The Best American Humorous Short Stories

[Dark Saint Alaick]

1. "Very well, thank you. And you?" This for an answer to casual salutations.
2. "I am very glad you liked it."
3. "There has been so much said, and, on the whole, so well said, that I will not occupy
the time."
4. "I agree, in general, with my friend on the other side of the room."
At first I had a feeling that I was going to be at great cost for clothing him. But it proved,
of course, at once, that, whenever he was out, I should be at home. And I went, during the
bright period of his success, to so few of those awful pageants which require a black
dress-coat and what the ungodly call, after Mr. Dickens, a white choker, that in the happy
retreat of my own dressing-gowns and jackets my days went by as happily and cheaply as
those of another Thalaba. And Polly declares there was never a year when the tailoring
cost so little. He lived (Dennis, not Thalaba) in his wife's room over the kitchen. He had
orders never to show himself at that window. When he appeared in the front of the house,
I retired to my sanctissimum and my dressing-gown. In short, the Dutchman and, his
wife, in the old weather-box, had not less to do with, each other than he and I. He made
the furnace-fire and split the wood before daylight; then he went to sleep again, and slept
late; then came for orders, with a red silk bandanna tied round his head, with his overalls
on, and his dress-coat and spectacles off. If we happened to be interrupted, no one
guessed that he was Frederic Ingham as well as I; and, in the neighborhood, there grew
up an impression that the minister's Irishman worked day-times in the factory village at
New Coventry. After I had given him his orders, I never saw him till the next day.
I launched him by sending him to a meeting of the Enlightenment Board. The
Enlightenment Board consists of seventy-four members, of whom sixty-seven are
necessary to form a quorum. One becomes a member under the regulations laid down in
old Judge Dudley's will. I became one by being ordained pastor of a church in
Naguadavick. You see you cannot help yourself, if you would. At this particular time we
had had four successive meetings, averaging four hours each--wholly occupied in
whipping in a quorum. At the first only eleven men were present; at the next, by force of
three circulars, twenty-seven; at the third, thanks to two days' canvassing by Auchmuty
and myself, begging men to come, we had sixty. Half the others were in Europe. But
without a quorum we could do nothing. All the rest of us waited grimly for our four
hours, and adjourned without any action.

[Dark Saint Alaick]

At the fourth meeting we had flagged, and only
got fifty-nine together. But on the first appearance of my double--whom I sent on this
fatal Monday to the fifth meeting--he was the sixty-seventh man who entered the room.
He was greeted with a storm of applause! The poor fellow had missed his way--read the
street signs ill through his spectacles (very ill, in fact, without them)--and had not dared
to inquire. He entered the room--finding the president and secretary holding to their
chairs two judges of the Supreme Court, who were also members ex officio, and were
begging leave to go away. On his entrance all was changed. Presto, the by-laws were
amended, and the Western property was given away. Nobody stopped to converse with
him. He voted, as I had charged him to do, in every instance, with the minority. I won
new laurels as a man of sense, though a little unpunctual--and Dennis, alias Ingham,
returned to the parsonage, astonished to see with how little wisdom the world is
governed. He cut a few of my parishioners in the street; but he had his glasses off, and I
am known to be nearsighted. Eventually he recognized them more readily than I.
I "set him again" at the exhibition of the New Coventry Academy; and here he undertook
a "speaking part"--as, in my boyish, worldly days, I remember the bills used to say of
Mlle. Celeste. We are all trustees of the New Coventry Academy; and there has lately
been "a good deal of feeling" because the Sandemanian trustees did not regularly attend
the exhibitions. It has been intimated, indeed, that the Sandemanians are leaning towards
Free-Will, and that we have, therefore, neglected these semi-annual exhibitions, while
there is no doubt that Auchmuty last year went to Commencement at Waterville. Now the
head master at New Coventry is a real good fellow, who knows a Sanskrit root when he
sees it, and often cracks etymologies with me--so that, in strictness, I ought to go to their
exhibitions. But think, reader, of sitting through three long July days in that Academy
chapel, following the program from
Tuesday Morning. English Composition. Sunshine. Miss Jones,
round to
Trio on Three Pianos. Duel from opera of Midshipman Easy. Marryatt.

