In the Sweet Dry and Dry Part 3

Ten quarts of gooseberries, thoroughly crushed; Over these, five quarts of water are flushed.

Twice round the clock let the fluid remain, Then through a sieve the blithe mixture you strain, Adding some sugar (not less than ten pound) And stirring it carefully, round and around.

To the pulp of the fruit that remains in the sieve A gallon of pure filtered water you give: This you let stand for a dozen of hours, Then add to the other to strengthen its powers.

Shut up the whole for the s.p.a.ce of a day And it will ferment in a riotous way.

When you see by the froth that the fluid grows thicker You, should skim it (with glee) for it's turning to liquor!

While it ferments, please continue to skim: At the end, you may murmur the Bartender's Hymn.

This makes a booze that is potent enough-- Seal in a hogshead--and hide it from Chuff!

Corporation for the Perpetuation of Happiness.

The Pan-Antis were still muttering furiously over this daring act of defiance when a shrill bugle-call pealed down the avenue. Bishop Chuff rode out into the middle of the street on his famous coal-black charger, John Barleycorn. There was a long hush. Then, with a wave of his hand, he gave the signal. One hundred bands burst into the somber and clanging strains of "The Face on the Bar-Room Floor." The great parade had begun.

From a house-top farther up the street Dunraven Bleak watched them come. He had taken Quimbleton's word seriously, and with his usual enterprise had rented a roof overlooking the Boulevard, on which several members of the Balloon staff were prepared to deal with any startling events that might occur. A battery of telephones had been installed on the house-top; Bleak himself sat with apparatus clamped to his head like an operator at central. Two reporters were busy with paper and pencil; the cartoonist sat on the cornice, with legs swinging above two hundred feet of s.p.a.ce, sketching the prodigious scene. The young lady editor of the Woman's Page was there, with opera gla.s.ses, noting down the "among those present."

It was an awe-inspiring spectacle. Between sidewalks jammed with silent and morose citizens, the Pan-Antis pa.s.sed like a conquering army. The terrible Bishop, the man who had put military discipline into the ranks of his mighty organization, rode his horse as the Kaiser would have liked to ride entering Paris. His small, bitter, fanatical face wore a deeply carved sneer. His great black beard flapped in the breeze, and he sang as he rode. Behind him came huge floats depicting in startling tableaux the hideous menace of the gooseberry. Bands blared and crashed. Then, rank on rank, as far as eye could see, followed the zealots in their garments of white. Each one, it was noticed, carried a neat knapsack. Huge tractors rumbled along, groaning beneath a tonnage of tracts which were shot into the watching crowd by pneumatic guns.

Banners whipped and fluttered.

The sound of shrill chanting vibrated in the blazing air like a visible wave of power. These were conquerors of a nation, and they knew it. A former bartender, standing in the front of the crowd, caught Chuff's merciless gaze, wavered, and swooned. A retired distiller, sitting in the window of the Bra.s.s Rail Club, fell dead of apoplexy.

Bleak trembled with nervousness. Had Quimbleton hoaxed him? What could halt this mighty pageant now? He was about to telephone to his city editor to go ahead with the one o'clock edition as originally planned....

From the sky came a roar of engines that drowned for a moment the thundering echoes of the parade. The three gray planes, which had been circling far above, swooped down almost to a level with the tops of the buildings. One of these, a huge two-seated bomber, pa.s.sed directly over Bleak's head. He craned upward, and caught a glimpse of what he thought at first was a white pennant trailing over the bulwark of the c.o.c.kpit.

A snowy s.h.a.g of whiskers came tossing down through the air and fell in his lap. It was Quimbleton's beard, torn from its moorings by the tug of wind-pressure. Bleak thrust it quickly in his pocket. As the great plane pa.s.sed over the head of the parade, flying dangerously low, every face save that of the iron-willed Bishop was turned upward. But even in their curiosity the rigid discipline of the Pan-Antis prevailed. Now they were singing, to the tune of "The Old Gray Mare."

Old John Barleycorn, he ain't what he used to be AIN'T WHAT HE USED TO BE-- AIN'T WHAT HE USED TO BE!

Old John Barleycorn, he ain't what he used to be, Many a year ago.

The great volume of gusty sound, hurled aloft by these thousands of sky-pointing mouths, created an air-pocket in which the bombing plane tilted dangerously. For a moment, Bleak, who was watching the plane, thought it was going to careen into a tail-spin and crash down fatally.

