Fantastic Fables by Ambrose Bierce (ebook reader play store .txt) 📕

the sentiments of the people of

Wayoff.”

 

“Sire,” said the Spokesman of the Three Persons, “they stand before

you.”

 

“Indeed!” said the King; “are you, then, the people of Wayoff?”

 

“Yes, your Majesty.”

 

“There are not many of you,” the King said, attentively regarding

them with the royal eye, “and you are not so very large; I hardly

think you are a quorum. Moreover, I never heard of you until you

came here; whereas Wayoff is noted for the quality of its pork and

contains hogs of distinction. I shall send a Commissioner to

ascertain the sentiments of the hogs.”

 

The Three Persons, bowing profoundly, backed out of the presence;

but soon afterward they desired another audience, and, on being

readmitted, said, through their Spokesman:

 

“May it please your Majesty, we are the hogs.”

 

The No Case

 

A STATESMAN who had been indicted by an unfeeling Grand Jury was

arrested by a Sheriff and thrown into jail. As this was abhorrent

to his fine spiritual nature, he sent for the District Attorney and

asked that the case against him be dismissed.

 

“Upon what grounds?” asked the District Attorney.

 

“Lack of evidence to convict,” replied the accused.

 

“Do you happen to have the lack with you?” the official asked. “I

should like to see it.”

 

“With pleasure,” said the other; “here it is.”

 

So saying he handed the other a check, which the District Attorney

carefully examined, and then pronounced it the most complete

absence of both proof and presumption that he had ever seen. He

said it would acquit the oldest man in the world.

 

A Harmless Visitor

 

AT a meeting of the Golden League of Mystery a Woman was

discovered, writing in a note-book. A member directed the

attention of the Superb High Chairman to her, and she was asked to

explain her presence there, and what she was doing.

 

“I came in for my own pleasure and instruction,” she said, “and was

so struck by the wisdom of the speakers that I could not help

making a few notes.”

 

“Madam,” said the Superb High Chairman, “we have no objection to

visitors if they will pledge themselves not to publish anything

they hear. Are you - on your honour as a lady, now, madam - are

you not connected with some newspaper?”

 

“Good gracious, no!” cried the Woman, earnestly. “Why, sir, I am

an officer of the Women’s Press Association!”

 

She was permitted to remain, and presented with resolutions of

apology.

 

The Judge and the Rash Act

 

A JUDGE who had for years looked in vain for an opportunity for

infamous distinction, but whom no litigant thought worth bribing,

sat one day upon the Bench, lamenting his hard lot, and threatening

to put an end to his life if business did not improve. Suddenly he

found himself confronted by a dreadful figure clad in a shroud,

whose pallor and stony eyes smote him with a horrible apprehension.

 

“Who are you,” he faltered, “and why do you come here?”

 

“I am the Rash Act,” was the sepulchral reply; “you may commit me.”

 

“No,” the judge said, thoughtfully, “no, that would be quite

irregular. I do not sit to-day as a committing magistrate.”

 

The Prerogative of Might

 

A SLANDER travelling rapidly through the land upon its joyous

mission was accosted by a Retraction and commanded to halt and be

killed.

 

“Your career of mischief is at an end,” said the Retraction,

drawing his club, rolling up his sleeves, and spitting on his

hands.

 

“Why should you slay me?” protested the Slander. “Whatever my

intentions were, I have been innocuous, for you have dogged my

strides and counteracted my influence.”

 

“Dogged your grandmother!” said the Retraction, with contemptuous

vulgarity of speech. “In the order of nature it is appointed that

we two shall never travel the same road.”

 

“How then,” the Slander asked, triumphantly, “have you overtaken

me?”

 

“I have not,” replied the Retraction; “we have accidentally met. I

came round the world the other way.”

 

But when he tried to execute his fell purpose he found that in the

order of nature it was appointed that he himself perish miserably

in the encounter.

 

An Inflated Ambition

 

THE President of a great Corporation went into a dry-goods shop and

saw a placard which read:

 

“If You Don’t See What You Want, Ask For It.”

 

Approaching the shopkeeper, who had been narrowly observing him as

he read the placard, he was about to speak, when the shopkeeper

called to a salesman:

 

“John, show this gentleman the world.”

 

Rejected Services

 

A HEAVY Operator overtaken by a Reverse of Fortune was bewailing

his sudden fall from affluence to indigence.

 

“Do not weep,” said the Reverse of Fortune. “You need not suffer

alone. Name any one of the men who have opposed your schemes, and

I will overtake HIM.”

 

“It is hardly worth while,” said the victim, earnestly. “Not a

soul of them has a cent!”

 

The Power of the Scalawag

 

A FORESTRY Commissioner had just felled a giant tree when, seeing

an honest man approaching, he dropped his axe and fled. The next

day when he cautiously returned to get his axe, he found the

following lines pencilled on the stump:

 

“What nature reared by centuries of toil,

A scalawag in half a day can spoil;

An equal fate for him may Heaven provide -

Damned in the moment of his tallest pride.”

 

At Large - One Temper

 

A TURBULENT Person was brought before a Judge to be tried for an

assault with intent to commit murder, and it was proved that he had

been variously obstreperous without apparent provocation, had

affected the peripheries of several luckless fellow-citizens with

the trunk of a small tree, and subsequently cleaned out the town.

While trying to palliate these misdeeds, the defendant’s Attorney

turned suddenly to the Judge, saying:

 

“Did your Honour ever lose your temper?”

