Best Short Stories Part 6

"Don't forget the shooting of Miss Cavell," said Machiavelli. "And there was the bombing of unfortified towns, and the poison gas. Why, in my palmiest days I never thought of anything so choice as that poison gas.

I told Borgia about it, and she went green with envy."

"You're right, Mac," said Satan, treading in his excitement on a captain of Uhlans who was hanging out to cool; "that Kaiser is a regular prince of darkness. When he gets down here (and I guess he will pretty soon) we'll omit the setting-up exercises and put him right into advanced tactics. Come to think of it, there were those prison camps, too, where he allowed captured soldiers to rot with filth and disease without any physicians. Excellent!"

"There's only one drawback," said Machiavelli regretfully. "The man has raised so much h.e.l.l on earth that I doubt if there's much we can teach him down here. Really, he's not an amateur at all, but a professional. I don't know whether it wouldn't be more punishment to send him to heaven instead. As a matter of fact, down here he'll feel perfectly at home."

"I guess we can still think up one or two little novelties for him,"

said Satan, as he opened a trap-door and let a dozen of Billy Sunday's converts drop into the blazing sulphur.

IMMORTAL!

When Julia Ward Howe died, memorial services in her honor were held at San Francisco, and the local literary colony attended practically en ma.s.se to pay by their presence a tribute to the writer.

A munic.i.p.al officer was asked to preside. Dressed in his long frock coat and his broad white tie, he advanced to the edge of the platform to launch the exercises and introduce the princ.i.p.al eulogist. He bowed low and spoke as follows:

"Your attendance here, ladies and gents, in such great numbers shows San Francisco's appreciation of good literature. This meeting is a great testimonial to the immortal author of 'Uncle Tom's Cabin'--the late Julia Ward Howard!"

ORIENTAL POLITENESS

William M. Chase used to tell this story:

"I was standing on a railway platform in j.a.pan, waiting for a train, and whiling away my time by watching a particularly beautiful sunset.

"Suddenly a freight train pulled in and, stopping in front of me, cut off my view. Being a good American, and trained in a very proper respect for 'business,' I merely turned philosophically away and proceeded to look at something else. In a moment, however, the station master appeared at my side and inquired with the politest of bows if I had been enjoying the sunset.

"I admitted that I had, and smilingly accepted his apology for the intrusion of the train. 'Of course I recognized that trains were the first consideration in stations,' I said.

"Imagine my surprise, then, when the little j.a.panese shook his head firmly. 'But no,' he said, bowing even more deeply than before, 'the train must not be allowed to obstruct the honorable artistic traveler's honorable aesthetic enjoyment'--or words to that effect. 'I will cause it to withdraw,'

"And he actually did precisely that!"

ALAS! TOO LATE!

The Englishman's undying love for certain civilized things is thus portrayed by R. Richard Schayer in _Life_.

In a gorse bush a hundred yards beyond his trench lay Lieutenant Fitzhugh Throckmorton of the King's Own Rifles, asleep at his post. For hours he had lain there, searching the position of the enemy through his binoculars. Overcome by fatigue, he had nodded, drowsed, and finally slumbered.

The sun hung low in the western mists when Throckmorton awoke. He glanced at his wrist.w.a.tch and sprang to his feet with an oath.

Regardless of peril, he turned and sprinted toward his trench. His was not a nature to count the risk when duty, however delayed, called. Every German sniper within range sent shot upon shot after the flying figure.

The enemy's trenches took up the hunt and fairly blazed with rifle and machine gun fire. The bullets hummed in Throckmorton's ears like a swarm of savage hornets. They snarled and bit at the turf about his feet like a pack of wolves.

With a last desperate burst of speed, his clothing tattered with bullet holes, the Lieutenant gained his trench and leaped down to its cover.

His face, wearing an expression of mingled hope and despair, he rushed to the bomb-proof dug-out where sat his Colonel and brother officers.

They looked up at him with cold eyes. One glance and Throckmorton's heart failed him. He was too late.

They had finished tea.

WHO COULD TELL?

A Scottish doctor who was attending a laird had instructed the butler of the house in the art of taking and recording his master's temperature with a thermometer. On paying his usual morning call he was met by the butler, to whom he said: "Well, John, I hope the laird's temperature is not any higher to-day?"

The man looked puzzled for a minute, and then replied: "Weel, I was just wonderin' that mysel'. Ye see, he deed at twal' o'clock."

HE COULDN'T HAVE MISSED IT

The average foreigner can rarely comprehend the geographical area of the United States, as was quite fully ill.u.s.trated by the Englishman and his valet who had been traveling due west from Boston for five days. At the end of the fifth day master and servant were seated in the smoking-car, and it was observed that the man was gazing steadily and thoughtfully out of the window. Finally his companion became curious. "William," said he, "of what are you thinking?"

"I was just thinking, sir, about the discovery of Hamerica," replied the valet. "Columbus didn't do such a wonderful thing, after all, when he found this country, did he, now, sir? Hafter hall's said an' done, 'ow could 'e 'elp it?"

GUILTY

The sniper is ever prevalent on the western front. A certain Colonel, who was by the way quite unpopular with his regiment, was one afternoon sitting in a shack, when a report was heard and a bullet whizzed over his head.

Calling a private, he said testily:

"Go out and get that sniper."

The man was gone for some time, but he eventually returned with Fritz.

He had not got him in, however, before he began to belabor him fiercely.

"What are you beating up that Hun for?" asked a comrade.

"He missed the Colonel," whispered the other.

ENVY

Miss Amy Lowell, sister of President Lowell of Harvard, is not only a distinguished poetess, being by many considered the head of the Vers Libre school in this country, but she is also the guardian of a most handsome and stately presence.

Oliver Herford, himself a poet and wit, doubtless inspired by envy, recently remarked of her that

"One half of Amy Lowell doesn't know how the other half lives."

A GENTLE DISSOLUTION

A couple of Philadelphia youths, who had not met in a long while, met and fell to discussing their affairs in general.

"I understand," said one, "that you broke your engagement with Clarice Collines."

"No, I didn't break it."