The Phonograph and the Graft
"What was this this graft? asked Johnny, with the impatience ofthe great public to whom tales are told.
"'Tis contrary to art and philosophy to give you the information,"said Keogh, calmly. "The art of narrative consists in concealingfrom your audience everything it wants to know until after you exposeyour favorite opinions on topics foreign to the subject. A goodstory is like a bitter pill with the sugar coating inside of it.I will begin, if you please, with a horoscope located in the CherokeeNation; and end with a moral tune on the phonograph.
"Me and Henry Horsecollar brought the first phonograph to thiscountry. Henry was a quarter-breed, quarter-back cherokee, educatedEast in the idioms of football, and West in contraband whiskey, anda gentleman, the same as you and me. He was easy and romping inhis ways; a man about six foot, with a kind of rubber-tire movement.Yes, he was a little man about five foot five, or five foot eleven.He was what you would call a medium tall man of average smallness.Henry had quit college once, and the Muscogee jail three times--thelast-named institution on account of introducing and selling whiskyin the territories. Henry Horsecollar never let any cigar storescome up and stand behind him. He didn't belong to that tribe ofIndians.
"Henry and me met at Texarkana, and figured out this phonographscheme. He had $360 which came to him out of a land allotmentin the reservation. I had run down from Little Rock on accountof a distressful scene I had witnessed on the street there. A manstood on a box and passed around some gold watches, screw case,stem-winders, Elgin movement, very elegant. Twenty bucks they costyou over the counter. At three dollars the crowd fought for thetickers. The man happened to find a valise full of them handy, andhe passed them out like putting hot biscuits on a plate. The backswere hard to unscrew, but the crowd put its ear to the case, andthey ticked mollifying and agreeable. Three of these watches weregenuine tickers; the rest were only kickers. Hey? Why, empty caseswith one of them horny black bugs that fly around electric lightsin 'em. Them bugs kick off minutes and seconds industrious andbeautiful. So, this man I was speaking of cleaned up $288; and thenhe went away, because he knew that when it came time to wind watchesin Little Rock an entomologist would be needed, and he wasn't one.
"So, as I say, Henry had $360 and I had $288. The idea of introducingthe phonograph to South America was Henry's; but I took to it freely,being fond of machinery of all kinds.
"'The Latin races,' says Henry, explaining easy in the idioms helearned at college, 'are peculiarly adapted to be victims of thephonograph. They yearn for music and color and gaiety. They givewampum to the hand-organ man and the four-legged chicken in the tentwhen they're three months behind with the grocery and the bread-fruittree."
"'Then,' says I, 'we'll export canned music to the Latins; but I'mmindful of Mr. Julius Caesar's account of 'em where he says: ~"OmniaGallia in tres partes divisa est"~; which is the same as to say, "Wewill need all of our gall in devising means to tree them parties."'
"I hated to make a show of education; but I was disinclined to beoverdone in syntax by a mere Indian, a member of a race to which weowe nothing except the land on which the United States is situated.
"We bought a fine phonograph in Texarkana--one of the best make--andhalf a trunkful of records. We packed up, and took the T. and P.for New Orleans. From that celebrated center of molasses anddisfranchised coon songs we took a steamer for South America.
"We landed at Solitas, forty miles up the coast from here. 'Twasa palatable enough place to look at. The houses were clean and white;and to look at 'em stuck around among the scenery they reminded youof hard-boiled eggs served with lettuce. There was a block ofskyscraper mountains in the suburbs; and they kept pretty quiet,like they had crept up there and were watching the town. And the seawas remarking 'Sh-sh-sh' on the beach; and now and then a ripe coconutwould drop kerblip in the sand; and that was all there was doing.Yes, I judge that town was considerably on the quiet. I judge thatafter Gabriel quits blowing his horn, and the car starts, withPhiladelphia swinging to the last strap, and Pine Gully, Arkansas,hanging onto the rear step, this town of Solitas will wake up and askif anybody spoke.
"The captain went ashore with us, and offered to conduct what heseemed to like to call the obsequies. He introduced Henry and me tothe United States Consul, and a roan man, the head of the Departmentof Mercenary and Licentious Dispostions, the way it read upon hissign.
"'I thouch here again a week from today,' says the captain.
"'By that time,' we told him, 'we'll be amassing wealth in theinterior towns with our galvanized prima donna and correct imitationsof Sousa's band excavating a march from a tin mine.'