[Dark Saint Alaick]

coming in at nine, Thursday evening! Think of this, reader, for men who know the world
is trying to go backward, and who would give their lives if they could help it on! Well!
The double had succeeded so well at the Board, that I sent him to the Academy. (Shade
of Plato, pardon!) He arrived early on Tuesday, when, indeed, few but mothers and
clergymen are generally expected, and returned in the evening to us, covered with honors.
He had dined at the right hand of the chairman, and he spoke in high terms of the repast.
The chairman had expressed his interest in the French conversation. "I am very glad you
liked it," said Dennis; and the poor chairman, abashed, supposed the accent had been
wrong. At the end of the day, the gentlemen present had been called upon for speeches--
the Rev. Frederic Ingham first, as it happened; upon which Dennis had risen, and had
said, "There has been so much said, and, on the whole, so well said, that I will not occupy
the time." The girls were delighted, because Dr. Dabney, the year before, had given them
at this occasion a scolding on impropriety of behavior at lyceum lectures. They all
declared Mr. Ingham was a love--and so handsome! (Dennis is good-looking.) Three of
them, with arms behind the others' waists, followed him up to the wagon he rode home
in; and a little girl with a blue sash had been sent to give him a rosebud. After this debut
in speaking, he went to the exhibition for two days more, to the mutual satisfaction of all
concerned. Indeed, Polly reported that he had pronounced the trustees' dinners of a higher
grade than those of the parsonage. When the next term began, I found six of the Academy
girls had obtained permission to come across the river and attend our church. But this
arrangement did not long continue.
After this he went to several Commencements for me, and ate the dinners provided; he
sat through three of our Quarterly Conventions for me--always voting judiciously, by the
simple rule mentioned above, of siding with the minority. And I, meanwhile, who had
before been losing caste among my friends, as holding myself aloof from the associations
of the body, began to rise in everybody's favor. "Ingham's a good fellow--always on
hand"; "never talks much--but does the right thing at the right time"; "is not as unpunctual
as he used to be--he comes early, and sits through to the end." "He has got over his old
talkative habit, too. I spoke to a friend of his about it once; and I think Ingham took it
kindly," etc., etc.

[Dark Saint Alaick]

This voting power of Dennis was particularly valuable at the quarterly meetings of the
Proprietors of the Naguadavick Ferry. My wife inherited from her father some shares in
that enterprise, which is not yet fully developed, though it doubtless will become a very
valuable property. The law of Maine then forbade stockholders to appear by proxy at
such meetings. Polly disliked to go, not being, in fact, a "hens'-rights hen," and
transferred her stock to me. I, after going once, disliked it more than she. But Dennis
went to the next meeting, and liked it very much. He said the armchairs were good, the
collation good, and the free rides to stockholders pleasant. He was a little frightened
when they first took him upon one of the ferry-boats, but after two or three quarterly
meetings he became quite brave.
Thus far I never had any difficulty with him. Indeed, being of that type which is called
shiftless, he was only too happy to be told daily what to do, and to be charged not to be
forthputting or in any way original in his discharge of that duty. He learned, however, to
discriminate between the lines of his life, and very much preferred these stockholders'
meetings and trustees' dinners and commencement collations to another set of occasions,
from which he used to beg off most piteously. Our excellent brother, Dr. Fillmore, had
taken a notion at this time that our Sandemanian churches needed more expression of
mutual sympathy. He insisted upon it that we were remiss. He said, that, if the Bishop
came to preach at Naguadavick, all the Episcopal clergy of the neighborhood were
present; if Dr. Pond came, all the Congregational clergymen turned out to hear him; if Dr. Nichols, all the Unitarians; and he thought we owed it to each other that, whenever there was an occasional service at a Sandemanian church, the other brethren should all, if
possible, attend. "It looked well," if nothing more. Now this really meant that I had not
been to hear one of Dr. Fillmore's lectures on the Ethnology of Religion. He forgot that
he did not hear one of my course on the Sandemanianism of Anselm. But I felt badly
when he said it; and afterwards I always made Dennis go to hear all the brethren preach,
when I was not preaching myself. This was what he took exceptions to--the only thing, as
I said, which he ever did except to. Now came the advantage of his long morning-nap,
and of the green tea with which Polly supplied the kitchen. But he would plead, so
humbly, to be let off, only from one or two! I never excepted him, however.

