Part 7

“This wasn’t home any more. It was getting to be a one-night lodging house for ‘domestic assistants.’ You mustn’t call ’em servants, you know, not since they’ve organized. And they certainly are sticklers for union rules, union hours, union wages. Why, our last laundress (excuse me, I should say ‘garment ablutionist’), refused to wash any except union underwear. Fact! And now I hear they’re agitating for the three-shift or platoon system, like the firemen, each set on duty eight hours. Well, the other day we reached a crisis when Cook 20 served notice that she’d quit unless we built an addition to the garage to accommodate her runabout, and threw in an extra allowance for gasoline. I decided to fire the whole bunch: the ‘upstairs girl’ (whom I’d often consigned to the lower regions), the waitress (who believed all things ought to come to her while waiting), and the cook (who was always getting everybody else into hot water, but wouldn’t put her own hands in). So I made a clean sweep (something we could never get any of the servants to do) and I’ve been walking delegate of the Husbands’ Labor Union, and ‘kitchen police’ myself, ever since. And it’s been as peaceful and quiet around here as the Sahara Desert. I haven’t enjoyed myself so much since the day the business agent of the Children of Israel Pyramid Builders’ Union fell off the top of Cheops and they had to dig him out of the sand with a derrick.

“There are various ways of solving the so-called servant problem. Speaking from an experience of roughly four thousand years, I should say the best way is to do your own work. It is a lot less work in the long run. But if you are determined to have servants, then you must adopt the modern viewpoint, treat ’em like the high-priced specialists that they are and fix up a regular schedule providing that the mistress shall have at least one evening out a week and the use of the parlor on the nights the maids aren’t entertaining. Our last cook had ‘Wednesday’ engraved on her visiting cards (it was her receiving day), and when her cousin was released from the penitentiary after serving six months for petty larceny (he stole a Ford), she gave him a coming-out party that kept the neighborhood awake until three o’clock in the morning. I read somewhere the other day that under the modern system employers and servants are to treat each other as equals—but I don’t believe the servants will do it. They’re getting too proud for that. We made the experiment of having the cook sit with us at the dining table, but it didn’t work out very well. We were kept so busy waiting on her that we didn’t get half enough to eat and she criticized the way in which I took my soup. A better plan would be to have all the family eat at the second table.

“But speaking of servant troubles back in Egypt a few thousand years ago—those were the happy days. Suppose one of the palace cooks threatened to quit because she could get two kopecks more a week and every Sunday out from a lady on the next street. We just told her to pack up without waiting to get dinner; there were about forty-nine more cooks in the kitchen. We had so many at one time that it took six to fry an egg. There was one disadvantage, we had the worst soup I ever tasted—too many cooks, you know—but there were lots of benefits from always having plenty of help. It’s true the kitchen on Saturday night looked like a convention of the Policemen’s Mutual Benefit Association, with all the cops calling on the girls, but it made us feel quite safe from burglars. The modern housewife is handicapped because she can’t exert her authority. If she has several servants she’s afraid to fire one because the rest might quit. And if she has only one she can’t fire her because she doesn’t know where she’d get another. Even administering a mild reprimand nowadays means that you’ll have to do your own washing. It’s rather different from the times when I was king and had a list of penalties hung up in the kitchen as a warning. Tough pie-crust meant three months in jail and the cook who burnt the toast was thrown to the crocodiles. I had three servants standing behind my chair at dinner—and nowadays servants won’t stand for anything. They trembled at my slightest frown—nowadays they give me the shake. Every time I passed they’d salaam and chant: ‘Preserve our gracious ruler.’ Today they’d be shouting: ‘Can the king!’

“And so I say times haven’t merely changed; they’re turned upside down. And the folk we used to call servants are on top. What are we to do? Why, if we want to be free and independent and rich and enjoy ourselves, we’ll beat ’em at their own game, we’ll join the Bread Molders’ Union or become kitchen chemists or garment ablutionists or general domestic aides-de-camp—the real successors of royalty. There are only two ways to solve the servant problem: do your own work or go out and do somebody’s else’s. I tell you—beg pardon, I smell something burning in the kitchen.”

Out we dashed, to find the helpless oatmeal suffering a martyr’s fate. Pharaoh contemplated the ruin for a moment and it inspired his parting word:

“Good-bye, young man, and perhaps if more people did their own work for a while they would learn, after all, to have some sympathy for servants. We can’t get along without ’em. The servant girl may be a perpetual conundrum, but civilization isn’t ready to give her up.”

