Short Fiction O. Henry (comprehension books TXT) 📖

he was returning homeward one “Beelzebub” Blythe, with the air of a courtier and the outward aspect of a scarecrow, pounced upon him hopefully from the door of a pulperia.

Blythe had been re-christened “Beelzebub” as an acknowledgment of the greatness of his fall. Once in some distant Paradise Lost, he had foregathered with the angels of the earth. But Fate had hurled him headlong down to the tropics, where flamed in his bosom a fire that was seldom quenched. In Coralio they called him a beachcomber; but he was, in reality, a categorical idealist who strove to anamorphosize the dull verities of life by the means of brandy and rum. As Beelzebub, himself, might have held in his clutch with unwitting tenacity his harp or crown during his tremendous fall, so his namesake had clung to his gold-rimmed eyeglasses as the only souvenir of his lost estate. These he wore with impressiveness and distinction while he combed beaches and extracted toll from his friends. By some mysterious means he kept his drink-reddened face always smoothly shaven. For the rest he sponged gracefully upon whomsoever he could for enough to keep him pretty drunk, and sheltered from the rains and night dews.

“Hallo, Goodwin!” called the derelict, airily. “I was hoping I’d strike you. I wanted to see you particularly. Suppose we go where we can talk. Of course you know there’s a chap down here looking up the money old Miraflores lost.”

“Yes,” said Goodwin, “I’ve been talking with him. Let’s go into Espada’s place. I can spare you ten minutes.”

They went into the pulperia and sat at a little table upon stools with rawhide tops.

“Have a drink?” said Goodwin.

“They can’t bring it too quickly,” said Blythe. “I’ve been in a drought ever since morning. Hi⁠—muchacho!⁠—el aguardiente por acá.”

“Now, what do you want to see me about?” asked Goodwin, when the drinks were before them.

“Confound it, old man,” drawled Blythe, “why do you spoil a golden moment like this with business? I wanted to see you⁠—well, this has the preference.” He gulped down his brandy, and gazed longingly into the empty glass.

“Have another?” suggested Goodwin.

“Between gentlemen,” said the fallen angel, “I don’t quite like your use of that word ‘another.’ It isn’t quite delicate. But the concrete idea that the word represents is not displeasing.”

The glasses were refilled. Blythe sipped blissfully from his, as he began to enter the state of a true idealist.

“I must trot along in a minute or two,” hinted Goodwin. “Was there anything in particular?”

Blythe did not reply at once.

“Old Losada would make it a hot country,” he remarked at length, “for the man who swiped that gripsack of treasury boodle, don’t you think?”

“Undoubtedly, he would,” agreed Goodwin calmly, as he rose leisurely to his feet. “I’ll be running over to the house now, old man. Mrs. Goodwin is alone. There was nothing important you had to say, was there?”

“That’s all,” said Blythe. “Unless you wouldn’t mind sending in another drink from the bar as you go out. Old Espada has closed my account to profit and loss. And pay for the lot, will you, like a good fellow?”

“All right,” said Goodwin. “Buenas noches.”

“Beelzebub” Blythe lingered over his cups, polishing his eyeglasses with a disreputable handkerchief.

“I thought I could do it, but I couldn’t,” he muttered to himself after a time. “A gentleman can’t blackmail the man that he drinks with.”

The Admiral

Spilled milk draws few tears from an Anchurian administration. Many are its lacteal sources; and the clocks’ hands point forever to milking time. Even the rich cream skimmed from the treasury by the bewitched Miraflores did not cause the newly-installed patriots to waste time in unprofitable regrets. The government philosophically set about supplying the deficiency by increasing the import duties and by “suggesting” to wealthy private citizens that contributions according to their means would be considered patriotic and in order. Prosperity was expected to attend the reign of Losada, the new president. The ousted officeholders and military favourites organized a new “Liberal” party, and began to lay their plans for a re-succession. Thus the game of Anchurian politics began, like a Chinese comedy, to unwind slowly its serial length. Here and there Mirth peeps for an instant from the wings and illumines the florid lines.

A dozen quarts of champagne in conjunction with an informal sitting of the president and his cabinet led to the establishment of the navy and the appointment of Felipe Carrera as its admiral.

Next to the champagne the credit of the appointment belongs to Don Sabas Placido, the newly confirmed Minister of War.

The president had requested a convention of his cabinet for the discussion of questions politic and for the transaction of certain routine matters of state. The session had been signally tedious; the business and the wine prodigiously dry. A sudden, prankish humour of Don Sabas, impelling him to the deed, spiced the grave affairs of state with a whiff of agreeable playfulness.

In the dilatory order of business had come a bulletin from the coast department of Orilla del Mar reporting the seizure by the customhouse officers at the town of Coralio of the sloop Estrella del Noche and her cargo of drygoods, patent medicines, granulated sugar and three-star brandy. Also six Martini rifles and a barrel of American whisky. Caught in the act of smuggling, the sloop with its cargo was now, according to law, the property of the republic.

The Collector of Customs, in making his report, departed from the conventional forms so far as to suggest that the confiscated vessel be converted to the use of the government. The prize was the first capture to the credit of the department in ten years. The collector took opportunity to pat his department on the back.

It often happened that government officers required transportation from point to point along the coast, and means were usually lacking. Furthermore, the sloop could be manned by a loyal crew and employed as a coast guard to