[Dark Saint Alaick]

I knew the lectures were of value, and I thought it best he should be able to keep the connection.
Polly is more rash than I am, as the reader has observed in the outset of this memoir. She
risked Dennis one night under the eyes of her own sex. Governor Gorges had always
been very kind to us; and when he gave his great annual party to the town, asked us. I
confess I hated to go. I was deep in the new volume of Pfeiffer's Mystics, which
Haliburton had just sent me from Boston. "But how rude," said Polly, "not to return the
Governor's civility and Mrs. Gorges's, when they will be sure to ask why you are away!"
Still I demurred, and at last she, with the wit of Eve and of Semiramis conjoined, let me
off by saying that, if I would go in with her, and sustain the initial conversations with the
Governor and the ladies staying there, she would risk Dennis for the rest of the evening.
And that was just what we did. She took Dennis in training all that afternoon, instructed
him in fashionable conversation, cautioned him against the temptations of the suppertable--
and at nine in the evening he drove us all down in the carryall. I made the grand
star-entrée with Polly and the pretty Walton girls, who were staying with us. We had put
Dennis into a great rough top-coat, without his glasses--and the girls never dreamed, in
the darkness, of looking at him. He sat in the carriage, at the door, while we entered. I did
the agreeable to Mrs. Gorges, was introduced to her niece. Miss Fernanda--I
complimented Judge Jeffries on his decision in the great case of D'Aulnay vs. Laconia
Mining Co.--I stepped into the dressing-room for a moment--stepped out for another--
walked home, after a nod with Dennis, and tying the horse to a pump--and while I walked
home, Mr. Frederic Ingham, my double, stepped in through the library into the Gorges's
grand saloon.
Oh! Polly died of laughing as she told me of it at midnight! And even here, where I have
to teach my hands to hew the beech for stakes to fence our cave, she dies of laughing as
she recalls it--and says that single occasion was worth all we have paid for it. Gallant Eve
that she is! She joined Dennis at the library door, and in an instant presented him to Dr.
Ochterlong, from Baltimore, who was on a visit in town, and was talking with her, as
Dennis came in. "Mr. Ingham would like to hear what you were telling us about your
success among the German population." And Dennis bowed and said, in spite of a scowl
from Polly, "I'm very glad you liked it." But Dr. Ochterlong did not observe, and plunged
into the tide of explanation, Dennis listening like a prime-minister, and bowing like a
mandarin--which is, I suppose, the same thing. Polly declared it was just like Haliburton's
Latin conversation with the Hungarian minister, of which he is very fond of telling.

[Dark Saint Alaick]

"Quoene sit historia Reformationis in Ungariâ?" quoth Haliburton, after some thought.
And his confrère replied gallantly, "In seculo decimo tertio," etc., etc., etc.; and from
decimo tertio [Which means, "In the thirteenth century," my dear little bell-and-coral
reader. You have rightly guessed that the question means, "What is the history of the
Reformation in Hungary?"] to the nineteenth century and a half lasted till the oysters
came. So was it that before Dr. Ochterlong came to the "success," or near it, Governor
Gorges came to Dennis and asked him to hand Mrs. Jeffries down to supper, a request
which he heard with great joy.
Polly was skipping round the room, I guess, gay as a lark. Auchmuty came to her "in pity
for poor Ingham," who was so bored by the stupid pundit--and Auchmuty could not
understand why I stood it so long. But when Dennis took Mrs. Jeffries down, Polly could
not resist standing near them. He was a little flustered, till the sight of the eatables and
drinkables gave him the same Mercian courage which it gave Diggory. A little excited
then, he attempted one or two of his speeches to the Judge's lady. But little he knew how
hard it was to get in even a promptu there edgewise. "Very well, I thank you," said he,
after the eating elements were adjusted; "and you?" And then did not he have to hear
about the mumps, and the measles, and arnica, and belladonna, and chamomile-flower,
and dodecathem, till she changed oysters for salad--and then about the old practice and
the new, and what her sister said, and what her sister's friend said, and what the physician
to her sister's friend said, and then what was said by the brother of the sister of the
physician of the friend of her sister, exactly as if it had been in Ollendorff? There was a
moment's pause, as she declined champagne. "I am very glad you liked it," said Dennis
again, which he never should have said, but to one who complimented a sermon. "Oh!
you are so sharp, Mr. Ingham! No! I never drink any wine at all--except sometimes in
summer a little currant spirits--from our own currants, you know. My own mother--that
is, I call her my own mother, because, you know, I do not remember," etc., etc., etc.; till
they came to the candied orange at the end of the feast--when Dennis, rather confused,
thought he must say something, and tried No. 4--"I agree, in general, with my friend the
other side of the room"--which he never should have said but at a public meeting. But
Mrs. Jeffries, who never listens expecting to understand, caught him up instantly with,
"Well, I'm sure my husband returns the compliment; he always agrees with you--though
we do worship with the Methodists--but you know, Mr. Ingham," etc., etc., etc., till the
move was made upstairs; and as Dennis led her through the hall, he was scarcely
understood by any but Polly, as he said, "There has been so much said, and, on the whole,
so well said, that I will not occupy the time."

