The Strange Adventures of Mr. Middleton

by Wardon Allan Curtis

  _What Befell Mr. Middleton Because of the Fourth Gift of the Emir._

  "What an unpleasant surprise it must have been to Klingenspiel,"remarked the emir, when he had completed his narration, "to find allhis fine experimenting in the science of heredity merely resulting innearly accomplishing his own death."

  "His experience is not unique," said Mr. Middleton. "There is many aneconomic, social, political, or industrial change which is inauguratedwith the highest hopes only to slay its author in the end."

  "We should indeed be careful what waves we set in motion, what forceswe liberate," said the emir thoughtfully. "And I have been, too. Ihave in my possession a constant reminder to be cautious in all myenterprises and undertakings--a monitor forever bidding me think ofthe consequences of an action, weigh its possible results. It has beenin my family for generations. I believe that our house has learned thelesson. I would be glad to give it to some one who, perchance, hasnot. If it so happens that you are in no need of such a warning, youcan perhaps present it to some one else who is." And having said a fewwords to Mesrour in the language of Arabia, the blackamore brought tohim a small case and, from the midst of wrappings of dark green silk,he produced a flask of burnished copper that shone with the utmostbrilliance. Handing this to Mr. Middleton and that gentleman viewingit in silence for some time and exhibiting no other emotion than amild curiosity, largely due to its great weight, a ponderosityaltogether out of proportion to its size, the emir exclaimed in a loudvoice:

  "Do you know what you are holding?" and without waiting for an answerfrom his startled guest, continued: "Observe the inscription upon theside and the stamp of a signet set upon the seal that closes themouth."

  "I perceive a number of Arabic characters," said Mr. Middleton.

  "Arabic!" said the emir. "Hebrew. You are looking upon the seal of thegreat Solomon himself and that is the prison house of one of the twoevil genii whom the great king confined in bottles and cast into thesea. In that collection of chronicles which the Feringhis style theArabian Nights, you have read of the fisherman who found a bottle inhis net and opened it to see a quantity of dark vapor issue forth,which, assuming great proportions, presently took form, coalesced intothe gigantic figure of a terrible genii, who announced to histerrified liberator that during his captivity, he had sworn to killwhomsoever let him out of the bottle. This well-known occurrence andstock example of the necessity of being careful of the possibleresults of one's acts, is so familiar to you as to make its furtherrelation an impertinence on my part. Suffice it to say, in cause youhave forgotten a minor detail, there was another genii and anotherbottle in the sea beside the one found by the fisherman.

  "The second bottle in some unknown way came into the possession ofPrince Houssein, brother of my great-grandfather's great-grandfather,Nourreddin. This latter prince having need of a certain amount ofcoin--which was very scarce in Arabia at that time and of greatpurchasing power, trade being carried on by barter--sent to hisbrother a request for a loan. The country was in a very disturbedstate at that time and Houssein dispatched two messengers at aninterval of a day apart. The first of these was robbed and killed. Hebore a letter, concealed in his saddle, and the money. The secondmessenger came in entire safety with that bottle, for no one could bedesirous of trifling with anything so fraught with danger as thatprison house of the terrible genii. What was the purport of thisstrange gift has never been guessed. The letter borne by the murderedman doubtless explained. Houssein himself perished of plague beforeNourreddin could learn from him."

  Mr. Middleton sat holding the enchanted bottle very gingerly. If hehad not feared to give offence to the emir, he would have declined thegift, for while not for one moment did he dream that a demoniacpresence fretted inside that shining copper, he did believe that itcontained some explosive, or what would be more probable, somemephitic substance that gave off a deadly vapor. So, fully resolved tothrow the bottle into the river and being very heedful of Achmed'sinjunction not to let the leaden plug bearing Solomon's seal beremoved from the mouth, he placed the gift in his pocket and havingthanked the emir for his entertainment and instruction and the gift,he departed.

