The Peck's Bad Boy Megapack

by George W. Peck

  Then, when I looked at a duck blind out in the Potomac, near the shore, I thought how George used to put on an old coat and slouch hat and take his gun and go out in the blind, and shoot canvas-back ducks for dinner, and paddle his boat out after the dead birds, the way Grover Cleveland did a century later. I tell you, old man, the way to appreciate our great statesmen, soldiers and scholars is to think of them just as plain, ordinary citizens, doing the things men do nowadays. It does dad and I more good to think of Washington and his friends camping out down the Potomac, on a fishing trip, sleeping on a bed of pine boughs, and cooking their own pork, and roasting sweet potatoes in the ashes, eating with appetites like slaves, than to think of him at a state dinner in the white house, with a French cook disguising the food so they could not tell what it was.

  O, I had rather have a picture of George Washington and Lafayette coming up the bank of the Potomac toward the house, loaded down with ducks, and Martha standing on the porch of Mount Vernon asking them who they bought the ducks of and how much they cost, than to have one of those big paintings in the white house showing George and Lafayette looking as though they had conquered the world. If the phonograph had been invented then, and we could listen to the conversation of those men, just as they said things, it would be great. Imagine George saying to Lafayette, so you cotild hear it now: “Lafe, that last shot at that canvasback you made was the longest shot ever made on the Potomac. It was a Jim dandy, you old frog eater,” and imagine Lafayette replying: “You bet your life, George, I nailed that buck canvasback with a charge of number six shot, and he never knew what struck him.” But they didn’t have any phonographs in those days and so you have got to imagine things.

  How would Washington’s farewell address sound now in a phonograph, or some of George’s choice swear words at a slave that had ridden a sore-backed mule down to Alexandria after a jug of rum. I would like to run a phonograph show with nothing in the machine but ancient talk from George Washington, but we can have no such luck unless George is born again.

  Old man, if you ever get a furlough from business, you go down to Mount Vernon and revel in memories of the father of his country. If you go, hunt up a negro with a hair lip, that is a servant there, and who used to be Washington’s body servant, unless he is a liar, and tell him I sent you and he won’t do a thing to you, for a dollar or so. I told that negro that dad was a great general, a second Washington, and he wore all the skin off his bald head taking off his hat to dad every time dad looked at him, and he bowed until his back ached, but when we were going away, and dad asked me what ailed the old monkey to act that way, the old negro thought these new Washingtons were a pretty tough lot.

  All the time at Mount Vernon I couldn’t get up meanness enough to play any trick on dad, but I picked up a sort of a horse chestnut or something, with prickers on it as sharp as needles, and as we were getting on the trolley I slipped it down the back of dad’s pants, near where his suspenders button on, and by the time we sat down in the car the horse chestnut had worked down where dad is the largest, and when he leaned back against the seat he turned pale and wiggled around and asked me if he looked bad.

  I told him he looked like a corpse, which encouraged him so he almost fainted. He asked me if I had heard of any contagious diseases that were prevalent in Virginia, ’cause he felt as though he had caught something. I told him I would ask the conductor, so I went and asked the conductor what time we got to Washington, and then I went back to dad and told him the conductor said there was no disease of any particular account, except smallpox and yellow fever, and that the first symptom of smallpox was a prickling sensation in the small of the back.

  Dad turned green and said he had got it all right, and I had the darndest time getting him back to the hotel at Washington. Say, I had to help him undress, and I took the horse chestnut and put it in the foot of the bed, and got dad in, and I went downstairs to see a doctor, and then I came back and told him the doctor said if the prickly sensation went to his feet he was in no danger from smallpox, as it was an evidence that an old vaccination of years ago had got in its work and knocked the disease out of his system lengthwise, and when I told dad that he raised up in bed and said he was saved, for ever since I went out of the room he had felt that same dreaded prickling at work on his feet, and he was all right.

  I told dad it was a narrow escape and that it ought to be a warning to him. Dad has to wear a dress suit to dinner here and cough up money every time he turns around, ’cause I have told the bell boys dad is a bonanza copper king, and they are not doing a thing to dad.

  O, I guess I am doing just as the doctors at home ordered, in keeping dad’s mind occupied.

  Well, so long, old man, I have got to go to dinner with dad, and I am going to order the dinner myself, dad said I could, and if I don’t put him into bankruptcy, you don’t know your little

  Hennery.

  CHAPTER V.

