The Fiend\'s Delight
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Dod Grile >> The Fiend\'s Delight
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9 Edited by Charles Aldarondo (aldarondo@yahoo.com)
THE FIEND'S DELIGHT.
BY DOD GRILE.
"Count that day lost whose low descending sun
Views from thy hand no worthy action done."
NEW YORK:
1873.
TO
THE IMMUTABLE AND INFALLIBLE GODDESS,
GOOD TASTE,
IN GRATITUDE FOR HER CONDEMNATION OF ALL SUPERIOR AUTHORS,
AND IN THE HOPE OF PROPITIATING HER CREATORS
AND EXPOUNDERS,
This Volume is reverentially Dedicated
BY HER DEVOUT WORSHIPPER,
THE AUTHOR.
PREFACE.
The atrocities constituting this "cold collation" of diabolisms are
taken mainly from various Californian journals. They are cast in the
American language, and liberally enriched with unintelligibility. If
they shall prove incomprehensible on this side of the Atlantic, the
reader can pass to the other side at a moderately extortionate
charge. In the pursuit of my design I think I have killed a good
many people in one way and another; but the reader will please to
observe that they were not people worth the trouble of leaving
alive. Besides, I had the interests of my collaborator to consult.
In writing, as in compiling, I have been ably assisted by my
scholarly friend Mr. Satan; and to this worthy gentleman must be
attributed most of the views herein set forth. While the plan of the
work is partly my own, its spirit is wholly his; and this
illustrates the ascendancy of the creative over the merely imitative
mind. Palmam qui meruit ferat-I shall be content with the profit.
DOD GRILE.
SOME FICTION.
"One More Unfortunate."
It was midnight-a black, wet, midnight-in a great city by the sea.
The church clocks were booming the hour, in tones half-smothered by
the marching rain, when an officer of the watch saw a female figure
glide past him like a ghost in the gloom, and make directly toward a
wharf. The officer felt that some dreadful tragedy was about to be
enacted, and started in pursuit. Through the sleeping city sped
those two dark figures like shadows athwart a tomb. Out along the
deserted wharf to its farther end fled the mysterious fugitive, the
guardian of the night vainly endeavouring to overtake, and calling
to her to stay. Soon she stood upon the extreme end of the pier, in
the scourging rain which lashed her fragile figure and blinded her
eyes with other tears than those of grief. The night wind tossed her
tresses wildly in air, and beneath her bare feet the writhing
billows struggled blackly upward for their prey. At this fearful
moment the panting officer stumbled and fell! He was badly bruised;
he felt angry and misanthropic. Instead of rising to his feet, he
sat doggedly up and began chafing his abraded shin. The desperate
woman raised her white arms heavenward for the final plunge, and the
voice of the gale seemed like the dread roaring of the waters in her
ears, as down, down, she went--in imagination--to a black death among
the spectral piles. She backed a few paces to secure an impetus,
cast a last look upon the stony officer, with a wild shriek sprang
to the awful verge and came near losing her balance. Recovering
herself with an effort, she turned her face again to the officer,
who was clawing about for his missing club. Having secured it, he
started to leave.
In a cosy, vine-embowered cottage near the sounding sea, lives and
suffers a blighted female. Nothing being known of her past history,
she is treated by her neighbours with marked respect. She never
speaks of the past, but it has been remarked that whenever the
stalwart form of a certain policeman passes her door, her clean,
delicate face assumes an expression which can only be described as
frozen profanity. The Strong Young Man of Colusa.
Professor Cramer conducted a side-show in the wake of a horse-opera,
and the same sojourned at Colusa. Enters unto the side show a
powerful young man of the Colusa sort, and would see his money's
worth. Blandly and with conscious pride the Professor directs the
young man's attention to his fine collection of living snakes.
Lithely the blacksnake uncoils in his sight. Voluminously the
bloated boa convolves before him. All horrent the cobra exalts his
hooded head, and the spanning jaws fly open. Quivers and chitters
the tail of the cheerful rattlesnake; silently slips out the forked
tongue, and is as silently absorbed. The fangless adder warps up the
leg of the Professor, lays clammy coils about his neck, and pokes a
flattened head curiously into his open mouth. The young man of
Colusa is interested; his feelings transcend expression. Not a
syllable breathes he, but with a deep-drawn sigh he turns his broad
back upon the astonishing display, and goes thoughtfully forth into
his native wild. Half an hour later might have been seen that brawny
Colusan, emerging from an adjacent forest with a strong faggot.
