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The Octopus Marooned

Short Stories

"Fox-in-the-Morning"

A Bird of Bagdad

A Blackjack Bargainer

A Call Loan

A Chaparral Christmas Gift

A Chaparral Prince

A Comedy in Rubber

A Cosmopolite in a Cafe

A Departmental Case

A Dinner at--------*

A Double-Dyed Deceiver

A Fog in Santone

A Harlem Tragedy

A Lickpenny Lover

A Little Local Colour

A Little Talk about Mobs

A Madison Square Arabian Night

A Matter of Mean Elevation

A Midsummer Knight's Dream

A Midsummer Masquerade

A Municipal Report

A Newspaper Story

A Night in New Arabia

A Philistine in Bohemia

A Poor Rule

A Ramble in Aphasia

A Retrieved Reformation

A Ruler of Men

A Sacrifice Hit

A Service of Love

A Snapshot at the President

A Strange Story

A Technical Error

A Tempered Wind

According to Their Lights

After Twenty Years

An Adjustment of Nature

An Afternoon Miracle

An Apology

An Unfinished Christmas Story

An Unfinished Story

Aristocracy Versus Hash

Art and the Bronco

At Arms With Morpheus

Babes in the Jungle

Best-Seller

Between Rounds

Bexar Scrip No. 2692

Blind Man's Holiday

Brickdust Row

Buried Treasure

By Courier

Calloway's Code

Caught

Cherchez La Femme

Christmas by Injunction

Compliments of the Season

Confessions of a Humorist

Conscience in Art

Cupid a La Carte

Cupid's Exile Number Two

Dickey

Dougherty's Eye-Opener

Elsie in New York

Extradited from Bohemia

Fickle Fortune or How Gladys Hustled

Friends in San Rosario

From Each According to His Ability

From the Cabby's Seat

Georgia's Ruling

Girl

He Also Serves

Hearts and Crosses

Hearts and Hands

Helping the Other Fellow

Holding Up a Train

Hostages to Momus

Hygeia at the Solito

Innocents of Broadway

Jeff Peters as a Personal Magnet

Jimmy Hayes and Muriel

Law and Order

Let Me Feel Your Pulse

Little Speck in Garnered Fruit

Lord Oakhurst's Curse

Lost on Dress Parade

Madame Bo-Peep, of the Ranches

Makes the Whole World Kin

Mammon and the Archer

Man About Town

Masters of Arts

Memoirs of a Yellow Dog

Modern Rural Sports

Money Maze

Nemesis and the Candy Man

New York by Camp Fire Light

Next to Reading Matter

No Story

October and June

On Behalf of the Management

One Dollar's Worth

One Thousand Dollars

Out of Nazareth

Past One at Rooney's

Phoebe

Proof of the Pudding

Psyche and the Pskyscraper

Queries and Answers

Roads of Destiny

Roses, Ruses and Romance

Rouge et Noir

Round the Circle

Rus in Urbe

Schools and Schools

Seats of the Haughty

Shearing the Wolf

Ships

Shoes

Sisters of the Golden Circle

Smith

Sociology in Serge and Straw

Sound and Fury

Springtime a La Carte

Squaring the Circle

Strictly Business

Strictly Business

Suite Homes and Their Romance

Telemachus, Friend

The Admiral

The Adventures of Shamrock Jolnes

The Assessor of Success

The Atavism of John Tom Little Bear

The Badge of Policeman O'Roon

The Brief Debut of Tildy

The Buyer From Cactus City

The Caballero's Way

The Cactus

The Caliph and the Cad

The Caliph, Cupid and the Clock

The Call of the Tame

The Chair of Philanthromathematics

The Champion of the Weather

The Church with an Overshot-Wheel

The City of Dreadful Night

The Clarion Call

The Coming-Out of Maggie

The Complete Life of John Hopkins

The Cop and the Anthem

The Count and the Wedding Guest

The Country of Elusion

The Day Resurgent

The Day We Celebrate

The Defeat of the City

The Detective Detector

The Diamond of Kali

The Discounters of Money

The Dog and the Playlet

The Door of Unrest

The Dream

The Duel

The Duplicity of Hargraves

The Easter of the Soul

The Emancipation of Billy

The Enchanted Kiss

The Enchanted Profile

The Ethics of Pig

The Exact Science of Matrimony

The Ferry of Unfulfilment

The Fifth Wheel

The Flag Paramount

The Fool-Killer

The Foreign Policy of Company 99

The Fourth in Salvador

The Friendly Call

The Furnished Room

The Gift of the Magi

The Girl and the Graft

The Girl and the Habit

The Gold That Glittered

The Greater Coney

The Green Door

The Guardian of the Accolade

The Guilty Party - An East Side Tragedy

The Halberdier of the Little Rheinschloss

The Hand that Riles the World

The Handbook of Hymen

The Harbinger

The Head-Hunter

The Hiding of Black Bill

The Higher Abdication

The Higher Pragmatism

The Hypotheses of Failure

The Indian Summer of Dry Valley Johnson

The Lady Higher Up

The Last Leaf

The Last of the Troubadours

