Delphi Works of Robert E. Howard (Illustrated) (Series Four)

by Robert E. Howard

  I am taking Latin Zara so none of them Italians wontcheat me none. You know Zara, they are a lot of grafters yet. One time one of the sold me a gold watch chain for fifty it was all brass yet. The dirty crook. The fellers got right vot says, “Honesty is the stuff, yet.” It was a good thing the fifty cents I gave him was counterfeit yet. And speaking of fifty cents, does your brother think I am a bank yet?

  I see my friend Moe Silverstein wrote a play which is appearing on Broadway. That Moe is my best friend. He could have my wife if I had one and I would nearly lend him money — maybe.

  I think I will write plays because I am better business man than Moe didnt I always win all his money when we was kids and betting on the ghetto champions? But I had a system Zara. Like when Frankie Fleming and Benny Leonard had their bout, I bet a hundred dollars on each one so I couldnt have lost money yet. I always had good business head Zara if I lost a bet I never would pay it.

  But here is a play I wrote.

  The Revolution Yet

  Scene 1: Buckingsausage Palace.

  Enter Lord Northsky: “Your mejesty, these Americans are giving competition yet. It goes by them tea cheaper than we can sell it.”

  King Georgestein: “Vot? Is dese a system? Raise the tariff.” (Lord Northsky calls some soldier and they raise it.)

  Scene 2: America.

  Patrick Henrystein: “Vot kind of a party is diss? Given me reduced prices or a high selling list. It’ll give a big sale with ‘Goods damages by fire, water and powder yet.’ ”

  Scene 3: Yorktownsky.

  General Cornskywallis: “We got to sell out or go broke. These Americans are overbuying and underselling us at a profit yet.”

  Exeunt

  Of course Zara, our ancestors didnt come over until all the Indian and Englishers and varmints was chased out but that dont matter. This country is as much ours as anybody, I guess, and if these natives don’t like it, we can always go back to Europe.

  Now Zara, I vill close, send me your love and lots of kisses and that fifty cents which your loafer of a brother owes me yet.

  Yours,

  Saul Silveresky.

  * * *

  THE THESSALIANS

  First published in The Yellow Jacket (the newspaper of Howard Payne College), January 13, 1927

  Some acting clubs might have it over the Thessalian Artists for fancy stuff, but when it comes to straight acting, no fakes not hitting in the clinches, we took the celluloid frying pan. Hipurbilee Jones was our manager and the old fellow was as slick as any in the country. We put on a few performances at Millford and then started on a tour of theatrical engagements. It was high class stuff, no second rate vaudeville; we played Shakespeare, Marlowe, Goethe, and some of the moderns. Also we put on some original plays designed by our leading lady, Miss Arimenta Gepps. Two of these, “Was it Love?” and “The Crimson Red Scarlet,” always went over big and we used one of them for our last night’s performance.

  Things didn’t always run so smooth though, and just now I’m thinking about a performance we gave in a bush league town in Nevada. “One Night Only” it was billed, and it was a good thing for us. We were playing “The Woman of the Mask” an original play of four acts, written by Ephraim Jube, our poetical “heavy.” It was a hot sketch, full of mystic doings, secret loves and sudden murders, all about kings and lords, with countesses and princesses mixed in with reckless profusion.

  The town “Opery House” as the yokels called it, was filled to the guards. Everything was going fine except that some windows were out and the wind kept whistling through and blowing the false whiskers off Alonzo Chub who was the King of Keramusa in the play. But altogether the play was a success with the exception of a scene in the second act when Chub’s crown accidentally fell off and landing on the leading lady’s toe, caused her to make some remarks that weren’t a part of the dialogue.