[Dark Saint Alaick]

His great resource the rest of the evening was standing in the library, carrying on
animated conversations with one and another in much the same way. Polly had initiated
him in the mysteries of a discovery of mine, that it is not necessary to finish your
sentence in a crowd, but by a sort of mumble, omitting sibilants and dentals. This, indeed,
if your words fail you, answers even in public extempore speech--but better where other
talking is going on. Thus: "We missed you at the Natural History Society, Ingham."
Ingham replies: "I am very gligloglum, that is, that you were m-m-m-m-m." By gradually
dropping the voice, the interlocutor is compelled to supply the answer. "Mrs. Ingham, I
hope your friend Augusta is better." Augusta has not been ill. Polly cannot think of
explaining, however, and answers: "Thank you, ma'am; she is very rearason
wewahwewob," in lower and lower tones. And Mrs. Throckmorton, who forgot the
subject of which she spoke, as soon as she asked the question, is quite satisfied. Dennis
could see into the card-room, and came to Polly to ask if he might not go and play allfours.
But, of course, she sternly refused. At midnight they came home delightedly: Polly,
as I said, wild to tell me the story of victory; only both the pretty Walton girls said:
"Cousin Frederic, you did not come near me all the evening."
We always called him Dennis at home, for convenience, though his real name was
Frederic Ingham, as I have explained. When the election day came round, however, I
found that by some accident there was only one Frederic Ingham's name on the votinglist;
and, as I was quite busy that day in writing some foreign letters to Halle, I thought I
would forego my privilege of suffrage, and stay quietly at home, telling Dennis that he
might use the record on the voting-list and vote. I gave him a ticket, which I told him he
might use, if he liked to. That was that very sharp election in Maine which the readers of
The Atlantic so well remember, and it had been intimated in public that the ministers
would do well not to appear at the polls. Of course, after that, we had to appear by self or
proxy.

[Dark Saint Alaick]

Still, Naguadavick was not then a city, and this standing in a double queue at
townmeeting several hours to vote was a bore of the first water; and so, when I found that
there was but one Frederic Ingham on the list, and that one of us must give up, I stayed at
home and finished the letters (which, indeed, procured for Fothergill his coveted
appointment of Professor of Astronomy at Leavenworth), and I gave Dennis, as we called
him, the chance. Something in the matter gave a good deal of popularity to the Frederic
Ingham name; and at the adjourned election, next week, Frederic Ingham was chosen to
the legislature. Whether this was I or Dennis, I never really knew. My friends seemed to
think it was I; but I felt, that, as Dennis had done the popular thing, he was entitled to the
honor; so I sent him to Augusta when the time came, and he took the oaths. And a very
valuable member he made. They appointed him on the Committee on Parishes; but I
wrote a letter for him, resigning, on the ground that he took an interest in our claim to the
stumpage in the minister's sixteenths of Gore A, next No. 7, in the 10th Range. He never
made any speeches, and always voted with the minority, which was what he was sent to
do. He made me and himself a great many good friends, some of whom I did not
afterwards recognize as quickly as Dennis did my parishioners. On one or two occasions,
when there was wood to saw at home, I kept him at home; but I took those occasions to
go to Augusta myself. Finding myself often in his vacant seat at these times, I watched
the proceedings with a good deal of care; and once was so much excited that I delivered
my somewhat celebrated speech on the Central School District question, a speech of
which the State of Maine printed some extra copies. I believe there is no formal rule
permitting strangers to speak; but no one objected.
Dennis himself, as I said, never spoke at all. But our experience this session led me to
think, that if, by some such "general understanding" as the reports speak of in legislation
daily, every member of Congress might leave a double to sit through those deadly
sessions and answer to roll-calls and do the legitimate party-voting, which appears
stereotyped in the regular list of Ashe, Bocock, Black, etc., we should gain decidedly in
working power. As things stand, the saddest state prison I ever visit is that
Representatives' Chamber in Washington. If a man leaves for an hour, twenty
"correspondents" may be howling, "Where was Mr. Prendergast when the Oregon bill
passed?" And if poor Prendergast stays there! Certainly, the worst use you can make of a
man is to put him in prison!