XVIII

NERO DISCUSSES JAZZ

I shuddered as the city editor announced my assignment. True, I had tackled departed desperadoes and undesirable citizens whom I feared about as much in the spirit as in the flesh, but they were different. None of these could be such a formidable customer to interview as an ex-emperor who was notorious for his callous cruelties.

But duty is duty, and I donned my bullet-proof vest, put a revolver in my hip-pocket with a bottle of non-spirituous nerve tonic which a kind physician prescribed for me, and sallied forth to my waiting plane.

Five minutes later I was sitting calmly in the presence of the former imperial tyrant. The ordeal of introduction I had so much dreaded proved to be nothing. I had found the ex-emperor as approachable as a presidential candidate two months before the convention and as willing to talk for publication as a grand opera star who’s just lost another $10,000 necklace.

Could this be the old monster I had read about, I wondered, as overflowing with welcome he invited me to make myself thoroughly at home.

“What do you want me to talk about?” he asked. “Modern music and musicians? Delighted. Then you still regard me as an expert? I am gratified to hear it. I had feared that some slanderous stories that were circulated might have prejudiced you earth folk against me.

“Perhaps a few words of explanation might not be amiss. You have heard, no doubt, about the time when, as the popular phrase has it, I fiddled while Rome burned? The opposition made a good deal of that circumstance at the next election. They said I ought to have got out and hustled with the firemen, regardless of the fact that I did not belong to their union. Every man to his trade, I say. The firemen played on the flames and I played on the violin.

“Possibly, on looking back now that it is all over, I might have made a happier selection of the composition I performed on that occasion. It was entitled ‘Keep the Home Fires Burning,’ a forerunner of a popular piece which I believe is not entirely unknown in your own country today. But that was a mere bit of thoughtlessness.

“The extent of that conflagration, also, has been much exaggerated. It was confined to a few old garages in the suburbs upon which, oddly enough, I had taken out insurance only a couple of days before. One of those remarkable coincidences which do occasionally occur in real life.

“My political enemies tried to make a good deal out of it, but I am glad to say they were unable to prove anything. My candidates for the Forum were elected by the largest majorities on record. And if that isn’t vindication, what is?”

“Very interesting, Mr. Nero. But how did you come to take up music as a study and attain such remarkable proficiency?”

“I took up music in the first place as a remedy for baldness. I was troubled considerably with falling hair and dandruff and I had observed that all professional musicians were endowed with flowing locks. I looked into the subject. I talked to the court barber and to several performers on the violin, clarionet and bass drum, with names ending in ‘off’ and ‘sky,’ who had lately come to Rome from other countries. One musician informed me that five years before he had been so bald that flies trying to skate over the shiny surface would fall and break their legs, but he was now wearing his hair in a Dutch pompadour. He was a skilled performer on the classic lyre.

“I cannot say that the study and performance of music had a similar effect in my case, no appreciable change being noted in the hirsute adornment of my dome of thought, though my wife’s mother did refer to my musical efforts as hair-raising—but there were other compensations. As a result of my daily practicing on the violin—or rather nightly, my hours being from about one to three A. M. as a rule—the price of real estate in the neighborhood dropped twenty-five per cent, and I was able to buy in some very desirable properties I had long had my eye on—for a song. (No pun intended.) It was about this time that some one originated the saying concerning making Rome howl.

“I also played at the Rome Asylum for the Insane every Saturday afternoon, and they were just crazy to hear me. One Friday night five of the inmates committed suicide and my political opponents, as usual, tried to make capital of the occurrence.

“But these little things did not interfere with my purpose to become a finished musician—even though unkind critics said they wished I had finished. And speaking of criticisms, there were some that hurt me to the quick though I suppose history does not regard me as an especially sensitive creature. One of my favorite compositions was entitled ‘Through All Eternity.’ I presume you are acquainted with it. It is still popular.

“I asked a young woman one day if she would like to hear me play ‘Through All Eternity,’ and she replied that that would be her idea of—well, I don’t like to say it, but you doubtless recall the classic definition of war as promulgated by one of your most conspicuous generals. It was a cruel saying.

“But you wished for my opinions on modern music and musicians. I don’t know that I am qualified to judge; not if what I heard the other night is music nowadays. A couple of the boys who were being materialized by a friend of Sir Oliver Lodge inveigled me into going along and attending what the advertisements said was a concert.

“As the first number on the programme, it was announced the orchestra would give an imitation of ‘jazz,’ whatever that is. There was a crash like a pantry shelf full of dishes coming down, followed by a noise that was a combination of a battle and a boiler shop. I thought the roof would fall in next, and I was just preparing to slide out when the man next to me remarked reassuringly: ‘The agony is over.’

