The Caliph, Cupid and the Clock

by O. Henry

　　

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Prince Michael, of the Electorate of Valleluna, sat on his favouritebench in the park. The coolness of the September night quickened thelife in him like a rare, tonic wine. The benches were not filled;for park loungers, with their stagnant blood, are prompt to detectand fly home from the crispness of early autumn. The moon was justclearing the roofs of the range of dwellings that bounded thequadrangle on the east. Children laughed and played about the fine-sprayed fountain. In the shadowed spots fauns and hamadryads wooed,unconscious of the gaze of mortal eyes. A hand organ--Philomel bythe grace of our stage carpenter, Fancy--fluted and droned in a sidestreet. Around the enchanted boundaries of the little park streetcars spat and mewed and the stilted trains roared like tigers andlions prowling for a place to enter. And above the trees shone thegreat, round, shining face of an illuminated clock in the tower of anantique public building. Prince Michael's shoes were wrecked far beyond the skill of thecarefullest cobbler. The ragman would have declined any negotiationsconcerning his clothes. The two weeks' stubble on his face was greyand brown and red and greenish yellow--as if it had been made up fromindividual contributions from the chorus of a musical comedy. No manexisted who had money enough to wear so bad a hat as his. Prince Michael sat on his favourite bench and smiled. It was adiverting thought to him that he was wealthy enough to buy every oneof those close-ranged, bulky, window-lit mansions that faced him, ifhe chose. He could have matched gold, equipages, jewels, arttreasures, estates and acres with any Croesus in this proud city ofManhattan, and scarcely have entered upon the bulk of his holdings.He could have sat at table with reigning sovereigns. The socialworld, the world of art, the fellowship of the elect, adulation,imitation, the homage of the fairest, honours from the highest,praise from the wisest, flattery, esteem, credit, pleasure, fame--allthe honey of life was waiting in the comb in the hive of the worldfor Prince Michael, of the Electorate of Valleluna, whenever he mightchoose to take it. But his choice was to sit in rags and dinginesson a bench in a park. For he had tasted of the fruit of the tree oflife, and, finding it bitter in his mouth, had stepped out of Edenfor a time to seek distraction close to the unarmoured, beating heartof the world. These thoughts strayed dreamily through the mind of Prince Michael,as he smiled under the stubble of his polychromatic beard. Loungingthus, clad as the poorest of mendicants in the parks, he loved tostudy humanity. He found in altruism more pleasure than his riches,his station and all the grosser sweets of life had given him. It washis chief solace and satisfaction to alleviate individual distress,to confer favours upon worthy ones who had need of succour, to dazzleunfortunates by unexpected and bewildering gifts of truly royalmagnificence, bestowed, however, with wisdom and judiciousness. And as Prince Michael's eye rested upon the glowing face of the greatclock in the tower, his smile, altruistic as it was, became slightlytinged with contempt. Big thoughts were the Prince's; and it wasalways with a shake of his head that he considered the subjugation ofthe world to the arbitrary measures of Time. The comings and goingsof people in hurry and dread, controlled by the little metal movinghands of a clock, always made him sad. By and by came a young man in evening clothes and sat upon the thirdbench from the Prince. For half an hour he smoked cigars withnervous haste, and then he fell to watching the face of theilluminated clock above the trees. His perturbation was evident, andthe Prince noted, in sorrow, that its cause was connected, in somemanner, with the slowly moving hands of the timepiece. His Highness arose and went to the young man's bench. "I beg your pardon for addressing you," he said, "but I perceive thatyou are disturbed in mind. If it may serve to mitigate the liberty Ihave taken I will add that I am Prince Michael, heir to the throne ofthe Electorate of Valleluna. I appear incognito, of course, as youmay gather from my appearance. It is a fancy of mine to render aidto others whom I think worthy of it. Perhaps the matter that seemsto distress you is one that would more readily yield to our mutualefforts." The young man looked up brightly at the Prince. Brightly, but theperpendicular line of perplexity between his brows was not smoothedaway. He laughed, and even then it did not. But he accepted themomentary diversion. "Glad to meet you, Prince," he said, good humouredly. "Yes, I'd sayyou were incog. all right. Thanks for your offer of assistance--butI don't see where your butting-in would help things any. It's a kindof private affair, you know--but thanks all the same." Prince Michael sat at the young man's side. He was often rebuffedbut never offensively. His courteous manner and words forbade that. "Clocks," said the Prince, "are shackles on the feet of mankind. Ihave observed you looking persistently at that clock. Its face isthat of a tyrant, its numbers are false as those on a lottery ticket;its hands are those of a bunco steerer, who makes an appointment withyou to your ruin. Let me entreat you to throw off its humiliatingbonds and to cease to order your affairs by that insensate monitor ofbrass and steel." "I don't usually," said the young man. "I carry a watch except whenI've got my radiant rags on." "I know human nature as I do the trees and grass," said the Prince,with earnest dignity. "I am a master of philosophy, a graduate inart, and I hold the purse of a Fortunatus. There are few mortalmisfortunes that I cannot alleviate or overcome. I have read yourcountenance, and found in it honesty and nobility as well asdistress. I beg of you to accept my advice or aid. Do not belie theintelligence I see in your face by judging from my appearance of myability to defeat your troubles." The young man glanced at the clock again and frowned darkly. Whenhis gaze strayed from the glowing horologue of time it restedintently upon a four-story red brick house in