  When Mr. Middleton had stepped into the street, he altered hisresolution to immediately dispose of the bottle. He was tired and didnot care to walk to the river. Nor did he wish to ride there andalight, spending two car fares to get home. So postponing until themorrow the casting into the Chicago River of the unhappy genii who hadonce reposed on the bottom of the Persian Gulf, he boarded a car forhome.

  The bulk and weight of the bottle sagging down his pocket andthreatening to injure the set of his coat, Mr. Middleton held hisacquisition on his knee. A tall, serious-looking individual was hisseat mate, who after regarding the bottle intently for some time,addressed him in a low, but earnest voice.

  "Pray pardon my curiosity, but I am going to ask you what that queerreceptacle is."

  "It is the prison-house of a wicked genii, who was shut therein byKing Solomon, the magic influence of whose seal on the plug in themouth retains him within, for what resistance could the physical forceof those copper walls oppose to the strength of that mighty demon?"

  Of these words did Mr. Middleton deliver himself, though he knew theymust sound passing strange, but on the spur of the moment he could notthink what else to say and he hoped that the belief he would createthat his mind was affected would relieve him of further questioning,for if put to it and pinned down, what could he say, what plausibleaccount could he give of the bottle? To his surprise, the strangergave no evidence of other than a complete acceptance of his statementand continuing to make inquiries in a most respectful and courteousway, Mr. Middleton felt he could not be less mannerly himself, and sohe related all he knew of the bottle, avowing his belief that itcontained some dangerous chemical, such as that devilish corrodingstuff known as Greek fire, or some deadly gas.

  "Your theory sounds reasonable," said the stranger; "and yet whoknows? That inscription certainly is Hebrew. At least, it is neitherEnglish nor German. When one has studied psychic phenomena as long asI have, he comes to a point where he is very chary of saying what isnot credible. Do I not, time and again, materialize the dead, callingfrom the winds, the waters, and the earth the dispersed particles ofthe corporeal frame to reclothe for a little time the spiritualessence? Could not the great Solomon do as much? Is it not possiblethat that great moral ensamplar, guide, saint, and prophet hasimprisoned in that bottle some one of the Pre-Adamite demons? I am notafraid to open the bottle, on the contrary, would be glad to do so. Iam a clairvoyant and trance-medium, with materialization as aspecialty. My name is Jefferson P. Smitz. Here is my card. I have aseance to-morrow night. Bring your bottle then, and I will open it.The price of admission is," he said, with a glance of tentativescrutiny, "one dollar," at which information Mr. Middleton, lookingunresponsive, uninterested, not to say sulky, he continued: "but asyou will bring such an important and interesting contribution to thesubject of inquiry for the evening, we will make the admission for youonly fifty cents, fifty cents."

  On the following evening, Mr. Middleton and his bottle sat among acircle of some thirty persons who were gathered in the gloomy,lofty-ceiled parlor of Mr. Smitz. Before forming the circle, Mr. Smitzhad addressed the company in a few well-chosen words, saying that alike purpose had brought all there that night, that as votaries ofscience and devotees of truth and persons of culture and refinement,mutual acquaintance could not but be pleasant as well as helpful,enabling those who sat together while witnessing the astounding andedifying phenomena they were soon to behold, to discuss thesephenomena with reciprocal benefit--in view of all this, he hopedeverybody would consider themselves introduced to everybody else.

  Mr. Middleton, quickly inspecting the assemblage, whom he doubtlesswith great injustice denominated a crowd of sober dubs and solemnstiffs, so maneuvered that when all had drawn their chairs into acircle, a man deaf in the right ear sat at his left, while at hisright sat a tall young lady, who though slightly
pale was of aninteresting appearance, notwithstanding. The somewhat tragic cast ofher large and classic features was intensified by a pair of greatmournful eyes and a wistful mouth, the whole framed in luxuriantmasses of black hair, and altogether she was a girl whom one wouldgive a second and third glance anywhere.

