The Genial Idiot Part 5

And we fight for Uncle Sammy, Yes, indeed we do, for damme You can bet your life that that's the thing to do, Doodle-do!

You can bet your life that that's the thing to doodle--doodle--doodle--doodle-do."

"Eh! What?" demanded the Idiot.

"Well--what yourself?" asked the Lawyer. "This is your job. What next?"

"Well--the pirate gets lively, tries to a.s.sa.s.sinate the lieutenant, who kills half the natives with his sword, and is about to slay the pirate when he discovers that he is his long-lost father," said the Idiot. "The heroine then sings a pathetic love-song about her baboon baby, in a green light to the accompaniment of a lot of pink satin monkeys banging cocoanut-sh.e.l.ls together. This drowsy lullaby puts the lieutenant and his forces to sleep, and the curtain falls on their capture by the pirate and his followers, with the chorus singing:

"Hooray for the pirate bold, With his pockets full of gold; He's going to marry to-morrow.

To-morrow he'll marry, Yes, by the Lord Harry, He's go-ing--to-marry--to-mor-row!

And that's a thing to doodle--doodle-doo."

"There," said the Idiot, after a pause. "How is that for a first act?"

"It's about as lucid as most of them," said the Poet, "but, after all, you have got a story there, and you said you didn't need one."

"I said you didn't need one to start with," corrected the Idiot. "And I've proved it. I didn't have that story in mind when I started. That's where the easiness of the thing comes in. Why, I didn't even have to think of a name for the heroine. The inspiration for that popped right out of Mr. Brief's mouth as smoothly as though the name Drivelina had been written on his heart for centuries. Then the t.i.tle--'The Isle of Piccolo'--that's a dandy, and I give you my word of honor, I'd never even thought of a t.i.tle for the opera until that revealed itself like a flash from the blue; and as for the c.o.o.n song, 'My Baboon Baby,' there's a chance there for a Zanzibar act that will simply make Richard Wagner and Reginald de Koven writhe with jealousy. Can't you imagine the lilt of it:

"My bab-boon--ba-habee, My bab-boon--ba-habee-- I love you dee-her-lee Yes dee-hee-hee-er-lee.

My baboon--ba-ha-bee, My baboon--ba-ha-bee, My baboon--ba-hay-hay-hay-hay-hay-hay-bee-bee."

"And all those pink satin monkeys b.u.mping their cocoanut-sh.e.l.ls together in the green moonlight--"

"Well, after the first act, what?" asked the Bibliomaniac.

"The usual intermission," said the Idiot. "You don't have to write that.

The audience generally knows what to do."

"But your second act?" asked the Poet.

"Oh, come off," said the Idiot, rising. "We were to do this thing in collaboration. So far, I've done the whole blooming business. I'll leave the second act to you. When you collaborate, Mr. Poet, you've got to do a little colabbing on your own account. What did you think you were to do--collect the royalties?"

"I'm told," said the Lawyer, "that that is sometimes the hardest thing to do in a comic opera."

"Well, I'll be self-sacrificing," said the Idiot, "and bear my full share of it."

"It seems to me," said the Bibliomaniac, "that that opera produced in the right place might stand a chance of a run."

"Thank you," said the Idiot. "After all, Mr. Bib, you are a man of some penetration. How long a run?"

"One consecutive night," said the Bibliomaniac.

"Ah--and where?" demanded the Idiot, with a smile.

"At Bloomingdale," answered the Bibliomaniac, severely.

"That's a very good idea," said the Idiot. "When you go back there, Mr.

Bib, I wish you'd suggest it to the superintendent."

VI

HE DISCUSSES FAME

"Mr. Poet," said the Idiot, the other morning as his friend, the Rhymster, took his place beside him at the breakfast-table, "tell me: How long have you been writing poetry?"

"Oh, I don't know," said the Poet, modestly. "I don't know that I've ever written any. I've turned out a lot of rhymes in my day, and have managed to make a fair living with them, but poetry is a different thing. The divine afflatus doesn't come to every one, you know; and I doubt if anybody will be able to say whether my work has shown an occasional touch of inspiration, or not until I have been dead fifty or a hundred years."