[Dark Saint Alaick]

I know, indeed, that public men of the highest rank have resorted to this expedient long
ago. Dumas's novel of The Iron Mask turns on the brutal imprisonment of Louis the
Fourteenth's double. There seems little doubt, in our own history, that it was the real
General Pierce who shed tears when the delegate from Lawrence explained to him the
sufferings of the people there--and only General Pierce's double who had given the orders
for the assault on that town, which was invaded the next day. My charming friend,
George Withers, has, I am almost sure, a double, who preaches his afternoon sermons for
him. This is the reason that the theology often varies so from that of the forenoon. But
that double is almost as charming as the original. Some of the most well-defined men,
who stand out most prominently on the background of history, are in this way
stereoscopic men; who owe their distinct relief to the slight differences between the
doubles. All this I know. My present suggestion is simply the great extension of the
system, so that all public machine-work may be done by it.
But I see I loiter on my story, which is rushing to the plunge. Let me stop an instant more,
however, to recall, were it only to myself, that charming year while all was yet well.
After the double had become a matter of course, for nearly twelve months before he
undid me, what a year it was! Full of active life, full of happy love, of the hardest work,
of the sweetest sleep, and the fulfilment of so many of the fresh aspirations and dreams of
boyhood! Dennis went to every school-committee meeting, and sat through all those late
wranglings which used to keep me up till midnight and awake till morning. He attended
all the lectures to which foreign exiles sent me tickets begging me to come for the love of
Heaven and of Bohemia. He accepted and used all the tickets for charity concerts which
were sent to me. He appeared everywhere where it was specially desirable that "our
denomination," or "our party," or "our class," or "our family," or "our street," or "our
town," or "our country," or "our state," should be fully represented.

[Dark Saint Alaick]

And I fell back to that
charming life which in boyhood one dreams of, when he supposes he shall do his own
duty and make his own sacrifices, without being tied up with those of other people. My
rusty Sanskrit, Arabic, Hebrew, Greek, Latin, French, Italian, Spanish, German and
English began to take polish. Heavens! how little I had done with them while I attended
to my public duties! My calls on my parishioners became the friendly, frequent, homelike
sociabilities they were meant to be, instead of the hard work of a man goaded to
desperation by the sight of his lists of arrears. And preaching! what a luxury preaching
was when I had on Sunday the whole result of an individual, personal week, from which
to speak to a people whom all that week I had been meeting as hand-to-hand friend! I
never tired on Sunday, and was in condition to leave the sermon at home, if I chose, and
preach it extempore, as all men should do always. Indeed, I wonder, when I think that a
sensible people like ours--really more attached to their clergy than they were in the lost
days, when the Mathers and Nortons were noblemen--should choose to neutralize so
much of their ministers' lives, and destroy so much of their early training, by this
undefined passion for seeing them in public. It springs from our balancing of sects. If a
spirited Episcopalian takes an interest in the almshouse, and is put on the Poor Board,
every other denomination must have a minister there, lest the poorhouse be changed into
St. Paul's Cathedral. If a Sandemanian is chosen president of the Young Men's Library,
there must be a Methodist vice-president and a Baptist secretary. And if a Universalist
Sunday-School Convention collects five hundred delegates, the next Congregationalist
Sabbath-School Conference must be as large, "lest 'they'--whoever they may be--should
think 'we'--whoever we may be--are going down."
Freed from these necessities, that happy year, I began to know my wife by sight. We saw
each other sometimes. In those long mornings, when Dennis was in the study explaining
to map-peddlers that I had eleven maps of Jerusalem already, and to school-book agents
that I would see them hanged before I would be bribed to introduce their textbooks into
the schools--she and I were at work together, as in those old dreamy days--and in these of
our log-cabin again. But all this could not last--and at length poor Dennis, my double,
overtasked in turn, undid me.