“There wasn’t a musical note or a hint of harmony in the whole slam-bang from start to finish. A couple of kids with hammers and an old tin-pan could have achieved the same effect. People paid two dollars and a half a seat to hear that, when they could hire a small boy to run a stick along a picket fence for ten cents. They called that music, and yet the neighbors used to kick when I played ‘Way Down Upon the Tiber River’ and ‘There’s No Place Like Rome’ on my violin at three o’clock in the morning.

“Then a young woman with a low dress and high voice came out and screamed like a patient at a painless dentist’s. One of the papers next morning said she had a sweet voice, but ‘lacked execution.’ She wouldn’t have lacked it very long if she’d lived when I was Emperor. The final number on the programme was a performance on the ukelele by a pair of harmless looking youths whose appearance belied their real natures.

“I have read in my ‘Pocket Chesterfield’ that a gentleman is one who never inflicts needless pain or suffering on others. They were not gentlemen. In my day we occasionally used racks and thumb-screws and other instruments of necessary torture, but we knew nothing about ukeleles. They had not been invented. Has your country no Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Audiences? But it is unnecessary to ask.

“Yet you moderns have one advantage over us ancients when it comes to music, and I am willing to admit it: the phonograph. It is much more satisfactory than any human singer or player, because you can shut it off without hurting its feelings. It has a patent stop—something the tenor or soprano lacks. If you get up at a concert and request the soloist in the middle of a song kindly to cease as her effort is making you exceedingly nervous, you are simply reserving a seat for yourself in the patrol wagon.

“But at home with the phonograph all you’ve got to do is to push the little lever and it quits. You can enjoy its concerts without having to put on a clean white shirt and an open-face vest and a dinner coat. You can wear the same clothes you did at breakfast or sit around in an old bathrobe with your collar off and listen to Mary Garden gargle. If you did that at the grand opera house it would be sure to excite remark.

“And now you must excuse me, young man. I’ve promised to play tonight at the Mount Olympus firemen’s ball and I must have a little time to rehearse my piece—‘I’m a Roman in the Gloamin’.’ Perhaps you know it? By the way, are you a musician yourself? But you must be. Everybody is, more or less.”

“No, sir. I can’t play anything.”

“Oh, you must be mistaken. Are you married?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Then to preserve the domestic harmony, you must be used to playing second fiddle.”

As I staggered down the stairs I felt that I had richly earned a Nero—I mean a hero, medal.

XIX

LORD BACON MUSES ON CIPHERS

“I’ll tell you one bet you’ve overlooked in your ramblings around with shades,” remarked the city editor, “and that’s the chance to get the right answer to that Shakespeare-Bacon controversy. I was reminded of it last night when I happened across that old story of the woman who said to her husband: ‘When I get to heaven I’m going to ask Shakespeare if he really wrote those plays.’ ‘But suppose Shakespeare isn’t there?’ returned her husband. ‘Then you can ask him,’ she replied. Have you heard any of the spooks discussing the question?”

“I’ve never even heard it mentioned,” I responded. “You may remember I had a chat with Mr. Shakespeare himself some time ago on the subject of the movies, but there was something in his attitude that kept me from asking what might have been embarrassing questions. And besides, as is quite common with these shades of the mighty, when they once get started talking it’s pretty hard to get a word in edgewise. I believe it would be better to tackle Lord Bacon and see what he has to say about it. If he has a grievance he’s a lot more likely to talk than the man who’s generally accepted as the author of Shakespeare’s works.”

I approached the eminent Lord Chancellor, jurist and philosopher with considerable trepidation, but like all the truly great his modesty and affability quickly put me at my ease.

“You wish to know who was the real author of the works attributed to Shakespeare, eh?” he replied, with a smile of amusement. “So they’re beginning to raise the question down on earth, are they? I thought those ciphers might puzzle ’em for a few hundred years yet. Well, and who do they think wrote ’em?”

“Some persons say you did, Lord Bacon, and others attribute the authorship to the Earl of Dudley and other of your contemporaries. A Detroit man got permission to dig in the bed of the river Wye for the head of the Earl, which was supposed to be buried there, together with a box of manuscripts that would prove him to be the real Shakespeare.”

“Hum, hum,” mused his lordship. “I guess somebody else lost his head that time. Well, all you tell me is extremely interesting, I’m sure. And I presume even Will Shakespeare has his partisans, too, who insist still that the uneducated village lad from Stratford who used to hold horses in front of the London theaters for a living—and then served his term as a ‘chaser’ on the stage during the supper hour in vaudeville—that this strolling actor was actually the author of the immortal plays bearing his name?”

