Chapter II. Mr. Boswell Imparts Some Late News of Hades

The Enchanted Typewriter

by John Kendrick Bangs

Boswell was a little late in arriving the next night. He had
agreed to be on hand exactly at midnight, but it was after one
o'clock before the machine began to click and the bell to ring. I had
fallen asleep in the soft upholstered depths of my armchair, feeling
pretty thoroughly worn out by the experiences of the night before,
which, in spite of their pleasant issue, were nevertheless somewhat
disturbing to a nervous organization like mine. Suddenly I waked, and
with the awakening there entered into my mind the notion that the
whole thing was merely a dream, and that in the end it would be the
better for me if I were to give up Aldus and other club dinners with
nightmare inducing menus. But I was soon convinced that the real
state of affairs was quite otherwise, and that everything really had
happened as I have already related it to you, for I had hardly gotten
my eyes free from what my poetic son calls "the seeds of sleep" when
I heard the type-writer tap forth:

"Hello, old man!"

Incidentally let me say that this had become another interesting
feature of the machine. Since my first interview with Boswell the
taps seemed to speak, and if some one were sitting before it and
writing a line the mere differentiation of sounds of the various keys
would convey to the mind the ideas conveyed to it by the printed
words. So, as I say, my ears were greeted with a clicking "Hello, old
man!" followed immediately by the bell.

"You are late," said I, looking at my watch.

"I know it," was the response. "But I can't help it. During the
campaign I am kept so infernally busy I hardly know where I am."

"Campaign, eh?" I put in. "Do you have campaigns in Hades?"

"Yes," replied Boswell, "and we are having a--well, to be
polite, a regular Gehenna of a time. Things have changed much in
Hades latterly. There has been a great growth in the democratic
spirit below, and his Majesty is having a deuce of a time running his
kingdom. Washington and Cromwell and Caesar have had the nerve to
demand a constitution from the venerable Nicholas--"

"From whom?" I queried, perplexed somewhat, for I was not yet
fully awake.

"Old Nick," replied Boswell; "and I can tell you there's a
pretty fight on between the supporters of the administration and the
opposition. Secure in his power, the Grand Master of Hades has been
somewhat arbitrary, and he has made the mistake of doing some of his
subjects a little too brown. Take the case of Bonaparte, for
instance: the government has ruled that he was personally responsible
for all the wars of Europe from 1800 up to Waterloo, and it was
proposed to hang him once for every man killed on either side
throughout that period. Bonaparte naturally resisted. He said he had
a good neck, which he did not object to have broken three or four
times, because he admitted he deserved it; but when it came to
hanging him five or six million times, once a month, for, say, five
million months, or twelve times a year for 415,000 years, he didn't
like it, and wouldn't stand it, and wanted to submit the question to
arbitration.

"Nicholas observed that the word arbitration was not in his
especially expurgated dictionary, whereupon Bonaparte remarked that
he wasn't responsible for that; that he thought it a good word and
worthy of incorporation in any dictionary and in all vocabularies.

"'I don't care what you think,' retorted his Majesty. 'It's what
I don't think that goes;' and he commanded his imps to prepare the
gallows on the third Thursday of each month for Bonaparte's
expiation; ordered his secretary to send Bonaparte a type-written
notice that his presence on each occasion was expected, and gave
orders to the police to see that he was there willy-nilly. Naturally
Bonaparte resisted, and appealed to the courts. Blackstone sustained
his appeal, and Nicholas overruled him. The first Thursday came, and
the police went for the Emperor, but he was surrounded by a good half
of the men who had fought under him, and the minions of the law could
do nothing against them. In consequence, Bonaparte's brother, Joseph,
a quiet, inoffensive citizen, was dragged from his home and hanged in
his place, Nicholas contending that when a soldier could not, or
would not, serve, the government had a right to expect a substitute.
Well," said Boswell, at this point, "that set all Hades on fire. We
were divided as to Bonaparte's deserts, but the hanging of other
people as substitutes was too much. We didn't know who'd be
substituted next. The English backed up Blackstone, of course. The
French army backed up Bonaparte. The inoffensive citizens were
aroused in behalf of Joseph, for they saw at once whither they were
drifting if the substitute idea was carried out to its logical
conclusion; and in half an hour the administration was on the
defensive, which, as you know, is a very, very, very bad thing for an
administration."

