Fantastic Fables, Ambrose Bierce [the little red hen ebook txt] 📗

you?”

 

“He said it was about three o’clock,” replied the Man in a Hurry;

“but he did not look at his watch, and as the sun is nearly down, I

think it is later.”

 

“The fact that the sun is nearly down,” the Grave Person said, “is

immaterial, but the fact that he did not consult his timepiece and

make answer after due deliberation and consideration is fatal. The

answer given,” continued the Grave Person, consulting his own

timepiece, “is of no effect, invalid, and absurd.”

 

“What, then,” said the Man in a Hurry, eagerly, “is the time of

day?”

 

“The question is remanded to the Party Over There for a new

answer,” replied the Grave Person, returning his watch to his

pocket and moving away with great dignity.

 

He was a Judge of an Appellate Court.

 

The Poetess of Reform

 

ONE pleasant day in the latter part of eternity, as the Shades of

all the great writers were reposing upon beds of asphodel and moly

in the Elysian fields, each happy in hearing from the lips of the

others nothing but copious quotation from his own works (for so

Jove had kindly bedeviled their ears), there came in among them

with triumphant mien a Shade whom none knew. She (for the newcomer

showed such evidences of sex as cropped hair and a manly stride)

took a seat in their midst, and smiling a superior smile explained:

 

“After centuries of oppression I have wrested my rights from the

grasp of the jealous gods. On earth I was the Poetess of Reform,

and sang to inattentive ears. Now for an eternity of honour and

glory.”

 

But it was not to be so, and soon she was the unhappiest of

mortals, vainly desirous to wander again in gloom by the infernal

lakes. For Jove had not bedeviled her ears, and she heard from the

lips of each blessed Shade an incessant flow of quotation from his

own works. Moreover, she was denied the happiness of repeating her

poems. She could not recall a line of them, for Jove had decreed

that the memory of them abide in Pluto’s painful domain, as a part

of the apparatus.

 

The Unchanged Diplomatist

 

THE republic of Madagonia had been long and well represented at the

court of the King of Patagascar by an officer called a Dazie, but

one day the Madagonian Parliament conferred upon him the superior

rank of Dandee. The next day after being apprised of his new

dignity he hastened to inform the King of Patagascar.

 

“Ah, yes, I understand,” said the King; “you have been promoted and

given increased pay and allowances. There was an appropriation?”

 

“Yes, your Majesty.”

 

“And you have now two heads, have you not?”

 

“Oh, no, your Majesty - only one, I assure you.”

 

“Indeed? And how many legs and arms?”

 

“Two of each, Sire - only two of each.”

 

“And only one body?”

 

“Just a single body, as you perceive.”

 

Thoughtfully removing his crown and scratching the royal head, the

monarch was silent a moment, and then he said:

 

“I fancy that appropriation has been misapplied. You seem to be

about the same kind of idiot that you were before.”

 

An Invitation

 

A PIOUS Person who had overcharged his paunch with dead bird by way

of attesting his gratitude for escaping the many calamities which

Heaven had sent upon others, fell asleep at table and dreamed. He

thought he lived in a country where turkeys were the ruling class,

and every year they held a feast to manifest their sense of

Heaven’s goodness in sparing their lives to kill them later. One

day, about a week before one of these feasts, he met the Supreme

Gobbler, who said:

 

“You will please get yourself into good condition for the

Thanksgiving dinner.”

 

“Yes, your Excellency,” replied the Pious Person, delighted, “I

shall come hungry, I assure you. It is no small privilege to dine

with your Excellency.”

 

The Supreme Gobbler eyed him for a moment in silence; then he said:

 

“As one of the lower domestic animals, you cannot be expected to

know much, but you might know something. Since you do not, you

will permit me to point out that being asked to dinner is one

thing; being asked to dine is another and a different thing.”

 

With this significant remark the Supreme Gobbler left him, and

thenceforward the Pious Person dreamed of himself as white meat and

dark until rudely awakened by decapitation.

 

The Ashes of Madame Blavatsky

 

THE two brightest lights of Theosophy being in the same place at

once in company with the Ashes of Madame Blavatsky, an Inquiring

Soul thought the time propitious to learn something worth while.

So he sat at the feet of one awhile, and then he sat awhile at the

feet of the other, and at last he applied his ear to the keyhole of

the casket containing the Ashes of Madame Blavatsky. When the

Inquiring Soul had completed his course of instruction he declared

himself the Ahkoond of Swat, fell into the baleful habit of

standing on his head, and swore that the mother who bore him was a

pragmatic paralogism. Wherefore he was held in high reverence, and

when the two other gentlemen were hanged for lying the Theosophists

elected him to the leadership of their Disastral Body, and after a

quiet life and an honourable death by the kick of a jackass he was

reincarnated as a Yellow Dog. As such he ate the Ashes of Madame

Blavatsky, and Theosophy was no more.

 

The Opossum of the Future

 

ONE day an Opossum who had gone to sleep hanging from the highest

branch of a tree by the tail, awoke and saw a large Snake wound

about the limb, between him and the trunk of the tree.

 

“If I hold on,” he said to himself, “I shall be swallowed; if I let

go I shall break my neck.”

