Chapter 7

OF SNEEZES

There is no chapter on sneezes in "Tristam Shandy." The faithful Boswell has recorded no sneeze of Dr. Johnson. Spinoza does not reckon it among the things the citizen may do without offense to a free state. Montesquieu does not give the Spirit of Sneezing, nor tell how the ancients sneezed. Pascal, in all his vanities of man, has no thought on sneezing. Bacon has missed it. Of all the glorious company of Shakespeare's brain, a few snored, but not one sneezed or spoke of sneezing. Darwin avoids it. Hegel and Schlegel haven't a word of it. The encyclopedias leave it for the dictionaries.

We might suppose the gentle latitudes and halcyon seas of Asia and the Mediterranean had failed to develop the sneeze, save that the immortal Montaigue, a friend in need to every reader, will point you that Aristotle told why the people bless a man who sneezes. "The gods bless you!" said the Athenian. "God bless you!" says the Irishman or Scotchman of to-day.

A sneeze is to enter the politics of the First District. Could any political boss, however prudent or scholarly, foresee it? A sneeze is to influence the life of David Lockwin. Does not providence move in a mysterious way?

A great newspaper has employed as its marine reporter a singular character. He once was rich--that is, he had $10,000 in currency. How had he made it? Running a faro bank. How did he lose it? By taking a partner, who "played it in"--that is, the partner conspired with an outside player, or "patron" of the house. Why did not our man begin over again? He was disheartened--tired of the business. Besides, it gives a gambler a bad name to be robbed--it is like a dishonored husband.

The marine reporter's ancestors were knights. The ancestral name was Coeur de Cheval. The attrition of centuries, and the hurry of the industrial period, have diminished this name in sound and dignity to Carkey, and finally to Corkey.

Naturally of a knightly fiber, this queer man has no sooner established himself in command of the port of Chicago than he has found his dearest dreams realized. To become the ornament of the sailor's fraternity is but to go up and down the docks, drinking the whisky which comes in free from Canada and sneezing.

"We steer toward Corkey's sneeze," the sailors declare.

To produce the greatest sneeze that was ever heard in the valley of the Mississippi, give us, then, a man who is called a "sawed-off" by those who love him--a very thick, very short, very tobaccofied, strong man in cavalry pants, with a jacket of the heaviest chinchilla--a restless, oathful, laconic, thirsty, never-drunk "editor." It is a man after the sailor's own heart. It is a man, too, well known to the gamblers, and they all vote in Lockwin's district.

Parlor entertainers make a famous sneeze by delegating to each of a group some vowel in the word "h--sh!" It shall be "hash" for this one, "hish" for that one, "hush" for still another, and so on. Then the professor counts three, at which all yell together, and the consolidated sound is a sneeze.

In a chorus the leader may tell you one singer is worth all the rest. So, if Corkey were in this parlor, and should render one unforeseen, unpremeditated sneeze, you would not know the parlorful had sneezed along with him. Corkey's sneeze is unapproachable, unrivaled, hated, feared, admired, reverenced. The devout say "God bless you!" with deep unction. The adventurous declare that such a sneeze would buckle the cabin-floor of a steamer like a wave in the trough of the sea.

When Corkey sneezes, sailors are moved to treat to the drinks. They mark it as an event. A sailor will treat you because it is Christmas, or because Corkey has sneezed.

Greatness consists in doing one thing better or worse than any one else can do it. Thus it is rare a man is so really great as Corkey.