"'Ye'll not,' says the captain. 'Ye'll be hypnotized. Any gentlemanin the audience who kindly steps upon the stage and looks this countryin the eye will be converted to the hypothesis that he's but a flyin the Elgin creamery. Ye'll be standing knee deep in the surfwaiting for me, and your machine for making Hamburger steak out ofthe hitherto respected art of music will be playing "There's no placelike home."'
"Henry skinned a twenty off his roll, and received from the Bureauof Mercenary Dispositions a paper bearing a red seal and a dialectstory, and no change.
"Then we got the consul full of red wine, and struck him for ahoroscope. He was a thin, youngish kind of man, I should say pastfifty, sort of French-Irish in his affections, and puffed up withdisconsolation. Yes, he was a flattened kind of man, in whom drinklay stagnant, inclined to corpulence and misery. Yes, I think hewas a kind of Dutchman, being very sad and genial in his ways.
"'The marvelous invention,' he says, 'entitled the phonograph, hasnever invaded these shores. The people have never heard it. Theywould not believe it if they should. Simple-hearted children ofnature, progress has never condemned them to accept the work ofa can-opener as an overture, and rag-time might incite them to abloody revolution. But you can try the experiment. The best chanceyou have is that the populace may not wake up when you play. There'stwo ways,' says the consul, 'they may take it. They may becomeinebriated with attention, like an Atlanta colonel listening to"Marching Through Georgia," or they will get excited and transposethe key of the music with an axe and yourselves into a dungeon. Inthe latter case,' says the consul, 'I'll do my duty by cabling to theState Department, and I'll wrap the Stars and Stripes around you whenyou come to be shot, and threaten them with the vengeance of thegreatest gold export and financial reserve nation on earth. The flagis full of bullet holes now,' says the consul, 'made in that way.Twice before,' says the consul, 'I have cabled our government for acouple of gunboats to protect American citizens. The first time theDepartment sent me a pair of gum boots. The other time was when a mannamed Pease was going to be executed here. They referred that appealto the Secretary of Agriculture. Let us now disturb the senor behindthe bar for a subsequence of the red wine.'
"Thus soliloquized the consul of Solitas to me and Henry Horsecollar.
"But, notwithstanding, we hired a room that afternoon in the Calle delos Angeles, the main street that runs along the shore, and put ourtrunks there. 'Twas a good-sized room, dark and cheerful, but small.'Twas on a various street, diversified by houses and conservatoryplants. The peasantry of the city passed to and fro on the finepasturage between the sidewalks. 'Twas, for the world, like an operachorus when the Royal Kafoozlum is about to enter.
"We were rubbing the dust off the machine and getting fixed to startbusiness the next day, when a big, fine-looking white man in whiteclothes stopped at the door and looked in. We extended theinvitations, and he walked inside and sized us up. He was chewinga long cigar, and wrinkling his eyes, meditative, like a girl tryingto decide which dress to wear to the party.
"'New York?' he says to me finally.
"'Originally, and from time to time,' I says. 'Hasn't it rubbed offyet?'
"'It's simple,' says he, 'when you know how. It's the fit ofthe vest. They don't cut vests right anywhere else. Coats, maybe,but not vests.'
"The white man looks at Henry Horsecollar and hesitates.
"'Injun,' says Henry; 'tame Injun.'
"'Mellinger,' says the man--'Homer P. Mellinger. Boys, you'reconfiscated. You're babes in the wood without a chaperon or referee,and it's my duty to start you going. I'll knock out the props andlaunch you proper in the pellucid waters of this tropical mud puddle.You'll have to be christened, and if you'll come with me I'll breaka bottle of wine across your bows, according to Hoyle.'
"Well, for two days Homer P. Mellinger did the honors. That man cutice in Anchuria. He was It. He was the Royal Kafoozlum. If me andHenry was babes in the wood, he was a Robin Redbreast from the topmostbough. Him and me and Henry Horsecollar locked arms, and toted thatphonograph around, and had wassail and diversions. Everywhere wefound doors open we went inside and set the machine going, andMellinger called upon the people to observe the artful music and histwo lifelong friends, the Senores Americanos. The opera chorus wasagitated with esteem, and followed us from house to house. There wasa different kind of drink to be had with every tune. The nativeshad acquirements of a pleasant thing in the way of a drink that gumsitself to the recollection. They chop off the end of a green coconut,and pour in on the juice of it French brandy and other adjuvants.We had them and other things.