"It is, if it desires to be returned to office," said I.

"It is anyhow," replied Boswell through the medium of the keys.
"It's in exactly the same position as that of a humorist who has to
print explanatory diagrams with all of his jokes. The administration
papers were hot over the situation. The king can do no wrong idea was
worked for all it was worth, but beyond this they drew pathetic
pictures of the result of all these deplorable tendencies. What was
Hades for, they asked, if a man, after leading a life of crime in the
other world, was not to receive his punishment there? The attitude of
the opposition was a radical and vicious blow at the vital principles
of the sphere itself. The opposition papers coolly and calmly took
the position that the vital principles of Hades were all right; that
it was the extreme view as to the power of the Emperor taken by that
person himself that wouldn't go in these democratic days. Punishment
for Bonaparte was the correct thing, and Bonaparte expected some, but
was not grasping enough to want it all. They added that recent fully
settled ideas as to a humane application of the laws required the
bunching of the indictments or the selection of one and a fair trial
based upon that, and that anyhow, under no circumstances, should a
wholly innocent person be made to suffer for the crimes of another.
These journals were suppressed, but the next day a set of new papers
were started to promulgate the same theories as to individual rights.
The province of Cimmeria declared itself independent of the throne,
and set up in the business of government for itself. Gehenna declared
for the Emperor, but insisted upon home rule for cities of its own
class, and finally, as I informed you at the beginning, Washington,
Cromwell, and Caesar went in person to Apollyon and demanded a
constitution. That was the day before yesterday, and just what will
come of it we don't as yet know, because Washington and Cromwell and
Caesar have not been seen since, but we have great fears for them,
because seventeen car-loads of vitriol and a thousand extra tons of
coal were ordered by the Lord High Steward of the palace to be
delivered to the Minister of Justice last night."

"Quite a complication," said I. "The Americanization of Hades
has begun at last. How does society regard the affair?"

"Variously," observed Boswell. "Society hates the government as
much as anybody, and really believes in curtailing the Emperor's
powers, but, on the other hand, it desires to maintain all of its own
aristocratic privileges. The main trouble in Hades at present is the
gradual disintegration of society; that is to say, its former
component parts are beginning to differentiate themselves the one
from the other."

"Like capital and labor here?" I queried.

"In a sense, yes--possibly more like your Colonial Dames, and
Daughters of the Revolution. For instance, great organizations are in
process of formation--people are beginning to flock together for
purposes of protection. Charles the First and Henry the Eighth and
Louis the Fourteenth have established Ye Ancient and Honorable Order
of Kings, to which only those who have actually worn crowns shall be
eligible. The painters have gotten together with a Society of Fine
Arts, the sculptors have formed a Society of Chisellers, and all the
authors from Homer down to myself have got up an Authors' Club where
we have a lovely time talking about ourselves, no man to be eligible
who hasn't written something that has lasted a hundred years.
Perhaps, if you are thinking of coming over soon, you'll let me put
you on our waiting-list?"

I smiled at his seeming inconsistency and let myself into his
snare.

"I haven't written anything that has lasted a hundred years
yet," said I.

"Oh, yes, I think you have," replied Boswell, and the machine
seemed to laugh as he wrote out his answer. "I saw a joke of yours
the other day that's two hundred centuries old. Diogenes showed it to
me and said that it was a great favorite with his grandfather, who
had inherited it from one of his remote ancestors."

A hot retort was on my lips, but I had no wish to offend my
guest, so I smiled and observed that I had frequently indulged in
unconscious plagiarism of that sort.

"I should imagine," I hastened to add, "that to men like Charles
the First this uncertainty as to the safety of Cromwell would be
great joy."

