Short Fiction O. Henry (comprehension books TXT) 📖

can be verified at any time. As I said, I am holding this article until I can acquire more information about its author. I do not know whether I will publish it or not. If I decide against it, I shall be much pleased, Mr. Thacker, to substitute the matter that you are leaving with me in its place.”

Thacker was somewhat at sea.

“I don’t seem to gather,” said he, “much about the gist of this inspired piece of literature. It sounds more like a dark horse than Pegasus to me.”

“It is a human document,” said the colonel-editor, confidently, “from a man of great accomplishments who, in my opinion, has obtained a stronger grasp on the world and its outcomes than that of any man living today.”

Thacker rose to his feet excitedly.

“Say!” he said. “It isn’t possible that you’ve cornered John D. Rockefeller’s memoirs, is it? Don’t tell me that all at once.”

“No, sir,” said Colonel Telfair. “I am speaking of mentality and literature, not of the less worthy intricacies of trade.”

“Well, what’s the trouble about running the article,” asked Thacker, a little impatiently, “if the man’s well known and has got the stuff?”

Colonel Telfair sighed.

“Mr. Thacker,” said he, “for once I have been tempted. Nothing has yet appeared in The Rose of Dixie that has not been from the pen of one of its sons or daughters. I know little about the author of this article except that he has acquired prominence in a section of the country that has always been inimical to my heart and mind. But I recognize his genius; and, as I have told you, I have instituted an investigation of his personality. Perhaps it will be futile. But I shall pursue the inquiry. Until that is finished, I must leave open the question of filling the vacant space in our January number.”

Thacker arose to leave.

“All right, Colonel,” he said, as cordially as he could. “You use your own judgment. If you’ve really got a scoop or something that will make ’em sit up, run it instead of my stuff. I’ll drop in again in about two weeks. Good luck!”

Colonel Telfair and the magazine promoter shook hands.

Returning a fortnight later, Thacker dropped off a very rocky Pullman at Toombs City. He found the January number of the magazine made up and the forms closed.

The vacant space that had been yawning for type was filled by an article that was headed thus:

Second Message to Congress

Written for

The Rose of Dixie

by

A Member of the Well-known

Bulloch Family, of Georgia

T. Roosevelt

Buried Treasure

There are many kinds of fools. Now, will everybody please sit still until they are called upon specifically to rise?

I had been every kind of fool except one. I had expended my patrimony, pretended my matrimony, played poker, lawn-tennis, and bucket-shops⁠—parted soon with my money in many ways. But there remained one rule of the wearer of cap and bells that I had not played. That was the Seeker after Buried Treasure. To few does the delectable furor come. But of all the would-be followers in the hoof-prints of King Midas none has found a pursuit so rich in pleasurable promise.

But, going back from my theme a while⁠—as lame pens must do⁠—I was a fool of the sentimental sort. I saw May Martha Mangum, and was hers. She was eighteen, the color of the white ivory keys of a new piano, beautiful, and possessed by the exquisite solemnity and pathetic witchery of an unsophisticated angel doomed to live in a small, dull, Texas prairie-town. She had a spirit and charm that could have enabled her to pluck rubies like raspberries from the crown of Belgium or any other sporty kingdom, but she did not know it, and I did not paint the picture for her.

You see, I wanted May Martha Mangum for to have and to hold. I wanted her to abide with me, and put my slippers and pipe away every day in places where they cannot be found of evenings.

May Martha’s father was a man hidden behind whiskers and spectacles. He lived for bugs and butterflies and all insects that fly or crawl or buzz or get down your back or in the butter. He was an etymologist, or words to that effect. He spent his life seining the air for flying fish of the June-bug order, and then sticking pins through ’em and calling ’em names.

He and May Martha were the whole family. He prized her highly as a fine specimen of the racibus humanus because she saw that he had food at times, and put his clothes on right side before, and kept his alcohol-bottles filled. Scientists, they say, are apt to be absentminded.

There was another besides myself who thought May Martha Mangum one to be desired. That was Goodloe Banks, a young man just home from college. He had all the attainments to be found in books⁠—Latin, Greek, philosophy, and especially the higher branches of mathematics and logic.

If it hadn’t been for his habit of pouring out this information and learning on every one that he addressed, I’d have liked him pretty well. But, even as it was, he and I were, you would have thought, great pals.

We got together every time we could because each of us wanted to pump the other for whatever straws we could to find which way the wind blew from the heart of May Martha Mangum⁠—rather a mixed metaphor; Goodloe Banks would never have been guilty of that. That is the way of rivals.

You might say that Goodloe ran to books, manners, culture, rowing, intellect, and clothes. I would have put you in mind more of baseball and Friday-night debating societies⁠—by way of culture⁠—and maybe of a good horseback rider.

But in our talks together, and in our visits and conversation with May Martha, neither Goodloe Banks nor I could find out which one of us she preferred. May Martha was a natural-born noncommittal, and knew in her cradle how to keep