Short Fiction O. Henry (comprehension books TXT) 📖

Houston now for three months, and you are the first man to whom I have spoken of myself. You have not offered me money, and by that have won my esteem. I am a tramp, but I never accept money from anyone. Why should I? The richest man in your town is a pauper compared with me. I see you smile. Come, sir, indulge me for a while. I am afflicted at times with cacoethes loquendi, and rarely do I meet a gentleman who will give me an ear.”

The Post Man had seen so many people with the corners rubbed off, so many men who always say and do what they are expected to, that he fell into the humor of listening to this man who said unexpected things. And then he was so strange to look upon.

The tramp was not drunk, and his appearance was not that of a drinking man. His features were refined and clear-cut in the moonlight; and his voice⁠—well, his voice was queer. It sounded like a man talking plainly in his sleep.

The Post Man concluded that his mind was unbalanced.

The tramp spoke again.

“I said I had plenty of money,” he continued, “and I have. I will show a few⁠—a very few of the wonders that you respectable, plodding, well-dressed people do not imagine to exist. Look at this ring.”

He took from his finger a curious carved ring of beaten copper, wrought into a design that the moonlight did not suffer to be deciphered, and handed it to the reporter.

“Rub that ring thrice with the thumb of your left hand,” said the tramp.

The reporter did so, with a creepy feeling that made him smile to himself. The tramp’s eyes beamed, and he pointed into the air, following with his finger the movements of some invisible object.

“It is Artamela,” he said, “the slave of the ring⁠—catch!”

He swept his hollowed hand into space, scooping up something, and handed it to the reporter.

“See!” he said, “golden coins. I can bring them at will in unlimited numbers. Why should I beg?”

He held his empty hand with a gesture toward the reporter, who pretended to accept its visionary contents.

The tramp took off his hat and let the breeze sift through his tangled hair.

“What would you think,” he said, “if I should tell you that I am 241 years old?”

“Knock off a couple of centuries,” said the reporter, “and it will go all right.”

“This ring,” said the tramp, “was given me by a Buddhist priest in Benares, India, a hundred years before America was discovered. It is an inexhaustible source of wealth, life and good luck. It has brought me every blessing that man can enjoy. With such fortune as that there is no one on earth that I envy. I am blissfully happy and I lead the only ideal life.”

The tramp leaned on the railing and gazed down the bayou for a long time without speaking. The reporter made a movement as if to go, and he started violently and faced around. A change had come over him. His brow was lowering and his manner cringing. He shivered and pulled his coat tight about him.

“Wot wuz I sayin’?” he said in a gruff, husky voice. “Wuz I a talkin’? Hello, there, mister, can’t you give a feller a dime to get him some supper?”

The reporter, struck by the transformation, gazed at him in silence.

The tramp muttered to himself, and with shaking hands drew from his pocket something wrapped in paper.

He unrolled it, took something from it between his thumb and finger and thrust it into his mouth.

The sickly, faint, sweet odor of gum opium reached the reporter.

The mystery about the tramp was solved.

The Barber Talks

The Post Man slid into the chair with an apologetic manner, for the barber’s gaze was superior and scornful. He was so devilish, cool and selfpossessed, and held the public in such infinite contempt.

The Post Man’s hair had been cut close with the clippers on the day before.

“Haircut?” asked the barber in a quiet but thoroughly dangerous tone.

“Shave,” said the Post Man.

The barber raised his eyebrows, gave his victim a look of deep disdain, and hurled the chair with a loud rattle and crash back to a reclining position.

Then he seized a mug and brush and, after bestowing upon the Post Man a look of undying contumely, turned with a sneer to the water faucet. Thence he returned, enveloped the passive victim in a voluminous cloth, and with a pitiless hand daubed a great brushful of sweetish tasting lather across his mouth.

Then he began to talk.

“Ever been in Seattle, Washington Territory?” he asked.

“Blub-a-lub-blub,” said the Post Man, struggling against the soap, and then he shook his head feebly.

“Neither have I,” said the barber, “but I have a brother named Bill who runs an orange orchard nine miles from St. John, Fla. That’s only a split hair on your neck; it’s growing the wrong way. They are caused by shaving the neck in the wrong direction. Sometimes whiskey will make them do that way. Whisky is a terrible thing. Do you drink it?”

The Post Man only had one eye of all his features uncovered by lather and he tried to throw an appealing expression implying negation into this optic, but the barber was too quick for him and filled the eye with soap by a dextrous flap of his brush.

“My brother Bill used to drink,” continued the barber. “He could drink more whiskey than any man in Houston, but he never got drunk. He had a chair in my shop, but I had to let him go. Bill had a wonderful constitution. When he got all he could hold he would quit drinking. The only way he showed it was in his eyes. They would get kind of glazed and fishy and wouldn’t turn in his head. When Bill wanted to look to one side he used to take his fingers and turn