  It developing in their very first exchange of remarks that she hadnever been present at a seance and that she could not look forward towhat they were about to witness without great trepidation, Mr.Middleton offered to afford her every moral support and such physicalprotection as one mortal can assure another when facing the unknownpowers of another world. At the extinguishment of the gas, he took herleft hand, and finding it give a faint tremor, he took the other andwas pleased to note that, so far as her hands gave evidence, thereuponher fears were quite allayed.

  A breeze, chill and dank as the breath of a tomb, blew upon thecompany, and from the deep darkness into which they all stared withstraining, unseeing eyes, came the solemn sound of Mr. Smitz, speakinghurriedly in somber tones in some sonorous unknown tongue, and lowrustlings and whirrs and soft footfalls and faint rattlings that grewstronger, louder, each moment, swelling up into the stamp of a mailedheel and the clangor of arms as Mr. Smitz scratched a match and thelight of a gas jet glanced upon helmet, corslet, shield, and greavesof a brazen-armored Greek warrior, standing in the middle of thecircle, alive, in full corporeal presence!

  "Leonidas, hero of Thermopylae!" shouted Mr. Smitz, and then continuedat a conversational pitch, "if any of you wish to speak to him in hisown language, you have full permission to do so."

  Those present lacking either the desire to accost the dread presence,or a command of the ancient Greek, after a bit Mr. Smitz turned offthe gas and the noises that had heralded the visitant's appearancebegan in reverse order, and at their cease, the gas being turned onagain, there was the circle quite bare of any evidence that a Greekwarrior in full panoply had but now stood there.

  At these prodigies, the young lady trembled, but you could haveapplied all sorts of surgical devices for measuring nerve reaction toMr. Middleton from the crown of his head to where his parallel feetheld between them the copper bottle, and not have detected a tremor.

  Mr. Smitz was reaching up to extinguish the gas once more, when a big,athletic blonde man, whose appearance and garb proclaimed him anEnglishman, interrupted him.

  "I am going to request you to materialize the spirit with whom I wishto converse, the next time. I have to catch a train at eleven andthere are a number of things I would like to do before that.Yesterday, you promised me that you would materialize him firstthing."

  "Yesterday," said Mr. Smitz with a slight hauteur, "I could not lookforward and see that I was to have such a large and cultivatedgathering. You cannot, sir, ask to have your own mere personalbusiness, for business it is with you, take precedence of thescientific quests of all these other ladies and gentlemen. I haveplanned to materialize men of many nations, with whom all may converseif they please; Confucius, the great Chinese; Caesar, the great Roman;Mohammed, the great Turk; Powhattan, the great Indian, and others.Your business must wait."

  "My friends," said the Englishman, appealing to the assemblage, "Ithrow myself upon your good nature. My grandfather was the owner of asmall estate in Ireland. In a rebellion, the Irish burned everybuilding on the place and it has since been deserted. He had buried asum of money before he fled during the rebellion and we have a charttelling where it was buried. But the chart referred to buildings andtrees that were subsequently utterly destroyed. We have no marks toguide us. I am sadly in need of money. My grandfather's ghost couldtell me where the treasure is. I shall suffer financial detriment if Ido not catch the train at eleven and must attend to several mattersbefore that. You have heard my case. May I not ask you all to grant methe indulgence of having my affair disposed of now?"

  Mr. Middleton and several others were about to endorse the justice ofthe Englishman's request, when Mr. Smitz hastily forestalled them bysaying that all should be heard from and turning to four personageswho sat together at a point where the line of chairs of the circlepassed before a large and mysterious cabinet set in the corner of thewall, and asking their opinion, they all four in one voice began toobject to any alteration of the program of the evening, advertingsomewhat to the Boer War, the oppressions in Ireland, and to theRevolution and the War of 1812. When they had done, there was no onewho cared to say a word for the Englishman or an Englishman, and Mr.Smitz announced that Confucius would be the next materialization andthat all might address him in his native tongue. Of this permission, asmall red-head gentleman, whose demeanor advertised him to be in asomewhat advanced state of intoxication, availed himself and remarkedslowly:

  "Hello, John. Washee, washee? Sabe how washee? Wlanter be Melicanman?"

