Peck's Bad Boy Abroad Part 12

Cairo, Egypt.--My Dear Old Irish Vegetable: Gee, but you ought to see dad and I right now at a hotel, waiting for a chance at a room, when a bride and groom get ready to vacate it, and go somewhere else. This hotel is full of married people who look scared whenever there is a new arrival, and I came pretty near creating a panic by going into the parlor of the hotel, where a dozen couples were sitting around making goo-goo eyes at each other, and getting behind a screen and, in a disguised voice, shouting, "I know all! Prepare to defend yourself!"

The women turned pale and some said, "At last! At last!" while others got faint in the head, and some fell on the bosoms of their husbands and said: "Don't shoot!" You see, most of these wives had husbands somewhere else that might be looking for them. I have warned dad not to be seen conversing with a woman, or he may be shot by a husband who is on her trail, or by the husband she has with her.

Well, sir, of all the trips we have had anywhere, the trip from Constantinople here was the limit. For two or three days we were on d.i.n.ky steamboats with Arabs, Turks, negroes and all nationalities camping on deck, full of fleas, and with cholera germs on them big enough to pick like blueberries, and all of the pa.s.sengers were dirty and eat things that would make a dog in America go mad. The dog biscuit that are fed to American dogs would pa.s.s as a delicate confection on the menu of any steamboat we struck, and I had rather lie down in a barn yard with a wet dog for a pillow and a cast-off blanket from a smallpox hospital for a bed, than to occupy the bridal chamber of any steamboat we struck.

And then the ride across the desert by rail to reach Cairo was the worst in the world. Pa.s.sengers in rags, going to Mecca, or some other place of wors.h.i.+p, eating cheese a thousand years old made from old goat's milk, and dug from the Pyramids too late to save it, was what surrounded us, and the sand storm blew through the cars laden with germs of the plague, and stuck to us so tight you couldn't get it off with sandpaper, and when we got here all we have had to do is to bathe the dirt off in layers.

[Ill.u.s.tration: It takes nine baths to get down to American epidermis 304]

It takes nine baths to get down to American epidermis, and the last bath has a jackplane to go with it, and a thing they scale fish with. But we are all right now, with rooms in the hotel, and rested, and when we go home we are going to be salted down and given chloroform and s.h.i.+pped as mummies. Dad insists that he will never cross a desert or an ocean again, and I don't know what is to become of us. Anyway, we are going to enjoy ourselves until we are killed off.

The first two days we just looked about Cairo, and saw the congress of nations, for there is nothing just like this town anywhere. There are people from all quarters of the globe, the most outlandish and the most up-to-date. This place is an asylum for fakirs and robbers, a place where defaulters, bribers, murderers, swindlers and elopers are safe, as there seems to be no extradition treaty that cannot be overcome by paying money to the officials. I found that out the first day, and told dad we should have no standing in the society of Egypt unless the people thought he had committed some gigantic crime and fled his country.

Dad wanted to know how it would strike me if it was noised about the hotel that he had robbed a national bank, but I, told him there would be nothing uncommon or noticeable about robbing a bank, as half the tourists were bank defaulters, so he would have to be accused of something startling, so we decided that dad should be charged with being the princ.i.p.al thing in the Standard Oil Company, and that he had underground pipe lines running under several states, gathering oil away from the people who owned it, and that at the present time he was worth a billion dollars, and his income was $9,000,000 every little while, and, by ginger, you ought to see the people bow down to him. Say, common bank robbers and defaulters just fell over themselves to get acquainted with dad, and to carry out the joke, I put some kerosene oil on dad's handkerchief, and that clinched it, for everybody loves the smell of a perfume that represents a billion dollars.

All the women wanted to dance with dad in the hotel dance, and because they thought I must be heir to all the oil billions, they wanted to hold me on their laps, and stroke my hair, as though I was it. I guess we are going to have everything our own way here, and if dad does not get eloped with by some Egyptian princess, I shall be mistaken. The Egyptians are pretty near being negroes, and wear bangles in their ears, and earrings on their arms. You take it in the dark, and let a princess put her arms around you, and sort of squeeze you, and you can't tell but what she is white, only there is an odor about them like "Araby the blessed," but in the light they are only negroes, a little bleached, with red paint on their cheeks. If I was going to marry an Egyptian woman, I would take her to Norway, or up towards the north pole, where it is night all day, and you wouldn't realize that you were married to a colored woman. To be around among these Egyptians is a good deal like having a pa.s.s behind the scenes at the play of Ben Hur in New York, only here the dark and dangerous women are the real thing, instead of being white girls with black paint on.