"Mine and Henry's money was counterfeit. Everything was on HomerP. Mellinger. That man could find rolls of bills concealed in placeson his person where Hermann the Wizard couldn't have conjured out arabbit or an omelette. He could have founded universities, and madeorchid collections, and then had enough left to purchase the coloredvote of his country. Henry and me wondered what his graft was. Oneevening he told us.
"'Boys, said he, I've deceived you. You think I'm a paintedbutterfly; but in fact I'm the hardest worked man in this country.Ten years ago I landed on its shores; and two years ago on the pointof its jaw. Yes, I guess I can get the decision over this ginger cakecommonwealth at the end of any round I choose. I'll confide in youbecause you are my countrymen and guests, even if you have assaultedmy adopted shores with the worst system of noises ever set to music.
"'My job is private secretary to the president of this republic;and my duties are running it. I'm not headlined in the bills, but I'mthe mustard in the salad dressing just the same. There isn't a lawgoes before Congress, there isn't a concession granted, there isn'tan import duty levied but what H. P. Mellinger he cooks and seasonsit. In the front office I fill the president's inkstand and searchvisiting statesmen for dirks and dynamite; but in the back room Idictate the policy of the government. You'd never guess in the worldhow I got my pull. It's the only graft of its kind on earth. I'llput you wise. You remember the old top-liner in the copy book--Honesty is the Best Policy?" That's it. I'm working honestly for agraft. I'm the only honest man in the republic. The government knowsit; the people know it; the boodlers know it; the foreign investorsknow it. I make the government keep its faith. If a man is promiseda job he gets it. If outside capital buys a concession it getsthe goods. I run the monopoly of square dealing here. There's nocompetition. If Colonel Diogenes were to flash his lantern in thisprecinct he'd have my address inside of two minutes. There isn't bigmoney in it, but it's a sure thing, and lets a man sleep of nights.'
"Thus Homer P. Mellinger made oration to me and Henry Horsecollar.And, later, he divested himself of this remark:
"'Boys, I'm to hold a ~soiree~ this evening with a gang of leadingcitizens, and I want your assistance. You bring the musical cornsheller and give the affair the outside appearance of a function.There's important business on hand, but it mustn't show. I can talkto you people. I've been pained for years on account of not havinganybody to blow off and brag to. I get homesick sometimes, and I'dswap the entire perquisites of office for just one hour to have astein and a caviar sandwich somewhere on Thirty-fourth Street, andstand and watch the street cars go by, and smell the peanut roasterat old Giuseppe's fruit stand.'
"'Yes,' said I, 'there's fine caviar at Billy Renfrew's cafe, cornerof Thirty-fourth and--'
"'God knows it,' interrupts Mellinger, 'and if you'd told me you knewBilly Renfrew I'd have invented tons of ways of making you happy.Billy was my side-kicker in New York. There is a man who never knewwhat crooked was. Here I am working Honesty for a graft, but thatman loses money on it. Carrambos! I get sick at times of thiscountry. Everything's rotten. From the executive down to the coffeepickers, they're plotting to down each other and skin their friends.If a mule driver takes off his hat to an official, that man figuresit out that he's a popular idol, and set his pegs to stir up arevolution and upset the administration. It's one of my little choresas private secretary to smell out these revolutions and affix thekibosh before they break out and scratch the paint off the governmentproperty. That's why I'm down here now in this mildewed coast town.The governor of the district and his crew are plotting to uprise.I've got every one of their names, and they're invited to listento the phonograph tonight, compliments of H. P. M. That's the wayI'll get them in a bunch, and things are on the program to happento them.'
"We three were sitting at table in the cantina of the Purified Saints.Mellinger poured out wine, and was looking some worried; I wasthinking.
"'They're a sharp crowd,' he says, kind of fretful. 'They'recapitalized by a foreign syndicate after rubber, and they're loadedto the muzzle for bribing. I'm sick,' goes on Mellinger, 'of comicopera. I want to smell East River and wear suspenders again. Attimes I feel loke throwing up my job, but I'm d--n fool enough tobe sort of proud of it. "There's Mellinger," they say here. "~Pordios!~ you can't touch him with a million." I'd like to take thatrecord back and show it to Billy Renfrow some day; and that tightensmy grip whenever I see a fat thing that I could corral just bywinking one eye--and losing my graft. By--, they can't monkeywith me. They know it. What money I get I make honest and spend it.Some day, I'll make a pile and go back and eat caviar with Billy.Tonight I'll show you how to handle a bunch of corruptionists. I'llshow them what Mellinger, private secretary, means when you spell itwith the cotton and tissue paper off.'
