A House-Boat on the Styx Part 7

"Not a bit of it," Johnson answered. "The serpent was the tail. Look at most snakes to-day. What are they but unattached tails?"

"They do look it," said Darwin, thoughtfully.

"Why, it's clear as day," said Johnson. "As punishment Adam and Eve lost their tails, and the tail itself was compelled to work for a living and do its own walking."

"I never thought of that," said Darwin. "It seems reasonable."

"It is reasonable," said Johnson.

"And the snakes of the present day?" queried Thackeray.

"I believe to be the missing tails of men," said Johnson. "Somewhere in the world is a tail for every man and woman and child. Where one's tail is no one can ever say, but that it exists simultaneously with its owner I believe. The abhorrence man has for snakes is directly attributable to his abhorrence for all things which have deprived him of something that is good. If Adam's tail had not tempted him to swing on the forbidden tree, we should all of us have been able through life to relax from business cares after the manner of the monkey, who is happy from morning until night."

"Well, I can't see that it does us any good to sit here and discuss this matter," said Doctor Livingstone. "We can't reach any conclusion. The only way to settle the matter, it seems to me, is to go directly to Adam, who is a member of this club, and ask him how it was."

"That's a great idea," said Thackeray, scornfully. "You'd look well going up to a man and saying, 'Excuse me, sir, but--ah--were you ever a monkey?'"

"To say nothing of catechising a man on the subject of an old and dreadful scandal," put in Munchausen. "I'm surprised at you, Livingstone. African etiquette seems to have ruined your sense of propriety."

"I'd just as lief ask him," said Doctor Johnson. "Etiquette? Bah! What business has etiquette to stand in the way of human knowledge?

Conventionality is the last thing men of brains should strive after, and I, for one, am not going to be bound by it."

Here Doctor Johnson touched the electric bell, and in an instant the shade of a b.u.t.tons appeared.

"Boy, is Adam in the club-house to-day?" asked the sage.

"I'll go and see, sir," said the boy, and he immediately departed.

"Good boy that," said Thackeray.

"Yes; but the service in this club is dreadful, considering what we might have," said Darwin. "With Aladdin a member of this club, I don't see why we can't have his lamp with genii galore to respond. It certainly would be more economical."

"True; but I, for one, don't care to fool with genii," said Munchausen.

"When one member can summon a servant who is strong enough to take another member and do him up in a bottle and cast him into the sea, I have no use for the system. Plain ordinary mortal shades are good enough for me."

As Munchausen spoke, the boy returned.

"Mr. Adam isn't here to-day, sir," he said, addressing Doctor Johnson.

"And Charon says he's not likely to be here, sir, seeing as how his account is closed, not having been settled for three months."

"Good," said Thackeray. "I was afraid he was here. I don't want to have him asked about his Eden experiences in my behalf. That's personality."

"Well, then, there's only one other thing to do," said Darwin.

"Munchausen claims to be able to speak Simian. He might seek out some of the prehistoric monkeys and put the question to them."

"No, thank you," said Munchausen. "I'm a little rusty in the language, and, besides, you talk like an idiot. You might as well speak of the human language as the Simian language. There are French monkeys who speak monkey French, African monkeys who talk the most barbarous kind of Zulu monkey patois, and Congo monkey slang, and so on. Let Johnson send his little Boswell out to drum up information. If there is anything to be found out he'll get it, and then he can tell it to us. Of course he may get it all wrong, but it will be entertaining, and we'll never know any difference."

Which seemed to the others a good idea, but whatever came of it I have not been informed.

CHAPTER VII: A DISCUSSION AS TO LADIES' DAY

"I met Queen Elizabeth just now on the Row," said Raleigh, as he entered the house-boat and checked his cloak.

"Indeed?" said Confucius. "What if you did? Other people have met Queen Elizabeth. There's nothing original about that."

"True; but she made a suggestion to me about this house-boat which I think is a good one. She says the women are all crazy to see the inside of it," said Raleigh.

"Thus proving that immortal woman is no different from mortal woman,"

retorted Confucius. "They want to see the inside of everything.

Curiosity, thy name is woman."

"Well, I am sure I don't see why men should arrogate to themselves the sole right to an investigating turn of mind," said Raleigh, impatiently.

"Why shouldn't the ladies want to see the inside of this club-house? It is a compliment to us that they should, and I for one am in favor of letting them, and I am going to propose that in the Ides of March we give a ladies' day here."

"Then I shall go South for my health in the Ides of March," said Confucius, angrily. "What on earth is a club for if it isn't to enable men to get away from their wives once in a while? When do people go to clubs? When they are on their way home--that's when; and the more a man's at home in his club, the less he's at home when he's at home. I suppose you'll be suggesting a children's day next, and after that a parrot's or a canary-bird's day."

"I had no idea you were such a woman-hater," said Raleigh, in astonishment. "What's the matter? Were you ever disappointed in love?"

"I? How absurd!" retorted Confucius, reddening. "The idea of _my_ ever being disappointed in love! I never met the woman who could bring me to my knees, although I was married in the other world. What became of Mrs.

C. I never inquired. She may be in China yet, for aught I know. I regard death as a divorce."

"Your wife must be glad of it," said Raleigh, somewhat ungallantly; for, to tell the truth, he was nettled by Confucius's demeanor. "I didn't know, however, but that since you escaped from China and came here to Hades you might have fallen in love with some spirit of an age subsequent to your own--Mary Queen of Scots, or Joan of Arc, or some other spook--who rejected you. I can't account for your dislike of women otherwise."

"Not I," said Confucius. "Hades would have a less cla.s.sic name than it has for me if I were hampered with a family. But go along and have your ladies' day here, and never mind my reasons for preferring my own society to that of the fair s.e.x. I can at least stay at home that day. What do you propose to do--throw open the house to the wives of members, or to all ladies, irrespective of their husbands' members.h.i.+p here?"

"I think the latter plan would be the better," said Raleigh. "Otherwise Queen Elizabeth, to whom I am indebted for the suggestion, would be excluded. She never married, you know."

"Didn't she?" said Confucius. "No, I didn't know it; but that doesn't prove anything. When I went to school we didn't study the history of the Elizabethan period. She didn't have absolute sway over England, then?"

"She had; but what of that?" queried Raleigh.

"Do you mean to say that she lived and died an old maid from choice?"

demanded Confucius.

"Certainly I do," said Raleigh. "And why should I not tell you that?"

"For a very good and sufficient reason," retorted Confucius, "which is, in brief, that I am not a marine. I may dislike women, my dear Raleigh, but I know them better than you do, gallant as you are; and when you tell me in one and the same moment that a woman holding absolute sway over men yet lived and died an old maid, you must not be indignant if I smile and bite the end of my thumb, which is the Chinese way of saying that's all in your eye, Betty Martin."

"Believe it or not, you poor old back number," retorted Raleigh, hotly.

"It alters nothing. Queen Elizabeth could have married a hundred times over if she had wished. I know I lost my head there completely."

"That shows, Sir Walter," said Dryden, with a grin, "how wrong you are.

You lost your head to King James. Hi! Shakespeare, here's a man doesn't know who chopped his head off."

Raleigh's face flushed scarlet. "'Tis better to have had a head and lost it," he cried, "than never to have had a head at all! Mark you, Dryden, my boy, it ill befits you to scoff at me for my misfortune, for dust thou art, and to dust thou hast returned, if word from t'other side about thy books and that which in and on them lies be true."