The Lonesome Road

The Lost Blend

The Lotus And The Bottle

The Love-Philtre of Ikey Schoenstein

The Making of a New Yorker

The Man Higher Up

The Marionettes

The Marquis and Miss Sally

The Marry Month of May

The Memento

The Missing Chord

The Moment of Victory

The Octopus Marooned

The Passing of Black Eagle

The Pendulum

The Phonograph and the Graft

The Pimienta Pancakes

The Plutonian Fire

The Poet and the Peasant

The Pride of the Cities

The Princess and the Puma

The Prisoner of Zembla

The Proem

The Purple Dress

The Ransom of Mack

The Ransom of Red Chief

The Rathskeller and the Rose

The Red Roses of Tonia

The Reformation of Calliope

The Remnants of the Code

The Renaissance at Charleroi

The Roads We Take

The Robe of Peace

The Romance of a Busy Broker

The Rose of Dixie

The Rubaiyat of a Scotch Highball

The Rubber Plant's Story

The Shamrock and the Palm

The Shocks of Doom

The Skylight Room

The Sleuths

The Snow Man

The Social Triangle

The Song and the Sergeant

The Sparrows in Madison Square

The Sphinx Apple

The Tale of a Tainted Tenner

The Theory and the Hound

The Thing's the Play

The Third Ingredient

The Trimmed Lamp

The Unknown Quantity

The Unprofitable Servant

The Venturers

The Vitagraphoscope

The Voice of the City

The Whirligig of Life

The World and the Door

Thimble, Thimble

Tictocq

To Him Who Waits

Tobin's Palm

Tommy's Burglar

Tracked to Doom

Transformation of Martin Burney

Transients in Arcadia

Two Recalls

Two Renegades

Two Thanksgiving Day Gentlemen

Ulysses and the Dogman

Vanity and Some Sables

What You Want

While the Auto Waits

Whistling Dick's Christmas Stocking

Witches' Loaves







"A trust is its weakest point," said Jeff Peters.

"That," said I, "sounds like one of those unintelligible remarks such
as, 'Why is a policeman?'"

"It is not," said Jeff. "There are no relations between a trust and a
policeman. My remark was an epitogram--an axis--a kind of mulct'em in
parvo. What it means is that a trust is like an egg, and it is not
like an egg. If you want to break an egg you have to do it from the
outside. The only way to break up a trust is from the inside. Keep
sitting on it until it hatches. Look at the brood of young colleges
and libraries that's chirping and peeping all over the country. Yes,
sir, every trust bears in its own bosom the seeds of its destruction
like a rooster that crows near a Georgia colored Methodist camp
meeting, or a Republican announcing himself a candidate for governor
of Texas."

I asked Jeff, jestingly, if he had ever, during his checkered,
plaided, mottled, pied and dappled career, conducted an enterprise of
the class to which the word "trust" had been applied. Somewhat to my
surprise he acknowledged the corner.

"Once," said he. "And the state seal of New Jersey never bit into a
charter that opened up a solider and safer piece of legitimate
octopusing. We had everything in our favor--wind, water, police,
nerve, and a clean monopoly of an article indispensable to the public.
There wasn't a trust buster on the globe that could have found a weak
spot in our scheme. It made Rockefeller's little kerosene speculation
look like a bucket shop. But we lost out."

"Some unforeseen opposition came up, I suppose," I said.

"No, sir, it was just as I said. We were self-curbed. It was a case of
auto-suppression. There was a rift within the loot, as Albert Tennyson
says.

"You remember I told you that me and Andy Tucker was partners for some
years. That man was the most talented conniver at stratagems I ever
saw. Whenever he saw a dollar in another man's hands he took it as a
personal grudge, if he couldn't take it any other way. Andy was
educated, too, besides having a lot of useful information. He had
acquired a big amount of experience out of books, and could talk for
hours on any subject connected with ideas and discourse. He had been
in every line of graft from lecturing on Palestine with a lot of magic
lantern pictures of the annual Custom-made Clothiers' Association
convention at Atlantic City to flooding Connecticut with bogus wood
alcohol distilled from nutmegs.

"One Spring me and Andy had been over in Mexico on a flying trip
during which a Philadelphia capitalist had paid us $2,500 for a half
interest in a silver mine in Chihuahua. Oh, yes, the mine was all
right. The other half interest must have been worth two or three
thousand. I often wondered who owned that mine.