  The Bad Boy and His Dad Have Dinner at the Waldorf-Astoria— The Bad Boy Orders Dinner—The Old Man Gets Stuck—Tries to Rescue a Countess in Distress.

  Waldorf-Astoria, New York.—

  Dear Uncle Ezra: We are still at this tavern, but we don’t do anything but sleep here, and stay around in the lobby evenings to let people look at us, and dad wears that old swallow-tail coat he had before the war, but he has got a new silk hat, since we got here; one of these shiny ones that is so slick it makes his clothes look offul bum. We about went broke on the first supper we had, or dinner they call it here. You see, dad thought this was about a three-dollar-a-day house, and that the meals were included, like they do at Oshkosh, and so when we went down to dinner dad said we wouldn’t do a thing to old Astor. He let me order the dinner, but told me to order everything on the bill-of-sale, because we wanted to get the worth of our three dollars a day. Well, honest, I couldn’t order all there was, ’cause you couldn’t have got it all on a billiard table. Say, that list they gave me had everything on it that was ever et or drunk, but I told dad they would fire us out if we ordered the whole prescription, so all I ordered was terrapin, canvasback duck, oysters, clams, crabs, a lot of new kinds of fish, and some beef and mutton, and turkey, and woodcock, and partridge, and quail, and English pheasant, and lobster and salads and ices, and pie and things, just to stay our stomachs, and when it came to wine, dad weakened, because he didn’t want to set a bad example to me, so he ordered hard cider for hisself and asked me if I wanted anything to drink, and I ordered brown pop. You’d a been tickled to see the waiter when he took that order, ’cause I don’t s’pose anybody ever ordered cider and brown pop there since Astor skinned muskrats for a living, when he was a trapper up north. Gosh, but when they brought that dinner in, you ought to have seen the sensation it created. Most of the people in the great dining hall looked at dad as though he was a Crases, or a Rockefeller, and the head waiter bowed low to dad, and dad thought it was Astor, and dad looked dignified and hurt at being spoken to by a common tavern keeper. Well, we et and et, but we couldn’t get away with hardly any of it, and dad wanted to wrap some of the duck and lobsters and things in a newspaper and take it to the room for a lunch, but the waiter wouldn’t have it. But the cyclone struck the house when dad and I got up to go out of the dining-room, and the waiter brought dad the check.

  “What is this?” said dad, as he put on his glasses and looked at the check which was $43 and over.

  “Dinner check, sir,” said the waiter, as he straightened back and held out his hand.

  “Why, ain’t this house run on the American plan?” said dad, as his chin began to tremble.

  “No, sir, on the Irish plan,” said the waiter. “You pays for what you horders,” and dad began to dig up. He looked at me as though I was to blame, when he told me to order all there was in sight. Well, I have witnessed heart-rending scenes, but I never saw anything that would draw tears like dad digging down for that $43. The doctors at home had ordered excitement for dad, but this seemed to be an overdose, and I was afraid he would
collapse and I offered him my glass of brown pop to stimulate him, but he told me I could go plumb, and if I spoke to him again he would maul me. He got his roll half out of his pistol pocket, and then talked loud and said it was a damoutridge, and he wanted to see Astor himself before he would allow himself to be held up by highwaymen, and then all the other diners stood up and looked at dad, and a lot of waiters and bouncers surrounded him, and then he pulled out the roll, and it was pitiful to see him wet his trembling thumb on his trembling dry tongue and begin to peel off the bills, like you peel the layers off an onion, but he got off enough to pay for the dinner, gave the waiter half a dollar, and smiled a sickly smile at the head waiter, and I led him out of the dining-room a broken-down old man. As we got to the lobby, where the horse show of dress-suit chappies was beginning the evening procession, I said to dad: “Next time we will dine out, I guess,” and at that he rallied and seemed to be able to take a joke, for he said: “We dined out this time. We dined out $43,” and then we joined the procession of walkers around, and tried to look prosperous, and after awhile dad called a bell boy, and asked him if there wasn’t a good dairy lunch counter near the Waldorf, where a man could go and get a bowl of bread and milk, and the bell boy gave him the address of a dairy lunch place, and I can see my finish, ’cause from this out we will probably live on bread and milk while we are here, and I hate bread and milk.