Then this Colusa young man unto the appalled Professor thus: "Ther
ain't no good place yer in Kerloosy fur fittin' out serpence to be
subtler than all the beasts o' the field. Ther's enmity atween our
seed and ther seed, an' it shell brooze ther head." And with a
singleness of purpose and a rapt attention to detail that would have
done credit to a lean porker garnering the strewn kernels behind a
deaf old man who plants his field with corn, he started in upon that
reptilian host, and exterminated it with a careful thoroughness of
extermination.
The Glad New Year.
A poor brokendown drunkard returned to his dilapidated domicile
early on New Year's morn. The great bells of the churches were
jarring the creamy moonlight which lay above the soggy undercrust of
mud and snow. As he heard their joyous peals, announcing the birth
of a new year, his heart smote his old waistcoat like a remorseful
sledge-hammer.
"Why," soliloquized he, "should not those bells also proclaim the
advent of a new resolution? I have not made one for several weeks,
and it's about time. I'll swear off."
He did it, and at that moment a new light seemed to be shed upon his
pathway; his wife came out of the house with a tin lantern. He
rushed frantically to meet her. She saw the new and holy purpose in
his eye. She recognised it readily-she had seen it before. They
embraced and wept. Then stretching the wreck of what had once been a
manly form to its full length, he raised his eyes to heaven and one
hand as near there as he could get it, and there in the pale
moonlight, with only his wondering wife, and the angels, and a cow
or two, for witnesses, he swore he would from that moment abstain
from all intoxicating liquors until death should them part. Then
looking down and tenderly smiling into the eyes of his wife, he
said: "Is it not well, dear one?" With a face beaming all over with
a new happiness, she replied:
"Indeed it is, John-let's take a drink." And they took one, she with
sugar and he plain.
The spot is still pointed out to the traveller. The Late Dowling,
Senior.
My friend, Jacob Dowling, Esq., had been spending the day very
agreeably in his counting-room with some companions, and at night
retired to the domestic circle to ravel out some intricate accounts.
Seated at his parlour table he ordered his wife and children out of
the room and addressed himself to business. While clambering wearily
up a column of figures he felt upon his cheek the touch of something
that seemed to cling clammily to the skin like the caress of a naked
oyster. Thoughtfully setting down the result of his addition so far
as he had proceeded with it, he turned about and looked up.
"I beg your pardon, sir," said he, "but you have not the advantage
of my acquaintance."
"Why, Jake," replied the apparition-whom I have thought it useless
to describe--"don't you know me?"
"I confess that your countenance is familiar," returned my friend,
"but I cannot at this moment recall your name. I never forget a
face, but names I cannot remember."
"Jake!" rumbled the spectre with sepulchral dignity, a look of
displeasure crawling across his pallid features, "you're foolin'."
"I give you my word I am quite serious. Oblige me with your name,
and favour me with a statement of your business with me at this
hour."
The disembodied party sank uninvited into a chair, spread out his
knees and stared blankly at a Dutch clock with an air of weariness
and profound discouragement. Perceiving that his guest was making
himself tolerably comfortable my friend turned again to his figures,
and silence reigned supreme. The fire in the grate burned
noiselessly with a mysterious blue light, as if it could do more if
it wished; the Dutch clock looked wise, and swung its pendulum with
studied exactness, like one who is determined to do his precise duty
and shun responsibility; the cat assumed an attitude of intelligent
neutrality. Finally the spectre trained his pale eyes upon his host,
pulled in a long breath and remarked:
"Jake, I'm yur dead father. I come back to have a talk with ye 'bout
the way things is agoin' on. I want to know 'f you think it's right
notter recognise yur dead parent?"
"It is a little rough on you, dear," replied the son without looking
up, "but the fact is that [7 and 3 are 10, and 2 are 12, and 6 are
18] it is so long since you have been about [and 3 off are 15] that
I had kind of forgotten, and [2 into 4 goes twice, and 7 into 6 you
can't] you know how it is yourself. May I be permitted to again
inquire the precise nature of your present business?"
"Well, yes-if you wont talk anything but shop I s'pose I must come
to the p'int. Isay! you don't keep any thing to drink 'bout yer, do
ye-Jake?"
"14 from 23 are 9-I'll get you something when we get done. Please
explain how we can serve one another."
"Jake, I done everything for you, and you ain't done nothin' for me
since I died. I want a monument bigger'n Dave Broderick's, with an
eppytaph in gilt letters, by Joaquin Miller. I can't git into any
kind o' society till I have 'em. You've no idee how exclusive they
are where I am."
