountain of pernicious humor--curse him and die? Why should-- But therewas Laura.Dogged, speechless, he thrust his hands into his coat pockets and stood.His hand encountered the strange touch of the Margrave's card. He drewit out and looked at it, as men about to be hanged look at a crawlingfly. There was written on it in Quigg's bold, round hand: "Good for oneroast chicken to bearer."Simmons looked up with a flashing eye."A dead one!" said he."Goot!" roared Hildebrant, rocking the table with giant glee. "Dot isright! You gome at mine house at 8 o'clock to der party."

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