We have just got back from the pyramids, and dad is being treated for spinal meningitis, on account of riding a camel. I never tried harder to get dad to go anywhere on the cars than I did to get him to go to the pyramids by rail, as a millionaire should, but he said he was going to break a camel to the saddle, and then buy him and take him home for a side show. So we went down to the camel garage and hired a camel for dad, and four camels for the arabs and things he wanted for an escort, and a jacka.s.s for me. There were automobiles and carriages, and trolleys, and everything that we could have hired, and been comfortable for the ten-mile ride, but dad was mashed on the camel, and he got it.

Well, sir, it was not one of these world's fair camels that lay down for you to get on, and then got up on the installment plan, and chuck you forward and aft, but a proud Egyptian camel that stands up straight and makes you climb up on a stepladder.

Dad got along up the camel's ribs, when the-stepladder fell, and he grabbed hold of the hair on the two humps, and the humps were loose and they lopped over on the side, and it must have hurt the camel's feelings to have his humps pulled down, so he reached around his head and took a mouthful out of the seat of dad's pants, and dad yelled to the camel to let go, and the Arabs amputated the camel from dad's trousers, and pushed dad up on top with a bamboo pole with a crotch in it, and when dad got settled between the humps he said, "Let 'er go," and we started.

Dad could have had a camel with a platform on top, and an awning, but he insisted on taking his camel raw, and he sat there between those humps, his trousers worked up towards his knees, showing his red socks and blue drawers, and his face got pale from sea sickness, and the red, white and blue colors made me think of a fourth of July at home. We went out of town like a wild west show, and dad seemed happy, except that every time an automobile went whizzing along, dad's camel got the jumps and waltzed sideways out into the sandy desert, and chewed at dad's socks, so part of the time dad had to draw up his legs and sit on one hump and put his shoes on the other hump. The Arabs on the other camels would ride up alongside and steer dad's camel back into the road, by sticking sharp sticks into the camel, and the animal would yawn and groan and make up faces at me on my jacka.s.s, and finally dad wanted to change works with me and ride my jacka.s.s, but I told him we had left the stepladder back at Cairo, so dad hung to his mountainous steed, but the dust blew so you couldn't see, and it was getting monotonous when the queerest thing happened.

You have heard that camels can fill up with water and go for a week without asking for any more. Well, I guess the week was up, and it was time to load the camels with water, for as we came to the Nile every last camel made a rush for the river, and they went in like a yoke of oxen on a stampede, and waded in clear up to the humps, and began to drink, and dad yelled for a life preserver and pulled his feet up on top and sat there like a frog on a pond lily leaf.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Sat there like a frog on a pond lily leaf 308]

My jacka.s.s only stepped his feet in the edge, and dad wanted me to swim my jacka.s.s out to the camel and let him fall off onto the jack, but I knew dad would sink my jack in a minute, and I wouldn't go in the river.

Well, the camels drank about an hour, with dad sitting there meditating, and then the dragomen got them out, and we started off for the pyramids, which were in plain sight like the pictures you have seen, with palm trees along the Nile, and Arabs camping on the bank, and it looked as though everything was going to be all right, when suddenly dad's camel stopped dead still and wouldn't move a foot, and all the rest of the camels stopped, closed their eyes and went to sleep, and the Arabs went to sleep, and dad and the jacka.s.s and I were apparently the only animals in Egypt that were awake.

Dad kicked his camel in the ribs, but it wouldn't budge. He asked me if I could't think up some way to start the procession, and I stopped my jacka.s.s and thought a minute, and told dad I had it. I had bought some giant fire crackers and roman candles at Cairo, with which I was going to fire a salute on top of the biggest pyramid, to celebrate for old America, and I told dad what I had got, and I thought if I got off my jacka.s.s and fired a salute there in the desert it would wake them up.

Dad said, "all right, let 'er go, but do it sort of easy, at first, so not to overdo it," and I got my artillery ready. Say, you can't fire off fireworks easy, you got to touch a match to 'em and dodge and take your chances. Well, I scratched a match and lit the giant fire cracker, and put it under the hind legs of dad's camel, and when it got to fizzing I lit my roman candle, and as the fire cracker exploded like a 16-inch gun, my roman candle began to spout b.a.l.l.s of fire, and I aimed one at each camel, and the whole push started on a stampede for the pyramids, the camels groaning, the Arabs praying to Allah, dad yelling to stop 'er, and my jacka.s.s led the bunch, and I was left in the desert to pick up the hats.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Started on a stampede for the pyramids 311]

I guess I will have to tell you' the rest of the tragedy in my next letter.

Yours with plenty of sand,

Hennery.

CHAPTER XXV.