This dutiful son laid down his pencil and effected a stiffly
vertical attitude. He was all attention:
"Anything else to-day?" he asked-rather sneeringly, I grieve to
state.
"No-o-o, I don't think of anything special," drawled the ghost
reflectively; "I'd like to have an iron fence around it to keep the
cows off, but I s'pose that's included."
"Of course! And a gravel walk, and a lot of abalone shells, and
fresh posies daily; a marble angel or two for company, and anything
else that will add to your comfort. Have you any other extremely
reasonable request to make of me?"
"Yes-since you mention it. I want you to contest my will. Horace
Hawes is having his'n contested."
"My fine friend, you did not make any will."
"That ain't o' no consequence. You forge me a good 'un and contest
that."
"With pleasure, sir; but that will be extra. Now indulge me in one
question. You spoke of the society where you reside. Where do you
reside?"
The Dutch clock pounded clamorously upon its brazen gong a countless
multitude of hours; the glowing coals fell like an avalanche through
the grate, spilling all over the cat, who exalted her voice in a
squawk like the deathwail of a stuck pig, and dashed affrighted
through the window. A smell of scorching fur pervaded the place, and
under cover of it the aged spectre walked into the mirror, vanishing
like a dream. "Love's Labour Lost."
Joab was a beef, who was tired of being courted for his clean,
smooth skin. So he backed through a narrow gateway six or eight
times, which made his hair stand the wrong way. He then went and
rubbed his fat sides against a charred log. This made him look
untidy. You never looked worse in your life than Joab did.
"Now," said he, "I shall be loved for myself alone. I will change my
name, and hie me to pastures new, and all the affection that is then
lavished upon me will be pure and disinterested."
So he strayed off into the woods and came out at old Abner Davis'
ranch. The two things Abner valued most were a windmill and a
scratching-post for hogs. They were equally beautiful, and the fame
of their comeliness had gone widely abroad. To them Joab naturally
paid his attention. The windmill, who was called Lucille Ashtonbury
Clifford, received him with expressions of the liveliest disgust.
His protestations of affection were met by creakings of contempt,
and as he turned sadly away he was rewarded by a sound spank from
one of her fans. Like a gentlemanly beef he did not deign to avenge
the insult by overturning Lucille Ashtonbury; and it is well for him
that he did not, for old Abner stood by with a pitchfork and a
trinity of dogs.
Disgusted with the selfish heartlessness of society, Joab shambled
off and was passing the scratching-post without noticing her. (Her
name was Arabella Cliftonbury Howard.) Suddenly she kicked away a
multitude of pigs who were at her feet, and called to the rolling
beef of uncanny exterior:
"Comeer!"
Joab paused, looked at her with his ox-eyes, and gravely marching
up, commenced a vigorous scratching against her.
"Arabella," said he, "do you think you could love a shaggy-hided
beef with black hair? Could you love him for himself alone?"
Arabella had observed that the black rubbed off, and the hair lay
sleek when stroked the right way.
"Yes, I think so; could you?"
This was a poser: Joab had expected her to talk business. He did not
reply. It was only her arch way; she thought, naturally, that the
best way to win any body's love was to be a fool. She saw her
mistake. She had associated with hogs all her life, and this fellow
was a beef! Mistakes must be rectified very speedily in these
matters.
"Sir, I have for you a peculiar feeling; I may say a tenderness.
Hereafter you, and you only, shall scratch against Arabella
Cliftonbury Howard!"
Joab was delighted; he stayed and scratched all day. He was loved
for himself alone, and he did not care for anything but that. Then
he went home, made an elaborate toilet, and returned to astonish
her. Alas! old Abner had been about, and seeing how Joab had worn
her smooth and useless, had cut her down for firewood. Joab gave one
glance, then walked solemnly away into a "clearing," and getting
comfortably astride a blazing heap of logs, made a barbacue of
himself!
After all, Lucille Ashtonbury Clifford, the light-headed windmill,
seems to have got the best of all this. I have observed that the
light-headed commonly get the best of everything in this world;
which the wooden-headed and the beef-headed regard as an outrage. I
am not prepared to say if it is or not. A Comforter.
William Bunker had paid a fine of two hundred dollars for beating
his wife. After getting his receipt he went moodily home and seated
himself at the domestic hearth. Observing his abstracted and
melancholy demeanour, the good wife approached and tenderly inquired
the cause. "It's a delicate subject, dear," said he, with love-
light in his eyes; "let's talk about something good to eat."