Then he saw Quimbleton, still recognizable by an adhering shred of whisker, lean over the side of the fuselage.

A small dark object dropped through the air, fell with a loud POP on the street a few yards in front of the Bishop. A faint green vapor arose, misting for a moment the proud figures of Chuff and his horse.

At the same instant the other two planes, throbbing down the line of the parade, discharged a rain of similar projectiles along the vacant strip of paving between the marching chuffs and the police-lined curb.

An eddying emerald fume filled the street, drifting with the brisk air down through all the ranks of the procession. There were shouts and screams; the clanging bands squawked discordantly.

"Holy cat!" shouted the cartoonist--"Poison gas!"

"Nix!" said Bleak, revealing Quimbleton's secret in his excitement.

"Gooseberry bombs. Every chuff that inhales it will be properly soused.

Oh, boy, some story! Look at the Bis.h.!.+ He's got a snootful already--his face has turned black!"

"The whole crowd has turned black," said the cartoonist, almost falling off his perch in a frantic effort to see more clearly through the olive haze that filled the street.

It was true. Above the thousands of white figures, as they emerged from the intoxicating cloud-bank of gooseberry gas, grinned ghastly, inhuman, blackened faces, with staring goggle eyes. The Bishop was most frightful of all. His horse was prancing and swaying wildly, and the Bishop's transformed features were diabolic. His whole profile had altered, seemed black and shapeless as the face of a tadpole. The amazing truth burst upon Bleak. Chuff and his paraders were wearing gas-masks. These were what they had carried in their knapsacks.

Indomitable Chuff, who had foreseen everything!

"Poor Quimbleton," said Bleak. "This will break his heart!"

"His neck too, I fancy," said one of the others, pointing to the sky, and indeed one of the three planes was seen falling tragically to earth behind the tower of the City Hall.

The cloud of gas was rapidly drifting off down the Boulevard, and through the exhilarating and delicious fog the Pan-Antis waved their defiant banners unscathed. The progress of the parade, however, was halted by the behavior of the Bishop's horse, for which no mask had been provided. The n.o.ble animal, under this sudden and extraordinary stimulus, was almost human in its actions. At first it stood, whinneying sharply, and pawing the air with one forefoot--as though feeling for the bra.s.s rail, as one of Bleak's companions said. It raised its head proudly, with open mouth and expanded nostrils. Then, das.h.i.+ng off across the broad street, it seemed eager to climb a lamp-post, and only the fierce restraint of the Bishop held it in. One of the chuffs (perhaps only lukewarm in loyalty), ran up and offered to give his mask to the horse, but was sternly motioned back to the ranks by the infuriated leader, who was wildly wrestling to gain control of the exuberant animal. At last the horse solved the problem by lying down in the street, on top of the Bishop, and going to sleep. An ambulance, marked Federal Home for Inebriates, Cana, N.J., dashed up with shrilling gong. This had been arranged by Quimbleton, who had wired a requisition for an ambulance to remove one intoxicated bishop.

As the Bishop was quite in command of his faculties, the horse, after some delay, was hoisted into the ambulance instead. The Bishop was given a dusting, and the parade proceeded. The self-control of the police alone averted prolonged and frightful disorder, for when the conduct of the horse was observed thousands of spectators fought desperately to get through the ropes and out into the fumes that still lingered in wisps and whorls of green vapor. Others tore off their coats and attempted to bag a few cubic inches of the gas in these garments. But the police, with a devotion to duty that was beyond praise, kept the mob in check and themselves bore the brunt of the lingering acid. Only one man, who leaped from an office-window with an improvised parachute, really succeeded in getting into the middle of the Boulevard, and he refused to be ejected on the ground that he was chief of the street-cleaning department. This department, by the way, was given a remarkable ill.u.s.tration of the fine public spirit of the citizens, for by three o'clock in the afternoon two hundred thousand applications had been received from those eager to act as volunteer street-cleaners and help scour the Boulevard after the pa.s.sage of the great parade.

CHAPTER IV

THE GREAT WAR BEGINS

As the echoes of the parade died away, public excitement was roused to fever by the discovery that evening of an infernal machine in the City Hall. Leaning against one of the great marble pillars in the lobby of the building, a gleaming object (looking very much like a four-inch shrapnel sh.e.l.l) was found by a vigilant patrolman. To his horror he found it to be one of the much-dreaded thermos bottles. Experts from the Bureau of Rumbustibles were summoned, and the bomb was carefully a.n.a.lyzed. Much to the disappointment of the chief inspector, the devilish ingredients of the explosive had been spoiled by immersion in a pail of water, so his examination was purely theoretical; but it was plain that the leading component of this h.e.l.lish mixture had been nothing less than gin, animated by a fuse of lemon-peel. If the cylinder had exploded, unquestionably every occupant of the City Hall would have been intoxicated.