  It got all around the hotel, about the expensive dinner dad ordered for himself and the little heir to his estate, and everybody wanted to get acquainted with dad and try to get some stock in his copper mine. I had told dad about my telling the boys he was a bonanza copper miner, and he never batted an eye when they asked him about his mine, and he looked the part.

  One man wanted dad to cash a check, ’cause the bank was closed, and he was a rich-looking duke, and dad was just going to get his roll out and peel off some more onion, when I said: “Not on your tintype, Mr. Duke,” and dad left his roll in his pocket, and the duke gave me a look as though he wanted to choke me, and went away, saying: “There is Mr. Pierpont Morgan, and I can get him to cash it.” I saved dad over a hundred dollars on that scheme, and so we are making money every minute. We went to our room early, so dad could digest his $43 worth of glad food.

  Gee, but this house got ripped up the back before morning. You remember I told you about a countess, or a duchess, or some kind of high-up female that had a room next to our room. Well, she is a beaut, from Butte, Mont., or Cuba, or somewhere, for she acts like a queen that has just stepped off her throne for a good time. She has got a French maid that is a peacharino. You know that horse chestnut, with the prickers on, that I put in dad’s pants at Washington. Well, I have still got it, and as it gets dry the prickers are sharper than needles, sharper even than a servant’s tooth, as it says in the good book. I thought I would give dad a run for his money, ’cause exercise and excitement are good for a man that dined heartily on $43 worth of rich food, so when we went to our room I told dad that I was satisfied from what a bell boy told me that the countess in the next room, who had gold cords over her shoulders for suspenders, was stuck on him, because she was always inquiring who the lovely old gentleman was with the sweet little boy. Dad he got so interested that he forgot to cuss me about ordering that dinner, and he said he had noticed her, and would like real well to get acquainted with her, ’cause a man far away from home, sick as a dog, with no loving wife to look after him, needed cheerful company. So I told him I had it all arranged for him to meet her, and then I went out in the hall, sort of whistling around, and the French maid came out and broke some English for me, and we got real chummy, ’cause she was anxious to learn English, and I wanted to learn some French words; so she invited me into the room, and we sat on the sofa and exchanged words quite awhile, until she was called to the telephone in the other room. Say, you ought to have seen me. I jumped up and put my hand inside the sheets of the bed, and put that chestnut in there, right about the middle of the bed, and then, after learning French quite a spell, with the maid, we heard the countess getting off’ the elevator, and the maid said I must skip, ’cause it was the countess’ bed-time, and I went back and told dad the whole thing was arranged for him to meet the countess, in a half an hour or so, as she had to write a few letters to some kings and dukes, and when she gave a little scream; as though she was practicing her voice on an opera, or something, dad was to go and rap at the door. Gosh, but I was sorry for dad, for he was so nervous and anxious for the half hour to expire that he walked up and down the room, and looked at himself in the mirror, and acted like he had indigestion. I had told the maid that she and the countess must feel perfectly safe, if anything ever happened, ’cause my dad was the bravest man in the world, and he would rush to the rescue of the countess, if a burglar got in in the night, or the water pipes busted, or anything, and all she had to do was to screech twice and dad would be on deck, and she must open the door quicker-n scat, and she thanked me, and said she would, and for me to come, too. Say, on the dead, wasn’t that a plot for an amateur to cook up? Well, sir, we had to wait so long for the countess to get on the horse chestnut that I got nervous myself, but after awhile there came a scream that would raise your hair, and I told dad the countess was singing the opera. Dad said: “Hennery, that ain’t no opera, that’s tragedy,” but she gave two or three more stanzas, and I told dad he better hustle, and we went out in the hall and rapped at the door of the countess’ room, and the maid opened it, and told us to send for a doctor and a policeman, ’cause the countess was having a fit. Well, say, that was the worst ever. The countess had jumped out of bed, and was pulling the lace curtains around her, but dad thought she was crazy, and was going to jump out of the window, and he made a grab for her, and he shouted to her to “be cam, be cam, poor woman, and I will rescue you.” I tried to pacify the maid the best I knew how, and dad was getting the countess calmer, but she evidently thought he was an assassin, for every little while she would yell for help, and then the night watchman came in with a house policeman, and one of them choked dad off, and they asked the countess what the trouble was, and she said she had just retired when she was stabbed about a hundred times in the small of the back with a poniard, and she knew conspirators were assassinating her, and she screamed, and this old bandit, meaning dad, came in, and the little monkey, meaning me, had held his hand over her maid’s mouth, so she could not make any outcry.