The Bad Boy and His Dad Climb the Pyramids--The Bad Boy Lights a Cannon Cracker in Rameses' Tomb--They Flee from Egypt in Disguise.

Cairo, Egypt.--My Dear Old Geezer: I broke off my last letter in sight of the pyramids, when I was left alone on the desert, my jacka.s.s having stampeded with the camels, on account of my fireworks, and I presume you think I was all in, but I got to the pyramids before the stampeded caravan did. I saw a car coming along, and I just got aboard and in ten minutes I was at the base of the big pyramid, and the camel with dad on between the humps, was humping himself half a mile away, trying to get there, and the other camels, with the Arabs, were stretched out like horses in a race, behind, and my jacka.s.s was right next to dad's camel, braying and occasionally kicking dad's camel in the slats.

There were about a hundred tourists around the stampede of the camels, and I told them my the base of the big pyramid, all looking towards dad, the great American millionaire, was on the runaway camel in advance, and asked them to form a line across the trail and save dad, but when the camel came nearer I was ashamed of dad. He had his arms around the front hump of the camel, and he was yelling for help to stop his menagerie, and his legs were flying in the air, and every time they came down they kicked a hole in the side of the camel.

[Ill.u.s.tration: I was ashamed of dad 319]

Well, sir, I thought dad was a brave man, but he blatted like a calf, and when the camel stopped and went to eating a clump of gra.s.s dad opened his eyes, and when he saw that the procession had stopped he rolled off his camel like a bag of wheat, and stuck in the sand and began to say a prayer, but when he saw me standing there, laughing, he stopped praying, and said to me: "I thought you were blown up when that jacka.s.s kicked the can of dynamite. You have more lives than a cat. Now, get a hustle on you and we will climb that pyramid, and then quit this blasted country," and dad sat down on a hummock and began to pull himself together, after the most fearful ride he ever had. He said the camel loped, trotted, galloped, single-footed and s.h.i.+ed all at the same time, and when one hump was not jamming him in the back the other hump was kicking him in the stomach, and if he had a gun he would shoot the camel, and the Arabs, and bust up the show.

By the time dad got so he could stand up without leaning against a pyramid the Arabs came up and they all talked at once, and drew knives, and it seemed as though they were blaming dad for something. We found an interpreter among the tourists, and he talked with the Arabs, and pointing to the camel dad had ridden, which was stretched out on the sand like he was dead, he told dad the Arabs wanted him to pay for the camel he had ridden to death, and foundered by letting it drink a wagon load of water, and then entered in a race across the desert, and the interpreter said dad better pay, or they would kill him.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Pay, or they would kill him 316]

Dad settled for the camel for a hundred dollars, and a promise of the skin of the camel, which he was going to take home and have stuffed.

Then a man who pretended to be a justice of the peace had dad arrested for driving off of a walk, and he was fined $10 and costs for that, and then all the Arabs stuck him for money for one thing and another, and when he had settled all around and paid extra for not riding back to Cairo on the camel, we got ready to climb up the pyramid. Dad said he wouldn't ride that camel back to Cairo for a million dollars, for he was split up so his legs began where his arms left off, and he was lame from Genesis to Revelations.

But I never saw such a lot of people to pray as these pirates are. Just before they rob a man they get down on their knees on a rug, and mumble something to some G.o.d, and after they have got you robbed good and plenty, they get down and pray while they are concealing the money they took from you. Gee, but when I get home I am going to steer the train robbers and burglars onto the idea of always being on praying grounds.

Well, I told dad he hadn't better try to climb up the pyramid, that I would go up, 'cause I could climb like a goat, and when I got up to the top I would fire a salute, so everybody would know that a star spangled American was on deck, but dad said he would go up or quit the tourist business. He said he had come thousands of miles to climb the pyramids, and sit in the shadow of the spinks, and by ginger he was going to do it, and so we started.

Well, say, each stone is about four feet high, and dad couldn't get up without help, so an Arab would go up a stone ahead, and take hold of dad's hands, and two more Arabs would get their shoulders under dad's pants, and shove, and he would get up gradually. We got about half way up when dad weakened, and said he didn't care so much about pyramids as he thought he did, and he was ready to quit, but the guide and some of the tourists said we were right near the entrance to the great tomb of the kings, and that we better go in and at least make a formal call on the crowned heads, and so we went in, through dark pa.s.sages, with little candles that the guides carried, and up and down stairs, until finally we got into a big room that smelled like a morgue, with bats and evil looking things all around, and I felt creepy.