the row of dwellingsopposite to where he sat. The shades were drawn, and the lights inmany rooms shone dimly through them. "Ten minutes to nine!" exclaimed the young man, with an impatientgesture of despair. He turned his back upon the house and took arapid step or two in a contrary direction. "Remain!" commanded Prince Michael, in so potent a voice that thedisturbed one wheeled around with a somewhat chagrined laugh. "I'll give her the ten minutes and then I'm off," he muttered, andthen aloud to the Prince: "I'll join you in confounding all clocks,my friend, and throw in women, too." "Sit down," said the Prince calmly. "I do not accept your addition.Women are the natural enemies of clocks, and, therefore, the alliesof those who would seek liberation from these monsters that measureour follies and limit our pleasures. If you will so far confide inme I would ask you to relate to me your story." The young man threw himself upon the bench with a reckless laugh. "Your Royal Highness, I will," he said, in tones of mock deference."Do you see yonder house--the one with three upper windows lighted?Well, at 6 o'clock I stood in that house with the young lady I am--that is, I was--engaged to. I had been doing wrong, my dear Prince--I had been a naughty boy, and she had heard of it. I wanted to beforgiven, of course--we are always wanting women to forgive us,aren't we, Prince?" "'I want time to think it over,' said she. 'There is one thingcertain; I will either fully forgive you, or I will never see yourface again. There will be no half-way business. At half-pasteight,' she said, 'at exactly half-past eight you may be watching themiddle upper window of the top floor. If I decide to forgive I willhang out of that window a white silk scarf. You will know by thatthat all is as was before, and you may come to me. If you see noscarf you may consider that everything between us is ended forever.'That," concluded the young man bitterly, "is why I have been watchingthat clock. The time for the signal to appear has passed twenty-three minutes ago. Do you wonder that I am a little disturbed, myPrince of Rags and Whiskers?" "Let me repeat to you," said Prince Michael, in his even, well-modulated tones, "that women are the natural enemies of clocks.Clocks are an evil, women a blessing. The signal may yet appear." "Never, on your principality!" exclaimed the young man, hopelessly."You don't know Marian--of course. She's always on time, to theminute. That was the first thing about her that attracted me. I'vegot the mitten instead of the scarf. I ought to have known at 8.31that my goose was cooked. I'll go West on the 11.45 to-night withJack Milburn. The jig's up. I'll try Jack's ranch awhile and topoff with the Klondike and whiskey. Good-night--er--er--Prince." Prince Michael smiled his enigmatic, gentle, comprehending smile andcaught the coat sleeve of the other. The brilliant light in thePrince's eyes was softening to a dreamier, cloudy translucence. "Wait," he said solemnly, "till the clock strikes. I have wealth andpower and knowledge above most men, but when the clock strikes I amafraid. Stay by me until then. This woman shall be yours. You havethe word of the hereditary Prince of Valleluna. On the day of yourmarriage I will give you $100,000 and a palace on the Hudson. Butthere must be no clocks in that palace--they measure our follies andlimit our pleasures. Do you agree to that?" "Of course," said the young man, cheerfully, "they're a nuisance,anyway--always ticking and striking and getting you late for dinner." He glanced again at the clock in the tower. The hands stood at threeminutes to nine. "I think," said Prince Michael, "that I will sleep a little. The dayhas been fatiguing." He stretched himself upon a bench with the manner of one who hadslept thus before. "You will find me in this park on any evening when the weather issuitable," said the Prince, sleepily. "Come to me when your marriageday is set and I will give you a cheque for the money." "Thanks, Your Highness," said the young man, seriously. "It doesn'tlook as if I would need that palace on the Hudson, but I appreciateyour offer, just the same." Prince Michael sank into deep slumber. His battered hat rolled fromthe bench to the ground. The young man lifted it, placed it over thefrowsy face and moved one of the grotesquely relaxed limbs into amore comfortable position. "Poor devil!" he said, as he drew thetattered clothes closer about the Prince's breast. Sonorous and startling came the stroke of 9 from the clock tower.The young man sighed again, turned his face for one last look at thehouse of his relinquished hopes--and cried aloud profane words ofholy rapture. >From the middle upper window blossomed in the dusk a waving, snowy,fluttering, wonderful, divine emblem of forgiveness and promised joy. By came a citizen, rotund, comfortable, home-hurrying, unknowing ofthe delights of waving silken scarfs on the borders of dimly-litparks. "Will you oblige me with the time, sir?" asked the young man; and thecitizen, shrewdly conjecturing his watch to be safe, dragged it outand announced: "Twenty-nine and a half minutes past eight, sir." And then, from habit, he glanced at the clock in the tower, and madefurther oration. "By George! that clock's half an hour fast! First time in ten yearsI've known it to be off. This watch of mine never varies a--" But the citizen was talking to vacancy. He turned and saw hishearer, a fast receding black shadow, flying in the direction of ahouse with three lighted upper windows. And in the morning came along two policemen on their way to the beatsthey owned. The park was deserted save for one dilapidated figurethat sprawled, asleep, on a bench. They stopped and gazed upon it. "It's Dopy Mike," said one. "He hits the pipe every night. Park bumfor twenty years. On his last legs, I guess." The other policeman stooped and looked at something crumpled andcrisp in the hand of the sleeper. "Gee!" he remarked. "He's doped out a fifty-dollar bill, anyway.Wish I knew the brand of hop that he smokes." And then "Rap, rap, rap!" went the club of realism against the shoesoles of Prince Michael, of the Electorate of Valleluna.

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