"Mellinger appears shaky, and breaks his glass against the neck ofthe bottle.
"I says to myself, 'White man, if I'm not mistaken there's been abait laid out where the tail of your eye could see it.'
"That night, according to arrangements, me and Henry took thephonograph to a room in a 'dobe house in a dirty side street, wherethe grass was knee high. 'Twas a long room, lit with smoky oil lamps.There was plenty of chairs, and a table at the back end. We set thephonograph on the table. Mellinger was there, walking up and down,disturbed in his predicaments. He chewed cigars and spat 'em out,and he bit the thumb nail of his left hand.
"By and by the invitations to the musicale come sliding in by pairsand threes and spade flushes. Their color was of a diversity, runningfrom a three-day's smoked meerschaum to a patent-leather polish.They were as polite as wax, being devastated with enjoyments to giveSenor Mellinger the good evenings. I understood their Spanish talk--I ran a pumping engine two years in a Mexican silver mine, and hadit pat--but I never let on.
"Maybe fifty of 'em had come, and was seated, when in slid the kingbee, the governor of the district. Mellinger met him at the door,and escorted him to the grand stand. When I saw that Latin man Iknew that Mellinger, private secretary, had all the dances on his cardtaken. That was a big, squashy man, the color of a rubber overshoe,and he had an eye like a head waiter's.
"Mellinger explained, fluent, in the Castilian idioms, that his soulwas disconcerted with joy at introducing to his respected friendsAmerica's greatest invention, the wonder of the age. Henry got thecue and run on an elegant brass-band record and the festivities becameinitiated. The governor man had a bit of English under his hat, andwhen the music was choked off he says:
"'Ver-r-ree fine. ~Gr-r'r-r-racias~, the American gentlemen, the soesplendeed moosic as to playee.'
"The table was a long one, and Henry and me sat at the end of it nextthe wall. The governor sat at the other end. Homer P. Mellingerstood at the side of it. I was just wondering how Mellinger wasgoing to handle his crowd, when the home talent suddenly opened theservices.
"That governor man was suitable for uprisings and policies. I judgehe was a ready kind of man, who took his own time. Yes, he was fullof attention and immediateness. He leaned his hands on the table andimposed his face toward the secretary man.
"'Do the American senors understand Spanish?' he asks in his nativeaccents.
"'They do not,' says Mellinger.
"'Then listen,' goes on the Latin man, prompt. 'The musics areof sufficient prettiness, but not of necessity. Let us speakof business. I well know why we are here, since I observe mycompatriots. You had a whisper yesterday, Senor Mellinger, of ourproposals. Tonight we will speak out. We know that you stand inthe president's favor, and we know your influence. The governmentwill be changed. We know the worth of your services. We esteemyour friendship and aid so much that'--Mellinger praises his hand,but the governor man bottles him up. 'Do not speak until I havedone.'
"The governor man then draws a package wrapped in paper from hispocket, and lays it on the table by Mellinger's hand.
"'In that you will find fifty thousand dollars in money of yourcountry. You can do nothing against us, but you can be worth thatfor us. Go back to the capital and obey our instructions. Takethat money now. We trust you. You will find with it a paper givingin detail the work you will be expected to do for us. Do not havethe unwiseness to refuse.'
"'The governor man paused, with his eyes fixed on Mellinger, fullof expressions and observances. I looked at Mellinger, and was gladBilly Renfrew couldn't see him then. The sweat was popping out on hisforehead, and he stood dumb, tapping the little package with the endsof his fingers. The colorado-maduro gang was after his graft. He hadonly to change his politics, and stuff five fingers in his insidepocket.
"Henry whispers to me and wants the pause in the program interpreted.I whisper back: 'H. P. is up against a bribe, senator's size, and thecoons have got him going.' I saw Mellinger's hand moving closer tothe package. 'He's weakening,' I whispered to Henry. 'We'll remindhim,' says Henry, 'of the peanut-roaster on Thirty-fourth Street,New York."