  To this the great sage vouchsafed no reply save a contemptuous stare,and the red-headed gentleman observed that doubtless the Chineselanguage had changed a good deal in two thousand years. All languagesdid.

  From out the darkness under whose cover the Chinaman was modestlydivesting himself of his body, came the voice of Mr. Smitz, rich,unctuous, saying:

  "The next visitant will be from that great race we all admire so much,the noble race which has done so much to build up this country, whichin every field of American endeavor has been a guiding star to us all.It gives me great pleasure to tell you that our next visitant from theworld beyond is that great soldier, statesman, and patriot, King BrianBoru."

  "Who the devil wants to see that or any other paddy?" exclaimed thevoice of the Englishman, choleric, savage. "Let me out of thisblarsted, cheating hole. Who wants to see one of that race ofquarrelsome, thieving, wretched rapscallions?"

  Whack! Smash! Bang! Crash! The assemblage was thrown into a pitiablestate of terror by a most extraordinary combat and tumult taking placesomewhere in the circle. The remonstrances of Mr. Smitz and the oathsof the Englishman rose against the general din of the expostulationsof the men and cries of the women. Match after match was struck by themen, only to be blown out by some mysterious agency, after givingmomentary glimpses of the Englishman astride of a man on the floor,pummelling him lustily, while Mr. Smitz pulled at the Englishman'sshoulders. At length the noise died away, the sound of some oneremonstrating, "let me at him oncet, let me at the spalpeen, he got mefoul," coming back from some remote region of the atmosphere, as underthe compelling force of the will of the great Smitz, the bodilyenvelope of the Irish hero was dissipated and his soul went back tothe beyond.

  Then did a match reach the gas without being blown out. Beneath thechandelier stood Mr. Smitz and the four personages who had sat beforethe cabinet and had views on the Boer War.

  "What an awful, sacrilegious thing you have done," exclaimed Mr.Smitz. "You have struck the dead."

  "He hit me first."

  "Your remarks about the Irish angered him. He could not restrainhimself."

  "Well, he couldn't whip me. Next time you materialize him, he'll showa black eye. Let me out of here, you cheat, you imposter, you and yourpals, or I'll fix you as I did Brian Boru."

  Though the company did not take the Englishman's view, they were allanxious to go. They were quite unstrung by what had occurred, thiscombat between the living and the dead. They looked with horrified aweat the spot where it had taken place. There stood the livingcombatant, still full of the fire of battle. Him whom he had foughtwas gone on the winds to the voiceless abodes of the departed, abreath, a shadow, a sudden chill on the cheek and nothing more. For abrief space resuming his old fleshly habitude, with it had come thecholers and hatreds of the flesh and once more he avenged hiscountry's wrongs.

  "Say," said the Englishman, with a malign look on his face, as hepaused in the door, "if you've got that mick patched up any down inthe kitchen, I'll give him another chance, if he wishes. Tell him topick a smaller man next time."

  To this, Mr. Smitz made no reply, but flashed a look that would havefrozen any one less insolent and truculent than the Englishman.
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br />   All this time Mr. Middleton had been very agreeably employed in acorner of the room, for the young lady in an access of terror hadthrown herself into his arms and there she had remained during thewhole affrighting performance. To forerun any possible apprehensionthat he was going to extricate himself and leave her, he held her withconsiderable firmness, whispering encouragement into her ear thewhile. Preparing to accompany her home, he had almost left the roombefore he bethought him of the copper bottle, which he had abandonedwhen springing up to get the young lady out of the circle and awayfrom danger. He soon found it lying against the wall, whither it hadrolled or been kicked during the melee.

