LELAND, THE KID:
And yet this line of immigration has
Advantages superior to aught
That elsewhere offers: all these passengers,
If punched with care—
COWBOY CHARLEY:
Significant remark!
It opens up a prospect wide and fair,
Suggesting to the thoughtful mind—my mind—
A scheme that is the boss lay-out. Instead
Of stopping passengers, let's carry them.
Instead of crying out: "Throw up your hands!"
Let's say: "Walk up and buy a ticket!" Why
Should we unwieldy goods and bullion take,
Watches and all such trifles, when we might
Far better charge their value three times o'er
For carrying them to market?
LELAND, THE KID:
Put it there,
Old son!
HAPPY HUNTY:
You take the cake, my dear. We'll build
A mighty railroad through this pass, and then
The stage folk will come up to us and squeal,
And say: "It is bad medicine for both:
What will you give or take?" And then we'll sell.
COWBOY CHARLEY:
Enlarge your notions, little one; this is
No petty, slouching, opposition scheme,
To be bought off like honest men and fools;
Mine eye prophetic pierces through the mists
That cloud the future, and I seem to see
A well-devised and executed scheme
Of wholesale robbery within the law
(Made by ourselves)—great, permanent, sublime,
And strong to grapple with the public throat—
Shaking the stuffing from the public purse,
The tears from bankrupt merchants' eyes, the blood
From widows' famished carcasses, the bread
From orphans' mouths!
HAPPY HUNTY:
Hooray!
LELAND, THE; KID:
Hooray!
ALL:
Hooray!
(They tear the masks from their faces, and discharging their shotguns, throw them into the chapparal. Then they join hands, dance and sing the following song:)
Ah! blessèd to measure
The glittering treasure!
Ah! blessèd to heap up the gold
Untold
That flows in a wide
And deepening tide—
Rolled, rolled, rolled
From multifold sources,
Converging its courses
Upon our—
LELAND, THE KID:
Just wait a bit, my pards, I thought I heard
A sneaking grizzly cracking the dry twigs.
Such an intrusion might deprive the State
Of all the good that we intend it. Ha!
(Enter Sootymug. He saunters carelessly in and gracefully leans his back against a redwood.)
SOOTYMUG:
My boys, I thought I heard
Some careless revelry,
As if your minds were stirred
By some new devilry.
I too am in that line. Indeed, the mission
On which I come—
HAPPY HUNTY:
Here's more damned competition! (Curtain.)
A BAD NIGHT
DRAMATIS PERSONÆ.
VILLIAM a Sen
NEEDLESON a Sidniduc
SMILER a Scheister
KI-YI a Trader
GRIMGHAST a Spader
SARALTHIA a Love-lorn Nymph
NELLIBRAC a Sweetun
A BODY; A GHOST; AN UNMENTIONABLE THING; SKULLS; HOODOOS; ETC.
Scene—a Cemetery in San Francisco.
Saralthia, Nellibrac, Grimghast.
SARALTHIA:
The red half-moon is dipping to the west,
And the cold fog invades the sleeping land.
Lo! how the grinning skulls in the level light
Litter the place! Methinks that every skull
Is a most lifelike portrait of my Sen,
Drawn by the hand of Death; each fleshless pate,
Cursed with a ghastly grin to eyes unrubbed
With love's magnetic ointment, seems to mine
To smile an amiable smile like his
Whose amiable smile I—I alone
Am able to distinguish from his leer!
See how the gathering coyotes flit
Through the lit spaces, or with burning eyes
Star the black shadows with a steadfast gaze!
About my feet the poddy toads at play,
Bulbously comfortable, try to hop,
And tumble clumsily with all their warts;
While pranking lizards, sliding up and down
My limbs, as they were public roads, impart
A singularly interesting chill.
The circumstance and passion of the time,
The cast and manner of the place—the spirit
Of this confederate environment,
Command the rights we come to celebrate
Obedient to the Inspired Hag—
The seventh daughter of the seventh daughter,
Who rules all destinies from Minna street,
A dollar a destiny. Here at this grave,
Which for my purposes thou, Jack of Spades—
(To Grimghast)
Corrupter than the thing that reeks below—
Hast opened secretly, we'll work the charm.
Now what's the hour?
(Distant clock strikes thirteen.)
Enough—hale forth the stiff!
(Grimghast by means of a boat-hook stands the coffin on end in the excavation; the lid crumbles, exposing the remains of a man.)
Ha! Master Mouldybones, how fare you, sir?