The guides got down on their knees to pray, and I thought it was time to be robbed again. I do not know what made me think of making a sensation right there in the bowels of that pyramid, where there were corpses thousands of years old, of Egypt's rulers. I never felt that way at home, when I visited a cemetery, but I though I would shoot my last roman candle and fire my last giant firecracker right there in that moseleum, and take the chances that we would get out alive. So when the tourists were lined up beside a tomb of some Rameses or other, and the guides were praying for strength and endurance, probably, to get away with all the money we had, I picked out a place up toward the roof that seemed full of bats and birds of ill omen, and I sneaked my roman candle out from under my s.h.i.+rt, and touched the fuse to a candle on the turban of a guide who was on his knees, and just as the first fire ball was ready to come out I yelled "Whoop-la-much-a wano, epluribus un-um," and the fire b.a.l.l.s lighted up the gloom and knocked the bats gaily west.

Holy jumping cats, but you ought to have seen the guides, yelling Allah!

Allah! and groveling on the floor, and the bats were flying around in the faces of the tourists, and everybody was simply scared out of their boots. I thought I might as well wind the thing up glorious, so I touched the tail of my last giant firecracker to the sparks that were oozing out of my empty roman candle, and threw it into the middle of the great room, and when it went off you would think a cannon had exploded, and everybody rushed for the door, and we fell over each other getting out through the pa.s.sage towards the door.

I was the first to get out on to the side of the pyramid, and I watched for the crowd to come out. The tourists got out first, and then dad came out, puffing and wheezing, and the last to come out were the Arabs, and they came on their hands and knees, calling to Mr. Allah and every one of them actually pale, and I think they were conscience-stricken, for they began to give back the money they had robbed dad of, and an Arab must be pretty scared to give up any of his hard-earned robberies. I think dad was about the maddest man there was, until he got some of his money back, when he felt better, but he gave me a talking to that I will never forget.

He said: "Don't you know better than to go around with explosives, like a train robber, and fire them off in a hole in the ground, where there is no ventilation, and make people's ears ring? Maybe you have woke up those kings and queens in there, and changed a dynasty, you little idiot." The rest of the crowd wanted to throw me down the side of the pyramid, but I got away from them and went up on top of the pyramid and hoisted a small American flag, and left it floating there, and then came back to where the crowd was discussing the explosion in the tomb, and then we all went down the side of the pyramid.

The guides got their nerve back after they got out in the air, because they wouldn't help dad down unless he paid them something every stone they helped him climb down, so when he got down he didn't have any money, and hardly any pants, because what pants the Arabs didn't tear were worn off on the stones, so when he showed up in front of the spinks he was a sight, and he bought a turban of a guide and unwound it and wound it around him in place of pants. I was ashamed of dad myself, and it is pretty hard to make me ashamed.

We went back to Cairo on the cars, and what do you think, that dead camel that the Arabs made dad pay for was with the caravan going back to town, 'cause we saw him out of the car window with the hair wore off where dad kicked him in the side. The tourists say the Arabs have that camel trained to die every day when they get to the pyramids, and they make some tenderfoot pay for him at the end of each journey. Dad is going to try to get his money back from the Egyptian government, but I guess he will never realize on his claim.

Well, sir, after dad had doctored all night to get the camel rheumatism and spinal meningitis out of his system, we took a trip by boat on the Nile, and saw the banks where the people grow crops by irrigation, and where an English syndicate has built a big dam, so the whole valley can be irrigated, and I tell you it will not be long before Egypt will raise everything used in the world on that desert, and every other country that raises food to sell will be busted up in business, but it is disgusting to take a trip on the Nile, 'cause all the natives are dirty and sick with contagious diseases, and they are lazy and crippled, and beg for a living, and if you don't give them something they steal all you got. You are in luck if you get away without having leprosy, or the plague, or cholera, or fleas.

So we went back to Cairo, and there was the worst commotion you ever saw, about my fireworks in the tomb. The papers said that an American dynamiter had attempted to blow up the great pyramid, and take possession of the country and place it under the American flag, and that the conspirators were spotted and would be arrested and put in irons as soon as they got back from a trip on the Nile.

Well, sir, dad found his career would close right here, and that he would probably spend the balance of his life in an Egyptian prison if wc didn't get out, so we made a sneak and got into our hotel, bought disguises and are going to get out of here tonight, and try to get to Gibraltar, or somewhere in sight of home. Dad is disguised as a s.h.i.+ek, with whiskers and a white robe, like a bath robe, and I am going to travel with him as an Egyptian girl till we get through the Suez ca.n.a.l.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Dad is disguised as a s.h.i.+ek 323]

Gee, but I wouldn't be a n.i.g.g.e.r girl only to save dad.

Your innocent,

Hennery.