  The young lady continuing to be in a somewhat prostrated state afterher late experience, on the way home Mr. Middleton supported her byhis right arm about her waist, while she found further stay by restingher left arm across his shoulders, she being a tall young lady. Theirremaining hands met in a clasp of cheer and encouragement on his part,of trusting dependence on hers. Arriving at her door in this fashion,it was but natural for Mr. Middleton--who was a very natural youngman--to clasp her in a good-night embrace, but upon essaying to putthe touch of completion to these joys which a kiss would give, shedrew away her head, saying:

  "Why, how dare you, sir! I never met you before. Why, I haven't evenbeen formally introduced to you."

  Mr. Middleton humbly pleading for the salute, she continued to expressher surprise that he should prefer such a request upon no acquaintanceat all, that he should even faintly expect her to grant it, and so on,all the while leaning languishing upon his breast with all her weight.Whereupon Mr. Middleton lost patience and with incisive sarcasm hebegan:

  "One would think that you who refuse this kiss were not the girl whostands here within my arms, my lips saying this into her ears, hercheek almost touching mine. Doubtless it is some one else. Pray tellme, what great difference is there between kissing a stranger andhugging him."

  At these brutal, downright words, leaving the poor young thing nothingto say, no little pretence even to herself that she had guarded theproprieties, had comported herself circumspectly, leaving her with noteven a little rag of a claim that she had conducted herself withseemly decorum, she sprang from him and began to cry. Whatever thecause, Mr. Middleton could not look upon feminine unhappiness withcomposure and here where he was himself responsible, he was indeedsmitten with keen remorse and hastening to comfort her, gathered herinto his arms and there he was abasing and condemning himself andtelling her what a dear, nice girl she was--and kissing away hertears.

  "Let me give you a piece of advice," he said, fifteen minutes later,as he was about to release her and depart. "It is not best ever to leta man hug you. Never," he said, pausing to imprint a lingering kissupon the girl's yielding lips, "never let a man kiss you again untilthat moment when you shall become his affianced wife."

  Mr. Middleton departed in that serene state of mind which theconsciousness of virtue bestows, for he had given the young womanvaluable advice that would doubtless be of advantage to her in thefuture and he reflected upon this in much satisfaction as he faredaway with the eyes of the young woman watching him from where shelooked out of the parlor window.

  Reaching into his right coat pocket to transfer the copper bottle tothe opposite pocket, in order that his coat might not be pulled out ofshape, as he grasped the neck, one of his fingers went right into themouth! The seal of Solomon was gone! A less resolute and quick-wittedperson might have been alarmed, but reasoning that the seal must havebeen knocked off during the fight at Mr. Smitz's and nothing hadhappened since, he boldly examined the bottle. He could see a whitesubstance as he looked into it, and by the aid of a stick he fishedout a wad of wool tightly stuffed in the neck. A metallic chinkingfollowed the removal of the wadding and set his heart thumpingrapidly. He looked up and down the street. No one in sight. He tiltedthe bottle up to the light of a street lamp and saw a yellow gleam. Heshook it and into his hands flowed a stream of gold sequins! He couldnot sufficiently admire the ruse of Prince Houssein. Money on thefirst messenger there had been none.

  In a center more given to numismatics, or had he been willing to waitand sell the coins gradually, Mr. Middleton might have secured morethan he did for the gold pieces, all coined at Bagdad in the earlycaliphates and very valuable. But he disposed of them in a lump to aFrench gentleman on La Salle Street for fourteen hundred andtwenty-five dollars.

  Calling on the young lady of Englewood within the next few days, hemade no reference to these events, though she asked him several timesduring the evening what he had been doing lately. He did, however,hint at having profited by a certain fortunate "deal," as he calledit, but not a word did he say concerning the mournful girl or anythingremotely connected with her.

  Hesitating to hurt the emir's feelings by exposing the obtuseness ofhis ancestor Noureddin and the foolish superstition of his descendantsever since, Mr. Middleton said nothing of these transactions when oncemore he sat in the presence of the urbane and accomplished prince ofthe tribe of Al-Yam. Having handed him a bowl of delicately flavoredsherbet, the emir began the narration of The Pleasant Adventures ofDr. McDill.