  As the fourth act commenced, old Hipurbilee Jones came bustling up behind the scenes, saying that we’d have to make a night run, as the town had only one train a week and that left just twelve minutes after our performance was concluded. He’d had all the luggage loaded on except what we were using and as soon as the curtain fell, we were to hurry up to change our costumes and beat it for the station. We never liked to stay in a town any longer after a show than we had to, owing to the short-changing proclivities of Hank Jepson the ticket seller, and also to habits of Somolia States, the property man, who had a way of collecting pocket books when the owners weren’t looking. So we told Belle Jimsonwee, our star dancer, to quit taking so many encores between acts, and Hipurbilee went off saying he’d have the critters put on the train. The company had a small menagerie which was used sometimes in light comedies, including a rattlesnake, a couple of pink mice, some guinea pigs and Aurelious, the scentless skunk.

  Came the dawn of a new act; the fourth to be exact. Now in this act a little light comedy was to be instilled by the king’s jester soaking the villain with a stuffed shillelagh. Naturally, the aforesaid shillaily had been misplaced, and as time approached, we were forced to find some substitute. The jester wanted to use a section of curtain pole, but Ephraim waxed oratorical on the subject and as usual, Somolia States rose to heights of ingeniousness and procured a three foot length of bologna sausage. It was to be concealed behind a screen and at the moment of use, the jester would reach back, seize it and massage Ephraim Jube’s poetic cranium with it. Meanwhile the rest of us were scurrying hither and yon, mostly yon behind the scenes, packing used costumes and so on. The moment came, the audience leaned forward expectantly, scenting amusement the jester made a grab for the bologna and swung for Ephraim’s jaw — a cat had wandered in and was nibbling at the sausage and when the jester brought it forth, she was clinging to the other end. As the bologna described the arc intended, she lost her hold and with the screech of a lost soul, went sailing through the air, completing her flight in the mayor’s face, who sat on the front row. A pitched battle ensued, from which the cat fled, routed but victorious and the mayor got up and used language and made some wise cracks about law suits. However, we stopped the play long enough for the leading lady to apologize in her most bewitching manner and the old coot smirked and bowed and sat down again, whereupon we went on with the play. But Alonzo Chub made it a point of honor never to let a play go without pulling some bonehead. This time he was helping Somolia do up a stage carpet behind the scenes, and he backed out onto the stage into an impassioned love scene. Unknowing, he stood there like a yap, with his back to the audience, engrossed in his task, and totally unaware that he was out on the stage. Somolia started to roast him, when a budding genius in the audience put a hornet* in a nigger-shooter† and let ‘er go. The hornet buzzed through the air a lot faster than he’d ever flown, he hit Alonzo’s pants and hit end-on. Alonzo let out a squeal, climbed halfway up the screens, made a few impassioned gestures and left via the window. His shouts of “Fire!” came floating back for seven blocks. The audience rose as one man and applauded generously, and about that time a masked figure came running out on the stage. “Holy cat!” said Algernon Repples, the hero, “What does she mean? This ain’t the time for unmasking?” For the great scene that revealed the masked lady came just before the curtain fell.

  [* hornet: a small wad of paper; † nigger-shooter: a slingshot.]

  “You gotta, now.” say Somolia, so Algernon, rushes forward, jerks off the mask and reveals the bibulous and hilarious countenance of Augustus Buff, scene shifter, who was lit like a power-plant. Just at that moment a feminine yowl from behind the screen announced that Miss Arimenta Gepps had discovered that she had been euchred out of an act, and was letting her artistic temperament go on the rampage.

  Somolia likewise gives a yell and Algernon swings on Augustus who takes a nose dive into the orchestra, completely ruining two fiddles and a mouth organ.

  And amidst the confusion a small demure critter saunters in the door and starts promenading up the aisles.

  Somolia allows that it’s
Aurelious, the violet scented skunk and goes burning the breeze down the aisle to chase him out. But a few feet away, he stops with a most curious expression on his face. Then he ‘bout-faces and heads the other way. For it wasn’t Aurelious, no, it wasn’t.

  The town people had bragged that the opera house could be emptied in three minutes but this time the record was broken by two minutes and thirty seconds.