"I hardly know," returned Boswell. "That very question has been
discussed among us. Charles made a great outward show of grief when
he heard of the coal being delivered at the office of the Minister of
Justice, and we all thought him quite magnanimous, but it leaked out,
just before I left to come here, that he sent his private secretary
to the palace with a Panama hat and a palm-leaf fan for Cromwell,
with his congratulations. That seems to savor somewhat of
sarcasm."

"Oh, ultimately Hades is bound to be a republic," replied
Boswell. "There are too many clever and ambitious politicians among
us for the place to go along as a despotism much longer. If the place
were filled up with poets and society people, and things like that,
it might go on as an autocracy forever, but you see it isn't. To men
of the caliber of Alexander the Great and Bonaparte and Caesar, and a
thousand other warriors who never were used to taking orders from
anybody, but were themselves headquarters, the despotic sway of
Apollyon is intolerable, and he hasn't made any effort to conciliate
any of them. If he had appointed Bonaparte commander-in-chief of his
army and made a friend of him, instead of ordering him to be hanged
every month for 415,000 years, or put Caesar in as Secretary of
State, instead of having him roasted three times a month for seventy
or eighty centuries, he would have strengthened his hold. As it is,
he has ignored all these people officially, treats them like
criminals personally; makes friends with Mazarin and Powhatan, awards
the office of Tax Assessor to Dick Turpin, and makes old Falstaff
commander of his Imperial Guard. And just because poor Ben Jonson
scribbled off a rhyme for my paper, The Gazette--a rhyme running:

            Mazarin And
Powhatan,
      Turpin and Falstaff,
 
          Form, you bet, A cabinet

      To make a donkey laugh.

            Mazarin And
Powhatan
      Run Apollyon's state.
 
          The Dick and Jacks Collect the
tax--
    The people pay the freight.

--just because Jonson wrote that and I published it, my paper
was confiscated, Jonson was boiled in oil for ten weeks, and I was
seized and thrown into a dungeon where a lot of savages from the
South Sea Islands tattooed the darned old jingle between my shoulder
blades in green letters, and not satisfied with this barbaric act,
right under the jingle they added the line, in red letters, 'This
edition strictly limited to one copy, for private circulation only,'
and they every one of 'em, Apollyon, Mazarin, and the rest, signed
the guarantee personally with red-hot pens dipped in sulphuric acid.
It makes a valuable collection of autographs, no doubt, but I prefer
my back as nature made it. Talk about enlightened government under a
man who'll permit things like that to be done!"

I ought not to have done it, but I couldn't help smiling.

"I must say," I observed, apologetically, "that the treatment
was barbarous, but really I do think it showed a sense of humor on
the part of the government."

"No doubt," replied Boswell, with a sigh; "but when the joke is
on me I don't enjoy it very much. I'm only human, and should prefer
to observe that the government had some sense of justice."

The apparently empty chair before the machine gave a slight
hitch forward, and the type-writer began to tap again.

"You'll have to excuse me now," observed Boswell through the
usual medium. "I have work to do, and if you'll go to bed like a good
fellow, while I copy off the minutes of the last meeting of the
Authors' Club, I'll see that you don't lose anything by it. After I
get the minutes done I have an interesting story for my Sunday paper
from the advance sheets of Munchausen's Further Recollections, which
I shall take great pleasure in leaving for you when I depart. If you
will take the bundle of manuscript I leave with you and boil it in
alcohol for ten minutes, you will be able to read it, and, no doubt,
if you copy it off, sell it for a goodly sum. It is guaranteed
absolutely genuine."

"Very well," said I, rising, "I'll go; but I should think you
would put in most of your time whacking at the government
editorially, instead of going in for minutes and abstract stories of
adventure."

"You do, eh?" said Boswell. "Well, if you were in my place you'd
change your mind. After my unexpected endorsement by the Emperor and
his cabinet, I've decided to keep out of politics for a little while.
I can stand having a poem tattooed on my back, but if it came to
having a three-column editorial expressing my emotions etched
alongside of my spine, I'm afraid I'd disappear into thin air."

So I left him at work and retired. The next morning I found the
promised bundle of manuscripts, and, after boiling the pages as
instructed, discovered the following tale.