Olympian Nights - John Kendrick Bangs (summer reading list TXT) 📗

square with the 'celestial catapult,' and neither pull nor slice, it can't help going forty miles, anyhow."

"And how, may I ask, do the caddies find a ball that goes seventy-five miles?"

"They don't have to. All our balls are self-finding," said Adonis. "The ball in use now is a recent invention of Vulcan's. They cost twelve hundred dollars a dozen. They are made of liquefied electricity. We take the electric current, liquefy it, then solidify it, then mould it into the form of a sphere. Inside we place a little gong, that begins to ring as soon as the ball lands. The electricity in it is what makes it fly so rapidly and so far, and even you mortals know the principle of the electric bell."

"Oh, indeed we do," said I, pulling at my mustache nervously. I was beginning to get excited over this celestial golf. On earth I have all of the essentials of a first-class golf maniac, except the ability to play the game. But this so far surpassed anything I had ever seen or imagined before that I was growing too keen over it for comfort. I was in real need of having my spirits curbed, so I ventured to inquire after a phase of the game that has always dampened my ardor in the past--the caddie service. I did not expect that this could attain perfection even in Olympus, and I was not far wrong.

"You must have pretty lively caddies," I threw out.

Adonis sighed. "You'd think so, but that's where we are always in trouble. We've tried various schemes, but they haven't any of 'em worked well. At first we took our own Olympian boys. We got the mother of the Gracchi to lend us her offspring, but they weren't worth a rap. Then we hired forty little devils from Hades, and we had to send them back inside of a week. They were regular little imps. They were cutting up monkey shines all the time, and waggled their horrid little tails so constantly that Jove himself couldn't keep his eye on the ball--and the language they used was something frightful. You couldn't trust them to clean your clubs, because there wasn't any power anywhere that could keep them from running off with 'em; and in the matter of balls, they'd steal every blessed one they could lay their hands on. We finally had to employ cherubs. We've about sixty of 'em on hand now all the time, and they come as near being perfect as you could expect. Ever see a cherub?"

"Only in pictures," said I. "They're just heads with wings, aren't they?"

"Yes," said Adonis, "and, having no bodies, they're seldom in the way, and some of the best of 'em can fly almost as fast as the ball."

"How do they carry the bags?" I asked, much interested.

"They hang 'em about their necks, just above their wings," Adonis explained, "but even they are not perfect. They fly very carelessly, and often, in swooping about the sky, drop your clubs out of the bag and smash 'em; and they all look so infernally alike that you can never tell your own caddy from the other fellow's, which is sometimes very confusing."

"Still," I put in, "a caddie with no pockets is a very safe person to intrust with golf balls."

"That's very true," said Adonis, "and I suppose the cherubs make as good caddies as we can expect. Caddies will be caddies, and that's the end of it. You can't expect a caddie to do just right any more than you can expect water to flow uphill. There are certain immutable laws of the universe which are as unchangeable in Olympus as on earth or in Hades. Ice is cold, fire is hot, water is wet, and caddies are caddies."

"Very true," said I, reflecting upon the ways of "Some Caddies I have Met." "What do you pay them a round?"

"One hundred and twenty-five dollars," said Adonis.

"Cheap enough," said I. "But tell me, Adonis," I continued, "who is your amateur champion?"

"Jupiter, of course," said Adonis, with an impatient shake of his head. "He's champion of everything. It's one of his prerogatives. We don't any of us dare win a cup from him for fear he'll use his power to destroy us. That is one of the features of this Olympian life that is not pleasant--though, for goodness' sake, don't say I told you! He'd send me into perpetual exile if he knew I'd spoken that way. He's threatened to make me Governor-General of the Dipper half a dozen times already for things I've said, and I have to be very careful, or he'll do it."

"An unpleasant post, that?"

"Well," he said, "I don't exactly know how to compare it so that you would understand precisely. I should say, however, it would be about as agreeable as being United States ambassador to Borneo."

"I'll never tell, Adonis," said I, "and I'm very much obliged to you for our pleasant chat. Your description of the links has interested me hugely. If I could afford a game at your prices, I think I'd play."

"Oh, as for that," said Adonis, laughing, "don't let that bother you. Whenever you want to pay a bill here all you have to do is to press the cash button on the teleseme over there, and they'll send the money up from the office."

"But how shall I ever repay the office?" I cried.

"Press the button to the left of it, and they'll send you up a receipt in full," he replied.

"You mean to say that this hotel is run--" I began.

"On the Olympian plan," interrupted the valet with a low bow. "All bills here are of that pleasing variety known as 'Self-paying.'"

With which comforting assurance Adonis left me, and I started for the dining-room, my appetite considerably whetted by the idea of a game of golf over links four thousand miles in length with balls that could be driven fifty or sixty miles, and cherubs for caddies, at no cost to myself whatsoever.