  And any one who’d been on the streets, might have been edified by the sight of a company of high-class actors breaking Nurmi’s* best records three jumps ahead of a ravening mob that wanted to lynch us, or such absurdity.

  [*The Finnish athlete Paavo Nurmi (1897-1973) who was the world’s best middle and long distance runner at the time of writing. ]

  The train pulled out just as we climbed aboard and I doubt if any of us ever go back there. In fact, I think it very improbably. Very.

  YE COLLEGE DAYS

  First published in The Yellow Jacket, January 20, 1927

  “YES” said the ancient Grad, manufacturing a cigarette of T.N.T. and igniting it with a stick of dynamite. “There’s no doubt but the present day college student has it over the boys and girls of my day for advantages. But I doubt if they take advantage of them as they should.

  “Now I don’t believe there ever was a peppier flock of students than we were at Killem Kollege. Talk about class spirit! It was rather rough going for the freshmen the first few terms. But we never made them go to the expense of buying green caps, no, we simply scalped them, so they could be properly classified. I remember one freshman thought to fool us — but we sand papered his head each week.

  “Fact, it took a tough freshman to complete a term in Killem Kollege, and had it not been for the loyalty and support of the surrounding country and the alumni association, I don’t know but what the school might have had to shut down for lack of students. But new ones constantly came in to replace those who had spoken insolently to upperclassmen.

  “Speaking personally, I had little difficulty in my freshman year at college, having spent my last seven vacations in the revolutionary armies of Central America and Mexico, and having attended a prep school personally conducted by John L. Sullivan I had been champion tiger trainer in my class, and held medals for sharp-shooting and for outdoing elephants in feats of strength, so I was prepared to enter Killem Kollege with the best. However, a rather hectic time was had of it.”

  He displayed a cork foot and wig, remarking, “Relics of my freshman days.

  “Back in those days,” he continued, “there was intense rivalry between colleges. Ah, it would have done your soul good to have seen the preparation for a coming football game: the yell meetings, the cheerings, the rifle practice, the sharpening of swords and greasing of pistols.

  “And then the game. And the parade of triumph after the carnage! How we would march about the streets, displaying the tokens of victory on spears — the scalps of the opposing team.

  “I especially recall the game with Slaughterem University. They sent a special boat loaded with students. With our usual courtesy, we met them at the wharfs and such as survived the reception committee were disposed of by the main student body at the football field. It was a hotly contested battle, that football game. And I must commend the school spirit of the girls’ pep squad, who rushed out on the field between halves and slaughtered the wounded of the opposing team, with meat axes.

  “The score was, I think, Killem Kollege forty slain, seventy wounded, Slaughterem University, a hundred slain, thirty wounded. They outplayed the Killem team the first half, maintaining a long range barrage, but the second half the Killem team made a flank attack and getting into close range brought into play their light field-pieces which they used so effectively that the enemy was completely routed.

  “Lynchum and Burnum always gave us something of a battle, one year their students took possession of one half of the field in full force, and kept up a hot rifle first on Killem team from the bleachers, until a bomb thrown by our yell leader effectually silenced them. Thereupon we won the game.

  “Yes, there was a great deal of rivalry. I recall, one day in a class of philosophy, the professor glanced out the window and exclaimed: ‘Gentlemen, barricade the doors and man the windows; the botany class of Kannibal Kollege are upon us. Girls will kindly stand by to load rifles, and let us dispose of these visitors with as much expedience as possible, so we may continue our study of the tenets of the Golden Rule.’

  “At another time we were returning from a successful raid on a neighboring college, when the senior class of Slaughterem University made a sudden night march and the next morning were shown barricaded in the administration building, holding the college president for ransom.

  “Upon our refusal to pay the ransom, they hung him from the cupola, affording great amusement to all of us. However, we merely blew the building up, instead of storming it, levying funds from the surrounding villages to rebuild it.

  “Killem Kollege always had a large attendance, but the exact total shifted continuously, owning to the intense class spirit, the hot rivalry between fraternities, and the number of debating clubs. The attendance of the freshman class was dependant entirely almost, on the price of ammunition.”