"In coming back to the United States me and Andy stubbed our toes
against a little town in Texas on the bank of the Rio Grande. The name
of it was Bird City; but it wasn't. The town had about 2,000
inhabitants, mostly men. I figured out that their principal means of
existence was in living close to tall chaparral. Some of 'em were
stockmen and some gamblers and some horse peculators and plenty were
in the smuggling line. Me and Andy put up at a hotel that was built
like something between a roof-garden and a sectional bookcase. It
began to rain the day we got there. As the saying is, Juniper Aquarius
was sure turning on the water plugs on Mount Amphibious.

"Now, there were three saloons in Bird City, though neither Andy nor
me drank. But we could see the townspeople making a triangular
procession from one to another all day and half the night. Everybody
seemed to know what to do with as much money as they had.

"The third day of the rain it slacked up awhile in the afternoon, so
me and Andy walked out to the edge of town to view the mudscape. Bird
City was built between the Rio Grande and a deep wide arroyo that used
to be the old bed of the river. The bank between the stream and its
old bed was cracking and giving away, when we saw it, on account of
the high water caused by the rain. Andy looks at it a long time. That
man's intellects was never idle. And then he unfolds to me a
instantaneous idea that has occurred to him. Right there was organized
a trust; and we walked back into town and put it on the market.

"First we went to the main saloon in Bird City, called the Blue Snake,
and bought it. It cost us $1,200. And then we dropped in, casual, at
Mexican Joe's place, referred to the rain, and bought him out for
$500. The other one came easy at $400.

"The next morning Bird City woke up and found itself an island. The
river had busted through its old channel, and the town was surrounded
by roaring torrents. The rain was still raining, and there was heavy
clouds in the northwest that presaged about six more mean annual
rainfalls during the next two weeks. But the worst was yet to come.

"Bird City hopped out of its nest, waggled its pin feathers and
strolled out for its matutinal toot. Lo! Mexican Joe's place was
closed and likewise the other little 'dobe life saving station. So,
naturally the body politic emits thirsty ejaculations of surprise and
ports hellum for the Blue Snake. And what does it find there?

"Behind one end of the bar sits Jefferson Peters, octopus, with a
sixshooter on each side of him, ready to make change or corpses as the
case may be. There are three bartenders; and on the wall is a ten foot
sign reading: 'All Drinks One Dollar.' Andy sits on the safe in his
neat blue suit and gold-banded cigar, on the lookout for emergencies.
The town marshal is there with two deputies to keep order, having been
promised free drinks by the trust.

"Well, sir, it took Bird City just ten minutes to realize that it was
in a cage. We expected trouble; but there wasn't any. The citizens saw
that we had 'em. The nearest railroad was thirty miles away; and it
would be two weeks at least before the river would be fordable. So
they began to cuss, amiable, and throw down dollars on the bar till it
sounded like a selection on the xylophone.

"There was about 1,500 grown-up adults in Bird City that had arrived
at years of indiscretion; and the majority of 'em required from three
to twenty drinks a day to make life endurable. The Blue Snake was the
only place where they could get 'em till the flood subsided. It was
beautiful and simple as all truly great swindles are.

"About ten o'clock the silver dollars dropping on the bar slowed down
to playing two-steps and marches instead of jigs. But I looked out the
window and saw a hundred or two of our customers standing in line at
Bird City Savings and Loan Co., and I knew they were borrowing more
money to be sucked in by the clammy tendrils of the octopus.

"At the fashionable hour of noon everybody went home to dinner. We
told the bartenders to take advantage of the lull, and do the same.
Then me and Andy counted the receipts. We had taken in $1,300. We
calculated that if Bird City would only remain an island for two weeks
the trust would be able to endow the Chicago University with a new
dormitory of padded cells for the faculty, and present every worthy
poor man in Texas with a farm, provided he furnished the site for it.

"Andy was especial inroaded by self-esteem at our success, the
rudiments of the scheme having originated in his own surmises and
premonitions. He got off the safe and lit the biggest cigar in the
house.

"'Jeff,' says he, 'I don't suppose that anywhere in the world you
could find three cormorants with brighter ideas about down-treading
the proletariat than the firm of Peters, Satan and Tucker,
incorporated. We have sure handed the small consumer a giant blow in
the sole apoplectic region. No?'

"'Well,' says I, 'it does look as if we would have to take up
gastritis and golf or be measured for kilts in spite of ourselves.
This little turn in bug juice is, verily, all to the Skibo. And I can
stand it,' says I, 'I'd rather batten than bant any day.'

"Andy pours himself out four fingers of our best rye and does with it
as was so intended. It was the first drink I had ever known him to
take.

"'By way of liberation,' says he, 'to the gods.'

"And then after thus doing umbrage to the heathen diabetes he drinks
another to our success. And then he begins to toast the trade,
beginning with Raisuli and the Northern Pacific, and on down the line
to the little ones like the school book combine and the oleomargarine
outrages and the Lehigh Valley and Great Scott Coal Federation.