Then, with true wifely instinct she sought to cheer him up with
pleasing prattle of a new bonnet he had promised her. "Ah! darling,"
he sighed, absently picking up the fire-poker and turning it in his
hands, "let us change the subject."
Then his soul's idol chirped an inspiring ballad, kissed him on the
top of his head, and sweetly mentioned that the dressmaker had sent
in her bill. "Let us talk only of love," returned he, thoughtfully
rolling up his dexter sleeve.
And so she spoke of the vine-enfolded cottage in which she fondly
hoped they might soon sip together the conjugal sweets. William
became rigidly erect, a look not of earth was in his face, his
breast heaved, and the fire-poker quivered with emotion. William
felt deeply. "Mine own," said the good woman, now busily irrigating
a mass of snowy dough for the evening meal, "do you know that there
is not a bite of meat in the house?"
It is a cold, unlovely truth-a sad, heart-sickening fact-but it
must be told by the conscientious novelist. William repaid all this
affectionate solicitude-all this womanly devotion, all this trust,
confidence, and abnegation in a manner that needs not be
particularly specified.
A short, sharp curve in the middle of that iron fire-poker is
eloquent of a wrong redressed. Little Isaac.
Mr. Gobwottle came home from a meeting of the Temperance Legion
extremely drunk. He went to the bed, piled himself loosely atop of
it and forgot his identity. About the middle of the night, his wife,
who was sitting up darning stockings, heard a voice from the
profoundest depths of the bolster: "Say, Jane?"
Jane gave a vicious stab with the needle, impaling one of her
fingers, and continued her work. There was a long silence, faintly
punctuated by the bark of a distant dog. Again that
voice--"Say-Jane!"
The lady laid aside her work and wearily, replied: "Isaac, do go to
sleep; they are off."
Another and longer pause, during which the ticking of the clock
became painful in the intensity of the silence it seemed to be
measuring. "Jane, what's off!" "Why, your boots, to be sure,"
replied the petulant woman, losing patience; "I pulled them off when
you first lay down."
Again the prostrate gentleman was still. Then when the candle of the
waking housewife had burned low down to the socket, and the wasted
flame on the hearth was expiring bluely in convulsive leaps, the
head of the family resumed: "Jane, who said anything about boots?"
There was no reply. Apparently none was expected, for the man
immediately rose, lengthened himself out like a telescope, and
continued: "Jane, I must have smothered that brat, and I'm 'fernal
sorry!"
"What brat?" asked the wife, becoming interested.
"Why, ours-our little Isaac. I saw you put 'im in bed last week, and
I've been layin' right onto 'im!"
"What under the sun do you mean?" asked the good wife; "we haven't
any brat, and never had, and his name should not be Isaac if we had.
I believe you are crazy."
The man balanced his bulk rather unsteadily, looked hard into the
eyes of his companion, and triumphantly emitted the following
conundrum: "Jane, look-a-here! If we haven't any brat, what'n
thunder's the use o' bein' married!"
Pending the solution of the momentous problem, its author went out
and searched the night for a whisky-skin.
The Heels of Her.
Passing down Commercial-street one fine day, I observed a lady
standing alone in the middle of the sidewalk, with no obvious
business there, but with apparently no intention of going on. She
was outwardly very calm, and seemed at first glance to be lost in
some serene philosophical meditation. A closer examination, however,
revealed a peculiar restlessness of attitude, and a barely
noticeable uneasiness of expression. The conviction came upon me
that the lady was in distress, and as delicately as possible I
inquired of her if such were not the case, intimating at the same
time that I should esteem it a great favour to be permitted to do
something. The lady smiled blandly and replied that she was merely
waiting for a gentleman. It was tolerably evident that I was not
required, and with a stammered apology I hastened away, passed clear
around the block, came up behind her, and took up a position on a
dry-goods box; it lacked an hour to dinner time, and I had leisure.
The lady maintained her attitude, but with momently increasing
impatience, which found expression in singular wave-like undulations
of her lithe figure, and an occasional unmistakeable contortion.
Several gentlemen approached, but were successively and politely
dismissed. Suddenly she experienced a quick convulsion, strode
sharply forward one step, stopped short, had another convulsion, and
walked rapidly away. Approaching the spot I found a small iron
grating in the sidewalk, and between the bars two little boot heels,
riven from their kindred soles, and unsightly with snaggy nails.
Heaven only knows why that entrapped female had declined the
proffered assistance of her species-why she had elected to ruin her
boots in preference to having them removed from her feet. Upon that
day when the grave shall give up its dead, and the secrets of all
hearts shall be revealed, I shall know all about it; but I want to
know now. A Tale of Two Feet.