"Henry stooped down and got a record from the basketful we'd brought,slid it in the phonograph, and started her off. It was a cornet solo,very neat and beautiful, and the name of it was 'Home, Sweet Home.'Not one of them fifty odd men in the room moved while it was playing,and the governor man kept his eyes steady on Mellinger. I sawMellinger's head go up little by little and his hand came creepingaway from the package. Not until the last note sounded did anybodystir. And there Homer P. Mellinger takes up the bundle of boodleand slams it in the governor man's face.
"'That's my answer,' says Mellinger, private secretary, 'and there'llbe another in the morning. I have proofs of conspiracy against everyman of you. The show is over, gentlemen.'
"'There's one more act,' puts in the governor man. 'You are aservant, I believe, employed by the president to copy letters andanswer raps at the door. I am governor here. Senores, I call uponyou in the name of the cause to seize this man.'
"That brindled gang of conspirators shoved back their chairs andadvanced in force. I could see where Mellinger had made a mistake inmassing his enemy so as to make a grand-stand play. I think he madeanother one, too; but we can pass that, Mellinger's idea of a graftand mine being different, according to estimations and points of view.
"There was only one window and door in that room, and they were inthe front end. Here was fifty odd Latin men coming in a bunch toobstruct the legislation of Mellinger. You may say there were threeof us, for me and Henry, simultaneous, declared New York City andthe Cherokee Nation in sympathy with the weaker party.
"Then it was that Henry Horsecollar rose to a point of disorder andintervened, showing, admirable, the advantages of education as appliedto the American Indian's natural intellect and native refinement.He stood up and smoothed back his hair on each side with his handsas you have seen little girls do when they play.
"'Get behind me, both of you,' says Henry
"'What's it to be, chief?' I asked.
"'I'm going to buck center,' says Henry, in his football idioms.There isn't a tackle in the lot of them. Follow me close, and rushthe game.'
"'Then that cultured Red Man exhaled an arrangement of sounds withhis mouth that made the Latin aggregation pause, with thoughtfulnessand hesitations. The matter of his proclamation seemed to be acooperation of the Carlisle war-whoop with the Cherokee college yell.He went at the chocolate team like a bean out of a little boy's niggershooter. His right elbow laid out the governor man on the gridiron,and he made a lane the length of the crowd so wide that a womancould have carried a stepladder through it without striking againstanything. All Mellinger and me had to do was to follow.
"It took us just three minutes to get out of that street aroundto military headquarters, where Mellinger had things his own way.A colonel and a battalion of bare-toed infantry turned out and wentback to the scene of the musicale with us, but the conspirator gangwas gone. But we recaptured the phonograph with honors of war, andmarched back to the ~cuartel~ with it playing 'All Coons Look Aliketo Me.'
"The next day Mellinger takes me and Henry to one side, and beginsto shed tens and twenties.
"'I want to buy that phonograph,' says he. I liked that last tuneit played at the ~soiree~.'
"'This is more money than the machine is worth,' says I.
"'Tis government expense money,' says Mellinger. The government paysfor it, and it's getting the tune-grinder cheap.'
"Me and Henry knew that pretty well. We knew that it had saved HomerP. Mellinger's graft when he was on the point of losing it; but wenever let him know we knew it.
"'Now you boys better slide off further down the coast for a while,'says Mellinger, 'till I get the screws put on these fellows here.If you don't they'll give you trouble. And if you ever happen to seeBilly Renfrew again before I do, tell him I'm coming back to New Yorkas soon as I can make a stake--honest.'
"Me and Henry laid low until the day the steamer came back. When wesaw the captain's boat on the beach we went down and stood in the edgeof the water. The captain grinned when he saw us.
"'I told you you'd be waiting,' he says. 'Where's the Hamburgermachine?'
"'It stays behind,' I says, 'to play "Home, Sweet Home."'
"'I told you so,' says the captain again. 'Climb in the boat.'
"And that," said Keogh, "is the way me and Henry Horsecollarintroduced the phonograph into this country. Henry went back tothe States, but I've been rummaging around in the tropics ever since.They say Mellinger never travelled a mile after that without hisphonograph. I guess it kept him reminded about his graft wheneverhe saw the siren voice of the boodler tip him the wink with a bribein his hand."
"I suppose he's taking it home with him as a souvenir, remarked theconsul.
"Not as a souvenir," said Keogh. "He'll need two of 'em in New York,running day and night."
zpostcode
Recruit
weather
mreligion
Yellowpages
sport
constellation
shopping
name
game
directory
literature
Word
tour
furnish
Lottery
tftnews
lyrics
News
digital
car
dir
Edu
Finance