VI


In the Dining-Room

As I emerged from the door of my room into the hall, I found a small sedan-chair, of highly ornamental make, awaiting my convenience, carried upon the shoulders of two diminutive boys, who were as black, and shone as lustrously, as a bit of highly polished ebony. I had never seen their like before, save in an occasional bit of statuary in Italy, wherein marbles of differing hue and shade had been ingeniously used by the sculptor to give color to his work. The boys themselves, as I have said, were of polished ebony hue, while the breech-cloths which formed their sole garment were of purest alabaster white. Upon their heads were turbans of pink. They grinned broadly as I came out, and opened the door of the chair for me.

"Dis way fo' de dinin'-room, sah," said one of them, showing a set of ivory teeth that dazzled my eyes.

I thanked him and entered the chair. When I was seated, I turned to the little chap.

"What particular god do you happen to be, Sambo?" I asked. It was probably not the most reverent way to put it, but in a community like Olympus gods are really at a discount, and the black particle was so like a small pickaninny I used to know in Savannah that I could not address him as if he were Jupiter himself.

"Massy me, massa," he returned, his smile nearly cutting the top of his head off, reaching as it did around to the back of his ears. "I ain' no gord. I'se jess one o' dese low-down or'nary toters. Me an' him totes folks roun' de hotel."

"A very useful function that, Sambo; and where were you born?" I asked. "North Carolina, or Georgia?"

"Me?" he replied, looking at me quizzically. "I guess yo's on'y foolin', massa. Me? Why, I 'ain't never been borned at all, sah--"

"Jess growed, eh--like Topsy?" I asked.

"Who dat, Topsy?" he demanded.

"Oh, she was a little nigger girl that became very famous," I explained.

"Doan' know nuffin' 'bout no Topsy," he said, shaking his head. "We ain' niggers, eider, yo' know, me an' him ain't. We's statulary."

"What?" I cried. The word seemed new.

"Statulary," he continued. "We was carved, we was. There ain't nothin' borned 'bout us. Never knowed who pap was. Man jess took a lot o' mahble, he did, an' chiselled me an' him out."

I eyed both boys closely and perceived that in all probability he spoke the truth. His flesh and dress had all of the texture of marble, but now the question came up as to the gift of speech and movement and the marvellous and graceful flexibility of their limbs.

"You can't fool me, Sambo," said I. "You're nothing but a very good-looking little nigger. You can't make me believe that you are another Galatea."

"Doan' no nuffin' 'bout no gal's tears," he returned instantly. "But I done tole yo' de truf. Me an' him was chiselled out o' brack marble by pap. Ef we'd been borned we'd been niggahs sho' nuff, but bein' carvin's, like I tole yuh, we's statulary."

"But how does it come that if you are only statuary, you can move about, and talk, and breathe?" I demanded.

"Yo'll have to ask mistah Joop'ter 'bout dat," the boy answered. "He done gave us dese gif's, an' we's a-usin' ob 'em. De way it happened was like o' dis. Me an' him was a standin' upon a petterstal down in one o' dem mahble yards what dey calls gall'ries in Paris. We'd been sent dah by de man what done chiselled us, an' Joop'ter he came 'long wid Miss' Juno an' when he seed us he said: 'Dare you is, Juno! Dem boys'll make mighty good buttonses foh de hotel.' Juno she laffed, an' said dat was so, on'y she couldn't see as we had many buttons. 'Would you like to have 'em?' Joop'ter ast, and she said 'suttinly.' So he tu'ned hisself into a 'Merican millionaire an' bought me an' him off 'n de manager, an' he had us sent here. All dat time we was nuffin' but mahble figgers, but soon's we arrived here, Joop'ter sent us up-stairs to de lab'ratory, an' fust ting me an' him knowed we was livin' bein's."

I admired Jupiter's taste, not failing either to marvel at the wonderful power which only once before, as far as I knew, he had exerted to give to a bit of sculpture all the flush and glory of life, as in the case set forth in the pathetic tale of Pygmalion and Galatea.

"And does he do this sort of thing often?" I inquired.

"Yass indeedy," said Sambo. "He's doin' it all de time. Mos' ob de help in dis hotel is statulary, an' ef yo' wants to see a reel lively time 'foh yo' goes back home, go to de Zoo an' see 'em feed de Trojan Hoss, an' de Cardiff Giant. He brang bofe dem freaks to life, an' now he can't get rid ob 'em. Dat Trojan Hoss suttinly am a berry debbil. He stans up gentle as a lamb tell he gets about a hundred an' fifty people inside o' him, an' den he p'tends like he's gwine to run away, an' he cyanters, an' cyanters aroun', tell ebberybody's dat seasick dey can't res'."

I resolved then and there to see the Trojan Horse, but not to get inside of him. I never before had