"'It's all right, Andy,' says I, 'to drink the health of our brother
monopolists, but don't overdo the wassail. You know our most eminent
and loathed multi-corruptionists live on weak tea and dog biscuits.'

"Andy went in the back room awhile and came out dressed in his best
clothes. There was a kind of murderous and soulful look of gentle
riotousness in his eye that I didn't like. I watched him to see what
turn the whiskey was going to take in him. There are two times when
you never can tell what is going to happen. One is when a man takes
his first drink; and the other is when a woman takes her latest.

"In less than an hour Andy's skate had turned to an ice yacht. He was
outwardly decent and managed to preserve his aquarium, but inside he
was impromptu and full of unexpectedness.

"'Jeff,' says he, 'do you know that I'm a crater--a living crater?'

"'That's a self-evident hypothesis,' says I. 'But you're not Irish.
Why don't you say 'creature,' according to the rules and syntax of
America?'

"'I'm the crater of a volcano,' says he. 'I'm all aflame and crammed
inside with an assortment of words and phrases that have got to have
an exodus. I can feel millions of synonyms and parts of speech rising
in me,' says he, 'and I've got to make a speech of some sort. Drink,'
says Andy, 'always drives me to oratory.'

"'It could do no worse,' says I.

"'From my earliest recollections,' says he, 'alcohol seemed to
stimulate my sense of recitation and rhetoric. Why, in Bryan's second
campaign,' says Andy, 'they used to give me three gin rickeys and I'd
speak two hours longer than Billy himself could on the silver
question. Finally, they persuaded me to take the gold cure.'

"'If you've got to get rid of your excess verbiage,' says I, 'why not
go out on the river bank and speak a piece? It seems to me there was
an old spell-binder named Cantharides that used to go and
disincorporate himself of his windy numbers along the seashore.'

"'No,' says Andy, 'I must have an audience. I feel like if I once
turned loose people would begin to call Senator Beveridge the Grand
Young Sphinx of the Wabash. I've got to get an audience together,
Jeff, and get this oral distension assuaged or it may turn in on me
and I'd go about feeling like a deckle-edge edition de luxe of Mrs. E.
D. E. N. Southworth.'

"'On what special subject of the theorems and topics does your desire
for vocality seem to be connected with?' I asks.

"'I ain't particular,' says Andy. 'I am equally good and varicose on
all subjects. I can take up the matter of Russian immigration, or the
poetry of John W. Keats, or the tariff, or Kabyle literature, or
drainage, and make my audience weep, cry, sob and shed tears by
turns.'

"'Well, Andy,' says I, 'if you are bound to get rid of this
accumulation of vernacular suppose you go out in town and work it on
some indulgent citizen. Me and the boys will take care of the
business. Everybody will be through dinner pretty soon, and salt pork
and beans makes a man pretty thirsty. We ought to take in $1,500 more
by midnight.'

"So Andy goes out of the Blue Snake, and I see him stopping men on the
street and talking to 'em. By and by he has half a dozen in a bunch
listening to him; and pretty soon I see him waving his arms and
elocuting at a good-sized crowd on a corner. When he walks away they
string out after him, talking all the time; and he leads 'em down the
main street of Bird City with more men joining the procession as they
go. It reminded me of the old legerdemain that I'd read in books about
the Pied Piper of Heidsieck charming the children away from the town.

"One o'clock came; and then two; and three got under the wire for
place; and not a Bird citizen came in for a drink. The streets were
deserted except for some ducks and ladies going to the stores. There
was only a light drizzle falling then.

"A lonesome man came along and stopped in front of the Blue Snake to
scrape the mud off his boots.

"'Pardner,' says I, 'what has happened? This morning there was hectic
gaiety afoot; and now it seems more like one of them ruined cities of
Tyre and Siphon where the lone lizard crawls on the walls of the main
port-cullis.'

"'The whole town,' says the muddy man, 'is up in Sperry's wool
warehouse listening to your side-kicker make a speech. He is some
gravy on delivering himself of audible sounds relating to matters and
conclusions,' says the man.

"'Well, I hope he'll adjourn, sine qua non, pretty soon,' says I, 'for
trade languishes.'

"Not a customer did we have that afternoon. At six o'clock two
Mexicans brought Andy to the saloon lying across the back of a burro.
We put him in bed while he still muttered and gesticulated with his
hands and feet.

"Then I locked up the cash and went out to see what had happened. I
met a man who told me all about it. Andy had made the finest two hour
speech that had ever been heard in Texas, he said, or anywhere else in
the world.

"'What was it about?' I asked.

"'Temperance,' says he. 'And when he got through, every man in Bird
City signed the pledge for a year.'"




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