  He took up an advertizing card, yellow with age, and read: “Tonight the Bandits and Buccaneers debating clubs will hold their weekly debate, the subject to be debated upon, ‘Resolved that cordite powder is more effective than British powder.’

  “The rules of the debate are as follows: debaters will stand back to back, march twelve steps in opposite directions, turn and fire at the word. There will be seven judges and in the event of a dispute, they may fight it out between themselves. The survivors of the debate will debate again next week, the subject being, ‘Whether the bayonet is more effective than the sabre in hand to hand combat.’

  “That was a great debating team,” said he. “I believes that was the night we burned the freshman president at the stake.”

  He was silent a while, then shrugged his shoulders, “I suppose I’m too old fashioned, for the college today. Still I don’t feel just exactly as if I’d been according the proper treatment by the members of the faculty. The president and I had had words in regard as to the disposal of some college funds — buying a cannon for the boys’ dormitory, I think, and I went to the college for the first time in several years. In a way, it was like old times. Several fresh scalps adorned the campus posts. From the girls’ dormitory came the shrieks of a new girl who was being skinned by some upperclass girls. Two members of rival fraternities were exchanging shots from behind trees across the campus; and as I entered the college boundaries, members of the faculty, mistaking me for the dean of a neighboring college, opened fire on me from the windows of the fine arts building.

  “After reloading, I made my way to the administration building. But I must say that I was not met with the cordiality a man has a right to expect from a college from which he graduated, and to the treatment of which he has always contributed.

  “I am not referring to the various attempts made upon me as I walked up the steps of the college, nor to the fact that I was forced to dispose of the janitor before I could enter. I simply considered that such trifles but reflected the sound loyal principles upon which the college had been founded. No, I did not especially object to those little attentions, nor to the fact that I was forced to demolish three machine guns nests before reaching the wing of the building occupied by the president. But when the president himself suddenly leaped upon me from a secluded corner and swung for me with a broad axe, hacking down a door when he missed, I considered it no less than a breach of etiquette. I think the position of president is still vacant. Doubtless I am hasty in forming my conclusions, but until I have been formally apologized to by the college, I shall refrain from taking any part in its activities.”

  THE REFORMATION: A DREAM

  First published in The Yellow Jacket, April 21, 1927

  SOME DAYS AGO, passing the Yellow Jacket
Nest, I was astonished to note various celebrities, viz: Harvey Stanford, Geeo, and other constellations equally scintillant in the college sky, risking their lives, limbs, manners and morals in a dare-devil game which has begun to find favor in the eyes of the students, and which is known as pitchin’ horseshoes. To the uninitiated, I might say that this game consists in securing a metal article of clothing which at one time adorned the pedal extremity of an equine quadruped, first; next, the deluded victim of this vice, firmly clutching said implement, brandishes it in a most reckless manner and having whirled it above his head a few times, shuts his eyes and hurls it in the general direction of a small peg or stake set in the grass for that purpose. Having exhausted all the horseshoes in the neighbourhood in that manner, the gamesters recollect them from the stake, from the trees and the ankles of passersby, and continue in the same manner. The science of the game consists in making rash statements, disallowing your antagonist’s claims, and arguing at the top of your voice.

  Naturally, afterwards, as I took my siesta, I dreamed, and was wafted into the future several years. Just what part of the world was the scene, I do not know, but I found myself stealing stealthily along a deserted street, somewhere, glancing askancely anon and ever, there and here. Then from a dusky side street, a man emerged and approached me. As he drew near I was astonished to recognize a former schoolmate, Travis Curtis by name. There was a sly and furtive look upon his somewhat haggard countenance and I observed to my surprise that he had grown older in the twenty years that had elapsed since he had fled to Europe with the Republican campaign funds. Approaching me, he fixed me with a shifty eye and hissed the magic word, cautiously, “Limeade!”