"Tut!" exclaimed the Idiot. "That's all nonsense. I am able to say now whether or not your work shows the occasional touch of inspiration. It does. In fact, it shows more than that. It shows a semi-occasional touch of inspiration. How long have you been in the business?"

"Eighteen years," sighed the Poet. "I began when I was twelve with a limerick. As I remember the thing, it went like this:

"There was a young man of Coha.s.set Turned on the red-hot water-faucet.

When asked: 'Is it hot?'

He answered, 'Well, thot Is a pretty mild way for to cla.s.s it.'"

"Good!" said the Idiot. "That wasn't a bad beginning for a boy of twelve."

"So my family thought," said the Poet. "My mother sent it to the Under the Evening Lamp Department of our town paper, and three weeks later I was launched. I've had the _cacoethes scribendi_ ever since--but, alas!

I got more fame in that brief hour of success than I have ever been able to win since. It is a mighty hard job, Mr. Idiot, making a name for yourself these days."

"That's the point I was getting at," said the Idiot, "and I wanted to have a talk with you on the subject. I've read a lot of your stuff in the past eight or ten years, and, in my humble judgment, it is better than any of that rhymed nonsense of Henry Wintergreen Boggs, whose name appears in the newspapers every day in the year; of Susan Aldershot Spinks, whose portrait is almost as common an occurrence in the papers as that of Lydia Squinkham; of Circ.u.mflex Jones, the eminent sweet-singer of Arizona; or of Henderson Hartley MacFadd, the Canadian Browning, of whom the world is constantly hearing so much. I have wondered if you were going about it in the right way. What is your plan for winning fame?"

"Oh, I keep plodding away, doing the best I can all the while," said the Poet. "If there's any good in my stuff, or any stuff in my goods, I'll get my reward some day."

"Fifty or a hundred years after you're dead, eh?" said the Idiot.

"Yes," smiled the Poet.

"Well--your board-bills won't be high then, anyhow," said the Idiot.

"That's one satisfaction, I presume. They tell me Homer hasn't eaten a thing for over twenty centuries. Seems to me, though, that if I were a poet I'd go in for a little fame while I was alive. It's all very nice to work the skin off your knuckles, and to twist your gray matter inside out until it crocks and fades, so that your great-grandchildren can swell around the country sporting a name that has become a household word, but I'm blessed if I care for that sort of thing. I don't believe in storing up caramels for some twenty-first-century baby that bears my name to cut his teeth on, when I have a sweet tooth of my own that is pining away for the lack of nourishment; and, if I were you, I'd go in for the new method. What if Browning and Tennyson and Longfellow and Poe did have to labor for years to win the laurel crown, that's no reason why you should do it. You might just as well reason that because your forefathers went from one city to another in a stage-coach you should eschew railways."

"I quite agree with you," replied the Poet. "But in literature there is no royal road to fame that I know of."

"What!" cried the Idiot. "No royal road to fame in letters! Why, where have you been living all these years, Mr. Poet? This is the age of the Get Fame-Quick Scheme. You can make a reputation in five minutes, if you only know the ropes. I know of at least two department stores where you can go and buy all you want of it, and in all its grades--from notoriety down to the straight goods."

"Fame? At a department store!" put in Mr. Whitechoker, incredulously.

"Certainly," said the Idiot. "Ready-made laurels on demand. Why not?

It's the easiest thing in the world. Fact is, between you and me, I am considering a plan now for the promoting of a corporation to be called the United States Fame Company, Limited, the main purpose of which shall be to earn money for its stockholders by making its customers famous at so much per head. It won't make any difference whether the customer wishes to be famous as an actor, a novelist, or a poet, or any other old thing. We'll turn the trick for him, and guarantee him more than a taste of immortality."

"You may put me down for four dollars' worth of notoriety," said Mr.

Brief, with a laugh.

"All right," said the Idiot, dryly. "There's a lot in your profession who like the cheap sort. But I warn you in advance that if you go in for cheap notoriety, you'll find it a pretty hard job getting anybody to sell you any eighteen-karat distinction later."