 

But suddenly he bethought himself to dissemble.

 

“My perfected friend,” he said, “my parental instinct recognises in

you a noble evidence and illustration of the theory of development.

You are the Opossum of the Future, the ultimate Fittest Survivor of

our species, the ripe result of progressive prehensility - all

tail!”

 

But the Snake, proud of his ancient eminence in Scriptural history,

was strictly orthodox, and did not accept the scientific view.

 

The Life-Savers

 

SEVENTY-FIVE Men presented themselves before the President of the

Humane Society and demanded the great gold medal for life-saving.

 

“Why, yes,” said the President; “by diligent effort so many men

must have saved a considerable number of lives. How many did you

save?”

 

“Seventy-five, sir,” replied their Spokesman.

 

“Ah, yes, that is one each - very good work - very good work,

indeed,” the President said. “You shall not only have the

Society’s great gold medal, but its recommendation for employment

at the various life-boat stations along the coast. But how did you

save so many lives?”

 

The Spokesman of the Men replied:

 

“We are officers of the law, and have just returned from the

pursuit of two murderous outlaws.”

 

The Australian Grasshopper

 

A DISTINGUISHED Naturalist was travelling in Australia, when he saw

a Kangaroo in session and flung a stone at it. The Kangaroo

immediately adjourned, tracing against the sunset sky a parabolic

curve spanning seven provinces, and evanished below the horizon.

The Distinguished Naturalist looked interested, but said nothing

for an hour; then he said to his native Guide:

 

“You have pretty wide meadows here, I suppose?”

 

“No, not very wide,” the Guide answered; “about the same as in

England and America.”

 

After another long silence the Distinguished Naturalist said:

 

“The hay which we shall purchase for our horses this evening - I

shall expect to find the stalks about fifty feet long. Am I

right?”

 

“Why, no,” said the Guide; “a foot or two is about the usual length

of our hay. What can you be thinking of?”

 

The Distinguished Naturalist made no immediate reply, but later, as

in the shades of night they journeyed through the desolate vastness

of the Great Lone Land, he broke the silence:

 

“I was thinking,” he said, “of the uncommon magnitude of that

grass-hopper.”

 

The Pavior

 

AN Author saw a Labourer hammering stones into the pavement of a

street, and approaching him said:

 

“My friend, you seem weary. Ambition is a hard taskmaster.”

 

“I’m working for Mr. Jones, sir,” the Labourer replied.

 

“Well, cheer up,” the Author resumed; “fame comes at the most

unexpected times. To-day you are poor, obscure, and disheartened,

and to-morrow the world may be ringing with your name.”

 

“What are you giving me?” the Labourer said. “Cannot an honest

pavior perform his work in peace, and get his money for it, and his

living by it, without others talking rot about ambition and hopes

of fame?”

 

“Cannot an honest writer?” said the Author.

 

The Tried Assassin

 

AN Assassin being put upon trial in a New England court, his

Counsel rose and said: “Your Honour, I move for a discharge on the

ground of ‘once in jeopardy’: my client has been already tried for

that murder and acquitted.”

 

“In what court?” asked the Judge.

 

“In the Superior Court of San Francisco,” the Counsel replied.

 

“Let the trial proceed - your motion is denied,” said the Judge.

“An Assassin is not in jeopardy when tried in California.”

 

The Bumbo of Jiam

 

THE Pahdour of Patagascar and the Gookul of Madagonia were

disputing about an island which both claimed. Finally, at the

suggestion of the International League of Cannon Founders, which

had important branches in both countries, they decided to refer

their claims to the Bumbo of Jiam, and abide by his judgment. In

settling the preliminaries of the arbitration they had, however,

the misfortune to disagree, and appealed to arms. At the end of a

long and disastrous war, when both sides were exhausted and

bankrupt, the Bumbo of Jiam intervened in the interest of peace.

 

“My great and good friends,” he said to his brother sovereigns, “it

will be advantageous to you to learn that some questions are more

complex and perilous than others, presenting a greater number of

points upon which it is possible to differ. For four generations

your royal predecessors disputed about possession of that island,

without falling out. Beware, oh, beware the perils of

international arbitration! - against which I feel it my duty to

protect you henceforth.”

 

So saying, he annexed both countries, and after a long, peaceful,

and happy reign was poisoned by his Prime Minister.

 

The Two Poets

 

Two Poets were quarrelling for the Apple of Discord and the Bone of

Contention, for they were very hungry.

 

“My sons,” said Apollo, “I will part the prizes between you. You,”

he said to the First Poet, “excel in Art - take the Apple. And

you,” he said to the Second Poet, “in Imagination - take the Bone.”

 

“To Art the best prize!” said the First Poet, triumphantly, and

endeavouring to devour his award broke all his teeth. The Apple

was a work of Art.

 

“That shows our Master’s contempt for mere Art,” said the Second

Poet, grinning.

 

Thereupon he attempted to gnaw his Bone, but his teeth passed

through it without resistance. It was an imaginary Bone.

 

The Thistles upon the Grave

 

A MIND Reader made a wager that he would be buried alive and remain

so for six months, then be dug up alive. In order to secure the

grave against secret disturbance, it was sown with thistles. At

the end