My friend Zacharias was accustomed to sleep with a heated stone at
his feet; for the feet of Mr. Zacharias were as the feet of the
dead. One night he retired as usual, and it chanced that he awoke
some hours afterwards with a well-defined smell of burning leather,
making it pleasant for his nostrils.
"Mrs. Zacharias," said he, nudging his snoring spouse, "I wish you
would get up and look about. I think one of the children must have
fallen into the fire."
The lady, who from habit had her own feet stowed comfortably away
against the warm stomach of her lord and master, declined to make
the investigation demanded, and resumed the nocturnal melody. Mr.
Zacharias was angered; for the first time since she had sworn to
love, honour, and obey, this female was in open rebellion. He
decided upon prompt and vigorous action. He quietly moved over to
the back side of the bed and braced his shoulders against the wall.
Drawing up his sinewy knees to a level with his breast, he placed
the soles of his feet broadly against the back of the insurgent,
with the design of propelling her against the opposite wall. There
was a strangled snort, then a shriek of female agony, and the
neighbours came in.
Mutual explanations followed, and Mr. Zacharias walked the streets
of Grass Valley next day as if he were treading upon eggs worth a
dollar a dozen. The Scolliver Pig.
One of Thomas Jefferson's maxims is as follows: "When angry, count
ten before you speak; if very angry, count a hundred." I once knew a
man to square his conduct by this rule, with a most gratifying
result. Jacob Scolliver, a man prone to bad temper, one day started
across the fields to visit his father, whom he generously permitted
to till a small corner of the old homestead. He found the old
gentleman behind the barn, bending over a barrel that was canted
over at an angle of seventy degrees, and from which issued a cloud
of steam. Scolliver pŠre was evidently scalding one end of a dead
pig-an operation essential to the loosening of the hair, that the
corpse may be plucked and shaven.
"Good morning, father," said Mr. Scolliver, approaching, and
displaying a long, cheerful smile. "Got a nice roaster there?" The
elder gentleman's head turned slowly and steadily, as upon a swivel,
until his eyes pointed backward; then he drew his arms out of the
barrel, and finally, revolving his body till it matched his head, he
deliberately mounted upon the supporting block and sat down upon the
sharp edge of the barrel in the hot steam. Then he replied, "Good
mornin' Jacob. Fine mornin'."
"A little warm in spots, I should imagine," returned the son. "Do
you find that a comfortable seat?" "Why-yes-it's good enough for an
old man," he answered, in a slightly husky voice, and with an uneasy
gesture of the legs; "don't make much difference in this life where
we set, if we're good-does it? This world ain't heaven, anyhow, I
s'spose."
"There I do not entirely agree with you," rejoined the young man,
composing his body upon a stump for a philosophical argument. "I
don't neither," added the old one, absently, screwing about on the
edge of the barrel and constructing a painful grimace. There was no
argument, but a silence instead. Suddenly the aged party sprang off
that barrel with exceeding great haste, as of one who has made up
his mind to do a thing and is impatient of delay. The seat of his
trousers was steaming grandly, the barrel upset, and there was a
great wash of hot water, leaving a deposit of spotted pig. In life
that pig had belonged to Mr. Scolliver the younger! Mr. Scolliver
the younger was angry, but remembering Jefferson's maxim, he rattled
off the number ten, finishing up with "You--thief!" Then
perceiving himself very angry, he began all over again and ran up to
one hundred, as a monkey scampers up a ladder. As the last syllable
shot from his lips he planted a dreadful blow between the old man's
eyes, with a shriek that sounded like--"You son of a sea-cook!"
Mr. Scolliver the elder went down like a stricken beef, and his son
often afterward explained that if he had not counted a hundred, and
so given himself time to get thoroughly mad, he did not believe he
could ever have licked the old man. Mr. Hunker's Mourner.
Strolling through Lone Mountain cemetery one day my attention was
arrested by the inconsolable grief of a granite angel bewailing the
loss of "Jacob Hunker, aged 67." The attitude of utter dejection,
the look of matchless misery upon that angel's face sank into my
heart like water into a sponge. I was about to offer some words of
condolence when another man, similarly affected, got in before me,
and laying a rather unsteady hand upon the celestial shoulder tipped
back a very senile hat, and pointing to the name on the stone
remarked with the most exact care and scrupulous accent: "Friend of
yours, perhaps; been dead long?"
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