The conduct of the munic.i.p.al officials in this crisis was extremely courageous. No one knew whether other articles of this kind might not be concealed about the building, but the Mayor and councilmen refused to go home, and even a.s.sisted in the search for possible bombs. Secret service men were called from Was.h.i.+ngton, and went into consultation with Bishop Chuff. It was a night of uproar. A reign of terror was freely predicted, and many prominent citizens sat up until after midnight on the chance of discovering similar explosives concealed about their premises.

The morning papers rallied rapidly to the cause of threatened civilization. The Daily Circ.u.mspect declared, editorially:--

The alcoholsheviks have at last thrown down the gauntlet. The news that the ginarchists have placed a ginfernal machine in the very shrine of law and order is tantamount to a declaration of war upon sobriety as a whole. A canister of forbidden design, filled with the deadliest gingredients, was found in the corridor leading to the bureau of marriage licenses in the City Hall. There must have been something more than accident in its discovery just in this spot. Men of thoughtful temper will do well to heed the symbolism of this incident. Plainly not only the const.i.tution of the United States is to be made a quaffing-stock, but the very sanct.i.ty of the marriage bond is a.s.sailed.

To this form of terrorism there is but one answer.

In the meantime, Quimbleton had disappeared. The house on Caraway Street was broken into by the police, but except for the grape arbor and a great quant.i.ty of empty bottles in the cellar, no clue was found.

Apparently, however, the vanished ginarchist (for so Chuff called him) had been writing poetry before his departure. The following rather inscrutable doggerel was found scrawled on a piece of paper:--

When Death doth reap And Chuff is sickled, He will not keep: He was never pickled.

For Bishop Chuff This is ill cheer: That Time will force him To the bier.

And when he stands On his last legs Then Death will drain him To the dregs.

So when Chuff croaks Bury him on a high hill-- For he's a hoax Et praeterea nihil!

But Bishop Chuff was not the man to take these insults tamely. His first act was to call together the legislature of the State in special session, and the following act was rushed through:

AN ACT

Severing relations with Nature, and amending the principles and processes of the same in so far as they contravene the Const.i.tution of the United States and the tenets of the Pan-Antis:

WHEREAS, in accordance with the Declaration of Gindependence, it may become necessary for a people to dissolve the alcoholic bands which have connected them with one another and to a.s.sume among the powers of the earth the sobriety to which the laws of pessimism ent.i.tle them, a decent disrespect to the opinions of drinkers requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to drouth.

WHEREAS we hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created sober, and are endowed with certain inalienable rights, such as Life, Grievances, and the Pursuit of Other People's Happiness. Whenever any form of amus.e.m.e.nt becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the Pan-Antis to abolish it. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that beverages long established should not be abolished for light and transient causes. But when it is evident that Nature herself is in conspiracy against the Const.i.tution of the United States, and that millions of so-called human beings have found in forbidden tipples a cause for mirth and merriment, it is time to call a halt to malt, and have no parley with barley.

WHEREAS it has frequently and regrettably been evidenced that Nature is a sot at heart, by reason of her deplorably lax morals. Painful as it is to make the admission, there are many of her apparently innocent fruits and plants that are susceptible, by the unlawful processes of fermentation and effervescence, of transformation into alcoholic liquid. Science tells us that this abominable form of activity to which Nature is privy is in reality a form of decomposition or putrefaction; but willful men will hardly be restrained by science in their illicit pursuit of frivolity.

WHEREAS Nature (hereinafter referred to as The Enemy) has been guilty of repeated ruptures of the Const.i.tution of the United States, having permitted the juice of apples to ferment into cider, having encouraged seditious effervescence on the part of gooseberries, currants, raisins, grapes and similar conspirators; having fomented outrageous yeastiness in hops, malt, rye, barley and other grains and fodders,

THEREFORE be it enacted, and it hereby is, that all relations with the Enemy are hereby and henceforward suspended; and any citizen of the United States having commerce with Nature, or giving her aid and comfort or encouragement in her atrocious alcoholshevik designs on human dignity, be, and hereby is, guilty of treason and lese-sobriety.