Part 5 (1/2)
”You can write a play for _me_!” cried Hamlet. ”Make it a farce-tragedy.
Take the modern player for your hero, and let _me_ play _him_. I'll bait him through four acts. I'll imitate his walk. I'll cultivate his voice.
We'll have the first act a tank act, and drop the hero into the tank. The second act can be in a saw-mill, and we can cut his hair off on a buzz- saw. The third act can introduce a spile-driver with which to drive his hat over his eyes and knock his brains down into his lungs. The fourth act can be at Niagara Falls, and we'll send him over the falls; and for a grand climax we can have him guillotined just after he has swallowed a quart of prussic acid and a spoonful of powdered gla.s.s. Do that for me, William, and you are forgiven. I'll play it for six hundred nights in London, for two years in New York, and round up with a one-night stand in Boston.”
”It sounds like a good scheme,” said Shakespeare, meditatively. ”What shall we call it?”
”Call it _Irving_,” said Eugene Aram, who had entered. ”I too have suffered.”
”And let me be Hamlet's understudy,” said Charles the First, earnestly.
”Done!” said Shakespeare, calling for a pad and pencil.
And as the sun rose upon the Styx the next morning the Bard of Avon was to be seen writing a comic chorus to be sung over the moribund tragedian by the shades of Charles, Aram, and other eminent deceased heroes of the stage, with which his new play of _Irving_ was to be brought to an appropriate close.
This play has not as yet found its way upon the boards, but any enterprising manager who desires to consider it may address
_Hamlet_, _The House-Boat_, _Hades-on-the-Styx_.
He is sure to get a reply by return mail, unless Mephistopheles interferes, which is not unlikely, since Mephistopheles is said to have been much pleased with the manner in which the eminent tragedian has put him before the British and American public.
CHAPTER V: THE HOUSE COMMITTEE DISCUSS THE POETS
”There's one thing this house-boat needs,” wrote Homer in the complaint- book that adorned the centre-table in the reading-room, ”and that is a Poets' Corner. There are smoking-rooms for those who smoke, billiard- rooms for those who play billiards, and a card-room for those who play cards. I do not smoke, I can't play billiards, and I do not know a trey of diamonds from a silver salver. All I can do is write poetry. Why discriminate against me? By all means let us have a Poets' Corner, where a man can be inspired in peace.”
For four days this entry lay in the book apparently unnoticed. On the fifth day the following lines, signed by Samson, appeared:
”I approve of Homer's suggestion. There should be a Poets' Corner here.
Then the rest of us could have some comfort. While playing _vingt-et-un_ with Diogenes in the card-room on Friday evening a poetic member of this club was taken with a most violent fancy, and it required the combined efforts of Diogenes and myself, a.s.sisted by the janitor, to remove the frenzied and objectionable member from the room. The habit some of our poets have acquired of giving way to their inspirations all over the club- house should be stopped, and I know of no better way to accomplish this desirable end than by the adoption of Homer's suggestion. Therefore I second the motion.”
Of course the suggestion of two members so prominent as Homer and Samson could not well he ignored by the house committee, and it reluctantly took the subject in hand at an early meeting.
”I find here,” said Demosthenes to the chairman, as the committee gathered, ”a suggestion from Homer and Samson that this house-boat be provided with a Poets' Corner. I do not know that I approve of the suggestion myself, but in order to bring it before the committee for debate I am willing to make a motion that the request be granted.”
”Excuse me,” put in Doctor Johnson, ”but where do you find that suggestion? 'Here' is not very definite. Where _is_ 'here'?”
”In the complaint-book, which I hold in my hand,” returned Demosthenes, putting a pebble in his mouth so that he might enunciate more clearly.
A frown ruffled the serenity of Doctor Johnson's brow.
”In the complaint-book, eh?” he said, slowly. ”I thought house committees were not expected to pay any attention to complaints in complaint-books. I never heard of its being done before.”
”Well, I can't say that I have either,” replied Demosthenes, chewing thoughtfully on the pebble, ”but I suppose complaint-books are the places for complaints. You don't expect people to write serial stories or dialect poems in them, do you?”
”That isn't the point, as the man said to the a.s.sa.s.sin who tried to stab him with the hilt of his dagger,” retorted Doctor Johnson, with some asperity. ”Of course, complaint-books are for the reception of complaints--n.o.body disputes that. What I want to have determined is whether it is necessary or proper for the complaints to go further.”
”I fancy we have a legal right to take the matter up,” said Blackstone, wearily; ”though I don't know of any precedent for such action. In all the clubs I have known the house committees have invariably taken the ground that the complaint-book was established to guard them against the annoyance of hearing complaints. This one, however, has been forced upon us by our secretary, and in view of the age of the complainants I think we cannot well decline to give them a specific answer. Respect for age is _de rigueur_ at all times, like clean hands. I'll second the motion.”
”I think the Poets' Corner entirely unnecessary,” said Confucius. ”This isn't a cla.s.s organization, and we should resist any effort to make it or any portion of it so. In fact, I will go further and state that it is my opinion that if we do any legislating in the matter at all, we ought to discourage rather than encourage these poets. They are always littering the club up with themselves. Only last Wednesday I came here with a guest--no less a person than a recently deceased Emperor of China--and what was the first sight that greeted our eyes?”