  Well, I got my horse chestnut all right, out of the bed, and the policeman told the countess not to be alarmed, and go back to bed, and they took dad and I to our room, and asked us all about it. Gee, but dad put up a story about hearing a woman scream in the next room, and, thinking only of the duty of a gentleman under the circumstances, rushed to her rescue, and all there was to it was that she must have had a nightmare, but he said if he had it to do over again, he would do the same. Anyway, the policeman believed dad, and they went off and left us, and we went to bed, but dad said: “Hennery, you understand, I don’t want to make any more female acquaintances, see, among the crowned heads, and from this out we mingle only with men. The idea of me going into a woman’s room and finding a Floradora with fits and tantrums, and me, a sick man. Now, don’t write to your ma about this, ’cause she never did have much confidence in me, around women with fits.” So, Uncle Ezra, you must not let this get into the papers, see?

  Well, we have bought our tickets for Liverpool, and shall sail to-morrow, and while you are making up your cash account Saturday night, we shall be on the ocean. I s’pose I will write you on the boat, if they will tie it up somewhere so it will stand level. Your dear boy. Hennery.

  CHAPTER VI.

  The Bad Boy Writes the Old Groceryman About Ocean Voyages— His Dad Has an Argument Over a Steamer Chair.

  On Board the Lucinia, Mid-ocean.

  Dear Old Geezer.

  I take the first opportunity, since leaving New York, to write you, ’cause the boat, after three days out, has got settled down so it runs level, and I can write
without wrapping my legs around the table legs, to hold me down. I have tried a dozen times to write, but the sea was so rough that part of the time the table was on top of me and part of the time I was on top, and I was so sick I seem to have lost my mind, over the rail, with the other things supposed to be inside of me. O, old man, you think you know what seasickness is, ’cause you told me once about crossing Lake Michigan on a peach boat, but lake sickness is easy compared with the ocean malady. I could enjoy common seasickness and think it was a picnic, but this salt water sickness takes the cake. I am sorry for dad, because he holds more than I do, and he is so slow about giving up meals that he has paid for, that it takes him longer to commune with nature, and he groans so, and swears some.

  I don’t see how a person can swear when he is seasick on the ocean, with no sure thing that he will ever see land again, and a good prospect of going to the bottom, where you got to die in the arms of a devil fish, with a shark biting pieces out of your tender loin and a smoked halibut waiting around for his share of your corpse, and whales blowing syphons of water and kicking because they are so big that they can’t get at you to chew cuds of human gum, and porpoises combing your damp hair with their fine tooth comb fins, and sword fish and sawtooth piscatorial carpenters sawing off steaks. Gee, but it makes me crawl. I once saw a dead dog in the river, with bull heads and dog-fish ripping him up the back, and I keep thinking I had rather be that dog, in a nice river at home, with bullheads that I knew chewing me at their leisure, than to be a dead boy miles down in the ocean, with strange fish and sea serpents quarreling over the tender pieces in me. A man told me that if you smoke cigarets and get saturated with nickoteen, and you are drownded, the fish will smell of you, and turn up their noses and go away and leave your remains, so I tried a cigaret, and, gosh, but I had rather be et by fish than smoke another, on an ocean steamer. It only added to my sickness, and I had enough before. I prayed some, when the boat stood on its head and piled us all up in the front end, but a chair struck me on the place where Fitzsimmons hit Corbett, and knocked the prayer all out of me, and when the boat stood on her butt end and we all slid back the whole length of the cabin, and I brought up under the piano, I tried to sing a hymn, such as I used to in the ‘Piscopal choir, before my voice changed, but the passengers who were alive yelled for some one to choke me, and I didn’t sing any more. Dad was in the stateroom when we were rolling back and forth in the cabin, and between sicknesses he came out to catch me and take me into the stateroom, but he got the rolling habit, too, and he rolled a match with an actress who was voyaging for her health, and they got offully mixed up. He tried to rescue her, and grabbed hold of her belt and was reeling her in all right, when a man who said he was her husband took dad by the neck and said he must keep his hands off or get another nose put on beside the one he had, and then they all rolled under a sofa, and how it came out I don’t know, but the next morning dad’s eye was blacked, and the fellow who said he was her husband had his front teeth knocked out, and the actress lost her back hair and had to wear a silk handkerchief tied around her head the rest of the trip, and she looked like a hired girl who has been out to a saloon dance.