“Oh, yes, your lordship, Shakespeare would probably win by a large majority, if the matter were left to a popular vote.”

“Excuse me if I smile. The thought is highly amusing. I don’t believe I am quite ready, as yet, to present any formal claim to the authorship, but if I were free to speak I could— But, pshaw! What’s the difference? There are plenty of similar cases of masquerading authors in even later English literature which no mortal has yet discovered. By the way, has any question been raised, to date, about the so-called Dickens novels? There hasn’t? Everybody takes it for granted that they were written by Charles Dickens, the young, untrained reporter, who never had any education after he was twelve years of age, who worked in a blacking factory when he was ten? Well, well. You surprise me. Has nobody found any ciphers yet in his work? Not a one? Well, then look out for a sensation one of these days. Ciphers have always been my hobby, but long before I found any cryptic corroboration for my theory in Dickens’ works I was pretty sure who really wrote them. Can you think of a certain great statesman, like myself, but who flourished in the Victorian era, a dignified, austere personage who might not like to be known as the author of humorous works, but who might have got Dickens to lend his name for the purpose? You can’t? Try again. Well, I’ll make a suggestion: William E. Gladstone. Don’t smile. Wait until you hear the proofs. Gladstone had a contemporary and rival, Disraeli, who published novels under a pen name. Later Disraeli used his own name and the fact did not help his reputation as a statesman. Each of the principal so-called Dickens novels deals with some great proposed reform, such as the abolition of imprisonment for debt, the improvement of penal institutions and poor-houses, removal of delays in the law, the cutting of red tape in government offices, the wiping-out of the wretched Yorkshire schools.

“Gladstone was a born reformer. For a long time I was pretty sure that Dickens could not have written these books, but I never associated them with Gladstone until one day I happened to hit upon a cipher—as conclusive a one, I think, as any that have been discovered in the works of Shakespeare. Just before this I heard of the finding of the manuscript of a letter written by Gladstone to his firm of publishers, relating to the use of the name ‘Murdstone’ as one of the chief characters in ‘David Copperfield.’ After writing a number of novels Gladstone evidently felt that he would like to leave some more obvious clue to their real authorship than a cipher, and apparently his intention had been to call this character ‘Mirthstone,’ a sort of pun upon his own name. But his publishers must have objected to the device as too transparent, for we find him replying: ‘Very well. Then Murdstone let it be.’ Another clue was afforded by the name of the ‘literary man with a wooden leg’ in ‘Our Mutual Friend,’—Silas Wegg. Here we have the initials in full in their regular order, ‘W. E. G.’

“And now,” continued Lord Bacon, “we come to the real cipher, buried in the first of his longer stories, the ‘Pickwick Papers.’ I call it the Ivy Green Cipher. Why this poem of three stanzas was inserted in this book has long puzzled students of Dickens. The ostensible excuse for its introduction was its recitation at an evening party at Manor Farm, Dingley Dell, by the aged clergyman of the place, name not given, who posed as its author. But the poem has absolutely nothing to do with the plot of the story. Just write these first five lines, as I dictate, will you?

‘Oh, a dainty plant is the ivy green, That creepeth o’er ruins old, Of right choice food are his meals I ween, In his cell so lone and cold. The wall must be crumbled, the stone decayed—’

“Now, kindly take your pencil and write down the first letter of the first line’s last word, the second letter of the second line’s last word, the third letter of the third line’s third word from the last (a not uncommon variant in ciphers of this character) and the fourth letter of the fourth line’s last word. Those four letters, in this order, spell GLAD. Now glance along the next line for the word that would form the second syllable of a proper name. The next to the last word is STONE. And there you have the conclusive clue to the authorship of the Dickens novels!”

“That seems to be a clincher, your lordship,” I said, “and I am sure your theory will create a sensation down below when the earth-dwellers hear of it. But will you not tell me whether you are the author of ‘Hamlet’ and the other immortal plays?”

“You may remember,” he replied with an enigmatic smile, “Sir Walter Scott’s answer to the lady who asked whether he wrote the ‘Waverly Novels,’ when they were appearing anonymously? ‘I did not write them,’ he rejoined, ‘but if I did I would not tell you.’ Some very curious circumstances were connected with the writing of the works called Shakespeare’s, and one day the world may learn of them. What’s in a name? A rose by any other name would still cost twenty-four dollars a dozen on Fifth Avenue.”

Then his lordship bowed me into my waiting astral plane.