 

“I fine you twenty-five dollars for contempt of court!” roared the

Judge, in wrath. “How dare you mention the loss of my temper in

connection with this case?”

 

After a moment’s silence the Attorney said, meekly:

 

“I thought my client might perhaps have found it.”

 

The Seeker and the Sought

 

A POLITICIAN seeing a fat Turkey which he wanted for dinner, baited

a hook with a grain of corn and dragged it before the fowl at the

end of a long and almost invisible line. When the Turkey had

swallowed the hook, the Politician ran, drawing the creature after

him.

 

“Fellow-citizens,” he cried, addressing some turkey-breeders whom

he met, “you observe that the man does not seek the bird, but the

bird seeks the man. For this unsolicited and unexpected dinner I

thank you with all my heart.”

 

His Fly-Speck Majesty

 

A DISTINGUISHED Advocate of Republican Institutions was seen

pickling his shins in the ocean.

 

“Why don’t you come out on dry land?” said the Spectator. “What

are you in there for?”

 

“Sir,” replied the Distinguished Advocate of Republican

Institutions, “a ship is expected, bearing His Majesty the King of

the Fly-Speck Islands, and I wish to be the first to grasp the

crowned hand.”

 

“But,” said the Spectator, “you said in your famous speech before

the Society for the Prevention of the Protrusion of Nail Heads from

Plank Sidewalks that Kings were blood-smeared oppressors and hell-bound loafers.”

 

“My dear sir,” said the Distinguished Advocate of Republican

Institutions, without removing his eyes from the horizon, “you

wander away into the strangest irrelevancies! I spoke of Kings in

the abstract.”

 

The Pugilist’s Diet

 

THE Trainer of a Pugilist consulted a Physician regarding the

champion’s diet.

 

“Beef-steaks are too tender,” said the Physician; “have his meat

cut from the neck of a bull.”

 

“I thought the steaks more digestible,” the Trainer explained.

 

“That is very true,” said the Physician; “but they do not

sufficiently exercise the chin.”

 

The Old Man and the Pupil

 

A BEAUTIFUL Old Man, meeting a Sunday-school Pupil, laid his hand

tenderly upon the lad’s head, saying: “Listen, my son, to the words

of the wise and heed the advice of the righteous.”

 

“All right,” said the Sunday-school Pupil; “go ahead.”

 

“Oh, I haven’t anything to do with it myself,” said the Beautiful

Old Man. “I am only observing one of the customs of the age. I am

a pirate.”

 

And when he had taken his hand from the lad’s head, the latter

observed that his hair was full of clotted blood. Then the

Beautiful Old Man went his way, instructing other youth.

 

The Deceased and his Heirs

 

A MAN died leaving a large estate and many sorrowful relations who

claimed it. After some years, when all but one had had judgment

given against them, that one was awarded the estate, which he asked

his Attorney to have appraised.

 

“There is nothing to appraise,” said the Attorney, pocketing his

last fee.

 

“Then,” said the Successful Claimant, “what good has all this

litigation done me?”

 

“You have been a good client to me,” the Attorney replied,

gathering up his books and papers, “but I must say you betray a

surprising ignorance of the purpose of litigation.”

 

The Politicians and the Plunder

 

SEVERAL Political Entities were dividing the spoils.

 

“I will take the management of the prisons,” said a Decent Respect

for Public Opinion, “and make a radical change.”

 

“And I,” said the Blotted Escutcheon, “will retain my present

general connection with affairs, while my friend here, the Soiled

Ermine, will remain in the Judiciary.”

 

The Political Pot said it would not boil any more unless

replenished from the Filthy Pool.

 

The Cohesive Power of Public Plunder quietly remarked that the two

bosses would, he supposed, naturally be his share.

 

“No,” said the Depth of Degradation, “they have already fallen to

me.”

 

The Man and the Wart

 

A PERSON with a Wart on His Nose met a Person Similarly Afflicted,

and said:

 

“Let me propose your name for membership in the Imperial Order of

Abnormal Proboscidians, of which I am the High Noble Toby and

Surreptitious Treasurer. Two months ago I was the only member.

One month ago there were two. To-day we number four Emperors of

the Abnormal Proboscis in good standing - doubles every four weeks,

see? That’s geometrical progression - you know how that piles up.

In a year and a half every man in California will have a wart on

his Nose. Powerful Order! Initiation, five dollars.”

 

“My friend,” said the Person Similarly Afflicted, “here are five

dollars. Keep my name off your books.”

 

“Thank you kindly,” the Man with a Wart on His Nose replied,

pocketing the money; “it is just the same to us as if you joined.

Good-by.”

 

He went away, but in a little while he was back.

 

“I quite forgot to mention the monthly dues,” he said.

 

The Divided Delegation

 

A DELEGATION at Washington went to a New President, and said:

 

“Your Excellency, we are unable to agree upon a Favourite Son to

represent us in your Cabinet.”

 

“Then,” said the New President, “I shall have to lock you up until

you do agree.”

 

So the Delegation was cast into the deepest dungeon beneath the

moat, where it maintained a divided mind for many weeks, but

finally reconciled its differences and asked to be taken before the

New President.

 

“My child,” said he, “nothing is so beautiful as harmony. My

Cabinet Selections were all made before our former interview, but

you have supplied a noble instance of patriotism in subordinating